Sleepy pilot caused Indian passenger plane crash

[CargoFlyer11]

Sleepy pilot caused Indian passenger plane crash - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101117/wl_sthasia_afp/indiaairaccident)

NEW DELHI (AFP) – A sleepy pilot who approached the runway at the wrong angle and ignored warning signs was to blame for a passenger plane crash in southern India in May that claimed 158 lives, reports said Wednesday.
A Court of Inquiry probe concluded the Air India pilot Zlatko Glusica, from Serbia, was asleep for much of the three-hour flight and was "disorientated" when the plane started to descend, the Hindustan Times reported.
The low-cost Air India Express plane flying from Dubai to the city of Mangalore overshot the runway, plunged into a gorge and burst into flames. Eight people survived the inferno.
The official crash report, which has not been released publicly, was submitted to the civil aviation ministry on Tuesday.
Voice recordings picked up the co-pilot saying: "We don't have runway left," seconds before the disaster.
Most of the dead were migrant workers returning from the Gulf where many Indians from southern states find low-paid employment as construction workers or domestic staff in cities such as Dubai.
The six-member court was set up to investigate the cause of India's first major air crash since 2000 and its worst aviation disaster since 1996, when two jets collided in mid-air over New Delhi, killing nearly 350 people.

[doubleu-anker]

I haven't read the full report.

The question I ask is, what was the f/o doing in the time interval before a few seconds before the crash? Was he an experienced pilot, who may have had the assertiveness intervene before tragedy stuck? Was he/she a 200 hr robot and watched the whole thing in the making? Please feel free to flame me if i am incorrect but it was a 2 crew operation was it not?

When I am a non handling pilot I would take over the controls if I thought we were going to crash.

Not trying to point fingers as we are all fallible, each and every one of us. Yes I am aware the pilot in command must take the responsibility and the buck stops with him/her.

[Boeing7xx]

First Officer had 3650hrs TT and 3350hrs on Type. Clearly not inexperienced. Was with Jet Airways before he joined Air India Express.

I would still wait for the CVR disclosure (by NTSB) before arriving at any conclusion, however, the investigation team which has completed the investigation has already called out several SOP failures on the Captain (e.g. ignoring the airspeed warning, GPWS, etc.), it appears that the F/O did call out for a Go-Around thrice (!!!!).

[strella]

The First Officer was experienced. He had appx. 3700 hours and was also an ATPL holder. He was himself due for command shortly.

With due respect to the departed, if the First Officer had been more assertive the accident could have been averted.

It also looks like a total failure of CRM. A go around call by any pilot should be respected by the other pilot.

Let us hope lessons are learnt from this accident, and corrective steps are taken.

RIP.............

[doubleu-anker]

Ok I stand corrected.

What a great shame with that amount of time on the aircraft etc., he didn't feel the need to intervene physically.

[Jabawocky]

Yogyakarta and many others ring a bell?

Sounds like a reprint of those would save some time and money investigating this! (said with tongue in cheek but you know what I am thinking:sad:)

[infrequentflyer789]

Ok I stand corrected.

What a great shame with that amount of time on the aircraft etc., he didn't feel the need to intervene physically.

Maye he did, but not early enough. It was suggested earlier in the thread that they did try and take off agina, but clipped the ILS antenna which brought them down.

[PLovett]

In the previous thread on this crash several posters commented on the fatigue factor, especially in the light of the nature on the sectors this crew had flown.

However, airlines around the world seem to think that duty times can be extended without cost despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

[Evanelpus]

Does this have anything to do with 'culture' or knowing ones place in the great scheme of things?

Would an Indian FO dare to tell the PIC (non Indian or not) that he was wrong?

[RAT 5]

Not wishing to divert the topic completely away from this particular crash, but the comment has been made that the F/O, experienced or not, could have averted the crash with assertiveness. It has been said that this was a breakdown of CRM, and perhaps was a dig at the F/O. Consider the Air France A330 overrun in Toronto; the F/O was PF and the Captain kept crying "put it down, put it down" when he should have been crying "go around, go around", or executing it himself. There is fallability in both seats, bit only 1 carries the ultimate responsibility, PF or PNF.

[doubleu-anker]

"Sleepy Pilot"

No nothing to do with fatigue whatsoever. :} The Captain wasn't fit!! The DGCA are onto it though. They are now requiring all expats flying on a validation to sit the military medical, twice per year on top of their normal medical.

One should be fit enough to endure fatigue!!! :ugh::ugh::ugh:

I am of the opinion incapacitation training covering these scenarios would be time and money better spent.

[Gulfstreamaviator]

will I need a total of 4 meds per year....overkill, or what.

glf

[beeps]

Whichever part of the world one goes to fly an airplane of that country......one is required to pass the local medical standards......however archaic and irrelevant some tests might be in modern day medicine and commercial aviation. This thing was long time coming and I for one feel it is correct. Not the standards....but that every person flying an Indian registered aircraft must be medically fit as per local regulations.

[Rananim]

Fatigue is a red herring for sure.Pilot is hardly likely to be sleepy whilst trying to recover a hot/high approach..he'd be wide awake with high adrenalin levels.No,it was either a miscalculation(ie,the approach was unrecoverable regardless of pilot technique/proficiency) or poor technique(pilot not trained how to recover from a hot/high approach).VNAV fixation and automation reliance set the trap.Get home-itis also complicates the situation.You can be fast and low or slow and high but not fast and high,not close in anyway.At 10 miles,you can be 5000' and still meet SOP's @500 providing youre fully configured and no tailwind.Applicable to B737.

[weido_salt]

Beeps

Load of rubbish. I have held 5 different validations, over the years, recognising my ICAO licence and not once have I ever had to sit a medical, of the country issuing the validation certificate. The law examination yes, all 5 I have sat. That is fair and necessary.

Do some research before trying to defend, the indefensible.

[peter we]

He was recorded snoring for half the flight.

[beeps]

Ok i stand corrected ........i only spoke from my knowledge of work options available to me and all those countries required me to clear the local medicals. Nonetheless it is incorrect on your part to say i am "trying to defend the indefensible" cause if that is the requirement or amended requirement for expat pilots then there is nothing wrong in it. No one has held a gun to the heads and said "fly my plane"

[Payscale]

What did his roster look like leading up to the accident?

[kotakota]

Why the sudden coyness and / or outrage that somebody on a flight deck should be asleep ? Planned naps are quite common , and very beneficial to alertness after the nap . Why should somebody have to be so 'fit' that they can fly 2 nights in a row -very common , often unable to have long natural sleep before such flights , and why would a normal person not be wanting to sleep in the graveyard shift ( ie 2-5 am which a lot of operators in the Gulf and India force on their crews ?
We plan such naps , only after discussion about who os the most rested etc , and our Cabin crew are chiming every 20 minutes anyway . I personally feel a whole lot better after even a 10 min power-nap . I do not think that it is a good idea to sleep too long of course , and I am sure the deceased Captain did not sleep for 3 hours ?
I think that expecting an exhausted , sleep deprived pilolt to struggle along without a nap is asking for trouble . You try ringing crewing and saying 'I cannot fly tonight , my baby has colic ' more than once !
The whole aspect of night-flights and fatigue is ignored by all airline bosses . I am astounded to see one poster above saying that a medically-fit pilot would not need to sleep at all.

[fireflybob]

Whilst we wait to learn the full circumstances of this accident it's disappointing to see all the blame heaped on the crew.

What system (regulatory and otherwise) allows this type of accident to occur?

If pilots are fatigued or selected/trained incorrectly, then who is responsible?

[arearadar]

How many medicals does it take to prove that you can`t be fatigued ???

Dave :(

[Sam Asama]

Rat 5

The problem with your comment about AF358 is this: It might be appropriate on this thread as a relevant comment about CRM if it were true, but it isn't.

You obviously have been given wrong information from some source; neither the report nor the CVR support your statement.

Sam

[MrWooby]

This flight would have been an all night flight of 3-4 hours duration departing about 1AM from Dubai. Newspaper reports state crew well rested before flight with the captain having 3 1/2 days off prior to the flight. However, I cant find out if their flight originated in Dubai, or more likely, the crew operated from India to Dubai and then the return flight. Which would be a particularly arduous tour of duty. Anybody know the crews previous operation ?

[fdr]

Apparently, if you get rid of the foreigner (a Serb at that!) who is fatigued, then there is no safety risk remaining in "Incredible India"?

Not to make light of the issue, but as is already apparent to the posts on this topic, that fatigue may well have played a part but the response is lunacy. If a bandaid is desirable for the guy on the LHS (particularly if they are afflicted with being foreigners...) then why would the same bandaid not be applicable to the poor sod in the RHS who evidently sat through the same accident sequence.

If fatigue is a factor, it affects the whole system and is readily apparent in the operations tempo/manpower, flight schedules and crew schedules.

Frankly, when I find the next organisation that pays more than lip service to either their safety policy, fatigue management and risk management, then it will be the first. (and I have audited numerous operators...). Same for regulators; economics trump public safety 40- Love.


“Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised”
Tolstoy, L. N. (1828-1910)


India, sort your act out

[WorkingClassZero]

He was recorded snoring for half the flight. If indeed the pilot was a bad snorer, there is a distinct possibility that he had some degree of sleep apnea. If so, it would prevent him from obtaining benefit from his sleep, and would awaken as fatigued as before. The problem with apnea is that it won't be detected in a regular medical, where the person is awake. It would be interesting to analyse the recording to see if the snoring is regularly interrupted by silences followed by snorts - characteristic of apnea breathing pattern.

