Safety: Does attitude count for more than experience?
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I consider myself a 'safe' pilot certainly non adventurous. However in my flying life I have to admit that twice I have found myself in a situation where I realised that my own actions have placed me in a situation where I was at risk. I resolved each by staying cool but fully understand how easy it would be to let it all be too much.
I like to think that these incidents did me more good than harm as I will never allow myself to get in the same position again.
However times a mother tells her child not to stick his fingers in the fire he will only refrain after he has actually done it!
Because of this fact of life I tend to agree that simulator training for GA pilots would be a very good thing.
I like to think that these incidents did me more good than harm as I will never allow myself to get in the same position again.
However times a mother tells her child not to stick his fingers in the fire he will only refrain after he has actually done it!
Because of this fact of life I tend to agree that simulator training for GA pilots would be a very good thing.
Biscuit74
I remember attending a CAA safety evening about ten years ago and a chap in the front row went in like a tent peg the week after. Apparently a classic CFIT in crap weather.
I also remember on one of my first ever CAA safety evenings and during a talk by the CAA's chief Medical examiner, one unlucky (or lucky?) pilot in the audience suffered some kind of seizure or fit, suffice to say his flying days were rsther curtailed.
I remember attending a CAA safety evening about ten years ago and a chap in the front row went in like a tent peg the week after. Apparently a classic CFIT in crap weather.
I also remember on one of my first ever CAA safety evenings and during a talk by the CAA's chief Medical examiner, one unlucky (or lucky?) pilot in the audience suffered some kind of seizure or fit, suffice to say his flying days were rsther curtailed.
Skywalker -
Gosh. Ten years ago. How time flies. Oops. It may well have been nearly that long ago I was last at a CAA Safety Meeting. I usually forgot or didn't bother to take my logbook along anyway, so can't check.
Interesting you describe it as a 'tent peg'. We used to view that as the last aerobatic maneouvre, whereas stuffing yourself into the cumulo granitus was an error of an entirely different though equally dangerous kind!
IO540 - what other reasons, you intrigue me?
Personally I've long felt that reading the AAIB Accident Reports is a good thing. Some salutary lessons, often of the 'there but for the grace....' style.
Learning from the errrors of others can be a great help & a lot less painful than doing them all yourself.
Gosh. Ten years ago. How time flies. Oops. It may well have been nearly that long ago I was last at a CAA Safety Meeting. I usually forgot or didn't bother to take my logbook along anyway, so can't check.
Interesting you describe it as a 'tent peg'. We used to view that as the last aerobatic maneouvre, whereas stuffing yourself into the cumulo granitus was an error of an entirely different though equally dangerous kind!
IO540 - what other reasons, you intrigue me?
Personally I've long felt that reading the AAIB Accident Reports is a good thing. Some salutary lessons, often of the 'there but for the grace....' style.
Learning from the errrors of others can be a great help & a lot less painful than doing them all yourself.
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I think the psychology of some accidents is fascinating.
Take the Colgan 3407 accident I referred to at the start of this thread.
The starting point would seem to have been an experienced crew working together in a multi crew commercial environment. It would also seem to include a fully serviceable aircraft operating in conditions which really couldn’t be described as anything other than benign (the risk of very light ice accretion on the approach with nothing to suggest this was any more than expected or had any direct impact on the aircraft). If that is all we knew (as would be the case had it been a light aircraft) the accident would have been a complete mystery and left us wondering how an experienced crew managed to stall in these circumstances. I guess we would have suspected some catastrophic mechanical failure.
In reality it would seem the explanation was much simpler. In fact the crew literally caused the aircraft to stall too close to the ground by pulling back hard on the yoke.
Now it would seem that there was at least one much earlier warning that there were some deficiencies in the commanders flying skills. Apparently while he had not failed any sim checks on three occasions in the recent past he had had issues and had required further review.
The aircraft was fully established on the glide slope and in IMC. The autopilot was flying the aircraft. The speed deteriorated to an unsafe level the autopilot tripped and the stick shaker and pusher activated. The commander pulled back on the stick exacerbating the stall.
So it leaves me wondering where things really went wrong. Put yourself in that cockpit and at that time. From the RT everything appeared totally normally immediately prior to the stall. Things therefore happened very quickly as the aircraft passed through (I think) 2,000 feet. The autopilot tripped and the shaker and warning horn triggered. All of our training you would have thought would kick in and we would unstall the aircraft, but the commander did the exact opposite and the first officer did not intervene.
So you have been to the CAA safety evenings, and you have an instrument rating and 5,000 hours under your belt, you are current and the aircraft is serviceable. Why do you think you wouldn’t make the same mistake? What makes you believe you have the “right stuff” or could we all make the same mistake in those circumstances?
