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Pax sue Boeing in DBX crash

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Pax sue Boeing in DBX crash

Old 21st Aug 2017, 10:11
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Originally Posted by Ian W
I (unfortunately) can remember when elevators all had operators, when trains always had drivers and when there were no automated cars. This court action will hasten the demise of the job of pilot.

(And before anyone asks - yes I would fly in an unpiloted aircraft - the one I am in is currently on full automatic operation over the East Atlantic and the automatics will be in control until a few hundred feet on finals in Atlanta, and that could easily become an autoland.)
I, too, remember those days. Tomorrow I will fly my last flight as a 747 Captain.

Unlike you, I would NOT fly in an unpiloted airplane. While you can point to the vast majority of uneventful flights, a significant majority of them were uneventful ONLY because of pilot intervention. The simplest of ATC events - a deviation for other traffic - cannot today be easily accomplished automatically. In the US, we cannot even use CPDLC in 99% of airspace. While ADS-B may make controllers' lives easier, it has no similar benefits for pilots - yet.

The next level of intervention is that for weather avoidance. An autopilot cannot rely on radar returns, because they, too, are not reliable enough for complete confidence. At one end of the spectrum, an autopilot would chase false or spurious returns in circles forever; at the other end it would fly right through an area of visible weather that does not show on the radar.

Finally, there is the [in]ability to deal with non-normal and emergency situations. These are the times when an experienced pilot is most valuable and most needed. Even a 'drone operator' in some control station on the ground would be hard-pressed to analyze some of the situations I have dealt with in the air. Add to that the fact that one of those emergency situations - or a result of some other failure - may be loss of communication with the ground operator!

If you want to risk your Amazon Prime package to a drone, that's fine. It just isn't a reasonable option for passenger airplanes in the foreseeable future.
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 10:15
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Originally Posted by Capn Bloggs
What it should hasten is more sim time for exploring/practising weirdo stuff so we can better cope with a out-of-left-field event such as this.
Perhaps if the court action was against the airline, but it is against the manufacturer. The airline does not want to 'pay' for more sim time, so will agree it is the manufacturer's 'fault' for making it difficult for the flight crews. Then that leads to the reasoning I gave above.
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 10:55
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Originally Posted by Intruder
I, too, remember those days. Tomorrow I will fly my last flight as a 747 Captain.

Unlike you, I would NOT fly in an unpiloted airplane. While you can point to the vast majority of uneventful flights, a significant majority of them were uneventful ONLY because of pilot intervention. The simplest of ATC events - a deviation for other traffic - cannot today be easily accomplished automatically. In the US, we cannot even use CPDLC in 99% of airspace. While ADS-B may make controllers' lives easier, it has no similar benefits for pilots - yet.

The next level of intervention is that for weather avoidance. An autopilot cannot rely on radar returns, because they, too, are not reliable enough for complete confidence. At one end of the spectrum, an autopilot would chase false or spurious returns in circles forever; at the other end it would fly right through an area of visible weather that does not show on the radar.

Finally, there is the [in]ability to deal with non-normal and emergency situations. These are the times when an experienced pilot is most valuable and most needed. Even a 'drone operator' in some control station on the ground would be hard-pressed to analyze some of the situations I have dealt with in the air. Add to that the fact that one of those emergency situations - or a result of some other failure - may be loss of communication with the ground operator!

If you want to risk your Amazon Prime package to a drone, that's fine. It just isn't a reasonable option for passenger airplanes in the foreseeable future.
But the point is that more cases are being reported of the flight crew being unable to recover when automation hands them the bag of bolts. The events you quote are completely true; for today's automation that was designed to be an aid to an experienced pilot not a automation that must be obeyed. But now we see airline management insisting that the advice must be obeyed, and pilots who appear less capable when the magenta line is pulled from their grasp. This is leading to a significant change in design specification for avionics systems. They will not chase in circles as you suggest. You are doing the equivalent of comparing car cruise controls from the 1990's to a google self-driving car.

The more manufacturers are hit by litigation due to flight crew misunderstanding/mishandling decision support tools the more those tools become fully capable automation and the role of the flight crew is diminished. Eventually, all that is left is automation and as the beancounters will tell you at every opportunity, automation does not need 401K or pensions.
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 13:45
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What it should hasten is more sim time for exploring/practising weirdo stuff so we can better cope with a out-of-left-field event such as this.