[Old Fella]

Mr Wooby. You are joking, surely. Bombay-Dubai-Bombay is at worst six hours flight time. Allowing for 1 hour before departure from Bombay and a 1 hour turn around in Dubai plus 10 mins after arrival back in Bombay that is still only 8 hours 10 mins. Hardly arduous if sufficient rest before departure. Have done it more times than I care to remember and never found it particularly arduous.

[JammedStab]

How about a more realistic conclusion if they want to use the fatigue thing. The pilot was fatigued not because he had been sleeping but because of the time of the day he was flying. He would have been just as fatigued if he had forced himself to stay awake is a more likely scenario.

[Roger Dixon]

Yer know what? Passengers bearing bombs next to their genitals is not our biggest problem.

Pilot fatigue keeps cropping up, over and over again. As SLF, I don't like it. In fact I'm extremely concerned about it. And so should be every other member of the flying public. If you can't stay awake when my life is in your hands.......... should I be even flying?

[Patty747400]

This investigation and its conclusion is a joke. But anyone knowing India is not surprised. It seems like nothing can be done correctly in that country.:ugh:

Roger Dixon. If only the regulators would be less corrupt and more interested in your safety your opinion would matter. Unfortunately it probably requires a major accident in the same zip code as the FAA and/or JAA office. What happens in India is of no matter.

[wilyflier]

Can the CVR retain audio records for whole time of flight on a looped recording?

[ecureilx]

Roger Dixon: I have jumpseated - when you really find out that not all pilots are always awake on long flights, an they tend to get cat-naps .. and .. sometimes they do walk out to stretch their legs and some good old airlines still doing "meet the people" thingy (atleast to the F class pax) ....

[Microburst2002]

A cat nap is one thing, and "stabbing yourself" as we say in Spain, is quite another.

Looks like the favorite human factors case study for the future CRM courses. The guy was not fit, aparently, for whatever reason. Maybe he was sick.

Or maybe the cause was totally different!

[Tom355uk]

MrWooby This flight would have been an all night flight of 3-4 hours duration departing about 1AM from Dubai. Newspaper reports state crew well rested before flight with the captain having 3 1/2 days off prior to the flight. However, I cant find out if their flight originated in Dubai, or more likely, the crew operated from India to Dubai and then the return flight. Which would be a particularly arduous tour of duty. Anybody know the crews previous operation ?

I believe this was the first leg of their duty. The Captain resided in Frankfurt (or Dusseldorf, can't remeber which) and commuted to DXB on this particular occasion. Whether the FO non-revved on the inbound flight or an earlier one I'm not sure.

[BOAC]

The pilot was fatigued not because he had been sleeping but because of the time of the day he was flying. - no - he may have been 'tired, but once again people are confusing tiredness with fatigue. They are two different things. Indeed he may even have been 'fatigued', but NOT because of the 'time of day' for THIS flight. It is normal to get tired, it is not normal to become fatigued, which occurs after a significant exposure to events causing tiredness. Let's get the terminology right!

Q: was he 'rested' after his supposed 'commute'?

[poorjohn]

Nothing beats being naturally well-rested, but there are modern medicines that are an effective substitute. Are they banned from the cockpit?

[misd-agin]

Boeing7xx post #3 - First Officer had 3650hrs TT and 3350hrs on Type. Clearly not inexperienced. Was with Jet Airways before he joined Air India Express.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Always been warned about doing math in public but here goes -

3650 - 3350 = 300 hr TT before he started his airline career?

[doubleu-anker]

Right on!!

I think it is a big step forward, the FAA wanting to stop this with a minimum of 1500 hrs.

[Wizofoz]

Always been warned about doing math in public but here goes -

3650 - 3350 = 300 hr TT before he started his airline career?

Yes, not at all uncommon in that part iof the world.

[doubleu-anker]

Here is the Indian contribution to air safety, in case you didn't believe it.

Medical checks for foreign pilots now a must - The Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Medical-checks-for-foreign-pilots-now-a-must/articleshow/6951291.cms)

PS, Reminds me of: "the lunatics are running the asylum".

[Permafrost_ATPL]

I love it when people try to hijack threads towards the tedious "300 hours and flying a jet, you must be mad!" when the accident involves an FO with thousands of hours under his belt...

Anyhow, it doesn't really matter whether the captain was fatigued, the weather was bad, the terrain challenging, etc. When a perfectly serviceable aeroplane gets flown into terrain after the FO called go-around three times, the main cause of the accident is company culture. Period.

P

[Escape Path]

Right on!!

I think it is a big step forward, the FAA wanting to stop this with a minimum of 1500 hrs.

Rubbish! :ugh:

I love it when people try to hijack threads towards the tedious "300 hours and flying a jet, you must be mad!" when the accident involves an FO with thousands of hours under his belt...

I second that.

I have lots of colleagues who have started flying jets right out of flying school. All of them are still alive and kicking with all of their limbs intact.

[iflytb20]

I believe this was the first leg of their duty. The Captain resided in Frankfurt (or Dusseldorf, can't remeber which) and commuted to DXB on this particular occasion. Whether the FO non-revved on the inbound flight or an earlier one I'm not sure.

The flight originated in Mangalore. Their pattern was IXE-DXB-IXE with an appx 2.5 hr ground halt in DXB

[moon11]

"was asleep for much of the three-hour flight and was "disorientated" when the plane started to descend, the Hindustan Times reported."

Flight duration was 3hr+
Voice recorder record only last 30 minutes.

Something is wrong here....

[White Knight]

Particularly Arduous Tour of Duty
Mr Wooby. You are joking, surely. Bombay-Dubai-Bombay is at worst six hours flight time. Allowing for 1 hour before departure from Bombay and a 1 hour turn around in Dubai plus 10 mins after arrival back in Bombay that is still only 8 hours 10 mins. Hardly arduous if sufficient rest before departure. Have done it more times than I care to remember and never found it particularly arduous.

Old Fellah. You are joking surely? This is not BOM-DXB-BOM, but Mangalore to Dubai and back which will add about an hour of flight time EACH way over Bombay. Plus 2:30 on the ground as reported makes for a damn long duty...

We do rotations to southern India from Dubai and it can easily be a 12 hour duty - through the NIGHT... (Throw in the monsoon and it can be a sh1te night out) Not easy, even if you're as fit as the Indians think you should be:ugh::ugh::ugh:

[J77]

Its a real shame that all the blame is going to the pilots. Yes agreed they touched it last and were in a situation which they should not have been. What about all the corporate factors that would contribute to this. The Airline is run by Air India, by pilots who do not fly the type and only sit in offices "trying " to run it. No proper SOP's along with no proper recurrent training program for all the pilots. No separate AOC with a separate head of operations i.e 'Accountable Manager'. If this happened in Europe we would definitely see some heads going rolling.

But this is India nothing will be done and DGCA will not be any more accountable than it is now.

The big question is what has the management done to ensure that this will not be repeated. Do I hear the same answer....... 'NOTHING'.......

[coffeezone]

Interesting that many consider 3,700 hours experienced!

[misd-agin]

Yes it is interesting. 3,700 = experienced? :=

[caulfield]

3700 hours of what?Autopilot flying from 500' to 500'.Let me see now 3400 hours of commercial flying(take 300 from his total for flt school)..divide that by say 2 for his number of sectors or flights.1700 flights.Take away about 500 for his time on no assisted T/L and conservatively you have 1200 flights as operational FO.Halve it for his P1 sector time and you get 600.Im going to be generous and have him "flying" the plane for 1 minute after TO and 1 minute before landing...thats 1200 minutes or 20 hours.Of the 20 hours of actual manual fying,Im saying that 100% will be with aid of a flight director.Of the 10 hours he has "on approach" all of it will be on glide and configured with AT either engaged in MCP SPD or ARM.Of the 600 approaches he actually made,Im saying that he saw a GA for 1% of those so thats 6 missed approaches.Of those 6 GA's,he would have made none of them himself(SOP).I'm saying that in 4 years of flying he probably made 8 recurrency checks of 2 four hour sessions each.Thats 64 hours in sim checks.He is unlikely to have ever seen a hot/high approach in this sim time(not on syllabus)much less been trained for it.The Indian SOP for hot/high is a GA.Nothing technically wrong with that.He is also unlikely ever to have seen a runway GA in this sim time either.
So how could a pilot with such "experience" honestly be expected to take
control from an unstable,let alone an unsafe, approach and command and execute a missed approach?Do you know the level of self-confidence required to actually take control from a Captain?Self-confidence comes from experience,it cannot be faked.As you can see,3700 hours is just a number in some cases.It might indicate a pilot has moderate experience or then again it might not.They may call the Indian First Officer "Captain" from the day he steps onto the commercial flight-deck but theres a big difference between being one and being called one.

The FIRST OFFICER was sadly not equipped to save this flight from a bad decision by the Captain.He is not to be blamed.The system is.

[visibility3miles]

Why blame it all on the F/O if he called for a go-around three times? He could have/should have seized control of the plane, but didn't. He paid for it with his life.

[doubleu-anker]

caulfield

An excellent post and breakdown, that I guarantee wasn't in the accident report.

[fireflybob]

Why blame it all on the F/O if he called for a go-around three times?

I wouldn't blame anything on the F/O. What is wrong is the "system" (or lack of it) that allows this situation to come about. If you want to apportion blame then look to the appropriate regulatory authority.

[Jabiman]

v3m:
Why blame it all on the F/O if he called for a go-around three times? He could have/should have seized control of the plane, but didn't. He paid for it with his life.

