Russian B737 Crash at Kazan. [Archive] - Page 2

pattern_is_full

25th Nov 2013, 03:25

Can someone explain that to me why the trim automatically adjusted the HS to a high nose up prior to a pilot nose-down command but, did not adjust the HS to a more nose-down position after the pilots pushed the column full forward.

In the first case, the autopilot was engaged - in the second case the autopilot was NOT engaged. Auto trim is a function of the autopilot.

Re-read pages 4-5 and note carefully when the A/P was engaged in LOC-G/S mode, and when it was in CWS mode, and when it was disengaged.

"The autopilot tracked the glideslope accurately, gradually increasing the pitch of the aircraft to minimise glideslope deviation and adjusting the stabiliser angle to keep the aircraft in trim......

"The autopilot mode changed from localiser and glideslope to Control Wheel Steer (CWS) pitch and CWS roll6. The aircraft pitch attitude which had been steadily increasing under the influence of pitch trim, reached 12o nose-up. The automatic pitch trim stopped at 4.9o (7.9 units) of stabiliser trim.....

"Four seconds after the thrust levers reached the fully forward position, with airspeed increasing and N1 on both engines increasing through 81%, the TOGA mode became active. The autopilot disengaged, the pitch attitude started to increase again and the stick-shaker reactivated....

Clandestino

25th Nov 2013, 04:37

Has anyone already considered that the initial upset could've been resultant of malfunctioning PCU's due deicing fluid?Thanks for bringing up that report, might be quite useful, but what MAK has gathered so far is there were no problems with the aeroplane. Avherald does pretty god job of translating from Russian.

alph2z

25th Nov 2013, 05:31

In the first case, the autopilot was engaged - in the second case the autopilot was NOT engaged. Auto trim is a function of the autopilot.

Thanks pattern_is_full, I'm very surprised to learn this ! I thought the auto trim was independent of the auto pilot, but did know that on Airbus it was affected by Alternate law.

If you or anyone have more to add to this pls do.

Thanks olasek for the link to the report, here are more links to the official report. Very interesting read even though the report's conclusion is weirdly placed.

Report on the serious incident to Icelandair Boeing 757-200 at Oslo Airport Gardermoen Norway 22 January 2002 2003/07 | aibn (http://www.aibn.no/aviation/reports/2003-07)

http://www.aibn.no/tf_fio_eng-pdf?lcid=1033&pid=Native-ContentFile-File&attach=1

Dan Winterland

25th Nov 2013, 06:45

Dan, the issue is Instrument Scan. Is the devleopment and application of one not considered a core competency of a professional pilot? Does the pilot force of a given airline get sufficient reps in instrument flying to keep the scan skill current, and not rusty?

You mitigate the problems of those illusions by flying on your instruments, regardless of what you "feel" in the seat.

Of course you do. That is the theory and in practice it works very well. Except that in some cases - it doesn't. Anyone who has experienced the somatogravic illusion will tell you that it can be very powerful - sometimes taking precedence over all other sensations and making the pilot over-ride the recognised and practiced techniques. Here's a typical case related to me by the crew involved:

A crew taking off at night went IMC at about 1000ft agl. The captain was the PF. At the acceleration altitude, the FD commands were followed which of course led to a pitch down. Being at a light load, the aircraft accelerated rapidly. The PF sensed the aircraft hadn't pitched down far enough depsite the PFD attitude and the FD telling him otherwise - and continued to lower the nose. The PM mentioned to him three times to follow the FD commands, and when the aircraft started to descend, took control by engaging an autopilot. Afterwards, the PM stated that he was convinced the aircraft was still piching up and that he didn't hear the PM's comments. (The PF had about 20,000 hrs and a good training record BTW).

In this case, only one pilot was affected and the incident had a safe outcome. When both pilots are - then this can lead to a major incident. Such cases are the Gulf Air crash at Bahrain in 2000, the Aravia crash at Sochi in 2005 and the Afriqiyah crash at Tripoli in 2010.

My own personal experience with this illusion happened during my flying training. Soo after a night take off over the sea in a military jet trainer, I got it big time. I sensed I had pitched up through the vertical and was now on my back. It took all my concentration to fly the attitude even though my senses were telling me I was doing something different.

Good training and instrument flying discipline should mitigate the threat of spatial disorientation. But it's not an ideal world.

transilvana

25th Nov 2013, 07:45

Well, Russians and some ex-USSR countries still have not learned the lesson about safe approaches, I know it because I have refused to give trainning to some of them after I discovered they don´t know how to shoot them, and I´m talking pilots with +15.000hrs, not even reading a Metar or even a jepp chart.

When I turned this to the relevant CAA in their respective countries I found that they don´t care too.

So, we should look deeply into their system, how many crashes last year? Kazan, Rostov, Donestk, Amatty...

When I told these pilots that I´was not going to sign off their trainning, explainning them the reasons and how I was saving their lives and others what I got back was worst, management getting rid of me and getting another trainners, that´s the reality in Russia.

mary meagher

25th Nov 2013, 07:49

Did a bit of digging. Answered my own question, do expat pilots find jobs in china? Longreach aviation is advertising all kinds of work with the following assortment of chinese airlines: Aviation China, Beijing Capital, West, China Southern, and Hainan Airways, jobs with Hainan possibly available for captains in 737, 767, A330 and 340.

But having a trawl through the South East Asia and Far East threads, a thread regarding Hainan interviews is worth reading for the problems a candidate may encounter trying to work in China. Including breathing (which is why all those romantic TV presentations of the Great Wall and other historic sites feature spectacular red sunsets).

It is certainly worth reading about the styles of deicing that have been observed.

Also, beware of unscrupulous agencies....

If the rules change in Russia to welcome expat pilots, no doubt the national culture will provide interesting challenges.

Lonewolf_50

25th Nov 2013, 14:57

Neither you know enough Russian to realize what you and Agaricus Bisporus have speculated about runs against the FDR readout.
Please explain what you mean, less cryptically.

Also: do you understand what I mean by "being behind the aircraft?"
(I suspect that you do, but then, why speculate?)

Karel_x

25th Nov 2013, 18:48

If the rules change in Russia to welcome expat pilots, no doubt the national culture will provide interesting challenges.

Minister of Transport, Maksim Sokolov told that:

... одним из путей решения проблемы является приглашение иностранных летчиков.... тот законопроект, который, я надеюсь, до конца текущего года будет принят в Государственной думе...

...one of ways for solving the problem (lack of CPT in Russia) is inviting of foreign pilots.... this new law, which, I believe, will be ratify by parliament by the end of this year...

Reportedly pilots in Tatarstan earn 20.000 RUR monthly (US$610)...

Required height for GA in Kazan Apt is 500m. When they realize that their actual height is 900 or 700m, they may try to descent to 500 m too steeply...

Clandestino

25th Nov 2013, 20:32

Please explain what you mean, less cryptically.

Bluntly? I copied the relevant part of MAK statement and translated the salient points. At the approximately same time Simon Hradecky gave pretty good translation of it all. Some folks read it and saw classic footprint of somatogravic illusion but then we got some "experten" saying somatogravic illusion is BS, giving us unbelievably trivial lessons on instrument flying and posting to each other "Yeah, I agree with you".

What's your purpose around here, guys?

BTW, knowledge that pitching down in response to s.i. makes it only worse was part of JAA ATPL syllabus.

Lonewolf_50

25th Nov 2013, 22:10

Thank you for sharing, but you have not answered the question I asked:
I don't know enough about 737 to guess intelligently, but IF they had a malfunction in the pitch trim motor/system, and had a trim hardover or runaway during this maneuver, how easy is it for FDR to figure that out? http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/confused.gif
Care to answer that?

The question asked by me is related to a few comments on the speed of the initial report, and whether or not ( I asked, since I don't know) it may take a deeper look at subtle cues and signals held in the FDR to find out if a hardover may or may not have been involved.

If not, fine, no worries. Your glib answer did not answer that question.

As to the point on basics, it might be useful to remember:
1: not everyone who reads this forum is or was a pilot, nor even an instrument rated pilot.
2: whether or not SI is a known problem in instrument flying (it has been known for decades what it is, and how to mitigate it) strikes me as irrelevant to this particular accident. It should not be a factor to a crew that is instrument rated, and current on instrument flying skills.

Professional pilots who are charged with carrying passengers on flights that can be expected to encounter IMC have to be able to fly using their instruments.
THAT is one of the ways to mitigate the known risks of SI.
Anyone ever get the leans?
Show of hands?
(Yes, my hand is UP!)

If that capability is not present (see a number of above points made on overcontrolling ... which is usually a symptom of being behind the aircraft ... ) then some of the other concerns voiced elsewhere in this discussion become germane for that particular airline, and maybe the industry. (See comments by others on qualification and experience of the crew ... ) What got my attention most on the translated message from the investigators was that the crew recognized an unstable approach, and took the correct course of action: go around.

That it shortly thereafter went horribly pearshaped is both tragic and troubling.

Since you know most of this, and likely have to apply you professional experience of IMC flying in daily work when carrying people your own self, why your other question?

Not all readers here are instrument rated pilots.

Sergey Tachenov

26th Nov 2013, 15:10

Reportedly pilots in Tatarstan earn 20.000 RUR monthly (US$610)... Reported either by conspirologists or worse. Typically captains of large airlines earn around $10000-$15000 monthly and second pilots around $5000-$7000 monthly. I can imagine regional airlines having lower salaries, but $610?! It sounds like someone just picked up a random number that would look like 'oh, it's so low!' to general public without even realizing (or caring about) how ridiculous it actually looks to anyone who knows at least magnitude of the real figures. Pilots aren't called 'flying oligarchs' in Russia for nothing. Nobody will even work as a pilot for 20000 RUB.

Here's an article (http://www.aex.ru/docs/2/2013/11/25/1930/) that mentions that captains of Tatarstan Airlines are paid 250000 RUB (around $7500) monthly. Now it IS a bit low for pilots and actually sounds like it could be true. But consider that 100000 RUB is considered VERY good in many other professions (I earn around that, for example, and I'm a software developer).

MountainBear

26th Nov 2013, 17:51

BTW, knowledge that pitching down in response to s.i. makes it only worse was part of JAA ATPL syllabusDuh. That assumes however that the PF is able to recognize the illusion as an illusion in the first instance. If the crew fails to recognize the illusion then for their minds it isn't an illusion at all; they are reacting to reality. The reason is that SGI is deadly is because crews fail to recognize it for what it is.

//BTW, I am not saying that SGI is the cause of this incident. But I do think it more likely than some of the other theories have have been spread around.

Karel_x

26th Nov 2013, 20:52

Here's an article that mentions that captains of Tatarstan Airlines are paid 250000 RUB

I hope so. But there are sources claiming 20.000 RUB, for example:
Но самое страшное, что экономия сказалась и на качестве летного персонала. Выжимая из двух последних болгарских Боингов максимум возможного, авиакомпания платила пилотам смешные по меркам авиации 20000 рублей. Найти настоящих пилотов на такие зарплаты невозможно.
Êîìïðîìàò.Ru / Compromat.Ru: Êàòàñòðîôà àâèàêîìïàíèè "Òàòàðñòàí" áûëà íåèçáåæíà. (http://www.compromat.ru/page_33960.htm)

I also hope, that is is not true...

vovachan

27th Nov 2013, 01:32

This article cites an Aeroflot A320 captain flying 90 hours a month as making 400,000 rubles a month or $12K. Plus a benefits package.

??????? ???????? ??????? «?????????» ???????? ?? 400 ???. ???. ? ????? | ???????? | ????????? ? ????? (http://www.aif.ru/society/33030)

transilvana

27th Nov 2013, 10:53

Just watched the video on the crash, facing vertically full nose down to the ground.

Sergey Tachenov

27th Nov 2013, 14:22

I know, I read that article at compromat.ru. It sounds like a deliberate attempt to cause widespread panic among public for whatever reason. It doesn't look like a genuine research or even personal opinion. Just my feeling, though.

What I was talking about is that it's not 'Найти настоящих пилотов на такие зарплаты невозможно', it's 'Найти (любых) пилотов на такие зарплаты невозможно'. There are NO pilots (no matter how bad they are) that would agree to work for 20000 RUB. None at all.

For example, what do they pay to software developers at Microsoft? Say, $60/hour or around that. (Just my guess.) Now imagine a company that pays $30/hour. Obviously they won't have those best Microsoft kind of programmers, but they will still be able to find some. Now what if someone said that there are a company that offers $3/hour to a full-time programer in the US? You get the picture. You don't need to be a programmer to figure out that it's a complete nonsense.

Karel_x

27th Nov 2013, 20:39

It sounds like a deliberate attempt to cause widespread panic among public for whatever reason.
Journalists are similar all around the world... But in fact I don't believe that crew salaries are reason for worse safety record of Russian air traffic. I think, there are primarily historical reasons. In times of USSR, airliners pilots originate very often from military pilots, which is not ideal for safety (easy to risk, drink). In times of Yelcin era of destroying USSR, the Aeroflot was divided into a tens of companies, often some of them were without good background and appropriate conditions. At the same time the number of passengers sharply drops (from 90 millions drops to 20!) and a new generation of people arises in Russia that had never flown by plane. In those times it was very easy to buy one or two old planes and start to do business. But it is not easy to do it safe without money (experiences, training, maintenance)... In recent years the numbers of passengers are increasing very steep and now there is lack of experienced pilots. And of course some companies are controlled by wild managers that think only how to make money. But I believe that it is getting better and by several years the safety problems will be only history.

MrSnuggles

27th Nov 2013, 22:17

Could it be that it's just a typo? Someone forgetting a number?

That seems like the simplest solution to the salary confusion.

hamster3null

28th Nov 2013, 02:33

There is a number of Russian-language sources reporting salaries on the order of 200k to 350k rubles/month for an A320 captain at 90 hours/month. Pilots make less than captains, Aeroflot pays above average in the industry, and pilots of domestic aircraft (e.g. Tu-154) make substantially less than pilots of Boeings and Airbuses.

This article Ïðîôñîþç òðåáóåò ñ ÀÊ «Òàòàðñòàí» ñâîé ïðîöåíò (http://www.business-gazeta.ru/article/86802/) reports that an average salary of a pilot at Tatarstan Airlines is 100k rubles/month ($3,000/month). Their 737 captain could have bene making 200k/month. 20k/month is completely implausible.

"This article cites an Aeroflot A320 captain flying 90 hours a month as making 400,000 rubles a month or $12K."

The article cites an intention to raise salaries to this level, which is obviously not the same thing as actually raising them.

paulmoscow

28th Nov 2013, 05:57

But I believe that it is getting better and by several years the safety problems will be only history.
Disrespect to rules is in Russian blood. The situation is similar to a service sector (including flight attendants,) where in most cases Russians are quite arrogant to serve other people.

Karel_x

28th Nov 2013, 16:51

Disrespect to rules is in Russian blood. The situation is similar to a service sector (including flight attendants,) where in most cases Russians are quite arrogant to serve other people.
I flew several times with TSO and UTA and I was quite satisfied with level of their service. I didn't notice any difference in relation to an average western company. Also ground services seems to be OK. Deicing was always done very carefully, un/loading baggages too. Maybe I can remember one a little creative t/o :) but surely no one was arrogant to me. Security rules at DME were very strict, similar to GB, but I was not surprise - it was after that terrible bombing attack.

