infrequentflyer789
Hello. "And fly is what they did not do..."
The autopilot was actively maneuvering until it quit, at handoff the a/c was rolling 4 degrees per second to the right, the nose was low, and they had exited moderate turbulence in conditions that I submit were more of a challenge than they were acknowledging, at least to each other, if not to themselves. If Bonin had not arrested roll, they would have been banked fourty five degrees when Robert said "So, we've lost the speeds..." eleven seconds later. In the eleven seconds I submit Bonin was unaware of UAS, his Pitch was not "full back" in fact it included several ND excursions.
Much has been made of "Do nothing". Not possible, given the conditions. Once Bonin got responses in Pitch (Was it sluggish? "Beware unusual control responses") he could easily have lost his sense of attitude. He was always the one flying, and his Panel was not recorded. What did he see and what was he using for references for his inputs? I don't know. At one point, PNF "Put him in ATT/HDG."?
Had he been using IAS? For the longest time I have defended this pilot, and I will not stop, though I do have to admit some strange examples of "pilotage" have shown up in other accidents (Colgan) (Schiphol) (Caraibes) and incidents.
Without a complete disclosure of the CVR it is impossible to know exactly what happened in the initial 20 seconds, the phase when the die was cast. I think that is deplorable...
My recent post addressed the fact that erroneous Airspeed was displayed. I consider that unfortunate, yet Dozy says it is unavoidable.
If IAS can be lost temporarily without risk, dump it until it can be verified. Given the state of the industry and the apparent lack of readiness to fly manual at altitude, nothing should be left to chance.
Last edited by Lyman; 20th September 2012 at 01:14.