They would be worried about getting fired/final warning for landing outside the touchdown zone, irrespective of how much runway was remaining. You have to put yourself in the mindset of a pilot operating in that working environment to understand their willingness to use Airmanship. It all depends on natural personality and how much one has to lose... very easy for us all to second guess an action/decision from a comfy armchair with all the evidence at hand.

True indeed. It's the alarming trend in the industry, DFDR monitoring is getting more punitive than improving the overall safety and airmanship.

GA is a simple maneuver, but when done at the end of a 12 hr duty period could be disastrous. Not to mention the previous accumulated jet lag/fatigue due.


Other day a QR pilot was shooting a VOR D ILS (with failed VOR D) and was so bothered about what missed approach to follow instead of concentrating on the approach. He was indeed cleared for Rnav approach and not ILS. :ugh:

Odins Raven, I'm sorry I wasn't more clear in the initial post. What I posted was what I would do, had I been the lawyer. It was an attempt to show how incompetent I deem this lawyer.

For myself, I wholeheartedly agree with you, the angle that will NEVER be looked at, is what influence the attitude of management had on the mindset of these pilots. I'm of the opinion that the blame culture, that is so common in the middle east, plays a big role in this accident. Yet, it hasn't even been mentioned in the preliminary report. I therefore believe that it won't even be looked at, by the investigators.

What I'd quite like to know is, in a hugely automated aircraft, which is supposed to have been designed to make life easier for the crew..

Why doesn't the TOGA button work after touchdown?

Considering you may still need to go around at that phase.

Why introduce a hole into the Swiss cheese?

The philosophy should be simple and unambiguous. If I want to go around, I press TOGA. At any time prior to commanding reverses open.

Too much of the automation is conditionally ambiguous. I'd love to see the results of an in depth tech exam on flight automation given to operating flight crew. Who thinks they would score 100%?

AfricanSkies,

I think the logic is that inevitably somebody is going to push those toga buttons when he is not on the runway, the outcome of which is unlikely to be good.

Of course Airbus doesn't have toga buttons.....really couldn't be any simpler than that. When the thrust lever hits the front stop toga is engaged.

Yes but those non-moving throttles are dangerous, everyone knows that :}

Kingair1978 has come close to identifying the actual reason for the accident as well as the probable result of the investigation. Sad but true.

AfricanSkies, I'm pretty sure that the Boeing engineers made a risk assessment and deemed it safer to NOT make it possible to engage TOGA if the plane was on the ground. If someone would press it on taxy out, you'd probably been asking the question the other way around.

Except for all those times its engaged automatically on the ground without warning, requiring a bulletin to mitigate it..

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think the 737 TOGA buttons work after touchdown.

Only for the first two seconds after touchdown and even then “the A/T may command GA thrust” (FCOM quote). Usually for non-LVO approaches A/T will be disconnected together with autopilot, so not really applicable to this scenario here.