F9 ALPA reportedly sent an email over a deicing incident at BNA.

Pilots were told deicing was complete but FA noticed before departure there was still contaminants on the wing. It was discovered that there was still a foot of ice and snow. F9 has fired Trego Duran Aviation ever since. The excuse was reportedly the vendor was short of deicing fluid!

This is pitiful on the part of the vendor.

https://onemileatatime.com/frontier-fli ... c-deicing/

This was also posted in the Nashville Aviation thread. But I believe it may warrant its own thread because of how ridiculous this is.

I read this post and saw the "it was discovered that there was still a foot of ice and snow" and assumed it was a little melodramatic.. like a small portion of the wing has some residual snow (obviously not okay on its own) - but holy cow, the plane wasn't de-iced at all. Click into the article and look at the pictures.

Glad that a passenger/FA caught it and they didn't try to take off and I'm glad that F9 fired the vendor. Hopefully additional action is taken against them by the airport and/or regulatory authorities. I know honest mistakes can be made, but this wasn't an honest mistake. That vendor shouldn't be allowed anywhere near winter ops.

Holy cow. That quite literally could have resulted in the airplane crashing. If true, that almost requires some criminal charges to the deicing crew who released that airplane in that condition. That's not fudging the bag count by 1 bag, that is downright scary.

Holy smokes, that is horrible. Thank God the FA informed the cockpit; this literally could have ended in disaster. I would be interested in getting the full story on how it was caught, i.e. did the FA catch a glimpse of the wing while walking in the aisle, or did a PAX who knows a thing or two about aviation raise the alarm? Regardless, bravo to everyone who spoke up.

I had never heard of Trego Dugan until the last few weeks. Apparently they have a presence at CVG. Frankly, I think their ops should be suspended until this is fully investigated. This is a massive breakdown in their training, culture, etc.

jetmatt777 wrote:

Holy cow. That quite literally could have resulted in the airplane crashing. If true, that almost requires some criminal charges to the deicing crew who released that airplane in that condition. That's not fudging the bag count by 1 bag, that is downright scary.

I was going to ask if this was a criminal offense? If they intentionally lied about a safety procedure, I would hope firing them would not be the end of it.

Wow, that's a weapons grade cock up

Another reason why I won’t fly F9

Trego Dugan here at BNA is absolute trash and I’ll leave it at that. Have a few co workers at my airline that previously worked for them and have heard some “fun” stories. Fact is the airport and most of the airlines ran out/low of Type I fluid so these idiots at Trego Dugan tried to de ice with Type IV which is STRICTLY only used for anti icing after de icing had been completed with Type I.

I saw pictures of the wing a couple weeks ago when it happened and you can tell they for sure just sprayed Type IV on it without deicing first with Type I. Criminal.

I posted the article in the BNA thread I wasn't sure if I should start a new thread. Having said that I when I read the headline I wasn't prepared for picture that literally showed nearly a foot of snow on the wings along with type IV.

In my option and this may come off as dramatic I think this should be investigated as a criminal act because they intentionally mislead the pilots into believing their aircraft was free and clear of contaminates. If it had not been for either an alert passenger or an FA this surely would have ended in tragedy with potential loss of life.

This is where company directors need to be made personally liable. Decisions like that are almost never the case of someone on the front line acting alone. That happens because the entire company culture is rotten and that behavior is accepted by management so becomes accepted by the line worker.

hayzel777 wrote:

F9 ALPA reportedly sent an email over a deicing incident at BNA.

Pilots were told deicing was complete but FA noticed before departure there was still contaminants on the wing. It was discovered that there was still a foot of ice and snow. F9 has fired Trego Duran Aviation ever since. The excuse was reportedly the vendor was short of deicing fluid!

This is pitiful on the part of the vendor.

https://onemileatatime.com/frontier-fli ... c-deicing/

You get what you pay for honestly. The lowest bidder isn't always best.

