In Russian Roulette terms: rather than put a mere single bullet into that .357, why not add 3 or 4 instead? Be a "sport" about it!

That's the essence of this utter insanity.

American Airlines found out exactly the same thing, with a fatigued crew, trying to beat a severe thunderstorm at Little Rock, Arkansas a few years ago, the MD-80 ran off the runway into the embankment along a river. Several people were killed and the litigation has gone into the millions of dollars. Remember that one?

When I heard of the SQ accident at TPE, I was stunned, firstly because they were operating in such unbelievable conditions to begin with. It was absolute stupidity coupled with unbelievable hubris: Daring or tempting fate while operating in such conditions. It was apalling!

The visibility must have been horrendous. With that in mind, then you see how vulnerable the chain of human elements can break -so easily- in a tense situation like this. The final coup'd'grace was was a few lights blown out on the taxiway.

Why the hell were they operating in such conditions to begin with? Playing "Russian Roulette" with a fully fueled B747-400 in a typhoon isn't my idea of having a sane state of mind. The pictures from CNN are still in my mind, of the fire afterwards, in severe gusting conditions. What the F*** were all the parties thinking!?

All parties are at fault in varying degrees of severity in this case I believe.

-The CKS Airport authorities allowing the airport to operate in such conditions is atrocious. What sort of divine message from the Almighty do they need in order to understand that the airport isnt safe to continue normal flight operations in a routine basis?

What is the litmus test for that at CKS? Sure, the ultimate authority to operate flights is with an aircraft commander. But what about the airfield management people that operate the facility? Are they without blame? It's only the pilots fault? It's -their- tarmac that aircraft is on. Who takes responsibility for saying "it's time to call it a day" and pull the plug on flight ops until the weather has passed. Only with the pilot!?

Then on top of that, the nerve of operating such a large facility without the latest in equipment like a ground warning radar system as well as ground lighting problems that the graphics show well on the TaipeiTimes link.

-Then we venture to the SIA pilots whom had ultimate final authority in choosing to FLY in said weather conditions, from an airport with known technical issues (knowledge it did not have a Ground radar system in place). BTW: This type of system is available at airports like Seattle-Tacoma and Salt Lake City. It's been available for years.

Why isnt this being used at TPE or KHH?

-The management side of SIA doesnt get off either from this. With all of this happening and -well known- airline like SIA should be prepared to brief and train it's pilots on the peculiarities of various airports in their system and especially, asking said flight crews, to operate in a normal scheduled manner during such periods of problematic weather.

Ultmimately the decision does fall upon the flight crew electing to operate in those conditions, but what were the internal management issues taking place? These are known problems within some carriers like SIA and others like American Airlines, where the practice of coercing flight crews to keep a schedule *no matter what it takes!* has been discussed and in the latter case with AA at KLIT, litigated. Other carriers like Delta Air Lines, have had occasional clashes with pilots over long flights without rest facilities deemed adequate for relief crews and those going on break, a 14-17+ hour nonstop flight from Atlanta-Tokyo MD-11 flight in particular with that one, the pilot diverted into Portland, Oregon because the rest facilities literally were a tube he had to crawl into that he could barely move around inside. Another case of American Airlines pilots complaining of using only 2 pilots on long-haul 767-300ER flights from Dallas-Honolulu during winter months, which frequently hit headwinds aloft on the westbound leg into PHNL at that time of year, forcing a slower speed at lower altitude, which in turn forced the crews (without a relief crew aboard) to fly beyond their legal limit of flight hours flown that day.

PPRUNE.Net is a frequent source of airfield management-vs- pilot-vs-airline management debate on this subject. I am sure this crash report is being discussed over there right now.