TUI "Plummet"?

[blue up]

Tui pilots 'did not notice' Boeing 737 plummeted nearly 1,500 feet in less than a minute (msn.com) (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/tui-pilots-did-not-notice-boeing-737-plummeted-nearly-1-500-feet-in-less-than-a-minute/ar-AA10NZXs?ocid=EMMX&cvid=90d16ec0ba80478888d04e31372091ec)

"Stellar" reporting kinda takes away the impact of the story, perhaps.

[DaveReidUK]

The byline "Charlotte McLaughlin For Mailonline" should tell you all you need to know, and more.

[c52]

"Of the incident AAIB added: 'The crew were assigned several heading changes both before and during the aircraft descent. 'These instructions placed an additional burden on a crew that was already working hard."

It scares me if a change of direction during an approach is perceived by the AAIB as 'an additional burden' when the aircraft is working as designed. I could understand it if there had been a significant failure of some component.

[bean]

C52 read the report for gods sake

[777boyo]

I studiously ignore any Daily Mail aviation-related reports and articles. I found reading them is not good for my blood pressure.

[bean]

I studiously ignore any Daily Mail aviation-related reports and articles. I found reading them is not good for my blood pressure.
This has been available on the AAIB site for months

[c52]

I have skim-read the AAIB report (published yesterday) and find the quote by the Mail is accurate.

I'll keep out of this thread from now on because I'm not a pilot and should have respected that this area of pprune is for professional pilots.

[Luc Lion]

The AAIB report can be found here:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/62e9040a8fa8f503312d7d06/Boeing_737-8K5_G-FDZF_09-22.pdf

[Gizm0]

High level go-arounds frequently present challenges that are unexpected and, usually, unbriefed for. In the sim it always seemed to be a g/a from minima. Fortunately some instructors had greater imagination. I distinctly remember one extremely straightforward ATC instruction to "go-around and climb straight ahead to 3000ft". Desperately simple eh??... Except that we were already at 3400ft (no a/p) - and managed to climb to 4k before we sorted it out. Lesson learnt. A proper, thorough - and varied - brief is an excellent in-flight safety strategy.

[NoelEvans]

"Go-arounds" from above 1,000 ft do not need to be rushed. No need for TOGA and all the more extreme reactions that are caused by that. Take a (brief) moment and simply 'discontinue' the approach using other means. It can be done and the outcome is far more likely to be successful. The last airline that I flew for was the only one that included this in simulator recurrents. If others did so as well, then incidents like this could have been avoided.

[blue up]

TOGA. Alt Hold. V/S. LNAV

Gets you out of APP, stops the rapid pitch-up, continues a reduced rate descent to the lower level-off Alt and then flies the lateral profile.

What do other airlines teach for G/A from above the missed approach altitude?

Only ever had to do it once, at LEPA. Worked like a charm

[Gizm0]

Absolutely right folks. My point was that, in my case, being fully established & following the needles (no a/p) we had not actually appreciated that we were above the altitude specified by ATC for the go-around altitude (no call / x-check until the 4 mile point). The automatic reaction - because nearly all IMC go-arounds occur at or close to minima - was press TOGA and pitch up. Which is why we got ourselves in a mess whist we sorted it out.......... My message was that a) these scenarios should be practiced more in the sim (why aren't they??) and b) carry out a thorough approach brief that should include the possibility of a high level g/a. [And also that we should have maintained a better situational awareness!!]

[Luc Lion]

Gizm0, did this incident happen during an approach to Paris-Orly?

[iggy]

No need for TOGA and all the more extreme reactions that are caused by that.

In the Airbus you need to set TOGA so the FMGC changes from approach phase to go around phase, bringing the pilot the appropiate info in performance and navigation. Also, not using SRS mode and later on CLB or OPN CLB for the vertical navigation can be a bit of a problem if the airplane weight is not much. I believe the AP is trimmed to clean the airplane in either CLB or OPN CLB. Using V/S 500'ft/min, or 1000 ft/min can cause the IAS to reach the placard speed before the flap/slat is fully retracted.

I agree with what you say, but the Airbus is not as versatile as the MD80, for instance.

[Gizm0]

Gizm0, did this incident happen during an approach to Paris-Orly?
No. Don't think I've ever been to Orly - only CDG. From memory it was CGN - but then my memory isn't what it used to be! But all that faffing around with "button pushing" mentioned by others makes me rather glad I was flying manually........ Not sure I could cope with an Airbus - or not as well as I would like to.:)

[172_driver]

TOGA. Alt Hold. V/S. LNAV


What happens if you press one wrong in the quick succession?
Balls....

Oh have I seen it happen...:ouch:
A good PM often catches it.
I am generally not a fan of button pushing, especially not when it needs to be hurried...