This from the original news story:

Voice recordings picked up co-pilot H.S. Ahluwalia saying: "We don't have runway left," seconds before the disaster.
The report revealed that the plane touched down 5,000 feet (1,500 metres) along the airport's hilltop runway, which is about 8,000 feet long, the Hindustan Times said.
It added Glusica was suffering "sleep inertia" and that experts had concluded that the plane would still have landed safely if the pilots had applied the emergency brakes instead of trying to take off again.

[Nightrider]

For everyone who has first hand experience in this incredible country there is only the culture and the corruption to blame, nothing and no one else.

Two expats missed Coimbatore on the JetAirways inauguration flight, immediately the new law issued demanded that at least one Indian pilot has to form part of the crew, result came a few weeks later, a complete Indian crew operated to Hyderabad...but Wing Commander xxx landed on the airbase instead of International...

Now we have a new law for medicals....

There have been incredible actions before and there will be incredible actions following.

And They may call the Indian First Officer "Captain" from the day he steps onto the commercial flight-deck is not completely true, I know of at least two Indian First Officers who have changed their passport to include Captain on the data page just after having completed a few solos on the famous single engine trainer....

Incredible? Yes, they even advertise this world-wide.

[Escape Path]

I think it is a big step forward, the FAA wanting to stop this with a minimum of 1500 hrs.

Interesting that many consider 3,700 hours experienced!

Yes it is interesting. 3,700 = experienced? :=

He's not inexperienced

What's the whole point of having the minimum hours to be a commercial raised to 1500hrs if with 3700 one is still inexperienced and cannot take control from an unstable, let alone an unsafe, approach and command and execute a missed approach? :rolleyes:

[Jabiman]

Excerpts of pilots’ conversation
As soon as Pilot Captain Z Glucika got clearance of the ATC, he started descending for landing.

Co-Pilot: (Captain H S Ahluwalia): O My God.

Both pilots: Flight is taking wrong path and wrong side.

Co-pilot: Go around

Though flight is still descending and it tried to touch down in middle of the run way, the co-pilot insists on ‘go around’.

Co-pilot: Pull up. (Repeats six times)

Captain: Only 800 metres left. (in runway) (It was suspected that this time may be the aircraft was trying to take off and pilot found that only 800 feet of run way left)
(These conversation took place within eight seconds)
So to compound his error of not forcing a GA while it was still possible, they tried to do so way too late:
“Despite the high speed and landing in the middle of the runway, had the pilot tried to stop the aircraft instead of taking off after making touch down, it would have stopped at least at the end of the run way averting the disaster,” a Boeing official said. In support of the evidence that the pilot tried a “go around,” the DFDR shows that Glucika activated the takeoff gear and that the engine was in powered to high speed. “During normal touch down the engine speed is always low”, the official said.

[fullforward]

NATION
India Today NATION Story
Rajasthan: Fraud pilots busted

Rohit Parihar
November 13, 2010
Updated 00:00 IST


Rahul Yadav, a pilot with Indian Airlines who claims he has 1,000 flying hours with the country's official carrier, made the worst landing of his life on October 9. The 25-year-old cruised into jail when he was held by the Rajasthan Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on charges of getting a commercial pilot's licence (CPL) with forged documents that show him having flown 200 hours when he has actually done only 22.


The Rajasthan state flying school at Sanganer near JaipurYadav, whose father is an official of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), is only one of 14 rogue pilots. The DGCA gave Yadav his CPL on the basis of documents submitted by the Rajasthan State Flying School at Sanganer near Jaipur. The school, though closed for two years now, is being investigated in 14 cases-India Today has the names-where students were falsely certified to having flown as many as 200 hours on single-engine Cessna 152 aircraft, including cross-country flying from places where the aircraft never landed.

While similar cases have been reported from Haryana's Hisar Flying club, Additional Director General of Police Ajit Singh Shekhawat, who heads the ACB, has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to look into the possibility of a national-level racket. "The fraud has shocked us with the ease with which the lives of passengers have been put at risk," he says. The CBI has since started investigations and the scandal is expected to spread to other states.

Another young aspirant, Nidhi Vashist, became a 'pilot' by allegedly paying Rs 11 lakh. Her logbook displays 169 flying hours from the Jaipur flying school and the remaining from Karnal, Hisar and Patiala. Once she got her CPL, Vashist got a twin-engine flying completion certificate from the Philippines and applied for a licence from the DGCA. The DGCA, however, got suspicious when it found a solo flying entry when it should have been with another pilot. Upon inquiry, the centre denied having issued the certificate. This was last year when the Philippines faced many reports about such frauds, leading to a crackdown by the authorities.

Vashist alleged that Mahendra Kumar Chaudhary, chief flying instructor at the Jaipur school, had got her the twin-engine certificate for money. Vashisht demanded her money back and when Chaudhary refused, she went to the police. Chaudhary then issued two cheques for the entire amount to 'settle the matter', which bounced. Vashist then complained to the ACB. A cross-check with air maintenance garage, air traffic control (ATC), fuel records and logbook entries revealed that she actually flew for just 22 hours for which the fee was deposited. "Surprisingly, we found thatthe chief flying instructor of Hisar, Mahavir Singh Beniwal, had also certified her arrival, which points to a bigger and organised criminal activity," says Shekhawat. An arrest warrant has been issued against Beniwal.

Yadav was accorded a similar fake flight in March 2007. In his case, Chaudhary did not even enrol him for the 22 hours that he possibly actually flew. Yadav later did a 50-hour flying course from Canada, which is being looked into as well. Chaudhary has been identified as the brain behind the fake certification racket in Jaipur with the roles of executive and supervisory officers also being examined. He has been arrested twice and bailed out quickly but faces more cases. There have been instances when the ATC recorded 36 flights taking off but the flying instructor showed 178 for the same period. Chaudhary's counsel Ashu Singh refused to comment.

A certificate of certain hours of flying makes one eligible for enrolling at flying schools abroad. "It is necessary to investigate all flying licences issued in India, including those given on the basis of training in India or abroad," says Shekhawat.

The DGCA's certification system needs to be looked into to ascertain whether it makes regular visits and checks to ensure whether a flying school is adhering to given norms. It is surprising that flying data which is maintained at many places manually is not linked via a computer network, making it easy for it to be altered without being detected.

Investigators suspect several dimensions of fraud involving deliberate maintenance of shoddy records at various levels. Most of the 14 candidates identified so far are currently employed with various government and private airlines. The impunity with which rules were compromised raises serious doubts about the DGCA's supervising system as well as the recruitment procedures most airlines follow. With even co-pilots supposed to play a crucial role, the scam may make flying in India more dangerous than it already is." :{

[flydive1]

Well

Fake Swedish pilot Thomas Salme flies Air One jets for 13 years | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1279083/Fake-Swedish-pilot-Thomas-Salme-flies-Air-One-jets-13-years.html)

Or Thomas Pelazza in Italy

[fullforward]

Hey flydive, you're not serious about it, right?
The Indian Today report reveals (actually confirm) a totally corrupt SYSTEM, it's not exactly like 2 or 3 exceptions from Sweden or Italy.
Given previous posts from professionals with a lot of experience in India, this is far from surprising.

How many fake pilots are still flying at large, endangering people freely?

What JAA, FAA, ICAO would say at that?

[QDMQDMQDM]

Anyhow, it doesn't really matter whether the captain was fatigued, the weather was bad, the terrain challenging, etc. When a perfectly serviceable aeroplane gets flown into terrain after the FO called go-around three times, the main cause of the accident is company culture. Period.

This may be the ultimate cause, but it is not a sufficient explanation for what presumably happened here. As a physician working long shifts I have had personal experience of sleep inertia, both in myself and in others, on many occasions. An individual who has been deeply asleep for two hours or more and then is woken suddenly to perform a task may look superficially awake and sound awake, but they often are not awake and if so they do not apply the most basic critical appraisal to what they are doing. They are 'going through the motions', but in a remarkably convincing and deceptive fashion.

It can be hard to reconcile inappropriate / irrational behaviour when faced with other aspects of a situation which are normal, in this case a captain who looks awake and is physically doing the right things and making the right noises, in the same way as he may have done many times before. The FO called for a go-around on three occasions, but that action wasn't enough. However, it is worth reflecting that had he attempted to wrestle the controls from an asleep captain, acting as an apparently awake automaton, there is no guarantee this aircraft would not have crashed with both pilots fighting for the controls.

Anyway, should the FO have attempted to take control? Yes. Is it possible, though, to understand the basis for his decision paralysis in this sudden onset bizarre situation and eventual inability to act in a rational, decisive and effective fashion? Yes.

Blaming this accident on potential deficiencies in company culture or poor piloting will not prevent it happening again. Analysing the full interplay of human and psychological factors and using this as a learning event to disseminate information about the insidious dangers of sleep inertia to aircrew may do.

QDM

[pool]

Analysing the full interplay of human and psychological factors and using this as a learning event to disseminate information about the insidious dangers of sleep inertia to aircrew may do.And that is exactly why nothing will happen. Any normal human knows the outcome of any such study perfectly well, everyone has gone through sleep deprivation and the morning after class, micro-sleeps while driving late at night when the body yells for sleep. We don't need any analysis of simple human nature and design.

On the other hand, every normal citizen of our beautiful modern and capitalistic world will know that nothing will change, because it would have a direct impact on the mismanagers bonuses, the owners dividends and on the bribes to the regulators. As has been shown cynically here, not even a smoking hole wakes up. It is all back to the 'blame the pilot' game, a game that seems to work perfectly throughout all levels: Press, company, regulator, politicians and finally the general public. :yuk:

[QDMQDMQDM]

On the other hand, every normal citizen of our beautiful modern and capitalistic world will know that nothing will change, because it would have a direct impact on the mismanagers bonuses, the owners dividends and on the bribes to the regulators. As has been shown cynically here, not even a smoking hole wakes up. It is all back to the 'blame the pilot' game, a game that seems to work perfectly throughout all levels: Press, company, regulator, politicians and finally the general public.

