Medal or Reprimand?

[heliodoc]

Johnny

You da man!!

Haven't seen a response since you wrote that hard hitting commentary

Luv it!!

[Eclipse]

Of interesting note is that the cadet in question decided to take it upon himself to post comments under the story.

This is now being held out by my Region as an example of "don't".

[CadetProgramGuy]

Of interesting note is that the cadet in question decided to take it upon himself to post comments under the story.

This is now being held out by my Region as an example of "don't".

Now see what you did, you made me go look....

Sir, the basic principle of the Civil Air Patrol is make sure everyone is OK then make sure the ELT is turned off. I have had first responder training as well crash response training. I DID debrief the kids that were involved and get there side of what happened because That is part of my job, I did not have to check on the pilot because the flight nurses from CALSTAR were taking care of him. We are trained to get ALL safety hazards taken care of I.E fuel off, ELT off, controls locked, Mags off fuel pump off. So Please note Sir I did make sure the kids were taken care of.

[Eclipse]

That's not the comment in question.

He made a statement regarding the cause of the crash, which then generated a number of comments regarding the competency of the pilot, the safety of GA, etc. 

He then followed up and retracted it because he had no actual knowledge of the situation.

This is a textbook case of "issues", end-to-end.  From the one view its a CAP success story, from another its  procedural violations all over the place, and from a third its members hurt or worse.

[Flying Pig]

I think the cadet took some awesome initiative.  If the paramedics were already working on the passengers, then I would assume the scene was safe.  It seems like the cadet went over to the plane and shut everything down.  However, being that an EMS flight crew was already there Im wondering why they wouldnt have done it?

[Майор Хаткевич]

I was going to say, no matter what the truth was, the cadet's comments on the story just made it all look a lot worse...

[ZigZag911]

Commenting on accident causes is an unfortunate error that even many seniors make....this is an area of training that needs constant reinforcement.

However, it's easy to Monday morning quarterback...based on the limited information provided here, it seems likely the cadets on the scene felt the AC's occupants might be in mortal peril, and responded appropriately.

[Spike]

^ I don't think so.  It appears the Cadets ran over after others ran over and were working on the pilot/victims. 

Some have noted it may be a case of "hero syndrome". 

Either way the Cadet should not have posted comments, he needs reprimanded, no matter what his Dad posted after him. 

I take back my "award a medal" vote.  They should have a stern lecture instead. 

[Eclipse]

^ I don't think so.  It appears the Cadets ran over after others ran over and were working on the pilot/victims. 

Some have noted it may be a case of "hero syndrome". 

This is my 50k foot assessment as well...

Something else no one has asked is whether or not these cadets were qualified to even be there at all.
FLM?  GT?  A uniform and CAP ID does not qualify you for anything but meeting attendance.  Perhaps some of the issue is they haven't completed any training, so they don't know the rules.

If this isn't a lesson in "perception = reality" I don't know what is.  Somewhere between the medal and the reprimand lies the truth.

[lordmonar]

We also need to seperate the "actionable event" from the "actionable after event".

The action of, right or wrong, running into harms way to try to do good and getting away with it, is one thing to consider.

The action of going onto a public forum and remarking about the probable cause of the accident is something else that needs to be addressed seperately.

Let's keep these two events as distinct as possible and deal with them appropriatly.

Medal (maybe...depends of the level of danger, risk to life, etc) for the one, and a stern lecture about what not to say on the internet for the other.

[JayT]

I think the cadet took some awesome initiative.  If the paramedics were already working on the passengers, then I would assume the scene was safe.  It seems like the cadet went over to the plane and shut everything down.  However, being that an EMS flight crew was already there Im wondering why they wouldnt have done it?

How many EMT's really know much about air plane operations, even FP-C's?

[Major Carrales]

It was an "imminently serious condition," one of the few caveats that allow for things like violation of private property (remember your GES training)  The cadets should be commended.  We train cadets to be good citizens and foster a responsibility within them, to punish them for having lived those elements negates any and all concepts and precepts we hold.

MEDAL

[heliodoc]

YEP

Come here to CAPTalk for your dose of punishment....Alll the don'ts, we're "gonna" slap this on you , read this reg to you, ETC

WE all were not there and in the REAL scheme of things...HOW are you CAPTalkers who can cite regs, going to react in a REAL world emergency??  Can't say how I'd react in all situations...

