Trans Asia pilots fail flight test
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Trans Asia pilots fail flight test
Now here is the proof about the low recruitment standards going around Asia!
TransAsia suspends pilots who failed flight tests
49 pilots take the test and 10 fail...19 more to test. That is 20% of your pilots so far cannot do an engine out oral exam!
Unbelievable that is all I can say!
TransAsia suspends pilots who failed flight tests
49 pilots take the test and 10 fail...19 more to test. That is 20% of your pilots so far cannot do an engine out oral exam!
Unbelievable that is all I can say!
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4 accidents since 1995! Yea Trans asia is training their pilots to a high standard!
Highflyer40...yes um putting the whole region in the same basket! It is well known that with all of the growth that has happened in Asia, management is more than happy to drop the standards and put any warm body in the seat.
Look at the USA where they now have a minimum 1500 hour limit to sit in the right seat! What is it over here? Zero hours for cx. 250 hours you considered experienced!
Yes I'm going to paint the whole region with this paintbrush!
Highflyer40...yes um putting the whole region in the same basket! It is well known that with all of the growth that has happened in Asia, management is more than happy to drop the standards and put any warm body in the seat.
Look at the USA where they now have a minimum 1500 hour limit to sit in the right seat! What is it over here? Zero hours for cx. 250 hours you considered experienced!
Yes I'm going to paint the whole region with this paintbrush!
Well, perhaps you could supply us all with PC's or laptops then?
No comment about the appalling revelation about training in this airline?
A plane crashes due to an engine failure where the good engine appears to have been shut down in a cockpit staffed by two captains and an F/O, and all you can say is why are we using iPads??
We have had recent crashes in which an A330 pilot thought it was OK to hold full backstick (which caused an unrecoverable stall). We had another crew who stalled their Q400 and pulled up instead of pushed to get out of the stall, and now this. When is the world going to understand that the drive for ever cheaper fares is causing too many cutbacks and things are getting very dangerous? What are the various CAA's doing to mandate better training, better engineering practices etc. etc. ?
No comment about the appalling revelation about training in this airline?
A plane crashes due to an engine failure where the good engine appears to have been shut down in a cockpit staffed by two captains and an F/O, and all you can say is why are we using iPads??
We have had recent crashes in which an A330 pilot thought it was OK to hold full backstick (which caused an unrecoverable stall). We had another crew who stalled their Q400 and pulled up instead of pushed to get out of the stall, and now this. When is the world going to understand that the drive for ever cheaper fares is causing too many cutbacks and things are getting very dangerous? What are the various CAA's doing to mandate better training, better engineering practices etc. etc. ?
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Few years back I met a Eva CN. He was a skipper on the 400. Couldn't believe when he told me that some of his FO's were cadets with 250 hrs. All their landings were made with auto land. 
This isn't just a regional problem, although some of the worst offenders are in Asia. Its an industry problem. The A330 was Air France, the Q400 Colgan Air in the US. The Captain on that flight had managed to conceal some past training failures at prior jobs, and the F/O helpfully raised the flaps when they stalled. Of course she'd commuted across the country and slept in the crew lounge before the flight, one of the effects of the insane regional airline "pauper's wages" that have been in effect in the US since forever. Its cheap labor, pay for training, children of the magenta line, discrimination lawsuits all wrapped up into a general degradation in skills.
Most that I know didn't pay for training at a regional airline, or go to some sort of a school that spit out low time first officer candidates. We flight instructed, then flew night freight single pilot in twins, then regional turboprops, etc. or came from the military. The 1500 hour rule in the US wasn't needed because you needed 1200 for a 135 PIC letter and without multi time like that you weren't getting hired at a regional. The wages were still horrible but we could fly. The training included single engine VOR, single engine NDB (all the ILS's everywhere were always out in the sim), flight directors off. Air work was included, steep turns and stall recoveries. Granted, some of it was a bit much.
