Letters from Readers
0 Comments | Wyoming Tribune – Eagle, Jul 27, 2010
Don’t choose preservation over loss of human life
From Carl Fleming
Cheyenne
Commuter airlines do not have the benefit of reducing fuel and cargo like Air National Guard has. Commuters and the Guard need a buffer zone in case of emergencies on takeoff.
Commuter aircraft do not have the luxury of lightening their aircraft by reducing essential loads for takeoff. In order to be profitable, they need to take off with minimum fuel and a maximum payload.
The captain makes the final decisions on these weights; the captain gets these magic numbers by using the aircraft’s flight manual formula to calculate pressure, density, altitude, dew point, temperature and flight distance.
If the aircraft is too heavy for takeoff, the pilot will bump cargo, and if it is still too heavy, he/she then will bump passengers. The pilot will not squander on fuel. There needs to be a buffer zone for takeoff, no matter whom or what is taking off.
If an aircraft has a mechanical failure, a bird strike or anything else that disrupts lift, it needs a buffer zone so it can recover altitude.
I have 12 years of experience in aircraft maintenance, and these things happen a lot more than you hear from the media because they are not documented.
Over the past history of the Cheyenne airport, there most likely have been a lot of close calls that we are not aware of. The one way anyone will hear of one is maybe by overhearing a pilot or an air traffic controller telling stories.
The FAA is making sure that passengers come and go safely.
The trees on the south side of Sloan’s Lake might be gone forever, but if we choose preservation and mayhem strikes (the Guard, a commuter or even private aircraft) and one day it probably will, god forbid, those trees have the potential to break up and drag a plane into the park.
You never know when somebody you know might be on that flight or in the path of destruction of the crash
emergency essentials