Could it be that it's just a typo? Someone forgetting a number?
Yes of course it can be a typo, but in Russian they comment it "ludicrously" little... But those articles describes also very poor economic situation of TAK, problems of Bulgarian investors, blind management, long term debts for fuel, months without a salaries, crews going away, local political pressure etc etc. I am not sure that is true, it can be biased or written by a sensationalist journalist.

Redredrobin

28th Nov 2013, 18:46

According to AVH:

MAK have announced that the CVR has been read.

A number of safety recommendations have been made, including procedures for ATC assistance for aircraft with technical failures.

Christodoulidesd

28th Nov 2013, 19:00

from avherald:

Information released by Rosaviatsia on Nov 28th 2013 based on preliminary investigation results by MAK states, that the captain of the flight (47, ATPL, 2736 hours total, 2509 hours on type, 528 hours in command) was rated for CAT I ILS approaches only, the first officer (47, no type of pilot rating provided, 2093 hours total, 1943 hours on type) was rated for CAT II ILS approaches. According to preliminary information the crew was significantly (4km) off the approach track prompting ATC to query the crew. Corrections were made, the aircraft remained significantly right of the extended runway centerline however until the crew selected heading 250 into autopilot (heading select mode) and the aircraft intercepted the localizer automatically about 2nm short of the runway threshold at about 1000 feet AGL, the glideslope did not capture due to height however. After passing the missed approach point the crew discussed a go-around and communicated with dispatch, then disengaged both autopilots engaged in the automatic approach and continued manually on flight director. Engines accelerated to 83% N1 (near Go-Around Thrust) and continued at that speed until almost impact. The aircraft began to pitch up under the influence of engine acceleration and flaps retraction reaching 25 degrees nose up, the stabilizer trim system wound - most likely automatically - nose down commanding the aircraft into a dive. In the meantime the crew retracted the gear, there had been no input on the yoke since deactivation of autopilot until that time, the airspeed had decayed from 150 to 125 KIAS. The crew now applied full forward pressure, the aircraft began to accelerate again after reaching a minimum speed of 117 KIAS at 700 meters/2300 feet above the runway, and began to rapidly descent, EGPWS alerts "SINK RATE" and "PULL UP" sounded, there was no reaction to the extreme nose down attitude however and the vertical acceleration became negative. The aircraft impacted ground at 75 degrees nose down at about 450 kph at coordinates N55.608818 E49.276852, the impact occurred 45 seconds after initiating the go-around and 20 seconds after reaching the maximum height. Initial safety recommendations released are to provide simulator training on balked landings, especially when close to the target altitude for the climb, provide training on recognition of complex spatial disorientation and upset recovery, provide training on operation and characteristics of aircraft systems especially autopilot and flight director during approach and missed approach, study the features of navigation system (FMS), consider revision of air traffic control procedures to provide more assistance to crews with technical failures including providing vectors to guide the aircraft onto the runway and conduct a conference to share technical flight experiences amongst operators.

Herod

28th Nov 2013, 19:15

After passing the missed approach point the crew discussed a go-around and communicated with dispatch,

Incredible if true.

ManaAdaSystem

28th Nov 2013, 19:35

that the captain of the flight (47, ATPL, 2736 hours total, 2509 hours on type, 528 hours in command) was rated for CAT I ILS approaches only, the first officer (47, no type of pilot rating provided, 2093 hours total, 1943 hours on type)

What exactly do we have here? If these numbers are correct, two 47 year old pilots with next to no basic flight experience and straight on to a 737?

olasek

28th Nov 2013, 20:25

If these numbers are correct that's a very respectable flight experience, 4500 hrs combined for both plus almost 4000 hrs on type that's pretty darn good.

mike734

28th Nov 2013, 20:33

<<If these numbers are correct that's a very respectable flight experience, 4500 hrs combined for both plus almost 4000 hrs on type that's pretty darn good.>>

Really? It looks like the captain had about 3 years on the airplane and only 6 months in command. That not exactly a ton of time.

DozyWannabe

28th Nov 2013, 22:26

The question asked by me is related to a few comments on the speed of the initial report, and whether or not ( I asked, since I don't know) it may take a deeper look at subtle cues and signals held in the FDR to find out if a hardover may or may not have been involved.

Clandestino's typically combative approach aside, I think I understand what he's getting at. The information released so far makes no reference to rudder deflection or a significant yaw component in the sequence. If my memory serves me correctly, even the old (even at the time it was referred to unofficially as "Stone Age technology") FDR fitted to the UA535 aircraft registered significant rudder deflection and yaw in the flightpath. Lack of such information would infer a hardover is not a likely culprit or contributory factor here.

Agricarus bisporus said :
The most likely cause is quite simply overpitching due to a mishandled g/s and botched recovery, I'd be astonished if it were anything else.

I'm more out on a limb here, but as an educated guess - given that a botched pitch/power coupling would be likely to involve a gradual and repeated correction to the pitch angle, the FDR's apparent recording of a single, consistent and sustained pitch down command would indicate against this assertion.

Please feel free to correct me!

olasek

29th Nov 2013, 04:00

.gradual and repeated correction to the pitch angle,
It doesn't have to be neither 'repeated' nor 'gradual'. It is enough to read the report from the very similar Iclendair incident. The report uses phrases like 'automation trap', pilot confusion and pilots falling behind the airplane. They had 1000 ft more to play with than these 2 russian pilots so they managed to recover, but barely, with a single last ditch attempt to save themselves. If this crew had only 5-10 s to 'unconfuse' themselves that's not much.

Machinbird

29th Nov 2013, 04:12

........EGPWS alerts "SINK RATE" and "PULL UP" sounded, there was no reaction to the extreme nose down attitude however and the vertical acceleration became negative. The aircraft impacted ground at 75 degrees nose down at about 450 kph.......
For the g to go negative, they must have had way too much nose down trim by that point.

It is hard to continue pushing the nose down when you are floating in the straps.

Frosch

29th Nov 2013, 05:13

Looks like what I feared in my initial post 149. (http://www.pprune.org/8162353-post149.html)

Unlike what ist stated at AvHerald, I do not think the stabtrim went to full ND "automatically". Seen pilots do it before. At low altitude time will be up before having a chance to regain control. When beeing disorientated too: no chance.

Machinbird

29th Nov 2013, 05:25

Looks like what I feared in my initial post 149. (http://www.pprune.org/8162353-post149.html)Engines accelerated to 83% N1 (near Go-Around Thrust) and continued at that speed until almost impact.So no pitch down due to thrust reduction.

Clandestino

29th Nov 2013, 07:51

Incredible if true.Not true. "Диспетчер" literally means "dispatcher" but here actually denotes ATCO so they were talking to ATC, not flight dispatch.

For the time being, I can't find anything on either MAK or Rossaviyatsiya pages resembling what was posted on AvHerald and quoted here. As it runs quite contrary to first official statements, I'd advise "see and wait approach" before making fat assumptions of technical aspects on it.

Duh. That assumes however that the PF is able to recognize the illusion as an illusion in the first instance. If the crew fails to recognize the illusion then for their minds it isn't an illusion at all; they are reacting to reality. The reason is that SGI is deadly is because crews fail to recognize it for what it is.That's exactly why we teach people about it - so when it hits they are able to believe their instruments more than their senses.

Care to answer that? Why the :mad: should I answer that on professional pilots forum?!?!? It's very :mad: easy.

The question asked by me is related to a few comments on the speed of the initial report, and whether or not ( I asked, since I don't know) it may take a deeper look at subtle cues and signals held in the FDR to find out if a hardover may or may not have been involved. MAK ıs not your everyday BEA or NTSB or OVV. They know their stuff pretty well and are currently pursuing their goals with ruthless efficiency. Their reports are fast out and to the point, as they should be in the country with dismal safety culture. While unlike their western counterparts they currently waste no time on consultations with any and every party interested in investigation, lack of discussion does not seem to hurt quality of their reports and English translations (when available) are quite good.

Not all readers here are instrument rated pilots.That's all very well as long they are readers. It's still well when they come, ask, get the answers and point out what they don't agree with and support it with good quality arguments. Sometimes the outsider view is quite helpful on the road to better understanding but this has too often been used around here as an excuse to promote theories that are utter nonsense.

I'm not particularly happy to see that misunderstanding of the way aeroplanes work combined with the ardent desire to share opinion with the world is not limited to Airbus cases anymore.

Aluminium shuffler

29th Nov 2013, 08:25

To contradict Olasek's post 302, this crew were not experienced. The FO was reasonably so for his position, but not the Captain. Both were clearly former cadets, with less than 200 hours each on ac other than the 737, so their manual handling and raw data skills were never honed. To have a Captain on such an aircraft at c.2300 hours total time is very unusual in the West, though I couldn't guess whether it's more normal in other regions, but regardless, it's a very small amount of time to have been promoted.

I fly with a lot of cadet pilots, and some of them are astonishingly sharp and able, while others not so much. However, they all lack basic skills which would be honed by more experience before jumping into a jet where the automatics prevent a development of handling and instrument interpretation. It is crucial to encourage cadets to hand fly and make visual and raw data approaches when the circumstances are good for such practice in order to hone their skills (and likewise for experienced crews to retain them). Whether such inexperience in manual IMC handling was a factor in this specific incident remains to be seen, but seeing that background and the Captain's lack of experience jumps out at me as being a plausible contributing factor.

F14

29th Nov 2013, 09:54

looks like a Go-Around without pressing TOGA. Followed the FD's into the ground

Agaricus bisporus

29th Nov 2013, 12:39

Well, it looks as if my earlier post re the mechanics of the event was mostly on the money despite the flak it attracted...

But the "cause"?

the captain of the flight (47, ATPL, 2736 hours total, 2509 hours on type, 528 hours in command) was rated for CAT I ILS approaches only, the first officer (47, no type of pilot rating provided, 2093 hours total, 1943 hours on type) was rated for CAT II ILS approaches.

This is a telling quote and I suspect will prove closer to the "cause" than anything else.

On the face of it a 2500 hr Capt is at the lowest end of the experience bracket even in one of the superbly trained W European airlines. Or he would be if he were a 25 yr-old wheel. But at 47? Strikes me that age and experience pairing is a bit out of kilter. Add a cojo in a similar bracket...

Capt with 2500hrs and Cat 1 rated only? Could be down to two things but neither option make me feel warm and fluffy. Either the company was too disorganised to get him Cat II rated - which bespeaks a less than well run training department or he wasn't thought up to it yet. I can't think of another reason. Neither fit comfortably with the crew experience level published. Either fit perfectly with what we know - or assume we know about Russian regionals.

Poorly run training depts don't fit with 2500hr Capt and 200FOs in their late 40s running a 737. Ditto 47yr old Capts who haven't been Cat II rated for any other reason.

And as this accident is almost certainly down to crew confused way before the LOC (captured g/s at 1000ft, 3 miles wasn't it???) and a completely botched g/a with all the hallmarks of total, terminal confusion and loss of spatial awareness and mishandling (I know, I've been there in the 737 sim on a g/a) by both pilots and we have to wonder if the age and experience gap didn't play a big part.

Try this on...

Career Navigators/Engineers out of An12s /72s re-streamed as pilots at age 42/43 as their coal-burners were retired. Some will hack it, but I think we can all see that without rigorous selection and training, and rigorous chopping too when appropriate you can't credit 10,000hrs on the systems panel of a freighter as any relevance to piloting a 737 size airliner. Does the word "rigorous" seem to apply in this context? Hmm. But if you do (and i'm guessing here, but how far wide of the mark is the guess - do you think?) you'll have a pilot demographic that is just asking for this sort of event.

fireflybob

29th Nov 2013, 13:00

Agaricus bisporus, agree 100%

Karel_x

29th Nov 2013, 13:33

Interesting article in English, describing situation of the airline:

Nose-Diving ‘Tatarstan’ - Investigations - Novaya Gazeta (http://en.novayagazeta.ru/investigations/61198.html)

For example:

...an average monthly salary of a trade union member is about 100,000 per month, while the pilot’s salaries are comparable to those in large airline companies.

It is because of the huge debts that the ‘Kazan airport stopped to fuel the ‘Tatarstan’ airline planes. That is why all airplanes flying, say, to Moscow, got fueled in the capital. As such, they filled the tanks in such a way that they would have enough fuel for the return flight as well. At the time of the plane crash on 17 November in the tanks of the ill-fated Boeing there was approximately nine tons of fuel

...shortly before the flight it became known, that two business class passengers had registered for the flight. And the 50-seater Bombardier CRJ was not equipped with the business class section. Having learned that the Tatarstan President’s son and the Head of the Tatarstan FSB Directorate were flying to Kazan, the ‘Tatarstan’ airline management urgently replaced Bombardier CRJ by Boeing.

Agaricus bisporus

29th Nov 2013, 13:54

In addition to Karel's post here's another cut n' paste from his link.

Due to a disastrous staff scarcity the enterprise would persuade air navigators and panel operators to retrain as pilots. That was how the crew members of the ill-fated ‘Boeing’ flying from Moscow to Kazan on 17 November got their permit to operate. Before 2012 the captain Rustam Salikhov was an air navigator, retrained in the Ulyanovsk Higher Civil Aeronautics School, and had transition training for ‘Boeing’ at the simulation center of the S7 airline. In 2012 he was appointed the second pilot and in May 2013 – the Captain.

The second pilot, Viktor Gutsul, prior to 2012 flew as panel operator.

Both, Rustam and Viktor, became pilots already after retirement, having obtained the service record flying as an air navigator and a panel operator. They were 47 years old.

In 2010 pilot rating was abolished. Previously, only A-class pilots with the flying time of at least 4,000 hours had the right to fly passengers. Both Salikhov and Gutsul’s flying time was about half of this norm. And it’s not their fault that they found themselves at the Boeing wheel on 17 November. It is their tragedy. And the passengers' tragedy

They certainly didn't get 2000hrs flying between 2012 and the accident, so barring bad reporting where did they get their 2000hrs-odd flying time? On the systems panel...? Navigating?

This is like putting the scrub-nurse into the heart surgeons shoes on the basis she's seen a few score of bypass operations and "done a conversion"!

If this has been reported correctly it's a scary situation.

liider

29th Nov 2013, 15:39

They were flying B737 since 2010. In April 2012 he got ATPL, before that he had only CPL.

That's their 2000 hours.

RAT 5

29th Nov 2013, 16:07

Engines accelerated to 83% N1 (near Go-Around Thrust) and continued at that speed until almost impact.

There's been much speculation about over pitch-up due to the application of full G/A power. If they applied only 83% N1 this would have given only about 1500fpm V/S, if F15 speed was to maintained, and should have been easily controllable. It was also reported that they achieved 25 degrees nose up attitude. I suggest this must have been due to over controlling of elevator input. As the speed bled off the elevator would become less effective and thus it would have taken an equally large amount of over controlling elevator input to convert this high nose attitude into a steep dive. I wonder what the speed trim system was doing during all of this; i.e. where the stab trim was; helping or hindering during such large changes in attitude and elevator forces.

