VA Captain stands crew down after bungled approach
 

Another close call. We seem to have a problem in this country with poor check and training standards being applied to these Cadet schemes which is creating continued problems. Jetstar and Virgin clearly are not putting in the adequate resources for the successful running of the programs. Easyjet and Ryanair nail this.

https://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetal...captain-stand/

Despite the cock-up, Kudos to the Capt. for having the balls to knock-off on the following flights - a lot of Aussies would have carried on with the usual 'she'll be right mate' attitude

From the previous occurrences section of the report:

Same day, same airport, same runway. Weird

Is this just another excuse for cadet-bashing? Where's the evidence that the FO was a cadet, or if they were that was a factor in this incident? And, considering a before landing checklist should include a requirement for both pilots to check flap setting why aren't we holding the Captain partially responsible for the mistake as well?

If anyone reads through ATSB history there's been plenty of cock ups by flight crews of all different backgrounds, as mentioned there was a 737 with, I assume, an experienced crew who made an approach with an incorrect flap setting the very same day. But it seems some have an axe to grind whenever they think something bad has been committed by one of those dastardly "cadets".

Maybe.
Why do the ATSB not include the pilot Hours and licence type as standard?

It was supposed to be a demonstration of a flapless landing to the student,
but they forgot to switch EGPWS off, just like doing the checklist.

Final cross check
 

For what it's worth, Air Niugini had the "500 feet" call. Even though a conventional checklist had been read and completed, the crew would cross check with each other that gear, flaps and props (turboprops) or gear flaps and liftdumpers (F28) were set.
I believe this was a good procedure, but I haven't seen any other operators use it.

Puff checks, great solution! (Genuinely I still do it silently every approach) perhaps the experience of not being a cadet (dr dre)

Alive and well

I see eyes darting and people doing these checks to themselves all the time.

My personal TLA is the FUC check; Flaps Undercarriage Clearance - oK

Doesnt mean you wont get distracted from it every now and then - thats how the cheese holes line up.

What BS from BS. Talk about an armchair QB.

And so the slices of swiss cheese operated as intended, and nobody was hurt.

It must be a slow news week for BS to pick on another airline other than QF.

I guess if Crikey (or any news mob) employed an aviation journalist who actually knew something about aviation, they wouldn't sell any news. It would be too boring to sell.

Cadet Pilot or not, there will always be flights with inexperienced pilots Capt/Co-pilot on board. You have to start somewhere. In this instance the mistake was handled correctly.
My Company starts 250 odd hour Cadet pilots straight onto A320 series in two crew ops. But, they complete about 50 sectors Line training with Training pilots before ,if to the required standard, released to the Line. And the for the first 6 months only rostered with Captains of at least a year LHS time.
My first time flying a real B744 was as Capt. on a full 350+ pax trip, with a Trainer in the RHS of course. Its probably not thing you would announce though on your PA to the pax!!
.

So in my little C172, doing a flapless approach, I shouldn't be hearing the stall warner after flaring just off the ground? and I am about to cause a major catastrophe? jeez, I've been taught wrong :}

Delta T, you'd be in a world of pain with a 20T aircraft flying an approach speed designed for flaps full, flapless.

We all know what happened to the Colgan air, although slightly different reasons for the stall.

So the Training Captain was showing a Flapless approach to the trainee? I find that hard to believe and if that was indeed the case it would be outside the Isarps for a simulator supported aircraft.

The ATSB have bungled this again. Obviously , when it makes contact with the ground, it is no longer actually flying.

Have you read the report coaldemon?

Yes, you do have to start somewhere. But that shouldn't be the right seat of an airliner!

Kindly explain how someone with 1500 hours flying a Cessna becomes a safer airline pilot than someone with 200 hours flying a Cessna? Everyone who flies an airliner knows that it’s not the same as flying a Cessna.

I can't see the problem here. An honourable captain feels his handling was not up to scratch and he grounds himself. That's fine, that's his call. But from the little information we have I'd suggest that it would have been handled differently where I work. Following such an event this guy would have been assured that we all foul up from time to time. So long as nothing else was untoward he wounded have been asked to have put in an ASR and if HE wished he could have had a chat with someone. Job done. As it was, the ATSB though this worthy of a mini investigation and came up a conclusion most pilots would have predicted beforehand. So be it.

But quite where a lack of proper training standards or having low hour pilots flying simple to fly public transport aircraft fits in gets me. This was a simple cock-up that went unrecognised by two parties that was recovered in a proper manner. The reality is that this sort of thing happens to everybody every now and again and even in Australia. I'll bet both learnt a great deal from this, as will we all, and neither of them will do this again. Best of luck to the them.

PM

PM

They don't. As long as the initial selection and training of the 200hr pilot is done to a high level, they can achieve airline standards. Some will argue that 1500hrs of light aircraft flying gives you "command experience and decision making abilities", which is invalid because flying a light aircraft isn't like flying an airliner, you're going to be waiting as an FO for a considerable amount of time and picking up your command judgement that way anyway, and there's been hundreds if not thousands of airline captains in Australia who didn't have that "required command experience" when they joined an airline and they're doing just fine.

