PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Jet goes down on its way to Medellin, Colombia
Old 6th Dec 2016, 05:50
  #716 (permalink)  
chuks
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
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I did get total engine failures in the sim, but only as an extra when we had some time left over after putting ticks in all the boxes on a normal two-hour session of recurrent training. It's not something thought of as likely to happen, I suppose.

I didn't mess it up, but I never got any brief on how to handle that problem, no de-brief on how I did handle it, and no feedback from any other pilot on whether he also had been given a total engine failure, so that this was not taken seriously.

Basically you need to know your approximate speed for max L/D and then figure out how to position the aircraft on finals with enough height to make the runway, but not so much that you will over-run it, preferably in the landing configuration. That's basic airmanship, something not necessarily taught later during sim training. Try not to be "gobsmacked" that expensive sim time is not used to teach the basics; that is not what it's meant for.

When we get the report on this crash, expect to read that the accident crew probably had enough height to have made it to the runway even with all four engines out, if only they had known how to manage that. The thing is, though, someone with that level of skill probably would not have put himself in a situation where he needed to do that!
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