Having worked for Trego Dugan, I'm not surprised at all. Trego Dugan is the most garbage company in the industry. Management lacks management skills because turn over is so high within the company. When you can't train your employees correctly on how to throw bags in the belly it's bound to end pretty badly. Trego is also on the bottom of pay scale on paying it's employees. If Frontier and Allegiant would both fire Trego that company would fall apart, and rightfully so.

Edit. I'll also say I hope Frontier sues Trego for criminal negligence.

Runway765 wrote:

Another reason why I won’t fly F9

... seems F9 did the right thing here after the incident was reported.

jreeves96 wrote:

Having worked for Trego Dugan, I'm not surprised at all. Trego Dugan is the most garbage company in the industry. Management lacks management skills because turn over is so high within the company. When you can't train your employees correctly on how to throw bags in the belly it's bound to end pretty badly. Trego is also on the bottom of pay scale on paying it's employees. If Frontier and Allegiant would both fire Trego that company would fall apart, and rightfully so.

According to the OP, Trego got fired by F9. So let's see what happens.

Unbelievable situation. Very lucky it didn't end in disaster.

Antarius wrote:

jreeves96 wrote:

Having worked for Trego Dugan, I'm not surprised at all. Trego Dugan is the most garbage company in the industry. Management lacks management skills because turn over is so high within the company. When you can't train your employees correctly on how to throw bags in the belly it's bound to end pretty badly. Trego is also on the bottom of pay scale on paying it's employees. If Frontier and Allegiant would both fire Trego that company would fall apart, and rightfully so.

According to the OP, Trego got fired by F9. So let's see what happens.

Unbelievable situation. Very lucky it didn't end in disaster.

Didn't know if that meant just at BNA or company wide. I know Trego also services Frontier and Allegiant at CVG.

Antarius wrote:

Runway765 wrote:

Another reason why I won’t fly F9

... seems F9 did the right thing here after the incident was reported.

True, but they also hired this company in the first place. Did they not see any bad track record when hired?

Imagine if this happened at night. The condition of the wings would have been less obvious.

Did they even do a Type 1 application? Surely there'd be some orange ice on there if they did. Seems like the just skipped step 1 completely, then tossed a couple gallons of Type 4 on and called it a day.

So, is it normal to not even glance at the wings after deicing? I'm having a little trouble believing the crew could have considered taking off without looking at the wings, especially when a known crap outfit handled the deicing call.

Antarius wrote:

jreeves96 wrote:

Having worked for Trego Dugan, I'm not surprised at all. Trego Dugan is the most garbage company in the industry. Management lacks management skills because turn over is so high within the company. When you can't train your employees correctly on how to throw bags in the belly it's bound to end pretty badly. Trego is also on the bottom of pay scale on paying it's employees. If Frontier and Allegiant would both fire Trego that company would fall apart, and rightfully so.

According to the OP, Trego got fired by F9. So let's see what happens.

Unbelievable situation. Very lucky it didn't end in disaster.

You can only outsource so much blame. I do not personally know Trego Dugan, but based on the posts here it seems like they have a subpar reputation. Part of outsourcing (whether that's airport ops, or manufacturing, or business process and technology outsourcing) means validating quality management and ensuring process controls are in place to avoid egregious breaches like this.

This is easy to blame on the employee that failed to do their task, but there is a fundamental process control issue when such a fundamental breach happens. Multiple people failed to allow this plane to dispatch. I am not familiar with ground ops processes, but I'm assuming that there would typically be a quality control / four-eyes review prior to the all clear. If that is not the case (I'd be surprised but again I don't know this space), I'd assume that the fact that the manager/supervisor on site was aware of the fluid shortage would be asking questions about how they were still processing planes without the right type of fluid available.

jreeves96 wrote:

Edit. I'll also say I hope Frontier sues Trego for criminal negligence.

