EK 231 20 December DXB IAD near crash?

[retired guy]

Looks as if this was vert close if true.
Emirates “Near Miss” On Take Off?Emirates flight 231 from Dubai (DXB) to Washington DC (IAD) appears to have experienced a potentially significant anomaly during take off from Dubai on the 20th of December, according to data from FR24 (http://flightradar24.com/).

According to unconfirmed reports close to the event; and seemingly corroborated by data from FlightRadar24 and other resources, the flight crew failed to correct the take off climb altitude, which was set to 00000 feet instead of 4,000 feet.

[Lake1952]

Incident: Emirates B773 at Dubai on Dec 20th 2021, overran runway on departure (http://avherald.com/h?article=4f24b2d7)

[gearlever]

This is simply unbelievable.

[Old and Horrified]

So not only did PF forget that Take Off attitude normally points UP, and nearly flew a perfectly good airplane plus passengers into the ground, but the PNF, presumably Pilot Monitoring, must have been asleep. Literally unbelievable.

[Magplug]

Various accounts report that 4 crew have been sacked by the company in an attempt to create a firebreak in this PR disaster.

Short of an incapacitation of the PF.... Who flies 50kts past rotate speed staring into space at the upwind runway end getting bigger and bigger ? What PM sits there fat dumb and happy watching Armageddon approaching without yelling at the PF and pretty quickly taking control.... or maybe he did just before they went downtown?

After the debacle of EK521 it seems that home-base is a bit too much of a challenge for some. Will we ever know what happened here? In an airline where being fearful for your job is part of the everyday landscape did CRM or Cultural issues prevent a timely intervention? Would you buy a ticket with Emirates?

[Zombywoof]

Thread already exists, and it was moved out of R&N: https://www.pprune.org/middle-east/644385-emirates-real.html

[DaveReidUK]

The FR24/FlightAware data isn't particularly detailed, however it supports the theory that the aircraft was still on the ground when on the 30R stopway, though not other reports that it was only 75' AGL when overflying local houses (actually around 200'), nor that it was descending at that point.

[1201alarm]

So not only did PF forget that Take Off attitude normally points UP, and nearly flew a perfectly good airplane plus passengers into the ground, but the PNF, presumably Pilot Monitoring, must have been asleep. Literally unbelievable.

Yes, it is hard not to think "WTF were they doing?", without waiting for the investigation outcome. It is hard not to think "Such guys should not sit in an airliner.", without waiting for the investigation outcome.

Obviously the plane was not malfunctioning, otherwise they would hardly have continued to IAD. Or would they?

[ManaAdaSystem]

4 pilots in the cockpit, none of them with an understanding of pitch when you rotate? That the nose of the aircraft should point up, not down when you get airborne? This is not a recency issue as the 777 pilots work hard in EK. That have fired a lot of pilots with no regard to seniority. Maybe they kept the wrong pilots? This incident that came close to being a major crash into a residential area, was not operated by a competent crew.
EK crashed a fully serviceable 777 in Dubai during a botched go around. They nearly crashed a fully serviceable 777 in Melborne due to finger trouble, and the same in South Africa with a A340. Nearly crashed a A380 in Moscow and one in the US, both nearly flew into the ground in good flight conditions. Nobody looked out the windows.
What is next?

[Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP]

Pilots terminated. Problem solved. Nothing to see here....move on.

[Brookmans Park]

Will someone remind me how TOGA works on the 777 and why it didn't give a pitch target?

[SpamCanDriver]

4 pilots in the cockpit, none of them with an understanding of pitch when you rotate? That the nose of the aircraft should point up, not down when you get airborne? This is not a recency issue as the 777 pilots work hard in EK. That have fired a lot of pilots with no regard to seniority. Maybe they kept the wrong pilots? This incident that came close to being a major crash into a residential area, was not operated by a competent crew.
EK crashed a fully serviceable 777 in Dubai during a botched go around. They nearly crashed a fully serviceable 777 in Melborne due to finger trouble, and the same in South Africa with a A340. Nearly crashed a A380 in Moscow and one in the US, both nearly flew into the ground in good flight conditions. Nobody looked out the windows.
What is next?

How do you know the other pilots weren't screaming to do something?
Hard to yank the control column back from the jumpseat.

Having had to intervene myself from the jumpseat (although nothing this serious) my inputs were not even heard the first few times. Due to the PF being overloaded and becoming task focused

[SpamCanDriver]

Will someone remind me how TOGA works on the 777 and why it didn't give a pitch target?

If the MCP altitude window is set to the airport elevation when you engage the F/D's, it will engage in TOGA & ALT. You need to set a higher altitude & recycle the F/D's to get back to TOGA & TOGA.
When Alt is engaged changing the MCP Alt window doesn't do anything, until a new pitch mode is selected. I guess this is what happened

[Emma Royds]

As of yet, all pilots have not been terminated.

[1201alarm]

Having had to intervene myself from the jumpseat (although nothing this serious) my inputs were not even heard the first few times. Due to the PF being overloaded and becoming task focused

A regular takeoff roll should never overload a normally competent crew member.

[retired guy]

ALL PILOTS NOT TERMINATED.
Thanks Emma. I am guessing that inside information so thanks for that.

[retired guy]

If this is true it represents a shocking catalogue of errors on the day, but also in training and culture. This simply could not happen without the crew being so far off the beam as to be unrecognisable to a regular airline pilot. The number of things you have to get wrong to do this is in the multiples territory. From the simple question what does handling pilot do at VR even if there is no call from the copilot - ROTATE to15 degrees is the answer since nothing else will do the job. F/D or no F/D. The plane flies by its attitude on takeoff. Unless you are utterly mesmerised by the magenta line issue. Then how many times do we check the MCP altitude before takeoff - four?

By the way someone said this had been moved to another area? Why would that be? It is very much the stuff of Rumours and News. How could this have been kept quiet I wonder since the aircraft was damage apparently..
Best.....
Retd guy

[H Peacock]

So what is the tyre limiting speed for a 773? 🤔

[CessNah]

There's simply zero hope left in this industry. At a time where we're supposed to be proving to the general public why it's not a great idea to let automation take over our profession, this stunt only proves otherwise why us humans should be replaced... I can only hope now that the pace at which ultra high speed rail services get developed globally picks up so I don't have to worry about whether or not my life is in the hands of a robot, or otherwise someone who probably doesn't know how to tie their own shoe laces.

[punkalouver]

I don't know why pilots can't just leave the MCP altitude where it was when they shut down. No need to put it to field elevation or even zero.

The MCP altitude is typically be pre-set during the cockpit pre-flight to an anticipated altitude. Why not do it. If it turns out to have not been the proper altitude, it was likely only changed from one improper altitude to another and can be properly set during the briefing.

The MCP altitude should be checked by all pilots during the departure briefing when the initial climb altitude is mentioned. Ideally, the briefing pilot points to it/selects it at that time.

FMA should be checked on the pre-flight for proper indication. In fact, it should also be checked when you turn on the FD switches for a boxed TOGA/TOGA indications(for 10 seconds).

I don't understand why having a mis-set altitude in the MCP would lead to a delayed rotation(if that actually happened).

Alarm bells should be going off if one is reducing the pitch(or only pitching up to 5 degrees) near the ground. A couple of degrees might be reasonable, not ten degrees from typical initial pitch attitude(even after an engine loss V1, this would be way off).

Fight director giving indications you don't want to follow is not just a Boeing thing. I know of an Airbus near crash due to following the FD's on a go-around(Thrust levers put in Flex instead of TOGA - and actually another Boeing crew that didn't press TOGA on a go-around leading to flap over-speeds as they follow inappropriate FD commands).

Looking out the window could make things worse, depending on the situation.

Helpful tip......

When sitting in the jump seats as extra crew, at some point after the cockpit setup but before pushback(when there is time), I like to do a scan of the overhead and forward panels. On occasion, you find something that is not set properly. And you can still listen to the cockpit gossip while doing it. Some prefer to use that time on iPhones.

[DaveReidUK]

How could this have been kept quiet I wonder since the aircraft was damage apparently..

Whatever damage was sustained on takeoff at Dubai (reportedly due to hitting the localizer array) was either rectified at Dulles (presumably limited to wheel/brake changes) and/or deferred for action back at base (hopefully nothing airworthiness-related, given that the aircraft operated a revenue flight IAD-DXB, but then again ...).

[ONE GREEN AND HOPING]

I'm not familiar with modern types such as the 777-300. ( Although, did fly DC10 and B744 over 20 years ago. ) My question: "Is it mandatory to engage flight director for take-off" ? Rotating followed by nailing the basic parameters not that complicated I'm guessing, even if there is some sort of 'swung cone' for losing a donk at V1 on a twin with spot heights impinging close in. Do recall one of those seasonal DXB temperature inversions making initial climb performance a touch lazy, but this sounds a whole lot more interesting unless there's something we don't know. One comment I read elsewhere would leave potential pax believing that it is normal for the autopilot/s to be fully engaged for takeoff. PR could be awkward, and I doubt whether the average tabloid pages will go much into explaining 'TOGA'.

[Emma Royds]

The pilots are rumoured to learn their fate or fortune over the next day or so.

The screenshot of the company NOTAM that was leaked was, (in my view) a knee jerk reaction that was misplaced and has been withdrawn. The aircraft had been on the ground in Dubai for a little less than 24hrs and if it was powered down at any stage, the MCP would have defaulted to 10000ft. If the MCP was set to 0ft, perhaps it was not the previous crew who set this level, as has been suggested.

[FullWings]

I'm not familiar with modern types such as the 777-300. ( Although, did fly DC10 and B744 over 20 years ago. ) My question: "Is it mandatory to engage flight director for take-off" ? Rotating followed by nailing the basic parameters not that complicated I'm guessing, even if there is some sort of 'swung cone' for losing a donk at V1 on a twin with spot heights impinging close in. Do recall one of those seasonal DXB temperature inversions making initial climb performance a touch lazy, but this sounds a whole lot more interesting unless there's something we don't know. One comment I read elsewhere would leave potential pax believing that it is normal for the autopilot/s to be fully engaged for takeoff. PR could be awkward, and I doubt whether the average tabloid pages will go much into explaining 'TOGA'.
The 777 will happily take off and fly around without FDs, AT or even FBW. Airline SOPs, however, are generally more restrictive. I would expect EK to have mandated FD on (and probably to be followed on pain of death...)

Unlikely to have a significant inversion this time of year and the -300 is not short in the thrust department. I suspect this accident (if they did hit the LOC array) will be fascinating in terms of HF and company culture. I’m not saying this is the case here (yet), but you can only dumb things down and be prescriptive to a certain level before you leave people unable to cope with much outside the ordinary because they enter a state of cognitive dissonance: the pilot part is saying 15degs NU, ignore the FD, sort it later and/or turn it off; the part that’s been beaten senseless by SOPs says follow the FD otherwise it’s no tea no biscuits in the office...

[PilotLZ]

This is well and truly unbelievable. Flight directors, whatever they show, were never meant to be followed during rotation. At least not on any aircraft I have flown. Once the aircraft is off the ground, you either follow the FDs if their indications make any sense - or, if they don't or are missing altogether, you pitch for an attitude which gives you more or less the correct climb speed, get away from the ground and sort it out whenever safely possible.

Also, that would have made for a great sim scenario. The PM calls "Rotate", no reaction from the PF.

[flyguyflies]

8.5 degrees keeps you out of a Tailstrike. 777-300 Tail strikes at 8.9 degrees normal liftoff attitude is 8.0 degrees ... on the 300 ER. Tail strikes at 10.0 degrees... normal liftoff is at 9.0 degrees

[172_driver]

Just some thoughts how it could've happened. I am still lost for words if this was an otherwise uneventful "departure".
- Different airspeed readings, followed by confusion. Should have come up in the story that's been told.
- Flaps not set?
- Glued to the runway to duck under birds and things went too far. Do birds even live in the desert?
- Trim mis set nose down. There was an odd procedure for a while on the 737 to trim full fwd for de-icing.

yes yes... I know checklist, procedures, take off config warning et al. should've stopped it. I am just speculating.

[DaveReidUK]

8.5 degrees keeps you out of a Tailstrike. 777-300 Tail strikes at 8.9 degrees normal liftoff attitude is 8.0 degrees ... on the 300 ER. Tail strikes at 10.0 degrees... normal liftoff is at 9.0 degrees

Given the reported circumstances, a tailstrike does indeed sound an unlikely scenario.

[zero/zero]

Just some thoughts how it could've happened. I am still lost for words if this was an otherwise uneventful "departure".
- Different airspeed readings, followed by confusion. Should have come up in the story that's been told.
- Flaps not set?
- Glued to the runway to duck under birds and things went too far. Do birds even live in the desert?
- Trim mis set nose down. There was an odd procedure for a while on the 737 to trim full fwd for de-icing.

yes yes... I know checklist, procedures, take off config warning et al. should've stopped it. I am just speculating.

Think it's fairly well known at this stage that it is related to the altitude set in the MCP for the departure

[TBSC]

Think it's fairly well known at this stage that it is related to the altitude set in the MCP for the departure
How would any MCP setting cause 4400 m takeoff run and 216 kts on ground? It has nothing to do with the director.

[H Peacock]

How would any MCP setting cause 4400 m takeoff run and 216 kts on ground? It has nothing to do with the director.

Read the earlier posts. Mis-set Alt Sel meant the FD didn't give an initial take-off pitch target, instead it was probably in Alt. Have a read of post #15!
The assumption therefore being that the PF didn't apply any significant nose-up to rotate until they got to the far end of the rwy.

[Torukmacto]

Be interesting to see what the roster was like for preceding week or so ?

[Wizofoz]

Read the earlier posts. Mis-set Alt Sel meant the FD didn't give an initial take-off pitch target, instead it was probably in Alt. Have a read of post #15!
The assumption therefore being that the PF didn't apply any significant nose-up to rotate until they got to the far end of the rwy.

And EK reaps what it sows, and learns nothing.

The Joberg over-run years ago? Bad training and over relience on generated, rather than raw information.

The 777 hull loss, including a fatality? bad training and fear culture coupled with too much relience on automation.

This one? Ddidn't rotate because the FD didn't say to? Really???

Not long before leaving I had a (non) incident,complete with frog-march to the office, becaue I disconnected the AP to correct a rapidly decreasing airspeed due to windshear and the 777s habit of going into ALT CAP early.

The verdict? You should have let the automation deal with it until stck shaker.

Thise who do not learn from the past are apt to repeat it....

[punkalouver]

The FD has nothing to do with initiating the rotation. That is based on the non-flying pilot saying 'rotate' which is soon after the automated V1 call(unless a contaminated runway) which is based on reading the airspeed indicator. I suppose someone could rotate very slowly but something hasn't been fully explained at this early stage yet.

[SOPS]

The FD has nothing to do with initiating the rotation. That is based on the non-flying pilot saying 'rotate' which is soon after the automated V1 call(unless a contaminated runway) which is based on reading the airspeed indicator. I suppose someone could rotate very slowly but something hasn't been fully explained at this early stage yet.

You rotate into the FD. If the FD is in ALT.. and you follow the FD and don’t rotate to around 15 degrees, but follow the FD in ALT, I would suggest perhaps very little rotation will occur.

[SandIgger]

Maybe the take off was attempted with the autopilot engaged on the ground. This has happened once before in a 777, off 12R as I recall. I believe the pitch mode was ALT and the ASR quoted the pilot as reporting "higher than usual stick force" required to rotate the aircraft. It was not a ULR flight so although they used a lot of additional runway they still didn't hit anything. Washington would be a different story. I'm not saying this is what happened but it is reminiscent of the other event and to the best of my knowledge nothing was changed to prevent it happening again.

Sometimes I hear the comment of the PM, follow the FD!!! And here lies the problem in my opinion. It’s a tool and if you don’t like it, put the pitch and thrust where you want it.
The 777 FD pitch bar sometimes has a way of sitting lower than the desired climb attitude after rotation. If the nose is lowered toward it, the pitch bar will usually then behave correctly and rise to the appropriate angle. Some people will ignore the FD and fly the proper attitude and be called at by the PM for not following the FD. Others will do what the FD tells them by lowering the nose after rotation, then raising it again, frustrating the other pilot who believes in ignoring spurious data. This should all be trained out of the pilots by the training dept but that's another discussion altogether.

[logansi]

Prob just a rumor but it was mentioned to me that someone in the company was suggesting that the PF on rotation realized that the take-off climb altitude was set to 0, called for the PM to set it, the PM then (unknown reason) didn't set it and instead turned on the autopilot with it set to 0.

[pineteam]

Bring back raw data flying.

I never understood why it is not allowed to switch off the FD for the PF in companies like Ryanair or EK. Sometimes I hear the comment of the PM, follow the FD!!! And here lies the problem in my opinion. It’s a tool and if you don’t like it, put the pitch and thrust where you want it.

Agreed. As much I would love to experience flying 777 or A380, Emirates has always been off my list since they don’t allow raw data flying. Not only it’s important to maintain basic flying skills, nothing makes me more happy flying wise than doing raw data take offs and approaches some times to times on my Baby Bus. =)

[vilas]

Frankly this has nothing to do with raw data skills. It's a procedural lapse with four pilots in front under what circumstances not known yet. They could all be very proficient in raw data flying. It's happened once before in the air with four in front involved in non-professional chat, overspeed then with speed brakes underspeed, AP tripping and altitude excursion in RVSM airspace. Another example of more the merrier in front not being true.