Let's see what really happens in the long term

[RiverAux]

I don't know if anyone is still reading the comments on the newspapers web page, but apparently the cadet was asked by the fire department to shut off the fuel switch for safety reasons.   What sort of fireman asks a kid to do something like that?  The firemen at least should have known the proper course of action was to move people away from the site.  And why would a cadet take an order from a fireman anyway? 

Apparently they took it upon themselves to turn off the ELT and apparently flip a bunch of other switches as well. 

And it seems like other medical personnel were on scene to take care of the people. 

So, lacking further info there seems to be no reason for any cadet to have entered this plane. 

[Eclipse]

What sort of fireman asks a kid to do something like that?  The firemen at least should have known the proper course of action was to move people away from the site.  And why would a cadet take an order from a fireman anyway? 

The ability of members to say "no", even though they know they are supposed to seems to be in inverse proportion to how "cool or neat" the thing they are bing told to do is.

(And that goes for the staffers at higher HQ's who, rather than redirect someone to their local chain, take action based on requests they shouldn't even be entertaining...)

[lordmonar]

Again...there is a lot of monday morning quarterbacking going on here.

Right wrong or indifferent.....The actions of these cadets bring credit upon themselves and Civil Air Patrol.

[RiverAux]

I don't believe they've brought discredit upon CAP and it certainly is good publicity (which is why they will probably end up getting some sort of award). 

But, that doesn't necessarily mean they did the right thing, either in reality or in the world of CAP regulation and policy. 

Like I said before, if they were diving in that plane to shut off the fuel so as to safely remove the passengers, I wouldn't hesitate to give them an award, but as that point of danger was apparently long gone, such action was not necessary. 

But, lets expand out this discussion a bit.....

It has not been unusualfor CAP to be asked to go shut off ELTs in airplanes flipped around at airports after a tornado or hurricane.  Usually this is a day or two after the event.  One could say that there is still some potential fire danger associated with these planes.  Should we be sending cadets (or seniors for that matter) to crawl around in these wrecks trying to turn off ELTs? 

Since there is no one's life in immediate danger, I wonder if it is something we should be involved in? 

Sure, getting the ELTs turned off so as to avoid masking a real emergency is legit, but is it legit for us?  After all, AFRCC doesn't like us looking for people that are in all liklihood dead and tends to call us off when a mission goes to search and recovery. 

[Eclipse]

It has not been unusualfor CAP to be asked to go shut off ELTs in airplanes flipped around at airports after a tornado or hurricane.  Usually this is a day or two after the event.  One could say that there is still some potential fire danger associated with these planes.  Should we be sending cadets (or seniors for that matter) to crawl around in these wrecks trying to turn off ELTs? 

It should be.

CAP doesn't deactivate an ELT, it locates them, and informs the owner, only entering the aircraft with permission, and generally its better if either an FBO mechanic or the owner deactivates the ELT.

If we're being directed to just turn them off, we're probably breaking the law.

[flyerthom]

We also need to seperate the "actionable event" from the "actionable after event".

The action of, right or wrong, running into harms way to try to do good and getting away with it, is one thing to consider.

The action of going onto a public forum and remarking about the probable cause of the accident is something else that needs to be addressed seperately.

Let's keep these two events as distinct as possible and deal with them appropriatly.

Medal (maybe...depends of the level of danger, risk to life, etc) for the one, and a stern lecture about what not to say on the internet for the other.

They are two distinct events. For the first - medal or attaboy, let the commanders sort it out.

For the second - the entire next length of time for promotion they are sentenced to be squadron PAO or mod Captalk.  Yes I know that's stern but ...     

[Krapenhoeffer]

And why would a cadet take an order from a fireman anyway?

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but if I learned my Incident Command System correctly, it would make sense for the firefighter to be the Incident Commander, and it would be perfectly understandable to ask a cadet to flip some switches to prevent what may have been a massive explosion, and for said cadet to obey this command.

Once again, posting in a public fourm about a mission (double standard for CAPTalk much?) is a bad idea, and should warrant a stern CPP-friendly Wall-to-Wall counciling session.