A320 incident wrong lever in haste
 

Interesting, not surprised really as we are after all humans. I recall doing this exercise in the Sim years ago with no re-select of the flaps, sure got yr attention if you didn't firewall the bus (if not already) & lower the snout asap! Does show one thing though, with all the training, all the feel good CRM & multiple ground school feet putting to sleep days we can still stuff it up! Imagine how many similar acts are done daily world wide?

Very similar incident to a NJS Airlink BAe146 taking off out of Cairns in the nineties. Stick shaker and stick push activated. No immediate increase in thrust( flex thrust takeoff power).
ATC in tower hit the crash button as it disappeared (RWY 33) then watched it re-emerge from the hills.

There is also the selecting park brake instead of flap trick that will manifest itself as a very short field landing and blown tyres. Always a good lesson in confirming what you are doing with a lever before actioning the command.

Similar story except on short final in a Lincoln bomber at Townsville in the late 1950's. The pilot under instruction was our Commanding Officer, Wing Commander Cy Greenwood. He was a former prisoner of war of the Japs in 1943 after being shot down in his Beaufighter while strafing Jap float planes at Timor. The Japs weren't best pleased so they tortured him.

We were doing dual circuits in the Lincoln when he asked for full flap on final for runway 02 Townsville. The flap lever was a push/pull vertical selector with a neutral position after each flap selection.

I selected full flap for him and once the gauge showed full flap I selected the lever back to neutral as SOP. On very short final the Lincoln started to sink rapidly and fell out of the sky and bounced heavily.
The CO said "WTF" and firewalled all four engines and went around. Aircraft didn't have stick shakers in those days. The CO then asked for flap retraction as part of the go-around. I went to select flaps up then realised to my chagrin the flaps were already up.

Turned out when the CO had asked for full flap on final, I had inadvertently missed the neutral position of the flap lever and instead had selected flaps up. So the full flap landing turned out to be a flaps up landing but without increasing the Vref speed. The result was very heavy landing and very loud oaths by the CO and grovelling apologies by self the instructor..

Way back at what was probably the birth of human factors, flight crews confusing flap and gear levers was one of the first trends noticed by Dr Paul Fitts. That was back in 1947.

I'm barely into my PPL and can confirm that this almost happened to me already. We were taking off in a 152 and my instructor called for flaps to be raised in stages - instinctively my hand went to the flap lever, my eyes were on the horizon heads up and I "felt" my way to raising flap by 1 stage.

Cue my instructor shouting loudly and quickly snatching it out of my hand to lower to the correct position, luckily it hadn't had any adverse effects by the time he'd spotted it and intervened. I hadn't realised what I'd done wrong until we cleared busy airspace and he explained it to me. In fact we went to a safe altitude and he showed me exactly what happens when you go from full to 0 flap and just how much altitude you can lose.

I was also told it happens quite a lot, especially with students when calling a go around and I should always be on the lookout. Didn't realise even 320 pilots with that many hours could be susceptible too!

I've heard of a captain, in his haste, initiating an emergency descent mid Pacific Ocean following an unrelated cockpit aural warning.

If you are talking about retracting the flap from full down to up in one go in a Cessna 152, you shouldn't normally lose more than 100 feet of altitude providing you adjust the nose attitude up to cover the slight sink. Your instructor sounds like a panic merchant if he shouted loudly and snatched the flap lever out of your hand then climbed to a "safe" altitude. What did your instructor consider a "safe" altitude? Sounds like the instructor needs retraining.

It is only a Cessna 152 for goodness sake. Check the C152 Cessna Information manual where it states: In a baulked landing (go-around) climb the wing flap setting should be reduced to 20 degrees immediately after full power is supplied. Upon reaching a safe airspeed 55 knots wing flaps retract slowly.

He's not a panic merchant at all, he's a sensible guy who is safety conscious and taught me many things other instructors never pay attention too. I trust him over anyone else at the academy and at the end of the day, you weren't there and I don't have a robotic memory to give you a second by second account so you'll just have to trust that it was appropriate to the situation rather than being an armchair commentator.

Its "just" a 152 until you cock up and risk your own and/or someone else's life because you've not understood the impact of your actions. I'm well aware what the manual states and they don't reach it any differently, but that's not what I was talking about.

It has happened to me in an Avro RJ at lift off. I called for gear up and he put the flaps to zero. Experienced FO too, just a brain fart I guess. I concentrated on flying, he put the flap lever back to 18, no harm done.

I have noticed some crew, in excited anticipation of your next call, place their hand either on or very close to the controls, eg. flap lever. So guess what happens when you sneeze!!

Agree. Quite common observation in the simulator. Can be most distracting as well as potentially disastrous. Similar to a B737 PM backing up the thrust levers until V1 during the takeoff roll with his hand when it is unnecessary since there is no external friction nut like a DC3 where the throttles can slip back if the fiction nut is not working properly.

The danger of unnecessary backing up until V1 with the hand behind the thrust levers (or throttles with some types) in the 737, is that a sharp closing of the thrust levers by the PF if he perceives an abort is necessary and there is no time to politely request the PM to kindly gets his mitt out of the way so an abort can be accomplished without delay.. This may jam the PM's hand between the back edge of the thrust levers and the adjacent start levers. Very painful and worst case the PF may not be able to fully close the thrust levers to idle if the PM's hand is in the way.
There are so many gimmicks perpetuated by some pilots either brought across from previous types or copied during simulator training. While this all sounds a bit trivial now, it can be distracting to another crew member. A PM hovering over the controls with feet on the rudder pedals is another unnecessary and distracting habit one frequently sees in the simulator.

I move my hand to the vicinity if we are getting close to the limit speed. Both speeding up and slowing down. Is this not sensible to prevent an overspeed or ending up below speed? I don't physically touch it, never had anyone say anything.