The real reason they say it is jealousy, some are just jealous that cadets don't have to do the so called "hard yards", that they get into an airline at a younger age generally than they do. This might trigger a lot of people here but that's the truth. Don't think these cadet programs have just popped up in the last couple of years, there have been cadets flying as captains of Australian airliners for over 50 years safely.

You're not dealing with 1500 hour direct entry FOs with Cessna time.

You're dealing with 3000+ hour regional captains. These guys did the 1500 hours on Cessnas, 500 on twins, plus a couple of thousand on turboprops....

Dr dre. There are a few important caveats in your post.

I'd argue that it's not. Once upon a time airline cadetships included aerobatics, multi crew ops in an aeroplane as well as hours that exceeded the minimum by a fair margin. The QF cadetships of the early '90s exceeded the 150 hour CPL by at least 50%. I think the syllabus was closer to 235 hours and included at least 10 hours multi crew in a Citation and 15 hours aerobatics. It's been a while since I've reviewed the syllabus but I suspect cadetships these days are done more to a min standard than aiming to exceed that standard by 50%.

After two years in the back seat of a 744 I undertook F/O training on the 767. Sure, the standard expected was the same. Sure, the training pathway was the same- though a few of us (me included) needed some extra training at various stages of the training pathway.

Sure, when I checked to line I was expected to perform and meet the same minimum standard as everyone else. So when I checked I was raw and on a very steep learning curve. I knew it. The Captains I flew with knew it. I still come across many of them these days and I make sure I thank them for their patience with a young Keg.

That's a very different thing though to suggesting I was as capable as the ex regional F/O or Captain. To be frank, the assertion that within those first couple of years as a new F/O I was as capable as those guys is simply fanciful. Maybe I could fly an ILS better than some of them. Maybe I could manage some aspects of the flight better. In general though I understood that I was approaching the job at a deficit of experience compared to others. That's OK. I wasn't in competition with them. No one is in competition with anyone else in this gig.

Interestingly though I disagree that the RHS of an airliner is the right place for a freshly minted cadet to learn the job. They should be in the back seat for a couple of years learning the culture of the job and watching a couple of more experienced crew go about their business. They should be building up their exposure to multiple airline scenarios before taking on the added responsibility of being in the front seat.

You may be right about eh jealousy aspect. It is as prevalent now as it was back when I came through the system in the early '90s. However someone being jealous doesn't change the reality that being in the front seat of a jet when you've bugger all experience behind you (and a training course that is not as robust as those in the past) increases the risk considerably.

So to summarise:
1. Cadets are assessed to the same minimum standard as everyone else. That is good.
2. This does not mean cadets are as good as everyone else assessed to the minimum standard.
3. A cadet who doesn't understand the difference between those two points is dangerous.
4. Someone being jealous is irrelevant to how good an individual pilot is.

A training captain showing a flapless approach to a trainee F/O. Where do you guys get this rubbish from!

Excellent post Keg.:ok:

The thing here is Jetstar is not doing this. They are hiring people like ex Rex Captains or FO's with 3000-10000hrs.

1500hrs on Cessna or Pipers or whatever wont get you a job there. Im not exactly sure where you would get a Airbus job with those hours either as a direct entry. Try Vietnam mabye.

Disagree. If you are flying charter/RPT that will give some exposure to exactly the same decision making that you will make as an airline pilot. Yes you are right that it is not the same however it is similar and the decisions are the same just less complicated.
Also if you are an FO your arse is not on the line. THAT fact alone changes everything. No one is there to save you when you are PIC regardless of the size of your machine. The theory I assume for the cadets is they hire well above average ability and give them allot of time to get up to speed. This doesn't help the PIC if the cadet is in the RHS and something serious happens early on.

Funnily enough the original QF cadetships 50+ years ago sent their protégés off to GA to start with.

Don't quite understand cancelling the next two sectors and inconveniencing a lot of pax plus the knock-on effect. They weren't going to make the same mistake again.
Was there more to it than is mentioned here?

Keg - Your post is spot on! Basil - I don't understand that either. Maybe it's a reflection on the safety culture at VA. Slightly more interesting is the article refererred to by the OP. It is clearly written by a complete knob who appears not to have understoof the report by the ATSB. His article makes it clear that he can not understand how mistakes are made. Failure to understand this means he can never, ever be part of any solution. Safety is the result of not only people getting things right, but also people reacting correctly after things have gone wrong.

PM

Could not agree more with you Keg, that is the crux of the issue in my opinion.

Also one fact that people overlook in regards to Flying Experience prior to entering an Airline is exposure to the real world in a smaller dose. I'm from the current "Younger Generation" and I know that a lot of us approach Simulators a lot differently to our older comrades, it's more of a game to us, it's not life or death necessarily, it's something to pass which means that when push comes to shove and you're sitting in an Aircraft, whilst you have done the training, passed and even have some experience, how do you really know how you'll react when all of a sudden it hits you that this is for real now?

