EK407 - Tailstrike YMML 20 March
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Forced to resign by appalling management, given no choice at all. 
kers!!
Landing weight instead of Takeoff weight in the CDU it would appear.
All of this just goes to highlight how fatigued the crews are having flown long sectors with totally inadequate crew rest facilities. Not just to AUS but many other flights also.
Every day ASR's are being submitted about inadequate facilities and crew fatigue on the A380 but it's keeps on flying Long haul.
Any worthy Aviation Authority would put the aircraft short haul only until this was sorted out, but here in the "land of sand" the Tail wags the Dog!!!!
kers!!Landing weight instead of Takeoff weight in the CDU it would appear.
All of this just goes to highlight how fatigued the crews are having flown long sectors with totally inadequate crew rest facilities. Not just to AUS but many other flights also.
Every day ASR's are being submitted about inadequate facilities and crew fatigue on the A380 but it's keeps on flying Long haul.
Any worthy Aviation Authority would put the aircraft short haul only until this was sorted out, but here in the "land of sand" the Tail wags the Dog!!!!
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Landing weight instead of Takeoff weight in the CDU it would appear.
I know, it's easy sitting on my ( worn out ) leather coach BUT wouldn't one be alerted by the speeds computed by the FMC if like the 777 they appear at all before the pilots make their entries, specially for a 14 hours scheduled flight.
The difference in speed must me mamothal.
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Just for discussion purposes......
12,000ft runway, when you are past v1 and it is apparent you are running out of runway, at what point do you say F* this and go TOGA thrust? Of course I guessing that they were even using flex thrust?
12,000ft runway, when you are past v1 and it is apparent you are running out of runway, at what point do you say F* this and go TOGA thrust? Of course I guessing that they were even using flex thrust?
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Wow 5 pages of crap with very little substance,except wild conjectures about timing take offs & blame cultures. Again we, as a group, have proved to be nothing more than glorified drivers albeit with a very 1500s washer woman gossip vein.
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I don't know if the pilots in question have resigned or are operating 406 tomorrow morning.
But I would remind some here that, thanks to a post here on Pprune that proved to be totally without substance, everyone "knew" that the operating crew had been spirited out of Melbourne two hours after 407 returned to the gate "to escape the Australian autthorities".
I sincerely hope these stories of forced (or whatever) resignations also prove to be bollocks.
But I would remind some here that, thanks to a post here on Pprune that proved to be totally without substance, everyone "knew" that the operating crew had been spirited out of Melbourne two hours after 407 returned to the gate "to escape the Australian autthorities".
I sincerely hope these stories of forced (or whatever) resignations also prove to be bollocks.
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7x7, unfortunately they are true, 2 hrs after they got back to dubai they had a meeting with the horse, TCAS and some more (no tea or biscuits) and were told to resign.
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Puff, I think what you are trying to say is that they put the ZFW into the laptop rather than the TOW. The MCDU would have had the correct weights in, but that makes no difference if the Laptop figs are wrong.
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Me Myself,
If its what you say; about 25kts slow on rotate, 30 slow on green dot and if it was inserted in the FMS wrong it would have shown them arriving with about 50 tons of fuel. The procedure should have trapped it but didn't and the wrong numbers clearly meant nothing. The 407 is quite a nice flight from the fatigue point of view, 36hr layover so maybe we could blame blind reliance on computers versus crew awareness. I bet they weren't planning to screw up.
If its what you say; about 25kts slow on rotate, 30 slow on green dot and if it was inserted in the FMS wrong it would have shown them arriving with about 50 tons of fuel. The procedure should have trapped it but didn't and the wrong numbers clearly meant nothing. The 407 is quite a nice flight from the fatigue point of view, 36hr layover so maybe we could blame blind reliance on computers versus crew awareness. I bet they weren't planning to screw up.
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I posted a similar question in the R&N thread, with no response:
I would assume that risk assessment work has been done on a procedure that delays rotation until near the end of the available runway for every take-off? If so, have the numbers been disseminated (as, clearly, the crew are going to wear the risk/consequences). Is the safety department going to look at it again? Given that the cost of it (the procedure) going wrong is pretty high, and potentially enormous, it would have to be saving a lot of money to make it worth it. Is it?
I realise that we all get told to "just do things" in any job. Which would be fine if the company held the risk (as it should).
