flydubai upset
 

Any truth behind rumours in the souk that FZ recently very nearly lost another aircraft, seemingly due to a major 'upset' event during a go-around?
It was evidently a severe enough incident that there have even been suggestions FZ would be permanently closed down, rather than risk another incident that damages the brand of Dubai. By all accounts news about it has been locked down within FZ as well as by the powers that be in Dubai.

Tread lightly mate

If the airline was to be closed down, then it would be a tacit admission that something had in fact happened, which is actually the opposite of what they are trying to achieve here!

At least something positive has come from this whole episode and that is FZ stopping the practice of having two sets of flight deck crew on their longer night turnarounds, which saw one pair flying out of Dubai and the other, flying the leg back. I suspect there are now some nightstops in the 'Stans' as a result!

Night stops are cheaper then another hull loss.

Many airlines 'round with managers noddin' the head and with GCC passports disagree about it captain ....


Till the Hull loss.

27 out

The dreaded " its legal!" Used all the time in the ME . Get use to it or else .

The Me way. We will wait till we have a shed load full of Safety Reports and we have to act, or we have lost another aircraft....

The rostering system at FlyDubai is a point in case. The junior drivers are doing the difficult flights while the senior boys pick and choose the easy flights. Remember that when you next fly on FD next time.

Don't agree with that statement. For the very, very, very senior guys yes. For the rest of the senior guys not so much. Being here 6,7 or 8 years makes not so much of a differnce. Being 9 or 10 years here does. I'm senior and I'm doing a 8hr night return shortly. Did one last month and the month before too. And this is from a Captains perspective. Different ballgame for the FO's who gain seniority and a better roster (and annual leave!) much, much faster. With a normal crewing level the rostering system is actually fair and it works. And if you are junior then suck it up, do the nights or earlies and move up the ladder. I've done my fair share of sh*t. Many of us have and now finally reap the rewards of our seniority. That's how a seniority system works. Fair? Hell yes.

I can't help thinking that a "senior captain" who says that a seniority system which results in the junior guys (and least experienced) pilots going to the most difficult destinations whilst the senior (and most experienced) pilots can cherry pick the easy flights is a good system is showing a remarkably high level of self interest and a remarkably low level of care for flight safety or the travelling public in general. FZ has this seniority system for one reason, and that is to try to retain pilots without having to pay salary increments as a reward for length of service. And despite what High Energy says the junior pilots do get the difficult flights. My first flight after completing line training as a DEC (which consisted entirely of four sector days around the Gulf) was to Kabul, with a second officer who had also never seen the place. I was lucky in that I joined with 15000 + hours in world wide ops, with a lot of 737 time. But sending DECs with 3 or 4 thousand hour total time to some of the horrid places FZ operate to, especially in winter, whilst the experienced senior pilots are sitting around in hotels in Zanzibar or Prague shouldn't really be the purpose of retaining experienced pilots.

The only good thing at the moment is that with the max grounding the experience levels are going up, but once it starts flying again and DEC recruitment restarts because there isn't enough training capacity to do all the upgrades then the potential is there for more problems, just as it always has been.

Fair point but the thread was actually started to find out info on whether FD had nearly lost another aircraft in an upset. It is a rumour network after all and it would be nice to know.

True, however I was replying to another post and we had already gone off topic.

The best answer to the OPs question is probably post number 2. Those in Fz who know the answer will not say, and you can be very sure that if it happened it will be kept secret and won’t appear in the edited list of monthly ASRs which is distributed to the work force.

Upset
 

It happened, in a very similar way as in Rostov, it happened in DXB during go around, I’ve been told by a friend, a Captain who’s working there and, to answer the guy who said that the bidding system is fair, I can tell you that that system they use is the worst I’ve ever seen, that is one of the reason I left after three years, another reason was because of the easy upgrades they do there, I found it very dangerous and we saw the result unfortunately.

Fwiw, the latest info I've received is as follows:

The crew reported at around midnight and deadheaded on the first sector in economy for 4½ hours, getting zero rest, following which they operated the return sector back to Dubai.
They did their first go-around in DXB apparently due to rain on the runway. Standard missed approach.
They then tried another approach but went around again. During that second go-around they accepted a turn. During the turn the Captain evidently dived the aircraft towards the ground at approximately 4000 fpm rate of descent. The descent was arrested at approximately 1200ft AGL (evidently when somewhere overhead Mirdif).
During the recovery, the aircraft nose was pulled hard up generating an 8000 fpm rate of climb.
No doubt endeavouring to level off, a negative G was imposed on the airframe (one that required that the aircraft be grounded for inspection).
They came around for the 3rd approach and landed.
The crew have apparently been suspended.
Evidently, and iaw with the 'advice' from the GCAA, night deadheads have stopped and flight deck are now doing layovers instead. Daytime deadheads still happening but rumour has it they will stop soon too.

ATC should just shut up and let us fly away from the ground. At a safe altitude then speak to us. The old A,N,C has been replaced with C,C, N,A. EK521 is a prime example of poor SA by pilots and ATC.

You're correct that ATC shouldn't, and are trained not to, give instructions - especially complex ones - during critical phases but we as pilots can't adopt a finger pointing mentality. The go around path is protected by design and you wont hit anything or anyone if it's flown correctly. Accepting a turn or replying to ATC a few seconds later at the cost of ensuring a safe trajectory will harm nobody.

Correct, nor should you as a pilot talk to ATC before a safe trajectory is established, you know where you’re going, and safe alt is reached

Maybe this has less to do with fatigue and all with not being allowed to fly raw data and having to use a useless thing like a HUD...
Keep your crews proficient in stick and rudder and raw data flying!

Ice , I gather you are well versed in FZ Sop's ?

Is this a case where slavish adherence to modern technology is less safe than simple power and attitude aviating ?