Comment by MBCook
14 hours ago
Get-there-itis is absolutely a thing. No big airline would be dumb enough to say it that stuff explicitly but the pressures still exist.
There have been accidents around the world where pilots were trying to save fuel, get off work at a normal time instead of 2 hours extra holding, not wanting to divert and not be home, try to get on the ground so they don’t go over their max hours for the day, etc.
Yes it’s counterproductive. *It happens*. External or internal, it happens.
Get-there-itis is - quite famously - a pilot's internal desire (note: written before your ninja edit).
Sure there have been plenty of incidents. Can you point to one in the US, with pilots flying big planes, that hasn't led to regulatory change?
Its worth pointing out that pilots are almost always paid by flight hour. In other words, they get paid more to go around.
The worst aviation accident ever had this as a major contributing factor, the KLM plane at Tenerife was almost near their maximum crew time so if they didn't take off soon they'd have to stay overnight.
That one did lead to major regulatory changes. It wasn't in the US though but there was an American plane involved (which was not to blame)
Yep, that 49 year old disaster led to major changes, which is why I’m dubious that corporate pressure was involved here.
Note: Both planes were American. One of the carriers was not. NTSB gets involved whenever it is a US carrier OR manufacturer, so they have a ton more data than just US carrier incidents.