S.F.L.Y.
Hindsight is great isn't it!
I have been told by a couple of sim instructors ‘in the sandpit’ that with a few months of 'hindsight' and accumulated knowledge about this accident, a fair number of crews were 'surprised' with this scenario in the sim; and some of those that claimed to know the method to achieve the actual outcome or 'better', suddenly 'froze' in the sim. Others followed the method I had used on the day, but with hindsight were able to change the flaps earlier, and they still only achieved the same distance or worse! The majority of crews faced with this problem, crashed well short of the perimeter fence; so the people who claim to have done any better; have more forethought than me or less headwind!
It would be interesting to know if those that have “made the r/w” in the sim have used timings based from when we officially had rollback at 720ft or when we, on the day, actually realised we had a problem at 480ft. At 480ft in the sim, are pilots actually then taking the time to decide if this is a ‘fuel’ problem, an EEC problem, a windshear scenario, a double engine failure with EICAS failure…. the list is endless… or..jumping straight to the conclusion that it must be ‘rollback’, which of course was an unknown event on Jan 17th 2008!
Unfortunately for any crew, if this ever happens again (for whatever reason, but it shouldn't now anyway) will be that it is now an emergency procedure with a memory C/L, so would have to be carried out to adhere to SOPs. Will they… close the thrust levers for 10 secs to warm the FOHE or will they change the flaps or both. Two of those will be wrong according to any new SOPs…a big grey area. Pilots will naturally take some seconds to correctly identify the failure as ‘rollback’ and even then might not believe it; so to carry out this drill at low altitude will be scary. Not many pilots I know would like to close thrust levers for at least 10 secs below 400ft on an approach. The spool-up time would be too late. Please also bear in mind another real life rollback event where the crew knew of the event on the BA38; but in a relaxed state of mind in the cruise, they still took some time (in minutes) to realise this was a rollback before they reacted.
I accept that the r/w has been achieved in some sim sessions, but I am not in possession of the sim inputs for my scenario. I appreciate that some posts that make reference to making the r/w are backed up with “with the benefit of hindsight”, however, I don’t know what the settings were set to, or if the drill was only ever practiced with a “complete knowledge that there is a rollback at 480ft and what can you do to get the aircraft down” – as opposed to treating it like an unknown emergency situation ... but would you actually have wanted to take the risk of landing on the tarmac, with massive potential for a fire?
If it was always treated as an emergency situation, then, for those of you who made the r/w, I am sorry for my explanation above, but I am sure you can understand why I felt the need to explain to those non flyers the information needed when coming to a conclusion that the engines are suffering ‘rollback’ as opposed to any other emergency.
Boeing have tested this to the limits in their sim; as you might expect, so you will be able to read their results in due course when the AAIB final report is issued this year.
I, and my family, await its’ release eagerly.