What do other airlines teach for G/A from above the missed approach altitude?

Anything that keeps the plane under control. It's up to the crew.

[Meikleour]

Any complications from mis-selected modes on the Airbus is easily cured by a simple disconnect of the autopilot and flight directors. Next put the aircraft to where you want it and then re-engage as appropriate. This was the standard Airbus advice at Toulouse as long ago as 1994 when I did an early A330 course. Of course there may be fancier ways, however ...........................

[Bergerie1]

I have never flown any Airbus aircraft other than their simulators at Toulouse. But Meikleour's excellent advice applies to any aircraft

[Flying Clog]

All these clowns racing to push buttons and show how quick and clever they are. Just shows how dumbed down it has all become. And an indication of the generation of tech fanatics we're dealing with. No basic skills. What a shame.

When it all goes pear shaped, you turn it all off - A/P, F/D, A/T (all OFF), pitch up to 15 degrees, raw data, balls to the wall under FADEC control, clean up if you're not about to impact terrain, and sort it out when you can. Who cares if you climb to FL350 in the process. I've never heard of an airplane that climbed too high and crashed.

[blue up]

TOGA. Alt Hold. V/S. LNAV
What happens if you press one wrong in the quick succession?

Practically nothing.




A G/A from a Stable Approach isn't usually described as "Pear Shaped".

You'd prefer flying a full manual G/A than pressing 4 buttons slowly?

[Busdriver01]

All these clowns racing to push buttons and show how quick and clever they are. Just shows how dumbed down it has all become. And an indication of the generation of tech fanatics we're dealing with. No basic skills. What a shame.

When it all goes pear shaped, you turn it all off - A/P, F/D, A/T (all OFF), pitch up to 15 degrees, raw data, balls to the wall under FADEC control, clean up if you're not about to impact terrain, and sort it out when you can. Who cares if you climb to FL350 in the process. I've never heard of an airplane that climbed too high and crashed.

Coffin corner would like to disagree with you ;) (The actual coffin corner - not the one Maverick talks about where you're high enough to enter radar coverage and get shot at by SAMs...i digress).

I agree though - too much following the magenta and not thinking. Using full automatics is fine, but you should always be thinking ' is this pitch and power setting what i'd expect for the current situation?'. If not? yep, disconnect and sort it.

[Silver Pegasus]

"Go-arounds" from above 1,000 ft do not need to be rushed. No need for TOGA and all the more extreme reactions that are caused by that. Take a (brief) moment and simply 'discontinue' the approach using other means. It can be done and the outcome is far more likely to be successful. The last airline that I flew for was the only one that included this in simulator recurrents. If others did so as well, then incidents like this could have been avoided.

At Aberdeen, Europes busiest Heliport, the airspace between 500ft and 4000ft can at times be peppered with numerous helicopters just East and North of the airfield. So yes, I agree not a rush as in procedure wise but for the ATC and Pilot to go where directed that very much needs done fairly promptly to thread the needle to less busy airspace, but I can't imagine that would overwhelm regulars to the airfield.

[switch_on_lofty]

Practically nothing.



A G/A from a Stable Approach isn't usually described as "Pear Shaped".

You'd prefer flying a full manual G/A than pressing 4 buttons slowly?

Pressing TOGA in the 73 disconnects the AP, and in this case gave full TOGA thrust on the AT. TUI 73s have TOGA to LNAV automatically but I think ATC gave an early turn instead of the standard missed approach.

[3Greens]

Pressing TOGA in the 73 disconnects the AP, and in this case gave full TOGA thrust on the AT. TUI 73s have TOGA to LNAV automatically but I think ATC gave an early turn instead of the standard missed approach.
TOGA disconnects the autopilot, really?

[172_driver]

You'd prefer flying a full manual G/A than pressing 4 buttons slowly?

Everyday of the week. Makes me feel more of a pilot too... :sad:

Yes 3Greens, AP disconnects with TOGA. Hence the numerous creative ways 737 drivers have found to fly a button generated go around.

[Smudge's Lot]

TOGA disconnects the autopilot, really?
Yep, that's what the 737 does.
Just when you need automatics the most, the A/P drops out as you go around

[Uplinker]

.....All these clowns racing to push buttons and show how quick and clever they are. Just shows how dumbed down it has all become. And an indication of the generation of tech fanatics we're dealing with. No basic skills. What a shame.
But your stated solution, (below), also involves pushing (disconnect) buttons and showing how clever you are, doesn't it? :)

....When it all goes pear shaped, you turn it all off - A/P, F/D, A/T (all OFF), pitch up to 15 degrees, raw data, balls to the wall under FADEC control, clean up if you're not about to impact terrain, and sort it out when you can. Who cares if you climb to FL350 in the process. I've never heard of an airplane that climbed too high and crashed. Sounds a bit unnecessarily panicky to me - especially if you are just discontinuing an approach. And what about over-flying traffic above you?