I would assume that risk assessment work has been done on a procedure that delays rotation until near the end of the available runway for every take-off? If so, have the numbers been disseminated (as, clearly, the crew are going to wear the risk/consequences). Is the safety department going to look at it again? Given that the cost of it (the procedure) going wrong is pretty high, and potentially enormous, it would have to be saving a lot of money to make it worth it. Is it?
I realise that we all get told to "just do things" in any job. Which would be fine if the company held the risk (as it should).
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Wrong weights in the laptop/FMC giving the wrong performance figures? Nah. Surely not possible. Too many mistakes required, (ie TOW in the laptop and ZFW in the FMC), too many Gross Error (Negligence) Checks (GENC) required to be overlooked, (green dot check etc).
BUT..
This is from a Boeing pilot's point of view. My Airbus mates are at work so haven't had a chance to collaborate to see if the same error could be made.
Once the assumed temperature is typed into the Boeing FMC, there is at no stage a requirement to double check it, nor is there a GENC to make sure you have typed in the correct figure.
For example:
Correct TOW put in laptop, gives the numbers AT:43 v1:170 vr:180 v2:184 vref:170
The numbers are then put into the FMC starting with the ZFW. GENC #1 makes sure the TOW in the FMC compares to the laptop and loadsheet.
Next, capt calls 'assumed temp', effoh reads from the laptop '43'. Capt accidently hits 73. The 4 and the 7 are after all, very close together on the keypad. The effoh was watching, but with '43' in his head and 'something 3' on the FMC, looks down at the laptop to check the next number the capt is about to ask for.
I don't know exact % N1 these assumed temperatures relate to. A quick check on my last flight showed 86% for 73, and 101% for 43. There are a lot of factors including engine type, ambient temp etc which change these numbers. But these are good enough for my 'example'. There is however, no requirement to check that the N1 the FMC calculates, corresponds to the N1 the laptop calculated. Is it done? My experience is occasionally yes, mostly no. Would this catch the error? Yes.
The capt then presses r6 (takeoff ref), next page, and states 'eng out acceleration height', effoh reads back the numbers. Normal thrust reduction and acceleration are read back, capt presses next page and states 'flaps'. Effoh reads off the laptop.
I know you're about to say.. "The '73' is sitting there blaringly obvious on the second line!". But there is no requirement to read this number out, nor to check against the number in laptop. Perhaps reading this out and comparing against the laptop is the GENC we need. "Yeh but you'd see it there" is the next argument. If you can quote to me off the top of your head EXACTLY what is written on L3-L6 of that page, then I believe you. But the fact remains, for the rest of us, if we don't read it out aloud, while we may see it there, we don't ever 'see it'.
Correct CG, v1, vr, v2 are then all entered, with the GENC #2 against vref, checking out with a big thumbs up.
Move forward now to the 'takeoff review', (for non-ek peeps it's a spiel the PNF gives to the PF during a 'quiet' part of the taxi, essentially GENC #3). We check: rwy, flaps, v2, FMA modes, initial alt, hdg/trk, SID and SSR code. Essentially we now are triple checking EVERYTHING that is important for the takeoff, except for the assumed temperature or N1 %.
Lined up on the rwy, hit the TOGA button, the power comes up, and you trundle down a 3.5km runway waiting for the correctly calculated and entered v1 and vr. I'm not going to speculate as to what happened in the cockpit of ek407. The facts are that somewhere very near the end of the rwy, rotation was attempted and the aircraft got off the ground.
That's my very plausible theory. Needless to say, nowadays I check the FMC N1 and the laptop's N1 correlate.
BUT..
This is from a Boeing pilot's point of view. My Airbus mates are at work so haven't had a chance to collaborate to see if the same error could be made.
Once the assumed temperature is typed into the Boeing FMC, there is at no stage a requirement to double check it, nor is there a GENC to make sure you have typed in the correct figure.
For example:
Correct TOW put in laptop, gives the numbers AT:43 v1:170 vr:180 v2:184 vref:170
The numbers are then put into the FMC starting with the ZFW. GENC #1 makes sure the TOW in the FMC compares to the laptop and loadsheet.
Next, capt calls 'assumed temp', effoh reads from the laptop '43'. Capt accidently hits 73. The 4 and the 7 are after all, very close together on the keypad. The effoh was watching, but with '43' in his head and 'something 3' on the FMC, looks down at the laptop to check the next number the capt is about to ask for.
I don't know exact % N1 these assumed temperatures relate to. A quick check on my last flight showed 86% for 73, and 101% for 43. There are a lot of factors including engine type, ambient temp etc which change these numbers. But these are good enough for my 'example'. There is however, no requirement to check that the N1 the FMC calculates, corresponds to the N1 the laptop calculated. Is it done? My experience is occasionally yes, mostly no. Would this catch the error? Yes.