What I've seen over 35 years causes me some discomfort regarding pilot training & pilot performance. Ian W makes some excellent points commenting on what is becoming an all too common and perhaps unwelcome culture. After Air Taxis, Biz-jets and even crop spraying I found myself in a B732. Very basic nav sets and some very basic destinations. Piloting skills trained & encouraged, strict but reasonably brief SOP's, daily demonstration of those manual skills. VOR nav, DME descent planning and CDA being the norm. SA was always a priority in 4 dimensions.
This culture was carried forward onto EFIS/EICAS a/c. We didn't throw airmanship & piloting skills out of the window, we used the automatics as aids to reduce the workload, improve SA, make our management of the flight more accurate, efficient & safer. In other words the basic skill foundations were maintained & strengthened, not diluted. Management was pilot orientated, but also with attention to a budget. The new kit, all the bells & whistles were fun to use. We already had the basic piloting foundation, we were now taught about the automatics in depth and how to use them as a tool. The philosophy was NOT to transfer command to them, but use them to make our life easier. The pilot was still the boss.
I then moved on to young growing airlines who had entry pilots direct onto EFIS/EICAS a/c. The TR course was very much automatics orientated. Fortunately, the destinations were very varied from full blown auto land to cloud-break NDB's. Thus manual flying was encouraged and developed on the line. IMHO there was still too much magenta line following, both lateral & vertical. The monitoring of profile & SA was not good enough; it had not been stressed nor taught, but at least the guys could manoeuvre the a/c manually when the tarmac was in sight.
I then moved on to airlines that had also transferred from basic technology to new bells and whistles at the same time as rapid expansion. During the TR course 90% of attention was automatics, rigid SOP's profiles. They were taught only one way to do anything; rather than learn what the systems were capable of, i.e. in depth knowledge. They had no idea what options there were; there was only one way to do it. Thus if the world threw a googly at you you had an armoury of knowledge to choose the correct weapon to win the battle. Added to that, manual flying was not encouraged. Thus the basic piloting foundation we had, before learning the new technology, is missing. You don't fly a Boeing like a Cessna. On a normal day the SOP worked fine, you could be in your comfort zone; but the pax expect us to have a broad comfort zone, not a narrow one. They expect us to be able to bat away googlies. So did the old pilot orientated FLT OPs management. It seems nowadays, as Ian W surmises, there is an attitude that things will not go so wrong and thus the depth of skill & knowledge & training does not need to be so comprehensive.
That is a very dangerous slippery slope, especially as the command upgrade, and cadet entry, threshold has been lowered so much. IMHO there house is built on sand. The basic foundations are not a strong and durable as they used to be, and should be. A strong stormy day stresses those foundations close to their limits.
I was always astonished at some F/O's reaction to a new scenario. Occasionally there was not a rigid SOP, just a 'normal way of doing it'. Circumstances changed and I might utilise a technique from the FCTM. It worked fine, of course; or it was just good old basic piloting. The F/O would comment afterwards, "are we allowed to do that?" They saw the good common sense, understood the following explanation and wondered why they felt it was not allowed. They were so used to being told every minutiae and thus didn't recognise when some liberal thinking was necessary & possible.
Earlier in this ever circular discussion that has been aired for years on Prune, someone made a very valid point.
"The autopilot is not there to control the a/c because you can't. The automatics are there as a tool & aid, not to be in command."

Last edited by RAT 5; 21st Aug 2017 at 13:56.
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 13:53
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Originally Posted by Herod
There is always a lot of talk about loss of flying skills. Yes, the accountants like to see automatic flight where possible, since it saves money. However, automatics should be considered aids. Maybe airlines should encourage manual flight below, say, 1000' in good conditions. In this case, had PF been using manual control, including manual throttle, might this have been prevented? Caveat: I last flew an airliner in 2004.
Did you mean to say above 1000?
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 16:18
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No, I meant below 1000'. Too much emphasis on autopilot in immediately after take-off, and out at the last minute. The automatics are great, and necessary, when the weather is bad, but are they really needed in clear conditions? As for above 1000', the automatics can fly better and cheaper than the human, especially in the cruise. In retrospect, perhaps I should have said below 5,000'.
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 16:50
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That's a little more agreeable to me. Below 1000, there's barely any flying left to do. No power changes, no trim changes (due to flaps or otherwise), no airspeed changes, no vertical speed or altitude captures, no course or glideslope intercepts, no heading changes... no nothing. You're just handed a steady state condition and have to maintain it.