[Alt Flieger]

This is absolutely gobsmacking.
Since when on any Boeing has rotation ever been commanded by the Flight Director?
Quite apart from the obvious breakdown of SOPs and CRM etc. at what stage does the Lizard brain kick in with the realisation that you are going to die ?
By the way setting 0 on the MCP altitude window is a very bad idea at any time and something I was warned against very early on flying Boeings.

[TBSC]

Read the earlier posts. Mis-set Alt Sel meant the FD didn't give an initial take-off pitch target, instead it was probably in Alt. Have a read of post #15!
The assumption therefore being that the PF didn't apply any significant nose-up to rotate until they got to the far end of the rwy.
I can see that part happening but how did the PM let her do it until an actual runway overrun with this much ecxess speed? Should self-preservation instinct kick in there somewhere overriding procedures? There must have been something else we don't know yet.

[fox niner]

Maybe the take off was attempted with the autopilot engaged on the ground. This has happened once before in a 777, off 12R as I recall. I believe the pitch mode was ALT and the ASR quoted the pilot as reporting "higher than usual stick force" required to rotate the aircraft. It was not a ULR flight so although they used a lot of additional runway they still didn't hit anything. Washington would be a different story. I'm not saying this is what happened but it is reminiscent of the other event and to the best of my knowledge nothing was changed to prevent it happening again.


This one crossed my mind as well. I have personally experienced something like this in a 777. AP was engaged all the time at the gate, and we found out it was engaged when we did the flight controls check after engine start. This disengaged the AP due to the control forces needed, and the wailer went off when it disengaged.
In our case it turned out that maintenance had engaged it to do some work, and had left it engaged, and left the cockpit when we arrived before the flight.

Didn’t AirFrance attempt a takeoff with the AP engaged in Port Harcourt with a 777? Thought they did…

EDIT

Found it. A/P engaged takeoff attempt:

http://www.avherald.com/h?article=428c9bdd/0000&opt=0

[Propellerhead]

The avherald article doesn’t make sense. At the rotate call the PF looks solely outside whilst rotating until the runway / horizon starts to disappear then transfers onto the FD. At this point the pitch attitude will be around 7-10 degrees, which is the single engine climb out range, 2 engine about 12-15 depending how much improved climb. So they would have had to pitch forward again to follow the FD which would be totally counter intuitive unless you encountered severe windshear. If the FD was commanding a pitch down you would instinctively check the airspeed. If it was still increasing you wouldn’t push forward. If it was decreasing then either windshear or airspeed unreliable (like the lufthansa cargo 777 crew who had exactly this recently and did a great job recognising and recovering from it). If there’s any doubt then 10 degrees pitch and 85 % N1 will achieve a safe climb out. And as PM if the PF started pushing forward it would feel horrible and immediate intervention would surely occur?

[FlyingOW]

With the Triple 7 on ground, selecting the first FD ON activates ALT pitch mode if selected MCP Altitude is within 20 feet of displayed Baro Altitude.

Some pilots have the bad habit of setting 100kts, Hdg 360 and Alt 00000 after shutdown. The electrical power up sets the MCP altitude to 10,000 (intentional design feature by Boeing?)

How the entire crew missed this during instruments scan, and during the Takeoff review and then blindly following FDs after initial rotation, if in fact this is what happened, is another question altogether....

OW

[Mr Good Cat]

With the Triple 7 on ground, selecting the first FD ON activates ALT pitch mode if selected MCP Altitude is within 20 feet of displayed Baro Altitude.

Some pilots have the bad habit of setting 100kts, Hdg 360 and Alt 00000 after shutdown. The electrical power up sets the MCP altitude to 10,000 (intentional design feature by Boeing?)

How the entire crew missed this during instruments scan, and during the Takeoff review and then blindly following FDs after initial rotation, if in fact this is what happened, is another question altogether....

OW

The aircraft was reportedly on the ground for 24 hours before departure. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t powered down and up again during this time (if true). This would put the default 10,000 in the MCP window. Not sure what led to the selection and when, but I guess the FDR data will tell us soon.

[SaulGoodman]

I just won’t believe that the PF was not rotating because the FD didn’t move upwards.

The PF is looking out the window, initiating the rotation at “rotate” call from the PM. No-one should focus on the FD at that particular moment.

There has to be something else to it! Must be! Whether the AP was engaged or some trim/flight control issues etc. It simply can’t be just the FD’s.
Therefore don’t judge the crew to easily before the initial report comes out.

[Capt Fathom]

Some pilots have the bad habit of setting 100kts, Hdg 360 and Alt 00000 after shutdown.

I have never seen that! When you arrive on blox, you do the shutdown checklist, remove your rubbish and get the hell out of there!

[H Peacock]

That AF 777 abort with the AP engaged during the take-off run and so hindering the PF’s attempt to rotate is somewhat alarming!

Is it possible that the EK 777 fleet haven't had the updated software from Boeing that prevents the AP being engaged on the ground, it was released over 10 years ago?

[Torukmacto]

Read somewhere the capt asked for fcu to be set when she realised it was at 0000 . PM heard request and turned auto pilot on instead , which is usual sequence I’m guessing ? If auto pilot was engaged with 0000 set would it nose down ? With shock a few seconds pass before auto pilot disconnected and climb initiated ?
All my speculation and no evidence this is what happen , not a Boeing pilot just adding to discussion .

[fox niner]

fcu?
What’s that?
(10000 hours on 777)

[expat400]

"fcu?
What’s that?
(10000 hours on 777)"

Airbus jingo for MCP...

[Uplinker]

Nobody has yet mentioned that sometimes, if the SID initial clearance ALT is decided by ATC and is not yet known when the cockpit is being set up by PF for departure, some crews will set ALT 00000', as a reminder that the clearance ALT is not yet known. It is not uncommon to conduct a check and briefing of the SID or departure without knowing the initial clearance ALT. Time is limited at turnarounds, and crews will try to get as much done as they can, when they can. I am not saying this is safe, but I know it happens. Some crews will set a strange looking ALT, such as 4,100' or 3,999' to remind themselves.

In some places though, setting a guessed ALT that turns out to be wrong by 1,000' and which does not get corrected could be just as dangerous. It should be possible to display a red "clearance?" flag instead of any figures in the ALT window for those places where initial climb ALT is given by ATC as part of the clearance.
.
Very odd though, if none of the 4 pilots noticed the lack of pitch-up following the 'Rotate' call. They must have noticed, so was there a pitch control problem?
.

[Superpilot]

The standard practice at the many airlines I've worked at has been to set 9900 during the preflight. I have never seen 00000 in my life. I would never allow it. It's just instinctively wrong. The 900 signals something is wrong and needs attention. Every time I look at the FCU and I see it, I think QUICK, DO SOMETHING. Though, thankfully I've never had to rely on it. One of my company's had the R.I.S.E brief which was mandatory to conduct before the BEFORE TAKE OFF checklist. Runway, Instrument Departure, Stop altitude, Emergency turn. There are literally a hundred different ways to prevent this stupid mistake from happening. The pre-departure MCP configuration is where you translate your discussed and agreed plan into reality. If it does not reflect your plan then I would say you have zero situational awareness and probably should not be flying a passenger jet. Boeing even help you with assuring it does (Airbus does not btw)...


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/800x814/image_118e8dc0018c65f703c0880f2d0607da0abdbd3c.png

[Fired600]

There used to be an SOP for a ‘take of review’ to be called for before the take off checklist. It was a good procedure and would (should) have caught this since you checked and stated the initial altitude and checked it vs the mcp setting plus called and checked the PFD modes engaged. I always verbalised and checked it even after the review was removed and had guys comment not to do it now since non SOP.

[4runner]

Frankly this has nothing to do with raw data skills. It's a procedural lapse with four pilots in front under what circumstances not known yet. They could all be very proficient in raw data flying. It's happened once before in the air with four in front involved in non-professional chat, overspeed then with speed brakes underspeed, AP tripping and altitude excursion in RVSM airspace. Another example of more the merrier in front not being true.

frankly, you’re wrong. What does chat, overspeed and speed brakes in other incidents have to do with this?

[DaveReidUK]

The aircraft was reportedly on the ground for 24 hours before departure. I’d be surprised if it wasn't powered down and up again during this time (if true).

Yes, for almost 24 hours - the aircraft arrived from ZRH just before 0300Z on the 19th, departed for IAD just before 2300Z/0300L.

[White Knight]

Nobody has yet mentioned that sometimes, if the SID initial clearance ALT is decided by ATC and is not yet known when the cockpit is being set up by PF for departure, some crews will set ALT 00000', as a reminder that the clearance ALT is not yet known. It is not uncommon to conduct a check and briefing of the SID or departure without knowing the initial clearance ALT.

Except of course, in Dubai it’s 4,000’ for all SIDS… The problem of unknown SID altitude doesn’t happen at OMDB.

[vilas]

frankly, you’re wrong. What does chat, overspeed and speed brakes in other incidents have to do with this?
When four people miss something obvious there's a possibility that they were distracted. I quoted an incident of that nature how distraction happens even in benign cruise.

[Roger_Murdock]

I am getting some private messages that this may be false info. Can any of you who have access to news outlets or other sources see if there is anything new on this. If its not being covered its either a massive cover up or just a false FR24 trace which triggered the thread?

The NOTAM is real, so company was concerned about something that actually happened...

[ATC Watcher]

When four people miss something obvious there's a possibility that they were distracted..
Has it been confirmed they were actually 4 in the flightdeck? or is this just based on the rumour posted here at the start of this thread that 4 crews had been fired .. Rumour that later seems to have been false. just like the "attractive young female" F/O.
Speculating is what we all do here, but we should be careful not to change rumours into facts to progress in one direction. Hammering the crew seems to be always the preferred option here nowadays,.

[flyguyflies]

agreed 100% ...... get away from the ground at least above MSA and the figure out the real problem and then think about continuing diverting or returning back to base !

[draglift]

There is clearly some finger trouble here. On the 777 the policy is to rotate towards 15 degrees and once airborne follow the flight director. After the Air France incident the software logic was changed so that the autopilot could not be accidentally engaged on the ground when moving. However the autopilot will engage in the air below 200 feet and if 0000 is in the MCP window then it will fly level and descend. However there should be a very distinct "Don't Sink" aural that repeats.

Additionally if the flaps are approaching flap limiting speed the thrust will reduce automatically from the derated takeoff thrust setting which will not help the situation when close to the ground.

The autopilot is normally engaged by the pilot flying, not the P2.

I await further details with interest.

[vilas]

There is clearly some finger trouble here. On the 777 the policy is to rotate towards 15 degrees and once airborne follow the flight director. After the Air France incident the software logic was changed so that the autopilot could not be accidentally engaged on the ground when moving. However the autopilot will engage in the air below 200 feet and if 0000 is in the MCP window then it will fly level and descend. However there should be a very distinct "Don't Sink" aural that repeats.

Additionally if the flaps are approaching flap limiting speed the thrust will reduce automatically from the derated takeoff thrust setting which will not help the situation when close to the ground.

The autopilot is normally engaged by the pilot flying, not the P2.

I await further details with interest.

In takeoff mode thrust should be in fixed or reference thrust(is that in 777). How will it reduce unless it's controlling speed? Many airlines it's the PM whose asked to engage the AP.

[flyguyflies]

In takeoff mode thrust should be in fixed or reference thrust(is that in 777). How will it reduce unless it's controlling speed? Many airlines it's the PM whose asked to engage the AP.
in EK PF turns on his or her AP

[Twiglet1]

Be interesting to see what the roster was like for preceding week or so ?
Good luck with that the reports normally only state 64hrs in last 28 days etc

[1201alarm]

Frankly this has nothing to do with raw data skills. It's a procedural lapse with four pilots in front under what circumstances not known yet. They could all be very proficient in raw data flying. It's happened once before in the air with four in front involved in non-professional chat, overspeed then with speed brakes underspeed, AP tripping and altitude excursion in RVSM airspace. Another example of more the merrier in front not being true.

Respectfully (I like your contributions which are usually very interesting, detailed and knowledgeable), I feel you have it wrong here.

If there is not something extremely weird and rare coming up as external factor, it just looks like this crew was unable to simply fly their aircraft, which means to steadily pitch up after lift-off to ~15° nose up attitude.

It is completely irrelevant what the MCP should have been set to, what the FD was supposed to indicate, what the PM was supposed to monitor or call out, etc. Once you are past v1 and runway end lights are coming closer, you just fly your aircraft into the air with one hand on the thustlever and the other on the yoke/sidestick.

Such "raw data skills" are absolute basics, which any pilot in a cockpit seat of an airliner needs to be capable of doing at any time, since you can never exclude complex-automation-induced errors. More automation is not the solution, no human being can fix such complex-automation-induced errors within the needed short time frame. Only "raw data skills" of keeping your airframe in a safe envelope by using pitch and power can solve such situations.

[Superpilot]

Spot on post there 1201alarm. This should be a basic instinct for a pilot. It reminds me of an incident a few years back... On a 787, I witnessed an occasion when a trainer decided to get all excited about a small insect sitting on the windshield which when projected through the HUD ended up becoming the proverbial "speed bug". He cracked the joke right at V1, completely omitting the rotate call. The PF, new to type (new to Boeings), rotated anyway. After clean up, the trainer apologised profusely and commended the FO.

[ManaAdaSystem]

I’ve worked for an airline where SOP was to zero everything on the MCP after landing. Courses, heading, altitude.
I have never used the FD during rotation. What would an EK crew do if they forgot to switch on the FDs? Abort after VR?
If there is one time where Speed/Pitch is key, it’s during and after rotation.
Most pilots can take a quick look at the MCP and see if it looks right. 4 pilots missed 0000 in the ALT window. This is just weird.

[Themax23]

I agree with you 1201alarm, as long as you have a perfectly fine plane, with engines running normally and no flight control issues, there is no single excuse to not fly the airplane on the correct path. You're flying the plane, the plane is not flying you.

Automation is a nice tool and there to help you, but it's not the primary way to fly the plane.

[awair]

A couple of comments:

I’ve only ever seen one pilot set 0000, pre-departure, as a “reminder”. I advised that this wasn’t a good idea…

Rotation is not trained or based on the FD, although most seem to to stop or pause around 10 degrees, and then fly V2 + 30ish. Rarely saw V2 + 15.

Nearly everyone (EK) rotates too quickly. This can result in an FD pitch down command, if the pitch continues towards 15 degrees. (Opposite case of above.)

If the rotation rate is correct (2 degrees/sec) then the FD provides accurate guidance earlier, with stabilisation around 15 degrees, at V2 + 15-25.

EK introduced with the -200, with a ‘slower’ rotation rate of 2.5 degrees/second, noted in the FCTM and generally achieved.

With the -300, the wording changed to 2-2.5 degrees/second, and slower for the longer body.

Some still seemed to think that implied a choice, regardless of the model…

[awair]

It should also be considered that this might not have been ‘just an MCP error’, and that unreliable airspeed (ie a genuine failure) may have been root cause.

[flyguyflies]

Respectfully (I like your contributions which are usually very interesting, detailed and knowledgeable), I feel you have it wrong here.

If there is not something extremely weird and rare coming up as external factor, it just looks like this crew was unable to simply fly their aircraft, which means to steadily pitch up after lift-off to ~15° nose up attitude.

It is completely irrelevant what the MCP should have been set to, what the FD was supposed to indicate, what the PM was supposed to monitor or call out, etc. Once you are past v1 and runway end lights are coming closer, you just fly your aircraft into the air with one hand on the thustlever and the other on the yoke/sidestick.

Such "raw data skills" are absolute basics, which any pilot in a cockpit seat of an airliner needs to be capable of doing at any time, since you can never exclude complex-automation-induced errors. More automation is not the solution, no human being can fix such complex-automation-induced errors within the needed short time frame. Only "raw data skills" of keeping your airframe in a safe envelope by using pitch and power can solve such situations.


Agreed 100%

[FullWings]

I find it hard to believe that there was any kind of failure other than the human kind. They flew all the way to the USA from Dubai after nearly not getting airborne; if there was anything wrong with the aircraft, like UAS, DXB was just behind them for return. Information about how to go about flying is all in the manuals (FCTM especially) and I would be of the opinion that by the end of the flight they knew exactly what they’d done (or failed to do).

At least they didn’t try and reject at 220kts+ with <100m remaining; that would have likely got them into the top ten all-time air disaster list...

[ferry pilot]

There is no excuse for this. The fail safe automation has once again failed to recognize the fact there are no fail safe pilots.

[vilas]

Respectfully (I like your contributions which are usually very interesting, detailed and knowledgeable), I feel you have it wrong here.

If there is not something extremely weird and rare coming up as external factor, it just looks like this crew was unable to simply fly their aircraft, which means to steadily pitch up after lift-off to ~15° nose up attitude.

It is completely irrelevant what the MCP should have been set to, what the FD was supposed to indicate, what the PM was supposed to monitor or call out, etc. Once you are past v1 and runway end lights are coming closer, you just fly your aircraft into the air with one hand on the thustlever and the other on the yoke/sidestick.