Take the Colgan 3407 accident I referred to at the start of this thread.
The starting point would seem to have been an experienced crew working together in a multi crew commercial environment. It would also seem to include a fully serviceable aircraft operating in conditions which really couldn’t be described as anything other than benign (the risk of very light ice accretion on the approach with nothing to suggest this was any more than expected or had any direct impact on the aircraft). If that is all we knew (as would be the case had it been a light aircraft) the accident would have been a complete mystery and left us wondering how an experienced crew managed to stall in these circumstances. I guess we would have suspected some catastrophic mechanical failure.
In reality it would seem the explanation was much simpler. In fact the crew literally caused the aircraft to stall too close to the ground by pulling back hard on the yoke.
Now it would seem that there was at least one much earlier warning that there were some deficiencies in the commanders flying skills. Apparently while he had not failed any sim checks on three occasions in the recent past he had had issues and had required further review.
The aircraft was fully established on the glide slope and in IMC. The autopilot was flying the aircraft. The speed deteriorated to an unsafe level the autopilot tripped and the stick shaker and pusher activated. The commander pulled back on the stick exacerbating the stall.
So it leaves me wondering where things really went wrong. Put yourself in that cockpit and at that time. From the RT everything appeared totally normally immediately prior to the stall. Things therefore happened very quickly as the aircraft passed through (I think) 2,000 feet. The autopilot tripped and the shaker and warning horn triggered. All of our training you would have thought would kick in and we would unstall the aircraft, but the commander did the exact opposite and the first officer did not intervene.
So you have been to the CAA safety evenings, and you have an instrument rating and 5,000 hours under your belt, you are current and the aircraft is serviceable. Why do you think you wouldn’t make the same mistake? What makes you believe you have the “right stuff” or could we all make the same mistake in those circumstances?
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Safety: Does attitude count for more than experience?
Put it another way the question above could be
Can a pilot work on a graphics card alone with very little in the stored memory.
The answer to that is YES if he is so careful, so selective, so safety concious that he never needs to work load the Graphic card he has.
If he is unlucky enough to have a bottom of the range low memory low ability card then he would have to be very very careful.
All of our training you would have thought would kick in and we would unstall the aircraft, but the commander did the exact opposite and the first officer did not intervene.
I flew right seat with a Private pilot who was ultra scrupulous, very safety orientated, a big planner but he always went at one speed and that worried me somewhat. Try and speed him up and he complained.
We made an IMC approach and missed due to low cloud. We went around again and at minima I said forget it lets go to the alternative. The guy was sweating and overloaded! He purely pulled the nose up to climb but made no inputs to add power, raise the gear and clean up the aircraft.He was brain locked and had forgotten everything he had been taught in his IMCR. I dived in from the right and took control. Had the pilot been on his own he would have crashed. This happened some 10 years ago.
Your example sounds a little alike??? Maybe your pilot saw the aircraft had sunk below the glide and that became his frozen focus not the speed or stall?
Adendum
Just as an afterthought not all jets are recovered from a stall conventionally.
With the Citations you do NOT push the nose over but hold it level in a stall and power out.
Pace
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Common sense
I don't think it has anything to do with either although both help to protect the clueless.
Common Sense you can't train it into someone but you can train to protect situations developing which would rely on common sense to get out of. Same with experence the more situations seen the more successful the out come mainly because monkey has seen it before had bum bitten and won't do it again.
New situations which is outside either experence or training is where common sense linked to applied knowledge will save the day.
Sorry to go again to use a multi crew example.
I was flying a week in a new airframe (which didn't have an autopilot) which had a, not normally there switch, bang smack in the middle of the avionics/ engine instruments. It had nothing round it to explain what it was for. It was sort of near the radios but also near the GPS. And next to the engine instruments. It was a big-un as well and looked as if it did something and wasn't just a dimmer switch. I saw it on the first day and asked an engineer what it was, as it wasn't in any of the pilot tech books, reply "f'd if I know". I then flew 3 days with a very good FO it was mentioned by him but neither of us was moved it to see what it did. It got left the way we found it.
On the thursday a different FO was working, we tottle off and everything is fine. Ten mins into the cruise at FL180 in IMC with me flying all I hear is "what does this do" while saying this the FO had reached over and flicked the switch. Instant sense of humour crisis on my part.
That second FO still doesn't get why the first FO got promoted to LHS and he was bypassed in both experence and time in the company.
Common Sense you can't train it into someone but you can train to protect situations developing which would rely on common sense to get out of. Same with experence the more situations seen the more successful the out come mainly because monkey has seen it before had bum bitten and won't do it again.
New situations which is outside either experence or training is where common sense linked to applied knowledge will save the day.
Sorry to go again to use a multi crew example.