If we're talking about that being the hand-flying envelope to increase to, that's truly pathetic. This is not a slam on you, but on the situation that has led to you saying that. That's why I thought you accidentally inverted the above/below in your previous post. Some are concerned about the prospect of riding on pilotless airplanes, but don't realize that we already are.
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 17:36
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I've been flying Airbus types for 18 years (and F-27's and the like before). I have never followed a line, magenta or otherwise. Beam bars, Flight Directors, yes, but following a line? What is meant by that? Is it a navigation thing?

As for fully automated flight of large jets full of passengers, I just cannot see that happening within the next hundred years. I have sat there with colleagues and pondered this issue, and we always arrive at the same conclusion. Uniformly.

I do think that those advocates of non-pilot flight are both drastically ill-informed and perhaps envious. The term sky-god is ludicrous for today's commercial pilot. We are average people, with an unusual skill-set. Our level of intervention with the flight of an airliner is high, as can be the number of judgement calls.Try programming a suitable set of diagnostics and responses for a burst tyre at high speed, say 15 knots before V1. Considerations such as fuel lines, hydraulics, gear retraction, climb performance, continuation of flight landing performance with a variety of damage possibilities again involving fuel and/or hydraulics, return to overweight landing, request for runway inspection, etc. The list is long. And meanwhile the aircraft needs to be flown safely in possible bad weather. Most parts of the world do not have, and will unlikely ever have decent radar for weather. And even the US has its limitations.

I do agree that the standard of airmanship has diminished amongst some of the new cadets, which is carried through to the first 3,000 hours or so of airline flying. And I agree that the use of automation, although necessary, has lowered our hand-flying skills and scan efficiency.

Much can be improved, but is unlikely to be, due to commercial considerations. Air safety may well decline. However, airliners without pilots? Or Air Traffic Controllers for that matter? Impossible within the foreseeable future.
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 18:16
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Originally Posted by RAT 5
This, in my opinion, was an accident waiting to happen. Over reliance on automation causing complacency, lack of training,

In some cases that is proved to be true: however, these were not inexpereinced pilots. They had flown other less automated types.

Flaps20
CHECK THRUST
Positive rate - gear up.
If you do and say this, you will live.


No doubt this is how they had been trained on other types, as it is pretty standard, especially with less automated types. The physics haven't changed.

I often wonder why pilots bin their experience from previous days when they are told to 'let the automatics do it for you, stop cross checking': 'follow the FD' etc.etc.
I am afraid it is even more basic than this: Power Attitude Trim is(/was/will be) taught and is the panacea, no matter what aircraft you fly. (Mine was solo on a C150 to left seat on the 747 and 777 for a legacy carrier). Never mind all the (distracting) FMA calls, which hardly anyone gets correct, the basic procedure still works (and was not followed in this case):
- Hand on the THR LVRs
- Straight Arm (whilst communicating to the other guy your intentions)
- Wait for the engines to spool up (pointers moving towards Max THR)
- When the other guy calls ROTATE, smoothly select the correct attitude
There is plenty of time to select the TOGA mode when airborne as the runway will give a good indication of which direction you should be following! And after a big breath, read the FMAs for the subsequent board of inquiry.

No, these bozos did nothing correctly. EK, not BOEING, should be in the dock for this one and MacDonald's should have a couple of new burger flippers. They should never be allowed near another aircraft.
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 18:33
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Originally Posted by RoyHudd

I do agree that the standard of airmanship has diminished amongst some of the new cadets, which is carried through to the first 3,000 hours or so of airline flying. And I agree that the use of automation, although necessary, has lowered our hand-flying skills and scan efficiency.
What's supposed to change in the airman after the 3000th hour of taking the controls established on the localizer and glideslope, on-speed and configured?
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 20:58
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Originally Posted by safetypee
PM, CB, not that the tp community needs defending, but it may help the wider audience if alternative views of the design, development, and certification processes were researched.
Much of the success of our industry stem from these activities, as it does from operational feedback and learning from previous events.
Maybe I have been a little unfair. Test pilots will have helped develop, test and improve many systems including those seen and unseen on all aircraft. But part of the process must be to include the rationale behind the way a system works. We are just given a "Push button X and this will or will not happen". We are not supplied with the story behind the logic. Surely communication to the end user should be part of their remit?
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 21:47
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A friend of mine in a British airline recently converted to the A380. During route operations has never flown the aircraft with manual thrust control, strict SOP bans manual practice in any circumstances. Apart from takeoff and initial climb,has only "flown" the aircraft manually when established on final approach, normally well below 1000ft. As a passenger I find this frightening.
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Old 21st Aug 2017, 21:51
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One thing to say.