By definition, an airline cannot sue for criminal negligence. Criminal cases are handled by government entities. I think you mean gross negligence.

Regardless, F9 probably won't be able to sue for much. That is because there are not really any damages - other than potentially any damages they can claim from excess delays or perhaps the cost of filing an incident report. And because it is gross negligence, they could get treble damages for that. But that would still be tiny. The better hope is that F9 had pre-agreed contractual penalties for poor performance, although I don't think any contract is really set up to plan for such gross and life threatening incompetence encountered here.

Presumably there will be an investigation and fines by regulatory bodies, assuming that group ops fall under some sort of regulatory jurisdiction (as a key part of the safety chain, I'm assuming they do - just don't know this space enough to know).

Nomadd wrote:

So, is it normal to not even glance at the wings after deicing? I'm having a little trouble believing the crew could have considered taking off without looking at the wings, especially when a known crap outfit handled the deicing call.

From the cockpit, the pilots are not going to be able to see most of the wing, just the outer ends at a distance.

Several years ago I was flying F9 from DFW-DEN to go skiing. The DFW area had been hit with some snow and was in deice mode. Whoever was doing F9's ground handling at the time ran out of the proper type deicing fluid. While my aircraft was still inbnd to DFW the crew was informed and they diverted back to DEN. The flight to DEN was cancelled. I received a refund and as F9 was booked up solid for that week I was able to get the same fare last minute on AA and flew out the next day.

Nomadd wrote:

So, is it normal to not even glance at the wings after deicing? I'm having a little trouble believing the crew could have considered taking off without looking at the wings, especially when a known crap outfit handled the deicing call.

I don't think the pilots know who's deicing the aircraft. Also they can't see the wing. The expectation is that everyone does their job, and if someone doesn't, there are processes in place for each unit to ensure that it is caught.

Nomadd wrote:

So, is it normal to not even glance at the wings after deicing? I'm having a little trouble believing the crew could have considered taking off without looking at the wings, especially when a known crap outfit handled the deicing call.

Pilots cant see much if any of the wings. Though the question should be whether one of the pilots should be required to walk back into cabin and look at the wings? This would make sense for situations like morning frost or light snow but with freezing rain, sleet, moderate-heavy snow or mixed precipitation and the restrictive holdover/allowance times in such conditions, the clock is ticking and going back to check each time would mean losing valuable time to get airborne before a second deicing/anti icing would be required.

MSJYOP28Apilot wrote:

Nomadd wrote:

So, is it normal to not even glance at the wings after deicing? I'm having a little trouble believing the crew could have considered taking off without looking at the wings, especially when a known crap outfit handled the deicing call.

Pilots cant see much if any of the wings. Though the question should be whether one of the pilots should be required to walk back into cabin and look at the wings? This would make sense for situations like morning frost or light snow but with freezing rain, sleet, moderate-heavy snow or mixed precipitation and the restrictive holdover/allowance times in such conditions, the clock is ticking and going back to check each time would mean losing valuable time to get airborne before a second deicing/anti icing would be required.

With wide-adoption of iPads and tablets in the cockpit it may be worth modifying company apps to accept some sort of Bluetooth download of a photo by the flight attendants (which also have mobile devices) when requested by the pilots. Would require some modification to checklists to return devices to airplane mode before leaving the deice pad or moving the airplane. Could be useful in many situations. I am sure it would have the potential to be abused for non-company business, so would probably require dispatch getting a copy, too, to discourage that.

Runway765 wrote:

Another reason why I won’t fly F9

Because they caught a problem before it became a larger problem?
Frontier is not any better or worse safety wise than any other US carrier.

jreeves96 wrote:

Antarius wrote:

jreeves96 wrote:

Having worked for Trego Dugan, I'm not surprised at all. Trego Dugan is the most garbage company in the industry. Management lacks management skills because turn over is so high within the company. When you can't train your employees correctly on how to throw bags in the belly it's bound to end pretty badly. Trego is also on the bottom of pay scale on paying it's employees. If Frontier and Allegiant would both fire Trego that company would fall apart, and rightfully so.