DOVES

29th Nov 2013, 16:48

Could it be that while one was pulling the control wheel (Go Around!) the other was trimming down, and even pushing? (I see the runway I can make it!)
Is it difficult to determine this?

RAT 5

29th Nov 2013, 18:58

Unlikely as it was the captain that informed ATC they were making a go-round. Because of that it was not a panicked manoeuvre at minimums; it seems to have been a discussed option and the F/O PF would have known what was the idea.

veloo maniam

30th Nov 2013, 06:08

quote
It is also advising that air traffic control processes be examined to explore whether controllers could provide greater assistance to crews in cases where aircraft are deviating significantly from the required course.Unquote
Any suggestions so far.

RetiredF4

30th Nov 2013, 07:13

They performed a go around ending in a steep climb, pushed over to level off......
Then comes the deadly part, the ever increasing negative pitch until impact.
Something floating around when doing the pushover jammed the controls?

Clandestino

30th Nov 2013, 09:08

Why do people these days think that official information only exists if it's on a web link...?Well, for NTSB reports I go to NTSB site, for FAA circulars I go to FAA page. I had no idea Flightglobal is MAK's official organ. Sorry for being too cryptic; I already had found info about the accident on MAK's site but it didn't fit completely with Avherald's article. I suppose because there are at least two serious mistranslations there:

After passing the missed approach point the crew discussed a go-around and communicated with dispatch, then disengaged both autopilots engaged in the automatic approach and continued manually on flight director.

Оценив положение самолёта относительно ВПП как «непосадочное», экипаж доложил диспетчеру и начал уход на второй круг в режиме TOGA (Take Off / Go Around. Взлёт / Уход на второй круг). При этом, задействованный в процессе захода на посадку один из двух автопилотов, был отключён и дальнейший полёт осуществлялся в ручном режиме. It weren't two autopilots engaged for approach; it was just one of two (один из двух) active and it got disengaged as the missed approach was initiated per design. On 737 when flying single channel approach there is neither autoland nor autopilot go around available.

the stabilizer trim system wound - most likely automatically - nose down commanding the aircraft into a dive.

Flightglobal got it right:

The engines were powered up to 83% of N1 and, aided by flap and gear retraction, the aircraft climbed at 25°. Airspeed bled away and the 737’s speed trim system – which acts to stabilise the airspeed in such situations – began adjusting to favour a lower nose attitude. STS introduced nose-down trim that reduced pitchup excursion, it did not put the aeroplane into dive. Crew did.

looks like a Go-Around without pressing TOGA. Followed the FD's into the groundNope. Toga was pressed, engines complied. 25 degrees nose up, followed by 75° nose down looks nothing like following the FDs.

It was also reported that they achieved 25 degrees nose up attitude. I suggest this must have been due to over controlling of elevator input.No. It was due to no elevator input at all.

I wonder what the speed trim system was doing during all of thisNo need to wonder anymore. Preliminary FDR readout shows it working as required.

Could it be that while one was pulling the control wheel (Go Around!) the other was trimming down, and even pushing? According to FDR, no.

Is it difficult to determine this?No.

Any suggestions so far.Not yet, I suppose it will take at least a couple of months (if not years) to come up with realistic suggestions what ATC can do when it becomes obvious that the crew is struggling and approach is clearly unstable.

Aluminium shuffler

30th Nov 2013, 11:22

Dual inputs are impossible on the 737 unless so much force is applied that the breakout feature (for jammed controls) is used. As for one pilot trimming in the wrong direction, this can only be done manually - the electric trim is available in the needed direction only (a force direction switch in the base of the column isolates the opposite trim direction unless the override switch on the aft edge of the centre pedestal is used), ad manual rotation of the trim wheel would produce a very slow trim change and is unlikely to go un-noticed. So, the chances of opposing pilot actions are small.

DOVES

30th Nov 2013, 16:51

To Clandestino

Quote:

Originally Posted by DOVES
Could it be that while one was pulling the control wheel (Go Around!) the other was trimming down, and even pushing?

According to FDR, no.

And what about this?:
#299 (permalink)
from avherald:
... After passing the missed approach point the crew discussed a go-around and communicated with dispatch, then disengaged both autopilots engaged in the automatic approach and continued manually on flight director. Engines accelerated to 83% N1 (near Go-Around Thrust) and continued at that speed until almost impact. The aircraft began to pitch up under the influence of engine acceleration and flaps retraction reaching 25 degrees nose up, ["the stabilizer trim system wound"] - most likely automatically - nose down commanding the aircraft into a dive. ...

To Olasek
Quote:From 700 m (2310 ft) to zero in 20 secs, means 6930 ft/min??? It means 126 Km/h and 70 Kts

It only means that average vertical speed was 70 kts, it says nothing about their final speed at the time of the crash.

Can I ask you humbly:
"If average was 70 kts, what has been minimum?"

RAT 5

30th Nov 2013, 17:10

IMHO 83% N1 is not enough (in the sim) to put the a/c any where near 25 degrees nose up even if you did not touch the elevator. IMHO this hi-attitude must have been pilot induced. Considering this hi-nose attitude at such a low power setting the speed bleed off must have been rapid. I'm surprised they didn't get a stick shaker. If they did this might explain the over control into nose down, but surely it would have been reported. Indeed the STS would have wound in nose down trim, but how quickly, and then if a large nose down elevator input was made the STS might not have had time to wind off that nose down trim. However, the elevator must have been like a wet fish at such a slow speed, hence perhaps such a large reverse input. Does the FDR not show elevator input in degrees against time?

Too much of a coincidence in my view. The cloud base was low, and the go-around was at night, so I'll bet the crew could see a whole load of dark grey nothing in front of them

Such a G/A manoeuvre is an instrument manoeuvre even in day light. Above 10 degrees you can not see over the nose. Good instrument discipline should not have led to this outcome. A G/A as a takeoff is to rotate to an attitude. that is fundamental and should be the focus. PM should have ensured correct thrust was set and monitored the attitude, especially as PM was the captain who instructed the G/A.

My interest is in the root cause of the accident. that started way back when they did not intercept the ILS correctly. How can it be that a B737 with all the MAP nav displays and LNAV/HDG SEL/ TK LIne be so far off course that they are not on the ILS at night when inside the OM? That is where the accident began. How? How can 2 trained pilots be so lost in S.A? What happened afterwards was as a consequence of being out of position. Good decision, but badly executed. Why was it necessary is my question. Therein lies some clues and perhaps identifying a weakness in the ATC, crew training, STAR procedure etc. There has to be more to this than a messy G/A.

hamster3null

30th Nov 2013, 18:03

This is the original source used by flightglobal and avherald (in Russian):

http://www.privmtu.ru/safety_flights/info/pd_VQ-BBN.pdf

Avherald has the important parts translated pretty much word for word. The only detail that may have been mistranslated is the description of pilots' actions. The original source says that "when the speed dropped from 150 kt to 125 kt with pitch angle of 25 degrees, pilots started actions with the control column in order to reduce pitch. (...) EGPWS alerts "sink rate" and "pull up" sounded, but there were no significant nose-up inputs on the control column, and vertical acceleration became negative". In essence, avherald makes it sound as if one of the pilots held the column full forward all the way into the ground, but that does not necessarily follow from the original text.

One other interesting part is that it sounds like they failed to acquire the glide slope because they were 300 m above ground at 2 km before the runway, and that was because they had the auto pilot set to hold altitude.

Lonewolf_50

30th Nov 2013, 19:01

Dozy:
Thank you.

Clandestino:
Thanks for your point on MAK, with whom I am not familiar, and no thanks for the rest of your usual.

Karel_x

30th Nov 2013, 20:41

- After starting G/A, while they climb (ca 20 sec), they communicate with TWR for 16 sec. Could it distract their attention?

- Clouds ceiling was actually 220m, that means that they could see airport lights only for the last 2 sec of flight.

- In the moment of t/o, they had 7.8 tons of fuel, i.e. the information about 9 tons of fuel in the moment of crash is incorrect.

Clandestino

30th Nov 2013, 22:15

And what about this?:

About what? That someone has not very clear idea about flying in general, 737 flight controls system and Russian grammar so is unable to understand that automatic trim set itself towards nose-down position and did not send the whole aeroplane into dive?

IMHO 83% N1 is not enough (in the sim) to put the a/c any where near 25 degrees nose up even if you did not touch the elevator. Would someone be so kind to explain what is the purpose of humble opinions running against the FDR readouts?

IMHO this hi-attitude must have been pilot induced.Yes, by inactivity.

Considering this hi-nose attitude at such a low power setting the speed bleed off must have been rapid. Power was not low. Nose was high but not extremely so. FDR told its tale, no need for guessing.

I'm surprised they didn't get a stick shaker.Pushover was so severe Nz got negative during last part of the dive.

Does the FDR not show elevator input in degrees against time? It does.

In essence, avherald makes it sound as if one of the pilots held the column full forward all the way into the ground, but that does not necessarily follow from the original text.Not literally full forward. MAK did state that after initial nose down input, there were no significant displacements of control column towards nose-up so AvHerald got that right.

Machinbird

30th Nov 2013, 23:29

The apparent passivity of the crew on the controls is making this sound like another case of a crew that was too automation dependent and when forced to fly manually, they were unable to get their scans going and actually fly the aircraft.

I've been expecting more horrible examples of inadequately trained crews, but it is a great disappointment when they actually show up.:(

Aluminium shuffler

1st Dec 2013, 07:32

It could have captured a false glide slope or suffered some sort of disturbance to the glide - I have seen that in a few places where local geology, topography or conurbations, or having a taxiway with lining-up aircraft in front of the G/S transmitter causes significant G/S distortion.

As for how a crew could end up in the wrong position for intercept, just last night I had bad vectors from ATC to the ILS, and look at the Atlas thread where they went for the wrong airport entirely. Anyone can have an abberation - what's important is understanding why and learning what can be done to mitigate them.

5 APUs captain

1st Dec 2013, 09:28

It is clear they screwed up the approach and go-around.
Just WHY pitch angle they got about 75 deg nose down?
Stab/stab trim/elevator failure???
PFD/ADI failure?
Pilot incapacitation?

Clandestino

1st Dec 2013, 10:23

It could have captured a false glide slope or suffered some sort of disturbance to the glide.No. ATC informed them they were about 4 km off localizer course and then they made 3-4 course reversals to intercept it, without been offered or asking for vectors. Anyway, after gyrations they were again off course and eventually turned hdg 250 to intercept rwy 29 loc, which they captured 2km off threshold at 1000 ft QFE so no glideslope capture occurred.

Just WHY pitch angle they got about 75 deg nose down?They realized they won't make it after passıng MM at 1000 ft AAL so initiated go-around. As it was single channel, autopilot automatically disengaged, which they either failed to notice or appreciate and aeroplane climbed on her own. Go-around was started at 300m QFE and they busted go-around altitude of 500m QFE by 200m. They pushed. It was dark IMC. Rest can be read in a few posts around here.

Stab/stab trim/elevator failure???No.

DOVES

1st Dec 2013, 14:17

Clandestino:
Quote:
Originally Posted by DOVES And what about this?:
About what? That someone has not very clear idea about flying in general, 737 flight controls system and Russian grammar so is unable to understand that automatic trim set itself towards nose-down position and did not send the whole aeroplane into dive?

About this!:
…The aircraft began to pitch up under the influence of engine acceleration and flaps retraction reaching 25 degrees nose up, the stabilizer trim system wound - most likely automatically [??? (And we all know that in the B73 the autotrim is only operative with the autopilot engaged)]- wound nose down commanding the aircraft into a dive….

And this!:
http://www.pprune.org/8161310-post107.html
By Sunamer
words of a person participating in the investigation:
...actual GA was initiated at outer marker. They climbed up to 900m and then the airspeed started to decrease. Pitch started to change to negative and they started to fall being at 800m from the threshold of 11 apprx with angle of 75-80 degrees.

And this!:
http://www.pprune.org/8161768-post119.html
By Sunamer
there is an update from MAK
During approach, the crew didn't achieve proper parameters of standard approach that was specified in the documentation. Had assessed AC's position as non-landing in relation to the runway, the crew reported this and initiated GA using TOGA mode. During this phase, one of autopilots that had been used during approach, was disconnected and from this moment piloting was done in manual mode.
(And we all know that in the B73 the autotrim is only operative with the autopilot engaged)
Engines reached thrust mode that was close to TO. The crew changed flaps setting from 30 to 15 degrees. Because of the engine thrust, pitch started to increase and AC started to climb. Pitch angle reached 25 degrees.
IAS started to decrease, then the crew retracted the gear.
From the moment of initiating GA, to this moment the crew had not attempted to actively control the AC with a yoke input.
After IAS decreased from 150 to 125 kt, the crew started to use control column in order to obtain nose down attitude. That led to the arrest of climb, and subsequent descend with increase of IAS. Maximum AoA didn't exceed operational limits.
AC, after reaching alt of 700m, started to descend with negative pitch angle, that reached -75 degrees at the end of the recording. AC came into contact with the ground at high speed (more than 450 kmh ) and with large negative pitch angle.
From the moment of GA to the end of recording 45 sec had passed and the descend took 20 secs.
Engines performed as expected until the moment of impact, and there was no indication of any failures or abnormal operations in any of the AC systems

And this!:
http://www.pprune.org/8178067-post299.html
from avherald:
Information released by Rosaviatsia on Nov 28th 2013 based on preliminary investigation results by MAK states, that the captain of the flight (47, ATPL, 2736 hours total, 2509 hours on type, 528 hours in command) was rated for CAT I ILS approaches only, the first officer (47, no type of pilot rating provided, 2093 hours total, 1943 hours on type) was rated for CAT II ILS approaches. According to preliminary information the crew was significantly (4km) off the approach track prompting ATC to query the crew. Corrections were made, the aircraft remained significantly right of the extended runway centerline however until the crew selected heading 250 into autopilot (heading select mode) and the aircraft intercepted the localizer automatically about 2nm short of the runway threshold at about 1000 feet AGL, the glideslope did not capture due to height however. After passing the missed approach point the crew discussed a go-around and communicated with dispatch, then disengaged both autopilots engaged in the automatic approach and continued manually on flight director. Engines accelerated to 83% N1 (near Go-Around Thrust) and continued at that speed until almost impact. The aircraft began to pitch up under the influence of engine acceleration and flaps retraction reaching 25 degrees nose up, [U]the stabilizer trim system wound - most likely automatically - nose down commanding the aircraft into a diveIn the meantime the crew retracted the gear, there had been no input on the yoke since deactivation of autopilot until that time, the airspeed had decayed from 150 to 125 KIAS. The crew now applied full forward pressure, the aircraft began to accelerate again after reaching a minimum speed of 117 KIAS at 700 meters/2300 feet above the runway, and began to rapidly descent, EGPWS alerts "SINK RATE" and "PULL UP" sounded, there was no reaction to the extreme nose down attitude however and the vertical acceleration became negative. The aircraft impacted ground at 75 degrees nose down at about 450 kph at coordinates N55.608818 E49.276852, the impact occurred 45 seconds after initiating the go-around and 20 seconds after reaching the maximum height. Initial safety recommendations released are to provide simulator training on balked landings, especially when close to the target altitude for the climb, provide training on recognition of complex spatial disorientation and upset recovery, provide training on operation and characteristics of aircraft systems especially autopilot and flight director during approach and missed approach, study the features of navigation system (FMS), consider revision of air traffic control procedures to provide more assistance to crews with technical failures including providing vectors to guide the aircraft onto the runway and conduct a conference to share technical flight experiences amongst operators.

