I've read the report, especially the flight data and crew actions section. Astonishing. 3 experienced pilots must have known they were outside legal limits attempting the approach. Were they hoping for a tiny RVR improvement outside the OM? Dodgy. They discussed fuel use for the approach, but no mention made if they discussed diversion options and fuel available. Surely the diversion plan should have been made and understood before TOD to destination; but even the approach set-up & brief was done late in the descent, and the captain's decision to shorten the approach, put them high from that time, but with plenty of distance to recover. In those Wx conditions I'd expect sharp pilots to be well ahead of the game, no rushing and be very certain everything would be set up to give the best chance of success. Proper descent profile planning with idle thrust does not use extra fuel. It doesn't matter what route they chose, there is no excuse for getting high on the glide. Noting the point when they lowered the gear and had F40 shows they knew they were rushed. The CVR text doesn't tell the whole story. I'm sure the LHS captain would have been prompting drag etc. considering it was his idea to shorten the approach route. An idle thrust descending orbit uses a breath of fuel, so why not do it?
The whole approach, from FL100, would have had my neck hairs tingling like a barbecued pig on a spit. Continuing as they did in such weather questions their self-survival instincts. Different on a good vis day flight with 1000' cloud base, but CAT 2 RVR at night to a man land. No way. And what was PIC doing? Not a lot it seems.
As they had gear down & F40 very early they might have made a 1:1 profile and captured the glide earlier. The chopping & changing of LVL CHG & V/S suggests a weak understanding of the a/c and systems. I can not understand how 3 professionals can hurtle towards a black concrete hole, having no sense of danger to their survival, in the hope, rather than expectation, of success. There was no startle factor in this.
It is always curious to read the investigations 'cause of the accident'. The prime reason is given as failure to make a go-around. That may be true; indeed they would not then have crashed, true, but the root causes goes much further back. Indeed there might even have been trends in the individuals' history, but it would be the bad luck coincidence of all bad lucks to have 3 weak performers on the same flight deck.
The report mentions CRM improvements at the operator. To me that is to be welcomed, but I find weak CRM is often trotted out as an excuse for what is loss of SA, lack of basic airmanship and lack of self-survival. Those were required characteristics of individual pilots long before CRM was ever thought of. CRM came about as a counter to the dictatorial dogmatic semi-deaf belligerent captains. CRM did not suddenly replace good airmanship. The PIC instructor should have had no qualm chirping up and telling the PM captain that the approach was not on and they should divert. Not doing that he should have still have chirped up and said the 1000' gate was missed by a mile and called a GA. That's exercising authority when as a relaxed observer, who is PIC, can see the manure is about to hit the ventilation and he's going to have all the paperwork to write.
Is the report really saying that an EU airline, in 2008, did not have a strong landing gate discipline in its approved OM? Air Europa is not a young airline. Extraordinary. The root cause of this crash started a long time before, perhaps contributed to even by the choice of fuel load at departure. They were not that flush after a medium length flight. I'm sure there was fuel left in the bowser.
I take the point about the delay in the publishing of the report. The FDR & CVR & Crew and a/c were all available PDQ after the event. From the data it seems a slam dunk for the investigators. Perhaps there should be a report about the delay, but perhaps that could also take 8 years. I can't remember the Smolensk event, but this event seems pure human self-inflicted, not mechanical/systems. How would the Smolensk event have been avoided?
Last edited by RAT 5; 23rd Dec 2017 at 16:50.