Such "raw data skills" are absolute basics, which any pilot in a cockpit seat of an airliner needs to be capable of doing at any time, since you can never exclude complex-automation-induced errors. More automation is not the solution, no human being can fix such complex-automation-induced errors within the needed short time frame. Only "raw data skills" of keeping your airframe in a safe envelope by using pitch and power can solve such situations.
I have never disputed anything that you have stated. Only thing is I don't consider rotating at Vr to takeoff attitude as a raw data or any skill. It's very basic and surely these pilots were not doing their first takeoff. They missed setting up the MCP, they didn't include it in the briefing, they didnt check the FMA(unless not required in B777), all this is done on every takeoff day in and day out. I am trying to figure out what distracted them from doing so this one time. This cannot be called a complex automation induced error since automation behaved as programmed but pilot induced error. Offcourse none of us know the details. So we will have to wait.

[Flyboy_SG]

Don’t we do radial scan when keeping the cross on the box ?
simple to say from the ground though.

[aa73]

Y’all need to do more hand flying. the utter reliance on the A/P outside the US just baffles me. And this is the result

I routinely hand fly my 737 up to FL180, and click everything off (including FD, AP and AT) coming down through 10,000, at least a few times a month. Keeps me sharp. Should be standard SOPs worldwide, would reduce a lot of these events

[Propellerhead]

It’s very easy to spin the altitude selector instead of the heading selector on a Boeing - an error I’ve made myself. Is it possible one of the pilots spun the wrong selector as they were lining up?

[hamil]

It’s very easy to spin the altitude selector instead of the heading selector on a Boeing - an error I’ve made myself. Is it possible one of the pilots spun the wrong selector as they were lining up?

Initial climb altitude in Dubai is 4,000 ft, so if a pilot wants to set the altitude window to zero in just 4 clicks, the altitude selector must be positioned to 1,000 foot increments, otherwise it takes time to make such selection.

[Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP]

Surely any half decent professional pilot should be able to look through the FD if the commands are rubbish. This is basic stuff.

[safetypee]

Rt Hon, ‘looking through the FD’; what a quaint, but important concept; thrown out by the SOP police over the years.

‘if the commands are rubbish’; the fallacy here is that there will be, can be a comparison, but what is the datum against which to compare. If all takeoffs are with FD, without ‘look through’, then the only reference - the only experience is the FD. A fair ground game - keep the cross / dot in the middle.

Monitoring pilot checks what, when, how; concentrating on getting the calls right, buttons pushed, modes annunciated - oh the aircraft, what is that doing (another quaint idea), so how would the monitor know because the FD is already centred.

There should have been other safety defences, but sometimes things go wrong - ‘so that you can tell when they go right’.
Look into the latent factors; management / chief pilots’ policies, use of FD, SOPs, training, and not to overlook the aircraft system and reset logic.

Lessons to be learnt; maybe those who have learnt have left the company, they could be better for that, and more valuable to an operator with modern views of safety.

[Alex Whittingham]

Surely any half decent professional pilot should be able to look through the FD if the commands are rubbish

I think that may be the problem. Continuing dumbing down of professional standards, cost driven sim sessions merely ticking the regulatory boxes, pilots as SOP not even doing take-off briefs, regulators who don't understand what they are regulating, flight ops departments driven by costs, regulators not picking up the signs, Airbus creating (nearly) idiot proof jets.......predict the end path.... its not difficult. Its when the accident rate from incompetent piloting, bad training and cost-aggressive management starts to rise unacceptably. This one was lucky.

[retired guy]

Emirates Flight ‘Technical Incident’ in Dubai Under UAE Regulator Investigation - Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-29/uae-regulator-probes-emirates-flight-incident-in-dubai)


This looks like its a genuine monumental deviation
from norms that have been developed over 50 years or more and now in decline as is seen here. It throws up so many issues from basic flying skills absent to what looks like a major issue with honesty after a serious near fatal incident. Just as happened with the Lionair Max where the awful truth of the previous flight were not disclosed by the captain.

[draglift]

Awair wrote It should also be considered that this might not have been ‘just an MCP error’, and that unreliable airspeed (ie a genuine failure) may have been root cause.

If they had unreliable airspeed they would not have been allowed to engage the autopilot so I doubt they continued to IAD flying manually.😀

[VThokie2]

As an ex EK “John Deere” Tractor driver this is so disappointing to hear about and certainly not reflective of the vast majority of pilots when I was there, equally skilled and capable of dealing with busy JFK, or gracefully touching down in the freighter at MLW into ElDoret at 7000msl off an NDB approach in a non radar environment with an uplift thunderstorm off the plateau smack dab on the procedure turn , let alone lifting off from home base. While none of us here know what happened here, many have suspicions and guesses which might be confirmed or rejected with time but all of us that have flown there know the myriad of “challenges” of operating at EK. Many of us reviewed the weekly safety incident wrap ups shaking our heads at some of the ridiculousness some of our colleagues found themselves in from some quite simple initial cockups exacerbated exponentially sometimes by the ever present push (by both trng and fleet) to overly rely on the automation. In reality the best solution in many cases (not all) was a quick disconnect of both the autopilot and auto throttles, sort out the FMAs, perhaps cycle the FDs, then build the automation back up, which would paradoxically require a mandatory report and thus invite scrutiny, second guessing and possible punitive action from a rather inhospitable East German. Couple that with varying levels of bone numbing fatigue and you suddenly stop shaking your head at those reports, become less judgmental and realize that may very well be your report next week. Hopefully EK will finally heed these warning signs and change course, expend effort and money in hiring and more importantly retaining experienced crews, producing reasonable rosters, creating a non punitive safety and training culture that actually encourages questions and filling in gaps in knowledge (instead of the “OIC” recurrent). Then again one can dream!

[SOPS]

Well at least , for those that were doubting it, we have it confirmed it really happened.

[Ollie Onion]

An Air NZ 777 did this in 2019 out of Rarotonga, it was rumoured at the time that it was a miss set MCP and the the aircraft descended to within 400ft of the water on departure. There was an article in the National Business Review saying the CAA had launched an investigation but that was the last I ever saw of it. Air NZ has an excellent control over bad news events getting out.

[masalama]

As an ex EK “John Deere” Tractor driver this is so disappointing to hear about and certainly not reflective of the vast majority of pilots when I was there, equally skilled and capable of dealing with busy JFK, or gracefully touching down in the freighter at MLW into ElDoret at 7000msl off an NDB approach in a non radar environment with an uplift thunderstorm off the plateau smack dab on the procedure turn , let alone lifting off from home base. While none of us here know what happened here, many have suspicions and guesses which might be confirmed or rejected with time but all of us that have flown there know the myriad of “challenges” of operating at EK. Many of us reviewed the weekly safety incident wrap ups shaking our heads at some of the ridiculousness some of our colleagues found themselves in from some quite simple initial cockups exacerbated exponentially sometimes by the ever present push (by both trng and fleet) to overly rely on the automation. In reality the best solution in many cases (not all) was a quick disconnect of both the autopilot and auto throttles, sort out the FMAs, perhaps cycle the FDs, then build the automation back up, which would paradoxically require a mandatory report and thus invite scrutiny, second guessing and possible punitive action from a rather inhospitable East German. Couple that with varying levels of bone numbing fatigue and you suddenly stop shaking your head at those reports, become less judgmental and realize that may very well be your report next week. Hopefully EK will finally heed these warning signs and change course, expend effort and money in hiring and more importantly retaining experienced crews, producing reasonable rosters, creating a non punitive safety and training culture that actually encourages questions and filling in gaps in knowledge (instead of the “OIC” recurrent). Then again one can dream!
Spot on and it’s across the industry 👍

[zz9]

The avherald article doesn’t make sense. At the rotate call the PF looks solely outside whilst rotating until the runway / horizon starts to disappear then transfers onto the FD.
Different airline, but I noticed when watching this video a while ago that (at 12:45) the instant Rotate is called she looks down and focuses solely on the FD.

https://youtu.be/uEgw2p8J0ZA

[Capt Fathom]

Different airline, but I noticed when watching this video a while ago that (at 12:45) the instant Rotate is called she looks down and focuses solely on the FD.


You can't accurately say what she is focusing on! My guess is Attitude, Speed and Tracking. ;)

[Samten]

Different airline, but I noticed when watching this video a while ago that (at 12:45) the instant Rotate is called she looks down and focuses solely on the FD.



Very interesting video. Especially in connection with discussed topic. The FO is performing ideally looking takeoff with FDs perfectly centered... focusing on PFD from the very start of rotation. IMHO this is not normal - I believe you should continue to look outside during the rotation.
A-320 FCTM says: "To monitor the rotation, the PF uses the outside visual references. Once airborne, the PF controls the pitch attitude target on the PFD."

I don't have my own videos like this (will try to make them later), but I was able to find similar video on youtube. Search for "GENOA LIMJ Boeing 737 TAKEOFF" 2:20 duration, the precise moment is at 1:06.
Clearly the FO is looking outside at least during the initial part of rotation.

[5star]

While this looks to have been 1 big clustfxckup, and a lot seem to ‘focus on looking outside’, which I do agree with to some extend, do not forget the only way you can get properly and safely airborne during CAT 3 conditions with zero cloudbase is by using your pitch/attitude, and thus looking INSIDE.

[Samten]

While this looks to have been 1 big clustfxckup, and a lot seem to ‘focus on looking outside’, which I do agree with to some extend, do not forget the only way you can get properly and safely airborne during CAT 3 conditions with zero cloudbase is by using your pitch/attitude, and thus looking INSIDE.

I agree with you about Cat 3 conditions, but the discussed video was made in good weather conditions. And the discussed EK takeoff was performed in CAVOK.
Ok, we can say that the FO on the video was training herself for LWO takeoff... but, honestly, this looks like normal practice. Flight accidents rarely happen "out of the blue" - usually there are certain prerequisites for them.

[FullOppositeRudder]

Replaying the CVR as recorded during the event would be most interesting - I expect that it was almost certainly overwritten during the subsequent flight. In my discipline - purely recreational, far removed from this level of aviation - stuff- ups of this kind were often traced to the situation where each pilot "thought the other bloke was flying!" That couldn't possibly happen in this kind of operation however ... (could it?)

[SOPS]

The more I think about this.. the more I think.. how is it possible? Even if the PF ( fatigued, 3.00 am in the morning) had severe spatial disorientation during the take off roll.. how is it possible that the PM just let it happen? It appears he just sat there and watched the end of the runway appear at a great rate of knots.. and did nothing, up to and including, “ I have control”. This could make a great CRM study.

[VThokie2]

Replaying the CVR as recorded during the event would be most interesting - I expect that it was almost certainly overwritten during the subsequent flight. In my discipline - purely recreational, far removed from this level of aviation - stuff- ups of this kind were often traced to the situation where each pilot "thought the other bloke was flying!" That couldn't possibly happen in this kind of operation however ...

Ha, the Voice Recorder might have been overwritten but EK knows everything from every flight…. Everything is downloaded and analyzed (to say nothing about deidentification). Big brother was watching and fear of it (in some not all) had the potential to lead to some ill timed hesitation, second guessing and repression of gut pilot instinct in time critical situations. Root causes in addressing this incident will largely be lost in the departmental blame game and savings of face. Probably should have concentrated over the years on hiring and paying top dirham to retain the most experienced of pilots for such a diverse and challenging network.

[Harbour Dweller]

Be interesting to see what the roster was like for preceding week or so ?

Good luck with that the reports normally only state 64hrs in last 28 days etc

Does EK still factor pilot flying hours for the benefit of FTL's?

Post from a few years ago - https://www.pprune.org/middle-east/168644-emirates-factored-flying-hours.html

[Johnthemidjit]

The CVR would be overwritten considering the 120 min tape duration


The FDR may be useless also as the 25 hour duration would not hold the pertinent information considering the additional 14 hour circa return sector

OFDM through the QAR may be of benefit

[5star]

Ha, the Voice Recorder might have been overwritten but EK knows everything from every flight…. Everything is downloaded and analyzed (to say nothing about deidentification). Big brother was watching and fear of it (in some not all) had the potential to lead to some ill timed hesitation, second guessing and repression of gut pilot instinct in time critical situations. Root causes in addressing this incident will largely be lost in the departmental blame game and savings of face. Probably should have concentrated over the years on hiring and paying top dirham to retain the most experienced of pilots for such a diverse and challenging network.

Yep, all very true…
The thousand+ of us who got binned a year ago by AAR and TC were all very capable guys, who were all at the medium to top of the ‘labourforce’ list. It is truely embarrassing as exEK skipper to read the sketchy details of what has happened on that flight… To the extend that I would not be surprised this might have to do with fatigue…Remember the 380 in Moscow? That skipper’s roster and his duties pre that Moscow event were INSANE…. Obviously that particular factor was never mentioned in the groundschool debrief…

And yes, ofcourse factoring is still done by EK.

[AIMINGHIGH123]

The more I think about this.. the more I think.. how is it possible? Even if the PF ( fatigued, 3.00 am in the morning) had severe spatial disorientation during the take off roll.. how is it possible that the PM just let it happen? It appears he just sat there and watched the end of the runway appear at a great rate of knots.. and did nothing, up to and including, “ I have control”. This could make a great CRM study.

My thinking exactly. I just can’t understand it. Rotate call start rotation. If PF isn’t doing it within straight away I would be taking control.

Has to be something else. Incorrect VR or something. I can’t believe 4 pilots would just sit barrelling down the runway.

[Uplinker]

Yes, likewise, I cannot believe that even the worst pilot in the World would not pitch-up at the Rotate call.

You don't get onto the flight-deck of a big modern airliner if you can't fly this most basic of manoeuvres. There must have been no call or a late call, or there was a pitch control problem.

No call, or a very delayed V1 and Rotate call could be due to wrong weights being entered and the aircraft believing it was very light, so too little thrust was computed and the aircraft took ages to accelerate to the Rotate speed, or never got there. Took a few moments for PIC to work out the problem and think of a reasonable or fail-safe Rotate speed to get airborne.
Then when airborne, climb thrust - predicated on a very light aircraft - would have been insufficient, leading to poor climb and decaying speed perhaps.

Or, are V1 and rotate called by PM or automatic voice on this B777?
If an automatic voice calls V1 and rotate, then as F-O-R says maybe PIC and F/O both thought the other was flying, and with an auto voice there would have been no call by PM which would have confirmed who thought who was flying.

Or maybe PIC became transfixed by something during the take-off roll, and missed making the calls; or if he was PF, not rotating. Took a few moments for F/O to work out the problem and take over?

Or an airspeed disagree leading to incorrect IAS readout, delaying the Rotate call?

If there was a pitch control problem, or unreliable speed, they would have landed back straight away to have the fault rectified, rather than carry on to their destination, so it must have been some sort of procedural problem which they realised once they got sorted out.


PS @aa73, yes, good advice but what if their airline demands use of the automatics and they get an interview if they take the AP out? Preach to the airlines' safety department and CEO, not the poor schumcks who have to work there.
.

[DaveReidUK]

No call, or a very delayed V1 and Rotate call could be due to wrong weights being entered and the aircraft believing it was very light, so too little thrust was computed and the aircraft took ages to accelerate to the Rotate speed, or never got there.

If it helps, the aircraft was rolling at 185 kts with around 3,600 ft of runway left.

[1201alarm]

Different airline, but I noticed when watching this video a while ago that (at 12:45) the instant Rotate is called she looks down and focuses solely on the FD.

https://youtu.be/uEgw2p8J0ZA

To me it looks like an overfocus on pseudo-flight-precision by continuously trying to keep the plane 150%-perfectly on the FD commands. The stick is constantly stirred, which is a form of overcontrolling. Airbus follows a 1g flight path in pitch and roll rate command in bank, so it needs much less input on the sidestick than shown in this video.

For me it is a indication of not seeing the big picture, of not being aware of basic safe envelope parameters - which would be to put the plane to it's initial climb-out attitude, and let it rest there, while regularly checking lateral drift and speed, while scanning the rest of the instruments and the airspace outside. No need to put all your mental power on following an FD, use it for other stuff and let the ship steam along. The PF's hand on the stick has to mostly just lay loose around the stick and do nothing, and only when a trend of unwanted displacement from nominal values happens, you should make an input on the stick.

The whole instrument scan seems very under developed, during the whole takeoff-roll there is never a proper checking of the speed or engine instruments, the wind indicator, nothing, just glances followed by "checked" which are so quick it is hard to imagine there was any real information processing.

I guess that is how you pilot when you never had the chance to aquire and finetune the basics on 1000's of shorthaul legs or you did so in an environment where basic flying was a thing for the devil and only automation and strictest SOPs were considered being good aviating.

Was is not an EK A380 which would divert from Manchester because the ROPS would malfunction? The crew did not dare to declare the system as malfunctioning, try a second approach based on a proper FLD calculation and the knowledge, the the A380 has been going there since years, so obviously the ROPS must have a bug?

[FullWings]

1201, that’s a very good summary. Everyone with a pilot’s licence has flown aircraft without FDs but those skills do seem to atrophy and/or the use of them gets discouraged by poor training. The first jet I flew you couldn’t enable the FD below 1,000’, so you rotated to TO attitude, then monitored any trends, adjusting pitch if really necessary. Some of the recent recruits to the industry I fly with aggressively follow the FD at low level when it’s gusty and end up almost in a PIO; it certainly is uncomfortable, even if it isn’t unsafe per se.

