Originally Posted by
gums
From the "light" peanut gallery...
Hah. Don't be daft, you're always welcome and your input is always thought-provoking in a good way.
..."pride" gets in the way one or two times, but usually only once. Our aviation mistress is harsh in that regard.
No doubt, though on occasion it can be about other things - for example, a tendency to stick to the plan even though some aspects have already gone awry.
The "press on" attitude may apply in combat, but otherwise it is not a smart thing ... I know about the combat reference from one mission, but I digress.
An interesting point and one with which I'd agree, with the caveat that in today's cut-throat business world I'd be surprised if most airline captains haven't been concerned at one time or another about the potential fallout from disgruntled pax complaining to the firm when deciding whether to go-around and/or divert. With airline management consisting mostly of MBAs, many of whom don't appreciate the risks involved, the worry that making a safe call could harm or even end your career might be palpable.
In this case though, I'd be surprised if the schedule wasn't more flexible than the majority of airline ops.
Let's face it, the dude had a poor setup and tried to "save" it.
Yup, and the 'setup' was poor all the way back to the airline's briefing. However, at the same time there were opportunities to make a more stable approach which were not taken, so some responsibility for the need to "save" the aircraft remains with the captain.
The "magic" protections and limiters can only do so much, and flying at the "limits" when carrying SLF and such is not very "professional" to this old pilot.
As you well know from your FBW fighter experience, such systems are a result of hard-nosed engineering practice - far from "magic" on closer inspection! Whatever one's views on the technology, the laws of physics remain immutable and if you can't avoid solid objects in your path you are going to hit them...
One of the outcomes was a move to ban pax from the general public on display flights.
Originally Posted by
Chris Scott
Are you arguing that he levelled off 40 ft lower than he intended, despite that being a potentially-hangable offence, and did absolutely nothing about it for nearly 10 seconds?
Or are you suggesting his barometric altimeter was over-reading by at least 40 ft, due to an error in an ADC or DMC?
I'm not arguing or suggesting anything, because it's outside my area of expertise!
I think it's not a simplistic either/or proposition though. It could be that he moved to level off at 100ft, but the inertia of the rapid, improvised descent profile coupled with an abnormally low thrust setting caused the aircraft to continue to sink while he was heads-up, looking out of the windscreen. The rapid increase in workload due in part to continued improvisation could have lead to confirmation bias and misreading of the altimeter when he looked heads-down again. I'm not saying that's what happened as much as asking you if you think it plausible.
Originally Posted by
noske
But Asseline seems honestly upset about the investigators not believing him ("Do they think that both of us are too stupid to read an altimeter?").
And in my personal view, that - namely taking things personally and reflexively defending with counter-attacks - has always been his Achilles' heel when it comes to the credibility of some of his claims. For their part, the investigators certainly believed that *he* believed the baro alt was showing 100ft - but every bit of hard evidence staring them in the face made it unlikely.
Interesting use of "both of us" as well. To the best of my knowledge, the FO has never spoken up publicly on the subject. I may try hunting for material there.
Asseline has another explanation, that the reference value for his altimeter must have shifted somehow, and he has indeed a hair-raising story to tell, where this happened to him on a flight from Paris to Geneva, and he ended up 1000 ft too low, almost (as in "too low, terrain") striking some mountains.
Which rather begs the question of why, that issue being known to and experienced by him personally, he neither used the RA display as a backup himself, nor - given his claim that the RA display was difficult to read - asked his FO, as pilot monitoring, to do his best to cross-check both baro and radalt.
While I have some sympathy for this particular theory of his, it still leads back to the basic problem: the flight crew being unfamiliar with the airfield.
It's one fundamental issue certainly, but there seems to be a general sense of creeping complacency about the operation as a whole.
20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.