I know that only you have
[That someone has not] very clear idea about flying in general, 737 flight controls system and Russian grammar so [is] are [un]able to understand that automatic trim set itself (And we all know that in the B73 the autotrim is only operative with the autopilot engaged) towards nose-down position.

Thank you Clandestino for your CRM lesson.

Sunamer

1st Dec 2013, 20:22

(And we all know that in the B73 the autotrim is only operative with the autopilot engaged)

what about speed trim that kicks in at low speed and doesn't require AP to be engaged?

Clandestino

1st Dec 2013, 22:31

DOVES, what you piled up here is just heap of mistranslations and misunderstandings of official releases. BTW, 737 has automatic pitch trim (STS), acting as stability augmentation system when AP is off. Those who know she doesn't, know Jack Schidt.

jcjeant

2nd Dec 2013, 06:20

Hi,

STS
The system automatically controls the trimming trim in manual flight, without autopilot is STS = speed trim system.
It is active 10 seconds after takeoff, between 100 kts and Mach 0.60 (then 0 and 0.68 M) when the autopilot is not engaged and is made for light offs, rear centering and high engine thrust.
Its purpose is to trim the aircraft with the stabilizer when the aircraft speed varies to return the aircraft to its original speed and flight toiled.
Example, if the speed decreases, the stabilizer trim moves to sting to force the plane to recover the speed at which it was slaved correctly
So .. I dunno if the STS played a role in this crash

ManaAdaSystem

2nd Dec 2013, 07:02

How about:

-2 middle aged flight engineers/system operators given a very basic/minimum hours pilot course.
-Type rating 737, and the next two, three years flying autopilot.
-One upgrades to captain after minimum hours.
-A 737 prone to map shifts.
-Poor ATC.
-Limited situational awareness.
-Limited manual flying skills.
-Poor systems knowledge.
-Unable to handle a surprise go around
-Not able to prioritize:

Aviate, navigate, communicate switched to communicate, communicate, communicate. As systems operators they would have all the time in the world to do that. Not as pilots.
Thousands of FE hours does not make you into a pilot. Gulf Air lost an Airbus when a FE turned pilot flew the aircraft into the sea.

STS works AFTER TAKE OFF.

Disclaimer: I'm not an aircraft accident investigator, and the views above are my personal speculations regarding this accident.

VNAV PATH

2nd Dec 2013, 07:50

Quoting accident report of UTAir ATR in Tyumen ; published few weeks ago

CPT :
total fh : 2602
ATR fh : 2522
initial training 80 h : 48 h on Yak 18 + 32 h on Antonov 26 , then ATR type rating.

FO :
total fh : 1825
ATR fh : 1765
initial training :60 h on Antonov 26, then ATR type rating.

:confused:

RAT 5

2nd Dec 2013, 08:46

If I understand these experience numbers correctly it suggest both pilots were released on type with only 150-ish total, i.e. cadets, and that the captain was a DEC as a cadet. Can this really be true, and if so, is extraordinary and questions of the airline and local XAA need asking. Perhaps I'm wrong in my perception.

DOVES

2nd Dec 2013, 08:50

Sunamer Clandestino jcjeant
Thank you all .
Now I am forced to pull out of dust my FOM and check .
What makes me shiver is the movie of the last seconds the ill-fated flight.
In basic piloting courses it is taught to exit a stall without increasing power.
Initially, it is sufficient the load factor reduction caused by the pressure on the control wheel to get out, then, after a short descent, the higher the speed , the wings regain lift , the effectiveness of the elevator increases, and the aircraft begins to climb initiating a phugoid around the trim speed.
So I do not think that only the pressure on the control wheel, however strong and continuous, may have put the plane in so extreme an unusual attitude.
As soon as the plane had gained speed, he should return to go up, and / or: to force her to go down would have required a growing force that sooner or later would become insufficient even with the wheel all the way down
Unless:the vertical component of lift have been reduced for some other reason.
For instance: Excessive bank
In this regard:
Is there anyone who knows how to assess the direction to which the camera, which frames the plane swooping to the ground almost vertically, is oriented?
Supposing that the camera is located in the main apron, I guess that's oriented toward: 150°-200°
By which I think it could be inferred with good approximation the orientation of the top of the plane: c.ca 240°-290°.
-Wing over?...
-Excessive bank?...

fireflybob

2nd Dec 2013, 09:19

Quoting accident report of UTAir ATR in Tyumen ; published few weeks ago

RAT 5, I believe VNAV PATH is referring to a different accident? But I am confused too.

ManaAdaSystem

2nd Dec 2013, 09:35

2 different accidents, similar experience/training levels.
Or lack of experience, to be correct.

Aluminium shuffler

2nd Dec 2013, 09:54

STS is, like mentioned, active only briefly after TO - it is not active at any other stage other than if the SMYD detects an approach to the stall, in which case the STS trims nose down at the same time as the Elevator Feel Shift Module adds pressure to increase control column loading, in combination behaving like an old fashioned stick pusher to make the effort on the column to pull the ac into a stall at least twice what is needed without the systems fighting the pilot (at least, that what the NG does, and I think the Classic was similar, though it has been a decade since I last flew one). So, a malfunction in that system could have been an issue, but the FDR reportedly suggests no malfunction.

Equally, a runaway stabiliser would cause a big pitch moment if not responded to in time, but wouldn't cause a full deflection column input.

I had misunderstood the information regarding the incorrect positioning of the AC - I had thought it was vertical profile and hadn't realised they were so far out laterally too. Quite astonishing that anyone would try to intercept an ILS in IMC at 1000" and so close in. Have they never heard of MORA/MSA?

Clandestino

2nd Dec 2013, 10:48

I dunno if the STS played a role in this crash

MAk knows and has confirmed it did induce nose down trim. How big and how long? Wait and see.

STS works AFTER TAKE OFF.

STS is, like mentioned, active only briefly after TO - it is not active at any other stage other than if the SMYD detects an approach to the stall, in which case the STS trims nose down at the same time as the Elevator Feel Shift Module adds pressure to increase control column loading, in combination behaving like an old fashioned stick pusher to make the effort on the column to pull the ac into a stall at least twice what is needed without the systems fighting the pilot Not active; activated, or better to say: armed.

The speed trim system (STS) designed to improve flight characteristics during operations with a low gross weight, aft center of gravity and high thrust. It monitors inputs of stabilizer position, thrust lever position, airspeed and vertical speed and then trims the stabilizer using the autopilot stabilizer trim. It operates most frequently during takeoffs, climb and go-arounds. Conditions for speed trim operation are listed below:

• Flaps up or down (737-400/500)
• Airspeed 100-300 KIAS
• 10 seconds after takeoff
• 5 seconds following release of trim switches
• N1 above 60%
• Autopilot not engaged
• Sensing of trim requirementNG has quite similar, though not quite the same conditions for operation, point being STS does operate whenever needed, not just at T/O.

Vertically they vere flying in alt hold at 1000 ft QFE, which makes it about 1400 QNH. While it was below 2800 ft MSA, highest obstacle around localizer is a bit shy of 700 QNH so they had a good chance of missing everything despite descending without being established on final. Whether they were aware of legal requirements, proper flying and navigation techniques, illusions in flight etc. boils down to pilot selection and training in Tatarstan. First info does indicate these were severely lacking in quality.

FDR reportedly suggests no malfunction.Yes.

ManaAdaSystem

2nd Dec 2013, 10:55

point being STS does operate whenever needed, not just at T/O.

Not on the NG I fly.

DOVES

2nd Dec 2013, 10:59

Dear Aluminium shuffler
Thank you to.

Quite astonishing that anyone would try to intercept an ILS in IMC at 1000" and so close in. Have they never heard of MORA/MSA?

I agree with what ManAdaSystem wrote in the post 341,
...communicate switched to communicate, communicate, communicate.

...After passing the missed approach point the crew discussed a go-around and communicated with dispatch (TWR),..

Add to this:
shortly thereafter:
Stick Shaker activation and "STALL - STALL - STALL - ...
And after a while
"SINK RATE" "PULL UP" - "PULL UP" - "PULL UP"
It seems an unbearable workload even for a fully trained, skillfull and expert crew.

Clandestino

2nd Dec 2013, 11:04

Well, I did quote the "classic" manual, which I suspect might be relevant since the crashed bird was -500, but I can do it for NG too:

The speed trim system (STS) is a speed stability augmentation system designed to
improve flight characteristics during operations with a low gross weight, aft center
of gravity and high thrust when the autopilot is not engaged. The purpose of the
STS is to return the airplane to a trimmed speed by commanding the stabilizer in
a direction opposite the speed change. The STS monitors inputs of stabilizer
position, thrust lever position, airspeed and vertical speed and then trims the
stabilizer using the autopilot stabilizer trim. As the airplane speed increases or
decreases from the trimmed speed, the stabilizer is commanded in the direction to
return the airplane to the trimmed speed. This increases control column forces to
force the airplane to return to the trimmed speed. As the airplane returns to the
trimmed speed, the STS commanded stabilizer movement is removed.
STS operates most frequently during takeoffs, climb and go-arounds. Conditions
for speed trim operation are listed below:
• STS Mach gain is fully enabled
between 100 KIAS and Mach
0.60 with a fadeout to zero by
Mach 0.68
• 10 seconds after takeoff
• 5 seconds following release of
trim switches
• Autopilot not engaged
• Sensing of trim requirementAnyway, while individual aircraft equipment might differ, MAK was pretty explicit that the STS did activate during go-around.

Edit:

Add to this:
shortly thereafter:
Stick Shaker activation and "STALL - STALL - STALL - ...What occurrence are you referring to?

DOVES

2nd Dec 2013, 11:42

Clandestino
If something has not been lost or changed in translation.
…In the meantime the crew retracted the gear, there had been no input on the yoke since deactivation of autopilot until that time, the airspeed had decayed from 150 to 125 KIAS. The crew now applied full forward pressure, the aircraft began to accelerate again after reaching a minimum speed of 117 KIAS…

I don’t think that 117 KIAS is bigger than stick shaker speed, even with 25°(?) flaps. Do you?

Clandestino

2nd Dec 2013, 12:07

I just might as there is no such thing as shaker speed in itself, only shaker alpha. There are shaker speeds for weight, configuration and normal acceleration. Shaker activation is not just unconfirmed but for the time being not mentioned at all and as NGs have no other alerting systems apart from shaker I suspect that such might be the case on -500 so "Stall stall stall" belongs among speculation. Anyway:
Максимальные углы атаки в процессе полёта не превышали эксплуатационных ограничений.

Agaricus bisporus

2nd Dec 2013, 12:08

Avherald report that they were on their third approach - having already gone around twice.

If this is correct you'd not imagine they'd be caught out by the g/a, nor would you imagine they'd so completely cock up their intercept of the LOC. An even marginally capable crew should be applying lessons learned and getting it right, not getting worse!

If things had been going wrong for the previous two approaches such inexperienced pilot could well have been in a state of near panic by the third. I daresay the CVR will reveal a great deal.

5 APUs captain

2nd Dec 2013, 13:49

The Landing weight was about 42 t. So, Vref for flaps15 - 132 kt
And Vstall -about 86kt.

DOVES

2nd Dec 2013, 14:23

Very interesting reading:
From
Adsto
15th Apr 2005: B737 Stall
http://www.pprune.org/1842832-post1.html

From
CaptainSandL #5 (permalink)
737-300 at 40T, stick shaker triggers at approx 1.09Vs with flap 5 & gear up and approx 1.07Vs with flap 30 & gear down.

From
BOAC #6 (permalink)
Thanks for the Vs figures. 1.07 is not much when you look at a Vs of around ?110kts? If my fading memory serves me right (going back to 1988) we went to the first proper 'symptom' of the stall (excluding stick shake), but Tempus Fugit may be playing tricks! IIRC We always found that at 1kt/sec you did not have enough back stick to keep the nose high enough to reach anything other than a gentle 'mush out', and never got to stall speed. I assumed the point of it was to try to ensure there were no 'nasty' asymmetries waiting to bite - but we never found out

But also:
http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/431167-737-ng-sts.html

airyana 19th Oct 2010, 22:17
"As airspeed decreases towards stall speed, the speed trim system trims the stabilizer nose down and enables trim above stickshaker AOA. With this trim schedule the pilot must pull more aft column to stall the airplane."
Can anyone clarify what is meant by: "enables trim above stickshaker AOA"
And why ??

BOAC 22nd Oct 2010, 16:08
Never really understood it and ignored it - it is confusing because stab nose down is a/c nose up. I suspect they
missed out the word 'airplane'. I expect Cpt SandL or Checkboard will know the answer

Whippersnapper 24th Oct 2010, 18:02
It has been a while, but as I remember it, as the stall is approached, the elevator feel shift centre position moves and its hydraulic pressure increases. This is combined with the speed trim system trimming (aircraft) nose down. The combination is meant to emulate the old fashioned "stick pusher" on older aircraft with hydraulic controls.
My guess is that the speed trim is inhibited as the stick shaker is activated (perhaps as an assumption a trim system malfunction is the reason for the high AOA), but if AOA is further increased to the point that the stall is imminent, the speed trim is reactivated to trim nose down.

I was spared the suction of a good portion of dust.

LNIDA

2nd Dec 2013, 14:24

The pitch up thrust couple is probably the start of the problem for the crew, not sure which engine thrust the airline have on the 500 (some Russian outfit operate 500's with 22.5k which give F 16 like climb rates)

For most western operators its max two approaches and divert unless there is a significant improvement in weather conditions, this lot appeared not follow even basic procedures with regard to MDH/MSA

1 It won't be a terrorist event.

2 It won't be an aircraft failure

3 It will be crew induced loss of SA resulting in undesirable aircraft state.

Just read how lucky the crew (Thomson's Bournemouth & Jet2 at Chambrey ) were with very high pitch up and slow speed following a go around or for different reasons the Norwegian crew at Kittila with frozen/jammed Stab, with lots of thrust the aircraft will go well below 100 knt's with out stall even at near 40 degrees nose up, at least for a short while

VNAV PATH

2nd Dec 2013, 15:09

LNIDA
The pitch up thrust couple is probably the start of the problem for the crew, not sure which engine thrust the airline have on the 500 (some Russian outfit operate 500's with 22.5k which give F 16 like climb rates)

Russian report : CFM 56 3 C1

(rated at 23.500 klbs)

Karel_x

2nd Dec 2013, 17:20

For most western operators its max two approaches and divert...
I am sure that it was the first approach. It is quite often that somebody report third or forth attempt in case of Russian accidents. Remember for example Polish President crash...
I suppose that it is caused by Russian terminology. G/A is in Russian "second circuit" the final turn is "the fourth turn". So our disaster after second circuit can be misunderstood like third attempt to land.