Someone well known in the industry (who I have forgotten the name of) used to talk about “low/high gain pilots”, and how the former were much more pleasant to fly with as the control inputs were measured and necessary, as opposed to a continuous stirring of the pudding that didn’t affect the trajectory of the aeroplane.

It would be an interesting experiment in the sim to freeze the flight director on the horizon and see how different crews coped with it on takeoff...

[1201alarm]

I have never disputed anything that you have stated. Only thing is I don't consider rotating at Vr to takeoff attitude as a raw data or any skill. It's very basic and surely these pilots were not doing their first takeoff. They missed setting up the MCP, they didn't include it in the briefing, they didnt check the FMA(unless not required in B777), all this is done on every takeoff day in and day out. I am trying to figure out what distracted them from doing so this one time. This cannot be called a complex automation induced error since automation behaved as programmed but pilot induced error. Offcourse none of us know the details. So we will have to wait.

Fair, of course a proper investigation also has to find out why the MCP was not properly set. However this is not the fundamental problem raised by the incident.

The fundamental problem is that such a minor lapse like wrong values in the autoflight system, that can happen to anyone of us at any time, can lead to such a hairy outcome flying wise.

How comes a crew is unable to perform one of the most basic manoeuvers when the FD does not indicate properly? A manoeuver which is by the way anyways not supposed to be performed according to FD, you only use FD on the initial climb-out once speed and pitch and with it also FD are stabilised.

That is the fundemental question.

When you lose an engine just after v1, the FD takes quite a while to indicate the proper (reduced from normal) pitch target, until it does, you also fly it according pitch and speed, better you not only know your normal climb-out pitch by heart, but also your one-engine-out pitch by heart.

[Meikleour]

FullWings: John Farley, in his excellent book, describes the concept of "lowgain/high gain" style pilots. The accuracy may be the same but the effort put in varies enormously.

[sorvad]

Respectfully (I like your contributions which are usually very interesting, detailed and knowledgeable), I feel you have it wrong here.

If there is not something extremely weird and rare coming up as external factor, it just looks like this crew was unable to simply fly their aircraft, which means to steadily pitch up after lift-off to ~15° nose up attitude.

It is completely irrelevant what the MCP should have been set to, what the FD was supposed to indicate, what the PM was supposed to monitor or call out, etc. Once you are past v1 and runway end lights are coming closer, you just fly your aircraft into the air with one hand on the thustlever and the other on the yoke/sidestick.

Such "raw data skills" are absolute basics, which any pilot in a cockpit seat of an airliner needs to be capable of doing at any time, since you can never exclude complex-automation-induced errors. More automation is not the solution, no human being can fix such complex-automation-induced errors within the needed short time frame. Only "raw data skills" of keeping your airframe in a safe envelope by using pitch and power can solve such situations.
Not quite sure what SOP you are following keeping one hand on the thrust levers after V1

[olster]

A bit of a drift but I have also noticed in recent years a tendency to over control when manual flying, particularly in neophyte pilots. The automation is disconnected @1,000ft with the runway straight ahead and there ensues a semi violent waggling of the controls from left to right a bit like Lady Penelope’s chauffeur, Parker in Thunderbirds for those old enough to remember. I oft remarked that if you do nothing the aircraft will still go in a straight line…I don’t wish to bash young pilots because boy have they got a lot to contend with. Ek is a toxic environment. I was there myself in a non flying role and I observed with slack jawed amazement the management’s spiteful and venal treatment of the work force.Pilot wise, everyone running scared of the dreaded warning letter. No thoughts given to remedial non jeopardy training but school type punishment designed to increase anxiety and damage the mental health of the hapless recipients. The Swiss cheese is just waiting to really line up. This incident does not appear good but strange events are occurring post pandemic. With the extensive network, the individual roster issue, why not just for once, consider how this happened, what actions were taken and ensure it does not happen again.I live in hope but the crew will be made scapegoats I am sure.

[Alrosa]

I do agree with several contributors here that where possible/conditions permit, raw data flying either from take off to FL200 (for example) or from FL100 to landing should be practised, at least once a month. It may or may not have anything to do with this alleged incident, but it is a very useful exercise, and if done reasonably well, can act as a confidence-booster as well as improving one’s handling and scanning skills (and it keeps the PM awake …)

I appreciate some companies frown or don’t allow this - I think that’s a real shame, and I think it’s wrong. If you can’t fly at all without automation I would suggest something is wrong.

Besides, those of us that fly (much) older Boeings will have probably experienced the FDs (pitch and/or roll) mysteriously disappear at some point during take-off! :ooh:

[Uplinker]

=DaveReidUK; If it helps, the aircraft was rolling at 185 kts with around 3,600 ft of runway left.

Crikey - that is fairly rapid !

[Less Hair]

How can this company inspired simplified drill operations be best brought back to normal "real" pilotage? Via leasing companies, reinsurers, international organisations or manufacturers?

[aa73]

PS @aa73, yes, good advice but what if their airline demands use of the automatics and they get an interview if they take the AP out? Preach to the airlines' safety department and CEO, not the poor schumcks who have to work there.
.

Wow, I did not realize that disconnecting an A/P to do some hand flying lands you a carpet dance??
I knew the ME3 were strict but DAAAAYUM!
sorry to hear that.

[aa73]

I do agree with several contributors here that where possible/conditions permit, raw data flying either from take off to FL200 (for example) or from FL100 to landing should be practised, at least once a month. It may or may not have anything to do with this alleged incident, but it is a very useful exercise, and if done reasonably well, can act as a confidence-booster as well as improving one’s handling and scanning skills (and it keeps the PM awake …)

I appreciate some companies frown or don’t allow this - I think that’s a real shame, and I think it’s wrong. If you can’t fly at all without automation I would suggest something is wrong.

Besides, those of us that fly (much) older Boeings will have probably experienced the FDs (pitch and/or roll) mysteriously disappear at some point during take-off! :ooh:

Spot on. You ain’t kidding about the FDs suddenly disappearing, has happened to me on occasion and I credit all the hand flying I’ve done over the years in helping to get through it.
Hand flying an approach on total raw data including turns, descents, level offs will build your confidence and aircraft handling in a spectacular way, and prepare you for those days when the gee whiz stuff craps out..
I’m also just blown away by the over reliance on automation, and furthermore , the discipline involved if you chose to hand fly the aircraft! Airlines being run by dictators it seems..

[VThokie2]

Wow, I did not realize that disconnecting an A/P to do some hand flying lands you a carpet dance??
I knew the ME3 were strict but DAAAAYUM!
sorry to hear that.

From my time there, close but not quite. When I was there Flight Director and AT usage was mandatory, AP was mandatory above 10,000 (I believe now they bumped it up to 20k). You were free to hand fly up to that but dont drift too far outside of the FD or you’d be flagged, dont screw anything else up either while hand flying or that’s the first question…… Why were you hand flying, and the (perceived) screw up in itself would be evidence of your lack of judgement for what an “appropriate” opportunity to hand fly is. Add to all of that a large majority of flights on the 777 would see you landing in multiple “garden spots” of the world with useless ATC you can barely understand at 3am night after night… Or if you are lucky (like this crew) you are launching at 3am from your homebase for a long haul landing 12 hrs or more later as the sun rises, all that on 8,9,10 days off a month…. Fairly quickly you find yourself clicking the AP off just before that plane starts doing its 1st crab correction lest you get all wobbly. It was a great experience and a good group of pilots (at least in my time) unfortunately prone to rather simple mistakes due to the excessively punitive “safety culture” and vindictive management.

[SID PLATE]

There are posts on this thread about looking out of the window during rotation, and then transitioning to focus on the FD.

This doesn't work if a) it's foggy ; or b) if you're taking off over water, at night, with no external light sources for reference.

Boeing occasionally send test pilots to airlines who operate Boeings. They hand out Boeing pens and other goodies to crews, and also suggest the best methods they've found of operating the aircraft. These methods might occasionally conflict with the information in the Boeing FCTM.

The ones I've listened to recommend looking at the PFD at the rotate call, and if you have an engine failure, look at the (inertial) slip indicator.

[hec7or]

I've noticed the "high gain" effect and wonder if it may be something to do with simulator flying where the feedback is different and doesn't translate into airframe motion, also the startle effect may have been a factor where a mismatch between the expected FD command and the actual FD command wasn't recognised quickly enough. There's no training in the sim for this sort of scenario.

[testpanel]

Ok,
Can somebody please explain me when PM or automatics call “ROTATE” you would not pitch up 10-15 or even 20 degrees?

Its easy, and should be expected to do every day “in the office”.

To NOT rotate an appropriate amount pitchup but simply following the FD is just plain stupid!

These pilots should be fired just by not following basic airmanship rules….
V1-rotate. To 10-15-18 degrees.

Easy!
Or not in EK?

[CI300]

An Air NZ 777 did this in 2019 out of Rarotonga, it was rumoured at the time that it was a miss set MCP and the the aircraft descended to within 400ft of the water on departure. There was an article in the National Business Review saying the CAA had launched an investigation but that was the last I ever saw of it. Air NZ has an excellent control over bad news events getting out.

Slight drift, but might provide context. The Air NZ 777 event was in Narita in 2010. RTO from 180kts. A/P engaged. JCAB/CAA/TAIC declined to investigate. Internal investigation went to CAA and boeing.
No Rarotonga event Im aware of, perhaps you are thinking of the 2006 AIr NZ 767 false G/S capture in Samoa. that was to 400' I think. But well documented, 200 pg report and video on youtube.

So no coverups. Allthough Narita should have got more press.. But dont let the truth get in the way eh.

[Fired600]

The loss of experience on the Emirates FD post pandemic cull will have been shocking. It appears that ability and experience were not factors that was taken into account, where the bottom line cost was over riding. I wonder what the training record from this captain and FO would show? I have a fare guess however that they either have an exemplary sickness record or were local, the rest being irrelevant.

[waltair]

he FDs, then build the automation back up, which would paradoxically require a mandatory report and thus invite scrutiny, second guessing and possible punitive action from a rather inhospitable East German. Couple that with varying levels of bone numbing fatigue and you suddenly stop shaking your head at those reports, become less judgmental and realize that may very well be your report next week. Hopefully EK will finally heed these warning signs and change course, expend effort and money in hiring and more importantly retaining experienced crews, producing reasonable rosters, creating a non punitive safety and training culture that actually encourages questions and filling in gaps in knowledge (instead of the “OIC” recurrent). Then again one can dream!

Your naivety is refreshing. To suggest such a sweeping cultural change after working there means you have much more faith in humanity in general, and Arab dictatorships in particular, than anyone else I know. But if they were not so messed up, they would not need us, would they? A dictatorship runs on fear and punishment countered against special privileges for the compliant and connected.

For those who actually trained people there, this is no surprise. Female captain, local FO-flying a perfectly good plane into the ground because the F/D points down? Sure, totally credible to me. Saying nothing as someone drives the plane into the buildings? Hell, yes! Totally expected. Staring straight ahead, glazed look in the eyes, slack jaw, locked out of this world, not responding to a single radio call, not a single SOP, after a minor incident? Hell, yes! It happened to me. Single pilot on a 777. And, to be fair, whacked out of my mind with 50 time zones a month, maybe that guy will be me next time.

Standby for the next one.

[DaveReidUK]

No Rarotonga event I'm aware of

Air NZ plane nose-dive under investigation (https://www.nbr.co.nz/story/air-nz-plane-nose-dive-under-investigation) (behind paywall)

"UPDATED: Air New Zealand says the climb guidance system was involved.

The Civil Aviation Authority has confirmed its safety investigation unit is looking into an incident involving an Air New Zealand Boeing 777, which nose-dived soon after take-off from Rarotonga."

[VThokie2]

Your naivety is refreshing. To suggest such a sweeping cultural change after working there means you have much more faith in humanity in general, and Arab dictatorships in particular, than anyone else I know. But if they were not so messed up, they would not need us, would they? A dictatorship runs on fear and punishment countered against special privileges for the compliant and connected.

For those who actually trained people there, this is no surprise. Female captain, local FO-flying a perfectly good plane into the ground because the F/D points down? Sure, totally credible to me. Saying nothing as someone drives the plane into the buildings? Hell, yes! Totally expected. Staring straight ahead, glazed look in the eyes, slack jaw, locked out of this world, not responding to a single radio call, not a single SOP, after a minor incident? Hell, yes! It happened to me. Single pilot on a 777. And, to be fair, whacked out of my mind with 50 time zones a month, maybe that guy will be me next time.

Standby for the next one.

Don’t see how you gleaned out of my statement that I’m naive, looks like we voicing the exact same opinions of the place….. I guess you missed where I finished my post with “Then again one can dream!” Which is me saying that cultural change at EK will never happen! I’m long gone and enjoy flying again.

[hec7or]

The UK's Exercise CYGNUS, was a pre pandemic simulation, the result of which was largely ignored. Professional medics warned the Government of the consequences of mass infection. Here we are on a pilot forum looking at the warning signs of systemisation and no-one is listening.

[DCS99]

This one crossed my mind as well. I have personally experienced something like this in a 777. AP was engaged all the time at the gate, and we found out it was engaged when we did the flight controls check after engine start. This disengaged the AP due to the control forces needed, and the wailer went off when it disengaged.
In our case it turned out that maintenance had engaged it to do some work, and had left it engaged, and left the cockpit when we arrived before the flight.

Didn’t AirFrance attempt a takeoff with the AP engaged in Port Harcourt with a 777? Thought they did…

EDIT

Found it. A/P engaged takeoff attempt:

Incident: Air France B773 at Lagos on Jan 12th 2010, rejected takeoff (http://www.avherald.com/h?article=428c9bdd/0000&opt=0)

Good post.
No pilot would carry on belting down the runway at 200+ knots without pulling like mad. Something was physically stuck and it took precious time to overcome.

"The captain explained later, that he rejected takeoff because he felt the elevators were blocked when he pulled for rotation."

"On February 24th 2009 Boeing had advised operators about the possibility of the manual but unintentional engagement of the autopilot, which significantly increases control pressures needed to achieve rotation of the aircraft. On January 22nd 2010 released a service bulletin advising of a new autopilot software version, which prevents the engagement of the autopilot during the takeoff run. Air France has since applied the service bulletin to all their Boeing 777s. The FAA issued an airworthiness directive mandating the new software to be installed within 90 days following April 1st 2010."

[DaveReidUK]

"On February 24th 2009 Boeing had advised operators about the possibility of the manual but unintentional engagement of the autopilot, which significantly increases control pressures needed to achieve rotation of the aircraft. On January 22nd 2010 released a service bulletin advising of a new autopilot software version, which prevents the engagement of the autopilot during the takeoff run. Air France has since applied the service bulletin to all their Boeing 777s. The FAA issued an airworthiness directive mandating the new software to be installed within 90 days following April 1st 2010."

So unlikely to have been a factor in an event involving a 2017-build 777 ?

[BoeingDriver99]

This is a pleasant and informative read and the website has many more good reads. Food for thought for all pilots;

https://www.innerairmanship.com/blog/2016/07/01/are-you-a-low-gain-pilot/

[mmmbop]

The comments here about looking outside the window vs being on instruments I suspect is from non jet flying pilots. I recall a quick survey being done on where people look for rotation and it was 50:50 inside vs outside. HOWEVER, those who do look outside for the initial rotation quickly look back inside to the PFD to see where their initial rotation has come to and adjust according to the degree graduations, as opposed to the FD. Almost all said this is as the gear is unsticking or has just become airborne. So really, most people are rotating on instruments because they quickly look inside to see here they are - particularly important on the 777 with regard to tail scrapes.

The use of the FD for rotation I have to admit is incongruous. It moves to a pre determined and fixed attitude until airborne and so is a waste of time initially. Rotate towards 15degrees, get established in the climb and then start following FD cues WHEN IT CATCHES UP. So the point is - those rotating purely based upon head inside aren’t using the FD, they are using the PFD to rotate to an angle and checking speed, then checking to see what the FD is doing. If there are Boeing jet pilots that are rotating solely on the movement of the FD I’d be very surprised, and to be honest anybody who is is very poorly trained (I’d find it hard to believe they’d been trained) and has rocks in their heads.

[donpizmeov]

There are posts on this thread about looking out of the window during rotation, and then transitioning to focus on the FD.

This doesn't work if a) it's foggy ; or b) if you're taking off over water, at night, with no external light sources for reference.

Boeing occasionally send test pilots to airlines who operate Boeings. They hand out Boeing pens and other goodies to crews, and also suggest the best methods they've found of operating the aircraft. These methods might occasionally conflict with the information in the Boeing FCTM.

The ones I've listened to recommend looking at the PFD at the rotate call, and if you have an engine failure, look at the (inertial) slip indicator.

There are several posts now stating that concentrating on the TV screens when hearing the word rotate is a solid technique. I am guessing this has been introduced from the modern airline pilot doing the majority of his/her Training in a simulator and not an aircraft.
The PF should start the rotation by looking out the window and then transition to the PFD when the horizon is no longer visible. That's the way that is has always been, and it is the way it will continue to be.
Particularly important during an EFATO as eyes at the end of the runway to the last minute prevents that journey off the side of the pavement. Centerline is a much better que of where you are going, and much lower workload to interpret then a slidslip indicator at the top of a PFD
It's also transition to the PFD not FD. Set the attitude you need, and then let the FDs catch up.
In fog, or on a black hole night departure, the transition may occur a bit earlier, but the technique is the same.