The capt then presses r6 (takeoff ref), next page, and states 'eng out acceleration height', effoh reads back the numbers. Normal thrust reduction and acceleration are read back, capt presses next page and states 'flaps'. Effoh reads off the laptop.
I know you're about to say.. "The '73' is sitting there blaringly obvious on the second line!". But there is no requirement to read this number out, nor to check against the number in laptop. Perhaps reading this out and comparing against the laptop is the GENC we need. "Yeh but you'd see it there" is the next argument. If you can quote to me off the top of your head EXACTLY what is written on L3-L6 of that page, then I believe you. But the fact remains, for the rest of us, if we don't read it out aloud, while we may see it there, we don't ever 'see it'.
Correct CG, v1, vr, v2 are then all entered, with the GENC #2 against vref, checking out with a big thumbs up.
Move forward now to the 'takeoff review', (for non-ek peeps it's a spiel the PNF gives to the PF during a 'quiet' part of the taxi, essentially GENC #3). We check: rwy, flaps, v2, FMA modes, initial alt, hdg/trk, SID and SSR code. Essentially we now are triple checking EVERYTHING that is important for the takeoff, except for the assumed temperature or N1 %.
Lined up on the rwy, hit the TOGA button, the power comes up, and you trundle down a 3.5km runway waiting for the correctly calculated and entered v1 and vr. I'm not going to speculate as to what happened in the cockpit of ek407. The facts are that somewhere very near the end of the rwy, rotation was attempted and the aircraft got off the ground.
That's my very plausible theory. Needless to say, nowadays I check the FMC N1 and the laptop's N1 correlate.
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...you received a final ZFW...
you calculated your fuel figures and your TOW/LW...
you go to your laptop/EFB and get all your figures,cross-checked...
when the loadsheet prints out,its time to insert all the datas in the CDU to feed the FMC...
here is a great time to trap any bug:you insert the ZFW from the loadsheet in the CDU,then check the fuel displayed at 3 different locations:
EICAS,CDU and OFP...
with the ZFW and the very crosschecked fuel you got a Ramp weight which must match with the laptop/EFB (plus taxi fuel...) TOW...
at this stage you might have trapped IMHO any mistake.
In addition,a gross idea of the speeds can help...the 130's/150's and 170's speeds can be expected if light medium or heavy (talking about B777)...
Adding too many checks on top of that might be confusing and be another source of error.
For the MEL guys,wish you a warm compassionate good luck.
you calculated your fuel figures and your TOW/LW...
you go to your laptop/EFB and get all your figures,cross-checked...
when the loadsheet prints out,its time to insert all the datas in the CDU to feed the FMC...
here is a great time to trap any bug:you insert the ZFW from the loadsheet in the CDU,then check the fuel displayed at 3 different locations:
EICAS,CDU and OFP...
with the ZFW and the very crosschecked fuel you got a Ramp weight which must match with the laptop/EFB (plus taxi fuel...) TOW...
at this stage you might have trapped IMHO any mistake.
In addition,a gross idea of the speeds can help...the 130's/150's and 170's speeds can be expected if light medium or heavy (talking about B777)...
Adding too many checks on top of that might be confusing and be another source of error.
For the MEL guys,wish you a warm compassionate good luck.
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at this stage you might have trapped IMHO any mistake
Let's face it we all make mistakes, that's just a simple fact of life .
The Emirates "safety culture" is a throwback of a 60's management style and as a consequence when an incident happens those that err suffer.
We all want safe , incident free flying but when something goes wrong that impinges on a safe operation are we able to report it an open and honest way?
I think that answer is a big fat NO.
We all have a laugh at the "ridiculous" ASR's , you know the ones the ones I mean , rather than look at the reason for these all we get is "Your ASR has been filed for statistical purposes" and then gets forgotten about.
We should thanks these guys because they are the ones highlighting potential traps for us all.
Some companies have have a regular safety digest that highlights common SOP errors, airports and tech problems that have caused regular problems ,some even give reports on line-check and PPC issues as well.
On many occasion I have thought about filing an ASR but for the reasons highlighted above have decided not to. I just don't want to expose myself any more than I have to EK's management or safety ethos, " shoot first don't ask questions later".
