Originally Posted by
DOUBLE BOGEY
..We need to learn what this crew did and why they did it:
We know much of what they did, what we don't know is why they did what they did. The approach briefing, which isn't in the CVR transcript, would be useful to understand the options contemplated, and what course of action was decided.
Regarding training. When crews are sent to the simulator for training, the instructors expect the trainees to know how to use the radar, and all those other things. There is no time allocated for teaching these things. In my experience, it is regrettably common to find recurrent trainees with weak knowledge of aircraft limitations let alone the intricacies of how to tune their weather radar. This tells me that thorough on-going structured training at the operator level is lacking. Whether these observations can be applied more widely across the industry, or whether it is limited to our client base, I don't know. I've seen trainees turn on the weather radar and just blast through an active thunderstorm with lighting and maintain course just because ATC gave them a heading to steer. Even cranking up the turbulence level to maximum doesn't cause them to think a different plan might be a better idea. Sometimes pilots can be their own worse enemy.