Originally Posted by
Uplinker
I am not disagreeing with you but if it was a trim fight, then why could they not keep the aircraft flying (albeit very untidily), and keep on feeding opposing trim inputs to return to land?
Why were the pilots in fear and panicked? Why did they not run their memory drills?
I would like to think that faced with this problem, I would think right bugger this : “pitch - power - speed”, now what the hell is going on? But would I ?
I think SIM training needs to be seriously looked at. UAS (and trim runaway) drills are pre-briefed, and the actions explained. Then into the SIM and a UAS event occurs. Unsurprisingly, the pilots do the drill and recover the aircraft. Tick. Next item.
But UAS is not done every SIM visit every 6 months. It might only be done once every 2 or 3 years, as the training cycle rotates. Even then, it will be one of several training elements the pilots will do in that SIM session, and each pilot will typically fly just one of each exercise each, then move on to the next training item.
Just as we always have to do an engine failure at take-off, a single engine ILS to a go-around, then a single engine NPA, I think that we should always practice situations where we have to revert to basic pitch - power - speed. No autopilots, no flight directors, no auto-thrust, no speed reading/UAS. And it should be sprung on us with no prior warning. Recovery from UAS needs to be an instinctive reflex.
(For Single engine, read OEI.)
The enormous elephant in the room is training. Luckily I was from the old school where we had to hand fly a lot, it was trained and encouraged, I still practice. Our organisation recently decided to do away with circling approaches because the GNSS will always be available... until it isn't because of traffic, ATC requiring a visual approach or circuit etc. Circuits are now back on the menu in sims, after an absence of 5 or 6 years as line crews are actually having to do them instead of having a runway aligned VNAV path to 500' or less. We had been deskilled, and it was recognised we needed to bring these skills back.
Unfortunately executive level management across the industry have seen automation as their nirvana, it reduces training costs if you get a pilot to stick in an autopilot at 500' and disconnect at the minima. It can be a measured skill, and therefore converted into a KPI for automated compliance monitoring, which equates to a the safest possible operation in the executives mind. The issue is the industry has deskilled it's pilots in the quest for the minimum training footprint. It works until those rusty or non-existent skills are required on a dark and stormy night. Loss of control is the major source of fatalities in the industry. Until there is a genuine commitment to keeping up the basic flying skills, these type of accidents will occur. Boeing didn't help with the MAX.