A few posts back, I came up with my own recommendations and suggested three. I'll now add another two. Get Boeing to change the FCC software so that the autopilot disconnects as Vss is approached. To have an autopilot that will fly an aircraft into a stall and bloody well trim it there is not acceptable in the 21st century. So the last one has to be to prevent nose-up trim being applied by the A/P when flying at less than selected speed. Make the bugger pull a bit. In this way at least the nose will drop when the A/P is disconnected - and you'll have a flyable aircraft.
Safety Concerns may be right about writing stuff in the tech. log but he has to be speaking about his own company, it's not a trend in all. I'll guarantee that when I fly tomorrow there will be entries in my tech. log regarding door noise and others about worn erosion tapes. We are working on eradicating these as quickly as we can. As for other posters, gates, rushed approaches, checklists and guff like that were not the important things in this incident. What I believe happened was that at aircraft failed in such a way, partly through poor design and partly through component failure that a bunch of useful people were not aware that they had passed the point where recovery was possible - in an allegedly modern aircraft.
Yes, extra margins probably would have helped as would have being stabilised by 1,000' but unless we have more information about how the crew was operating and what was going on in the mind of the Training Captain, we'll never know. For all I know, maybe he was going to use this approach as a "This is not how we do it at THY" exercise for both of the F/O's. To say that this is the way Turks operate, as some have implied, is insulting.
As for changing the way aircraft are flown, would we be better off if all approaches flown on 737s commenced above the glide were performed A/T Off? And would it be worthwhile having having recurrent "A/P On" stall awareness and recovery training, both level flight and approach regimes?
Over...
Last edited by Piltdown Man; 9th February 2011 at 08:04.