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Spanair accident at Madrid

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Spanair accident at Madrid

Old 4th Mar 2011, 23:09
  #2641 (permalink)  
 
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Flight attendant - electronic technician

Was he on the flight deck at the time of the crash? If so, why?
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Old 5th Mar 2011, 00:18
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He wouldn't be allowed on the flight deck for take off so would have been no help.
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Old 5th Mar 2011, 03:32
  #2643 (permalink)  
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? Visitor-in-cockpit ?

From previous messages, & news story:
"... Las Provincias has reported today ... third person on the flight deck at the time of the accident...."
From Tiennette on the 4th:
"... he was ... working as a Flight Attendant for Spanair...."
Gees -- not again. Visitor-in-Cockpit ???

That factor isn't mentioned in CIAIAC's Interim Report A-032/2008. Guess we'll have to wait for their final AAR to get more details
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Old 5th Mar 2011, 03:53
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He wouldn't be allowed on the flight deck for take off so would have been no help.
According to that article he was, in fact, on the flight deck at the time of the crash.

IF--IF--what is in the article in 100% true and complete it is about to get very ugly in Spain.

Guess we'll have to wait for their final AAR to get more details
Indeed.
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Old 5th Mar 2011, 08:03
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Guys i think you find crew pax on Flight Deck in Spanish Airlines is a common practice, Spanish Union deal but i could be wrong
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Old 5th Mar 2011, 09:11
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Is there a problem with carrying a crew member in the flight deck? Is there a problem with carrying a colleague in the flight deck? Please, let's not be silly as the politicians act.

Unluckily for everyone on that flight the extracrew member in the flight deck was a flight attendant instead of a pilot, as it many times happens.

Extra crew members have been proven, in courts of laws, to have aided in accidents and incidents more than the crew of the A/C (this is probably due to not having any duties on board; hence, being able to help).
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Old 5th Mar 2011, 11:04
  #2647 (permalink)  
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Let's not get TOO excited about this - it is by no means uncommon (and legal in the UK, anyway) for approved airline crew to be carried on a cockpit jump seat.
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Old 5th Mar 2011, 19:17
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for approved airline crew to be carried on a cockpit jump seat.
That's not what makes this situation interesting.

First, according to the article he was not a FA. Whoever thinks that is just wrong. Nor was he a maintenance guy. He was one of their electronic specialists who was deadheading on the flight.

There a big difference there.

If you have one of the companies electronics specialists on the flight. And he's standing on the FD. And he's telling you that they maintenance guys screwed up the repair.

That's an interesting CRM issue, as I see it. It would not be the first time that someone deadheading on a flight has gone to the FD to be of assistance...and has in fact provided valuable assistance.
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Old 5th Mar 2011, 19:39
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MountainBear, the article is there just to attract interest, believe me.
He was a Flight Attendant, with electronic studies... nothing more, no other position in the company

Look my answer #2665 in this thread
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Old 5th Mar 2011, 20:43
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The point, surely, is not whether he was an FA, an electronic technician or Whistler's mother. The point is, was he in any way part of the scenario that caused the accident?
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Old 5th Mar 2011, 22:12
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I don't think the third guy had anything to do with the accident. As I said before the R5 relay controlled by the nose oleo strut made the take off warning inop. It was probably overinflated. As I said it happened to me and by applying aggresive braking brought the strut back down so it returned to ground idle and the strobes shut off. I assume the same thing happened to them. Every MD80 pilot should be aware of this. In the daytime you can't see the strobes, but at night you can. If the strobes are flashing you have no take off warning. Compress the nose strut to put it back in ground mode.
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Old 6th Mar 2011, 01:23
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The point, surely, is not whether he was an FA, an electronic technician or Whistler's mother. The point is, was he in any way part of the scenario that caused the accident?
Obviously he was part of the scenario as his voice is on the CVR during the crash sequence. The question is what role did he play, if any. And to that you have to look at why he was on the FD in the first place.


He was a Flight Attendant, with electronic studies... nothing more, no other position in the company
Obviously it's entirely possible that the paper is twisting facts to create a sensation. It happens. Yet your answer, if true, raises more questions than it answers.

I cannot recall either via experience or study a case of a deadheading FA going to the FD, unprompted, and offering advice to the flight crew in areas outside of their expertise. Maybe this happens all the time at SpanAir; I find it odd. Should the cabin crew be allowed to come and complain about instrument clutter on the flight deck because it offends their sense of decor. Should they be allowed to tell the flight crew how to fly the plane. Where does this stop?