QF32 without humans on the flight deck?
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Old 22nd Aug 2017, 00:33
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I think you underestimate what could be done with avionics these days. The more 'cruise pilots' show themselves unable to recover from relatively benign events like loss of airspeed indication, the more it becomes sensible for the avionics to do the work and not even go into a degraded mode (alternate law) where the pilot need be involved. There are now adaptive avionics that will allow military aircraft to recover after extreme and random battle damage as if they are flying normally. So do not make the mistake of underestimating how far automation and autonomous aircraft have come. Every time a human pilot screws up and loses the aircraft the argument is made again that the automatics could/would have made a better job of recovery had they been programmed to do so...
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Old 22nd Aug 2017, 02:03
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This line of argument is certainly plausible, plus the freight services provide a tailor made entry ramp for field testing the concept. The ATC interface will need some work though.
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Old 22nd Aug 2017, 04:30
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Ian W, that argument may have be made but in no way proven: you base your case on (rare) situations where the automatics have failed and pilots have failed to intervene correctly. Who knows how a fully automatic system would have responded Hardly convincing!

Similarly your earlier post spoke of being on board an aircraft in fully automatic operation. No you weren't. The autopilot was human programmed and under full human control as was every aspect of decision-making for the entire flight including failure cases.
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Old 22nd Aug 2017, 07:09
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One other thing puzzles me about this accident. Admittedly, I don't have access to the CVR tapes, but according to the FDR, the gear was selected "up" some six seconds after the go-around was started. The aircraft reached a max RA height of 85'. Was "positive climb" ever spoken, or the "gear up" command given? Again my caveat: I've been out of the business over twelve years.
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Old 22nd Aug 2017, 07:25
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Don't know the answer to that Herod but, before the "Gear Up" order is given by PF, we require a positive climb indicated on the Radio Altimeter, VSI and Baro altimeter. One or two out of the three isn't good enough. It is the task of PM to observe those criteria and make that call. I also brief that we may receive a Config Warning if the aircraft temporarily touches down on the runway during the go around, this is a normal temporary consequence due to the landing flap and gear configuration. That Config Warning can be mistaken for a Fire Warning though, rather distracting if you're not expecting it.
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Old 22nd Aug 2017, 07:37
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Battlefield "get-you-home" modes do show what is possible and it is clever stuff. But we are talking here about an autothrottle system that appears to have functioned as designed. Unfortunately, it was not what the handling pilot anticipated and by the time the pilot monitoring noticed, too late. So this means that these pilots did not know how to do a manual go-around or perform a rejected landing. So has this been forgotten or was it never taught? And have these procedures been practiced by Emirates' training department and acceptance pilots in a 777? If not, something has been overlooked. What else has been forgotten? That aircraft in their fleet will not perform as expected means there is something deficient in the user. They in turn may ask Boeing why the documentation of autothrottle modes were not fully described or there again, maybe they were and their impact was not fully understood.

Talking of fully autonomous aircraft, the flight control software is only one part of the project and let's face it, what we have is still seriously lacking. With the exception of flight in smooth air through fog, I've not flown an aircraft where the automatics are more capable than Mk. I humans. Flight through rough air, windsheer, strong crosswinds are all situations where the automatics perform worse than humans. And if we want to take automation further, who will write the algorithms to determine where you point it, how high and how low, and when you go? We haven't got the existing stuff sorted out yet. Get that done and then work on the future.
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Old 22nd Aug 2017, 07:54
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Originally Posted by cessnapete
A friend of mine in a British airline recently converted to the A380. During route operations has never flown the aircraft with manual thrust control, strict SOP bans manual practice in any circumstances. Apart from takeoff and initial climb,has only "flown" the aircraft manually when established on final approach, normally well below 1000ft. As a passenger I find this frightening.
That's because you practice in the simulator and not on a revenue leg with pax on board.
That comment may have been taken out of context.

My first captain on my first jet coined the term "pilot stuff".
As in once in a while you'll be called upon to do "pilot stuff".
Most of the time you sit there looking out the window enjoying the world going by essentially waiting for the next time you'd have to do some "pilot stuff".
Whenever we had a non-normal condition creep up inside or outside of the airplane he'd kinda shrug his shoulders and say " it's time to do some pilot stuff".
This includes malfunctions, weather, arrivals or departure procedures going pear shaped on you.
In the above discussion we're getting bogged down in the procedure bs technique argument.
We should never forget we get paid to do the occasional "pilot stuff".
The airplane can be on autopilot but the pilot isn't.

So we have a fender bender in traffic.
What do we do? Blame the car/driver in front of us?
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