OTOH, simply discussing it on a board like this brings it to the forefront for the wider aircrew public. If you adopt an optimistic, positive attitude then you may get things to change, even if only in a small way. If you're a cynical pessimist then you won't.

Shall we be :) rather than :mad: ?

[airjet]

herein lies the problem, in India the co-pilot would have a hard time over ruling the capt.

[TopTup]

Doing some minimal reading on this forum and the press in India concentrates complete and utter blame on the expat pilot contingent in India. Mostly this comes form the unemployed CPL holder with a massive 175-200 hrs TT demanding their birth-right job from C152 into RHS of 777. In the case of Mangalore it came from the one of the most senior airline officials hours after the accident, without a minuscule amount of evidence to draw from.

The contagiously corrupt and putrid mess that is airlines like AI and the DGCA have created a SYSTEM whereby training is unstructured and fraught with incompetence and again, corruption. See the latest articles posted on this web site and press whereby kids forged entire log books (one kid with 20 hrs forged the other 180 hrs and was employed flying 737 NG. How did he pass sims, line checks, etc?) To be fair, there is also a section of expats who also have questionable credentials to occupy the seat they do.

So who do you blame? The expat Capt who slept for a large section of the flight (apparently??) and continued an unstable approach? The FO who called go around yet failed to assert any other form of CRM and potential life-saving action to take control of the aircraft? Or should we look at the SYSTEM that created, promotes and welcomes / exists on corruption and [criminally] negligent standards?

If you've ever been in an AI cockpit you may (more chance than not) witness a domineering, omniscient Cmdr with a self obtained God-like status belittling and demeaning a young FO too scared, too poorly trained and too sub-servant to dare question such behavior.

I know that some local Capts are fighting this culture. Hopefully this small change can lead to an epidemic where the good guys win. A generational shift in time and effort is probably required but it's got to start somewhere. (And nothing but praise for those who are trying).

[Old Fella]

White Knight, You are obviously correct in stating that the Mangalore-Dubai-Mangalore flight, with a 2.5 hour turn around in Dubai, is a long day (or night). I assume, maybe incorrectly, that the crew were within permissable crew duty limitations. My comment regarding my flights BOM-DXB-BOM was made before the schedule flown by the accident crew was made known on this forum. My flights were also all night flying, however as part of a three man cockpit crew. The one hope I have is that the root cause of this accident is determined and lessons are learnt.

[soullimbo]

Does powerdistance (Geert Hofstede - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Hofstede)) affect CRM and would you fly with airlines from countries with a high powerdistance? I prefer not to. Indian's won't speak up to their seniors or people from a higher caste. Scary when you think about it.
But then again, the Netherlands has not a high powerdistance score still the amount of people ranting about their arrogant cockpit culture makes you wonder.

[coffeezone]

Re my previous post- is 3,700 hrs an experienced pilot? Subsequent posts have disturbing information on whether many of these pilots actually have had the training and experience as stated in their log books. Read the Air India Express incident post and others. It is possible that this FO did not have the experience stated. Apart from that a person with 3,700 hrs is only just beginning to learn about aviation. Somebody with 3,000 hrs might disagree with that but it would be a good idea to delay making an opinion until one has 20,000 hrs. Overconfidence in one's ability allied with ignorance has been the cause of many accidents. In addition, going straight from a Commercial Licence to the right seat of a sophisticated jet is not a good way to build up experience, from day 1 the FO will be overawed by his Captain's experience and position in the company and probably have stars in his eyes as to where he/she is without realising the seriousness or responsibility of his/her position. The gold bars on the epelettes are probably more important than anything else. No hard decisions have to be made or are always subject to veto by a far more experienced Captain.
Another aspect re the experience issue is to check how much experience the Captain had, was it real? Was it in a quality airline where standards are maintained? Was he appropriately screened and tested before hiring, probably not! The end result is that a Captain is always to blame for any accident/incident, but it is an airline's responsibility that a good standard of crew are on board any flight, and that if a Captain makes a mistake, the holes in the swiss cheese don't line up- ie FO is experienced and QUALIFIED enough to intervene and get a situation back on track.

[ManaAdaSystem]

I disagree. As a captain I've flown with AB initio pilots. It really boils down to the level of training (by the school AND the airline).

I've flown with lousy 5000 hr Effohs and I've flown with excellent 300 hr Effohs, and vice versa. From experience, the low hour guys are more likely to challenge me than the experienced ones.
There is a big BUT here, and that's the cultural bit. Then again, I've flown with Indian Effohs, and I have never seen them as submissive or scared to speak up if necessary.

[johns7022]

I think there will come a time when the family of dead passengers, will finally put the blame where the blame should be directed...on the chief pilot....

Plenty of idiots out there, plenty of high time pilots out there....the chief pilot hires who he wants...that's where the blame should be put.....

[aviationdoc]

There are multiple factors at play here.
The Captain had been sleeping during the initial part of the flight and the Cockpit Voice recorded revealed that he had been snoring-he is in the correct age group for Sleep apnoea.
Also at what point did he wake up?Was he in the Sleep inertia phase?
Also there is the Cross culture differential which is well recognised.
All these factors are well known.
Also who likes to work at night?

[Green Guard]

Also who likes to work at night?

police men and women
cooks
some pilots
all owls
all the foxes
and many crooks

[zoarath]

Roster for one Indian airline; short haul operation:-:bored:
Day one: 03.30 local transport – 4 sector day – back to accommodation 13.30
Day two: 04.00 local transport - 4 sector day – back to accommodation 14.30
Day three: 11.00 local transport – 3 sector day – back to accommodation 19.00
Day four: 14.00 local transport – 2 sector day – back to accommodation 22.30
Day five: 15.00 local transport – 4 sector day – back to accommodation midnight 15.
Day six: Having got to bed by 01.00 if not delayed – OFF. (Not in most parts of the world)
Day seven: OFF – but you get up at 3am the next day. (Not OFF in most parts of the world)
Repeat very similar roster, times 4, for 28 hours per week; 120 in a month; 1,200hrs/year flight hours. No ‘local night’ rest rules (24hours free of duty = day off). Head of Flight Deck rosters knows nothing at all about aviation – a HR business manager, on a bonus to squeeze the pilots?
Transport 2 hours before departure but, ‘on duty’ 45mins before. Back to accommodation an hour and a half after landing, but ‘off duty on chocks’. All hours will be ’fiddled’ by company if required.
For some, every flight a training flight with a 250 hour FO (or as the 250hr FO) in the monsoon season, and fatigue is a given. A TRE/TRI was overheard saying he had to take control on one out of three landings below 100 ft in the previous month. Not on base training but line training flights, with passengers. Pilots with 200/300hrs, maybe having done initial training in Florida/Philippines and a type rating from a European training centre with no standards, give cause for concern.
From what I have seen over the last few years: Yes, some of the contract pilots operating in India have dubious backgrounds and more than a few should not be on a flight deck in the left seat, or the right for that matter. Others are excellent and so, just like the Indian captains, you have the full range. As far as first officers go, the very best low hour FO I have flown with was Indian, a bit older than some, who had paid for professional training at a good school. However, many are barely adequate and a few have no handling skill whatsoever. Very poorly trained and no ability means they do not even realize just how bad they are. With less than 2,000 hours, and probably less than 100 jet landings, they may start a command course. (1,500 hours an FO may apply for command.) ‘Monkey see monkey do. ’ (The saying refers to the learning of a process without an understanding of why it works: Mimicry, usually with limited knowledge of the consequences) and rote learning may see even the least able FO pass for command, particularly if ‘connected’? These new captains will have had some time watching experienced captains do the job well: The next generation 250 hour FO is going to be watching them! A total experience of 3,700+hrs on an Indian flight deck will soon be an exception at some airlines! The fault lies with the regulators, those inadequate self serving individuals who seem to man every authority; and until that is sorted out flying as a passenger will become ever more of a gamble: India first, but most certainly not just in India.

[aviationdoc]

The worst thing about this lack of training and quality sleep is that the regulating authorities do not seem to care.
Also the Flight duty hours are the same whether you fly during the day or night-this is totally illogical.
Most bodies prefer to be in bed rather than staring out of a Flight deck!!!!!

[jpsingh]

I agree 100% with you. Infact some Airlines have been hiring Ex military aviators. Some of these guys put in the required effort and become an asset in the cockpit.There are others who are not willing to put in the requisite hard work and have an attitude or mind set "his brain is like concrete..all mixed up and set !"
The same goes for the 250 hours FOs.There are guys who are real keen to learn and soon enough become assets while there are others who have flown 22 hours and shown 250 in the logbooks or have a DGCA connection/political influence.These guys are just out to have fun and party during layovers.
The good guys are in both the sets so I don't think its fair to generalise.

[jpsingh]

A very BALANCED view in a long time..:):)

[jcjeant]

Hi,

Mangalore crash report out: Sleepy captain was just one of the reasons (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/mangalore-crash-report-out-sleepy-captain-was-just-one-of-the-reasons/778963/)

[MountainBear]

This article offers a different characterization of the report... Cockpit cold war led to Mangalore plane crash - India - DNA (http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_cockpit-cold-war-led-to-mangalore-plane-crash_1534664) I couldn't find the actual report on-line, unfortunately.