When press reports first came out the third person was identified as a "commander" with the airline. Now we are finding out that he was deadheading CC roaming about on the loose...

I'm not trying to suggest that CC should never be on the FD. I'm not trying to suggest that this person contributed to the accident. However, safety is a process. You look at where the holes lined up and where you could do better. The fact that CC was on the FD is not a problem. But the fact that the CC was on the FD making comments beyond his official position and his professional qualifications...maybe that is a problem. It certainly doesn't seem to me like something a company would want to encourage.
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Old 6th Mar 2011, 01:37
  #2653 (permalink)  
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Gents.

If any of you (and I include myself) take any one thing from this thread, let it be this:

If you need flaps/ slats for take off, use them. Go on, put them out!

All the rules and regs written into your books will not help you.

Never forget your PPL training. Never let all the BS get in your way.
You're on your own (you and the F/O) look after yourselves.

He who relies on the books alone, is a twit.
 
Old 6th Mar 2011, 01:46
  #2654 (permalink)  
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Pilots FORGOT Flaps/Slats -- No Distraction?

comment:
"... don't think the third guy [Visitor-in-cockpit factor] had anything to do with the accident...."
Didn't the mishaps-pilots forget to do something?
True, maybe the VISITOR had no affect on the mishap-pilots' attention to detail during taxi-out, we don't yet know.

This Visitor-in-Cockpit was a recent factor in a military TU-154 mishap.

For in-flight upsets, the Visitor-in-Cockpit factor goes back to the deH86's upsets of the 1930's.
http://www.pprune.org/safety-crm-qa-...accidents.html

http://www.pprune.org/safety-crm-qa-...sekeeping.html

Just a couple of exemplars, with Visitor-in-Cockpit listed as a factor:

Delta Flight 1141 / 31Aug88, Dallas TX, B727 takeoff crash; pilots failed to set flap/slats during taxi-out. 13 killed. \\ Distraction-- AAR pg 92, Finding #4: “Extensive non-duty related conversations and the lengthy presence of the flight attendant in the cockpit reduced the flightcrew’s vigilance in ensuring that the aircraft was prepared for flight.”

Jet Link 2733 (Continental Express) / 29Apr93, Embraer EMB-120RT Brasilia (N27406), inflight upset at 1533 CDT ... near Pine Bluff Arkansas, visitor-in-cockpit (F/A). Upset in IMC, icing conditions, climbing through 17000 feet aircraft stalled, aircraft out of control (time 1533:16) -- entered inverted spin. Control regained at 5500 feet. .... Board blamed captain for failure to "maintain professional cockpit discipline, inattention to flight instruments and ice accretion." At the time of the upset, Captain with engaged in conversation with the F/A (noting snow on windscreen), and the F/O was busy with logbook duties and eating crew meal. AAR-94/02/SUM, pg 24+,
Flightcrew Inattentiveness ... cockpit conversation ... flight attendant was consistent with a complacent and lax atmosphere ... the captain permitted the flight attendant to enter the cockpit and then engaged in casual conversation for over 4 minutes before the loss of control ... Meanwhile the first officer was making entries into the airplane’s log book, which diverted his attention from the flight instruments.... captain ... continued to talk to the flight attendant and was not attentive to his flight instruments.... Board believes ... flightcrew’s inattention ... led directly to ... failure to maintain a safe airspeed.” AAR-Sum pg 31, P.C. = “... the captain’s failure to maintain professional cockpit discipline, his consequent inattention to flight instruments and ice accretion ... improper autoflight vertical mode ...”
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Old 6th Mar 2011, 20:24
  #2655 (permalink)  
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Sunnyjohn.

Agree.
Is the guy on the Cockpit Voice Recorder?
It's a yes/no.
If he's not, his input/influence is probably orders of magnitude down.
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Old 7th Mar 2011, 00:52
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Originally Posted by chris weston
Is the guy on the Cockpit Voice Recorder?
It's a yes/no.
If he's not, his input/influence is probably orders of magnitude down.

CW
Unless the Spanish newspaper article is totally made up, the answer is yes.