I was flying a week in a new airframe (which didn't have an autopilot) which had a, not normally there switch, bang smack in the middle of the avionics/ engine instruments. It had nothing round it to explain what it was for. It was sort of near the radios but also near the GPS. And next to the engine instruments. It was a big-un as well and looked as if it did something and wasn't just a dimmer switch. I saw it on the first day and asked an engineer what it was, as it wasn't in any of the pilot tech books, reply "f'd if I know". I then flew 3 days with a very good FO it was mentioned by him but neither of us was moved it to see what it did. It got left the way we found it.
On the thursday a different FO was working, we tottle off and everything is fine. Ten mins into the cruise at FL180 in IMC with me flying all I hear is "what does this do" while saying this the FO had reached over and flicked the switch. Instant sense of humour crisis on my part.
That second FO still doesn't get why the first FO got promoted to LHS and he was bypassed in both experence and time in the company.
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Fired a halon extinguisher in to LH nacelle once doing that......
I am sure many Co s would love one of those!!! I can think of one of mine who would 
Pace
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I don't to this day have a clue what it did. Always meant to ask an avaionics type to have a look behined the panel to see what it was connected to.
Another feature of this aircraft type was after a certain failure mode of the test logic for the CAP panel. If you pressed the push to test to light the CAP up it would shut the LP fuel valves. They did a mod to stop this feature!!!
Another feature of this aircraft type was after a certain failure mode of the test logic for the CAP panel. If you pressed the push to test to light the CAP up it would shut the LP fuel valves. They did a mod to stop this feature!!!
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The aircraft was fully established on the glide slope and in IMC. The autopilot was flying the aircraft. The speed deteriorated to an unsafe level the autopilot tripped and the stick shaker and pusher activated. The commander pulled back on the stick exacerbating the stall.
I know that they happen, because I read the reports.
I always thought that the pilots must have been trained, as I have been, to the point where "low-and-slow on approach means push forwards and add power" is completely instinctive.
So, is that just a PPL technique, and professional pilots are taught to forget that and do something else? I can understand the brain freezing up so completely that the pilot does nothing, but I can't get my head around why people go against instinct and training and pull rather than push.
And I would like to get my head round it, because if I don't understand it I don't know any reason why it isn't going to happen to me one day.
Attitude or Approach?
Strange thing -- the more I fly, the more I find I (and others) can make mistakes.
My feeling about the standard training is that it gives us a methodology that, if followed, generally allows a newly licensed pilot to gain experience without killing himself. However that standard training does not cover all the ways pilots can screw up -- sadly I witnessed a fatal accident where the pilot put herself in a situation not covered in the syllabus and overreacted. Then there are the pilots who freeze up -- I saw one roll a Viscount simulator upside down at 16000' and sit there oblivious to my shouts to roll back the other way until we "hit" the ground.
Attending safety evenings and reading accident reports do go a ways in helping pilots learn how they commonly kill themselves.
People do not really learn about something until they start approaching the edge. The trick is of course to come up to it slowly in a controlled manner without sailing over the brink and losing it completely.
But flying requires more than simply learning the rudiments of a task. You also have to learn about yourself and how much you can manage at your current skill level. That skill level can go up and down with currency -- something I encounter with every new gliding season.
My feeling about the standard training is that it gives us a methodology that, if followed, generally allows a newly licensed pilot to gain experience without killing himself. However that standard training does not cover all the ways pilots can screw up -- sadly I witnessed a fatal accident where the pilot put herself in a situation not covered in the syllabus and overreacted. Then there are the pilots who freeze up -- I saw one roll a Viscount simulator upside down at 16000' and sit there oblivious to my shouts to roll back the other way until we "hit" the ground.
Attending safety evenings and reading accident reports do go a ways in helping pilots learn how they commonly kill themselves.
People do not really learn about something until they start approaching the edge. The trick is of course to come up to it slowly in a controlled manner without sailing over the brink and losing it completely.
But flying requires more than simply learning the rudiments of a task. You also have to learn about yourself and how much you can manage at your current skill level. That skill level can go up and down with currency -- something I encounter with every new gliding season.
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Gertrude
Very well put, and I think that is why I find these discussions so interesting.
I can understand the weather (IMC) related scenarios. I guess many of us have been there ourselves at some point in time. The temptation to have a look can be quite great and before you know it the weather has literally closed in around you.
On the other hand I find accidents like the one referred to above much more perplexing.
And I would like to get my head round it, because if I don't understand it I don't know any reason why it isn't going to happen to me one day.
I can understand the weather (IMC) related scenarios. I guess many of us have been there ourselves at some point in time. The temptation to have a look can be quite great and before you know it the weather has literally closed in around you.