Landing weight was 42 t, ie gravity force approx 410 kN. Max. thrust of both engines 200 kN. Good ratio weight/thrust=2 :)

ManaAdaSystem

2nd Dec 2013, 19:36

23,5K on a light -500 is a LOT of thrust! A light -700 with 24K engines will go like a bat out of hell, nearly same thrust with 10 tons less... Space Shuttle performance!

flash8

2nd Dec 2013, 20:59

map shifts

Unlikely I'd hazard to guess, never known this to be a problem or contributory to a single fatal accident , although heard all the scare stories, but would be interested to know if they did a full alignment and the state of the IRU's.

DOVES

3rd Dec 2013, 08:57

A SPIN

… when a GA was initiated, either due to the strong pitch up moment caused by the engines and the vertical upward component of traction or 'apparent lift', it was not easy, or even impossible, to stop the rapid attitude increase if not by trimming down or reducing engine thrust. …

So with:
-High-pitch attitude
-Slow/decreasing-speed, with AOA approaching stall

Whippersnapper http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/431167-737-ng-sts.html#post6014975
…the elevator feel shift centre position moves and its hydraulic pressure increases. This is combined with the speed trim system trimming (aircraft) nose down. The combination is meant to emulate the old fashioned "stick pusher" on older aircraft with hydraulic controls.
My guess is that the speed trim is inhibited as the stick shaker is activated (perhaps as an assumption a trim system malfunction is the reason for the high AOA), but if AOA is further increased to the point that the stall is imminent, the speed trim is reactivated to trim nose down.

BOAC :http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/431167-737-ng-sts.html#post6011471
…We always found that at 1kt/sec you did not have enough back stick to keep the nose high enough to reach anything other than a gentle 'mush out', and never got to stall speed. I assumed the point of it was to try to ensure there were no 'nasty' asymmetries waiting to bite…

It's just a little rotation (some rudder, some aileron, different thrust on the engines) on the yaw-axis to cause a spin.

OR
When the speed became so low, with AOA approaching stall the STS activated commanding automatically the pitch trim towards AND, the elevator feel pushing, and at least one CM distracted to communicate with TWR for 16 sec…
With so little altitude to even try a recovery..
The fate was written

Clandestino

3rd Dec 2013, 15:34

How do you propose it happened without leaving a trace on FDR?

Yancey Slide

3rd Dec 2013, 16:54

"> > map shifts

> Unlikely I'd hazard to guess, never known this to be a problem or contributory to a single fatal accident , although heard all the scare stories, but would be interested to know if they did a full alignment and the state of the IRU's."

If you've got DME along the route isn't that sufficient to stop map shift? The IRUs can be way off but DME or GPS updating overrides them doesn't it?

DOVES

3rd Dec 2013, 16:57

Clandestino
It's a collation of several posts on on the topic.
Just my two cents.
Much could be inferred from the answer to my question:
http://www.pprune.org/8183803-post344.html
...anyone knows how to assess the direction to which the camera, which frames the plane swooping to the ground almost vertically, is oriented?...
In any case is it possible to access the FDR?

5 APUs captain

3rd Dec 2013, 17:21

2 DOVES:

Still nothing...

Clandestino

3rd Dec 2013, 18:45

In any case is it possible to access the FDR? It is already read out and MAK reported what they discovered less than 48 hours after the crash. You have collated the posts that contradict the MAK's findings.

Still nothing...

Unless you are able to understand Russian, that is.

scud

4th Dec 2013, 03:13

All these theories about auto pitch trim behaviour. I just think that they fixated on the ASI and pushed and trimmed until the speed started to build up. At that point, the pitch attitude was probably too low and the pitch trim too far forward for recovery at that altitude.

Remember how they got into this situation in the first place: On the go-around, they let the nose go up to 25 degrees until the speed decayed down to 125kts. I think that means that they would not have paid any attention to the ADI. Neither then, nor at the summit when the aircraft went into negative pitch.

Almost all the captain's 2500 hour flying experience was on the 737, and less than 500 hours in command on it. With the ease autoflight makes flying these days, and company policies that discourage hand flying, they couldn't have had that much experience at hands on raw data instrument flying.

Worldwide, the number of accidents due to loss of control because of poor instrument flying skills is becoming a concern. Automation makes things easy, but losing it makes it far worse than never having had the luxury of having it in the first place. I can't imagine a raw data instrument scan to be up to speed when the only hands on flying done is the take off up to 200-400 feet, and landing below 1000 feet whilst following the flight director.

Jn14:6

4th Dec 2013, 09:43

Yancey
Believe it or not, but not all DME xmitters are fixed.
In the early days of my company operating the 747-400 we noticed regular, large map shifts when flying in the Taiwan area. It transpired that the FMCS was locking on to a military installation, which was located on the back of a lorry and therefore moved! Maybe similar in Russia?

barit1

4th Dec 2013, 11:29

...we noticed regular, large map shifts when flying in the Taiwan area. It transpired that the FMCS was locking on to a military installation, which was located on the back of a lorry and therefore moved! Maybe similar in Russia?

Is this life imitating art, said art in turn imitating life? Ernie Gann's "Band Of Brothers" describes such a scene, and it in turn was inspired by a real 727 accident.

...In Taiwan!

Centaurus

4th Dec 2013, 12:06

I can't imagine a raw data instrument scan to be up to speed when the only hands on flying done is the take off up to 200-400 feet, and landing below 1000 feet whilst following the flight director.

Quite true. At a rough guess applies to 95 percent of the world's airline pilots flying Boeing and Airbus types. Scary - but despite even the FAA bleating about the need for more accent on manual flight skills, the fact is airline managements will always press their pilots to use more automation as they don't trust their pilots manual skills. Vicious circle.

DOVES

4th Dec 2013, 12:30

But we're not talking so much about precision instrument Flying in this case.
It seems to me that in the end it was just a matter of pushing or pulling (obviously correctly interpreting the macroscopic indications of the ADI), first to counter act the initial strong climb effect, and then to stop and reverse as necessary the hard pitch down rate.
Or am I wrong?

Lonewolf_50

4th Dec 2013, 13:00

Your use of the term "precision" is a red herring, DOVES.

Fundamental instrument flying is what he was referring to.
I can't imagine a raw data instrument scan to be up to speed when the only hands on flying done is the take off up to 200-400 feet, and landing below 1000 feet whilst following the flight director.

RAT 5

4th Dec 2013, 13:14

I wonder if the final accident report will concentrate solely on the execution of the G/A, the subsequent mis-handling and the following on further mis-handling into the fatal dive.
If so they will be missing quite a bit. The accident started i.e. the first hole lined up, when they lost SA a long way out on the approach. Follow the sequence of the flight and its lateral & vertical navigation to the eventual G/A point and the holes were all lining up. The correct decision was a G/A; good call. It is sad and shameful that pushing TOGA was the lining up of the penultimate hole. They still had a chance, but by not controlling the attitude all the holes lined up.
There will need to much scrutiny of their training and overall training dept. Will that happen. It did when an American Airline waggled the tail off an Airbus. The root causes were found in the training culture. Perhaps there will be a root cause weakness found here too, starting with SA awareness and then a G/A. But ending up at 1000' way off the LOC is scary.
Much to wait and see about.

DOVES

4th Dec 2013, 13:30

Yes! I apologize.
My word .. precision .. was an oxymoron. We all agree that it was enough to push toward the brown when all the ADI was blue, and vice versa pull towards the heavenly when everything was brown (as long as they had the strength and sufficient flight controls excursion). And I seem to remember that in some extreme attitudes, V bars are depicted to indicate the right direction to the horizon.
Thy were'nt performing a EO ILS manual, no A/T, no F/D, approach to the minima, but a wise and simple Go Around.

Machaca

4th Dec 2013, 14:19

I'm curious if MAK determines whether or not they were strapped in their seats.

dcoded

4th Dec 2013, 16:24

Machaca:

You have a very good point.
It may be possible they were not strapped in and couldn't reach the controls after it went nose over

Lonewolf_50

4th Dec 2013, 16:27

Almost afraid to ask:

Why would a crew not have their belts on if in the terminal/approach/landing phase of a flight? :confused:

Agaricus bisporus

4th Dec 2013, 16:42

Why would a crew not have their belts on if in the terminal/approach/landing phase of a flight?

Because their child was in the driver's seat?

His dudeness

4th Dec 2013, 16:45

Because their child was in the driver's seat

Are we at Aeroflot 593 again...?

Boring....

liider

4th Dec 2013, 16:46

Why would a crew not have their belts on if in the terminal/approach/landing phase of a flight?Why most Russian men of that age don't have belts on while driving a car?

scud

4th Dec 2013, 17:22

RAT 5:

"I wonder if the final accident report will concentrate solely on the execution of the G/A, the subsequent mis-handling and the following on further mis-handling into the fatal dive."

Russian crash investigators are brutally thorough. I suggest you read one because its a real eye opener. Their criticism includes the regulatory and oversight infrastructure.

vovachan

4th Dec 2013, 17:23

The Russian CAA circulated a new directive which in addition to what has already been mentioned directs 737 operators to inspect the elevator power control unit for foreign objects and excessive dirt. Also to conduct a refresher for pilots on non-normal operation - jammed or restricted flight controls.

Sounds like hardware probs are not ruled out yet

Clandestino

4th Dec 2013, 21:40

It's just usual post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy abundant around here. These recommendation have nothing to do with Tatarstan crash but rather with Norshuttle incident at Kittila, almost a year ago. FDR has pretty much ruled out the flight controls problems. Well, at least that's the official version, conspiracy theorists are free to offer their unbridled expertise on how the FDR sucks, investigation authorities are corrupt and it's normal that such things happen in unenlightened Russia.

Believe it or not, but not all DME xmitters are fixed.Of course, TACANs on aircraft carriers do move and TACAN installation is much smaller than VOR/DME so it can be truck mounted but no intelligent air force uses frequencies that overlap with civilian NAVs - after all, their signal would suffer too.

Is this life imitating art, said art in turn imitating life? Ernie Gann's "Band Of Brothers" describes such a scene, and it in turn was inspired by a real 727 accident.It's fiction as long as someone doesn't claim it happened for real. Then it's bovine excrement.

Or am I wrong?You are. There was neither push to stop the nose rising while no one was in control until 25° up nor pull to get out of the dive afterwards.

I wonder if the final accident report will concentrate solely on the execution of the G/A, the subsequent mis-handling and the following on further mis-handling into the fatal dive.
Six days ago there were already recommendations out that concentrated on far more than solely GA. No need to wonder.

It may be possible they were not strapped in and couldn't reach the controls after it went nose overIt were their actions on yoke that brought the nose over so speculation about their inability to reach controls is way off target.

Aluminium shuffler

5th Dec 2013, 07:25

Regarding the map shift issue, I once had a shift of approximately five miles after about as many hours airborne. Upon checking the FMC Nav pages, for whatever reason the FMC had gone into IRS Nav Only, ignoring external inputs. I have only seen this happen on that one occasion, and can't rule out the FO playing about with the FMC while I was in the loo, but it could have been a glitch of some sort; I've seen the FMC inexplicably throw its teddys out of the cot many times when it doesn't like a certain route or profile adjustment. That's why I don't allow the descent to be started without some appropriate raw data backing the FMC up, which doesn't seem to be taught - my current employer is the one operator I have flown for which does not require the SID or STAR to be backed up by raw data, and the cadets seem to do it more to humour me than than in an act of self preservation. If that sense of distrust of the automatics and FMC were more prevalent, then perhaps this crew would have started their approach in the right place. It still doesn't explain the loss of control in the GA, though.

DOVES

5th Dec 2013, 08:22

@Aluminium shuffler

...my current employer is the one operator I have flown for which does not require the SID or STAR to be backed up by raw data,…
Wait!
Do You mean that during a final ILS approach PF does not have direct, combined indications of the LOC and GS (raw data)? But the usual magenta line (MAP)?

ManaAdaSystem

5th Dec 2013, 08:50

DOVES, an ILS is not a SID or a STAR.

I mentioned map shifts simply because I used to fly classics a few years ago, and none of them had GPS. Map shifts were fairly common in areas with few nav aids. A FMC update helped a bit, but did not cure the problem completely.

Don't know what equipment this 737 had.

Aluminium shuffler

5th Dec 2013, 09:08

Doves, what I mean is that the VORs andADF are not used to monitor the SID or STAR. The ILS and LCTR are typically tuned before top of descent, so if the FMC screws up, there is no way to spot it. I prefer having VOR/ADF raw data on the map mode needles all the way to the ILS.

It's normal in most operators for both pilots to have the ND on map, not APP or VOR (as appropriate) for the approach, though we are allowed to have the PF use those raw modes for practice raw data flying as long as the PM has the map on. That's a pretty reasonable compromise, as the PFD has small scale duplicates of the ILS anyway, and the map had the VOR/ADF needles.

DOVES

5th Dec 2013, 09:33

Thanks ManAdaSystem. That's very kind of you.
First time I had an astonishing meeting with map shift was during a Sim recurrent check on the 73, and if I remember right, it happened after an engine failure during cruise (thank God we had both Air conditioning operating).
And I recall too that during final on the MD11 PF had three “Approach” calls:
1) For the FGS to capture the LOC / GP
2) For the NAV display to show the raw data
3) For FMS to select the Approach data.

But the Russian B737 in Kazan was in final ILS APPROACH.

DOVES

5th Dec 2013, 10:02

Aluminium
shuffler

...It's normal in most operators for both pilots to have the ND on map, not APP or VOR (as appropriate) for the approach,…

Abhorrent and Ridiculous. If not because of x-check requirement.

...though we are allowed to have the PF use those raw modes (for practice raw data flying) as long as the PM has the map on....

Prudent and in my humble opinion the best configuration to conduct the final approach.
By the way how can we know if both pilots of B73 in Kazan were on MAP?

Skyjob

5th Dec 2013, 10:16

the VORs andADF are not used to monitor the SID or STAR. The ILS and LCTR are typically tuned before top of descent, so if the FMC screws up, there is no way to spot it.

You can always do the ILS frequency on STANDBY in NAV 1 & NAV 2 until switching them over when approaching the requirement or being vectored on approach, meanwhile using two suitable NAVAIDS to monitor your raw data position during STAR.

Remember that before TOD you are required to check your FMC position integrity before accepting blindly that you do not need to tune any aids and monitor the magenta line. So simplest solution to ensure nothing's drifted too far out of place: use POS on smallest scale of ND and you can SEE the GPS and FMC locations plotted against aircraft symbol, thus showing if any have a large discrepancy...

Personally, I leave the navigations aids for STAR tuned and updated throughout until we are taken off the STAR by ATC for vectors to an ILS, or if on a procedural approach, on an intercept track/course for intercepting localiser, split setup on naiads until established if needed (I can think of a number of routes in our network requiring this technique)

RAT 5

5th Dec 2013, 11:11

Regarding the map shift issue, I once had a shift of approximately five miles after about as many hours airborne.

