I watched the hearing yesterday and I have been examining the information provided in the docket. A number of things stand out for me:
1 There is no mention in the approach briefing that the weather was on or possibly below limits.
2 Descent angle of the approach. There is no mention in the brief that the angle is steeper than the usual 3 degrees and that this wll require a higher vertical speed.The initial vertical speed selected is 700fpm and they were already starting off 200ft high having maintained 2500ft The chart provides a vertical speed/ground speed box and for 140kt the v/s should be 813ft/min so a higher V/S would have been needed to to get back onto the profile.
The chart only provides one check height to monitor the vertical performance before MDA and that is only 180ft above it.
3 The DME does not indicate zero at the threshold, it reads 1.3nm, which is not discussed.
4 No mention is made of the box on the chart stating that this procedure is not authorised at night.
5 The thousand feel calls seems to occur at 1000ft amsl( only 360ft above ground)
6 The crew seem to become fixated with the task of flying the approach and calls regarding MDA are omitted.
Willow Run I think it is fairly obvious why this accident happened and I hope it is obvious to the NTSB. If they have re-run the scenario in the simulator using the CVR for a script the errors should be obvious. The question is why the errors were made , and it appears to be the usual swiss cheese of multiple factors lining up. I believe the one thing that may have saved them is having enhanced gpws fitted and I hope that the NTSB make this compulsory on all large aircraft.
The discussion of fatigue by the crew before departure is interesting . We are still in the early phase of operators taking fatigue seriously. and crew are the worst at diagnosing their own fatigue. From the testimony yesterday at UPS a fatigue report is analysed and if it is deemed to not fit the fatigue model a day is deducted from the pilot's bank of sick days.As pilots we do not all fit the same model. I cannot sleep the way I did when I was in my twenties and long duties take longer and longer to recover from.
I hope that the issue of fatigue appears in the final report and more effort is made to mitigate it. I also hope that the new FAA FTL are applied to cargo airlines.
Last edited by tubby linton; 21st Feb 2014 at 16:39.