According to the OP, Trego got fired by F9. So let's see what happens.

Unbelievable situation. Very lucky it didn't end in disaster.

Didn't know if that meant just at BNA or company wide. I know Trego also services Frontier and Allegiant at CVG.

They attempt to service them. Maybe they have more than one ramp crew for 5 flights now with the slowdown.

MSJYOP28Apilot wrote:

Nomadd wrote:

So, is it normal to not even glance at the wings after deicing? I'm having a little trouble believing the crew could have considered taking off without looking at the wings, especially when a known crap outfit handled the deicing call.

Pilots cant see much if any of the wings. Though the question should be whether one of the pilots should be required to walk back into cabin and look at the wings? This would make sense for situations like morning frost or light snow but with freezing rain, sleet, moderate-heavy snow or mixed precipitation and the restrictive holdover/allowance times in such conditions, the clock is ticking and going back to check each time would mean losing valuable time to get airborne before a second deicing/anti icing would be required.

There are scenarios where some operators require a visual confirmation by a pilot. I made friends with a DL f/o while sitting in an exit row in heavy snow at DTW a few years back when he was dispatched from the cockpit several times to have a look at the wings.

Trego-Dugan only did the deicing for F9 at BNA. The ground handling was done by someone else so them losing that contract isn't huge. And I can guarantee that F9 is fully aware of the short comings of Trego as a whole.

I worked for Trego at CVG and can honestly say that it is a pretty poorly ran company from top to bottom.

Everyone from Trego Duran involved in making the decision to release the airplane like that should be behind bars.

We haven’t had a fatal US mainline crash in nearly 20 years and that record was almost marred because a vendor decided to cheap out.

If it’s a company culture thing, they shouldn’t be allowed to touch airplanes. MIA is kicking out a notorious ground handler for their awful working conditions and perhaps BNA should do the same.

OB1504 wrote:

Everyone from Trego Duran involved in making the decision to release the airplane like that should be behind bars.

We haven’t had a fatal US mainline crash in nearly 20 years and that record was almost marred because an airline decided to cheap out.

If it’s a company culture thing, they shouldn’t be allowed to touch airplanes. MIA is kicking out a notorious ground handler for their awful working conditions and perhaps BNA should do the same.

Fixed it for you. The decision to outsource to a vendor was 100% the airline's fault. The decision to take the lowest bidder, was also Frontier's. When you pay for crap, you get crap. I remember when my company (not F9) had a town hall meeting in my station to discuss the company's recent decision to outsource our work to a vendor: "I am going to be honest here. You guys do a great job, and put out a great product for our customer. However, this company does an okay product for half the price. We are okay with "okay" for these savings".

I have no sympathy for a company that chooses to go for the lowest bidder, and I have no sympathy for these contract companies going broke for their negligence. You get what you pay for. Blame the vendor, but also look at who decided to go with such a poor company. When Frontier would have had to pay the burial costs and lawsuits for 150 dead people, would saving that $45,000 a year to go with the cheapest company have been worth it?

jetmatt777 wrote:

OB1504 wrote:

Everyone from Trego Duran involved in making the decision to release the airplane like that should be behind bars.

We haven’t had a fatal US mainline crash in nearly 20 years and that record was almost marred because an airline decided to cheap out.

If it’s a company culture thing, they shouldn’t be allowed to touch airplanes. MIA is kicking out a notorious ground handler for their awful working conditions and perhaps BNA should do the same.

Fixed it for you. The decision to outsource to a vendor was 100% the airline's fault. The decision to take the lowest bidder, was also Frontier's. When you pay for crap, you get crap. I remember when my company (not F9) had a town hall meeting in my station to discuss the company's recent decision to outsource our work to a vendor: "I am going to be honest here. You guys do a great job, and put out a great product for our customer. However, this company does an okay product for half the price. We are okay with "okay" for these savings".

