infrequentflyer789;
Re Post
#299...
If never trained in alt law I can see why he maybe missed the display and pnf call of it, and even the stall warning didn't give him a clue... but why was he anywhere near protection envelope in the first place ?
I don't know why this aspect of the initial phase keeps returning to the thread either but there it is. Some accidents develop a mystique about them.
It's a big task to read through all nine or so threads I suppose but this has been discussed thoroughly and the results are consistent: - there are only a few reasonable theories which can explain why a rational, trained airline pilot would pull back half the available stick deflection and, with back-and-forth variations, keep it mostly in the NU position, even in spite of the fact that a minute later, pulling back does not arrest the rate of descent and the stall warning sounding almost constantly.
So far as training goes regarding Alternate Law, it is done in practically every simulator session as a result of some other scripted abnormality and the fact that the airplane is in Alternate Law, (1 or 2, doesn't matter...), should be instantly recognized and it should be thoroughly understood that one has an "ordinary airplane" on one's hands and must fly as a non-protected airplane. Memorized drills, QRH Procedures, SOPs and CRM are equally intended to provide quick and accurate ways to secure a compromised airplane AND to provide familiar "territory", guidance and therefore control in the face of "something wrong", to establish and maintain cockpit discipline, including the psychological and emotional responses such as perceptions, sense-making and fear which naturally accompany such events.
I posted the following graphic between a year and two years ago to show that far from unfamiliar, strange territory, flying in Alternate Law is fundamental knowledge of the airplane. This graphic is from an old CBT (Computer Based Training) module, ca. 1998.
If someone believes he is flying a computer platform which one "manages" (as we are told we are doing when using the autoflight system), and not an airplane which one flies, and expects the software design engineer and not an airline pilot of reasonable ability to retain the aircraft's innate stability and maintain control in all reasonable circumstances, then, to start, there is a major disconnect somewhere in the process of standards, training and checking and a major philosophical flaw in the approach to automation and its uses, benefits and HF problems.
I hope that the BEA Report addresses this question, among many reasonably and logically asked here.
