Flew many years of my life as TRE/TRI in line training. I never in "old days", or recent times, permitted F/O trainees, to use auroland and autothrust for approach, after reaching the vicinity of the IAF. Everyone can push buttons, but I want to see a demonstration of basic flying skills for F/Os... xxx As far as captains (upgrade training) are concerned, yes, I would admit aurothrust and autoland, if weather conditions so required, and would definitely still require that captain to demonstrate his manual flying skills in most of the approaches during the training. xxx Just my own technique. Happy contrails
Too much reliance on automation often leads to complacency. Probably 90-95% of the time, FBW does what it is supposed to do...emotion is taken out of the equation and the aircraft is flown following very specific laws. That 5-10% though is what is worrying. Thats when 'bad things' happen ( I didnt say 'accident' because in many cases the end result could have been avoided ) - Pilots find themselves in a unfamiliar situation...decisions needs to be made very quickly....emotion enters the equation...and the rest is history. Appropriate training and discipline are crucial in our world of man-machine interfaces.
I don't think anyone wants more alerts as these just detract away from the "actual" problem alerts. Consistent ones would at least be a start. I think Rainboe mentioned a visual cue that was not too bright and could be missed, not that it means it had anything to do with this accident.
To say just fly the plane, is too simplistic, unless you want a robot in the cockpit then you will always get a human element. Sometimes the human element is a good thing, as in, I don't think many programmers would have coded in a "Land in the Hudson river" routine.
There are some striking CRM similarities with this accident and the Staines BEA Trident accident 25 years ago. Yes, there are some striking differences too - more on that later.
Both aircraft were commanded by a high time training captain
Both aircraft had a relatively junior co-pilot in the R/H seat
Both aircraft had a third pilot on board - the Trident flew with 3 pilots as a norm (incredibly, the Trident had an experienced on type captain positioning in the jumpseat)
Both aircraft suffered an in-flight event that led to the crash that, in itself, did not render the aircraft un-flyable
Both aircraft crashed as a result of a lack of airspeed
The differences:
The BEA had just taken off - the THY was just about to land
The BEA suffered a self-inflicted mishap - the THY apparently suffered perhaps an insidious, but never-the-less evidently noticeable malfunction of a Rad Alt
The BEA had a stall warning and stall recovery system (considered adequate at the time, but no real automation as we have today) - the THY had a modern aircraft with most of the recognised safety measures
The common ground:
In the case of the BEA a refusal to accept the situation that was presented to them, even to the point of cancelling the stall warning and protection. Whether this was the case with the THY .....? What does seem an absolute parallel is the apparent total lack of monitoring by the flight deck crew, AND, as was mentioned in the AIB report of the BEA, the distinct possibility that the junior crew might have been reluctant to report to, or comment to the captain that things weren't as they should be.
History repeats with monotonous regularity.
Last edited by TRC; 4th Mar 2009 at 21:52.
Reason: spelling......
Highlights (or lowlights, pick your preference) translated;
TA announces no reports of failing radalts exist
two radalts have been serviced as scheduled in july 2008
One of the radalts failed at feb 5, but was repaired immediately
a day after the crash TA have already told that there was a defective master caution light earlier, which was resolved more than 8 flights before it's last
Which makes me question: Apparently ( assuming the black box didn't make things up ) the same error has occured twice, without anyone noticing !!!. Which may have been accidentally the FO being PF with manual landing and the CPT not watching the altimeter.
..and Repairs are not carried out in such a way that it keeps working for a month.. Is that Technician's bad luck or lack of skill ?
For those that don't know already (quite a few judging by some comments), the Shaker is not the stall, its the stall warning and occurs at about 1.05vs (obviously in highly dynamic situations this may change
Thanks for the comments. Key word is "dynamic situation may change". Re. the stick shaker: You can fly at 1.05vs all day or you may stall in 2 seconds. Not a very smart alerter if you ask me. This suggested alert would sense the instantaneous flight dynamics (keyword: 6 degrees-of-freedom AHRS) and compute time-to-stall in real time for the current a/c configuration. Technically possible today, and presumably could be commercially available in five years at the most. The actual alert might be aural, or a stick "nudge", or whatever.