[A37575]

First Officer had 3650hrs TT and 3350hrs on Type

Therefore he had only 300 flying hours (part of which may have been flight simulator time?) before being second in command of a big twin jet airliner. Not much background experience to fall back on there...

[A37575]

or poor technique(pilot not trained how to recover from a hot/high approach).

Surely this is a basic flying skill taught during ab-initio and before first solo? Remember the advice of your instructor before doing your first solo: He would have said "If you come in too fast or too high do not hesitate to go-around."

During simulator training there would have been countless go-arounds either in IMC or visual - the type rating is the "special training", here. It is not good enough to continually blame perceived poor training for accidents. It is the pilots responsibility to ensure he is confident in any manoeuvre pertaining to the operation and if he is underconfident then all he has to do is rectify the situation by requesting further flying training.

While it may be an admirable sentiment to deflect blame away from the crew and the captain, especially if along with their unfortunate passengers they are are now dead, it is evident that hiding the truth that the pilot(s) badly stuffed up, will never reduce the appalling record of crashes in some airlines.

[Microburst2002]

This is one of those rare cases in which a FO has to take over, with or without the consent of the captain.

It is difficult to assess when such case arises. My rule is that if I am afraid to lose my life and leave my children without a father and my wife without a husband, then I don't give a sh1t for culture shock, procedures, or go around occurrence reports. If that happens and the captain ignores me I will take over. And I will announce "go around" in the frequency, too.

But I think the ideal situation is that such bad captains should never be flying.

Oh, mate I will not fly in any indian carrier if I can help it.

[beachbunny]

Seems to be something missing here.
CVR recorded 2hrs and 5 mins. Captain was sleeping for the first 1hr and 40 mins, according to the report. That leaves 25 minutes during which the captain was at least not heard snoring. We have been given three seconds of recorded conversation. The last three.
Now, one would assume that there was some discussion about the approach prior to commencing descent, (normal SOPs)
This would reveal who was flying the aircraft at that time. All we have been told is that there was an "unstable approach". How did it come to be unstable?
Did the "experienced " First Officer initiate the descent by himself, leaving the Captain out of the loop? Did he wake the captain up only after getting the approach profile wrong, and then asking for help from a poor guy struggling to wake up and discover where he was?
An old saying, very hard to do a good landing from a bad approach.
Please don't pass any judgements until some of these questions are answered.:=

[doubleu-anker]

If there was also a "cold war" atmosphere in the cockpit, then there is a lesson for us all here. If there is animosity in the cockpit we must still function as a team, as hard as it may seem to a lot of us. It is imperative we continue to communicate, even if the other crew member is "sleeping with your wife".

The moment the communication breaks down you are, for all intensive purposes, "single crew". In fact the, the situation would be so bad if there is no communication, the PF would possibly be better off doing "everything" him/her self, then they will be aware it has been done. That is the seriousness of a communication breakdown. This also would include not waking up your fellow crew member at least ONE hour before landing.

Setting a trap, or making a deliberate mistake, for your fellow crew member, endangers all on board.

[marchino61]

The actual 191 page report can be found here:

http://www.civilaviation.gov.in/MocaExBanner/content/conn/MyTutorialContent/path/Contribution%20Folders/NewsUpdates/MangloreCrashReport.pdf

It's a slow download....

[MountainBear]

Thanks for linking the report.

I'm not thrilled by the way it was written but I think the overall quality of the work was high and I think the facts support their conclusion. I would have chosen to focus more on the CRM factors in this crash because it was atrocious.

Cause of the crash:
Captain violating just about every SOP there is... :mad:
Co-pilot not doing anything about it...just whining.:ugh:

[Machinbird]

A new article published on FlightGlobal indicates the aircraft could have stopped on the hardsurface based upon Boeing simulations. I'll leave the comments to the rest of you. This is supposed to be hidden in the accident report (which never fully downloaded for me).
Overrun Air India 737 could have stopped despite late landing (http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/04/26/355945/overrun-air-india-737-could-have-stopped-despite-late.html)
Is this news?

[wozzo]

A new article published on FlightGlobal indicates the aircraft could have stopped on the hardsurface based upon Boeing simulations.

Accident report, Analysis, p. 89/90:


2.2.15 Braking

Although the runway length of 8003 feet at Mangalore is adequate for Boeing 737-800 operations, most of the pilots prefer to use Auto Brake setting 3 or MAX to ensure timely stoppage of the aircraft. However, in the accident aircraft, the Auto Brake setting was set at 2. After touchdown, the Captain had selected Thrust Reversers and commenced braking. It was initially gradual due to this setting. However, later when the brake pressure had been increased manually, as per aircraft braking system, the aircraft started decelerating much faster. It was brought out by the Boeing Test Pilot during Public Hearing that if the Captain had deployed detent reverse thrust and had applied maximum manual braking at touchdown, the aircraft could have stopped by 7600 feet beyond R/W 24 threshold i.e. on the paved portion of R/W 24.

While such stoppage figures are demonstrable during controlled test flying scenarios, these cannot be considered for landings during routine line operations. However, if the Captain had initiated maxmimum manual braking with Thrust Reversers, the aircraft could have stopped in the overshot area and the accident might have been averted.

[Tee Emm]

Flight International 3-9 May 2011, reports on the latest information by Indian investigators on the Air India Express Boeing 737-800 crash at Mangalore. The aircraft flown by the Serbian captain was over 1200 ft high above the glide slope at two miles from the runway. At one mile the aircraft was descending at 4,000ft/min with GPWS sink rate and six `pull-up` alarms and crossed the threshold at 200 ft and 160 knots with flaps blown back to Flaps 30.

Pressing on regardless and disregarding the Indian first officer's suggestion to go-around, the captain allowed the aircraft to float as the remainder of the flaps extended and touch down 1590 metres beyond the landing threshold leaving 855 metres to stop. Having already applied brakes and reverse he then attempted a late go-around and finished up in a ravine killing 150 people including the crew.

The first officer proved to be `submissive`and made no attempt to take over the controls to discontinue the ill-fated approach.

The report does not say exactly how he should have wrested control from the captain who was intent on landing. Bash him over the head, maybe? Did the Indian investigation really expect the captain to meekly hand over control to the first officer? If the first officer had been taught to call for a go-around and simultaneously raise the landing gear lever, the outcome could not have been worse than meekly watching death fast approaching.

Crazy self centred captains are a fact of life in some culture driven airlines. At least give the first officer something more tangible to work with than the wide-spread warm and fuzzy but useless mealy-mouthed advice starting with "Please captain we are too high -you should go-around". A fat lot of good that does with some characters in the left seat.

Apart from pointing a gun at the head of the captain the easiest and most effective of last resort is to whip up the landing gear lever and order "Go-Around". At least then a culture obsessed captain can transfer the blame on the first officer for a go-around while taking credit himself for a good decision.

[Superpilot]

I like it!


Gear up
Announce G/A on the radio
Push for / select TOGA
Be ready for him to punch you ;)

[fireflybob]

But surely the real answer is selection (or even deselection), training, and regulation?

In a well regulated airline things would never have got to this stage in the first place.

[Centaurus]

I like it!

Gear up
Announce G/A on the radio
Push for / select TOGA
Be ready for him to punch you


Announcing Go Around on the radio is simply wasting seconds and does nothing - ATC can see the go-around anyway. Time for the ATC niceties later.

If the captain has his hands gripping the thrust levers and by then the autothrottle is already disengaged, the first officer pressing TOGA is wasting his time.

The captain will be too busy cursing and shoving open the thrust levers to punch you anyway. Later maybe - but not if the F/O is bigger than him. :rolleyes:

In a well regulated airline things would never have got to this stage in the first place..

In an ideal world perhaps - but not in real life

[Efe Cem Elci]

A local FTO (courses ranging from PPL to fATPL) organized an introductory presentation at a university and brought an airline pilot to discuss the life of a pilot, training, etc. In the Q&A section, mostly because the pilot is ex-Air Force, the crash of Birgenair Flight 301 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgenair_Flight_301) (Boeing 757 crashed shortly after takeoff) was brought up in regards to whether CRM was hindered with an all ex-military cockpit crew.

When it was stated that the FO at one point should have take command of the airplane when the Captain refused to listen to both his and the SO's suggestions to keep the airplane level and kept pulling back on the yoke, the airline captain stated very matter of fact that unless the captain was dead or incapacitated, there was no way in hell that the first officer could take command of the airplane. As far as I know, its contrary to what is taught and encouraged but perhaps means you have a job when you get off the plane... but as Tee Emm said, sure beats not being able to walk away at all! :eek:

[Pontius]

If the captain has his hands gripping the thrust levers and by then the autothrottle is already disengaged, the first officer pressing TOGA is wasting his time.

Might want to have a re-read of that technical manual and the autothrottle section.

This message has been brought to you by cabernet sauvignon ;).

[Centaurus]

Might want to have a re-read of that technical manual and the autothrottle section.



FCTM: Autothrottle Use. Autothrottle use is recommended during take off and climb in either automatic and manual flight. During all other phases of flight, autothrottle use is recommended only when the autopilot is engaged.

The autothrottle ARM mode is normally not recommended because its function can be confusing.

Without having read the full Indian investigation report one could safely assume the captain had disconnected the AT if he intended to manually fly the aircraft resulting in over the fence 200 ft high and 160 knots which is real fast. In that case, given the unusual (?) profile, pressing TOGA in the hope that it would automatically advance the thrust levers with the AT switched off, then nothing will happen apart from FD operation.

[captjns]

Fireflybob says...

But surely the real answer is selection (or even deselection), training, and regulation?