[Chronic Snoozer]

There are several posts now stating that concentrating on the TV screens when hearing the word rotate is a solid technique. I am guessing this has been introduced from the modern airline pilot doing the majority of his/her Training in a simulator and not an aircraft.
The PF should start the rotation by looking out the window and then transition to the PFD when the horizon is no longer visible. That's the way that is has always been, and it is the way it will continue to be.
Particularly important during an EFATO as eyes at the end of the runway to the last minute prevents that journey off the side of the pavement. Centerline is a much better que of where you are going, and much lower workload to interpret then a slidslip indicator at the top of a PFD
It's also transition to the PFD not FD. Set the attitude you need, and then let the FDs catch up.
In fog, or on a black hole night departure, the transition may occur a bit earlier, but the technique is the same.

And it's probably the difference between a "low gain" and a "high gain" pilot.

[PAXboy]

I am Pax of 56 years experience. I am just reading the autoiography of Dr Alan Diehl, legendary of the NTSB and FAA for the Human Factors training programmes.

He is fascinating and one of his earliest success' as an ASI was to reveal the illegal rulings of the the owner of Downeast Airlines (Robert Stenger) and the culture he had, causing the deaths of crew and passengers. The crash that revealed publicly what was already known in private, was in May 1979. That was a tiny regional in the new days of deregulation.

Now, with a major world carrier, 40 years on, here we are again. Unfortunately, too many countries do not want to upset the ME. As we know from The Tombstone Imperative, not enough people have died - yet.

[fulminn]

This is a simple black of basic flying skills, during take off, you are supposed to take off.

That's it.
​​​​​​on all Boeing fctm you're told to rotate at whatever ac type deg/second to accomplish rotation at V2+15, and when at initial climb attitude with gear up , follow FD.

2 points

Both Cessna 150 and Airbus A380, B777/747 whatever plane, flies for the same reason: pitch plus power.

If a four stripe lady signing the techlog on a B777 still didn't get it, I would question Emirates rosters, fatigue involved and overall selection criteria.

Some people just CANNOT be pilots, that's exactly the case.


The part in which colleagues are talking about FMA, balanced field, V speeds etc is way out of the cognitive capacity of the '"crew" involved.

Sadly it's much easier than that, we are facing what low skill people can do with an airliner.

​​​​​​The fact that they flew back to DXB doesn't surprise me. Would you expect monkeys to be pilots or monkeys?

[mad757]

Totally agree with fulminn on basic flying skills

This is when children of the magenta line meet culture of fear……

If you create a system of punishing deviations from SOPs, procedures and rules then some people will act in strange ways. No one said rotate so I won’t, the flight director hasn’t moved so I can’t deviate from it….

Thankfully only a very, very small number of pilots would act in this way. As Fired 600 alludes to it is rather unfortunate that they got rid of so much experience last year.

[safetypee]

fulminn; heed the words of Von Clausewitz - “Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.”

And the longer we persist with a simple view, the more likely we do not understand the issue.

[Atlantic Explorer]

It’s only a matter of time before there’s a big smoking hole in the ground with this lot unfortunately. Very sad decline of a once decent airline.

[fulminn]

Totally agree with fulminn on basic flying skills

This is when children of the magenta line meet culture of fear……

If you create a system of punishing deviations from SOPs, procedures and rules then some people will act in strange ways. No one said rotate so I won’t, the flight director hasn’t moved so I can’t deviate from it….

Thankfully only a very, very small number of pilots would act in this way. As Fired 600 alludes to it is rather unfortunate that they got rid of so much experience last year.
A Former instructor and former 747 200Captain , F104 squadron leader, once told me: if you follow the bars one day or another you will die....he is bloody right

[SOPS]

Totally agree with fulminn on basic flying skills
To
This is when children of the magenta line meet culture of fear……

If you create a system of punishing deviations from SOPs, procedures and rules then some people will act in strange ways. No one said rotate so I won’t, the flight director hasn’t moved so I can’t deviate from it….

Thankfully only a very, very small number of pilots would act in this way. As Fired 600 alludes to it is rather unfortunate that they got rid of so much experience last year.

Excellent post. When people are scared to deviate one inch from procedures, because the fear of what punishment might happen is more scary than running off the end of the runway at 200 plus knots, this is what can happen.

[Timmy Tomkins]

The UK's Exercise CYGNUS, was a pre pandemic simulation, the result of which was largely ignored. Professional medics warned the Government of the consequences of mass infection. Here we are on a pilot forum looking at the warning signs of systemisation and no-one is listening.

Succinctly put and the same reasons CYGNUS was ignored will apply in aviation; plus a few local cultural factors. Regulators globally are either toothless or supine and the more dictatorial the local regime, the less effective regulation is.

[Uplinker]

I still can't believe that any crew would continue accelerating on the runway 50+ kts past Vr without having rotated or RTO'ed well beforehand, so I don't understand what could have gone wrong, but some general thoughts:

a) Today's pilots don't always go from flight school to simple turbo-prop to simple jet, then big jet; building valuable experience on the way. Thus, actual flying is not being cemented before they are faced with very comprehensive automation.

b) Prospective pilot employees now have to pass ridiculous time-limited computer tests and puzzles and psychometric tests which tell nothing about actual piloting ability.

c) A safe flying culture is one where problems and mistakes, including minor ones, are used as a learning tool for the greater good. Lessons from mistakes have been learned many times over, and some are sadly quite literally written in blood.


On a) : Having said that, even a 10hr pilot of a PA-28 knows that you pull the stick back at the appropriate airspeed to take-off !

On b) : I personally think it is high-time that HR kept their noses out of pilot recruitment. Having to pass 20 maths questions in 12 minutes for example, or do computer puzzles and word games, proves nothing about a pilot's ability to pilot, or their situational awareness, or their experience of bad weather flying.

We seem to be going backwards in aviation safety. We have seen an aircraft take off with both engine cowls unsecured, because nobody did a walk-around. We have seen botched go-arounds. We have seen a "pilot" hold full back-stick up at FL 3xx for an extended period of time.

Something fundamental appears to be being missed by airlines and HR - the fundamental ability to fly and be a pilot.

On c) : Airlines which try to suppress mistakes and errors by passive aggression, (e.g. interviews or bullying for going outside SOPs or for taking the AP out), are treading a very dangerous path. Overall safety will not improve because under that sort of regime pilots will not step outside the automation or report incidences, and therefore lessons will not be learned.

[Nick 1]

I still can't believe that any crew would continue accelerating on the runway 50+ kts past Vr without having rotated or RTO'ed well beforehand, so I don't understand what could have gone wrong, but some general thoughts:

a) Today's pilots don't always go from flight school to simple turbo-prop to simple jet, then big jet; building valuable experience on the way. Thus, actual flying is not being cemented before they are faced with very comprehensive automation.

b) Prospective pilot employees now have to pass ridiculous time-limited computer tests and puzzles and psychometric tests which tell nothing about actual piloting ability.

c) A safe flying culture is one where problems and mistakes, including minor ones, are used as a learning tool for the greater good. Lessons from mistakes have been learned many times over, and some are sadly quite literally written in blood.


On a) : Having said that, even a 10hr pilot of a PA-28 knows that you pull the stick back at the appropriate airspeed to take-off !

On b) : I personally think it is high-time that HR kept their noses out of pilot recruitment. Having to pass 20 maths questions in 12 minutes for example, or do computer puzzles and word games, proves nothing about a pilot's ability to pilot, or their situational awareness, or their experience of bad weather flying.

We seem to be going backwards in aviation safety. We have seen an aircraft take off with both engine cowls unsecured, because nobody did a walk-around. We have seen botched go-arounds. We have seen a "pilot" hold full back-stick up at FL 3xx for an extended period of time.

Something fundamental appears to be being missed by airlines and HR - the fundamental ability to fly and be a pilot.

On c) : Airlines which try to suppress mistakes and errors by passive aggression, (e.g. interviews or bullying for going outside SOPs or for taking the AP out), are treading a very dangerous path. Overall safety will not improve because under that sort of regime pilots will not step outside the automation or report incidences, and therefore lessons will not be learned.

Exactly Uplinker , the HR circus must be taken out from this clowns that judge a pilot regarding is ability to mentally calculate the square root of 19213 or so. It is difficult to understand why in modern “ aviation “ a cadet pilot with 200 hr is considered safe , while thousand of others with 10/20.000 hr of flying are useless just because their last flight was 12/24 months ago.

[SOPS]

Exactly Uplinker , the HR circus must be taken out from this clowns that judge a pilot regarding is ability to mentally calculate the square root of 19213 or so. It is difficult to understand why in modern “ aviation “ a cadet pilot with 200 hr is considered safe , while thousand of others with 10/20.000 hr of flying are useless just because their last flight was 12/24 months ago.

Your actually wrong. A 20000 hour Captain.. who was of sick for 3 months with a broken leg.. was considered useless .. and sacked. They decided to keep on the young ‘cheap’ ones.

Give or take a couple of hundred feet.. this last ‘ event’ might have not been very cheap.

[olster]

I was at a training meeting @EK some years ago. I was a lowly serf within the A380 training department but occasionally felt compelled to speak up. The topic was a presentation on how to fly the Carnarsie approach into JFK 13L/ R. The recommended way to do this by the experts involved swapping flight plans below 1,000feet. I kid you not. My contribution was to say that possibly looking out of the window would be more appropriate and to fly the aircraft at that crucial phase of flight. In my old fogey world (sorry, folks) I flew into JFK many times in the 747-200, not a very automated aircraft and when we saw whichever runway we were heading for, out came the autopilot and we pointed the Jet in the appropriate direction. I was of course ignored and lo and behold some years later an A380 was @300 feet several miles from the runway and only a vigilant controller intervened prior to catastrophe. I am certainly not the fount of all wisdom and would never proclaim that I know better than a lot of clever people however common sense leaves the building particularly @ EK where everyone is running scared of the bullying @rseholes that purport to run the place. I am really glad that the Swiss cheese did not come together here but when are they going to learn?

[Less Hair]

If the pilots fear strict company rules enforced by flight data monitoring so much that they don't dare to look outside and just take off something is wrong both with those rules and with flight data monitoring. Who is setting those company rules and who certifies them? This is not how aircraft are supposed to be safely operated.

[max magic]

After 12 years at EK the company culture never changed from day 1
And it will never change
The ME 3 are now, in my opinion, last resort jobs and not career options.

[punkalouver]

The comments here about looking outside the window vs being on instruments I suspect is from non jet flying pilots. I recall a quick survey being done on where people look for rotation and it was 50:50 inside vs outside. HOWEVER, those who do look outside for the initial rotation quickly look back inside to the PFD to see where their initial rotation has come to and adjust according to the degree graduations, as opposed to the FD. Almost all said this is as the gear is unsticking or has just become airborne. So really, most people are rotating on instruments because they quickly look inside to see here they are - particularly important on the 777 with regard to tail scrapes.


Sounds about right. I would say it starts about 100% outside and ending up 100% on the inside with a transition from one to the other as the pitch attitude increases(once partway through the rotation, the runway is out of view). It is still important to look outside somewhat even in very low vis to ensure one is remaining on the centerline. In such a situation I do rapid inside/outside/inside for as long as the centerline can be seen to ensure that one doesn't drift. This is more critical in a crosswind or especially after a V1 cut in the sim with its slower rotation(have seen pilots drift far off centerline with wheels still on ground).

[FullWings]

Given that the 777 was likely accelerating at 5-6kts/sec, there must have been quite a long period in aviation terms after Vr (if it was called) where not much was happening. I do wonder what was going through peoples’ minds as the end of the runway got closer and closer and they were still on the ground getting faster and faster? Nobody ever gets sacked for following the flight director? I hope my Will is in order...?

[MissChief]

I was at a training meeting @EK some years ago. I was a lowly serf within the A380 training department but occasionally felt compelled to speak up. The topic was a presentation on how to fly the Carnarsie approach into JFK 13L/ R. The recommended way to do this by the experts involved swapping flight plans below 1,000feet. I kid you not. My contribution was to say that possibly looking out of the window would be more appropriate and to fly the aircraft at that crucial phase of flight. In my old fogey world (sorry, folks) I flew into JFK many times in the 747-200, not a very automated aircraft and when we saw whichever runway we were heading for, out came the autopilot and we pointed the Jet in the appropriate direction. I was of course ignored and lo and behold some years later an A380 was @300 feet several miles from the runway and only a vigilant controller intervened prior to catastrophe. I am certainly not the fount of all wisdom and would never proclaim that I know better than a lot of clever people however common sense leaves the building particularly @ EK where everyone is running scared of the bullying @rseholes that purport to run the place. I am really glad that the Swiss cheese did not come together here but when are they going to learn?
Quite right, the Canarsie approach is a visual, cannot be performed on instruments from well before the final turn. This airline’s training department were either daft, or/and risk oriented.

[3Greens]

Quite right, the Canarsie approach is a visual, cannot be performed on instruments from well before the final turn. This airline’s training department were either daft, or/and risk oriented.

its a VOR until DHYML, then it’s visual

[norfolkungood]

Which is why they brought in the RNP AR App to help all the long haul drivers who couldn’t cope with a visual segment. Our Company recommends keeping the AP engaged to 300ft which gives you very little time to sort out the inevitable crosswind correction.

[Akrep]

Here is a new theory, maybe disaster was averted because the aircraft became airborne by itself ( flaps and 230+ knots of speed will create a nose up attitude)

[megan]

SLF - With all the talk about FD bars whatever happened to the calls "V1" and "Rotate"?

[FlightDetent]

We're looking at a broken glass, no need ask how much milk it does not hold.

​​​​​​What hit it, was the material worn beyond design limit, defective, or even inadequate to begin with ...

A simple sketch of the SHELL model will reveal the blanks that need filliing. Once the facts are collected.

[Australopithecus]

We're looking at a broken glass, no need ask how much milk it does not hold.

​​​​​​What hit it, was the material worn beyond design limit, defective, or even inadequate to begin with ...

A simple sketch of the SHELL model will reveal the blanks that need filliing. Once the facts are collected.

Perhaps the other thread about the alleged ice strike?

[FlightDetent]

Perhaps the other thread about the alleged ice strike? Ironic, right?

No, this one. Broken glass (cup) is the botched manoeuvre. The spilled milk is the 'where is action at the Vr call': obviously not in the correct place.

The glass material which shattered is the actual crew performance. Insufficient, distracted, fatigued, improperly trained, or even just not of the right calibre.

Same as others above, I wouldn't call it IFR/handling skill, it is a basic manoeuvre and a survival reaction. Myself, I hope for some eerie technical issue and the crew Human Factor to actually have saved the day i.s.o. created the mess.

But I was wrong with AF330 (suspected meteorite strike more likely than what actually happened) and never will understand the T7 Won't-Around or PIA deathwish.

​​​​​​

[KAISERSOZE]

I fly a bizjet with old avionics, this could not have happened on my plane.
before you line up on the runway, you would have already pushed the TO/GA button and you have a 10 degrees nose up flight director, generaly associated with LNAV or Heading mode. No autothrottle.
When you hear "rotate", the procedure is to rotate to a 17 to 20 degrees nose up attitude and to target a speed of 160knt, then ask for FLC.
when the PNF select FLC, the FD will come up to match your attitude.

So my question is :
On a 777, when you line up with your PFD ready for the departure, does the FD gives you a pitch up of 10 degrees or does it stay at 2 or 3 degrees and goes up automaticly at the selected Vrotate ?

[FullWings]

Here is a new theory, maybe disaster was averted because the aircraft became airborne by itself ( flaps and 230+ knots of speed will create a nose up attitude)
You’d have thought so but a quick look in the manuals (TOW likely >> 300T for a sector of that length) shows you need 6-7degs NU to fly level with F15 (likely TO setting) at 190-200kts at that weight. Even with V-squared in the equation, you’d have to be going *really* fast to generate enough lift to get airborne with an AoA of zero; a partial rotation might do it, though...

On a 777, when you line up with your PFD ready for the departure, does the FD gives you a pitch up of 10 degrees or does it stay at 2 or 3 degrees and goes up automaticly at the selected Vrotate ?
As mentioned earlier in the thread, it sits at ~8degs then adjusts itself later on in the rotation to command V2+15 to V2+25 AEO. You don’t use it for the initial rotation.

[Timmy Tomkins]

Re the discussion about looking inside or out; I am still puzzled by slavish following the FD if it is showing something obviously wrong. You know you are rotating to climb away, you know the attitude you usually aim for, so surely you pitch to that and if the FD shows something else, then it is wrong and you ignore it, while the PNF sorts out the anomoly. No 1 job fly the aeroplane, Attitude + Power = performance as we used to teach eons ago.
PS: The aeroplane taking the decision is very likely, simply physics, beyond a certain speed you can't keep it on the ground

[wiggy]

So my question is :
On a 777, when you line up with your PFD ready for the departure, does the FD gives you a pitch up of 10 degrees or does it stay at 2 or 3 degrees and goes up automaticly at the selected Vrotate ?

As I recall it correctly if you are in the correct modes on the ground the pitch bar sits well up, 8(?) degrees up, you certainly would not expect to see it down at 2 or 3 degrees.

It only starts telling you anything meaningful once you have actually lifted off.

