siouxfan, on 05 February 2010 - 07:35 PM, said:
Hello,
It seems there are many people for and even more against ATP. I am looking into getting my MEI, i was excited about going to ATP, but after reading this im a little hesitant. Is there anyone who went to the Phenix location, who can help me out. However if there is anyone who took the MEI course there, any information would be great!
Went to Phoenix and the training was alright. But please read the following if your interested at all with employment with ATP. This was my experience.
(Please forgive the following language in this post, but I feel it necessary to restate verbatim what I heard and experienced in the cockpit while flying with ATP’s standardization evaluator for the chance to be a flight instructor with the company. I clearly understand and know how to use the English language correctly and politely. Once my evaluator started on his rants it was clear he was irrational and unable to do the same.)
Now that I have removed myself from any danger and this situation in employment standardization training with ATP, it is clear that I need to make folks aware of the incident that occurred during and after my standardization training flight with the assigned ATP CFI evaluator.
My standardization evaluator exhibited behaviors that were unprofessional and unbecoming of the standards that have been set forth by ATP for a flight instructor. Furthermore, the individual’s behaviors violate the safety standards set forth by ATP as well as FAA regulations in maintaining a sterile cockpit and safe flying conditions. After calling ground to state my departure intentions, my evaluator immediately became demeaning, stating:
(Evaluator): “What the f--k are you doing dude… I briefed you just a minute ago about our departure and you godd-mn just asked for something I totally didn’t tell you to request.”
After the evaluator made a new radio call with his desired intentions to depart the pattern on a northbound departure, I proceeded to clarify the situation stating, “I thought I heard you ask for me to stay in the pattern and even wrote this information down because that’s what I thought I heard you say just a moment ago.” Before further clarifying the statement by asking if it was just a radio call that overlaid his instructions and that I must have just made a mistake in not clarifying with him, the evaluator immediately took my statement as an accusation of stating to him that he had provided me with a clearance request contrary to our objectives for the flight. The individual launched into an extremely emotional, agitated, hostile, foul, and nearly physically violent rant about disagreeing in this situation stating:
(Evaluator - Rant prior to and during taxi): “You are f--king stupid you f--king idiot. I gave you instructions to depart and you godd-mn f--ked them up right after I just briefed you on what you were to do… and now you are arguing with me and this is the third time you have argued with me and this is not the way to start this flight. I am godd-mn pilot in command and get that clear in your f--king mind… if you have a f--king problem with my instructions you will never ever… EVER… argue with me ever. This is my airplane, my controls, and your f--king arguing with me telling me something that I never said. I am in control here so get that in your f--king mind. I have some 400-500 more hours of flight time over your insufficient experience so don’t you ever f--king godd-mn tell me what I did and didn’t just tell you as if you somehow mean to say that I was in error. Godd-mn dude… godd-mn!”
This rant occurred while the evaluator taxied the Cessna 172 from the ramp to the run-up area. During taxi, he then proceeded to perform the run-up checklist from his personal memory, holding the brakes while on the roll and continuing to rant between personal memory checklist items for run-up on the roll, without ever clarifying that the checklist items in print form were completed. The evaluator never had any printed form of a checklist in his possession. This is disturbing given the individual instructed PIC authority during the Before-Start checklist and in any part of the flight that he felt like flying.
The evaluators rant was to an extent where I could not hear the radio messages from ground control and it felt unsafe to be doing the run-up while moving on a taxiway without a checklist, while pointed at a Piper Seminole at the end of the taxiway ahead of us in the run-up area (especially if the brakes were to fail) but the evaluator nevertheless continued his course of action. Why was the evaluator able to break ATP’s safety standards and FAA rules regarding a sterile cockpit and safe run-up procedures while we as instructor candidate (myself) had to meet these standards to the tee? Do we all operate on different rules, or was this evaluator just plain breaking every rule of safety that we have ever been taught as aviators?
Shortly after takeoff and turning for a northbound VFR departure another local airport, my company evaluator launched into a second rant while still flying the aircraft from departure. This again created a distracting cockpit environment that was absolutely never sterile as required to be exhibited from the time of briefing this condition prior to taxi. I would have told the evaluator to cool it on the language and refocus on our next task but not having PIC authority myself due to his instructions pretty much eliminated my ability to create an environment where I could concentrate and succeed. Still not done, my evaluator launched into another hostile commentary regarding my inability to handle “constructive criticism” even though I had not spoken a single word since his last rant from taxi to this point but rather then accepted his comments in an effort to keep the evaluation smooth. Again this individual made heavy use of vulgarities with statements such as, “get your f--king head together/ pull your s--t together dude.” Numerous other vulgarities (so many I’ve forgotten some of them because he used so many) were verbally shouted out by the evaluator through climb to 2500’ and into cruise flight. At this point, the evaluator noted, “God dude, I hate doing this… you are now just going to fly like s--t in everything you do because you’re going to be flustered after I had to go rip you out back there for f--king arguing. Why the hell… what the f--k… what were you thinking man?”
