Originally Posted by
Jutta
and your explanation.
What I found very disturbing was the fact that the CDB, when he came back into the CP, did not take his seat immediately. Even if I understand that there are certain rules which have to be followed. But the situation was exceptional, he must have felt that!? Both the captain and other co-pilot put their lives into the hands of a person who was visibly in a lot of stress, mildly expressed. For a laywoman
this is not comprehensible at all.
Right, so one of the takeaways from this incident so far is that CRM (Crew Resource Management - plenty of material online if you need more background info) at Air France was in need of review when this accident occurred.
The difficulties in the Captain re-taking his seat are as follows however:
- The PNF, who seemed to have a pretty good grasp of the situation, yet sadly did not feel the ability to directly intervene was sitting in the Captain's seat. Technically the Captain could have taken the PF's seat, but in doing so would have been putting himself in a position where he wasn't as familiar with the controls as he was in the left-hand seat.
- The two F/Os had been at the controls as the situation was developing and as such, the Captain was unaware of what had led up to the situation - it would have been reasonable for him to assume that the F/Os had better situational awareness than he did at that point (though it was a sadly misplaced assumption)
- The aircraft was pitching and rolling to a significant degree. Exchanging seats at that point would have been difficult and probably would have taken a significant amount of time, and as such could have put them in more danger than they were in already as far as the Captain knew.
Personally I think that the logic for not re-taking a seat at the controls was understandable. What bothers me is the fact that he felt it OK to leave two F/O's, one of whom was fairly junior and probably still a little demob-happy (having just returned from vacation) in charge as the aircraft was transiting a known problem weather area.
[@if789 - I got a very well-written and heartfelt PM from bearfoil just after the report was published, expressing an understanding that human error was probably the largest contributing factor, and a desire to take some time away from the forum - nevertheless he was back on less than 24 hours later having picked up sonething CONF said about control logic and saying that it couldn't have been the pilots' fault again. ]