[Consol]

You’d have thought so but a quick look in the manuals (TOW likely >> 300T for a sector of that length) shows you need 6-7degs NU to fly level with F15 (likely TO setting) at 190-200kts at that weight. Even with V-squared in the equation, you’d have to be going *really* fast to generate enough lift to get airborne with an AoA of zero; a partial rotation might do it, though...
It just might have self rotated, remember the stabilizer trim is set to provide for V2+ with an engine out on most aircraft so there may have been some downward force on it. I've seen A330s start to self rotate when very light (I know that's different on several scores).
Anyway, enough to place EK on my DNF list until they sort out their safety culture.

[gearlever]

SLF - With all the talk about FD bars whatever happened to the calls "V1" and "Rotate"?

Spot on. IMHO, that's the million $ question.

[FullWings]

It just might have self rotated, remember the stabilizer trim is set to provide for V2+ with an engine out on most aircraft so there may have been some downward force on it. I've seen A330s start to self rotate when very light (I know that's different on several scores).
Anyway, enough to place EK on my DNF list until they sort out their safety culture.
That’s true. But it also infers that the FD wasn’t followed at that point and/or effectively no-one was on the controls. Which is a possible scenario. Oh dear...

I’ll try a hands-off TO in DXB in the sim next time I’m in for a laugh.

[Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP]

This is the same company that diverted from MAN to LHR because the clever box thought 23R was too short. Says a lot about the culture there.

[metalboi69]

It baffles me that we've gotten to a point where blindly following the FD's have overridden basic flying skills.

Maybe fatigue played a role in this, but surely how is it possible that none of the pilots noticed the end of the runway coming up?

[carib man]

Children of the Magenta

[Australopithecus]

Children of the Magenta

By now we are seeing the grandchildren of the magenta.

[Less Hair]

The children of the Flight Director.

[Chris2303]

The real question is will we ever know the answer?

Are authorities in the Emirate likely to investigate?

[Sailvi767]

The real question is will we ever know the answer?

Are authorities in the Emirate likely to investigate?

They will investigate. They just won’t publish.

[RAF_Techie101]

Flight of the Navigation Director.

[Consol]

They will investigate. They just won’t publish.
It's not an open or democratic country but it's aviation investigation branch did deliver a credible, reasonable report into the EK 521 crash (the idle thrust go around).
I understand there is no shortage of SOPS in EK. Once the button pressing has been figured out the real issue is the safety culture and training. If pilots are just flying the QAR and petrified to correct any automatic system or call out that's clesrly wrong then something has to change. Not that it will.

[Klauss]

Hi,
I read about Children of Magenta, of Flight Directors not beeing followed....
How about assuming that the 4 (!) pilots have a basic sense of self preservation and tried their utmost to get airborne as they had on many other occasions, undoubtedly....

but they couldn´t ....

because something didn´t work as it normally would ? Something - don´t know what´- might have been mechanically wrong, or blocked , or whatever ?
Think 737-MAX.
??
It's not an open or democratic country but it's aviation investigation branch did deliver a credible, reasonable report into the EK 521 crash (the idle thrust go around).
I understand there is no shortage of SOPS in EK. Once the button pressing has been figured out the real issue is the safety culture and training. If pilots are just flying the QAR and petrified to correct any automatic system or call out that's clesrly wrong then something has to change. Not that it will.

[SOPS]

Hi,
I read about Children of Magenta, of Flight Directors not beeing followed....
How about assuming that the 4 (!) pilots have a basic sense of self preservation and tried their utmost to get airborne as they had on many other occasions, undoubtedly....

but they couldn´t ....

because something didn´t work as it normally would ? Something - don´t know what´- might have been mechanically wrong, or blocked , or whatever ?
Think 737-MAX.
??.

The problem with that theory is, that they then flew an aircraft that was not working properly all the way to Washington?

[Veruka Salt]

Best advice ever - Flight ‘Suggesters’ not Flight ‘Directors’

[CW247]

It's quite astonishing that in 2022 we have a situation where Boeing aircraft automation is so poorly understood that it leads to both real and near disasters in a way that Airbus aircraft have never. Yet Airbus took the flack for many years for building overly automated aircraft. Having the FD point at the ground when radar altitude is less than 100ft in the takeoff regime (regardless of the MCP setting) is an example of 20th century avionics engineering that needs to change immediately. It's a completely nonsense command.

[Herod]

It's a completely nonsense command.

Hence "look through" the flight director, or even more revolutionary "look outside"

[Alrosa]

I currently fly a Boeing “classic”, and given the training, flying and access to all the relevant manuals - my sense is that traditionally, Boeing has designed its planes with the assumption that pilots will have the appropriate skills to deal with almost any scenario.

Perhaps that assumption needs to be re-evaluated ?

Not flown Airbus, so can’t comment (would like to though, for comparison!)

Hopefully the report when published will prove informative.

[suninmyeyes]

We tried this in a 777 full motion sim a few days ago with altitude in the MCP set to 0000 to see if we could recreate it.

On the take off roll the FMAs read THR TOGA TOGA as usual.

We rotated to 14 degrees. The flight director was giving appropriate pitch demand during rotation and until just after lift off.

FMAs changed to THR LNAV ALT just after it got airborne.

The autopilot was engaged at 100' AGL, Normally it would be at 200 feet minimum but we were interested to see if automatics would make it worse.

With ALT engaged we would have expected the flight director demands to give a descent and take the plane down towards 0000. However it didn't.

After Alt capture It lowered the nose to about 7 degrees pitch up. This resulted in rapid acceleration and approached flap limiting speeds. However the flaps retracted just in time so THR remained constant.

During acceleration to flap up speed the plane climbed at about 300 feet per minute and reached 1100 feet and stayed there and did not descend or climb. It just stayed at 1100 feet in Alt Capture despite the 0000 in the MCP window.

So interesting and slightly different to what I would have expected. This was done at max landing weight so would have been much lighter than the real event.

[Uplinker]

Edit to add: Very interesting, suninmyeyes. So that points towards a malfunction on the EK jet?


@CW247: I agree. Having a flight director to show you how to pitch up to rotate.........is that really necessary? All you need is a pitch scale and a speed tape.

If so, I think that SIM recurrent training clearly needs to focus much more on the basics: pitch + power + instrumentation - NOT flight directors - because we are now seeing pilots making mistakes in both seats who don't have the many years flying on 'basic T' instrumentation on simple turbo-props that pilots used to have before getting onto the big jets.

[compressor stall]

How dark was it that way on that night? Somatogravic illusion? Mistake made, then subsequent flat acceleration felt like pitch up? Subsequent confusion and the error not picked as they thought they were climbing… I’ve been through DXB a few times in the dark, and with the ground lighting wouldn’t have thought it likely, but if both pilots had head down staring solely at their magenta lines like the pilot from the other major UAE airline in the YouTube video, who knows.

[SOPS]

We tried this in a 777 full motion sim a few days ago with altitude in the MCP set to 0000 to see if we could recreate it.

On the take off roll the FMAs read THR TOGA TOGA as usual.

We rotated to 14 degrees. The flight director was giving appropriate pitch demand during rotation and until just after lift off.

FMAs changed to THR LNAV ALT just after it got airborne.

The autopilot was engaged at 100' AGL, Normally it would be at 200 feet minimum but we were interested to see if automatics would make it worse.

With ALT engaged we would have expected the flight director demands to give a descent and take the plane down towards 0000. However it didn't.

After Alt capture It lowered the nose to about 7 degrees pitch up. This resulted in rapid acceleration and approached flap limiting speeds. However the flaps retracted just in time so THR remained constant.

During acceleration to flap up speed the plane climbed at about 300 feet per minute and reached 1100 feet and stayed there and did not descend or climb. It just stayed at 1100 feet in Alt Capture despite the 0000 in the MCP window.

So interesting and slightly different to what I would have expected. This was done at max landing weight so would have been much lighter than the real event.

What I’m interested in, what did the GPWS do during all of this?

[Uplinker]

Even if it was dark, you can see when you pitch up, (your landing lights illuminate the runway ahead). You can feel that you have lifted off, you can hear that you have lifted off.

Plus, your PFD pitch scale shows you pitching up, and the altitude scale and V/S and Rad Alt, all show you climbing.

[compressor stall]

Maybe I should have been more verbose. The “mistake made” referred to the possible following of the FDs commanding level(ish) flight. Once that (sin) was done, maybe the illusion of climbing was created through the acceleration complicating an instantaneous pitch up recovery.

Secondly, the illusion may be present even with all that information in front of you. The information stops you succumbing to it.

[Sailvi767]

It's quite astonishing that in 2022 we have a situation where Boeing aircraft automation is so poorly understood that it leads to both real and near disasters in a way that Airbus aircraft have never. Yet Airbus took the flack for many years for building overly automated aircraft. Having the FD point at the ground when radar altitude is less than 100ft in the takeoff regime (regardless of the MCP setting) is an example of 20th century avionics engineering that needs to change immediately. It's a completely nonsense command.

You really need to look at Airbus accident reports.

[Torukmacto]

What would a 777 do if the mcp was set
to 0000 and just before V1 the autopilot was engaged by a confused PM ? Not saying this happened . Would auto pilot engage ? Would flight directors maintain level flight ? How long to turn off auto pilot and rotate it including some startle factor ?

[draglift]

Torukmacto wrote What would a 777 do if the mcp was set
to 0000 and just before V1 the autopilot was engaged by a confused PM

With the autopilot engaged on the ground it feels like the controls have jammed. The software was changed after the Air France incident so that the autopilot cannot be engaged on the ground with the aircraft moving.

[Klauss]

.

The problem with that theory is, that they then flew an aircraft that was not working properly all the way to Washington?
-.-.
Hmmm..... well, that would then be a rather questionable course of action . Taking a somehow not correctly working airplane up to high altitude and flying on ...
Would be only be reasonable if the issue had definitely and benignly been resolved. Can´t think of what that might be, however.

Ok, I guess it´s best to await the results of the investigation - if there is one.
?

[Torukmacto]

Torukmacto wrote

With the autopilot engaged on the ground it feels like the controls have jammed. The software was changed after the Air France incident so that the autopilot cannot be engaged on the ground with the aircraft moving.
Thanks for that ,

[42go]

Sun I don't see how that 'test' proves anything? Where did the '1100' ft come from? Thrust reduction or accel alt in LNAV?

[Stuart Sutcliffe]

Sun I don't see how that 'test' proves anything? Where did the '1100' ft come from? Thrust reduction or accel alt in LNAV?

I don't think suninmyeyes is trying to "prove" anything. He/she is merely telling us that 'this is what we tried, and this was the result'. I certainly find that result to be interesting and illuminating, on it's own merits.

Thanks to suninmyeyes for trying it and reporting it here!

[42go]

Ok - i'll re-phrase "Where did the '1100' ft come from?" For this to be of value, any 'random' alt acquire needs looking at, does it not?

[RoyHudd]

It just might have self rotated, remember the stabilizer trim is set to provide for V2+ with an engine out on most aircraft so there may have been some downward force on it. I've seen A330s start to self rotate when very light (I know that's different on several scores).
Anyway, enough to place EK on my DNF list until they sort out their safety culture.

Been on mine for years, along with the other 2.

[suninmyeyes]

42go. As stated above I was not trying to prove anything, I just wanted to see what happened in a similar scenario. I have no idea where the 1100 came from. It is possible the automatics did not want to descend below the programmed acceleration altitude or that somewhere in the brains of the AIMS there is some bit of intelligence that does not want the aircraft to descend in ALT to 0000.

There was no GPWS call out in the above simulation.

[RoyHudd]

Reluctantly, and with no intention to scaremonger, I enquire as to whether the professional among us pundits have considered the 'unthinkable', as opposed to an inadvertent 'misuse of automatics' explanation.

I put forward no details of my thinking, just a suggestion that the Flight Data Management System will provide the analysis of all flight and engine control inputs throughout the delayed take-off and subsequent extreme low altitude/height climb-out.

It is the responsibility of the carrier and the UAE authorities to rapidly analyse and explain exactly what happened; the crew are alive and with us.. They too must contribute to the explanation.

I cannot honestly believe that this was a deliberate act of one person, nor technical sabotage, and yet fail to see how any professional crew could permit this to happen, and then continue the flight. Surely ATC must also have had this departure flagged and analysed? They too must have reported the incident. Perhaps a wall of silence has been constructed and enforced

I, like so many others, remain baffled.

[Uplinker]

Agreed.

I wondered earlier if there was a pitch problem, and if there was then it almost certainly would have revealed itself only after Vr was called, by which point they were obviously well past V1 and therefore committed to the take-off.

There could well have been a serious brown trouser moment, while the 4 pilots tried to work out what the hell was going on as they accelerated down the runway - too late to RTO; and they eventually managed to haul it into to the air at the last moment.

They then might have convinced themselves that they must have done something procedurally wrong, and there was nothing faulty with the aircraft, so they continued their flight and perhaps did not put in a report, hoping it would not be spotted?

[Capt Scribble]

Reluctantly, and with no intention to scaremonger, I enquire as to whether the professional among us pundits have considered the 'unthinkable', as opposed to an inadvertent 'misuse of automatics' explanation.

Maybe like neither pilot realised who was PF/PM after the thrust was set. A rotate call should have prompted a reaction or, if the call was missed, PF would surely rotate before they ran off the end. Neither seems to have happened. Fatigue, distraction, who knows. But as neither Airbus of Boeing procedures use FDs at take off, there is some other factor in play.

[Good Business Sense]

Well I guess it's right back to basics then ................ henceforth the control column will now be known as the "HOUSES LEVER"

Used to train/examine in a very large airline (high quality, international not mid east) which brought 250 hour cadets into a long haul, big jet environment ........... we reckoned that as they were getting command of their 777 fifteen years or so down the road that they had less than 15 hours of hand flying (i.e. autopilot in 100 feet after take-off and out at 1,000 feet before landing). So, if and when the info comes out i.e hours and years flying, more detail is required to get to the root of it.

I often flew the first commercial sector of a cadet's career and indeed the first time they had flown a real aircraft bigger than a light piston twin with 3-400 people down the back. I have also had to recover the aircraft in an extreme condition when the cadet did something that I would not have believed that a pilot would ever do (looking down vertically on the runway numbers through the copilot's window circa 50-100 feet was one ........ got the wind check at 1,000 feet - he decided there was a crosswind and over the threshold promptly and forcefully pushed full rudder ....... xwind factor was, in fact, about 2 kts but hey, rudder for a crosswind isn't it or at least that's what his course buddy told him. There is a lot of blind leading the partially sighted going on.

Company also had a lot of heavy landings until we figured out that pilots were using the FD to flare ..... not looking out at all.

Don't get me wrong ....... I would never have made it through these courses to a widebody jet with 250 hours. At those experience levels you need to grab every piece of info you have to get you through the course.

However, there is an other side to it ........ now training/examining on turbo props in my retirement and we have a major problem with poor skill levels with highly experienced airline pilots.

.......... where are we going .............

[Dropp the Pilot]

There are a relatively small number of people who get to fly 350-ton airplanes in their career. The number of people who train on those airplanes is smaller. An even smaller number of those trainers get to train on 350-ton airplanes at a number of airlines around the planet.

That last group can tell you a few stories (if they are willing to be candid) that would reveal that quite often you have 300 innocent passengers who are entrusting their lives to flightdeck occupants who are utterly bereft of any skill, awareness or initiative, and are visibly uneasy and uncertain at every phase of flight.

A personal sim favorite is to clear two of these occupants for a visual approach. There will be a two minute flurry of FMC programming and then the approach will be flown from downwind all the way to the threshold without anyone ONCE looking out the window until they are forced to at 50' when the pitch bar commands level flight.

The threat goes way beyond any degradation in manual flying skills as these never existed in the first place - there are any number of active widebody pilots who are temperamentally unsuited to the chair.

[BRUpax]

SLF for many years starting in the 60s. I always had confidence that the guys up front had, at the very least, the necessary stick & rudder flying skills. It didn't prevent accidents but, arguably, their skills avoided many more. I honestly have to say that these days I'm a lot more concerned about who is on the FD than I ever was before. Many of the above comments from professionals, such as Dropp the Pilot and others, echo what I have felt for some time simply after reading official accident and incident reports. I'm very selective about which carriers I fly with but there are no guarantees!

[TBSC]

Different airline, but I noticed when watching this video a while ago that (at 12:45) the instant Rotate is called she looks down and focuses solely on the FD.
The longer version of the same video was uploaded yesterday. The PF looks down immediately after the rotate call at 25:23 and glances out the window maybe once in the next 2-3 minutes.
Airbus A380 Full Cockpit Flight

[Atlantic Explorer]

The longer version of the same video was uploaded yesterday. The PF looks down immediately after the rotate call at 25:23 and glances out the window maybe once in the next 2-3 minutes.
Airbus A380 Full Cockpit Flight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI8yFhuEa4Q)

Yep, and this seems to be the fixation in most of the young pilots these days- to get their 2 minutes of fame and glory on youtube or any other forms of social media rather than focusing on their real skills or professionalism.
The nauseating flurry of flight deck selfies with the obligatory “shades” on to look that extra bit cool for their page or channel is incredible. I do genuinely worry for the future of the profession and the downward trend of flying skills and knowledge as excellently outlined in the posts above.