If the Daily Mail think 1,500 fpm is "plummeting", then lucky they aren't pilots - they would find it quite difficult to descend !

[Airbanda]

If the Daily Mail think 1,500 fpm is "plummeting", then lucky they aren't pilots - they would find it quite difficult to descend !

AAIB report gives max rod as 3100 fpm. Lowest point was around 1500 feet.

Plummet or not it's not a good place to be when cleared level is 3000 feet.

[sudden twang]

Ok well some interesting comments here.

C52 please remain on this frequency 👍.

Respectfully if you’ve never flown a non FBW Boeing it’s difficult to know how much of a handful an untrimmed jet can be with the pitch power couple.
one major operator that I know of always trained manual flight, manual thrust. The problem of course is that selection of TOGA reengages the A/T. There have been many retests/ repeats of the G/A on LPCs because of this.
Many comments from non pilots on pprune forums have been excellent.

Noel I agree with all you said except to my definite knowledge at least 3 operators train G/As from above DA and from above GA altitude and have done for years.

Flying Clog, tongue in cheek/ a wind up/ trolling? Must be because it would otherwise be the worst advice Ive heard on pprune EVER 😂
AF447?

I note the AAIBs comments re recency and somotogravic illusion hmmmmn I’d be more interested in the crews sleep pattern in the previous 48hours.
I’d be even more interested in why 738 crews aren’t trained to disconnect the A/T during the G/A ( maybe they are).

BUT

The elephant in the cockpit is the fact that on a 21st century jet a normal function of the APFDS that has killed people before ( Air Dubai ? ) has not been designed out.

That is AP disconnect upon selection of TOGA.

This crew did not scrape the paint they did not hurt anyone, they got away with it. It wasn’t pretty but they sorted it out. There have been many incidents like this over the years some fatal some like this close calls and it will happen again.

[sudden twang]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pHg2n40DLg8

[FlyingStone]

All these clowns racing to push buttons and show how quick and clever they are. Just shows how dumbed down it has all become. And an indication of the generation of tech fanatics we're dealing with. No basic skills. What a shame.

I agree, we should go back to the era of real pilots with real pilot skills and writing off tens of airliners a year.

[172_driver]

Isn't the elephant in the room piloting competency? The old tradional piloting, not the new button pushing piloting? The last line of defence, manual manipulation of the flight controls :uhoh:

Not pointing fingers at this crew, but all contributors who claim it's the 737s fault. The one thing I don't like is the difference between a G/A with AT engaged (throttles advance) and G/A with AT disengaged (you have to manually advance them). Easy to forget, hence the importance of keeping hands on the throttles for a while after pushing. The reduced GA thrust makes even the 737 a baby to go-around with.

[172_driver]

I agree, we should go back to the era of real pilots with real pilot skills and writing off tens of airliners a year.

One does not exclude the other. Modern planes with competent crew. The latter seem to sadly be lacking. There does not seem to be much confidence in oneself nor will to improve left.

[sudden twang]

Of course PCs come into it but if there is a known latent system failure it should be designed out.

Just saying lack of PCs caused this incident isn’t going to stop it from happening again.

If the AP didn’t disconnect upon selection of TOGA then this incident would not have happened and the next incident of this kind that surely will happen, won’t.

This would not have happened to a 747,757,767,777 or 787 but they all too have their idiosyncrasies.

[sudden twang]

Modern planes with competent crew.


Modern planes with competent crew who aren’t distracted by aggressive management and are not fatigued.

There I fixed that for you 👍😎😂

[Gizm0]

Oh dear! All I meant to point out was the benefit of practising high level go-arounds. Sim instructors please take note! In my particular case we (I) didn't do a brilliant job managing to climb rather than do nothing / descend. However I was flying manually which made it easier & quicker - and smoother - to recover than would have been the case if the pitch/power couple effect of TOGA, with the a/p in, which may have resulted in even more of a mess whilst I (or PM) pushed buttons, etc. I don't think this had ever happened to me before (in many years of flying) and had I practised it in the sim I might have made a better job of it.
Even though I'm no longer current it would seem that occasional hand flying (within strict parameters) would be a good thing but I gather many airlines now prohibit it: seems to say something about their confidence in their crews (or perhaps an individual's own confidence.........). Whilst I'm at it: Accountants & CPs - please make more sim time available to line crews - it'll pay off in the end!

[HalinTexas]

Bunch of whiners...l

Dual A/P GA, both A/P and A/T remain engaged. Thrust commanded to reduced thrust ~88N1 if single press, full G/A thrust with second push. LNAV will engage for the MAP if armed. Catch: Dual A/P only available for ILS.

