I spent 9 joyous years at EK and, with respect, I don't recall it being pointed out to me.
Lets be clear we are talking about a rare but conceivable situation where you have transitioned to a manual approach with a certain MCP and F/D configuration. In this particular case you may intuitively incorrectly assume you are in SPD mode and/or that stall protection is available.
Not to confused with understanding what FLCH HOLD means.
No comments please about FMA monitoring etc! Not the point...

I respectfully disagree. It doesn't matter what MCP or F/D mode you are in. If the first word on the FMA is 'HOLD', the A/T is on but it will not 'wake up' and it offers no stall protection. There are a few different modes that will cause A/T HOLD and none are: Maybe I'm missing your point?

You'd have to go back a couple of pages, but here is an example of what I'm trying to say.
You are descending to an altitude in HOLD at idle. You are cleared a visual approach and, for arguments sake, inadvertantly set 0' on the MCP or wind it to a higher MAA.
You turn off your F/D but the PM forgets to cycle his so it remains on. You are a little hot and high and assume that the autothrottles are attempting to control speed in idle as you aim to be stable at 500'. Like they have done in every approach you've flown to date. You don't notice the FMA is still HOLD and assume it changed to SPD when you turned your F/D off.
When you lift the nose to intercept the glidepath from above speed decays rapidly ....:(
I have never seen this scenario happen; I'm surmising from the FCOM.
I'd be happy to be corrected.

Oy.

Standard ops: planning to do some manual manoeuvring? Both FDs off, PMs FD back on. "HOLD" cannot occur.


RTFM

HPSOV- Got you. That is an interesting one. Of course there are many ways that mistake could, and should, have been caught but it's an interesting way to get yourself in a predicament......

Dropp- I know what the manual says and these guys probably do too. That's not the point. If they followed the manual to the letter, they wouldn't have made the news. It's all just an exercise to see how a perfectly good airplane ended up written off with several dead and many injured. Did they make a mistake I might repeat? That's my interest.

I'm genuinely interested by this statement. I'm not Boeing bashing here but just want to compare SOPS. I seem to recall that on the 330/340 the PF would (on a visual or Non-ILS) call for FDs off and PNF would select BOTH off. I know the Autothrust systems are different but this technique would make sense anyway.

Happily the 380 has only one FD PB which sets both captain/FO FDs on or off at the same time.

Safe flying chaps..........

Correct ... when in Flight Envelope Protection (stall protection) mode the Autothrottle goes in SPD and on the FMA you'll see SPD.

In a normal descent when you select FLCH the FMA changes in FLCH SPD and the Autothrottle will change in either THR, IDLE, or HOLD. In FLCH the airplane will try to maintain the selected speed in MCP with the pitch attitude. The FMA will change into SPD when you reach and intermediate altitude but you are not in FLCH anymore since the Pitch changes into ALT

on the bus the A/T is on or off, makes it pretty simple, maybe on the john deere they should remove it at all if its too complicated for most of the drivers

Some gloating by the AB fraction here! You all forgot Bangalore, or may be you were still wearing Pampers then, but a perfectly working Bus went CFIT in India in Open Mode .... You can do that stunt in any aluminium tube! :ugh:

Oh, i forgot, maybe not in a king of the road, or should i say Road King? You know, the big fat and loud thing that is impressive on Route66, always first at the gas station, last on top of any small hill and not quite so impressive when you look at its mechanics.

The jockey from Asiana came from the Bus. Maybe in a flashback he thought everything was alright if the levers stay dead ..... Not to pretend that the AT from the T7 is a piece of art, it might need revisiting, but maybe Bus-drivers should be confined to just that, driving Buses and leave the handflying skilled guys on the John Deere. Maybe this would be a safer world ...... ;)

OH NO! Did someone blaspheme about the profit Boeing?

Think its safe to say no matter how smart and shiny the equipment is there is always someone who will find a way of making it dirty in the mud.

The Don

Good god Don, I'm agreeing with you again, whats the world coming too?

If these numpties just flew the aeroplane, 3 people wouldn't have died.

Airbus came 5 months later with the modification that fixed the problem and ever since not a single mishap.

Yah a limitation regarding the use of open descent during non precision approaches...ignore the limitation, and the same could happen..

I don't normally get involved in the Boeing vs Airbus debate....but Sandhound, seriously?...."GREAT PEACES OF JUNK"?

Your argument sounds like something I'd hear from an eight year old.

And you could also learn to spell.

Grow up chum.

Good thing a spelling test is not part of a PPC.

The system was mismanaged, kind of like blaming the cruise control on your car for going through a red light.

Smells like cow manure in here....

Honestly, who cares how many languages are spoken/written, its not indicative of your level of intelligence, the argument could be put forward "jack of all trades, master of none"

As to the AB/B debate, go and have a look at the AF threads, 1000's of posts and still it goes on. This accident, well, most of us are fairly certain we know the nuts and bolts of what happened.
The difference here is one of philosophy, I HAVE flown both AB and B along with other french jets and even a Dutch one, and my view is I prefer the conventional philosophy because it was how I was trained, the AB philosophy goes against many of the basic motor skills we all learnt when we first started flying which is why I don't like it, it doesn't matter if AB made it, Dassault or anyone else for that matter.

I thought the 777 had moving throttles and this is why it is superior to the AB, as pilots ALWAYS know what their throttles are going :confused:

Forget the moding, what if there had been a subtle failure or a ground system wasn't working as advertised? Isn't the pilot's job to scan the PFD, "Attitude, Height, Heading, Speed" and make certain they meet requirements? If the FD info is a tad off do we blindly follow it or "look through it" and make it work?

Best will in the world there will always be traps and failures that will catch pilots out but is it acceptable for a TRI and 2 other pilots to sit and watch a trainee fly 30kts below Vref?

If this had happened in an Airbus, Alpha Floor would have kicked in but what if it didn't? In any aircraft surely our expectation would have been a "Speed" call followed by someone moving the ^*+%#^% thrust levers or an actual pilot taking over.

I don't claim to be a sky god but the continuing dumbing down of our profession saps my will to live, the mistakes that are leading to deaths right now are those that any trained pilot had beaten out of them in their first 200 hours of aviation and have nothing to do with FMS and moding issues!

Happy to eat humble pie but on a CAVOK day, a crew with a perfectly working aircraft managed to miss a runway and kill and maim a bunch of people due to base incompetence. This is the third time it has happened this year and it is wholly unacceptable!

Looking through threads like this always leaves me wondering how it is possible for so many children to, apparently, be in charge of any airplane.

Uh oh. Sounds like another case of airliner operatives pretending to be pilots.;)

Doris Day does a good job
 

The good old days