The article reports that this extra person in the cockpit has been identified by his father listening to the recording of his voice. That voice recording can only be referring to the CVR (I don't think it is explicit in the article, but then I wouldn't know the Spanish for CVR if it is in there, however I don't see what other source there would be).
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Old 21st May 2011, 15:25
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Report

Summary report of the experts appointed by the judge investigating the crash of MD82 Spanair EC-HFP, which occurred on 22 August 2008 that killed 154 people.


The experts concluded that the accident resulted from a series of errors that attended sequentially or simultaneously causing the accident. The report is especially tough on the TMA and is aimed primarily at them, the drivers, the manufacturer and aviation authorities.

MAINTENANCE
For Aircraft Maintenance Technicians will be a before and after following the crash of a Spanair MD.
The responsability of the signing of a relevant charge of flight and the resolution of an incident must be pondered before being released on-premise or on-time economy.
In this regard, the report notes that maintenance "did not identify the cause of the damage and sent the wrong plane, invoking paragraph 30.8 of the MEL" prevailing approach to reduce the delay against the decision of the fault.

According to experts the TMA at no time came to identify the cause of the fault and they sent the wrong plane. The mechanics work "focuses directly to find support in the MEL to defer repair, without trying to approach the location of the cause that produced the fault and its remedy."

The report makes clear that the manuals were written "in a misleading or uncertainty in the performance of maintenance." Even recognizing that the documentation called "incorrectly" fuse and disconnected the favored technique to tackle the "wrong way" the fault.

In any case, it ensures that material "does not introduce new risk factors to the operation" after disconnecting the fuse Z29.

PILOTS
In aviation referred to human error and therefore the flight operation is designed to avoid mistakes of the pilots. But do not allow the failure of any essential equipment, and by MEL flight is prohibited by the label NO-GO if any of the equipment or automation stops working properly.

The pilots were unaware that the alarm of misconfiguration for takeoff (TOWS) did not work and there is an unacceptable situation: at the time of the accident, pilots fail to determine the cause of the plane not sustained. That is, it crashed without knowing what happened.

There are criticisms against the pilots for failing to properly perform checklists. The cabin is not kept sterile and conversation about topics unrelated to the transaction with a third person distracts the crew due attention and concentration.

In addition, the deactivation by the TMA system auto engine thrust (TRS) casts doubt on the drivers and distracted their attention repeatedly, from leaving the platform until you reach the runway threshold.

MANUFACTURER AND AUTHORITIES
There was an amazing coincidence precedent: in 1987 there was the accident in Detroit threw an MD82 that 154 people, the same as in the case of Spanair, and whose origin was a mistake wheelseat flaps on takeoff, taking off the TOWS, as in the flight JK5022.

After the accident in Detroit, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has recommended changing the system to have a visual warning if the TOWS was not receiving electricity, but Boeing did not act and MD remained unchanged in the message system to takeoff.

To the experts that the alarm system "admits failure modes that should be incompatible with the significance" of that device. That is, it's so important you should take extra security measures.

Moreover, after the Detroit accident analysis by the manufacturer sent a telex to all the companies operating the MD to modify their operating manuals with the corrections recommended by the NTSB.

There is a security issued by the U.S. authorities or the European or Spanish as required by law "to ensure it reaches all operators (present and future) and applied effectively," the recommendation, which would become an obligation.

Iberia received a notification from the manufacturer because it operated the MD, but Spanair, as it was years later. The manufacturer despite the recommendation sent to the companies, did not modify the aircraft's operational manual, so Spanair documentation did not include recommendations in its operating manual.

The report concludes that "the TOWS failure in EC-HFP accident could have been avoided if, following the accident in Detroit, had dealt decisively with the modification of the system design."
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Old 22nd May 2011, 14:54
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A "perfect" example of the Swiss cheese theory I'm afraid.

Personally I would still and foremost blame the crew on this one. I also find it very troubling that the lessons of the Detroit accident where not learned
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Old 22nd May 2011, 14:59
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the last people to blame are the crew. They just made a basic human error. The type of error that has happened so many times we install a take off warning system.

The blame lies elsewhere.
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Old 22nd May 2011, 15:37
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The article below was posted on the AF447 thread. A DC-9 was badly hammered by hail.

AOPA Online: Too Close for Comfort

I noticed ...

In early 1994, the captain lost control of a DC-9 during a takeoff roll in adverse weather conditions. The takeoff was aborted and the airplane departed the runway onto a grassy area.
I wonder. The first sentence doesn't really ring true unless .......

PS. I agree with Safety Concerns. This accident started life in the Douglas drawing office.
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