ANA jet lands manually after autopilot fails

[SMOC]

ANA jet lands manually after autopilot fails

OSAKA -- An All Nippon Airways (ANA) passenger jet bound for Itami Airport in Hyogo Prefecture was forced to land using manual controls on Saturday after its autopilot system failed, officials said.

Airline officials said the problem occurred on ANA Flight 502 as the Boeing 767-300 aircraft was traveling between Miyazaki and Itami on Saturday morning.
The jet reportedly contacted the air traffic control tower at Kansai International Airport at about 8:45 a.m. on Saturday, saying, "We've lost control of the autopilot."

The pilot switched over to manual controls and made an emergency landing at Itami Airport about 10 minutes later. None of the 155 passengers and crewmembers on board were injured.
ANA officials said that the autopilot stopped responding accurately while the aircraft was in flight. Although the plane was forced to make an emergency landing, there were reportedly no problems with the flight or landing after the pilot started using the manual controls.

Land, Infrastructure and Transport officials at Itami Airport said a problem was found with the plane's speed indicator after it landed. They are continuing to investigate the incident. (Mainichi)

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060114p2a00m0na020000c.html

:confused::confused::confused:

[PTH needs tarmac]

To give a little background to the current level of non-event paranoia when it comes to aviation in Japan have a look at the JAL related threads around on this board.

EVERY minor glitch or remotely non-routine event associated with JAL or ANA is turned into a tabloid sensation, even including the normally more sensible sections of the media such TV channel NHK (BBC equivalent) reporting them in alarmist tones.

Pass all the scorn you like, but the governent here is getting involved and public confidence, particularly with JAL, is sinking.

PTH (currently located in Japan)

[ukatco_535]

BA Pilots are threatening to strike; quite rightly in my opinion, due to a massive shortfall in pensions.

If and when they do so, the ordinary public will most likely not support them as any strike will inconvenience them (same as any strikes really, people get antsy if they are inconvenienced but would not hestitate to do the same if the positions are reversed).

My point is this - if the media continue to try to whip up scaremongering with non news items, then people are going to start wondering what pilots do for what is, in general, an extremely good wage.

If the BA pilots were to strike, crass reporting like this will not help their cause when Jo Public starts to get led down the path into believing that a pilot actually having to manually fly an aircraft is an emergency.

Jo Public in his ignorance will start to ask why do pilots get paid so much?

The news article may not have actually mentioned that it was an emergency, but the reporting certainly alluded to it.

As an ATCO I know very well how igonorant the public are with all matter aviation, these so called 'news' papers/comics do not help.

I'm just off to work now..... now where did I put my white overalls and table tennis bats??:} :}

[Danny]

OK, the silly version of this thread is over in the Jet Blast forum. I think we should wait and see if anything more sensible is revealed over this incident.

Whilst we are all very aware at the incredibly pathetic ability of many journalists to report events with accurate and non-sensationalist detail, it is also possible that this journalist has failed to grasp the details that were given to him or her and that in fact it may be a more serious incident than just an autopilot failure. I would hazard a guess that we are more likely talking about a multiple ADC failure.

I have no doubt that all my Japanese colleagues are more than capable of hand flying their a/c when necessary. However, should there be multiple failures of the ADC and the crew are getting conflicting information on their instruments and they can't rely on the autopilot and throw in a dark night or IMC conditions and it is indeed possible that this crew had enough problems that warranted an emergency call.

Of course, if the journalist has actually got the true jist of the incident then we can all go over to Jet Blast and have a giggle on the thread that exists there: http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=206924

[Vorsicht]

This sort of seemingly inane bit of journalism actually helps our cause enormously, in my opinion.

This is exactly why we do command good salaries. If Autopilots were fool proof, we wouldn't be needed. And lets face it, most of us in the airlines use the A/P most of the time. The reason we are there is to safely land the thing when things don't go as planned. Despite what Hollywood would suggest, the cabin crew probably wouldn't get a 767 on the ground safely, even with Charlton Heston talking them down.

The more the public are made aware of these types of incidents, the better for us i say.

[Snoop]

With Sop's in some airlines demanding almost religious use of the automatics and hand flying being discouraged an incident like this might prove a bit more challenging. Even more so if, as Danny pointed out "should there be multiple failures of the ADC and the crew are getting conflicting information on their instruments and they can't rely on the autopilot and throw in a dark night or IMC conditions" you have a difficult time no matter how much current hand flying experience you have. I believe basic skills are being eroded and there are those who have never had the opportunity to develop what they learnt from their flight training provider further before sitting in an all singing all dancing flight deck.

We are there to make sure the flight is conducted safely. We should be encouraged by our employers to make sure we have the current skills to do so.