On non-GPS a/c B757 (similar system to a classic) I had 1.5nm map shift landing in Azores, and also into Cairo coming up from Mombasa. That was scary as it was a VOR approach on the easterly northern runway in a sand storm. The magenta line was line up on the southerly runway. When we flew through the m.g. in HDG SEL and VOR/LOC armed there was scrambling to check we had the correct frequency dialled in. We had, but it was a moment of ?????

I've found the common split of ND displays to be PM on raw data & PF on Map.

ManaAdaSystem

5th Dec 2013, 11:27

There are many ways of doing this, but on the NG I just can't be bothered to tune my way down to touchdown.
The aircraft monitors position and will report deviations. GPS, IRS, DME/DME, etc, etc, and I have never had anything resembling map shift.
The displays are left on MAP, raw data ILS is available on the HSI. This gives excellent awareness of my position during the approach.

The Kazan guys were on the ILS , but seemed to have some problems getting there.

5 APUs captain

5th Dec 2013, 14:02

Flying over Kazahstan or Siberia without GPS you easy can get 5NM shift!
These guys tried to capture glideslope being left of centreline 4 km and above GS, finally they understood it is not possible and told "we will not land"...
Then made a go around with ending in crash...

Aluminium shuffler

5th Dec 2013, 14:20

DOVES, you are again making judgements without comprehending. The 73NG has ILS indicators on the PFD, so there is no need to have the ND on ILS mode, though you can if you want it, and as I rmember it, the Classic EFIS was the same. The Capt and FO have independent ILS displays on their PFDs, as well as it being displayed on the standby AI (if selected on, like I do, though removed from our SOP). Tell me why you think the ILS needs to be displayed 5 times to make an approach rather than just 3 times?

The point I was making is much as Skyjob's; that using the needles for the VORs during the STAR will give a better chance of recognising and dealing with map shift until you reach the ILS than blindly following the magenta line with 100% faith in the FMC's infallibility.

mary meagher

5th Dec 2013, 14:33

Machaca asks, in post 376 if MAK determined whether the aircrew were strapped in their seats.

In 1989, taking part in a gliding competition in the Soviet Union (!) during the practice week we were given the opportunity to fly in one of the 4 seater Wilga towplanes, in order to get a look at the area to be tasked. I climbed into one of the rear seats, and began feeling around for my seat belt.....
couldn't find one. I tapped the pilot on his shoulder, managed to raise the question, and he replied "Nyet, seat belts for chickens!"

Fortunately the local glider I had rented for the 14 day competition, a Polish built Jantar III, included straps.

It is quite easy to depart controls in negative G...

DOVES

5th Dec 2013, 15:00

I'm very sorry to have been misunderstood.
Far be it from me the intention to judge and issue rulings on anyone.
I'll try to be clearer.
For ‘Raw data’ I've always intended the accurate reproduction of the classic "T" on the instrument panel, with Attitude Director Indicator selected on the Primary Flight Display and the Horizontal Situation Indicator on the Navigation Display.
Also because in those days NAV1 signals were transmitted to the CM1 ADI first, and then to the CM2 HSI.
But nowadays perhaps many things have changed and the old dear "T" has been forgotten.

Aluminium shuffler

5th Dec 2013, 15:22

DOVES, 73 Classics were mostly EFIS, with a PFD with FD, ILS and also alt and speed as customer options above a CRT Nav display. The non-EFIS models had a conventional FD and EHSI in place of the screens, but the rest was the same. They had conventional round dial IAS/Mach, alitimeter and RDMI instruments and an IVSI (later with integrated TCAS display until that was integrated into the nav display). The VHF Nav 1 system supplied the Capt and Sby displays while the VHF Nav 2 system supplies the FO displays, unless selected otherwise on the overhead panel. That is the same on the NG. I don't know about the 200. So, they have pretty much the standard T configuration, bur the ILS is displayed in several locations within it.

Raw nav data can be displayed on EFIS aircraft in addition to FD and FMC data - it doesn't have to be only one or the other.

flash8

5th Dec 2013, 17:35

All the classics I have flown (albeit for one airline some time ago) had no GPS, and there isn't any reason to suspect this a/c had, although it could have been retrofitted I guess.

BOAC

5th Dec 2013, 18:40

The discussion of GPS/map shift/mobile DME/monitoring of aids is all very interesting and useful, but is it not more relevant that they appear to have just screwed up the g/a for some reason? 'Hinting' that map shift was possibly 'contributory' is like saying they should not have taken off in the first place.:(

vovachan

5th Dec 2013, 20:42

The Rosaviatsia doc seems to blame a badly executed turn into final which left them 4 km off to the right of center line.

DaveReidUK

5th Dec 2013, 21:15

All the classics I have flown (albeit for one airline some time ago) had no GPS, and there isn't any reason to suspect this a/c had, although it could have been retrofitted I guess.During the same aircraft's stint with Bulgaria Air in 2008 it habitually transmitted grossly inaccurate ADS-B coordinates, so it certainly didn't have GPS in those days.

scud

5th Dec 2013, 23:23

Doves:

"For ‘Raw data’ I've always intended the accurate reproduction of the classic "T" on the instrument panel, with Attitude Director Indicator selected on the Primary Flight Display and the Horizontal Situation Indicator on the Navigation Display.
Also because in those days NAV1 signals were transmitted to the CM1 ADI first, and then to the CM2 HSI.
But nowadays perhaps many things have changed and the old dear "T" has been forgotten."

Your instrument scan can be as crappy on a PFD type instrument as on the traditional T display if you don't practice. Raw data means without the flight director command bars to tell you what to do. It appears that those who's instrument flying skills are 'underdeveloped' tend to not notice the attitude information as they blindly follow (fixate on) the command bars. Problem with them is when the command bars all of a sudden disappear. During a malfunction, they may be overwhelmed with the information in front of them (AF447), or fixate on a specific instrument (ASI) at the expense of the others or, in a period of apprehension (fear), revert to primitive instincts, such as confusing between a Western ADI and a Russian one.

SeenItAll

6th Dec 2013, 13:25

Not sure whether this has been reported yet, but the following news article suggests that the training centre where the pilot received his license was operating illegally and conducting inadequate training.
Yahoo! (http://news.yahoo.com/russia-crash-pilot-may-had-dubious-license-investigators-123926656.html)

Karel_x

6th Dec 2013, 18:24

...training centre where the pilot received his license was operating illegally...
It is quite surprising. I thing that management of Tatarstan Airlines told that pilots received their licence in UTAir training centre. UTAir is (I think) the third biggest company in Russia, after Aeroflot and Transaero.

There are discussions if Rossaviacia search new airline for Transaero's lines. Reportedly one of them is UTair. Their general director Martirosov told on press conference:
"Предложение есть, мы его рассматриваем. Нужно сделать все, чтобы Татарстан не остался без авиационного сообщения. Силы у нас есть, возможности тоже"
The proposal was done, we think about it. It has to do everything for Tatarstan was not left without air service. We have both capability and force enough.

It looks that now is the time to sell TatarstanAir's shares. They want to lease several new A319 but a future of their AOC is unsure. I suppose that they will try to move their activity to the near company "AK Bars Aero"

Russia to Ground Tatarstan Airlines Following Boeing Crash | AVIATIONNEWS.EU (http://www.aviationnews.eu/2013/12/05/russia-to-ground-tatarstan-airlines-following-boeing-crash/)

Rosaviacia informed that they will inspect another air companies in Tatarstan and also inspect the official persons responsible for their not objective evaluation of Tatarstan Air operation.

?????????? (http://www.favt.ru/favt_new/?q=novosti/novosti/novost/3585)

tdracer

6th Dec 2013, 23:26

It seems the plot thickens:

Russian investigators search state aviation agency, fear that some pilots got fake licenses (http://mediatracking.com/npcapp/bounce.aspx/npcemail/34408/4/ZXZhbi5wLndpcGZAYm9laW5nLmNvbQ~~/1051353297)

Russian investigators are searching the state aviation agency to see if some pilots may have fake licenses part of an investigation into a plane crash last month that killed all 50 people on board. Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said in a statement Friday that investigators believe some pilots working for Russian airlines have received fake licenses

Sergey Tachenov

7th Dec 2013, 06:41

It's not UTAir, it's the S7 training center where Tatarstan pilots were trained, according to a document released by Rosaviatsiya (http://aviaforum.ru/showpost.php?p=1453773&postcount=372). But S7 is also one of the biggest and the best Russian airlines.

As for the fake licenses, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some around, but it doesn't have anything to do with the crashed plane and its crew. It could be just something irrelevant to the particular accident that was uncovered during the investigation.

MrDK

7th Dec 2013, 07:00

As for the fake licenses, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some around, but it doesn't have anything to do with the crashed plane and its crew. It could be just something irrelevant to the particular accident that was uncovered during the investigation.

Some fake licenses, nothing to do with the crash and something irrelevant?
Where are you from again?

Sergey Tachenov

7th Dec 2013, 07:06

I mean that these two pilot's licenses could be fine, but during investigation they might have found some problems with other pilot's licenses. I find it pretty hard to believe that these particular pilots got fake licenses at S7 training center. If it was so, it would be major news.

MrDK

7th Dec 2013, 07:11

Time will tell -- hopefully

porterhouse

7th Dec 2013, 07:51

I find it pretty hard to believe that these particular pilots got fake
Not so hard to believe if we already know that other pilots did get fake papers (or real papers from a fake training center) or since we already know that (regardless of their paper work) their training on the aircraft was incomplete, never preforming a true go-around on real aircraft suggests that after a simulator training they never flew a typical pattern traffic (touch&goes, some approaches, etc) that other pilots typically do when transitioning to a new equipment. This deficiency in training is understandable if airline wanted to save money.

Karel_x

7th Dec 2013, 07:57

Rosaviacia state that it will check if all pilot licenses issued in the retraining program 2009 was legitimate (the both pilots were retrained 2010). They don't speak about fake licences.
They also start inspections at all Tatarstan carriers (AK Bars, Tulpar, KAPO) and start to investigate a person(s), responsible for state supervision.
?????????? (http://www.favt.ru/favt_new/?q=novosti/novosti/novost/3589)

Rosaviacia document, linked by Sergey, order some technical check of elevator system for all 737 .
1. To check Elevator Power Control Unit and Input Crank for pollution and/or foreign objects.
2. To check fluent movement of elevator (powered on) in accordance with recommendation AMM-27-31-00 (Insufficient elevator travel, Excessive force to move column with power on).

SawMan

7th Dec 2013, 12:10

From the link "tdracer" posted:

"To help ease the crew shortage, aviation officials set up centers to train navigators and flight engineers to serve as pilots of Western-made planes. Critics said that carriers often sought to cut corners on training in the run for profits."

This kind of thing is happening in every industry worldwide. Somewhere, we've all lost touch with the fact that safety and understanding of what's going on are the most important parts, with profits being secondary.

Making more profit does you no good if you're not around to spend it :=

5 APUs captain

7th Dec 2013, 14:13

2 SawMan: /+100!!!

About fake license - few Training Centers continued pilots training after Training Center License had been expired - it's a reason of "fake" licenses.

Karel_x

7th Dec 2013, 14:58

I suppose that pilot's licence is issued by Rosaviacia, based on various documents, incl. ones from the Training Centre. Rosaviacia is also responsible for licensing for all training centres. In this situation it is very strange to speak about "fake" license.

Retraining of the both was provided by Sibir Training Centre. S7 belongs to the four biggest carriers in Russia. I can hardly believe that they give "fake" documents.

Prime minister Medvedev, answering a question, told that the investigation has to continue, because this case is very "странный" - strange, unusual.

dcoded

7th Dec 2013, 15:55

The problem in Russia I think is not fake licenses.
But the fact that you can manage to get your license without meeting the requirements..
I have heard stories of Crews performing type ratings, where one Examinor fails them and suggest extensive re-training. Then by some "magic" the next day with a more "friendly" instructor they pass with no remarks.
Strange indeed.

roulishollandais

7th Dec 2013, 18:34

Then by some "magic" the next day with a more "friendly" instructor they pass with no remarks.

That supposed "friendly" behaviour is built on a mountain of systematic blackmails (sex, gifts, medals, advantages, etc.) organised to increase power of very few powerful people who know they are killers puting aircrafts, crews and passengers in death threat, but will not decrease too much "statistics" so that national safety Boards, Courts, Unions, Victims' families and Insurers get not able to see the lies' system after the crash happens.
I could watch that in my Country too.
It is time to stop that.

Karel_x

7th Dec 2013, 19:56

It is very hopeful that investigators speak loudly about all problems and that government don't try to cover it. Everyone can see, it is firstly a big shame for Rosaviacia ( i.e. Federal Agency of Air Traffic /FAVT/, part of Ministry of Transport). They are issuing licences both for pilots and training centres and they are responsible for supervision over training centres. The head of Tatarstan FAVT leave his post already and others will follow him.
Tatarstan Air was supported by highest local politics and richest persons and despite their power, it is very probable that it loose its AOC. Similar as Red Wings lost their AOC after VKO incident despite of huge power of their owner, oligarch Lebedev.

I think that MAK and FAVT really tries to make things better, it is also one of Putin's priorities. MAK is very experienced investigator and then FAVT does very strict measures.

flash8

7th Dec 2013, 20:01

Some fake licenses, nothing to do with the crash and something irrelevant?
Where are you from again?

I think what the meaning may be here is that the licences were technically invalid in some minor sense but the contributory factor is likely to be negligible.

As I stated earlier in the thread the entire crew (both flight deck and cabin) of the Perm 737 crash held technically invalid licences in some way, although none of this was contributory to the crash.

Setpoint99

8th Dec 2013, 05:12

Per the WSJ:

"Pilots working for small regional airlines in Russia may be flying with licenses fraudulently obtained from flight schools they never attended, the country's top investigative agency said Friday."

Russia Investigates Fake Pilot Licenses - WSJ.com (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304096104579241940091634618)

Agaricus bisporus

8th Dec 2013, 12:44

It may seem only semantics but there's surely a considerable difference between a fake licence and a licence that is obtained fraudulently.

A fake - ie counterfeit - licence should be easily detected by cross referencing it with the central CAA database which will show it simply does not exist.

A licence that has been issued either in good faith or with connivance (by the CAA) on the basis of fraudulent submissions by the training organisation is a much more pernicious thing and much harder to detect and it seems this may be the situation with the Russian FEs and Navs.

At least Western pilots with Parker Pen hours tend to have passed the necessary exams and checks so even if they don't have the required experience they have at east demonstrated a required standard. If it is the training and standards of checks that are circumvented and result in the issue of a genuine licence you have a much, much more serious situation.

I hope (without much hope) that this is not widespread.

Big Pistons Forever

8th Dec 2013, 16:12

I think that MAK and FAVT really tries to make things better, it is also one of Putin's priorities. MAK is very experienced investigator and then FAVT does very strict measures.

Sadly the abysmal accident record of Russian airlines shows they have a long way to go........

porterhouse

8th Dec 2013, 20:45

This Russian TV program on you-tube apparently is very good, discusses this catastrophe and overall state of the Russian civilian aviation. Could someone with knowledge of Russian language tell us some major points from this discussion.