The training environment is different now but you've still got to train those basic skills. You oughta be able to hand fly the airplane, identify which engine has failed, and secure it. Know what a stall is, be it high altitude in a jet, or low altitude in a turboprop. The recovery from a stall is one of the first things we are taught. Stop the negative training, don't always fail the critical engine, and in the Q400 demonstrate stalls with and without the stick pusher. Of course all of this is driven by a monetary bottom line, and the desire to get the cheapest bodies in the seats.
Most that I know didn't pay for training at a regional airline, or go to some sort of a school that spit out low time first officer candidates. We flight instructed, then flew night freight single pilot in twins, then regional turboprops, etc. or came from the military. The 1500 hour rule in the US wasn't needed because you needed 1200 for a 135 PIC letter and without multi time like that you weren't getting hired at a regional. The wages were still horrible but we could fly. The training included single engine VOR, single engine NDB (all the ILS's everywhere were always out in the sim), flight directors off. Air work was included, steep turns and stall recoveries. Granted, some of it was a bit much.
The training environment is different now but you've still got to train those basic skills. You oughta be able to hand fly the airplane, identify which engine has failed, and secure it. Know what a stall is, be it high altitude in a jet, or low altitude in a turboprop. The recovery from a stall is one of the first things we are taught. Stop the negative training, don't always fail the critical engine, and in the Q400 demonstrate stalls with and without the stick pusher. Of course all of this is driven by a monetary bottom line, and the desire to get the cheapest bodies in the seats.
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We have to remember that we are working in a commercial environment so ideally to the airline, there would be no pilots.
I finished training only 6 years ago and even I feel the aircraft I flew were out of date. Talking to the cadets now, they were telling me how they have autopilot and glass cockpits in their Diamonds. The only screen I had was a GPS and we weren't allowed to use it.
Now back to the original post which is about TransAsia and the trend towards the cause of many accidents due to low hours.
Let's think about this. How many hours did the guys have with the;
1. Asiana SFO accident?
2. AF 447
3. Air Asia 8501
I honestly feel it's the over reliance on automatics that's the culprit and pilots are merely managers nowadays. Surely the pilot of the TransAsia accident can remember the good old phrase "Dead leg Dead engine" but let's not forget, how we react in an actual emergency can be vastly different to how we think we would react.
I finished training only 6 years ago and even I feel the aircraft I flew were out of date. Talking to the cadets now, they were telling me how they have autopilot and glass cockpits in their Diamonds. The only screen I had was a GPS and we weren't allowed to use it.
Now back to the original post which is about TransAsia and the trend towards the cause of many accidents due to low hours.
Let's think about this. How many hours did the guys have with the;
1. Asiana SFO accident?
2. AF 447
3. Air Asia 8501
I honestly feel it's the over reliance on automatics that's the culprit and pilots are merely managers nowadays. Surely the pilot of the TransAsia accident can remember the good old phrase "Dead leg Dead engine" but let's not forget, how we react in an actual emergency can be vastly different to how we think we would react.
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We need the investigations of both these accidents (Trans asia and air asia), to have far reaching implications, and tangible results. The Trans Asia management will want someone to "Blame" (their words), and it not surprisingly, it wont be themselves, they have a scapegoat to shift 'blame' and therefore culpability/liability. They are responsible for creating the airline culture or environment where there was the potential for poor training and or recency to exist on THEIR flight decks and they did nothing about it. What is even worse, they were probably 100% compliant with inadequate outdated regulation at the time. Regulators in this case, (two fatal accidents in 7 months that could have been avoided) are clearly inadequate at regulating these companies. Both the companies and the regulators fail to face the industries new reality, low time pilots on the flight deck. Regulations as they stand are written at a time when experience was abundant, and to make it onto a flight deck, you had to be very experienced, or the son of a current chief pilot. Most of this stuff was written post world war 2! We face a new environment, we now have the situation where companies are quite happy to have 80hr pilots in the right hand seat, and they would lower this figure if they could save a few more bucks. Regulation needs to be updated to reflect this new flight deck dynamic, that is the first step, then airlines need to train for this new environment. The company is great at training them to press buttons, and read books. It is woefully inadequate at teaching them to manipulate the controls, in fact it discourages it! Why not use sim down time with the motion switched off to have "a pole around?" Why do we discourage that? Why do we have very restrictive rules in our books that tell them when they can switch the automatics off, but right next to that book sits the MEL that allows them to dispatch with the automatics not even working? What do they do during the bits they weren't allowed to hand fly?!