In a well regulated airline things would never have got to this stage in the first place

Remember Ameican 1420 in Little Rock, AK on the 1st of June, 1999?

Contiuned approach into severe weather resulting in long landing and overrun... and fatalities at the hands of a "gotta complete the mission" captain. F/O also said "I think we should go around." Even worse was the Captain of that ill fated flight was a management pilot too:ooh:!

[221340]

30 years ago I found myself in this first officer's position, except I was the second officer (727). After repeated calls for a go-around, I reached up and pushed the throttles up and locked my arm so they couldn't pull 'em back. Eventually, the speed got so high, they both gave up and went around. Ha!
I figured I'd be fired, but when we landed after a nice comfortable stabilized second approach, the captain reached back and squeezed my knee and said thank you.
All you first officers out there: when you know you are right, and your life depends on intervention, you have to speak up. If that doesn't work, get creative. But don't just sit there and let him/her kill you.

[Pontius]

pressing TOGA in the hope that it would automatically advance the thrust levers with the AT switched off, then nothing will happen apart from FD operation.

Mate, nobody disconnects the autothrottle by turning off the A/T Arm switch (unless you've lost an engine). You must surely know you just use the A/T disconnect switches! Thereafter, assuming you haven't been below 5' RA for 2 seconds (or whatever it is....irrelevant here), pushing the TOGA switches will give you 2000 fpm or TOGA power on the second push of the switches.

[kbrockman]

If they where really way too high and too fast on what is sounding like a very unstabilized approach, and the FO is calling for a GA with the Captain not responding, it would be wise for him to select (and very clearly announce) gear up sooner rather than later forcing a GA while still high enough and far enough from the treshold.

Let the bickering of who was at fault commence after a save second landing attempt under the supervision of management/other company pilots and even if need arises someone from an external overseeing body (eg FAA in the US) with the aid of ATC and flight data.

No reason to die just because someone lost the plot and you where afraid to speak/act up.

[Fangio]

Is there no CRM training pogramme in place at Air India Express?

[S76Heavy]

If they where really way too high and too fast on what is sounding like a very unstabilized approach, and the FO is calling for a GA with the Captain not responding

Sounds like pilot incapacitation (the subtle kind rather than the keeling over type) to me; ergo the F/O has to assume command of the aircraft.

I know it is not always easy, and I have met characters that made me think twice as well, but never to the point that I allowed the situation to become dangerous.

But I agree with the view that once it has gotten to this point, a lot of preventive measures have already been missed and that needs to be adressed. Just blaming unassertive copilots for actions from dangerous captains will not solve the problem.

[RatherBeFlying]

In a vintage turboprop simulator with white on black AH, I watched the left seat allow an overbank progress to inverted at 16000'. I was screaming directly in his ear that he was inverted and had to roll the other way. He just sat there all the way down and did not change a thing.

I had a talk with myself about why I allowed the guy to "kill" us. My excuse was that it was only a sim, but what would I really do if it was for real?

Perhaps training needs to be done that persistence in an obviously wrong course is a form of subtle incapacitation subject to the two communications rule. Perhaps part of sim training should be that PF is briefed to do something wrong that PNF is expected to recognise and take over.

[GlueBall]

Besides being too submissive, insufficiently assertive . . . the F/O had lacked elementary survival instinct.

Staying alive may require immediate, dramatic action not covered by SOP or CRM.

In this case, it was the copilot's duty to physically override the captain's control inputs and effect an immediate go-around by whatever means necessary.

A previous poster had made an excellent suggestion by raising the gear. An excellent option! It undoubtedly would have forced the captain to go-around. :ooh:

[MountainBear]

Wow. Just...wow. Did any of you bother to read the report in full. Trying to pin this on the co-pilot is ridiculous.

If you have read the report in full you would know that according to simulations done after the fact, despite the unstabilized approach, the plane would have landed safely (albeit long). The deadly decision was the PF's decision to attempt to take off again, after the thrust reversers had been deployed. The report called this a "grave mistake".

I agree that the CRM in this case was terrible and that they should have never tried to land from such an unstabilized approach. But it wasn't that approach that killed them. It wasn't the landing that did so. It wasn't the fact they couldn't stop in time. It was the fact they attempted to take-off again; that's what killed them.

[TDK mk2]

I seem to remember something like this happening with into a Swedish airport (Skavska maybe) some years ago in a 738 with a Captain on his last day in the job, before departing to the fly the great southern skies. 180 kts and the wrong flap setting but he managed to stop it on the runway and all but got away with it. Report here; http://www.aaiu.ie/upload/general/6946-REPORT_2005_018-0.PDF

These days flight data monitoring would cause most to think twice but it does remind me of my first day ever with a line Captain (after final line check) many years ago and looking a wrong shape runway and hearing the GPWS shouting 'sink rate, sink rate...'. I asked the question and he went around but it was a bit of a baptism of fire.

[donkey123]

Mate, nobody disconnects the autothrottle by turning off the A/T Arm switch (unless you've lost an engine). You must surely know you just use the A/T disconnect switches! Thereafter, assuming you haven't been below 5' RA for 2 seconds (or whatever it is....irrelevant here), pushing the TOGA switches will give you 2000 fpm or TOGA power on the second push of the switches.


Really? I suggest you try this next time you are in the sim. Or, next time you disconnect the A/T (on thrust levers) out on line have a look and see where the ARM switch on the MCP ends up.

Centauras is spot on.

FCOM 4.20.8

Any of the following conditions or actions disengages the A/T:
• moving the A/T Arm switch to OFF
• pushing either A/T Disengage switch
• an A/T system fault is detected
• two seconds have elapsed since landing touchdown

A/T disengagement is followed by A/T Arm switch releasing to OFF and flashing red A/T Disengage lights. The A/T Disengage lights do not illuminate when the A/T automatically disengages after landing touchdown

[Pontius]

Having sobered up I would like to apologise to Centaurus for maligning his technical knowledge. Not being current on type I had forgotten the A/T Arm switch is magnetically held on the 737, as opposed to non-magnetically on the other Boeings I've flown/fly. When the A/T is disengaged the Arm switch moves to off on the 737, whereas it remains armed, ready for action, on the others and my dim memory had forgotten that causing me to (a)cause unnecessary offence to Centaurus (b)prove how I should not spout off, especially when not current on type and (c)confirm the adage that one should not drink and type.

Sorry Centaurus :(

[Centaurus]

Sorry Centaurus

No problem, Pontius. At least it got me going back into the books to check if I had the wrong aircraft too!:ok:

[Centaurus]

But it wasn't that approach that killed them. It wasn't the landing that did so. It wasn't the fact they couldn't stop in time. It was the fact they attempted to take-off again; that's what killed them.




That's like saying it wasn't high speed that killed the occupants of a car - it was their heads through the windshield that killed them. Therefore not the drivers fault.

The captain broke all the rules of a stable approach. There was no guarantee if he had not selected reverse and braking he would have not gone off the end on the wet runway. With his obvious cowboy flying technique would you like to take a bet that his retardation technique on the remaining length of runway would have been test pilot skill stuff? Of course not.

The parallel between the Garuda 737 Jogjakarta fatal accident and this one is clear. In both cases the captains pressed on with a demonstrated high lethal unstable approach, regardless of their first officers stated doubts.

In both cases there is no doubt that lives would not have been lost if both first officers had taken firm decisive action to counter the criminal recklessness of their captains. Both first officers were legally and morally second in command. Their responsibilities include monitoring the safety of the flight and taking appropriate action where safety is compromised. They do not require the permission of the captain although he would be consulted if time permits.

Both first officers and their captains in both crashes failed their reponsibilities to the crew and passengers and lives were lost partly because of their gutless lack of action.

[King on a Wing]

Through my years of experience as a captain and a trainer,I have learnt to understand that most captains(or at least a very very large percentage),are quite wary and have very good SA when it comes to the actual landing part of the sector. It is another story that the actual execution of the landing might be pathetic,however at any given point in the approach if quizzed about the 'progress' of the approach,most would have a very accurate assessment of their actual situation. That is to say,is he high,fast,low or slow.
That being said,I shall not particularly credit the individual for being that good,rather the training methods involved by various companies by and large in the making of a captain. By and large,the training involved in aquiring the four bars is reasonably adequate,given a world average.
My personal(and reasonably well informed i might add)opinion in the mangalore accident is that the captain was reasonably sure of his SA and was quite certain that he was in position to make a safe land and stop out of the high and fast approach. If nothing else he had several gates where to check himself and correct the situation,IF in fact,in his mind the situation needed to be corrected.
What then went wrong. Was this hugely experienced captain wrong on this one particular approach.If so why didn't he correct himself during one of the several gates. Besides being prodded verbally by the 'experienced FO'.
What I think happened is this.
The captain was quite certain in his mind that he was able to salvage the unstable approach safely and convert it into a safe landing. And given his vast prior experience AND his previous history,I wouldn't contest that. However he would have known in the back of his mind that it was going to be a landing with very little or no margins for error. THIS fact he might not have appropriately been able to communicate to the FO.Or for that matter he might not have even tried to convey it. Now the 'experienced FO' feels here is a captain who looks sloppy(sleeping thru flight,high and fast on approach etc),and who is making no attempt whatsoever to correct a situation going rapidly wrong. The FO thinks poorly of the expat captain,and has his own ass to cover,keeping in mind that he is close to command selection himself.
I think the captain would have managed to salvage the landing in the remaining landing distance available.This has been amply been proven by Boeing.
But I think the FO's interference(which is not so apparent),or lack of,either coerced the capt to abort the landing roll or the FO himself might have tried to initiate a go around from a very late landing. Either way it was a reciepe for a disaster.
The safest PM's or CM2's are those that are one hundred pro active or not at all. Anything in between,in a low CRM exercise,such as a RTO or a rejected landing,will spell disaster.
Like I said before,this is entirely my opinion.And I could be 100% wrong on it. With no finger pointing here,I would however,highly contest that...:)
Overnout
Koaw

[IrishJason]

Some very valuable information here. As a trainee this is vital for me

[kbrockman]

The captain was quite certain in his mind that he was able to salvage the unstable approach safely and convert it into a safe landing. And given his vast prior experience AND his previous history,I wouldn't contest that. However he would have known in the back of his mind that it was going to be a landing with very little or no margins for error.