(I ran into some problems linking this film, could not solve the problem with double-posting, sorry)

o1QOUXzlCWM

Sergey Tachenov

9th Dec 2013, 16:43

Wow, that was a long video. A few points I've written down during watching:

- There are multiple system problems with aviation in Russia.
- People in Kazan treat this tragedy as their personal.
- There is not enough information to jump to any conclusions yet.
- Veteran pilot (Oleg Smirnov): GA was very unprofessional, many things went wrong, including the lack of any yoke inputs during climb and possibly other things, such as the order and timing of flaps and gear retraction and so on.
- ICAO expert (Vitaly Bordunov): Many documents released by ICAO are totally ignored in Russia because the committee for interaction with ICAO was dismissed during the USSR collapse.
- ICAO expert: Too many never ending reforms are being performed on the Russian aviation.
- Economic information agency expert (Ekaterina Sobol): Who is responsible for making inexperienced ex-navigator a captain?
- Economic information agency expert: We should let airlines hire foreign captains so our first officers can learn from them.
- Head of the pilot union (Miroslav Boychuk): We shouldn't accept foreign captains because only the worst of them will actually agree to work in Russia.
- Head of the pilot union: The problem is that airlines are often controlled by pure economists that only care for money, airline safety experts get fired if they oppose top managers.
- Head of the pilot union: There is no actual lack of pilots in Russia. There are more pilots being trained than required by Russian airlines.
- Head of the pilot union: Rosaviatsiya acts based on data provided by airlines themselves so thay can lack the data to actually control them.
- Economic information agency expert: Nope, they knew everything. Everybody knew that Tatarstan has a lot of problems. That knowledge didn't help.
- Economic information agency expert: There is no problem in hiring foreign pilots. Emirates does it, pilots from around the globe work there, and they are good pilots.
- Head of the pilot union: It's fine to have old planes flying in our airlines, but when those planes are leased, not owned, there is a problem with getting the maintenance done right. The process of ordering spare parts for foreign-made planes is very tedious in Russia.
- ICAO expert: Both the lessee and the lessor try to gain as much as possible from a leasing contract. The lessor tries to give out planes that aren't as good as they try to make them look while the lessee doesn't care much about proper maintenance of the plane that is to be given back to the lessor anyway.
- ICAO expert: A strong state control over aviation is needed.
- Economic information agency expert: If we try to force our airlines to buy planes instead of leasing them, we'll either have to fly on Russian made planes or we'll have to fly foreign airlines even on internal flights, loosing the market entirely.
- ICAO expert: It is hard for Russian airlines to either buy or lease planes because Russian laws doesn't match the appropriate international convention.
- ICAO expert: Russian state programs on developing and manufacturing our own planes are purely declarative. There are transportation strategies up to 2030, but air transport is hardly mentioned there.
- the president of the non-commercial Flights Safety partnership (Rafail Aptukov): Yes, the strategy only mentions repairs of 19 runways and building 9 new ones. That's it.
- head of the pilot union: Only 3% of the commercial flights are on Russian made planes, 97% are on foreign built ones.
- the Flights Safety partnership president: Russian standards don't match international ones, various metric and language issues for example, lead to foreign pilot licenses being de-facto invalid in Russia. That means foreign pilots would require re-training in Russia.

TL;DR: Russian aviation has a lot of problems with laws, standards and their actual implementation. Nobody cares to fix these problems.

porterhouse

9th Dec 2013, 18:58

Good job Sergey! :ok:

5 APUs captain

10th Dec 2013, 09:22

2 Sunamer:

It is not an update.....

There is no new info at the moment.

hamster3null

13th Dec 2013, 17:22

TL;DR: Russian aviation has a lot of problems with laws, standards and their actual implementation. Nobody cares to fix these problems.

The central "metaproblem" is the persistent assumption of uniqueness, one might even call it a quest for the uniquely Russian way of doing things.

It is implemented by approaching every problem as if Russia is the only country in the world, and trying to come with the solution on their own, without paying much attention to established practices everywhere. In essence, it's reinventing the wheel at every step and 9 out of 10 times the wheel ends up being oval (if not square).

They have a unique set of flight regulations that does not match anyone else's so the pilots have to learn them before they can be hired by domestic airlines. They _still_ don't require all ATC's to speak English, even after that was mandated by ICAO 10 years ago. (New ATC's are taught English during training, but requirements are waived for preexisting workers in smaller airports.) They have a ban on foreign pilots that they are considering lifting, but it's still unclear how many foreign pilots would actually want to learn Russian regs and Russian language as a condition of working there.

In this crash, before the dust even settled in Kazan and before a single bit of data was extracted from flight recorders, there was already a legislative attempt in their Parliament (Duma) to ban domestic airlines from using 20+ year old aircraft. And now we even hear talks about requiring airlines to own their own aircraft. All this happens while there's still no evidence that there was anything wrong with the plane, without paying the slightest attention to the experience of Western countries. (Of course, experts generally know better, and MAK even released a statement in opposition, but it's not certain if anyone in the government is going to pay attention to experts either.)

Part of the problem is the general disrespect towards foreign experiences in particular and foreign countries in general, especially the "capitalist countries" and especially the Great Satan himself, the USA. If you want to turn Russians strongly against something, all you need is to tell them "this is the way they do it in the United States".

Karel_x

13th Dec 2013, 18:56

2 hamster3null:
The central "metaproblem" is .... in the United States".

Isn't it a little rusophobic? Sorry, but it looks like you are not much informed about their mentality and a local conditions in Russia. BTW, I think, that average American believes in Russian Evil Empire more often then average Russian believes in US Great Satan.

His dudeness

13th Dec 2013, 20:18

If you want to turn Russians strongly against something, all you need is to tell them "this is the way they do it in the United States"

Given the amount of billboards, TGI Fridays, Burger Kings, McDonalds etc I see in Russia, I don´t think your statement has something to do with reality.

I think aviation in Russia already made big progresses, but they have to come a long way before they are were the US are. But if you look at the vast size and lack of funds anywhere but Moscow and Petersburg and the corruption everywhere, then its clear it will take time. Oligarchs owning airlines doesn´t help either, these guys are not used to stick to rules.

Karel_x

13th Dec 2013, 21:23

In the TV discussion, the most emotive, discussed and controversial issue was foreign pilots in Russian cockpits. Except lady economist, the others was non-committal and support it only temporarily.

If I can remember, nobody supported an idea of a ban for a/c, older then 20 years. Rosaviacia and MAK clearly call it a nonsense. IMHO, this idea has historic roots. Five or ten years ago, when a plane in Russia crashed, mostly all west papers denoted that it was caused using old Soviet unreliable planes... Now they mostly use western planes, but the situation repeats. Some uninformed persons search the same solutions, i.e. not using old unreliable planes or change B by A (last disaster was with B). But it surely is not an official stance, only media gave to it wide publicity.

hamster3null

13th Dec 2013, 22:09

Sorry, but it looks like you are not much informed about their mentality and a local conditions in Russia. BTW, I think, that average American believes in Russian Evil Empire more often then average Russian believes in US Great Satan.I'm informed well enough - I grew up there.

Just compare opinion polls in Russia and the US. If you ask a question along the lines of "who is your country's greatest enemy", most Americans will say Iran/China/North Korea, with Russia barely in the picture. Russians will put the US as #1 without anyone else coming even close.

It's definitely a somewhat schizophrenic attitude, since American _products_, from Hollywood to McDonalds, are quite popular.

P.S. The idea of a quest for the unique Russian way of doing things is well documented, there is even a special word for it, "samobytnost". And the perceived value of learning from the West took a big hit in the early 90's, when early Russian reformers tried doing just that, and everyone knows how that worked out.

I don't want to stray too far off-topic. The point is that, as Sergey said, "Too many never ending reforms are being performed on the Russian aviation", and these reforms are not based on attempts to adopt things that work abroad, but on samobytnye attempts to fix perceived problems incrementally, often by people who have no idea what these problems are, how to fix them and what side effects their proposals might have.

If I can remember, nobody supported an idea of a ban for a/c, older then 20 years. Rosaviacia and MAK clearly call it a nonsense.

Rosaviacia and MAK are not the ones making the decision. Here's the latest draft of the legislation. It is co-signed by 16 members of Duma:

http://asozd2.duma.gov.ru/main.nsf/%28SpravkaNew%29?OpenAgent&RN=399164-6&02

The limit is now 15 years and it applies to foreign aircraft only (if you have a Tu-154, feel free to use it till it falls apart.)

Karel_x

14th Dec 2013, 08:44

It is co-signed by 16 members of Duma:

How many members has The Gosduma? Nearly 500? You can find a similar naive initiatives in any parliament on the world.

I don't want to stray too far off-topic.
I agree, it is mostly an emotion sphere and there are lot of other places to discuss it.

Sergey Tachenov

14th Dec 2013, 08:59

The central "metaproblem" is the persistent assumption of uniqueness, one might even call it a quest for the uniquely Russian way of doing things.

I'll have to partly disagree with that. The problem is not that Russia tries to be unique. The problem is that it IS unique, but instead of taking some western practice and adapting it to Russian reality, the decision-making idiots often just come up with random 'solutions' that don't have anything to do with neither western practices nor with common sense.

The idea to ban 20+ years old planes is a good example. It is stupid, it won't work, and it isn't the way it works in the West. But! If you just take some western practice verbatim, it usually doesn't work in Russia as well.

For example, these days smoking is prohibited in many countries in many places. Which is not just a good thing, but an absolutely wonderful thing IMO, just about the same level as that you can't just hit people on their heads with something heavy. Now how it works in Russia? They recently adopted a low to prohibit smoking in many public places. Very similar law to those in western countries. OK, so does it work? NO. Why? Because it's common sense in Russia to just ignore any (and I mean any!) law. In fact, the ONLY thing that law actually did was that they dismantled smoking rooms in airports so people started to smoke in airport toilets instead.

ICAO expert was speaking about standards and documents, which is pretty much expected from an ICAO expert. This is all fine, but even if we formally adopt all those standards and documents I'm afraid nobody will care to actually obey them. There are just too many things terribly broken here, like laws, courts, prosecutor offices, police etc. Now if people die in an aviation accident, some people may loose their jobs because of it. If they go to jail instead, and not only if people actually die, but even if they just intentionally break the aviation safety laws, then it might actually work. But Duma is preoccupied with stupid ideas like prohibiting 20+ year old planes or letting the foreign pilots work here instead.

ATC Watcher

14th Dec 2013, 10:02

If you want to produce a valid argument against this stupid 20 or 15 years old aircraftt ban , just use the ICAO statistics: today the region with the oldest fleet in the world is North America, and the region with the youngest fleet is South America, compare the incdents and accidents rates of the both regions.

Also if you take hull losses per million departures, The Russian the good old Tu154 had a much better ratio than the Boeing 737, not to mention MD11s or FK28s. Safety is a bit more complicated than the age of the aircraft.

porterhouse

14th Dec 2013, 16:51

The Russian the good old Tu154 had a much better ratio than the Boeing 737, not to mention MD11s or FK28s.
Completely false.
The number of hull loses as a percentage of total aircraft produced is about 6.9% for Tu-154 and 6.7% for DC-10 and only about 2% for 737. So just by this statistics Tu-154 is much worse than 737 and even worse than DC-10. Of course the real utilization rate of Tu-154 (its life span was also much shorter) was much lower than in western fleet hence its true accident rate per departure would be even worse when compared to 737.

ATC Watcher

14th Dec 2013, 17:43

Porterhouse, I think you read my post too fast.
I am quoting hulls losses per million departures, which is the common standard used by people involved in safety. Never heard of percentage of hull losses per aircraft manufactured.
These are the figures commonly used :
Hull loss with fatalities (*) per million departures .
For same generation aircraft :
B727 : 0,72
DC9 0,78
T154M :0,80
B737/200 : 0,89
DC10 : 1,31
MD11:2.10
FK28 :2.35
if you want to go to the previous generation :
DC8 : 4.0
B707/720 :4,27

(*) without fatalities the rate varies but proportionally. Of course older types ( like for instance B747-100 and 200 ) get today bad stats as they do not get repaired because of they low residual value. The same apply I guess for Tu154s today. Therefore the total hull loss is not really useful for safety , especially for older types.

porterhouse

14th Dec 2013, 17:43

Using hull losses to compare safety of aircraft types is a completely misleading True but sometimes you don't have anything else. The best aircraft accident statistics specifically exclude aircraft made in CIS/USSR because of lack of operational data. So you can take hull losses which are available and adjust for utilization which was always particularly low in CIS/USSR.

I am quoting hulls losses per million departures
I claim that whatever departures you are using for Tu-154 is a totally unreliable number.

ATC Watcher

14th Dec 2013, 17:57

Porterhouse : I claim that whatever departures you are using for Tu-154 is a totally unreliable number.

Possibly, but they are coming from MAK. Tupolev, contrary to Boeing or Airbus do nor provide verifyable figures, you are right, especially today. . But in the days of Soviet Aeroflot, calculations were easy to verify and in those days the Tu 154M had a quite good safety record.

GobonaStick :Using hull losses to compare safety of aircraft types is a completely misleading and totally irrelevant sport that I wouldn't expect to find on any forum claiming to be populated by professionals.

Well, we obviously have a different definition of what is a professional .No need to denigrate people, especially when you do not know .

porterhouse

14th Dec 2013, 18:02

But in the days of Soviet Aeroflot, calculations were easy to verify and in those days the Tu 154M had a quite good safety record.
I would argue just the opposite - nobody could easily verify data from that period of history since record keeping was either very shoddy or skewed by political considerations therefore what today is regarded as the gold-standard accident statistics report simply ignores it.

JamesGBC

14th Dec 2013, 18:47

A- Head of the pilot union (Miroslav Boychuk): We shouldn't accept foreign captains because only the worst of them will actually agree to work in Russia.

B- Head of the pilot union: There is no actual lack of pilots in Russia. There are more pilots being trained than required by Russian airlines.

A is a very good point.

Then go to B,what makes the good ones agree to stay in Russia?

porterhouse

14th Dec 2013, 18:58

A is a very good point.Perhaps, but is a bit humorous at the same time.
If they pay decent world-wages I bet quite a few 'good' pilots would agree to work for them. But without need to push any new laws about foreign pilots working in Russia I don't hear the obvious - send all these 'suspect' pilots from regional airlines to very reputable foreign training facilities, say FlightSafety Int., validate their competency and retrain to FlightSafety standards if necessary. How many of them would even pass a rigorous simulator check ride at FlightSafety?

hamster3null

14th Dec 2013, 21:30

These are the figures commonly used :
Hull loss with fatalities (*) per million departures .
For same generation aircraft :
B727 : 0,72
DC9 0,78
T154M :0,80aviation-safety.net reports 17 hull losses with fatalities for Tu-154M. Wikipedia reports that 320 of those have been built. The rate of 0.8 per million departures would then translate into an average of 66,000 departures (flight cycles) for each of the 320 aircraft, which seems about 5x high for a long-range aircraft that only entered mass production in 1984.

in the days of Soviet Aeroflot, calculations were easy to verify and in those days the Tu 154M had a quite good safety record.Tu-154M barely had a chance to fly in the days of Soviet Aeroflot. It was in production for 7 years by the time of the fall of the USSR. The first recorded hull loss of the 154M is dated 1990.

