Originally Posted by
Bend alot
With respect-
You were the only pilot that responded to what "would you do" that maintained the flying pilot position. You gave very little tasks to the non flying pilot and you even did not acknowledge the input that they would have given you. Your feed back was of a one man crew.
Both others that replied handed over to the FO to fly, I expect as they had the accurate instruments not just air speed but pitch - the pilots pitch was incorrect!
Again the pilots pitch was incorrect.
With respect -
As prelude, we need to correct one misunderstanding here. There was nothing wrong with the attitude indicators. The only manner in which the Captain’s pitch was incorrect or not was whether he established the correct pitch or not on his fully functioning attitude indicator.
There is no single right answer to this malfunction. Much depends on how quickly the crew perceives what is actually transpiring, what is working, and what isn’t. The major test of what responses were acceptable is whether those actions ultimately resulted in the safe landing of the aircraft.
The setup for this scenario was what would I have done if I were placed in the Ethiopian Captain’s position. May I remind you that he was given not only a malfunctioning aircraft but also a 350-hour First Officer? One of the important decisions a Captain must make, once the situation is stabilized, is to designate the flying and non-flying pilot. Yes, with a reasonably experienced First Officer, it would have been prudent to designate that person as the flying pilot once it was determined that he had the better instruments. However, it should be stated that there are certain real challenges to flying an aircraft with an AOA that is generating an erroneous stall signal due to the various ancillary system effects (I won’t detail them here, so you just need to accept my word on that). Unless this particular 350-hour FO had previously demonstrated to me that he had strong hand flying skills, then it is very likely that I would have continued to fly the aircraft for much of the remaining flight.