Single A/P, A/P disengages "without ambiguity." There's noise. A/T reacts the same as above. F/D will initially command a pitch up, searching for 1000 fpm climb until magenta command speed, present flap maneuvering speed for MGTOQ, then it will hold that speed in the climb. With flap configuration towards UP, the command bug will increase with it. This is the "auto bug" feature. With ALT CAP, this feature stops.

With fully manual flight, it's up to you. F/D will initially pitch up, but will be searching for command speed and eventually pitch down to recapture that speed. If you are rather high or early on the approach, TOGA will work, but the only way out of a coupled ILS is to.... what? Test question here. How do you get out of APP mode? With LNAV, you won't have this problem.

You don' have to jam "radar power" every time you go around, nor do you have to pitch for the sky. Learn to fly without the A/P A/T, and understand what the F/D is giving you.

[Jwscud]

Isn't the elephant in the room piloting competency? The old tradional piloting, not the new button pushing piloting? The last line of defence, manual manipulation of the flight controls :uhoh:

Not pointing fingers at this crew, but all contributors who claim it's the 737s fault. The one thing I don't like is the difference between a G/A with AT engaged (throttles advance) and G/A with AT disengaged (you have to manually advance them). Easy to forget, hence the importance of keeping hands on the throttles for a while after pushing. The reduced GA thrust makes even the 737 a baby to go-around with.

Part of the problem as the report makes clear is in a mode not indicated in the FCOM, selection of TOGA at high RAs led to N1 mode rather than reduced go around thrust, so the crew got max rated thrust pile on, then rapidly come off as ALT ACQ engaged. Some major trim changes there.

Another example of Boeing dumbing down the FCOM - similar to the DXB 777 accident where the TOGA switch behaviour was similarly not well explained with critical detail removed over the years.

[172_driver]

Part of the problem as the report makes clear is in a mode not indicated in the FCOM, selection of TOGA at high RAs led to N1 mode rather than reduced go around thrust, so the crew got max rated thrust pile on, then rapidly come off as ALT ACQ engaged. Some major trim changes ther e.

I hear you, I haven't read the report. Sounds like an ill timed push of TOGA but a resiliant crew must be able to get themselves out of such a situation too. I doubt a missing FCOM paragraph was the difference between good and bad outcome. Same as in Dubai, it was seat-of-the-pants flying, basic piloting, that was missing. Not intimate knowledge of the TOGA buttons.

[NoelEvans]

... but the only way out of a coupled ILS is to.... what? Test question here. How do you get out of APP mode? ...
One option: TOGA, but if on single A/P, the A/P drops out. Adds to workload.
Another option: Recycle the Flight Directors then select Level Change and any required lateral mode. Aeroplane goes where you want it to.
Yet another option: 'Detune' the ILS (one 'click' onto another frequency) then select Level Change. (A 'problem' with this one is to remember to retune the ILS, but it is do-able.)

But take a moment to think about it, say why you are doing it, then do so.

[NoelEvans]

... it was seat-of-the-pants flying, basic piloting, that was missing. ...
It was pretty much any recent flying that was missing.

(The C172 is a lot simpler! Full power and keep the picture outside correct for a climb. That is what I am teaching...)

[411A NG]

One option: TOGA, but if on single A/P, the A/P drops out. Adds to workload.
Another option: Recycle the Flight Directors then select Level Change and any required lateral mode. Aeroplane goes where you want it to.
Yet another option: 'Detune' the ILS (one 'click' onto another frequency) then select Level Change. (A 'problem' with this one is to remember to retune the ILS, but it is do-able.)

But take a moment to think about it, say why you are doing it, then do so.

If the ILS is tuned only on one side, you could simply select the off-side Autopilot (said FCC channel would become master). Next you can select an other vertical / lateral mode.

[Smilin_Ed]

"You'd prefer flying a full manual G/A than pressing 4 buttons slowly?"

Always!

[Jack D]

"Go-arounds" from above 1,000 ft do not need to be rushed. No need for TOGA and all the more extreme reactions that are caused by that. Take a (brief) moment and simply 'discontinue' the approach using other means. It can be done and the outcome is far more likely to be successful. The last airline that I flew for was the only one that included this in simulator recurrents. If others did so as well, then incidents like this could have been avoided.

This is good , this is sensible , nice to read !!

[deltahotel]

Well, we did this in a recurrent sim a few cycles ago. Set at ARN, GA ALT 1500’. G/A, ALT HOLD close together does it all - freezes the ac vertically, laterally and in speed. Then you go slowly through the normal GA sequence - F20, LG up, lateral mode, CLB THR ref 80 clean up on schedule. Somewhere in that ask ATC what they’d like you to do. If AP still engaged leave it, if not follow the newly programmed FD until you re engage the AP.