Simple solution , decide to Go Around, or at least do so after the FO first asks for it.

THIS fact he might not have appropriately been able to communicate to the FO.Or for that matter he might not have even tried to convey it.

If so, that would be simply inexcusable.

Now the 'experienced FO' feels here is a captain who looks sloppy(sleeping thru flight,high and fast on approach etc),and who is making no attempt whatsoever to correct a situation going rapidly wrong. The FO thinks poorly of the expat captain,and has his own ass to cover,keeping in mind that he is close to command selection himself.

The captain was sloppy, he (FO) obviously suggested a GA but was not assertive enough to take initiative and execute a GA himself, maybe he showed a severe lack of ass covering, as in making sure his ass was covered enough to get out alive.

I think the captain would have managed to salvage the landing in the remaining landing distance available.This has been amply been proven by Boeing.
But I think the FO's interference(which is not so apparent),or lack of,either coerced the capt to abort the landing roll or the FO himself might have tried to initiate a go around from a very late landing.

Boeing indeed stated that with full autobrake and thrust reverse the final 1/3th of the runway would have been just enough, provided quick action on the flightdeck (going for full brake), however that's already way behind the curve, they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Even more, another missed opportunity from the FO to save the day, Boeing makes it clear that for all its aircraft it is simple not done to initiate a GA after starting reverse thrust (no less than 6 seconds later !!! ).
Still when the Captain aborted, any pilot should have automatically realized that at that point ,far on the Runway, Autobrake active, spoilers deployed and thrust reverse active they where absolutely committed to land.


This accident is AF358 in Toronto or AA1420 at Little Rock over again (without the bad weather) , we can only shiver at the the idea what would have happened if those crews decided a late GA ,after Reverse thrust initiated, would have been the way to go, nobody would have come out alive.

[fireflybob]

But surely the real answer is selection (or even deselection), training, and regulation?

In a well regulated airline things would never have got to this stage in the first place
Remember Ameican 1420 in Little Rock, AK on the 1st of June, 1999?

Contiuned approach into severe weather resulting in long landing and overrun... and fatalities at the hands of a "gotta complete the mission" captain. F/O also said "I think we should go around." Even worse was the Captain of that ill fated flight was a management pilot too!

What I am meaning is that in a well regulated airline in 2011 things would (or should) never have got to this stage in the first place.

The concept of an approach gate is a basic requirement for safe operation. There is at least one operator that I am aware of that requires a "five hundred feet continue or go-around" by the non flying pilot and if a go around is stated this is MANDATORY. There is also a signed letter from the CEO stating that by not doing so pilots will expect to be dismissed from employment forthwith.

! agree that even given this sort of regulation there is always a possibility of the rules being broken but that is not a reason for not having good selection, training and regulation.

Psychologists have also established that when human beings are "maxed out" the first sense which the brain deletes is that of hearing. So as non flying pilot you can say as much as you like but he might not hear you! Better to do a "pattern interrupt" such as physically shaking the flying pilot or even, as has been suggested, raising the gear.

[camel]

Nigel Nigel we MUST go around...silence

Nigel Nigel we MUST go around...still silence

Click Click.. I HAVE CONTROL !


anyone out there ever taken control from a Captain?

[kontrolor]

here is the report itself (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QSP4KT5A). horror story.

[Rananim]

As Centaurus says,lots of similarities with Garuda crash.Its important to be honest when discussing these accidents;many pilots have continued approaches when technically speaking they really shouldnt have.Whats important is that if you do decide to go outside SOP,you know your own limitations and that of your aircraft.To blindly ignore SOP and hope for the best is reckless endangerment.You need to apply certain hard and fast rules in making your decision and you need training and the technique to pull it off.Its not trained because an airline can hardly train for something thats outside their own mandated SOP's.But is it unsafe to continue an unstabilized approach?No,not necessarily.Life isnt black and white like that.But its never ever wrong to do a go-around if youre unsure/unhappy.

If the figure of 4000' ROD within the last 1000' is accurate(None of the links to the report actually work!!!!) this is clearly a case of reckless endangerment and not a calculated and perfectly safe decision to continue a landing off an unstabilized approach.

The FO can raise the gear as a last resort to force the Captain to go-around but not below 200-300'.It must be done early enough or he becomes more dangerous than the guy sitting next to him.Its a last resort maneuver and so he/she must know what they're doing.I mean we wouldnt want FO's pulling the gear up every time the skipper is technically outside SOP.Its to be used in a life or death situation.

[VFD]

Besides being too submissive, insufficiently assertive . . . the F/O had lacked elementary survival instinct.

Staying alive may require immediate, dramatic action not covered by SOP or CRM
Nice thought there Glue but if the F/O's worst experience has been just reset the simulator then I would doubt that the thought of losing his life or anyone else's life entered his mind.

[MountainBear]

I see the that the two threads have been merged and for those who want to play the blame game I refer them to my initial post #84 which I made back in April. Everything I said then I still think now.

But for those who are interested in safety and who want a more nuanced understanding (not justification, not excuse, not rationalization) of what happened I think reading the report in detail is worthwhile.

But I think the FO's interference(which is not so apparent),or lack of,either coerced the capt to abort the landing roll or the FO himself might have tried to initiate a go around from a very late landing. Either way it was a reciepe for a disaster.
The safest PM's or CM2's are those that are one hundred pro active or not at all.Quite so. The lesson I took away from reading this report is best expressed in our American phrase of "put up or shut up."

One of the things we know about sleep inertia and mental fixation is that they are not all or nothing affairs. Rather, they are akin to mental 'fogs'. Outlines are glimpsed but the full reality doesn't penetrate until it's right in front of your face. In my opinion, the captain was operating in just such a mental fog where his primary responses to flight conditions were not conscious but rather based upon his training. It took some time for his brain to process what the FO was telling him...that is, he was suffering from mental lag.

Taking off again after thrust reversers had been deployed was not only against SOP it was against all the captain's training. So why did he do it? I think the germane fact is that the last words out of the FO's mouth were "not enough runway left." Contrary to what many people in this thread are suggesting, I think the Captain was in fact trying to listen to his FO but his mental fog due to sleep inertia created a processing lag that prevented him from heeding that advice promptly. It wasn't, to continue the prior analogy, until he saw the lorry dead in front of him in the fog that he realized he was on the wrong side of the rode.

That's like saying it wasn't high speed that killed the occupants of a car - it was their heads through the windshield that killed them. Quite so. And that fact is the very reason that safety glass was invented. Your car windscreen has a plastic film in the middle precisely to keep the windscreen from shattering upon impact and injuring the occupants. The windscreen was in fact killing people, so auto manufactures changed the technology so the windscreen couldn't kill anyone any more.

With his obvious cowboy flying technique would you like to take a bet that his retardation technique on the remaining length of runway would have been test pilot skill stuff? Of course not.I admit that my conclusion is a supposition but I think it's a rational supposition. He'd already deployed the reversers, he'd already applied some braking, all he need to do to stop the plane safely was to "stand on the manual brakes". That's not test pilot stuff. If he'd continued doing what he was already doing it would have end with the plane still on the pavement.

Perhaps a point of clarification would help you. The report ascribes the direct cause of the accident to an unstable approach, a conclusion on which I agree. However, the report does not detail a proximate cause to the crash. It's my opinion that the decision to abort the landing and take off again while not the direct cause of the crash was the proximate cause of the crash. Up until that point in time the situation was, at least in theory, recoverable. The diction in the report is that it was a "grave mistake," which is chillingly apposite. It was that decision, and that decision alone, that proximately lead them to their graves.

[kbrockman]

Fair quote from the report


It is evident from the investigation that the flight crew had failed to plan the descent profile properly , due to which the aircraft was high and did not intercept the ILS Glide Slope from below , which is the standard procedure.
This led to the aircraft being at almost twice the altitude on finals, as compared to a standard ILS approach.
In the ensuing 'Unstabilised Approach', the First Officer gave three calls to the Captain to 'Go Around'. Also there were a number of EGPWS warnings of SINK RATE and PULL UP.

Despite the EGPWS warnings and calls from the FO to 'Go Around', the Captain persisted with the approach in unstabilised conditions.
The final touchdown of the aircraft was at 5200ft from the beginning of RWY24, leaving only about 2800ft to the end of the paved surface, to stop the aircraft.

Soon after the touchdown, the Captain had selected Thrust Reversers. But, within a very short time of applying brakes, the Captain had initiated a rather delayed 'go around' or an attempted take off, in contravention to SOP laid down by the manufacturer i.e. Boeing Commercial Airplane Company, USA.

The aircraft overshot the runway and its right wing impacted ILS Localizer antenna mounting structure. Thereafter, aircraft hit the airport boundary fence and fell into the gorge. Due to impact and fire, the aircraft was destroyed.
In this tragic accident, 152 passengers and all 6 crew members lost their lives.There where only 8 survivors. the investigation determined that there were no airwhortiness issues with the aircraft and there was no sign of birdstrike or any evidence of sabotage.





