Originally Posted by
Uplinker
Thank goodness they somehow escaped a horrible CFIT.
I didn't see in the BEA report whether the crew had listened to the ATIS and written it down on a 'bug card'. Nor if they had set the ATIS QNH on the PIC altimeter, and then returned PIC altimeter to standard pressure. Both were SOP in airlines I flew with.
When instructed by ATC to change to QNH, a cross-check is made that this agrees with the ATIS figure obtained previously. It would appear that the easyJet nearby had cross-checked the ATIS, because they read back the correct QNH.
Odd that the RAD ALT did not make any call outs, and strange that both crew apparently did not notice what must have been low RAD ALT readings, turning to amber on their PFDs at DH + 100'. Or maybe they did and the amber readout is what saved them?
And presumably GPWS did not call out because their rate of descent was not excessive, on a 3° approach, (mode 1), they were in landing configuration, (mode 4), and there was no glide-slope, (mode 5)?
I am wondering how 1001 and 1011 are spoken in French by French ATC; 'mille une' and 'mille onze' perhaps? instead of 'une zero zero une' or 'une zero une une'. This could have led to confusion in the ATCs mind; not realising the mistake when translating to English.
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It is remarkable that in the 21st century, my ipad and iphone have greater system safety than the airspace design and procedures we follow. Down in the weeds, a C145 GPS system will give reliably geometric height above the real world, without the issues of metric, french, or JFK's rapid fire info, and in the end the only information that we want is the absolute height at that point, the reason that we consider cold temperature corrections going into Nome, Bismark, or Ulan Bator...
The RALT should certainly have been giving the auto callouts, unless it is another Air Inter type deal where the "GPWS was not needed, as we don't make mistakes", until chopping off the tops of trees and the bottom of the plane and pax in the hills.
Not pretty. Any 5-G nearby?