Pitch Upsets at low level.
ALI -Safari - IR and other members who are or may be interested in the above subject.
This been posted before on PPRune and is now posted again in the interest of Flight Safety.
" A crew is expected to perform to the best of their ability when a problem occurs, either known or unknown. In the unknown case the crew have to attempt to control the aircraft flight path so that they have time to solve the problem."
Below are a few details of an incident that happened to a Business Jet (Falcon 20F) that experienced a pitch upset just prior to the flare at Sydney Airport. This happened about 25 years ago. The pilot flying, initiated a go round during the flare when he could not control the pitch attitude of the Jet.which went to around 80 degrees nose up. I took control of the aircraft and as the IAS was decreasing past 107knots, in an alarming nose high attitude ( I thought we were going over on to our back), I rolled the aircraft to the left and had the Pilot not Flying reduce the throttles to help in getting the nose down below the horizon. We managed to recover before ground contact and as power was applied in the recovery we went straight back to the 60 / 80 degree pitch up ( confirmed by ATC personnel ).
During the first go around, the flaps and gear were retracted and we did a series of the above manoeuvres using the roll and power off and on application techinque, each time gainging some height above ground level, although we had only very limited heading control. We worked our way up to 6500 feet and the aircraft "flew out" of the problem. We returned to Sydney and landed ..
Some brief comments:
(A) Once the first recovery had been achieved, I knew that I could control the aircraft to a certain extent whilst the fuel lasted.
(B) This could not have been possible without the excellent crew co-ordination between PF and PNF.
(C) A help to me was the knowledge of aerodynamics instilled by Instructors during my early training on Tiger Moths.
(D) the aircraft had a single electric trim system, they now have a dual system to try to prevent the possibilty of dust causing relay sticking problems .
(E) Immediately after this incident we made arrangements for the CVR and FDR to be forwarded to the BASI for their investigation.
(F) At a later date , after the BASI Investigation, we simulated the problem in a Flight Simulator which was spectacular.
(G) The ATC assistance during the Incident was of the highest order.
We were both lucky to come back from this incident to tell this story and I hope that any other crew faced with an immediate, critical situation, work as a team and do not give up.
Tmb