The problems stem for upper management, I don't know which level but TCAS, ED and others hide behind "pressure from above" . I have no way of knowing if this is true, I doubt any of us do, but I flew with a reasonably well connected cadet recently and his attitude to the MEL guys confirms my worst my fears about Emirates and long term future here.
He was, and I am sure he just repeating what he has heard from our "respected" leaders , (and I don't mean at high level ,TCTC or AAR, ) convinced that we have nothing to learn, we have SOP's to cover this and that they screwed up and should be punished . Any sort of argument against this thought process was met with more or less a blank stare.
We have been very lucky to have had a serious incident with no loss of life.
So what their was damage to a piece of tin, bit of filler and a paint touch up and good as new gov.
This should be a huge f###ing wake-up call, a sheik up is needed in safety , flight training, rostering, in fact every department that had a hand in this incident.
But no , much easier to have two convenient fall guys.
Let's just hope the Aussies run true to form and run a thorough investigation.
p.s
How often are you in the reds on take-off in a heavy 500 just as you rotate ? These guys didn't stand a chance of recovering their mistake that late in the day when they realized .
I think some sort of performance monitoring system would have saved them, will we ever get one? Who knows ,but who 30 or even 20 years ago would of thought we would have such magic as TCAS, RAAS, EGPWS ?
The Emirates "safety culture" is a throwback of a 60's management style and as a consequence when an incident happens those that err suffer.
We all want safe , incident free flying but when something goes wrong that impinges on a safe operation are we able to report it an open and honest way?
I think that answer is a big fat NO.
We all have a laugh at the "ridiculous" ASR's , you know the ones the ones I mean , rather than look at the reason for these all we get is "Your ASR has been filed for statistical purposes" and then gets forgotten about.
We should thanks these guys because they are the ones highlighting potential traps for us all.
Some companies have have a regular safety digest that highlights common SOP errors, airports and tech problems that have caused regular problems ,some even give reports on line-check and PPC issues as well.
On many occasion I have thought about filing an ASR but for the reasons highlighted above have decided not to. I just don't want to expose myself any more than I have to EK's management or safety ethos, " shoot first don't ask questions later".
The problems stem for upper management, I don't know which level but TCAS, ED and others hide behind "pressure from above" . I have no way of knowing if this is true, I doubt any of us do, but I flew with a reasonably well connected cadet recently and his attitude to the MEL guys confirms my worst my fears about Emirates and long term future here.
He was, and I am sure he just repeating what he has heard from our "respected" leaders , (and I don't mean at high level ,TCTC or AAR, ) convinced that we have nothing to learn, we have SOP's to cover this and that they screwed up and should be punished . Any sort of argument against this thought process was met with more or less a blank stare.
We have been very lucky to have had a serious incident with no loss of life.
So what their was damage to a piece of tin, bit of filler and a paint touch up and good as new gov.
This should be a huge f###ing wake-up call, a sheik up is needed in safety , flight training, rostering, in fact every department that had a hand in this incident.
But no , much easier to have two convenient fall guys.
Let's just hope the Aussies run true to form and run a thorough investigation.
p.s
How often are you in the reds on take-off in a heavy 500 just as you rotate ? These guys didn't stand a chance of recovering their mistake that late in the day when they realized .
I think some sort of performance monitoring system would have saved them, will we ever get one? Who knows ,but who 30 or even 20 years ago would of thought we would have such magic as TCAS, RAAS, EGPWS ?
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145qrh,
Indeed...Ek's management style is called : management by fear. Just read commercial update #44 again. It ends with : Our Chief Pilot team will continue to monitor and discuss extra fuel awareness with those pilots that appear to be having difficulty determining adequate fuel required. . Now if that's not a threat..... Makes you wonder what is important, dollars or safety.
Let's hope the aussies start digging....The fact that nobody got hurt this time might just prevent them from going deep enough (again)...
My thoughts are with the crew. They have my respect. They made a pretty grave (unintentional!) mistake but at the end of the day they saved 250 souls by selecting TOGA somewhere during the accelleration.
Indeed...Ek's management style is called : management by fear. Just read commercial update #44 again. It ends with : Our Chief Pilot team will continue to monitor and discuss extra fuel awareness with those pilots that appear to be having difficulty determining adequate fuel required. . Now if that's not a threat..... Makes you wonder what is important, dollars or safety.
Let's hope the aussies start digging....The fact that nobody got hurt this time might just prevent them from going deep enough (again)...
My thoughts are with the crew. They have my respect. They made a pretty grave (unintentional!) mistake but at the end of the day they saved 250 souls by selecting TOGA somewhere during the accelleration.