LD Max

Hardly fair is it without considering the HP factors I mentioned?

alf5071h

"Maybe the fact that neither of them called a go-around makes them both grossly negligent...."

Maybe that neither of the crew recognised the situation, or did not recognised the need for a go-around.
Until all of the circumstances are explained and the AAIB report is published, no judgement should be made, either by us in speculation or by the operator who should have greater awareness of the facts.

Negligence is associated with wilful violation; no one has suggested that this is an issue in this incident. Violation implies intent, no self respecting professional pilot intends to make an error, let alone endanger the aircraft. The crew’s intent might be best be explained by their subsequent performance in landing the aircraft – very professional.
I assume that all of us strive to be professional, but that does not exempt us from error.

If the report of ‘an operational change of destination’ and the suggestion that this was the message being transmitted late in the approach is true, then the behaviours of both the operator and ATC would also have to be considered. Simple distractions should be avoided, but those which could impact the crew’s mental capacity with further assessment and decision making must be avoided in critical phases of flight. The application of human factors by being aware of the situation from other viewpoints - CRM - applies to everyone involved with aircraft.

Maybe the fact that neither of them called a go-around makes them … human … which would have caught many other fully competent pilots out.

I agree with the viewpoints provided by LD Max

sikeano

jw411 and the rest
sorry chaps when i learnt my flying in the good old raf we were told any landing you walk out from is a good landing
now jokes apart
sacking two pilots within days without waiting for the accident board to file in thier report and taking a narrow view of the situvation is bit harsh, all we know is hearsay and we assume , at the time and moment the decison taken by those pilots were wrong , i read some one saying go around .now i can say tnt is not raf ,they have a schedule and like any other small budget airline ,i am led to believe they pressurise thier flt crew to burn fuel within a certain range
whilst we have been brave here in moaing about the competencies of the pilots we have not looked into the bigger picture .tnt lost a lot of business they have to repair the plane they have to pay the emergency services and also the airport people ,these guys dont do charity my thoughts was sacking the pilots maybe was too early and not the ideal thing to do at the current climate
i would like to end by saying this, so some of us here are pilots or like to think we are ,and there is nothing worse for a pilot than not flying so i said there is no justice in the world in a ironic way

Fried_Chicken

maybe they don't. It's apparently been returned to the leasing company/sold?, hence the reason for repainting the aircraft all white. TNT no longer want anything to do with the aircraft & have thus requested their colours be removed from the offending "wreck"

FC

JW411

Have any of you out there actually thought about this from the crew's point of view?

Would you really want to sit at home in a state of suspension waiting for an AAIB report which will take many months (if not years) to be published? Even when the report IS published it will be a statement of fact and will not allocate blame.

Personally I would want to get on with my life.

I have heard it said that one of the crew does not want to get back into a cockpit ever again.

A37575

Siceano. I can't believe you were in the RAF as you claim. No RAF trained pilot would type a Pprune letter as careless as yours. Spelling RAF as raf is appalling. Guard duty for two weeks for you...

sikeano

cheers a37575
i am ex now since jan 2006 so i think i can say raf

Few Cloudy

I think the operative line in Sikeano´s post was, "or like to think we are..."

Chugalug2

Interesting photo, fn, as it confirms previous mention that 'TND is a clockwork FD. The BIG, BIG, issue with these, especially on a mixed clockwork/EFIS fleet was the dreaded "Killer Switches", outboard of the Mode Control Panel. These have to be changed to ILS before commencing an ILS approach of any category or much bad Karma results. I remember it was the one thing above all else that you concentrated on getting right when flying a non EFIS 737. Don't know if it has any bearing on this case, but I imagine the outcome could be similar if they indeed had not been selected!

Chugalug2

Not my photo, nor my "command" mobile! I was merely commenting on Fox Niners posting, and drawing attention to the HSI ("killer") switches, which, unlike EFIS aircraft, had to be changed from NAV to VOR/ILS before commencing an ILS or VOR Approach, coupled or otherwise. If not the HSI Course Pointer will display FMC and not ILS or VOR lateral deviation, not conducive to a wish to live long and prosper!

