Skippers incident.
 

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2013/12/06/atsb-skippers-aviation-flight-risked-crash-in-western-australia/

Impressive ROD in the flare though....:E

I'm surprised CASA allowed them to use 300' for stable approaches, considering industry best practice is 500'. I've flown turboprops for 3 different airlines and they all used 500' in VMC.

Skippers incident.
 

Limited fault of the crew, are you serious?

Slammer - that would be a good start.

Skippers incident.
 

So Slam, you obviously are aware of problems at Skippers then, have you reported it?

No one pointed a gun at there heads and told them to be at 300ft in a 23 degree bank with a ridiculous sink rate.

That above scenario is beyond perceived problems at Skippers.

Slam click doesn't work for Skippers, nor does he know what the internal problems are at the airline, he works for Skytrans.

For you experts out there (and the ATSB), the stabilised approach critieria of 300ft would probably be to facilitate Visual Circling at 400ft.

The root cause, revealed by the FO but not taken up in the investigation after that, was the base turn at 10-15 sec. That will never work, regardless of what height you're at.

Skippers seemed quite active after re education...

You're spot on with both points there Bloggs.

Sometimes on occasions like this event, the captain should use his airmanship and conduct the approach personally. There is a tendency in Australian airlines for the captain, once having given "the leg" to the first officer, to show great reluctance to change his mind, no matter if the weather conditions have changed. Few captains will ever admit to this though. They feel it is wimpish to take back the leg.

They can rationalise as much as they want - but it often takes a bit of moral courage to say to the first officer "Sorry about this old chap, but I have control for the rest of this leg." There will always be sulky first officers who see this as a slight against their perceived "professionalism" and have no compunction in making their feelings known about the captain's decision. That shows poor discipline and that type of personality is usually a pain in the neck. Eventually, seniority means they become captains and heaven help their first officers after that happens. We have all seen this happen

In another era, the captain was expected to act as the captain. A first officer may be offered a take off or a landing - but the question of him flying "a leg" never arose. The game changed when someone invented the neutral terminology of PF and PNF or PM whichever. The word "captain" almost became a dirty word. Emasculated even.

Times have changed. And now, rightly or wrongly, depending on which side of the throttle quadrant you sit, we accept that it is a 50/50 split of 'legs` For all intents and purposes, the first officer, no matter his experience level, becomes the PF or captain and is encouraged to make all the command decisions while the real captain sits somewhat uneasily in his new role as PNF or co-pilot.

With the introduction of CRM, which, though designed as an a hint for captains to bring his crew into the decision making process, there were unintended consequences. Emboldened by enthusiastic non-pilot CRM authors and lecturers, a more aggressive attitude by first officers was encouraged. This may explain the reluctance by captains to assert their command authority and take over control of the aircraft from the first officer if circumstances warranted it

The cockpit is not a democracy. One man has the legal authority for the safety of the aircraft. If the captain is uneasy about conditions ahead and in his conscience feels he should take over, for whatever reason, (storms ahead, crosswind getting up, low vis, heavy rain over the airport, then he has a moral responsibility to act on that feeling and simply say "taking over". It really doesn't hurt at all.:ok:
If his first officer screams "FOUL" then stiff...

Well said, Tee Emm. :ok:

Tee Emm and Capn Bloggs-

Or the Captain, as pilot monitoring could have said "GO AROUND" when they got the EGPWS.

or he could have said "I have CONTROL"

I don't know if the weather conditions were so bad to preclude he FO from flying the sector or if the company SOPS had any ruling on weather conditions precluding the FO from landing.

The fact that the captain wasn't the pilot flying should have given him the situational awareness to see when the approach was going pear shaped and called for the go around.

That would still be acting like a Captain would it not? :ok:

Havoc,

that's what Tee Emm was saying.

It is reasonable to assume that the captain was more-skilled, and therefore, had he been flying the approach, wouldn't have placed them in a position where the GPWS was going to go off in the first place. That's what Tee Emm's thrust is. While the option to Go Around is always there, one doesn't deliberately increase the chance of having to do one by letting the FO do a difficult approach.

Possibly, they decided that a right circle with the FO flying was a better option than a left circle with the captain flying. In that case, that was what they were stuck with...

I wonder whether the circling approach off the DGA (a circling approach) was even briefed, or if they assumed they'd get to circling minima and continue straight in on 07 without any hassles.

I operate in an environment where, when possible, we conduct 50/50 operations (PF vs PM) - there is, however, no doubt as to who the captain is. Pre-briefing is a must - something along the lines of "The conditions are going to be a bit challenging - I'm sure you can handle it and I'd like to give you the chance to try, however if my comfort level is being stretched, I may take over - don't take this as a slight against your abilities, just understand that the responsibility is mine and I like to be conservative." This sort of "pre-brief" need probably only be given in such detail once with a new copilot - they understand the situation. Once the situation exceeds your comfort level, it can take more skill than one would desire to get it back on the rails. If you did end up having to take over, a post flight debrief would also be appropriate reinforcing the fact that you believe they could probably have handled it (if that's true!) but that your comfort levels were being stretched - if you didn't need to takeover, well, good job copilot!

Totally agree Jo, your ship, your responsibility.

But what if the shoe was on the other foot, and it was the skipper driving at the time, and this skipper was getting on in age a bit, but with prevailing weather conditions he found himself a little out of his depth, warnings going off, SOP's not being complied with, how should an FO respond to this scenario?

Quite succinct and accurate, moreover that would be as I expect it to be done.

Reading between the lines, it would appear that the approach, or more to the point the type of approach it turned into was inappropriate for the conditions (essentially benign with a bit of patchy cloud/fog about) e.g. bloody near a split arse turn!
Quite frankly I'm astounded that this type of maneuver was even contemplated..and speaks volumes about the company culture and the commanders mindset/comfort level in allowing it to continue.
The report reads like the two individuals concerned were PERFECTLY happy to pole the a/c about in this fashion....and only when the EGPWS started chirping was anything said, again for me..volumes being spoken right there.
I don't think this is an issue regarding PM v PF or PIC v 2IC, this has far more to do with a mindset and potentially a flight Ops culture, the reason I say potentially about the fly Ops culture is that the two individuals chose not to report the incident...

Flight ops culture?


You mean, too scared to report because of fear of the repercussions to the individual? or, no need to report because flight ops like you to "get the job done"?


On second thoughts, it doesn't matter, it's all bad either way.


Both have left, probably flying jets full of blissfully unaware people thinking they're in safe hands.

Metrodash....exactly, I have no idea what the Flt Ops culture is/was, but actions or inaction speaks louder than words.
It is very telling that they chose not to report the incident.

Bloggs- Not quite the same. I was referring to taking over when the approach became unstable. Tee Emm was inferring to not giving the FO the leg from the outset. Now I was not sure about the forecast or actual weather conditions, and I am not saying that a Captain shouldn't take the leg when he/she feels it is appropriate, but in this case I didn't see anything that would have warranted the Captain taking over the leg from the outset. (Unless the SOPS preclude an FO from doing a Non precision approach).
TM said
I don't agree that this was such an occasion.
Where the captain Did not use his airmanship or show command, was in not either calling for the go around, or taking control.
:)