Originally Posted by
Zeffy
It remains disturbing that the EVA pilots apparently did nothing in the vertical dimension after hearing "pull up" warnings from the EGPWS for seven seconds.
Non-pilot here, where did you get this information that they did nothing? I'm looking at the GPWS data and it seems to disagree with your claim:
https://dms.ntsb.gov/public/62000-62...361/624523.pdf
- one second after the pull up warning started the autopilot has disengaged.
- two seconds later the auto-throttles went from MODE (5) to THR HOLD (4)
- three seconds later the auto-throttles went from THR HOLD (4) to SPEED (1)
- until the pull up warnings the engines have been at around 79% N1. After those 7 seconds the engines reached 91% N1. 10 seconds later they reached 94% N1.
- until the pull up warnings they were climbing at around 1500 feet per minute. 7 seconds later they were climbing at about 3500 feet per minute. 3 seconds later they reached a vertical speed of about 4200 feet per minute.
- their pitch attitude was 7 degrees up when the warnings started. After 7 seconds it was 12 degrees up.
I doubt all that would have been possible if they "did nothing in the vertical direction".
I really don't understand the tendency on these forums to direct as much blame/responsibility as possible towards the pilots, even after the preliminary report clearly listed mistakes on the ATC's side, and didn't list any on the pilot side, not even recommendations. And the latest documents released by NTSB paint a similar picture. I noticed the same tendency in the discussions about the 737 MAX.
Yes, it's clear the EVA pilots lost situational awareness. But that ATC controller lost situational awareness much earlier and, like a human version of MCAS, repeatedly tried to kill them (of course, not intentionally). So it's not surprising the pilots became extremely confused.
It seems that controller was not trained for the northern area near the mountains so she didn't know the minimum altitudes in that area. So initially she kept telling them to stop climbing. The controller responsible for that northern area had to yell at her to watch the MVAs, when he realized the aircraft is too low and she's doing nothing about it.
Along with the GPWS, that's probably what saved the aircraft. Another controller paying attention.
Some quotes from her interview:
Ms. Hocutt said she was thinking about other duties, still scanning, still working with other aircraft, when she looked back at EVA015 and saw the aircraft was not turning south as instructed. She instructed the pilot of EVA015 to go southbound; she just wanted to get EVA015 out of the Burbank sectors airspace and back into her own airspace. She was not familiar with the MVAs in the Burbank sector because that was not her airspace. Even on an east flow, they are always topping Burbank’s traffic so the MVA did not cross her mind.
Ms. Hocutt did not know why she turned EVA015 left instead of right; she just wanted EVA015 to go southbound. [...] The Burbank controller had yelled over to her and said watch out for the MVAs with EVA015. She said that she knew she needed to be higher with EVA015 when she looked at the MVA map. Everybody in the TRACON heard what was going on because she was talking loudly and using expletives between transmissions.
The document with all the interviews:
https://dms.ntsb.gov/public/62000-62...361/624520.pdf
Her interview is at page 10.