Originally Posted by
KRUSTY 34
Well L39 Guy,
I’m sincerely hopeful that as part of your instructing duties you are not responsible for matters concerning Human Factors. Hopefully we will never be thrust into such an unexpected and mind numbing situation as befell these poor crews.
I spent part of my instructing time in standards, i.e. upholding the standards. And part of the "standard" is human factors such as being able to cope with emergencies complete with bells and whistles going off, the startle factor, unfamiliarity of the situation, etc. In fact, one of the interesting things teaching flying in the military jets is that everyone wears oxygen masks and one can hear the other person breathing. And sure enough, when giving a student an emergency such as a simulated engine failure, one could hear the breathing rate increase - perfectly natural and visceral response. It was always instructive to tell the student to listen to their breathing as a means to settle things down.
I guess I am kind of old fashioned; I expect professional pilots - those who are being paid by someone to transport them from A to B - to be able to cope with emergencies. That is part of the contract between the passenger and the airline and the pilot. I expect that the pilot be properly trained and evaluated to handle the known emergencies - that is the responsibility of the airline and the regulator. I expect that professional pilots know their emergencies, particularly the memory drills, 12 months of the year not just before simulator sessions. And that might mean dragging out the checklist during cruise to go over an emergency or two just to keep them fresh. That is all part of being a "professional" much like I expect an emergency room physician to know their emergencies.
BTW, there is no such thing as an "expected" emergency. Emergencies happen out of the blue often with no warning. That's the nature of the beast and the startle factor is always there.
Nobody wants to be thrusted into emergency situations but they happen in aircraft - that's the nature of the business, systems fail, parts break and you simply can't pull over to the side of the road to figure it out. But this MCAS situation is not mind numbing - what is mind numbing is a double engine failure after take-off, flying into volcanic dust at night, losing all of the hydraulics in an aircraft that supposedly can't fly without them (United DC10, Sioux City), etc. None of these emergencies had checklists or an opportunity to be exposed to them in a simulator first.
An unreliable airspeed after take-off complete with stick shaker is not a "mind numbing" emergency. There is a memory checklist for it, it is something that one could have or should have seen in a simulator as part of getting a type rating, and it is a really easy emergency - magic off, set and attitude and power setting then get the checklist out. Then, and always, fly the aircraft. Ain't that hard regardless of how many bells and whistles are sounding. Not doing this simple emergency drill prior to raising the flaps and MCAS starting up (about two minutes after take-off) would have lead to an entirely different outcome, as the Lion Air incident flight showed. I am not going to repeat the rest of the stuff about stab trim runaway, etc. as that has been beaten to death on this forum already.