I have no sympathy for a company that chooses to go for the lowest bidder, and I have no sympathy for these contract companies going broke for their negligence. You get what you pay for. Blame the vendor, but also look at who decided to go with such a poor company. When Frontier would have had to pay the burial costs and lawsuits for 150 dead people, would saving that $45,000 a year to go with the cheapest company have been worth it?

Yes and no. If you go buy a Kia, the expectation is that it drives and doesn't just explode - it may not be fancy, but it meets the minimum standard of function.

The cheapest bidder can do an okay job. This performance by Trego wasn't even remotely close to okay.

Antarius wrote:

jetmatt777 wrote:

OB1504 wrote:

Everyone from Trego Duran involved in making the decision to release the airplane like that should be behind bars.

We haven’t had a fatal US mainline crash in nearly 20 years and that record was almost marred because an airline decided to cheap out.

If it’s a company culture thing, they shouldn’t be allowed to touch airplanes. MIA is kicking out a notorious ground handler for their awful working conditions and perhaps BNA should do the same.

Fixed it for you. The decision to outsource to a vendor was 100% the airline's fault. The decision to take the lowest bidder, was also Frontier's. When you pay for crap, you get crap. I remember when my company (not F9) had a town hall meeting in my station to discuss the company's recent decision to outsource our work to a vendor: "I am going to be honest here. You guys do a great job, and put out a great product for our customer. However, this company does an okay product for half the price. We are okay with "okay" for these savings".

I have no sympathy for a company that chooses to go for the lowest bidder, and I have no sympathy for these contract companies going broke for their negligence. You get what you pay for. Blame the vendor, but also look at who decided to go with such a poor company. When Frontier would have had to pay the burial costs and lawsuits for 150 dead people, would saving that $45,000 a year to go with the cheapest company have been worth it?

Yes and no. If you go buy a Kia, the expectation is that it drives and doesn't just explode - it may not be fancy, but it meets the minimum standard of function.

The cheapest bidder can do an okay job. This performance by Trego wasn't even remotely close to okay.

Sure, but is it Kia's fault if I hire the cheapest backyard mechanic to work on my car, and he forgets to put any oil in my engine after changing the oil? It's my fault for blindly trusting the "$5 oil change: parts, labor, and oil included" sign.

jetmatt777 wrote:

MSJYOP28Apilot wrote:

Nomadd wrote:

So, is it normal to not even glance at the wings after deicing? I'm having a little trouble believing the crew could have considered taking off without looking at the wings, especially when a known crap outfit handled the deicing call.

Pilots cant see much if any of the wings. Though the question should be whether one of the pilots should be required to walk back into cabin and look at the wings? This would make sense for situations like morning frost or light snow but with freezing rain, sleet, moderate-heavy snow or mixed precipitation and the restrictive holdover/allowance times in such conditions, the clock is ticking and going back to check each time would mean losing valuable time to get airborne before a second deicing/anti icing would be required.

With wide-adoption of iPads and tablets in the cockpit it may be worth modifying company apps to accept some sort of Bluetooth download of a photo by the flight attendants (which also have mobile devices) when requested by the pilots. Would require some modification to checklists to return devices to airplane mode before leaving the deice pad or moving the airplane. Could be useful in many situations. I am sure it would have the potential to be abused for non-company business, so would probably require dispatch getting a copy, too, to discourage that.

Well they could open their cockpit window and stick a mirror out and have an unobstructed view, without having to bend over looking out a glycol coated window in the lap of a passenger or two.

jetmatt777 wrote:

Antarius wrote:

jetmatt777 wrote:

Fixed it for you. The decision to outsource to a vendor was 100% the airline's fault. The decision to take the lowest bidder, was also Frontier's. When you pay for crap, you get crap. I remember when my company (not F9) had a town hall meeting in my station to discuss the company's recent decision to outsource our work to a vendor: "I am going to be honest here. You guys do a great job, and put out a great product for our customer. However, this company does an okay product for half the price. We are okay with "okay" for these savings".