I stated, “No further argument sir, may we move on to flying the aircraft so that I can demonstrate to you what I know to try to pass this evaluation?” The evaluator sighed loudly, cursing under his breath and then said, “Yeah… get onto the approach checklist, and show me you know how to f--king fly this plane… you have the controls.” After listening to ATIS and proceeding to start my descent and plan my entry to the airport environment for touch and potential go on, the evaluator suddenly yelled, “Do you have a f--king clue how to fly this f--king airplane… what the hell are you doing?” Confused, I described my planned pattern entry procedure and restated my approach brief to be clear. The evaluator continued to demean my ability to handle the controls and make a timely decision on how to enter the pattern. I asked for a sterile environment but the evaluator just continued with obscene vulgarities, further demeaning my ability to safely land the airplane or even be able to keep it in the air at this point, according to his assessment of the situation. Throughout the remainder of the flight the evaluator routinely used vulgar language and exhibited severe hostility towards me even after landing at the home base grabbing on to any slight deviation or mistake due to his ranting going on for the entirety of the flight, causing me to miss radio messages, traffic warnings from the Tower, etc. and throwing off my checklist flow/callouts and completion of aircraft configuration as required by those checklists in order to instead respond to demeaning questions including going back to the “ground argument” situation while setting up on approach and finally asking for a sterile cockpit. The evaluator simply refused to stop demeaning me.
Given this is standardization training, I assumed the evaluator was trying to place pressure on me to see how I could handle it so I continued with the second standardization training flight, putting up with his behavior and hoping he would not start a fight based on his hostility. At that point in time I believed my assumption was that this sort of treatment was somehow normal, but now feel that this is not correct after post flight analysis. If the instructor evaluators feel that an unsafe condition has occurred in flight due to lack of skill, aeronautical decision making errors, or any other issue of flight safety that is violated, I would expect the instructor to require handoff of the controls to himself to gain and retain PIC authority from that portion of the flight onwards stating in a professional manner that the flight evaluation had been failed due to the standards that were not met. I don’t expect to be harassed, cussed out, ridiculed, demeaned, and made to feel threatened because the ATP flight instructor/evaluator feels like flexing his ego. As the flight continued, the verbal abuse increased in strength, volume and intensity. I am very unimpressed with the individuals constant use of the ‘F’ word as well as the many other vulgarities and obscenities that streamed from the evaluators mouth while in flight. It seemed that he thought the “F” word was a noun, pro-noun, verb, adverb, adjective and the entire English language is based on it. Therefore, let me make this next statement clear to you for why I left the standardization training: during the entire training flight the evaluator exhibited an attitude, mannerism and verbal abuse that got so bad that I was wondering if the individual was going to physically attack me (i.e. punch, hit, slap, bite, etc.) while in the air.
Once we landed the evaluator continued to act in an even more aggressive manner that convinced me a physical attack was imminent. I disengaged and walked away, and avoided an upcoming physical hand-to-hand conflict that the evaluator clearly wanted to start by pursuing everyone avenue of verbal conflict possible. By removing myself from this hostile situation the debriefing never occurred. Any court of law states that you must walk away from a threatened physical conflict. My action followed the law to the letter and I avoided the fight that the evaluator clearly wanted.
To date I have no idea why the evaluator acted in the manner he did; however his actions, verbal abuse, bullying, and creation of an intensely hostile working environment quite frankly endangered my safety and the safety of every other aircraft near us in the airspace, as a result of his not maintaining a sterile cockpit, which is completely unacceptable in any flying situation.
My questions frankly still are:
Was the evaluator encouraged by ATP to act in this manner?
Does ATP provide bonuses to the standardization CFIs if the student terminates the training due to removing himself/herself from a hostile work environment?
Was the evaluator upset because of the recent ATP salary changes? Was the individual taking it out on the students and/or trying to hurt ATP by exhibiting this behavior?
Was this the first time that this evaluator had acted in this manner or is this there a record of the individual’s actions?
Did the evaluator get off on some kind of ego trip on these evaluation flights where he believed that he does not have to conform to the safety standards set forth by ATP and the FAA?
The behavior the evaluator demonstrated toward me is not acceptable for maintaining any set of safety standards set forth by the FAA or ATP. I have never personally seen a flight instructor/ evaluator ever act in such a manner when previously receiving flight evaluation on a checkride or in this case for employment with this business. I can only conclude that the individual has either been told to act in this manner by ATP (with ATP benefiting from my down payment for my guaranteed instructor job when I trained with them), one or more of the above factors contributed to the individuals actions, or the evaluator was mentally unstable for some reason when the individual stepped into the cockpit with me.
In summary, the evaluator was unstable, unsafe and simply out of control. I can absolutely assure you I know what is not acceptable by any standards of professionalism and safety, and I just experienced such unacceptable behavior from the standardization training instructor/ evaluator!
I want to become a professional Airline pilot, and I chose ATP to meet this goal by providing my training because of the guaranteed instructor position that would help provide the hours required for a career in the Airlines. ATP took that away from me. Clearly I made a mistake by selecting ATP, given this situation that occurred while in ATP’s standardization training. When I challenged administration about the situation after walking away from the situation and employment, they simply swept the whole issue under the table. So let me upsweep it out for those of you looking to ATP for future training and employment thereafter. Just want the issue out there so you know what to expect.
This post has been edited by Former CFI: 14 April 2011 - 03:40 AM
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