PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Aviation Investigation Report Out Boeing 737-210C Controlled flight into terrain
Old 27th Mar 2014, 02:41
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Tee Emm
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Australia
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While company SOP go into detail on what the PNF should do when an approach become dangerously unstable and requiring a go-around, it does not give specific advice - purely the correct warm and fuzzy words to say like please captain we are too high I suggest we go-around. As numerous accident reports have testified captains have ignored the official calls and the aircraft has crashed.

That point is well covered in the Canadian Boeing 737-200 accident report.
For some reason it is placed in to too hard tray and the PNF is left to use his own judgement on how to physically take control from an aggressive captain intent on pressing on regardless. The result of two pilots fighting each other to keep or take control at low altitude is bound to finish in tragedy.
One airline in Australia years ago, took the initiative and advised first officers that if their SOP calls for a go-around were deliberately disregarded by the captain, they should call once more for a go-around and if disregarded, they should select the landing gear to up. It was assumed that no captain would then deliberately land wheels up just to make a point and he would be forced to go-around.

While it was conceded that this action could place the aircraft in a dangerous position if close to landing, the alternative of a crash into terrain was infinitely worse. It was stressed that selecting the gear lever to up to force a go-around was essentially a last ditch action to prevent a certain CFIT. If that SOP had been used in most of the crashes known to have followed seriously unstable approaches - including the Canadian 737 accident - then these tragedies would likely to have been avoided.
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