When I wrote "so this rather dozy crew turn off the switch" as a reply to the post it immediately followed I thought it would be obvious that what was meant was a different course of action with the same result, "so (that if) this rather dozy crew turn(ed) off..." I have edited my post to make that clear.
So often here as elsewhere on R&N people are just going for nit-picking point scoring and ignoring the subject under discussion. "You wrote something wrong there, hur-hur-hur!" Gawd!
Look at the "big picture," please. The PF, his mind was not on flying his aircraft or so it seems. Power back, speed dropping, early shaker cues him to do... nothing so that then he gets the pusher, when he pulls, against all training and basic operating principles. To argue that simply putting one switch "Off" would have saved the day, well, how? That shaker was a very strong cue that he was losing speed there and needed to sort things out with power. The pusher was correctly actuated in response to a critical AoA, wasn't it?
Okay, the shaker came on at too high a speed but anyone with his or her head on straight should have a good look at the situation at that point, particularly the trend, when I assume the Q400's EFIS airspeed displays have "trend vectors" which in this case must have been pointing down. (They tell you what the speed will be in the near future if you do not react quickly, something like in 7 seconds.) If the PF misses it (as sometimes happens) then the PNF should say something like "Check speed," and then "Check speed, speed low," and then, "I have control," to whack the power levers WFO, lower the nose, etcetera because otherwise you are all going to DIE!
I had a sim session once where we got an elevator jam on take-off, when I was PNF. Everything went very well until rotation, when we got to see what the top of the pitch display looked like, all red chevrons, as the airplane just reared up. I shoved my column forward to the stop without even thinking about it so that we did not crash. Afterwards there was time for "I have control," and all that good stuff but right then? Had the PF been so bored that he decided to see what that looked like or had we had a problem there? If I had wanted to take the polite approach and ask the Chief Pilot (for it was he), "Umm, excuse me Sir but our pitch attitude seems a bit high to me. Are you sure this is what you want?" that discussion would have been interrupted by "Crash, Bang, Thump!"
That shaker was time for BOTH crew to take a look at the situation and the pusher was time for the PNF to be watching what the PF was up to now, given that he had flown them into a very sticky situation. Okay, allowed their airplane to fly itself into one. Whatever. Why did the FO not point out the trend, assuming she even noticed it in the first place?
Yes, this is a complicated airplane and the crew were both low time overall and low time "on type" but the deadly thing looks to me like a total lack of focus, treating the cockpit like some sort of office where you just had to sit and push buttons until it was quitting time, ho-hum and "I wonder what's on special at the diner tonight?" Well, that could tie in to getting burger-flipper wages for doing such a safety-critical job, I suppose.
Last edited by chuks; 11th Feb 2010 at 07:06.