I have no sympathy for a company that chooses to go for the lowest bidder, and I have no sympathy for these contract companies going broke for their negligence. You get what you pay for. Blame the vendor, but also look at who decided to go with such a poor company. When Frontier would have had to pay the burial costs and lawsuits for 150 dead people, would saving that $45,000 a year to go with the cheapest company have been worth it?

Yes and no. If you go buy a Kia, the expectation is that it drives and doesn't just explode - it may not be fancy, but it meets the minimum standard of function.

The cheapest bidder can do an okay job. This performance by Trego wasn't even remotely close to okay.

Sure, but is it Kia's fault if I hire the cheapest backyard mechanic to work on my car, and he forgets to put any oil in my engine after changing the oil? It's my fault for blindly trusting the "$5 oil change: parts, labor, and oil included" sign.

Your analogy doesn't work here. Trego is the Kia in mine, so not Sure why you'd be doing service when that's the analogous Kia's job.

Antarius wrote:

jetmatt777 wrote:

Antarius wrote:

Yes and no. If you go buy a Kia, the expectation is that it drives and doesn't just explode - it may not be fancy, but it meets the minimum standard of function.

The cheapest bidder can do an okay job. This performance by Trego wasn't even remotely close to okay.

Sure, but is it Kia's fault if I hire the cheapest backyard mechanic to work on my car, and he forgets to put any oil in my engine after changing the oil? It's my fault for blindly trusting the "$5 oil change: parts, labor, and oil included" sign.

Your analogy doesn't work here. Trego is the Kia in mine, so not Sure why you'd be doing service when that's the analogous Kia's job.

Fine. Have it your way. Kia is a reputable manufacturer with a proven track record. Your analogy doesn't work. When you get a screamin' deal on something, there's usually a good reason for it. Eventually it will show itself, just as it did in this case. Good thing there were a few more layers of swiss cheese that kept the holes from lining up. Had a flight attendant not been paying attention to the wings (why would they?) we would be talking about Frontier killing 150 people outside of Nashville, or best case scenario injuring a hundred people when they overrun the runway when the pilots realize at Vr that the airplane is not producing any lift.

ZaphodHarkonnen wrote:

This is where company directors need to be made personally liable. Decisions like that are almost never the case of someone on the front line acting alone. That happens because the entire company culture is rotten and that behavior is accepted by management so becomes accepted by the line worker.

Do you know for a fact that the company directors were fully aware of this practice and directly ordered the ground employee to act as such? If not, they employees (including company directors) cannot be made personally liable.

hayzel777 wrote:

F9 ALPA reportedly sent an email over a deicing incident at BNA.

Pilots were told deicing was complete but FA noticed before departure there was still contaminants on the wing. It was discovered that there was still a foot of ice and snow. F9 has fired Trego Duran Aviation ever since. The excuse was reportedly the vendor was short of deicing fluid!

This is pitiful on the part of the vendor.

https://onemileatatime.com/frontier-fli ... c-deicing/

Definitely a no-no. But I doubt there was as much as a foot of snow on that wing; a whole foot of snow would basically come up to right below a human leg calf, that's quite high...

FGITD wrote:

Nomadd wrote:

So, is it normal to not even glance at the wings after deicing? I'm having a little trouble believing the crew could have considered taking off without looking at the wings, especially when a known crap outfit handled the deicing call.

As with so much else in aviation, there's a lot of blind faith put into the idea that everyone is acting as they should.

Usually after deicing, the iceman gives the code over radio to the pilots. Typically includes info like employee ID number, start times, finish times, type of fluid used, sometimes how many gallons of it, and whatever other info they might add locally. Generally you don't include much info for the type I because there's no holdover time.