We need to support the pilots on this, as a unified international pilot group that has had enough of woefully inadequate company driven cost savings in safety resulting in the deaths of passengers and crew. We need to unify under IFALPA or another organisation and take it to them, get them to investigate properly, not just find a scape goat and try and pin it on the crew, or in this case, their estate, as they have paid for the companies poor standards, and the regulators inaction to improve those poor standards, with their lives.
If you think any other airline in the world would support you if you have an 'event', you are poorly informed, and will be very disappointed. those expensive company lawyers are there to protect the companies interests, and to divert liability, they are no there to protect the crew. The same with the insurance companies, they will employ all their assets to reduce their payouts, so who do you think they will gun for???
We need to support the pilots on this, as a unified international pilot group that has had enough of woefully inadequate company driven cost savings in safety resulting in the deaths of passengers and crew. We need to unify under IFALPA or another organisation and take it to them, get them to investigate properly, not just find a scape goat and try and pin it on the crew, or in this case, their estate, as they have paid for the companies poor standards, and the regulators inaction to improve those poor standards, with their lives.
If you think any other airline in the world would support you if you have an 'event', you are poorly informed, and will be very disappointed. those expensive company lawyers are there to protect the companies interests, and to divert liability, they are no there to protect the crew. The same with the insurance companies, they will employ all their assets to reduce their payouts, so who do you think they will gun for???
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Regrettably Lowkoon, in this neck of the woods, face saving is far more important than the truth.
Pilots will be blamed (and in TransAsia case it would seem rightly so).
But that is where it will stop.
The systemic failures of that company and/or the regulator won't come to light, not fully in the public domain at least, and the true cause of this horrible crash will go unchecked.
Gotta save face.
Pilots will be blamed (and in TransAsia case it would seem rightly so).
But that is where it will stop.
The systemic failures of that company and/or the regulator won't come to light, not fully in the public domain at least, and the true cause of this horrible crash will go unchecked.
Gotta save face.
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Respectfully Monster, these guys shouldn't be the scapegoats for this. They are as much victims as the passengers were. Hear me out on this one, these guys were the last link in an error chain, you know the theory of accidents as well as any of the other professionals in this forum, I am not going to rehash that. Lets look at all the variables associated with the pilot that "slotted the wrong donk." He was, like the rest of us, somewhere between being a complete muppet that should never have been allowed on an aircraft, let alone up the front, and the dux of The Empire Test Pilot School. He fits in between there somewhere. What chain of events led him, unsupported in a multi crew environment to mis identify the wrong engine? unlike Kegworth, any reduction in thrust would have been immediately noticeable, so why did they do it, and why didn't the other guy speak up?
Were they so
Badly trained?
Well trained but not current?
fixated on something else?
used to shutting down engine number one?
Did they have
Inadequate SOPs
Inadequate two crew training
Inadequate asymmetric training
Inadequate instrumentation
Inadequate maintenance support
Inadequate engine maintenance
Did they have a culture of "Dont write it up" - "Just take it back to TPE we will fix it there"?
In other words, how many holes had the company and the regulators eaten in the swiss cheese that these guys had been served up on the day? This investigation needs to go way further than blaming the guy who shut the engine down, they need to ask why the hell he did that.
Were they so
Badly trained?
Well trained but not current?
fixated on something else?
used to shutting down engine number one?
Did they have
Inadequate SOPs
Inadequate two crew training
Inadequate asymmetric training
Inadequate instrumentation
Inadequate maintenance support
Inadequate engine maintenance
Did they have a culture of "Dont write it up" - "Just take it back to TPE we will fix it there"?
