PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Turkish airliner crashes at Schiphol
View Single Post
Old 26th Feb 2009, 13:16
  #388 (permalink)  
Rananim
 
Join Date: Sep 1999
Posts: 541
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Please don't take offence at this but I find it very hard to believe that you are who you say you are. PPRuNe is of course an anonymous forum where anyone can pretend to be anyone else. I'm not saying that you are not the Captain of the crashed BA 777 at LHR but we have no way of knowing either way and this forum does attract some strange people. You have only just registered on PPRuNe with a user name relating to that incident and it seems very unlikely to me that the true Captain of that crashed aircraft would just pop up on PPRuNe after all this time in this way.
I disagree.I would imagine this is exactly the time that he would chose to say something.

Speculation can be distasteful if it is based on ignorance and makes an unfair assumption about a crew's performance.Providing it remains objective and draws no conclusion about the crew's performance,speculation is actually a wonderful tool that "tin-kickers" begin every investigation with.They just do it in private.Start with the plausible,slowly fine-tune it to the probable until the evidence finally gives you the undeniable.
We have been a bit lazy in describing this as a stall.Technically,the aircraft didnt quite stall.It was about to stall when it hit the ground.The "turbulence" the survivors spoke of was the stall buffet.
Belgique's last post restored some respect to the notion that speculation has merit.In it,he points to the "insidious" nature of speed bleed-off if the pilots attention lapses during an approach with AT off.Call-outs by both pilots throughout the approach are designed to ensure that stable approach parameters are never compromised in this way.His post also describes the unfortunate mix of full back trim,low speed and full thrust that can ensue when the pilot finally realizes the error of his ways.His causation para talks of the dangers of automation complacency and explains neatly how such a situation can develop.Not once does he tie it to yesterday's crash.It is simply offered as a topic for discussion that may or may not be central to yesterday's tragedy.
None of us know what happened yesterday.How did they get behind the drag curve so badly?Was it mechanical?Bird strike?Wake vortices?Was the wrong gross weight entered in the FMC?Were they victims of automation complacency coupled with incorrrect stall recovery?Is stall recovery with ground contact imminent part of our 6 monthly check?If not,why not?People seem to have ruled out weather and fuel and I think this is just common-sense.Professional pilots dont normally fly about with no fuel without saying something and the reported weather was benign.
Provided we remain rational and objective,speculation need not be a bad thing.
Rananim is offline