With that in mind, make no mistake. If this plane was released like this and attempted takeoff, it would have definitely crashed. Frost, and millimeters of ice have brought down aircraft.

Iceman here (albeit not for F9). We usually give them gallon #s for both I and IV, but also (and more importantly), we verbally confirm with the crew that "the aircraft has been serviced and is free of all contamination".

This vendor's butt is already in the hot seat, even moreso if they have this in their SOPs, which I imagine they would at some point.

This FA should get a raise or something because their diligence (I'm assuming it's not in their job expectations to check the wings) definitely saved a fair number of lives that day.

Cubsrule wrote:

MSJYOP28Apilot wrote:

Nomadd wrote:

So, is it normal to not even glance at the wings after deicing? I'm having a little trouble believing the crew could have considered taking off without looking at the wings, especially when a known crap outfit handled the deicing call.

Pilots cant see much if any of the wings. Though the question should be whether one of the pilots should be required to walk back into cabin and look at the wings? This would make sense for situations like morning frost or light snow but with freezing rain, sleet, moderate-heavy snow or mixed precipitation and the restrictive holdover/allowance times in such conditions, the clock is ticking and going back to check each time would mean losing valuable time to get airborne before a second deicing/anti icing would be required.

There are scenarios where some operators require a visual confirmation by a pilot. I made friends with a DL f/o while sitting in an exit row in heavy snow at DTW a few years back when he was dispatched from the cockpit several times to have a look at the wings.

Delta does not require a visual inspection by the flight crew. They are more than welcome to inspect the wings from a window but again are not required.

Does anyone have a link that includes the pictures? They don't seem to be in the link in the OP. Thanks!

CrimsonNL wrote:

Does anyone have a link that includes the pictures? They don't seem to be in the link in the OP. Thanks!

It's in there about halfway down, but here.

Cubsrule wrote:

There are scenarios where some operators require a visual confirmation by a pilot. I made friends with a DL f/o while sitting in an exit row in heavy snow at DTW a few years back when he was dispatched from the cockpit several times to have a look at the wings.

That might be a policy. It might also just be a very-responsible Captain.

20+ years ago, I flew Kiwi Airlines out of MDW to EWR in the middle of a very-bad snowstorm which came in like thunder in the late afternoon and caused all sorts of cancellations where I was at ORD. My meeting had been 10 minutes from the airport, and the snow started lightly on my way to the airport and the heavens then just unloaded. Of course my flight was cancelled, and then nobody had anything going anywhere East, defeating my brilliant Plan B to just go to anyplace on the Northeast Corridor and take Amtrak back to NYC.

As a final try, I called Kiwi, thinking they might be flying, and they were and had seats on a flight leaving MDW in like 3 hours. Sold! I took the subway into the Loop and then to MDW. Amazing anything was moving; the highways were like parking lots. Our 727 was pretty-full, considering, and I was in an exit row seat. A lot of deicing was going on. A while passed between the time they finished and we were finally buttoned up. The FO came back to have a look, and we were deiced again. Snow still coming down heavily. As they finished, the Captain came back for a pretty-thorough look, and said something about going straight to the runway and taking off, which was feasible considering nobody else was running at this point. The engines wound up pretty-much when his butt hit his seat, and we did exactly what he said he would do. Remarkable how once you're above the clouds everything is like it always is and the chaos on the ground seems almost odd. Was it really that bad down there? Seems fine up here.

Otherwise-uneventful, perfectly-nice flight. But memorable how cautious the crew was about ensuring complete (and sustainable) deicing.

All this stuff about it being bad to go with the lowest bidder misses something. There are a lot of circumstances (most government contracts, for example) where they go with the lowest qualified bidder. But that word "qualified" is important. They'll take the lowest bid, but only from among those who can meet certain objective experience/capability/etc. requirements. And the highest bidder isn't likely to be the "best" either. Plenty of expensive companies do a horrible job. They just charge more for it.

