Failed annual recurrent line check
 

As the title says, i failed my recurrent (a320), first fail in my entire career. Everything was smooth up until the landing roll out, my fingers slipped and failed to deploy both thrust reversers to idle. Startled effect took place, attempted a second time and only the right thrust lever went on rev idle. Captain took over thrust control and use max reversers. The icing on the cake was that prior to descent, i briefed that i intended to vacate first exit on the runway due to the nature of the busy airfield, performance calculations met the criteria with autobrakes low but normally we would disconnect the autobrakes earlier. Because of the thrust control issue combined with the startled effect, i braked significantly harder to commit to the first exit where in hindsight letting the aircraft roll and vacate via the second was significantly the better decision. All factors combined, the examiner decided to fail me due to unsatisfactory workload management.

With all this said, my morale is deeply crushed. I even read online that at the airline level, only 1-5% of airline pilots fail a recurrent. I'm seeking advice if this is deeply going to affect my career or command upgrade, and if there are other similar people out there who have failed a line check and continued to have a successful career/captaincy etc. I am extremely bumped out at the moment.

edit: 4 years flying, 2000+ hours, 4th line check

Suck it up, own the error and learn from it.
you will probably do some sim work, fly with an instructor for a few legs and become a better pilot for it.
we all make mistakes or will, nobody was hurt apart from your ego.
its part of the aviation business dont seek to blame others.
I have messed up myself, don’t take it personally, just learn from it.

I would ask your pilot manager for help, and ask if your examiner could be there too.

Make sure that they fuly understand that you want their help and are NOT going to argue with them about your Line check. Go in with the attitude of 'Can you please help me ? Where did I go wrong and what should I do now to get back on the horse ?' Even at 2,000 TT, you are relatively new and inexperienced, so be humble and accepting.

Possibly better to put this request in writing, so there is no misunderstanding and they realise that you want their help and guidance and are not questioning their assessment.

Your record will stand, but as long as you show that it was an unusual mistake and that you have worked hard to overcome it, it should not prejudice your future career. We learn from our mistakes, after all. I can think of a person who departed the runway during an engine failure and RTO in the Sim, but went on to become a Captain.

And keep going. I've never failed a check, but I have technically failed the first day of a two day recurrent Sim. All passed the next day and all good.

So, get back on the horse ! We all have bad days, but we just need to put those behind us and move on. You will not have failed the line check for the original mistake, but how you dealt with the situation having made that mistake,


PS, if your hands slip on Airbus thrust levers, have a think about how you are holding them and operating them. There should be no reason for your hands to slip unless you are aggressively slamming them back, or not holding them properly.

The thrust levers are simply gently pushed back to the idle gate as you flare, (then reversers lifted and pushed into the reverse gate if you are using reverse).

You cannot change the past. Own it. Learn from it.

Thank you for the feedback, during the meeting they were supportive regarding the issue and we did thoroughly went through the items covered in the event. I'm more concerned given how statistically low it is to fail an annual line check, 1-5%, and it makes me feel like a failure to be in that huge minority. Given the fact that should i apply to future airlines, i would have to declare this failure during the interview process and i feel like this would severely hinder my chances of securing future opportunities. Hence, the reason for the post if anyone has had similar experiences.

Albeit, as difficult as it is, i am however taking it as a positive experience that the event would develop me better.

Nearly everyone has failed a check at some time or another, I know I have. The main thing is to learn from the experience and remain positive. If you can do that it will show you have steel and others will notice. Good luck!

Yes, I understand your difficulty. You really shouldn't dwell on your incident. Just put it behind you and concentrate on being the best and most professional airline pilot you can be from here on. If flying was easy, anyone could do it. Don't worry about your incident, it has woken you up and galvanised you, which is valuable in itself.

In the Apollo 13 film, a government representative says words to the effect that this is going to be a nightmare, but Gene Kranz (the mission director), says "with respect sir, I believe this will be our finest hour", i.e. we can prove that we can deal with this serious emergency.

In the future if ever trying for another airline, you will have to be honest and open. Many questions are along the lines of: 'any flying incidents ?' or 'have you ever made a mistake ?' You could use this incident to explain what happened and how you learned early on in your career not to be complacent, (not saying you were), and how you learned that even experienced pilots can suffer setbacks or unexpected events.

Go on to explain how you got over it and how you approach the job now, and that it has given you a useful training point which allows you to deal with the unexpected better. Motorcyclists reach a dangerous time about 6 months after passing their CBT and their test. They start to relax and think they have it all sussed, only to have a close shave one day because they weren't paying full attention. You might be in a similar place flying-wise.

Of course you might have a problem if you put this on an application form in that you might never get an interview in the first place. You might be able to find a way to get past that while still being open and honest during your actual interview.

Any airline panel worth their salt should understand that humans and pilots are not immune from making mistakes; It is how pilots deal with that - 'mitigate' is a popular buzz-word - which makes the difference. There is no such person as a pilot who has never made a mistake.

Good luck.

