Gordon Graham here again with an opportunity to say hello to all of you in the fire community and to again thank you for all you have done. And is it just me, or is the wildland season tending to start earlier in the year and end later in the year? I can recall as a kid there was a clear break between football season and basketball season and baseball season, and here we are in May with basketball season going on and on and the baseball season in full swing.

Are the two different “seasons” that I used to know – fire season and non- fire season – merging into one long season that lasts year round? Is what is going on in Australia indicative of our future here in North America? To borrow a thought from Mr. Dickens and his great story about Paris and London – two different cities – I am hearing from a lot of knowledgeable people in the fire world and the meteorologist crowd that there might be one continuous wildland season in our future. So many things are changing in our world in so many different fields, and not a lot of it is for the better.

Having brought Mr. Dickens and Paris into this piece along with the thought of things changing, let me tell you a “tale of two flights.”  And this will be fun for you because at the end of it I will let you create your own story about a “tale of two fire departments.”

Flight One: US Air 1549 on January 15, 2009, scheduled from La Guardia (hey, that sounds French doesn’t it?) to Charlotte (and that sounds French also) and piloted by Captain Chesley Sullenberger (Swiss background). You know this story as well as I do, and if you want to read about a fascinating life, do a Wiki search on his name and read about his childhood, his education, his interest in aviation from a young age, his days at the USAF Academy, his subsequent career as a fighter pilot, his experiences as a commercial pilot, his work as an investigator of air crashes, and his work as a trainer and consultant on aviation safety issues. I could take up my entire allotment of space on this great site with the story of Captain Sullenberger and his nearly 20,000 hours of flight time and aviation experiences that span forty years.

But you know the start and end of Flight 1549. Captain “Sully” and his “Airbus A-320” (and not to again bring France into the mix here, but Airbus is headquartered in Toulouse) took off from La Guardia and ran into the flight of Canadian Geese (and I think these geese had ties to France); and these fowl fouled up the engines on the Airbus and the French airplane, like the French army, gave up too quickly. “Captain Cool” (according to Mayor Bloomberg) had quite a problem – that he identified rapidly, considered multiple options, made some quick decisions and planted the Airbus in the Hudson; and everyone walked away. 

Captain Sullenberger faced a “high risk, low frequency, non-discretionary time” event; and he quickly made a massive withdrawal from his memory bank of accumulated training and experience over forty years and all is good. I will move on now.

Flight Two: Colgan Air 3407 (flying as a Continental Airlines flight) on February 12, 2009 scheduled from Newark to Buffalo and piloted by Captain Marvin Renslow, age 47, of Lutz, Florida, who was hired by Colgan in 2005 and had flown 3,379 hours, 261 of them on the Q-400 (including only 109 as a captain – how do you pronounce “low frequency”?). He previously flew for Gulfstream International Airlines prior to joining Colgan. In 2007, he became a pilot in command for Colgan Air.

And you also know the end of Flight 3407. Captain Renslow – like Captain Sullenberger – faced a “high risk, low frequency, non-discretionary time” task near the end of this flight and made a series of bad decisions (pilot errors) and forty-nine people on this Bombardier Q-400 (from Canada which has links to France – is there a trend here?) and one person on the ground in New York ended up dead.

You can do a Wiki search on this flight also if you choose to ( I don’t want to get bogged down here, and I will await the final report also), but I am hearing a lot of stories about the history of Captain Renslow, including his inability to pass tests, some attitude problems and issues regarding “fatigue” which may all be linked to this tragedy. Again, I will await the final report; but I do want to draw your attention to one bit of data that I find very troubling.

On Friday, May 22, 2009, USA Today had a piece on page 3A entitled “Airline is fined $1.3 M for fake data” – with a lower case subhead saying “Florida carrier trained pilot in Buffalo crash.” And seeing as how I spend a considerable amount of time on airliners, my eyes were all over this article like a Hummer on a Renault (this anti-French trend is continuing, and it will continue in my little world forever as April 15, 1986, is another date that falls into my “Never Forget” memory bank). Here are four paragraphs of interest from that piece.

“The government on Thursday fined a Florida airline $1.3 million for falsifying records that showed how long its pilots worked. The airline had trained the pilot of the commuter plane that crashed near Buffalo in February.

“Gulfstream International Airlines, a carrier for Continental Airlines in Florida and Ohio falsified records for its pilots, allowing the pilots to fly for more hours than federal law allows, the FAA charged. The airline also installed unapproved parts and did not properly maintain its fleet of turboprops, the agency said.

“The company did not respond Thursday to telephone and e-mail requests for comment on the FAA action.

“Gulfstream and its sister company, Gulfstream Training Academy, offer pilots commercial experience as part of a $29,900 training program. Within as little as months, a person with limited or no flying experience can work at ‘an actual airline flying real flights for Continental Connections,’ the academy’s website says.”

Did you read the last paragraph above? I have “limited or no flying experience” (with emphasis on the “no” part). Gosh, maybe I will take a couple of months off the speaking circuit and go pick up a commercial pilot’s license. I hear you can make as little as $16,000 a year flying for Colgan Air. 

I mourn the deaths of all the people who died on the Colgan Air flight, including the pilot and co-pilot (who was equally ill-prepared to sit in the cockpit); but “something is stinking in the Seine” (and for any police lieutenants that might be reading this, the Seine is a river in France). Speaking of lieutenant let’s take a look at the origin of that word.

“In the etymology of the word lieutenant, the connection lies in their holding a place; that is, the word lieutenant is from an Old French compound made up of lieu, “place,” and tenant, “holding.”

I think I might be onto something here, but I am digressing. A tale of two flights – 1549 and 3407. One ended up well. One did not.

Anyhow, I am wrapping this piece up, but I want you to think about writing your own piece. I cannot do this, as I am not part of your fire department family. I am the idiot outsider – and for me to be critical of your profession would not be appropriate. But what is up with “American La France” that will require more study on my part?

But I would like you to think about different fire departments and how they approach recruiting, hiring, initial training, ongoing training, audits, inspections, promotions and the other things that go on to “get and keep good people” in your profession. You certainly know more about this than I ever will, but could you write an article entitled “The Tale of Two Fire Departments”? And if so, what would you say?

We (public safety personnel) face a lot of challenges these days coming from so many fronts. If you find in the research for your “article” on two different fire departments and how they approach “things” that there are “poor” ways to do things and “great” ways to do things – then let’s identify the successful approaches and implement them in all fire department operations.

Please take the time to think this stuff through. And thanks for taking the time to read this piece. You know how I am going to end it this time.

Au Revoir,

P.S.  And for all the good people from France, I must apologize for any offense taken to some of the comments in the above piece. But today is Memorial Day, and I was just going through a list of cemeteries in France filled with the bodies of Americans who died while protecting that place over the years. And also I once owned a Renault while dating a deputy DA named Dominique, and I had some bad quiche – all on the same day. I have not gotten over it.

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