Originally Posted by
michaelbinary
I cant understand why when the props were feathered that neither PF or PM noticed the difference in engine noise or feel or vibration of the aircraft or change in pitch angle etc.
And when the PF said repeatedly the engines are not producing power, didnt the PM do a visual scan of the controls and see that the props were feathered.
The clue is in the name, Pilot Monitoring. !!!!
Another example of a perfectly servicable aircaft being crashed into the ground by multi thousand hour (28000+) incompetent pilots.
The "28K hours" is the aircrafts "experience"... crew is unstated in the preliminary report issued per Annex 13
Procedural slips happen, this one is a doozy though, and the fact it was not detected by the drivers is disturbing. the follow up actions of the flap selection 40 odd seconds later did not trigger any apparent awareness by the RHS PM at that time that he had moved something a little more than half a minute earlier, yet what was supposed to move was not. The lack of curiosity is depressing, and at that time, there would not be a cognitive overload condition for an experienced pilot... at least one would hope not.
The spectral FFT detected the feathering of the props as a reduction in broad band noise, the core of the engine continued operating until after impact when they wind down. there was a question raised by that, however, to have accidentally feathered both engines and not detected that for just on a minute is a pretty sad state of affairs. The PF did finally recognise the lack of thrust but that verbalised awareness statement did not trigger any action by the RHS person who had erroneously selected the condition levers to feather, and then had more than half a minute later re selected the flaps without apparent concern or awareness of his action slip. Handing over control to the same "pilot" who at this point has set up the impending disaster, ensures that Ronald McD is not going to have a high probability of having any bandwidth left in the squirrel cage to unscramble his actions. Recovery from this was possible up to the point that the aircraft departed controlled flight. The stall is consistent with the performance of the RHS pilot exhibited throughout this event. If I was a passenger on this flight, I would be making a loud complaint on arrival at the pearly gates as to the scheduling glitch that has resulted in untimely demise of 71 of 72 occupants. The full report will undoubtedly go into length on the cognitive load of the RHS pilot, the answers however will not provide solace to the families impacted by this event. It is unfortunate that lack of situational awareness can occur to such an extent and that there is a failure of intellectual curiosity about the condition that the aircraft is in at that time, perhaps this was distracting the RHS guy from his Facebook account, Stockmarket report or daydreaming, whatever it was going on at that time that had precious little related to the term "Pilot" or the term "Monitoring". The RHS pilots training history may shed some light on what was going on.
71 of 72 people died as the PM moved the wrong levers and then didn't notice his slip for the rest of everyone else's lives. The PM noticed that the flaps that had been "not selected to 30" despite movement of some lever(s) instead ended up with a follow up selection half a minute later, and even with that recognition of what a flap gauge says, no thought balloon pops into existence... "sorry sport, was thinking of soup..." That the PF did not recognise the cause of the thrust loss is not surprising, that the RHS (I can't describe the RHS as the "PM"... Person Occupying Seat, would be more appropriate IMHO).
Input-response monitoring is a fundamental concept in control of any aircraft... It is common for complacency to occur over time, but failure to detect such an impressive error is... itself extraordinary. Compounding the disaster by aerodynamic stall is not then surprising.
At any point up to immediately before the wing drop, had curiosity suddenly broken out as to the energy state of the aircraft, the deteriorating flight path, the gauge readings on the Prop RPMs, the need to select flaps 30 twice... the alert by the PF on no power, in fact anything that would reasonably place the RHS person at the scene of a future disaster, just moving the condition levers forward would have resulted in rapid restoration of thrust and another apparently boring day.
Ergonomics and HMI will get a discussion point for sure, but, in the end an individual with a passing interest in the proceedings would have been appreciated by the remaining 71 souls.
RIP
Golly.