Brian Abraham:
From the excerpt you posted from AAIB issued information, one will ask one's self:
were the pilots flying the aircraft or was the aircraft flying the pilots? (See the points on "over reliance on automation" rather than YOP's vague "pilot error" depending upon the answer to that question.
IF, and this is a big IF, the crew were doing a form of automatic approach, at what point did the crew realize "it's gone wrong" and try to salvage it? Hopefully, a more complete report will clear that up, or show that this supposition is incorrect.
crab:
We want to avoid the pilot becoming a slave to the AP; he should be confident enough to over-ride it if it malfunctions rather than letting it crash the aircraft because SOPs mandate its use at all times
Will management listen to such talk?
26500
We have to get back to reality here. Assuming this was another CFIT (which seems most likely) it is another clear case not of poor hand flying skills but of poor use of automation. All of the CFIT accidents in the NS in the last few years would have been avoided completely if the automation had been used properly.
We MUST be teaching people to fly the coupler and use the automation better. My experience from sitting in the back of the sim is that very often people are just not using the automation properly and to its full potential, resulting in the worst form of flying - neither fully coupled nor fully manual. I find that almost all pilots fly without problem when fully decoupled. We train all to fly AFCS off precision and non precision approaches, (usually OEI or with other malfunctions.) It is very rare that they cannot do this and almost always fly without problem to minima, very often with a missed approach as well! We train this in every OPC/LPC. Where we almost always see problems is when people get coupler confusion. This is invariably due to partial coupling followed by distraction and stress. Lack of good and thorough understanding of the coupler/AP increases their stress. Those who suffer this are invariably those who blindly refuse to use it properly or practice using it properly during normal line flying.
This is not a new problem. I'll set aside the issue of "using the systems properly" as that is its own subject. I'll address the distraction piece.
Anecdote: some gents I knew, a bit over 20 years ago, skipped an SH-60B off of the surface of the ocean (fractions of a second away from a crash when one of the crew bellowed for power) as they settled toward the water, coupled at night during a low approach (SAR training exercise, IIRC) both a bit too interested in the tactical display and the PF not quite attentive to the bottom falling out from under the aircraft. The aircraft was damaged, and often referred to afterwards as "Skippy" by people in the know. It did not end up at the bottom of the sea, but could have easily enough.
A few other crews over the years did something similar, but didn't catch it in time and put aircraft into the water due to distraction from the flying task. Clear roles in PF duties and priority, and PNF duties and priority, were a topic of a lot of squadron briefings and sim period emphasis, yet still stuff like that happened. In our wing, one of the better intitiatives was the empowerment of the aircrew in the back (systems/radar operators, SAR swimmers when demanded) too more actively yell for power or call altitude during particular evolutions. Saved no few cockpit crews from a cock up, that did, over the years.
Question for NS operators: is there a "sterile cockpit" period in NS pax flights similar to the "sterile cockpit" standards for fixed wing airline flying?