Direct cause of the Accident:

The Court of Inquire determines that cause of this accident was the
Captain's failure to discontinue the 'unstabilised approach' and his persistence in continuing with the landing, despitethree calls from the First Officer to
'go around' and a number of warnings from the EGPWS.

The Contributory factors were:

(a) In spite of availability of adequate rest prior to the flight, the Captain was in prolonged sleep during flight, which could have led to sleep inertia.
As a result of relatively short period of time between his awakening and the approach, it possibly led to impaired judgement.
This aspect might have got accentuated while flying in the Window of Circadian Low (WOCL).

(b) In the absence of Mangalore Area Control Radar (MSSR), due to un-seviceability, the aircraft was given descent at a shorter distance on DME as compared to the normal. However, the flight crew did not plan the descent profile properly, resulting in remaining high on approach.

(c) Probably in view of ambiguity in various instructions empowering the 'co-pilot' to initiate a 'go around', the First Officer gave repeated calls to this effect, but did not take over controls to actually discontinue the ill-fated approach.

[GlueBall]

Wow. Just...wow. Did any of you bother to read the report in full. Trying to pin this on the co-pilot is ridiculous.

The copilot had the last chance to prevent this crash. When the captain is in La-La-Land, it's the copilot's duty to take decisive action(s) in order to keep himself, the rest of his crew and his passengers alive. :ooh:

...For the last 88 seconds the copilot had sat on his hands and let the captain kill him.
F/O CVR
06:03:33 "It's too High"
06:03:53 "Go around"
06:04:06 "Go around"
06:04:07 "Captain"
06:04:08 "Un-stabilised"
06:04:38 "Go around captain"
06:04:44 "We don't have runway left."

06:05:01 IMPACT

[HundredPercentPlease]

What about the CRM between these two?

At 05:52 the Captain gave a brief brief. Other than RT, imagine the conversation while they manage this high approach:

05:55 FO: Huh huh ho
05:56 FO: whistling
05:58 FO: whistling
05:59 Capt: Speed 210, Gear down

Then they run through the flaps, but at selecting Flap 15:

06:02 FO: Humming
At this point they are at about 5 miles and massively high. Yet he just hums.

At 06:03 they make the last dive for the runway.

The FO was on a No-Fly with another foreign Captain who he had reported in writing for CRM and SOP issues. "He was known to be a man of few words".

This is something that happens. The FO wants to watch the Captain screw it up, so will hum and whistle to indicate that all is fine and he is "relaxed", only so the FO can later write the report about how terrible the Captain is, and how poor his CRM skills are. To me, the relationship in that flight deck had long broken down, and if the FO had spotted the wildly incorrect profile (and false g/s) then he should have mentioned this, rather than humming.

I suspect he was fully aware.

[GlueBall]

The FO wants to watch the Captain screw it up,...

That's entirely conceivable. But in this case it's about staying alive. The pavement is on a plateau with a steep drop off at the end.

Now and then there comes a time when you either have to **** or get off the pot. The copilot, sitting on his hands for the last 88 seconds of his life, was a dud . . . because he lacked basic survival instinct. :{

[HundredPercentPlease]

Yes, but how did they get into that position in the first place? Investigators, airlines and authorities will all point at lack of SOP adherence. But how did those two not prevent the cock up?

I read the FO as one who is annoyed at having to fly with a foreign captain. He is ready for command, but somehow a foreigner is in his seat. And he knows it all, and has already reported another foreign captain.

When this experienced, but tired captain is busy trying to get on to profile (speedbrake, very early selection of gear), the FO is just whistling. A good FO would be already making it clear that they should both be "on alert" because the approach is a mess. But no, just more whistling. He was not assisting the captain, just watching him struggle.

Then they pick up the false glide. The FO is too busy whistling to notice, or if he did notice, he is criminally negligent in not calling it. This is the role of the PNF (PM in the Boeing).

Suddenly, the (I imagine slightly confused) captain sees the real situation, and makes the wrong decision to try and make a landing of it. When the FO sees this, he stops whistling and calls a go-around. But the captain will have excluded this fool from his world, since all the FO has done for the last 20 minutes is whistle and hum.

They were not working as a team.

Quite why the captain didn't just give in even at 5 RA, I don't know. There are clues and hints in the report about AIE culture, but he must have seen that it was very high risk just before he touched down.

One crap decision by the Captain, and no help at all from a chip-on-shoulder FO who failed to perform his most fundamental duties more or less from the start of the tape. I expect to see that CVR transcript in CRM sessions in the future.

[newday]

How we do know that Captain pushed throttle levers for GA?
9" before impact he said: Oh my God!
Maybe because F/O pushed the throttle levers??

[HundredPercentPlease]

Maybe, but I don't think it matters. In fact I think the whole cancelling of reverse and attempting to go is a complete red herring.


The captain elects to make a landing which was so unstable as to be lethal.
He adds thrust just before touchdown (possible in response the the GPWS).
He floats horribly (due to the automatic moving of the flaps back to 40), and still doesn't go around.
Having landed, he fails to stand on the brakes, and fails to give it max reverse.
They reach the end of the runway, turning slightly left, at around 80-90 knots.


In my mind, the accident is secured at this point.

As they arrive at the end of the runway, there is a cliff edge. Visually you are left with only one option, which is to try and fly again. In fact, it may have looked like they were going to fly anyway, so you might as well try doing that with thrust on.

The reversers were only cancelled at the runway end just before the cliff, as a last ditch option*. The accident had already happened, so who did it doesn't really matter. All they did was change the "crash configuration".

* see page 169/175

[doubleu-anker]

Agree with you. He got :mad: all help from his F/O,. A F/O that was "ready for a command". I will say no more as the poor guy has paid the ultimate price and is not here to defend himself.

This is what the accident report has not covered due to "national pride" among other things. We all know what the hell happened. Now let us know why it probably happened. I have a fair idea and so does the poster above.

I would think it safer to pair 2 expats together if there are problems in some circumstances. However as an Indian must be aboard all flights on an Indian registered aircraft that will never happen. This tragedy may have been averted but for another senseless rule.

[ironbutt57]

If the FO was ready for command, there would have been no accident, only a go-around, which was apparently "illegal" in India at the time..(since changed)

[masalama]

doubleu anchor saidI would think it safer to pair 2 expats together if there are problems in some circumstances. However as an Indian must be aboard all flights on an Indian registered aircraft that will never happen. This tragedy may have been averted but for another senseless rule.


So let me get this right.....according to you , if there was an expat F/O on this flight , you are 100% sure he would take over the controls from the land -at-any -cost captain and that's the end. I think you're missing the point, the issue isn't the natioanality as you insinuate repeatedly in your posts, it's CRM, company culture and adherence to SOP's....

.the company and it's flight safety has a lot to answer to and that's it. By your twisted logic , if we apply nationality rule to accident/incidents in India, then all expat captains will have to leave...let's not make it an expats vs. Indian issue here , sorry but there seems to be an agenda creeping into your posts...you need help mate.:=

Ironbutt....man, I'm pretty sure a go-around was not illegal , by your definition of illegal , DGCA prohibiting a go-around doesn't make sense.Maybe you can substantiate that with some evidence.....? If you mean, company harrasment on accomplishment of go-around, that's another issue ...again poor flight safety culture and company related....

take care and masalama.:ok:

[ecureilx]

Maybe a thread drift, but I read that it has been made "LEGAL" for hospitals to accept accident victims WITHOUT POLICE REPORT

I heard enough reports out of India, where accident victims had to be driven 50 kilometer to a hospital with a cop, to sign the victim in, instead of a better equipped hospital mere walking distance, as the latter had not been covered by Police ..

And they had to pass a law to enforce that it is ok for non-police hospitals to attend to accident victims ..

Same was for GA !! until they had to change it .. :} :}

[PT6A]

Masalama, the latest DGCA circular lets it be kown that they dont really want an FO to takeover from the Captain.

It says they *can* force a go-around then gives at least 15 reasons why they should not.... Hardly empowering:ugh:

PT6A

[masalama]

PT-6A ...this is from the DGCA Operations Circular 15/2010 regarding unstabilized approaches dated 05th Aug 2010. Are you referring to this one or any other newer circular in particular. It states :

The following steps are recommended progressively if flight safety continues to be threatened.
1. First call – “Approach not stabilized.” 2. Second Call - If insufficient, incorrect or no response from flying
pilot, loudly say “Go around Captain”. 3. If no response from Captain, the pilot monitoring/ PNF shall
announce, loudly “My controls Captain” and transmit to ATC “Go Around” and immediately initiate appropriate go around procedure safely with all available automation.


For those interested, the circulars are available at AIR TRANSPOR CIRCULARS (http://dgca.nic.in/rules/trans-ind.htm)

These are fairly standard and straight-forward , self-explanatory but the question is are the companies doing enough to address the situation in the cock-pit ? Flight Safety , training and management need to take some action to ensure that another mangalore doesn't happen ....

take care, fly safe, masalama.

[PT6A]

masalama,

Post the rest of the circular.... that then goes onto state all the reasons why an FO should not take over control. (the link you provided does not seem to list the circular at all)

How can an Indian FO be expected to take over when things go bad, after all they are not allowed to take off or land... except when with a Captain with special training / TRI/E in other words they are not qualified to sit in an operating crew member seat.... at best they are a radio operator.

Why does the DGCA not get rid of this foolish rule?

PT6A

[HundredPercentPlease]

http://dgca.nic.in/circular/Ops15_2010.pdf

The action to take over controls by the PNF
should only be in the case of total / subtle incapacitation.