Aviation safety ultimately falls squarely on the airline. The airline is ultimately responsible for monitoring, managing, and correcting any deficiencies in the performance of a vendor, just as it would be if it was doing the work itself. Frontier screwed this up royally by hiring a company which everybody in the industry apparently thought was a crap operation (assuming that's the case). Even if the company had a good reputation and paid its people well, if it didn't have proper procedures and training in place, and Frontier didn't sufficiently inquire, and something like this happened as a result with catastrophic consequences, it would be on Frontier. And if this gets any publicity outside of the enthusiast world, there will be some internal human sacrifices over it. If it doesn't turn into a PR disaster, there will still be consequences.

In short: It is legally the airline's responsibility to make sure the vendor does its job properly. Frontier's liability insurers are looking at this photo and crapping themselves. There will be changes as a result, regardless of the internal ass-covering and finger pointing that is doubtless rampant inside Frontier at the moment.

That wasn't 12 inches of snow, so that's an exaggeration, or maybe a miscommunication of what someone was trying to convey. Regardless, this wing is contaminated well-beyond anything that would permit normal flight. So Frontier got very, very lucky.

wjcandee wrote:

All this stuff about it being bad to go with the lowest bidder misses something. There are a lot of circumstances (most government contracts, for example) where they go with the lowest qualified bidder. But that word "qualified" is important. They'll take the lowest bid, but only from among those who can meet certain objective experience/capability/etc. requirements. And the highest bidder isn't likely to be the "best" either. Plenty of expensive companies do a horrible job. They just charge more for it.

Aviation safety ultimately falls squarely on the airline. The airline is ultimately responsible for monitoring, managing, and correcting any deficiencies in the performance of a vendor, just as it would be if it was doing the work itself. Frontier screwed this up royally by hiring a company which everybody in the industry apparently thought was a crap operation (assuming that's the case). Even if the company had a good reputation and paid its people well, if it didn't have proper procedures and training in place, and Frontier didn't sufficiently inquire, and something like this happened as a result with catastrophic consequences, it would be on Frontier.

Without a doubt. There are certainly issues with that Vendor's performance here. And likely elsewhere if this was able to happen. Neither thing excuses F9. Especially considering how Vendor reliant they are as an outfit.

wjcandee wrote:

Regardless, this wing is contaminated well-beyond anything that would permit normal flight. So Frontier got very, very lucky.

I am already long past the point where I will not fly with F9 in the future. Their safety culture leaves more than a lot to be desired and their operations in general are unreliable at best on all but the sunniest of days.

But while I also agree that this is a completely inexcusable failure, and that F9 used up about three years of good luck that day, I do not believe that would automatically have caused a wreck. Certainly, we all remember this marvelous accomplishment...

DarkSnowyNight wrote:

But while I also agree that this is a completely inexcusable failure, and that F9 used up about three years of good luck that day, I do not believe that would automatically have caused a wreck. Certainly, we all remember this marvelous accomplishment...

Oh, it makes a lot of a difference what kind of stuff you have on your wings. In your Russian example it was the light and dry snow you get in really cold wheather at below freezing temperature. It does not stick and will be easiely blown away.
But when it is wet and freezes to the surfaces it will stick. The F9 wing looked more like the later kind.

This goes beyond incompetence and poor SMS procedures, but the fact that they applied type IV to a contaminated wing actually made the situation significantly worse, and was in fact gross negligence. The Type IV is not an active product at all, and should NEVER be applied without Type I first, not least because the OAT may allow the Type IV to freeze over the contamination, leading to a lack or Aerodynamic performance. The end results of which lead to a lack of control of flight surfaces, at best, and at worst, and inability to get airborne. Frankly, the handler should be shut down pending complete retraining of the de-icing crew, and a full review of SMS procedures.