Just been reading through this again in light of the new posts, and came across this which I recall having thoughts on previously but not mentioning at the time...
Originally Posted by
Lehane Willis
PIC and F/O cannot see what is happening externally behind the cockpit, leading to sub-optimal decision making.
why shouldn't the pilots have a similar facility during an emergency? Why should they rely on second-hand reports from relief pilots or cabin crew?
I haven't had an RTO yet, (a couple of low-speed discontinued takeoffs aside, due to unhappy ECAMs and whatnot) and hopefully never will for the remainder of my career, but for all I know it could happen on the next flight.
One thing I brief every time at the end of the emergency briefing is that we have a sliding window each and following an RTO and immediate/memory actions have been completed, we can open them to allow us a better view of whats going on outside/behind with regard to the engines, and allows us to make a better decision.
As we saw in this instance, just because an engine is shut down and there are no associated eng fire warnings remaining, it doesn't mean the situation is not very serious indeed. Had there not been a third flight crew member, how long might it have been before they knew they needed to evac?
Possibly only once chatting on 121.6 or whatever the RFF frequency at the airfield is, or if ATC inform them.
Having done numerous RTO drills in the sims though (as well we should, we all need to know it perfectly, inside out, back to front, upside down, so that on the day we do it for real, when the adrenaline is flowing, we perform it "well enough") I have noticed that you are very focussed on the task in hand, so much so that you don't notice any radio chatter unless actively focusing on it. In one sim detail I recalled hearing "ATC" saying something but had no idea what, I imagine it was important/relevant, but it only registered as noise not words, I was too busy crosschecking the memory items and ignoring a continuous cabin call ding (but not the emergency ding ding ding) to shut down one of the engines.
I think it could be quite a bit more time before they realised, had things been slightly different (i.e. no 3rd pilot, higher speed at reject and therefore stopping much further down the rwy)