Thanks to the press, the fearful flying public are now going to think that a faulty altimeter is capable of causing a 737 to crash.
Between this thread, the Turkish pilots association, and the loose tongue of the inquiry board last week, the fearful flying public probably thinks about a hundred different things were responsible for the crash by now.
Topslide6, in an ideal world maybe a bit more than 1 yr in Command. But. . . you & I both know that ideal doesn't equal what is commercialy ideal ,or commercialy expedient. Merely offered as food for thought, along with the fact that LTC4500hr all with one company /trainee Capt 3500hr all with one company /First Officer anywhere between 300 & 3500hr all with one company doesn't perhaps constitute what I would call "experience". . . . . but then again neither does crewing your airline entirely with ex fighter jocks QED.
757 Driver I agree with your comment concerning Hands on the controls during approach.
if your hand is on the throttles and you feel them retard your eyes automatically will go to the ASI even if u are not it the loop. it will make you think WTF is this thing doing.
I know I should get the FCOM out, but for a quick answer...
On a single channel coupled approach, does the A/T still look at the Radalt? So it will still retard the throttles in the same manner and height as on a Dual channel autoland? And who's Radalt does it take the information from?
When flying at about 1,950 feet (594 meteres) the plane's left radio altitude meter indicated the Boeing 737-800 was flying at minus 8 feet, prompting the automatic pilot to shut down the engines, he added.
"The crew initially did not react to these events," Vollenhoven said. When an alarm went off that the plane's speed would drop below the minimum, the pilots reacted and reignited the engines.
ballyboley I know I should get the FCOM out, but for a quick answer...
On a single channel coupled approach, does the A/T still look at the Radalt? So it will still retard the throttles in the same manner and height as on a Dual channel autoland? And who's Radalt does it take the information from?
I cannot speak for the B738, but on the B732/3/4 when doing a single chanel approach, there is no autothrottle retard/flare mode, the aircraft will simply fly itself into the runway at the touchdown zone....RA has no effect on A/T when single chanel operations.
One point I am interested in is were these crews previously form a B732/3/4/5 type aircraft where a speed drop on the "old" annaloge ASI would have been a lot more noticable, and the information depicted on the B738 w.r.t. speed tape is not as quickly noticable and thus its depiction was not caught amongst the various other information given to the crew with the NG CRT's.
But the Turkish media will look for a different answer as their heroes certainly we trained qualified capable and not doing the "Aviate" thing. TRE or not , no wake turbulence issue, no wind shear or earthquake, these guys failed their primary function, and maybe it will give us insight to Turkish Airlines procedures and training for future analysis. There are airlines that can not fly into the EU for obvious reasons, should we reevaluate this airline ?
AFAIK, it still takes the Retard from No1RA and the Flare from No2RA. TRC raised an interesting point
Quote:
the distinct possibility that the junior crew might have been reluctant to report to, or comment to the captain that things weren't as they should be.
I wonder if the Turkish culture is anything like the Far East culture? You don't make the Captain lose face, you don't tell hinm his mistakes. We have seen copilots prepared to sit there and die rather than take a stand for safety (and see themselves canned when they survive). I gather it still goes on in the Far East. Is Turkish culture remotely like this?
Yes, sorry, I had a quick look but lost the will to trawl through all the posts for the info.
Most interesting, and I wasn't quite sure about the retard mode, I guess we get so used to disconnecting A/P and A/T that you never think what would happen if the A/T stayed in.
I see the point regarding the analogue instruments, but personally I still think a dropping speed trend is pretty noticable even on the TV screens - we'll need to see what comes out of the CVR for the full picture...
me neither,no manuals at home, but from what is written here on the hallowed pages YES, YES , RadAlt 1 (Capt)