Human Factor

I must admit that I haven't read the whole thread. I've read and heard a bit of what happened, enough to be a little concerned. Anyway:

If I'm right in saying that they "arrived" a few yards to the side of the runway at EMA, they ****** ought to have recognised that situation, possibly due to the slight vibration on touchdown!! I've operated on the hazy side of awake in the past (possibly when I shouldn't - hands up anyone else out there.....) but I haven't missed a runway so far.

There are procedures in force and I'm being deliberately careful not to be specific. If an aeroplane is placarded as Cat 1, the chances are it's probably like that for a reason. Even if it isn't, there are sufficient provisos (gotchas?) within SOPs for Cat 3 type ops which will be enough to warn the most "entertaining" of individuals. At the end of the day, they had enough fuel to get to BHX with a wrecked aeroplane. To me, that means they had enough fuel to get to BHX with a good aeroplane and sit there and think about it.

There are a few issues here which bear further investigation (and no doubt will get just that).

Dream Buster

Human Factor.

I agree that this is a very worrying incident.

'If' they had been following normal Company policy and had been carrying minimum fuel then by the time they were making the second diversion to BHX they would be well into their final reserve fuel.

Clearly it would and will be fascinating to know how much fuel was on board when they eventually 'touched down' at BHX.

I believe that it will take an incident like this to prove that minimum fuel is just that and Company's have no real understanding of the pressure carrying it can have in certain situations.

So why do it, as you never know what's going to happen?

The questions remain 'How much fuel was actually left?' quite apart from what did happen at EMA.

I guess we will find out one day, when it suits 'them' to tell 'us'.

theresalwaysone

Perahaps some of you might like to look at the initial AIIB report at

http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/cms_resou...6%20OO-TND.pdf

and then understand why the crew were sacked.

Clarence Oveur

It is not normal company policy to carry minimum fuel. Fuel was not an issue in this accident.

And again, they were not sacked. All parties involved agreed that any continued cooperation would be very difficult. The crew involved chose to have their contract terminated by the company, as that was financially the best option for them.

BRUpax

I presume that when the autopilot disconnected (for whatever reason) and the approach became unstable, the crew should have initiated an immediate go-around rather than try and chase the GS in such a short distance?

ExSimGuy

Having read the (just 2 pages) report, maybe I'm being dense, but don't see the "why the crew was sacked". It appears that the autopilot disconnect/reconnect was followed immediately by g/a action by the crew - I would have thought this was exactly the right response.

Am, I missing something obvious?

BOAC

- not quite how I read it.

Pilot Pete

I suspect you are, as I doubt that re-engaging the autopilot at that stage of a Cat3 approach is exactly the right response according to their operations manual.

PP

cwatters

The important bit seems to be...

"..at approximately one mile from the runway threshold, the autopilot was momentarily disconnected and re-engaged. The aircraft then went above the glide-slope before developing a high rate of descent. At the same time, it deviated to the left of the centre-line. A go-around was initiated..."

It's not clear from the report what the various time intervals were or what caused the high rate of descent... but those intervals will be the key.

4potflyer

It looks as though the important bit here is "re-engaged". If they had immediately initiated a G/A when the autopilot was accidentally disengaged, they would have been in compliance with SOP and would, according to earlier posts, have avoided colliding with the ground.

The burning question is would any other competent pilot put in the same situation have reacted differently? If you knock the kettle switch off while reaching for the sugar, your human reaction is to instantly correct for the mistake and turn it back on pronto. In that split second, while thinking about the ATC message, the embarassment of knocking off the A/P, SOPs are probably just too far out of mental reach. If there were many seconds available to react a less human, more trained decision may have been made.

Maybe there should be an audiable alert in such a situation, stating clearly "Go Around", to remove/minimize any chances for human instincts to jump in?

I have no jet experience whatsoever, but from earlier posts by 737 drivers, it appears that the rapid nose pitch up would be expected on this palne when the autopilot disengaged. It seems that when the autopilot was re-engaged (which may have been immediately afterwards-in a split second) the autopilot overcorrected, and put the plane at an attitude where neither an on target landing nor a G/A was possible in the space remaining.