tdracer
But this crash, along with the Air France A330, show that we still need to train pilots to fly, not just manage, the airplane.
If by "we" you mean the airline industry and regulation authorities, yes.
Every study done, has shown that a managed evacuation is ALWAYS more effective than a panicked rush to the nearest exit.
Thanks for that.
Franzl
The probable obvious cause of this accident seems to be non existent energy management by the crew. There is no excuse that the speed decay in that published amount and time was not recognized until it was too late. ....says an old fighter pilot
Didn't you read a few pages back that fighter pilots are a horrible fit for airline cockpits and CRM?
FWIW, I am trying to find the right files at the "smartcockpit" site to try and understand the "FLCH trap" previously mentioned. If it's a systems issue, it's a training issue, right?
One of the first things said to me when I entered the aviation industry was "It's better to ask a stupid question than it is to explain a stupid mistake". Of course if you are dead, you wouldn't have any explaining to do.
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I recall about thirty years ago the semi-sarcastic observation that "it's better to die than to look bad." Our safety officer responded with:
"I've never seen a good looking corpse."
Now there's ways of bringing this to the fore.
A sub optimal way to bring such issues to the fore, in a given organization, is to have a wreck.
Sadly, that seems to be what gets some organizations' attention where other input does not.
As we used to say in the Navy, with heavy heart as some of us got older ... the NATOPS is written in blood. (That's the operating manual/bible for a given aircraft ...)
Looks like the sanguine penmanship continues ...
A point on CRM and "who is doing what" from the distant past: a couple of decades ago, a crew in a squadron at our base had an engine act up during a training event. The aborted the training event (which was over the ocean) and headed for the nearest field. They came in to do an approach to a runway, rather than a helicopter pad (the bird was SH-60F) and made the approach. With split torques, you retard the bad engine to let the good engine lead. Well, for whatever reason, the PNF retarded the good engine and the bad engine led. Short final, power loss, inside HV diagram bad zone, and a nasty crash. Aircraft lost. Crew badly injured. (PIlots and aircrew).
Cause? Well, the bottom line ended up that a fairly straightforward thing (which all pilots in that squadron had done in the sim many, many times) "who was doing what" went wrong.
Apply that to this accident: a fairly straighforward event, visual approach, and the correct movement of engine power controls (be it by the automated systems or one of the pilots) went wrong.
If you look at the NTSB's pithy extract of speed versus profile, and the target speed (137 knots), at the very least the correct and timely movement of power levers went wrong. (
Why will in time be explained, one hopes, by the NTSB's team).
A point that has been raised before in this thread, time and again, also needs to be answered, and that has to do with an industry-wide standard for those carrying passengers: the issue of waving off (go around) a non-stable approach in a timely fashion.