Originally Posted by
Lonewolf_50
Dozy...
who signed for the aircraft: the check captain or the captain who was being checked?
Put another way, who the hell is in charge of the mission?
You've got your finger right on the point I was trying to make. On paper, it appears to be the latter - and the interviews with both flight crew bear this out. It only becomes apparent when you read Capt. Kim's interview in full that real-world practice in Asiana tends to blur the distinction. He states that previous check Captains tended to be far more hands-on than this one, and - possibly because his mindset was attuned to this - he was unsure whether the more laid-back attitude of this particular check Captain indicated confidence in what he (as PIC) was doing, or whether the CC's attention was wandering (note reference to "double workload").
Originally Posted by
Sorry Dog
... am I the only one who is thinking the crew is maybe playing the "culture" card to cover for gross piloting error. Not that they would expect that to completely excuse them, but if the culture card is taken at face value then their crucifictions should become less painful since the "institution" would bare some blame as well.
I must admit that I don't get that impression at all. Both Captains' interviews are unequivocal when it comes to saying Asiana's approach to CRM is good - when asked directly. The discrepancy only becomes apparent when both interviews are read in full - if either or both wanted to complain about the airline's training and culture then they would have said that when directly questioned.
Originally Posted by
Jazz Hands
Improvements in automation shouldn't be taken as an excuse to reduce the training of pilots by the same factor...
Completely in agreement - though I'd argue that this was never an explicit intention so much as a side-effect of airline management transitioning from a group of industry specialists to the MBA generation - for whom the quarterly financials are utterly sacrosanct above all other concerns.
Originally Posted by
HundredPercentPlease
Two groups of interlinked problems.
Group 1: Currency and culture
- If you never do a certain type of approach, then you become bad at it.
- If you are monitored to death with a picky and punitive culture, then you never expose yourself by doing something you are bad at.
- Loop the above two round until you can't do it. If you have to do it, you are stressed for two reasons, the punitive culture and the lack of skill.
What needs fixing?
Stupid flight deck culture and stupid airline punitive monitoring culture.
More manual flying, on the line, of complex airliners.
What won't fix it?
Idiot pilots thinking that throwing these chaps in the bin will do anything other than bury the real problems. Which are closer to home than you may think.
I couldn't agree more with this stuff - more power to your elbow, sir!
However this bit:
Group 2: Tech
- He reverted to A320 methods: call for FD off to get A/T in speed mode, do nothing with the stick, expect no movement from the thrust levers and you will arrive.
- Nothing needs monitoring because the A320 goes "ping" if any of the auto systems fail. No ping, no problem, no need to monitor. A trillion pilots are guilty of this.
- Notwithstanding, stuff goes wrong and "oddly" the a/c is not maintaining the path. Everyone in the west knows that if it goes wrong you simply go around. Here he has to wait for the other chap to call the go-around, due to bizarre culture.
...I'm not so sure about. I'm sure there was a post earlier in the thread from an Airbus pilot stating that the A/THR on the FBW types would not have "woken up" in that situation, and that the behaviour of the T7 autothrottle was more-or-less the same.
For one thing, I'm certain that moving thrust levers are a red herring here. For another, the A320 will not, as you say, "ping" if the apparent command given by the crew is consistent with the situation - contrary to a lot of received opinion, Airbus automatics are no more "intelligent" than those of other types.
As to the third point, the interviews state that Asiana's rule regarding GAs is that they must be *flown* by the Captain and not the FO. Whether GAs can be *called* by the FO is not stated, but the PF in this case was already a Captain upgrading to long-haul from a short/medium haul position - moreover he was an instructing/check Captain on the short-haul types, so even if he reverted to previous behaviour he should have had no trouble ordering or flying a GA.
What is interesting is that this particular check flight seemed to combine a visual approach without ILS backup (apparently a very rare occurrence for Asiana PICs), an airport which was considered "difficult" among Asiana's line pilots and a check Captain whose technique was more hands-off than seems to normally have been the case. For his part, he seems to have been reticent to directly ask the check Captain whether the latter was happy with his handling of the flight - and the check Captain himself, despite noting that the PIC seemed "nervous" (per the interview), did not make any attempt to find out why, or provide encouragement/direction if necessary. Possibly as a result of the seemingly punitive nature of the airline's culture, these factors appear to have added to the stress levels of the PIC.
If I may be permitted to speculate:
- The airline was known to have a hard-line approach to excessive descent rates - could this have led to the PIC erring on the side of caution and come in fast and high?
- The check Captain (apparently unusually) was content to let the PIC get on with things - did this cause him to avoid corrective action until too late?
- The PIC seems to have been concerned enough to take on PNF/PM tasks on final - did this impression of "double workload" in fact cause him to be task-saturated at a critical phase?
To illustrate the point I was making earlier about stress, we know that a pilot considered the best in his airline was so concerned about duty/time regulations that the distraction may have caused him to attempt take-off without permission. We know that a pilot who was highly spoken of by his colleagues became so concerned about wake turbulence that it may have caused him to overcontrol his aircraft to the point of structural damage. We have countless examples of pilots being so concerned about making schedule that they continued with approaches that they shouldn't have.
Therefore, no matter what anyone's experience or view of "culture" may be, the nature of increased stress and its ability to cause even the best pilots to make mistakes that seem incredible at face value must be considered here.