Thank you for your feedback. What you say completely resonates as i ponder upon the incident as a whole. I just can't help but to think that, if given a job opportunity for a new airline and they were to select between candidate A (no line check fail) candidate B (line check fail on record) surely they would pick the former. It's just a very hard pill to swallow that this will be in my permanent record/resume. It's even more frustrating that, out of the hundreds of flights that i have done that have went smoothly, this issue HAD to happen on that particular day which happened to be a line check.

was it a coincidence or were you anxious because it was a line check? It seems like an odd mistake to make for no apparent reason

i can say with confidence that it was completely an unlucky coincidence, i was not anxious at all because it was a line check, all my previous line checks were passed with good grades and i went in to perform just like an other normal line operations flight. However, i have a feeling that the issue now is that this incident is going to haunt me for every future line check flight which is only going to add unnecessary nervousness which is extremely unfortunate.

May I ask a question as an outsider with negligible piloting experience, and with all respect?

When you briefed planning to take the early exit, did you also brief or at least consider a plan to switch to a later exit in case making the early one became an unnecessary risk? Or in your mind was it more like either go around or follow plan A, there is no plan B ?

Also, what would you have done and what would have happened if the captain hadn't taken control of thrust? Would you have had an accident, made a spectacle & passenger complaints, or finished the job well enough?

That's what interests me as a potential passenger with you as a pilot. If you would have lost it and crashed, then it should matter in an interview. If you would have gotten us to the gate like nothing happened, just learn from it.

Now I'll go back to my corner.
P.S. on my first lesson I forced the base to final turn because I didn't plan a go-around before the landing. And I will never make those mistakes again even though that happened in 1990.

P.P.S. Who forgot to clean the reverser levers after all the people sweating checks handled them for years?

From the peanut gallery, there was a little loss of situational awareness, had this happened in real life your CA would have had a debriefing item post flight.
Because it’s a linecheck in the sim it’s a fail.
For passenger’s comfort you should have let that taxiway go by.
What if you would have had an Autobrake malfunction or speed brakes/spoilers not deployed?
Would you have jumped on the brakes to make the turn off?
Very very very few people make it through an entire career without a scar or two.
So you’ve got your first one.
For future reference if it comes up during an interview, start off by saying it was unsatisfactory because you made a mistake.
Thats the only thing a (hiring) panel wants to hear.

To ease your concerns/curiosity, in terms of safety breaches, it is as close to negligible and far from a catastrophic accident/incident. It is more to meeting the quality standards of standard operating procedures demanded from the airline. To answer your question, airmanship comes into play in the decision to vacate via the second exitway (plan b) should our judgement feel that we would not be able to vacate the first. However, this was all unnecessary as we had already mitigated any potential errors i.e. via briefing, calculating our performance/distance required, assessing the current conditions, traffic etc. but in normal cases, we would have just communicated with each other on the roll out as simple as saying we will take the second exit instead you'd be surprised how much time we have to vocalize your decision to do so, as ironic as it sounds given that that was the mistake i made.

In terms of the handling of the thrust, to speak in layman terms, the thrust 'power' from the engines had already been cut off, and we use a feature called idle reversers which essentially provides additional braking action for the aircraft, again this is part of our company's SOPs. The Captain took over controls of the thrust because it was airmanship and a reactive action as the situation was very dynamic at the time, however, had i maintained controls it still would not be an issue as i could have just used manual braking to control our deceleration and maintain centerline with our rudders. So to say a crash would happen in this scenario is a major stretch.

From a safety point of view no safety breaches were made and extremely unlikely for an accident or crash to happen, worst case scenario was that we would have just made a complete stop on an active runway, but this would have lead to other issues for other aircrafts behind us to perform a go around, that's when complaints would be made not just by the affected airlines but by the ATC aswell. It was more for passenger comfort and maintaining standards which lead to the fail, hence the unsatisfactory performance. Neither passengers or our cabin crew complaint about the uncomfort-ness of the firm braking, but it was not up to satisfactory levels by the checking examiner.

"the examiner decided to fail me due to unsatisfactory workload management"

I think you are not understanding the advice given here, basically suck it up, accept you made an error, and make it clear that you wish to learn from this experience. The airlines will always back their examiners, it's up to you to stop dwelling and finding excuses, and move on from it.
We have all had our bad days, what's important is that we don't let it drag us down. The airlines want to see that you want to learn and improve your competencies from this, and it comes from you and only you.

Remember checks and Sims are all "smoke and mirrors".
Regarding your worry about exiting the runway in time etc., this is of secondary importance for you, your safe operation of the aircraft is the priority, if aircraft behind you have to go around so be it, that is not really your problem. It is unfortunate, but it is not end of the world, you misjudging the exit, losing control and skidding of the taxi way is much bigger issue.

It is all about work load management and safely operating your aircraft. Sometimes you might be late of the runway, and aircraft has to go around behind you, so what?
Stop feeling sorry for yourself, prepare yourself for whatever comes next, and be positive and accept you have had a learning experience in aviation.