The regular 154 came out earlier (1973) and it had 17 fatal accidents between 1973 and 1991, probably with no more than 300 aircraft in operation at any point (too lazy to look for production stats now), which would also point to a pretty high fatal loss rate per departure.

P.S. Aviation-safety.net gives flight cycle numbers for some of the crashed 154M's and it looks like they pretty consistently average ~700 departures/year.
If we assume that the average Tu-154M is 23 years old (manufactured in 1990) and all remaining aircraft are still in regular service, we get 5 million departures and the hull loss rate of 3.4 per million.

Sergey Tachenov

15th Dec 2013, 05:16

If they pay decent world-wages I bet quite a few 'good' pilots would agree to work for them.

Two problems. One is that only biggest carriers pay good wages, but then again they already have good enough pilots. No fatal accidents at all for Transaero with huge number of flights, for example. The small carriers such as Tatarstan probably won't be able to afford good foreign pilots.

Another problem is that with all that crazy stuff going around in Russia, it would be pretty hard for a foreigner to work for a Russian airline. So they will have to pay more than an average worldwide good salary to get them to work in these conditions. Pilots will have a hard time fighting Russian mentality and trying to 'blend in' so to speak.

ATC Watcher

15th Dec 2013, 09:16

Hamster3null " impressive calculations/deductions , thanks for taking the time. . I just took my figures from MAK ( and Boeing) papers presented a year or so back. But as we all know political considerations often enter statistics in Russia ! I will keep a copy of your post and use it to ask some questions next time I meet them!

up_down_n_out

15th Dec 2013, 16:36

These TU154 figures are complete nonsense, and some people really have to get their facts right.

"The regular 154 came out earlier (1973) and it had 17 fatal accidents** between 1973 and 1991, probably with no more than 300 aircraft in operation at any point,- which would also point to a pretty high fatal loss rate per departure."

TU154 and variants started flying roughly the same time as Concorde and was still in production in 2009.

first hull loss:-
1973 Prague.

**I can think of 2/3 that got shot down, another couple that the pilot turned the fuel pumps off, while taking off, another one that caught fire about a year ago because of a short circuit, and another one that flew straight into a thunderstorm, and yet another downed by a terrorist, never mind the 2 they set burnt to cinders, refuelling next to each other!

I'm told one of the fatalities was down to putting one of these birds down at 5g+ and some poor chap having a heart attack. (Dagestan avia 372)

About 95% of all the other incidents were down to pilot error on what has now become one of the most rugged & reliable classic workhorses still flying.

RA-85684 actually saved the entire passengers and crew thanks to being built like the proverbial brick house lavatory.

At this rate someone is gonna start the rumour mill about the Polish president thread all over again too.

Nothing has anything to do with the safety record or even the age of the aircraft, or are we going to start suggesting Lockerbie is an everyday event too?

DaveReidUK

15th Dec 2013, 17:13

never mind the 2 they set burnt to cinders, refuelling next to each otherHull losses, with fatalities ?

porterhouse

15th Dec 2013, 18:01

About 95% of all the other incidents were down to pilot error
So it the case with other aircraft types.
I suggest you grasp a simple fact - we are comparing Tu-154 numbers with those of other aircraft types not analyzing a cause of every single accident. Such comparison does make sense because it is done routinely in aircraft accident statistics. if you want you can sift through every single accident for Tu-154 and do the same for 737 and eliminate every single one where pilot error was involved but nobody does it - makes no sense because it is going o be a wash and you end up as if you were comparing raw numbers without all this work.

hamster3null

15th Dec 2013, 18:04

These TU154 figures are complete nonsense, and some people really have to get their facts right.

"The regular 154 came out earlier (1973) and it had 17 fatal accidents** between 1973 and 1991, probably with no more than 300 aircraft in operation at any point,- which would also point to a pretty high fatal loss rate per departure."

TU154 and variants started flying roughly the same time as Concorde and was still in production in 2009.

I stand corrected on one point: it flew in 1972, not 1973. I said "between 1973 and 1991" because the discussion above was in regard to Soviet era.

Most crashes are caused at least partially by the human factor. It's best to compare all crashes vs. all crashes. Or at least to exclude terrorist attacks only. If we get the hull loss rate of Soviet-era 154 that is several times higher than all-time hull loss rate of B737 (including all the losses in places like Indonesia, which seems to have become a veritable B737 graveyard recently), either the machine is poorly built, or its pilots and mechanics are poorly trained, or it's some combination of these, and it's really not my objective to assign blame here.

Karel_x

15th Dec 2013, 18:46

Skyjob

15th Dec 2013, 20:07

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-154)

hamster3null

15th Dec 2013, 22:11

According to
Accident Database: By Manufacturer/Type > TU-154 (http://www.airdisaster.com/cgi-bin/view_manu_details.cgi?aircraft=TU-154)
There was only 11 air disasters with fatalities between years 1973 -1991. It may be not complete list.

First Prague disaster - not determined the cause, second Beirut - not determined too, it is still mysterious, maybe it was shot down. Nacias Nguema - not determined, Al Bayda - lack of fuel after divert....

According to
? russianplanes.net ? ???? ??????? (http://russianplanes.net/planelist/Tupolev/Tu-154)
there was 759 Tu-154 flying in 1991This list does not have:
SU-AXB (1974, Egypt, training flight, 6 fatalities)
LZ-BTB (1978, Syria, 4 fatalities)
CCCP-85169 (1978, central Russia, 4 fatalities)
YR-TPH (1980, Mauritania, 1 fatality)
CCCP-85413 (1988, Russia, 8 fatalities) - OK, this one was a hijacking so let's drop this one
YR-TPJ (1989, Romania, 5 fatalities)

Good source for production numbers. By 1991 596 Tu-154's were completed, not counting M's and pre-production frames. (I seriously underestimated the degree to which aircraft production went off the cliff after 1991.) Assuming that all of those survived to 1991, I see about 7700 aircraft-years of operations (e.g. 11 aircraft made in 1971 * 20 years from 1971 to 1991 = 220 aircraft-years, etc.) At 700 departures/year, that's 5.4 million departures and 3 losses per million departures.

For M's, it says that more than 80% of Tu-154M were manufactured between 1986 and 1993, so my previous estimate stands. This family only accumulated about 500 aircraft-years by 1991, so the expected number of fatal accidents in this family by 1991 at 3 losses / million departures was only ~1.

Clandestino

16th Dec 2013, 05:41

Just looking at this thread makes one realize AF447 one is closed.

Denti

16th Dec 2013, 15:33

The use of Dual A/P has lead many into problems if disconnected with back trim and not dealt with promptly.

Flew that a few days ago in the real world. Saw the lights 20 feet above minimum, disconnected and landed without a hitch. Could have let the automatics do it as well, but without protected areas in marginal weather that is not a bright idea. Flying the 737 with back trim in is a non-event for any halfway competent pilot. Keep a bit of forward pressure in while you trim off the back trim and land or go around. Yes, in a go around there is additional pitch up because of the pretty strong pitch power couple in the 737, but then again that is nothing new or challenging.

Letting the plane fly itself without autopilot is a bad idea, and was a bad idea even in that very first puddlejumper we all flew at some point.

Karel_x

17th Dec 2013, 16:59

Some facts about Russian air transport related to safety:

- there exists ca 100 carriers (there was ca 400 formerly!)
- there is ca 15% increase of air traffic in Russia per year
- first 5 carriers provides 2/3 of transport (Aeroflot, Transaero, UTAir, S7, Rossia)
- first 15 carriers provides ca 90% of trafiic
- Tatarstan had 18th place with little more than 700.000 pax per year

????????? ?????????? | ?????????? (http://www.favt.ru/favt_new/?q=dejatelnost/vozdushnye_perevozki/perevozki_passazhirov)

Specialists in Russia advice to decrease strongly the number of carriers, because it is very difficult to get a profit and provide all safety measures for little carriers operating at only domestic flights. Pilots of those carriers can be subsequently released to the job market and can start to work for bigger companies with lack of pilot, that are able to give them real full-time work and better productivity. They believe that lack of pilot in Russia is only due to bad structure of the air industry.

Dimitrii

20th Dec 2013, 16:27

Russian regulator to ground regional airline following deadly crash | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-russia-crash-airline-idUSBRE9BJ0L920131220)

hamster3null

28th Dec 2013, 03:39

Russian news agency Interfax got ahold of a letter from the head of Rosaviatsiya to the Minister of Transportation, in which Rosaviatsiya officially recommends banning the importation of commercial aircraft older than 15 years.

?????????? ?????????? ????????? ????????? ???? ????????? ?????? 15 ??? | Forbes.ru (http://www.forbes.ru/news/249208-rosaviatsiya-predlozhila-mintransu-zapretit-vvoz-samoletov-starshe-15-let)

There's also a second bombshell in the letter. It proposes to require domestic airlines to register all their aircraft in Russia. (The requirement would apply immediately to all newly acquired aircraft. Existing aircraft are grandfathered till 2018.)

MrSnuggles

28th Dec 2013, 18:54

hamster3null wrote:

Russian news agency Interfax got ahold of a letter from the head of Rosaviatsiya to the Minister of Transportation, in which Rosaviatsiya officially recommends banning the importation of commercial aircraft older than 15 years.
(link removed by me)
There's also a second bombshell in the letter. It proposes to require domestic airlines to register all their aircraft in Russia. (The requirement would apply immediately to all newly acquired aircraft. Existing aircraft are grandfathered till 2018.)

Now, I admit to sometimes being a bit thick so please forgive me for the following question:

What good would THAT decision do? Really? Isn't this a question of lack of experienced pilots rather than old aircraft? I'm bewildered. Please someone help me out of my fog...?

porterhouse

28th Dec 2013, 19:21

What good would THAT decision do?
Don't worry, little of this will actually be done.

hamster3null

28th Dec 2013, 20:14

There is a saying in Russia: "the one thing worse than an idiot is an enterprising and motivated idiot". It appears that there's no lack of these in the government.

JanetFlight

1st Jan 2014, 17:35

AOC Revoked last night, according some aviation sources....an expected action like in the RedWings accident some days later. Those Guys at MAK&Rosaviatsia are tough!

DaveReidUK

23rd Jan 2014, 16:15

Air Transport World reports that Yamal Airlines has grounded its 737-400/-500 fleet, citing a "risk of spontaneous errors pertaining to the deviation or deflection of the elevator" and "after reviewing the flight information transcript of a Tatarstan Airlines Boeing 737-500 that crashed at Kazan airport in November".

Russia's Yamal Airlines temporarily grounds Boeing 737 fleet | Safety content from ATWOnline (http://atwonline.com/safety/russias-yamal-airlines-temporarily-grounds-boeing-737-fleet)

JanetFlight

23rd Jan 2014, 17:16

One question...last night there was a FPL filled as TAK543/4, Kazan/IST/Kazan, and according Eurocontrol FPL database it operated with real ETA's and block times...could this be some sort of a data bug/ReptFPL, or the flight really existed with some exemption from the authorities?
It was announced that all ops were suspended since 31st January.

Kulverstukas

24th Jan 2014, 05:28

All Tatarstan Airlines activity (incl. planes) is transfered to AkBars Aero.

MrSnuggles

24th Jan 2014, 12:39

My Russian is very limited... would someone please provide me a link to the investigation homepage?

I would like to read about their findings.

DaveReidUK

24th Jan 2014, 12:56

My Russian is very limited... would someone please provide me a link to the investigation homepage?Boeing 737-500 VQ-BBN (http://www.mak.ru/russian/investigations/2013/boeing-737-500_vq-bbn.html) (use Google translate on that URL)

I would like to read about their findings.I doubt anything further will be published until the investigation has been completed.

MrSnuggles

24th Jan 2014, 14:20

Again thankyou very much DaveReid. I will bookmark this.

vovachan

24th Dec 2015, 17:28

So the MAK report is out at long last. It blames the pilots whose flying skills were poor- one a former navigator and the other an ex flight engineer, one apparently never took his basic training on a light airplane even though his papers said he did.

Trying to perform a go around, apparently assumed they were still on auto pilot which was no longer the case, got into a nose-up situation, overcorrected, got confused and flew the thing into the ground.

fox niner

27th Dec 2015, 05:49

Crash: Tatarstan B735 at Kazan on Nov 17th 2013, crashed on go-around (http://avherald.com/h?article=46b9ecbc/0022&opt=0)

- unqualified flight crew
- captain did not have any primary flight training
- systemic breach of work and rest regulations
- systemic lack of training
- lack of english proficiency (essential in flying a Boeing)
- lack of flight ops organisation at the airline
- lack of active assistance from ATC
- lack of.....

If you need to sober up after all those copious christmas dinners, click on the link provided.

Centaurus

27th Dec 2015, 10:30

The captain had just 275 hours total before his type rating on the 737. The F/O had even less with 150 hours TT. Not much real experience to fall back on especially as the F/O type rating training was very limited by normal standards.
The report mentioned the pilot (captain?) inadvertently disengaged the autopilot and continued flying manually on flight director. The 737 was well displaced from the centreline of the ILS and a large heading correction was made close in and while well above the glide slope. The flight director needles would have been all over the place like the proverbial dog's breakfast. Hurried and extreme elevator movements would cause an incompetent pilot to `chase` the FD needles which were probably at their extreme stops by now.

Flight Directors are an aid to instrument flying. They are not the be all and end all to instrument flying. That said, experience has shown many crews are FD addicted and become apprehensive without them as a crutch. The inevitable result sooner or later is a close call or a crash.

FlyingStone

27th Dec 2015, 12:50

Experience before type rating is not an issue, many airlines have been doing this for decades. The problem is that airlines with shady training departments (if you don't crash on V1-cut, you are captain material) put people with such low overall experience in a left seat of a 60 ton jet.

I doubt 2500 hours of multi-pilot flying (assuming he got command shortly before the accident, which may not be true) is enough to be captain on an aircraft of this size and complexity.

FDMII

27th Dec 2015, 16:03

Centaurus;
Flight Directors are an aid to instrument flying. They are not the be all and end all to instrument flying. That said, experience has shown many crews are FD addicted and become apprehensive without them as a crutch. The inevitable result sooner or later is a close call or a crash. Agree completely - (for the Airbus...the DC9/DC8 "directors" weren't sophisticated), I always thought that the most important use of FDs was, ironically, letting the PF know what the automation is actually "thinking", and I treated them as such...just a guide. FD's are best "looked through" to the other actual data on the PFD, for verification of what these things are commanding one to do.

In my opinion, other than conveying what the automation is wanting to do, FDs are for best for small corrections when hand-flying, and one ought to be able to hand-fly (with autothrust off), a raw-data ILS, otherwise one is unskilled at flying a transport aircraft.

Of course one needs to be sufficiently experienced to know how and when to "look through" these things and not to slavishly follow dumb commands from a high-speed idiot, (computer); otherwise they're just a crutch that weakens S.A. and thought.