Hold your horses please gentlemen!
The facts:
Airplane landed with 2.8G as stated above. SO was flying in standard JED conditions ( windy and dusty, but all well within the limits of the QR OM).
SO performed rather well until very low level, he is known to be one of the better ones. Aircraft sank at the last moment (below 100ft) and the CAPT did give the necessary inputs (Full aft stick at 50 feet if I am correct)
Airplane was an A330-300. At this height this was all what could have been done!
Was it a downdraft? Windshear? Low level turbulence? Only time will tell but dont be too fast shooting down fellow aviators please!
It remains a fact that when you do intensive training on these machines, things like this WILL happen! No matter the caliber of the trainer!
Regarding the training of SOs on medium to heavy jets.
IF YOU DONT KNOW THE FACTS, PLEASE DO NO NOT SPREAD RUBBISH AROUND!
Sure,many other airlines have training programs around whereby 250hr FOs with a CPL/ME-IFR are being trained on these jets.
But all of the airlines who do these kind of training programs provide a lot of
extra training to these people!.
Additional MCC training on the type where you will be flying on,
Jetconversion courses of more than 40Hrs sim, additional FFS sessions.....
Most of them have even adapted the whole training program before, from 0 hours on the C152 all the way to the twin, to implement the actual SOPs and procedures from day number 1
In Singapore and Cathay, the cadets actually learn to fly a Learjet before they even start their training on the A330!
So please, do not compare these programs to the pathetic preparation Qatar Airways is giving its cadet pilots!
They start in the QAC, flying PA28s around over DOHA and Qatar. The whole program has not been adapted at all to an airline enveronment! They only can practice IFR flying at OTBD airport and in their FRASCA trainer.
Once in a while they go on a field trip to OBBI or OMDB.
No MCC flying, no briefings, nothing!
They dont even bother to teach them discipline and professionalism. May I remind you, this is a government sponsored program and the cadets are guaranteed a job at Qatar Airways. There is no time limit on their training, nor is there any financial limit. Its just a matter of providing them training until they scrape through the checks, even if this means flying a PA28 for 500hrs before you can do a descent steep turn!
I am sure most people who have done similar training programs in the past, know that it is exactly the time limitation (most programs you have 12 months to pass your ATPL theory, followed by exactly 6 months to go from solo to ME-IFR) which ensures the airline of a good standard ofquality due to the natural selection which happens here! Add to this the pressure of having to pay back this training even if you dont pass and you ahve a formula that works!
Over here we are just dealing with a bunch of spoiled little children who did not know what to do with their lives so they decided to become a hotshot airline pilot on the expense of the state of Qatar! After all it beats driving your landcruiser around 7/7 , doesnt it? (My apologies to the college guys who are the exception to the rule and who actually well and truly want to become a pilot, unfortunately they are not that many)
They call it Qatarisation!
After that they join Qatar Airways where they are pushed through the same conversion course as all other pilots with experience who join QR. This means a 30 days crash course from zero to hero on an A330 or A320!
There even is NO special FTD or FFS syllabus for these pilots! No Jetconversion...NOTHING! Just squeeze them through the system and pray they survive at the other end(FFS has been changed now I believe, not sure)
Then they come on line. 120 sectors line training on an A330!
This so far has been the only fase which has been adapted for SO training but lets face it, by this stage the damage is done!
And in any case, on the QR A330 fleet you fly an average of 10 sector/month. So no continuity in training, never they fly with the same instructor and it takes them FOR EVER to get anywhere...there goes the motivation together with a roller-coaster-like learning curve!
This whole SO program on A330 was ill thoughtover, ill-prepared and an incident waiting to happen! Training department and managment where well informed beforehand, but once again they thought the established carriers where wrong and they would show them how to do it the right way!
CONGRATULATIONS!