In other words, how many holes had the company and the regulators eaten in the swiss cheese that these guys had been served up on the day? This investigation needs to go way further than blaming the guy who shut the engine down, they need to ask why the hell he did that.
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Mr Lowkoon,
Whilst I understand your thinking, we are not a unified pilot group, and every day our numbers are thinning are we are infiltrated with more and more inexperienced seat warmers. Very soon you'll be the minority voice of discontent.
We have persons flying in our ac taking our families who are not competent to do the job. But these incompetents cannot be fired.
I do not know for sure who you work for however you words could apply to many airlines.
Whilst I understand your thinking, we are not a unified pilot group, and every day our numbers are thinning are we are infiltrated with more and more inexperienced seat warmers. Very soon you'll be the minority voice of discontent.
We have persons flying in our ac taking our families who are not competent to do the job. But these incompetents cannot be fired.
I do not know for sure who you work for however you words could apply to many airlines.
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Lowkoon,
I agree a lot with your last post.
That Swiss cheese was over ripe.
But regrettably, in the interests of saving face, the root cause of this accident won't see the light of day. It will place firmly the blame on the pilots, with perhaps their last sim instructor, check captain coming in for a severe official bollocking.
Mark my words, this is ASIA.
The company and the regulator WILL NOT be held accountable.
The truth is not important here. Face is.
And with the growth in passenger traffic, and the "heirarchy at all costs" culture that is the very core of this culture, these recent accidents are merely a tolling bell for what is in store to come.
Shoot me down if you want. I'm not PC? Never will be.
Call it as I see it.
I agree a lot with your last post.
That Swiss cheese was over ripe.
But regrettably, in the interests of saving face, the root cause of this accident won't see the light of day. It will place firmly the blame on the pilots, with perhaps their last sim instructor, check captain coming in for a severe official bollocking.
Mark my words, this is ASIA.
The company and the regulator WILL NOT be held accountable.
The truth is not important here. Face is.
And with the growth in passenger traffic, and the "heirarchy at all costs" culture that is the very core of this culture, these recent accidents are merely a tolling bell for what is in store to come.
Shoot me down if you want. I'm not PC? Never will be.
Call it as I see it.
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4 accidents since 1995! Yea Trans asia is training their pilots to a high standard!
Highflyer40...yes um putting the whole region in the same basket! It is well known that with all of the growth that has happened in Asia, management is more than happy to drop the standards and put any warm body in the seat.
Look at the USA where they now have a minimum 1500 hour limit to sit in the right seat! What is it over here? Zero hours for cx. 250 hours you considered experienced!
Yes I'm going to paint the whole region with this paintbrush!
Highflyer40...yes um putting the whole region in the same basket! It is well known that with all of the growth that has happened in Asia, management is more than happy to drop the standards and put any warm body in the seat.
Look at the USA where they now have a minimum 1500 hour limit to sit in the right seat! What is it over here? Zero hours for cx. 250 hours you considered experienced!
Yes I'm going to paint the whole region with this paintbrush!
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The company and the regulator WILL NOT be held accountable.
Money talks. Business as usual. Nothing to see here, move along. Etc.
As long as the paying folks are kept in the dark and keep pitching up at the check-in counter. Our memories are so short anyway. Transavia crash? That's sooo last week's news. Who remembers that stuff?
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We cannot even fly visual approaches or raw data take off and Ils approaches.
The bean counters are going to remove our only handling sim.
Now this is happening at one of the better "trained" I mean "checked" Asian airlines.
Yes Cxhk you are right...the airlines in Asia are all spending money in training...at leased the FAA has done something about making sure that the young pilots have to get exposed to some sort of character building and experience before they sit in the right hand seat of a passangers jet!
The bean counters are going to remove our only handling sim.
Now this is happening at one of the better "trained" I mean "checked" Asian airlines.
Yes Cxhk you are right...the airlines in Asia are all spending money in training...at leased the FAA has done something about making sure that the young pilots have to get exposed to some sort of character building and experience before they sit in the right hand seat of a passangers jet!