How will that Cadet react when the proverbial really hits the fan and they've got sensations they've never felt before, the fight or flight instinct kicks in, the sound, the way your body feels, it can all be extremely different, there's only so much a Simulator can really Simulate. It's at that point either the Cadet is suitably ready and assists the Captain in getting the bird back on the ground or perhaps, they're not... Not the best place to be finding that out I'd dare say.

I really thought this was obvious. Because it's classified as an incident. The crew would have been stood down regardless of if the Captain had stood himself down, until they were cleared to return back to the line by CP/safety department post incident. Do you think that EK crew that buried the 777 just jumped in the next jet and continued on their merry way too?

Incidents and Accidents both have requirements before returning back to line.

Additionally, hasn't there been enough cadet bashing threads for you guys? I'm surprised you're not sick of complaining about them or minimum standards. :rolleyes:

Oh I agree. If you're going to do a proper Cadetship to a high level, it isn't just a basic 150hr CPL course. Having a look at some of the European cadet programs include that additional training like courses that last 30 months, high use of full motion simulators throughout training, doing IR in a 10 seat twin turbine, more in depth theory exams and doing actual base training in a real jet. That's what any proper program should be comprised of.

No, sorry if I misled you, I don't believe a 200hr cadet is at the same level as an experienced regional turboprop pilot when going into a jet. I was comparing a 1500hr pilot who'd flown single pilot ops only vs a well trained cadet entering at the regional turboprop level. I'm basing my theory on an ATSB study I saw a little while back on experienced pilots vs cadets, and a quote from a manager at Rex published in a magazine article who stated that they see higher performance from the cadets over more experienced recruits after about a year or two of line flying. And some comments I've received from experienced captains who did plenty of flying in GA prior to airlines.

Now as to whether a cadet is similar in standard to a high houred pilot at the jet level? I'm not completely sure, I'll point to the European cadet programs that successfully put ab initio cadets into the right hand seat of jets, albeit after having completed much more training than the standard 150hr CPL. They are obviously on the correct path. Are the standards seen here in Australia as well? I don't have any info on that one way or the other.

Flap 0 vs 30? Overspeed without checking flap settings? That big white handle location isnt too difficult to misread..

Perhaps the Cpt was being polite in standing down, rather than say I am not flying with stoopid?

http://finleyquality.net/wp-content/...-Controls1.jpg

Basil and Piltdown.

This a few years past but from what I recall of my time at VA, Their FDAP/FOQA program assigns a level of increasing seriousness to all events where SOP's aren't adhered to, for whatever reason....stupidity, negligence, bad luck, etc.

If something happens, at a certain level and it's decided that there's going to be an investigation by the "wonderful" VA safety department, you're automatically stood down/removed from flight duties regardless of whether you actually ended up doing the right thing or what you've been trained to do.

To be fair to VA, I think I was told it's more a CASA requirement.

Yes the crew c0cked up but they recognized the error and took correct and prompt action. Isn't that what we're all trained to do when we make an error? But like all things Australian it's far easier to make a mountain out of a molehill.

To be fair to CASA, regulators anywhere would want to know what an Airline's SMS does in circumstances like this. If the answer from Airline Management the following Monday when the inquiry came from the Regulator was " Yeah he came close to losing it but he caught it in time so we let him continue" would not be received well. Stand down would be expected by the regulator with an investigation to follow. If it was a case of flouting SOPs by showing Flapless approaches to trainees in the aircraft then it would be Just Culture time I would say.

Agree with the Safety department comment though. They have not got a good rep in house.

Stop banging on about a demo flapless! The report clearly states what the captain called for.

Here you go again.

The only person being 'triggered' around here is you, the second any critical comment about cadets is made.

The reality is, whilst cadets are here to stay, a fresh cadet is not to the same standard or proficiency as an experienced direct entry in the context of a first jet position for the first year or so. As I said in my earlier reply to you, JQ's training program and limitations for line FO's are very different between cadets and direct entries. Different training hours (double), different crosswind limits, different runway length limits and on.

There is a reason for this. Care to take a guess?

In time, no question cadets come up to standard, but the biggest complaint I hear on the line from captains often isn't even technical proficiency, but attitude. You've demonstrated that nicely.

How are you determining successful?
There has never been a Jet Hull loss by an Australian airline. (Yes, we may have come close)
How many Jet Hull losses have there been in European airlines?
I know this is simplistic but it's a fact.

Let's be honest with the real reason people don't like cadets.

When you meet in flight planning for the first time and do the intros it inevitably comes around to what were you doing before this? The cadet has a freaking boring story!! Oh cool you flew a C172 for 150 hours! Amazing....

Who doesn't prefer a bit of a Kunnanurra, Broome or Alice Springs story involving various European backpackers! Plus the potential story of there I was and it was all going wrong!

(Also, anyone who says a cadet is equal to someone who has real world experience (on day one in a passenger jet) has rocks in their head)