On the other hand I find accidents like the one referred to above much more perplexing.
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RatherBeFlying
Well said!
With the aircraft locked on the Ils the obvious thing to monitor is the speed as the Captain would be coming back towards VREF Bringing in further stages of flap and drag, His gear would have probably already been down and locked.
The aircraft would up to the autopilot disengaging have been trying to maintain the glide and the localiser so I presume that something had destracted them from what the aircraft was up to to such an extent that the pilot on looking back to the instrument panel was faced with a whole host of incorrect indications.
One would probably have been that the aircraft had descended below the glide. If as stated the pilot had issues in simulator work it maybe that his scan ability was not the best. He may have locked onto being below the glidepath and pulled back oblivious to the more serious problems of lack of speed or thrust.
What could cause them to be so distracted? I have heard of pilots having a major row about something which has nothing to do with the job in hand while on autopilot even on approach crazy maybe but crazy things do happen.
But who apart from them knew???
Pace
Well said!
With the aircraft locked on the Ils the obvious thing to monitor is the speed as the Captain would be coming back towards VREF Bringing in further stages of flap and drag, His gear would have probably already been down and locked.
The aircraft would up to the autopilot disengaging have been trying to maintain the glide and the localiser so I presume that something had destracted them from what the aircraft was up to to such an extent that the pilot on looking back to the instrument panel was faced with a whole host of incorrect indications.
One would probably have been that the aircraft had descended below the glide. If as stated the pilot had issues in simulator work it maybe that his scan ability was not the best. He may have locked onto being below the glidepath and pulled back oblivious to the more serious problems of lack of speed or thrust.
What could cause them to be so distracted? I have heard of pilots having a major row about something which has nothing to do with the job in hand while on autopilot even on approach crazy maybe but crazy things do happen.
But who apart from them knew???
Pace
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Wombat there is a nasty thing called tail stall which we can get in icing conditions. The recovery is to reselect the previous configuration and pull back to unstall the tail.
This became a huge feature of pish from the flight training offices after the dash accident in the US.
In my opinion most companys went over board and started in-graining tail stall recovery in the pilots heads in conditions that it was unlikely to occur. So pilots were seeing half an inch of ice on the wings and then planning to haul the controls back if they got a stall warning.
Completely missing the fact that a tail plane stall you have no warning at all, the nose pitches down when you select the next stage of flap and it gets a bit interesting. No stall warner occurs because either the wing warners haven't got the static point below them to lift the lever and if you have an AoA sensor the critical AoA hasn't been reached for your wings.
Stalling is done on a three year opc/lpc cycle, there are certain things you have to cover but other things are left up to the TRE and time. There are some terrible attempts at dealing with a normal clean stall by very knowledgable professional pilots in my experience.
This became a huge feature of pish from the flight training offices after the dash accident in the US.
In my opinion most companys went over board and started in-graining tail stall recovery in the pilots heads in conditions that it was unlikely to occur. So pilots were seeing half an inch of ice on the wings and then planning to haul the controls back if they got a stall warning.
Completely missing the fact that a tail plane stall you have no warning at all, the nose pitches down when you select the next stage of flap and it gets a bit interesting. No stall warner occurs because either the wing warners haven't got the static point below them to lift the lever and if you have an AoA sensor the critical AoA hasn't been reached for your wings.
Stalling is done on a three year opc/lpc cycle, there are certain things you have to cover but other things are left up to the TRE and time. There are some terrible attempts at dealing with a normal clean stall by very knowledgable professional pilots in my experience.
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Wombat there is a nasty thing called tail stall which we can get in icing conditions.
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Tail stall is evidently possible (and like many I have seen the NASA video on the recovery procedure) but I bet that 99% of GA stalls are plain old conventional ones, caused by not knowing what the trim wheel really does (no instructor ever explained that to me during PPL training) and doing slow flight with the plane trimmed for an even slower flight (below Vs in the current config) and then getting distracted, or raising Vs by pulling too much G.
To get a tail stall you need a fair bit of ice, and I don't get a feeling that this happens often enough to be statistically significant in GA.
To get a tail stall you need a fair bit of ice, and I don't get a feeling that this happens often enough to be statistically significant in GA.
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Completely missing the fact that a tail plane stall you have no warning at all, the nose pitches down when you select the next stage of flap and it gets a bit interesting. No stall warner occurs because either the wing warners haven't got the static point below them to lift the lever and if you have an AoA sensor the critical AoA hasn't been reached for your wings.
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I dont dispute that, but it doesnt seem to be an explanation for why the pilots reacted as they did, unless they elected to ignore every indication to the contrary and were so overwhelmed by their training that they were hell bent on reacting to any stall as if it were a tail stall (which I guess is possible). Are you suggesting that is a possibility?