[hans brinker]

The longer version of the same video was uploaded yesterday. The PF looks down immediately after the rotate call at 25:23 and glances out the window maybe once in the next 2-3 minutes.
Airbus A380 Full Cockpit Flight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI8yFhuEa4Q)


Got my ATPL in 1999, ATP, 5 types, 15K hours with passengers in the back since. Was always instructed that the moment you get airborne, you fly by instrument reference. Not sure her looking at her instruments is the big issue here. I do switch off the AP/AT/FD whenever I feel it's okay ( no company limits on that), and if I screw up, I will get a call from the safety department asking how training can get improved to prevent that from happening again. I am sure that the last sentence will get lost in the EU/ME culturere, but I really feel it's the way forward.

[tdracer]

I cannot honestly believe that this was a deliberate act of one person, nor technical sabotage, and yet fail to see how any professional crew could permit this to happen, and then continue the flight. Surely ATC must also have had this departure flagged and analysed? They too must have reported the incident. Perhaps a wall of silence has been constructed and enforced

I, like so many others, remain baffled.

Never underestimate the ability of humans to :mad: things up - even highly trained "professionals". Several recent commercial airline crashes fall into this category. Asiana 777 at SFO - where 3 out of 4 pilots on the flight deck failed to recognize that the airspeed was dangerously low. Pakistan A320 at Karachi - where the pilots tried to land at ~220 knots with the gear up. The previously mentioned Emirates 777 at Dubai where the crew elected to do a go-around after landing - with the engines and throttles at idle - despite having plenty of runway left to safely stop.
Those are just 3 that come quickly to mind - I'm sure there are more...
All defy logical explanation - oh sure there were other issues involved such as miss-use or misunderstanding of automatics - but no one can explain how a competent flight deck crew could allow those things to happen. But they did, and people died as a result.

[mmmbop]

. The previously mentioned Emirates 777 at Dubai where the crew elected to do a go-around after landing - with the engines and throttles at idle - despite having plenty of runway left to safely stop.


’…..elected to do a go-around….’

That is a gross oversimplification of a lot of factors that led to that accident, none more so than the culture at Emirates which is referred to in many areas as punitive. Was it mishandled? Yes. We’re there a lot of factors at play? Yes. They went around as the RAAS also activated - a go around irrespective of whether you think there was ‘plenty of runway left to safely stop.’

[glofish]

Anything can f*ck up, humans, mechanics, even an almighty computer program. It's the recovery, the overcoming of such incidents that matters. Many recent ground course refresher gurus in the aviation industry have found a trendy word for it: Resilience. What is not invoked though, is the fact that you can only be resilient if you can fall back on something else, mainly basics, experience, grown instincts. However, the modern industry has deprived its offsprings of that. It puts bums in hot seats with 250 hours of mainly synthetic or schematic training, sometimes without any meaningful solo exposure. Now we are surprised that pilots confronted with incidents did not fall back on the most simple and common sense escape, named flying...... Let's face it: They can't and it's not their fault.

This begs the question if there is a way out. The industry has relentlessly said 'sure, we will simply install some more automations, limiters, inhibitors to protect the poor aircraft and its passengers from those incapable pilots'. The chief pilots and managers approved it gleefully, it gives them more power with myriads of SOPs, bulletins, new mandatory techniques (for our benefit!) and a very handy scapegoat if we don't follow them religiously.

Old farts like me say that we need to get back to real training and experience, only to realize that this is not feasible due to the sheer mass of bums needed and already on line. Even covid didn't cleanse the overcapacities that were deplored world wide, almost every government pumping billions in an unnecessary uphold of the overblown industry that helped create this problem.

We could fall back on statistics and reassure us that the accident/incident rate is still extremely low, lower than at the time of us old farts even, but it does not satisfy me. I would like a mix of self reflection by all participants. Manufacturers can do better, airline managers can do better, authorities can do better, individual pilots can do better. Mainly by not simply passing the buck to someone else, but to improve what responsibility each one bears.

This however does not absolve the responsible bodies of short term measures. They seem obvious, as there is an apparent lack of skill to overcome very simple mishaps, basically the reason we are still in the pilot seats.

[EKescaper]

sensible comments!....iv been outta EK for some time now and feel for the pilots

[shared reality]

Anything can f*ck up, humans, mechanics, even an almighty computer program. It's the recovery, the overcoming of such incidents that matters. Many recent ground course refresher gurus in the aviation industry have found a trendy word for it: Resilience. What is not invoked though, is the fact that you can only be resilient if you can fall back on something else, mainly basics, experience, grown instincts. However, the modern industry has deprived its offsprings of that. It puts bums in hot seats with 250 hours of mainly synthetic or schematic training, sometimes without any meaningful solo exposure. Now we are surprised that pilots confronted with incidents did not fall back on the most simple and common sense escape, named flying...... Let's face it: They can't and it's not their fault.

This begs the question if there is a way out. The industry has relentlessly said 'sure, we will simply install some more automations, limiters, inhibitors to protect the poor aircraft and its passengers from those incapable pilots'. The chief pilots and managers approved it gleefully, it gives them more power with myriads of SOPs, bulletins, new mandatory techniques (for our benefit!) and a very handy scapegoat if we don't follow them religiously.

Old farts like me say that we need to get back to real training and experience, only to realize that this is not feasible due to the sheer mass of bums needed and already on line. Even covid didn't cleanse the overcapacities that were deplored world wide, almost every government pumping billions in an unnecessary uphold of the overblown industry that helped create this problem.

We could fall back on statistics and reassure us that the accident/incident rate is still extremely low, lower than at the time of us old farts even, but it does not satisfy me. I would like a mix of self reflection by all participants. Manufacturers can do better, airline managers can do better, authorities can do better, individual pilots can do better. Mainly by not simply passing the buck to someone else, but to improve what responsibility each one bears.

This however does not absolve the responsible bodies of short term measures. They seem obvious, as there is an apparent lack of skill to overcome very simple mishaps, basically the reason we are still in the pilot seats.
Excellent post, glofish, I couldn't agree more!

[CW247]

Sun's findings could be derivative specific or might be related to the precise avionics options, engines even. Others should do similar tests.

[3Greens]

Got my ATPL in 1999, ATP, 5 types, 15K hours with passengers in the back since. Was always instructed that the moment you get airborne, you fly by instrument reference. Not sure her looking at her instruments is the big issue here. I do switch off the AP/AT/FD whenever I feel it's okay ( no company limits on that), and if I screw up, I will get a call from the safety department asking how training can get improved to prevent that from happening again. I am sure that the last sentence will get lost in the EU/ME culturere, but I really feel it's the way forward.

I’m sure you don’t mean it as it says, but you look out of the windrow until the horizon disappears below the nose, then transition to instruments. Otherwise, how do yiu keep tracking the centreline in a crosswind or OEIO?
what this lady in the video does is the incorrect technique; looks straight down at rotate. Give me strength

[Toledo]

’…..elected to do a go-around….’

That is a gross oversimplification of a lot of factors that led to that accident, none more so than the culture at Emirates which is referred to in many areas as punitive. Was it mishandled? Yes. We’re there a lot of factors at play? Yes. They went around as the RAAS also activated - a go around irrespective of whether you think there was ‘plenty of runway left to safely stop.’You have just confirmed what is wrong with the industry i.e. Airmanship has been eliminated by punitive airline culture.

RAAS activation absolutely should not mean a mandatory go-around! (Subscribing to that view means that you must also agree with the decision behind the A380 diversion from MAN because the computer said no).

Airmanship should allow the Commander to make a rational decision based on the live situation. RAAS is o tool which provides information but the part of it which warns of “Long Landing” considers touchdown zone but takes no account of the amount of runway remaining. That’s when airmanship should come into play…. but fear culture trumped airmanship with catastrophic consequences.

[FlyingStone]

Surely if you haven't managed to touch down within first third of the runway, which is what RAAS is normally configured for, a go-around is a sensible thing to do?

History is full of runway overruns caused by rational decision making when the aircraft has already floated half down the runway.

[PAXboy]

I fear that basic airmanship has been overtaken by the desire for profits. For it is THAT which drives the mgmt attitude. We also know that pax want to pay as little as possible. Thus the first loop is complete.

It was profits that made Southwest tell Boeing they didn't want to pay for conversion courses. Boeing then accepted as they wanted to make more money.

EK has access to some of the deepest pockets in the world. Yet still they want more.

[ATC Watcher]

Anything can f*ck up, humans, mechanics, even an almighty computer program. It's the recovery, the overcoming of such incidents that matters. Many recent ground course refresher gurus in the aviation industry have found a trendy word for it: Resilience. What is not invoked though, is the fact that you can only be resilient if you can fall back on something else, mainly basics, experience, grown instincts
.
Excellent remarks. Resilience or more correctly the ability to be resilient is one of the greatest quality of a human being. but it is just a new buzz word for what we have been doing since we drop down from the trees. It is however more about thinking outside of the box to resolve something new that falling back to experience. Resilience is not a fall back procedure or an instinct. In our jobs it is thinking fast and solving something we have not been confronted with before or which is not in the training. If you get it right you will be possibly creating a new best practice , if you get it wrong you may die. Back to our case here, if the parameters given to us by FR24 are proven to be correct, a 777 on take off staying on a runway past 200 Kts defy understanding and was most probably a new situation to both pilots , but it does not look that it was resilience that saved them. That said, I cannot believe that this incident was simply a PF looking down and a PM absent minded. there must be something else.

[MissChief]

There has been no mention of this event in the UAE press. Had this taken place at JFK, LHR, CDG, wherever, it would have been headline news.

No doubt an official report will eventually be issued, perhaps 2 years from now. Meanwhile, this news seemingly needs to be buried.

[SOPS]

You have just confirmed what is wrong with the industry i.e. Airmanship has been eliminated by punitive airline culture.

RAAS activation absolutely should not mean a mandatory go-around! (Subscribing to that view means that you must also agree with the decision behind the A380 diversion from MAN because the computer said no).

Airmanship should allow the Commander to make a rational decision based on the live situation. RAAS is o tool which provides information but the part of it which warns of “Long Landing” considers touchdown zone but takes no account of the amount of runway remaining. That’s when airmanship should come into play…. but fear culture trumped airmanship with catastrophic consequences.

What an excellent post. Some airlines have tried their hardest to remove airmanship to be replaced by total devotion to endless procedures, and punishment for not following them to the letter. The result is.. well we all know what the result is.

[SaulGoodman]

Got my ATPL in 1999, ATP, 5 types, 15K hours with passengers in the back since. Was always instructed that the moment you get airborne, you fly by instrument reference. Not sure her looking at her instruments is the big issue here. I do switch off the AP/AT/FD whenever I feel it's okay ( no company limits on that), and if I screw up, I will get a call from the safety department asking how training can get improved to prevent that from happening again. I am sure that the last sentence will get lost in the EU/ME culturere, but I really feel it's the way forward.

the moment you get airborne you should use instrument reference. She actually rotate using the FD. That is wrong!

4 airlines of which 3 in the EU and all 3 actually encourage(d) manual flying. If you want to fly all the way up to FL raw data you are welcome to do it. In that way you can simply not compare Europe with the ME.

On topic: until the initial report is published we should give this EK crew some slack. Until proven otherwise I refuse that they did not rotate simply because someone forgot to se the MCP correctly.

[Uplinker]

I can't be the only pilot who looks both outside AND inside while rotating; Mostly looking out but regularly, briefly flicking the eyes to the PFD and back out is what I do - surely others do as well? It's not difficult.

Good points, glofish: However we don't yet know what went wrong with this take-off, so we can't really say if the flight-crew were incompetent or if they had a system failure, an incapacitation, or made an incorrect selection.

But as you say; new pilots of today can go from a PA-28 onto the flight deck of a big jet, without the years of flying basic turbo-props with basic instrumentation that develops and cements our basic flying skills and situational awareness.

These new pilots are faced with sophisticated automation which they have to master, and get very little opportunity to hand fly. It is then very easy to get locked-in to using the automatics - sometimes it is mandated, sometimes the airspace is challenging in which one naturally wants to use most of their brain for situational awareness, so hand flying is not really appropriate. This can easily lead to one's skills going rusty - or not developing in the first place - which becomes a spiral of not wanting to embarrass oneself by hand flying and cocking it up.

Airline training departments must recognise this and provide proper 'space' for pilots to practise hand flying without flight directors. As I have often said, an easy start down this road would be if the XAAs mandated three manually flown raw data approaches every six months, and recorded in our log books, as we used to have to do for auto-lands.

[Consol]

Fascinating that this thread has been, the previous poster has a point. Everything to date has been based on FR24 data and a leaked EK CONOTAM with a hint from some people of roster removals. I know current EK people are reluctant to post due big brother. The only mainstream news organisation to run with it has been Bloomberg.
In addition theses days any event near an airport or city tends to be picked up on a camera somewhere as in the PIA crash. Despite Dubai being a very technology connected place I haven't seen any pictures of a 777 skimming rooftops. No in cabin phone videos of what would have been a very noisy ground roll despite the passengers disembarking in the land of the free. A bit more enquiry is needed.

[aerodestination]

And what an irony. Jet Airlines Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC) published today that EK is the safest airline of 2021 yet again.

[gearlever]

No worries. EK safest airline 2021, newest report of Jacdec.

https://www.spiegel.de/reise/jacdec-ranking-der-sichersten-fluglinien-weltweit-easyjet-holt-auf-emirates-erneut-auf-platz-eins-a-f46600b3-fb6d-44b3-927f-aadcfd8fcee8


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/632x808/screenshot_2022_01_03_at_13_47_13_jacdec_ranking_der_sichers ten_fluglinien_weltweit_easyjet_holt_auf_emirates_erneut_auf _p__367fd2fdabb976bda9c9ba77ff03a3f53aa91e7c.png

[Sailvi767]

the moment you get airborne you should use instrument reference. She actually rotate using the FD. That is wrong!

4 airlines of which 3 in the EU and all 3 actually encourage(d) manual flying. If you want to fly all the way up to FL raw data you are welcome to do it. In that way you can simply not compare Europe with the ME.

On topic: until the initial report is published we should give this EK crew some slack. Until proven otherwise I refuse that they did not rotate simply because someone forgot to se the MCP correctly.

You should not be on instrument reference the moment you get airborne. You should be scanning the instruments and outside the aircraft until you are IMC.

[Roger_Murdock]

And what an irony. Jet Airlines Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC) published today that EK is the safest airline of 2021 yet again.

Surely this will be the wake-up call they need to fix their culture :\

[Mr Good Cat]

But as you say; new pilots of today can go from a PA-28 onto the flight deck of a big jet, without the years of flying basic turbo-props with basic instrumentation that develops and cements our basic flying skills and situational awareness.


I sort of get the point you're making, but it's not about going straight to jets or modern flight decks. I did that 22 years ago along with a lot of other cadets, and we're all able to fly because we were given the freedom to practise under the right circumstances. The problem these days is being allowed to practice. And we've all been moaning about it on here for years, which makes us partly to blame, because we should have been raising these concerns with the airlines instead of taking the easy route and letting somebody else worry about it once it's too late.

[Less Hair]

Ab initio trained pilots have been flying for tens of years without any safety issues if they were properly trained. The problem today is the strict ruleset to not fly manually to use automation whenever possible and the pressure to not deviate a slightest bit as every move gets monitored and recorded and any wrongdoings will be used against you.

[TBSC]

No worries. EK safest airline 2021, newest report of Jacdec.
https://www.spiegel.de/reise/jacdec-ranking-der-sichersten-fluglinien-weltweit-easyjet-holt-auf-emirates-erneut-auf-platz-eins-a-f46600b3-fb6d-44b3-927f-aadcfd8fcee8

Is this table about the first three days of 2022? In that case it's understandable that poor Lufty is a few notches behind the towbar-draggers and the ground racers as new year's day nullified their statistics. If it's about 2021 then the site have serious problems with numbers which is not promising.

[DaveReidUK]

Is this table about the first three days of 2022? In that case it's understandable that poor Lufty is a few notches behind the towbar-draggers and the ground racers as new year's day nullified their statistics. If it's about 2021 then the site have serious problems with numbers which is not promising.

"Even a risky incident shortly before the end of the year during the take-off of a Boeing 777 in Dubai did not change this positive overall rating."

Says all you need to know about the rigorousness of JACDEC's analysis.

[ATC Watcher]

Is this table about the first three days of 2022? In that case it's understandable that poor Lufty is a few notches behind the towbar-draggers and the ground racers as new year's day nullified their statistics. If it's about 2021 then the site have serious problems with numbers which is not promising.
It is just the difference between airlines that are transparent with safety and report everything and other who are not so transparent . That is all .

[Oldaircrew]

I sort of get the point you're making, but it's not about going straight to jets or modern flight decks. I did that 22 years ago along with a lot of other cadets, and we're all able to fly because we were given the freedom to practise under the right circumstances. The problem these days is being allowed to practice. And we've all been moaning about it on here for years, which makes us partly to blame, because we should have been raising these concerns with the airlines instead of taking the easy route and letting somebody else worry about it once it's too late.

I think you’ve just hit the nail on the head. We’re not allowed to practice.

I almost feel sorry for emirates as they have a real problem ahead of them. They can’t simply allow their pilots to practice as they will expose themselves to huge risk while their 3000 odd pilots try to get back the skills they’ve lost. You can just imagine the errors going forward. Enough to make their safety and human factors departments pull their hair out trying to explain to an obtuse and obdurate management why their stats are through the roof. Almost!

[VThokie2]

’…..elected to do a go-around….’

That is a gross oversimplification of a lot of factors that led to that accident, none more so than the culture at Emirates which is referred to in many areas as punitive. Was it mishandled? Yes. We’re there a lot of factors at play? Yes. They went around as the RAAS also activated - a go around irrespective of whether you think there was ‘plenty of runway left to safely stop.’

You could also read it that you should always elect to do go around WITH thrust…. They elected to do it without! Either way punitive safety culture, fatigue and over reliance on automation produces some unexplainable cockups.

[3Greens]

I think you’ve just hit the nail on the head. We’re not allowed to practice.

I almost feel sorry for emirates as they have a real problem ahead of them. They can’t simply allow their pilots to practice as they will expose themselves to huge risk while their 3000 odd pilots try to get back the skills they’ve lost. You can just imagine the errors going forward. Enough to make their safety and human factors departments pull their hair out trying to explain to an obtuse and obdurate management why their stats are through the roof. Almost!
given that for the most part, approaches in dubai are in good weather and are radar vectored ILS approaches; you’d think it was a pretty much ideal environment to regain those manual handling skills

[VThokie2]

given that for the most part, approaches in dubai are in good weather and are radar vectored ILS approaches; you’d think it was a pretty much ideal environment to regain those manual handling skills

Completely the opposite, busy terminal environment and still just blindly following the FD to an ILS final. High risk low reward time to practice. Ideally in a quieter airspace without a bunch of traps around pilots should be able to (and looking forward to) clicking the AP/AT off enter a visual pattern on a downwind…. It’s good fun. Sadly a sizable number (albeit a minority) of pilots at EK have never been at an operator where this is completely acceptable and encouraged so they never have had that skill to begin with. That being outside of demonstrating it in the sim with the endless starting of the timer and dryly configuring like a robot as per SOP. It’s not a question of regaining the skill, it’s about who you hire (and if they have that skill) first and then it’s the fltops, trng and safety culture you subject them to!

[Magplug]

You should not be on instrument reference the moment you get airborne. You should be scanning the instruments and outside the aircraft until you are IMC.
What complete rubbish... What sort of aircraft do you fly?

In a wide-body on take-off you are...

a) Fairly well down the runway when you rotate so centreline reference is lost pretty quickly as you pitch up. And...
b) By the time you get to the normal attitude for rotation the visual horizon has disappeared behind the glare-shield

As you climb towards acceleration altitude visibility is good in you direction of travel (up) but visual flight cues (the horizon) are absent. That holds true for the 777, 747-400 and 787 all of which I have flown. Hence a pilot should employ visual cues until they are no longer available. Earlier commentators have observed that the ME pilot in the video prematurely dropped her eyes to the FD after rotation. That's frankly a conclusion too far...... She drops her gaze to the PFD because she has lost firstly the runway centreline and then shorty after the visual horizon. How do you possibly say she focuses on the FD alone? All you can you say she is reverting to the PFD..... and the clue for that is very much in the name!

The JACDEC list is laughable.... Interesting that the likes of Lufthansa and British Airways with open safety cultures are behind two Chinese operators operating in a freedom-of-information 'vacuum', with of course Emirates at the top. Perhaps we should follow the money when JACDEC's finance is concerned.

[Mr Good Cat]

Earlier commentators have observed that the ME pilot in the video prematurely dropped her eyes to the FD after rotation. That's frankly a conclusion too far...... She drops her gaze to the PFD because she has lost firstly the runway centreline and then shorty after the visual horizon. How do you possibly say she focuses on the FD alone? All you can you say she is reverting to the PFD..... and the clue for that is very much in the name!

I was going to post this point but forgot... glad you've saved me the trouble.

[SWBKCB]

So Bloomberg said:The Emirates flight, bound to Washington DC, suffered a close call after the Boeing 777-300ER nearly impacted the ground in a Dubai neighborhood, according to The Air Current (https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/emirates-777-ek231-close-call/), which cited Flightradar24 and a notice to Emirates pilots. The plane came within 175 feet of impacting the ground, according to the news website. The incident may have been due to “incorrect setting” of the autopilot in the plane’s pre-flight setup, it said.

Is there any other evidence anything happened. And more importanly, if this Triple7 cleared some housing by 75ft (200ft?) and nobody noticed, anybody got the builders details? I'd still be looking for my roof... :ok:

[JeanKhul]

When in EK as a 777 FO many years ago, an otherwise pleasant Captain told me once that "there is nothing written in the books calling for interpretation of what you see outside of the window when flying" (we had been discussing CB avoidance at night..) Waoww...

Another terrible sentence at EK, which has been creating a lot of evil was the infamous : "EK pilots should use the highest level of automation available" ....

I had been performing entire visual circuits at EBL notably, with Captains ex-RAF C130 (like me in another AF) and that was great.
Then other captains told me : " so you want to have fun ?" then "if you miss it, you will have big problems" (but why should I ?) so I decided to leave for more interesting pastures (yes, some colleagues were great, but so many others were of very low calibre)

[FullWings]

I think there are several issues here, and, surprisingly, I don’t think lack of hand-flying/recency is the most prominent.

Most airlines, on somewhere near page one of their OM A, have a clause that states that the captain can deviate as much as they like from SOPs for safety reasons. I don’t know if EK has the same; they may do. If there is a culture that publicly severely punishes any deviation, even if totally safe, then things are being set up for failure.

If the first thing you think about when anything out of the ordinary happens is “will I get called in/retrained/demoted/sacked?”, then the battle has been lost before a shot has been fired. IMO as pilots we are not there for the ordinary, the mundane, the everyday (although we still have to get that right). We are there for the odd occasion when things don’t go according to plan and it’s not something that is much known about or practiced. Then we earn our money using knowledge, experience, CRM and critical thinking skills; if we are in a state of conflict as to what management will think of it, then our survival instincts have been muted and a suboptimal outcome awaits.

[Chesty Morgan]

Finger trouble maybe? 175kts sounds reasonable for V2 on a 777.

Did somebody put the speed in the altitude window?

[FullWings]

Unlikely as you can only set 1000s of feet, or 100s if you have the setting in AUTO.

[mmmbop]

RAAS activation absolutely should not mean a mandatory go-around! (Subscribing to that view means that you must also agree with the decision behind the A380 diversion from MAN because the computer said no)

Just to be clear Toledo, (because it is always hard to understand one’s tone) I stated what the case is in EK, not what I believe should be the case. And the set up of the RAAS at EK was (is?) poor as it was a fixed point irrespective of runway length.

[Magplug]

plus on one departure as PM, I looked out and saw we were on profile to plough through a huge flock of gulls, with no avoidance forthcoming. I took control and ducked below what would have been a multiple strike.
So you are advocating bunting a heavy widebody jet after take-off to avoid birds? I think that tells us all we need to know.

Get your CV in..... I hear Emirates are recruiting!

[Dropp the Pilot]

Thread drift alert:

A good preflight briefing for any RAAS-equipped airplane: ...."and on this flight we will totally ignore all RAAS call-outs except for 'on taxiway' and 'altimeter setting'".......

Those two will save your life, everything else produced by the blighted device is noise, and noise at the worst possible time.

[FlightDetent]

LVTO trained.

​​​​​Wet Runway EFATO at V1 split from Vr by 15 kts. RVR 125 m, cockpit cutoff angle only provides 4 centreline lights remaining. No real sense of heading, only limited visual cues for lateral displacement. With about 5 deg NU nothing to see. Instruments.

Another exercise, loss of visual reference at V1 minus 20 kt. Nothing to see again, instruments during the roll.

Any normal night departure facing open sea, all black from about 10 deg NU. Nothing to see,...... you know where this is going :E

At the top of the thread someone mentioned, IIRC, the angles from the type involved:
8.9 for tailscrape
8.5 maximum
8.0 normal unstick
stunningly thin margins.

​​​​​​BTW does the T7 involved have some flaps auto-retract / relief feature for high speeds at take-off?
​​​

​​​​
​​​​​​

​

[Dropp the Pilot]

Yes, those would be stunningly thin margins if they were true, but here in the real-world a 300ER

- normal unstick is at 8.5 degrees. The tail will strike at 10 degrees IF the pilot (who is in a Boeing after all, which does what the pilot asks it to) INSISTS that he wants it to do so (windshear escape, etc). If he does NOT want it to strike it will not do so because of FBW tailstrike protection

The tail however can be struck at as little as 7.5 degrees
-with bad landing technique, touching down at anything much less than Vref-10
-with incorrect takeoff data leading to rotation when the airplane still has weight on wheels (cf EK 777 departing LHR about 20-odd years ago)

[FlightDetent]

Common thing, my type also has full authority tailstrike law. 👻 11000 sold so far. ​​​​

Thanks for setting the record straight. Thus
10 deg oleos extended
7.5 deg compressed?

Sounds more realistic. Any insight about flaps auto retract at take-off?

[DaveReidUK]

B77W landing ground contact angles (stolen from another thread):

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/683x452/b77w_ground_contact_angles_chart_b204858074b2709c6edf70e3626 681af92912917.jpg

[Nick 1]

In my opinion the industry need to decide if pilots must be allowed to flying manually or not , once and for all , it is ridiculous that the airline put a multimillion dollars in the hand of the crew and then suggest that flying manually is not safe , there always will be cases where some part of manually flying must be used to save the day , as we saw in this days. So since we have many evidence that this skill is required , must be implemented not forbidden . We have reached the top of of the nonsense with the UPRT or stall recovery , so we ( they the industry ) pretend that a cadet, that never saw a stall or a spin in a light single engine during his/her training , must be able to recover an upset or an high altitude stall in an airliner when , the actual time of manually flying the thing is minute after take-off ( when this happen ) or before landing.
Are we growing and training a bunch of pilot with Chuck Yeager latent skill ?

[hoistop]

In my opinion the industry need to decide if pilots must be allowed to flying manually or not , once and for all , it is ridiculous that the airline put a multimillion dollars in the hand of the crew and then suggest that flying manually is not safe , there always will be cases where some part of manually flying must be used to save the day , as we saw in this days. So since we have many evidence that this skill is required , must be implemented not forbidden . We have reached the top of of the nonsense with the UPRT or stall recovery , so we ( they the industry ) pretend that a cadet, that never saw a stall or a spin in a light single engine during his/her training , must be able to recover an upset or an high altitude stall in an airliner when , the actual time of manually flying the thing is minute after take-off ( when this happen ) or before landing.
Are we growing and training a bunch of pilot with Chuck Yeager latent skill ?
I cannot agree more. I am also an aerobatics instructor and as it happens, I got a number of heavy metal pilots in the cockpit. Those who grew up on a grass airport with glider experience etc. were generally reasonably well, with some training, they could manage the basics soon. But on much more than one occasion, I met a commercial pilot, flying 150+ passenger jet, that was totally lost once we turned in a real, full blown spin or, God forbid, we flipped upside down. Recently, one of those decided to do the full aerobatic course. It started well, but just keeping plane on its back (that is a basic thing for aerobatics, as mastering this helps a lot with everything else) was difficult. Eventually, he gave up and he flies a 180seat passenger jet as I write.
I am aware of an airline nearby that had a Cessna 150 Aerobat in its training fleet. Each and every cadet had to master basic aerobatics on that plane - but that was decades ago, today this is no longer required.
I am stunned, that any teenage glider pilot beginner is not allowed to solo before s/he successfully demonstrates his/her stall/spin recovery technique, but powered plane pilots, including ATPL guys/gals might actually get in the cockpit of 10, 50 or 300ton A/C without ever experiencing a real unusual attitude. Approach to stall / buffet is max they will see in their PPL course, and never ever get an impression of how it looks when the world / horizon really spins around you or you are suddenly pointing down and no blue is visible anymore. Why on Earth is it so difficult to sit in a small, basic aerobatics capable airplane here and there and try some hand flying and extreme attitudes for real? Simulators, whatever sophisticated, will never replicate the real feel, especially the sinking feeling when things REALLY go haywire - not in a moving cabin, that is bolted to the ground but up in the sky with some air between you and Mother Earth. I am sure that all those pilots that crashed or nearly crashed big jet after they were faced with requirement to hand fly a partially crippled jet or things were not as expected, were reasonably trained to sort it out, but were unable to do so, as panic settled in and downgraded their brain computers below minimum - Lionair and Ethiopian included. All those modern computer guided jets are nice as long as everything works reasonably fine, but when, very rarely, they give up and hand it over to the pilot to sort it out, the stunning effect cripples too many.

[Magplug]

@Hoistop.....

An interesting perspective. It has been more than a few years since I was rushing round pulling 6G and looking at the world from interesting angles..... But I don't agree with you.

All heavy-jet (HJ) pilots get training in incipient stall recovery which is VERY different to doing the same exercise in a mil-jet or a Cessna Aerobat, so I'm a bit lost in how that gives them a good grounding for what is to come? Do HJ pilots really need exposure to spinning with incipient/full recovery actions? If your airliner gets to the point of entering an incipient spin then it's all rather too late!

OTOH Basic stalling in clean and approach configurations is valuable, that's why it is covered not only in basic training but included in every type rating course. Most modern airliners are completely without natural cues to the approach of a stall so synthetic training takes place often with stall protections inhibited. That experience is nothing like a mil-jet or the Aerobat.

As for unusual attitudes or jet-upsets.... There is a finite limit of how far you can manoeuvre a HJ away from normal flight and still bring it back to straight and level without pulling the wings off, the airframe disintegrating or simply running out of height. Those margins are explored in type rating courses, often resulting in G forces that would write-off the jet even if you subsequently made a safe landing. The skills in achieving a safe UA recovery are peculiar to big jets and today are aided by devices like the excellent 787 HUD which automatically switches to a dedicated UA display if the pilot loses control beyond certain limits.

The real training problem these days is quite simply the lack of it: Airline managers have to justify their salaries. Your manager's bonus this year will hinge on how much $$$ you have saved the company. If you made 0.5% savings on your budget over last year then you made it... you're a good manager - we'll keep you! If you didn't then we kinda' wasted your salary last year and you will soon be doing something more appropriate to your skills (or lack of them). Have you wondered why training course footprints only ever seem to get smaller? The first time I ever did an A320 course was in 1993 and the ground school was 4 weeks duration..... Today it is less than half that. The simulator footprint likewise. OK some candidates fail but they get some extra help before hopefully coming up to standard with some shred of confidence left. Training has been reduced to Demonstrate - Check - Move On - (Forget).

Mind you - The Training Manager seems to keep his job, year on year !

[wiggy]

@Hoistop.....

An interesting perspective. It has been more than a few years since I was rushing round pulling 6G and looking at the world from interesting angles..... But I don't agree with you.

All heavy-jet (HJ) pilots get training in incipient stall recovery which is VERY different to doing the same exercise in a mil-jet or a Cessna Aerobat, so I'm a bit lost in how that gives them a good grounding for what is to come? Do HJ pilots really need exposure to spinning with incipient/full recovery actions? If your airliner gets to the point of entering an incipient spin then it's all rather too late!

OTOH Basic stalling in clean and approach configurations is valuable, that's why it is covered not only in basic training but included in every type rating course. Most modern airliners are completely without natural cues to the approach of a stall so synthetic training takes place often with stall protections inhibited. That experience is nothing like a mil-jet or the Aerobat.

As for unusual attitudes or jet-upsets.... There is a finite limit of how far you can manoeuvre a HJ away from normal flight and still bring it back to straight and level without pulling the wings off, the airframe disintegrating or simply running out of height. Those margins are explored in type rating courses, often resulting in G forces that would write-off the jet even if you subsequently made a safe landing. The skills in achieving a safe UA recovery are peculiar to big jets and today are aided by devices like the excellent 787 HUD which automatically switches to a dedicated UA display if the pilot loses control beyond certain limits. !

Very much agree with you magplug.

The answer is more relevant training..(easy for me to say now I’ve hung up the headset). Given the plethora of mandatories/recurrent items that needs to be shoe horned into sessions I’m not sure how that can be done without it impacting on the training/pilot establishment budget.

[Herod]

Back in the dim past, which no-one under about sixty will remember, the UK CAA requirement for a CPL was 700 hours. That got you the LHS of an aircraft below 5,700 kg (12,500 lb in old money), or the RHS of something bigger. IIRC, the hours required for an ATPL were 1500(?). Unless you were lucky enough to be military, or managed a scholarship with someone like BA, that involved 45 hour to PPL, build up your hours any way you could, to 150, at which point you could become an instructor. Work for peanuts to get the magic 700. That was of course in the days when simulators were very much in their infancy, and couldn't replicate what they can now. However, it did mean that by the time a pilot was on the line, they had a good grounding in actually flying.

I'm sure the modern world is better and safer in many ways, but perhaps it's lost something along the way? Just saying.

[FlyingStone]

Thread drift alert:

A good preflight briefing for any RAAS-equipped airplane: ...."and on this flight we will totally ignore all RAAS call-outs except for 'on taxiway' and 'altimeter setting'".......

Those two will save your life, everything else produced by the blighted device is noise, and noise at the worst possible time.

I'm not sure if that was sarcasm or not...

[Dropp the Pilot]

Not sarcasm