Continental TurboProp crash inbound for Buffalo
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I agree, not a good thing. I was being a little facetious. Obviously it would be better if pilots bugged and flew the associated higher airspeeds when they set INCR speed. Failing that, perhaps it would be better to tie wrap the damn thing.
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Engaging the INCR speeds switch will cause the stick shaker/pusher to operate at a relatively lower AOA than the normal preset value.
Last edited by khorton; 18th May 2009 at 02:33. Reason: fix typo
Both the Capt (pull up) & FO's (retract flap) reactions were consistent with only one scenario - tail plane stall.
Unfortunately, that wasn't it.
Unfortunately, that wasn't it.
a) with a change in configuration
b) at a higher speed than an aerodynamic stall
It almost seems that this crew had briefed the required actions for this scenario earlier and then carried them out because they had a mindset about it.
Pulling back on the yoke is not, IMO, a natural reaction to a low energy state. Raising flap is not either.
If the crew had talked about, (maybe in the crew room or anywhere else away from the CVR), the required actions in the event of a tail plane stall, it would explain a whole lot.
I wonder if this is going to be yet another accident where if the crew had counted to five before doing anything , they would have survived.
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One small point - my understanding, based on the testimony at the NTSB public hearing, (lots of good background info in the video archive from day 1) is that the selecting the REF SPEEDS switch to INCR only affects the stick shaker. It does not affect the stick pusher.
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Ok Then
I wanted to give every benefit of the doubt, but now:
1. Poor Pilot Training...
2. Poor Pilot Evaluation
3. Low Time pilots hired
4. Gadget on airplane ''increase speed'' instead of good old piloting and adding a few knots for the kids in icing conditions.
5. Fatigue...likely do to impossible commuting caused by low pay and no policy to prevent commuting on the day of the trip.
6. A pair of weak pilots.
7. Flight attendants probably didn't bring coffee to fatigued pilots. Part of the new after 911 locking the cockpit door with a bar.
8. an airline that had little experience with the type of aircraft.
9. typical management doing minimum required by FAA...not excelling in anything except cheapness.
10. Loss of situational awareness and monitoring of speed.
11. Failure to maintain flying speed (that's the big one folks).
and I will add that somehow, airspeed, probably the most important gauge in the cockpit is no longer a seperate instrument and part of an overall attitude /naviagtion display.
1. Poor Pilot Training...
2. Poor Pilot Evaluation
3. Low Time pilots hired
4. Gadget on airplane ''increase speed'' instead of good old piloting and adding a few knots for the kids in icing conditions.
5. Fatigue...likely do to impossible commuting caused by low pay and no policy to prevent commuting on the day of the trip.
6. A pair of weak pilots.
7. Flight attendants probably didn't bring coffee to fatigued pilots. Part of the new after 911 locking the cockpit door with a bar.
8. an airline that had little experience with the type of aircraft.
9. typical management doing minimum required by FAA...not excelling in anything except cheapness.
10. Loss of situational awareness and monitoring of speed.
11. Failure to maintain flying speed (that's the big one folks).
and I will add that somehow, airspeed, probably the most important gauge in the cockpit is no longer a seperate instrument and part of an overall attitude /naviagtion display.
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Jets v Props
Just a thought.
After a 17 year career in aircraft maintenance with the World's Favourite Airline, I moved to a small airline with two aircraft types both of which were turbo props (a career move into maintenance management).
Having come from where I did, I thought I knew everything about everything - a regular 'Joe Petroni'. My god did I come down with a bang - once you put a propellor on the front of a nice simple turbojet life gets very very complicated.
I remember thinking at the time that pilot salaries and career structure was completely the wrong way around - pilots should start off on nice and simple 747s and progress up the ladder towards the complicated, bite you in the ar*e, propellor aircraft.
Discuss.
bizdev
After a 17 year career in aircraft maintenance with the World's Favourite Airline, I moved to a small airline with two aircraft types both of which were turbo props (a career move into maintenance management).
Having come from where I did, I thought I knew everything about everything - a regular 'Joe Petroni'. My god did I come down with a bang - once you put a propellor on the front of a nice simple turbojet life gets very very complicated.
I remember thinking at the time that pilot salaries and career structure was completely the wrong way around - pilots should start off on nice and simple 747s and progress up the ladder towards the complicated, bite you in the ar*e, propellor aircraft.
Discuss.
bizdev
leitz2002al, the 300 actually has the increase ref switch as an option. The theory behind being able to use it on the smaller Dash is that although you are permitted to take off in icing conditions, you are not permitted to take off with any ice on the airframe, therefore you are taking off with a clean airframe and don't need the protection of additional speed until shortly after take off.
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Last edited by Huck; 18th May 2009 at 13:31.
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An interesting and thought provoking article, Huck. As an aside - and please excuse the thread drift here - many moons back when I was instructing I noticed that in a lot of pilots that I checked out to fly our school aircraft, having come from the US where they had trained rather more cheaply than in the UK, were doing odd things in the stall recovery. Whereas I had it drummed into me and indeed taught it myself that if you got a wing drop you 'prevented further yaw with rudder' - I noticed that many coming back from the states were trying to pick up the dropped wing with opposite rudder! Subtly different and giving good potential for a spin, me thinks! Fast forward to New York with the A300 in the wake turbulence where a too hefty boot of rudder (picking up the dropped wing?) was used and broke the fin off......how exactly is stall recovery taught in the states? Makes you think......
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PTH
Your comment: “….in 1978, jets would be used between Newark and BUF, not props.”
What does the departure point have to do with it? It could have been BOS, LGA, JFK, PHL, ALB, SRY, DTW, DCA, PIT, ORD, or a multitude of others. EWR had nothing to do with this accident.
There were a good number of Merlins, Metroliners, and Convairs flying in 1978. And they did fly into BUF. (As a side note: Nothing to do with this discussion. In BUF, I watched a Short pull on to the ramp in front of me and watched the ice sheets slide down the top of the fuselage across the tail out about two feet and break off.)
The power plants mounted on the aircraft and the passengers seated in the cabin had nothing to do with this accident. The type of engine had nothing what so ever to do with this. Many of the turbo-prop today are only a few blades and a casing away from a turbo fan.
Your comment: “30 years ago the airlines still wanted to show how safe they were so that the customer would buy tickets...now they want to show how cheap they are.”
Thirty years ago the word was “service,” safety was all but a no no when advertizing an airline. It was reputation, service, frequency and quality.
My original post had far more to do with responsible oversight, than discussion of what SOP did what. The oversight is where the responsibility for this accident should be headed. This would be one giant step forward in safety.
Just maybe if the oversight by the FAA had been a little stricter the flight would have been completed safely and this discussion would not be taking place. Sadly that so many people have been lost due to the “FAA minimum standard.”
What is the figure, all but one accident in the last eight years have been by regional carriers?
Your comment: “….in 1978, jets would be used between Newark and BUF, not props.”
What does the departure point have to do with it? It could have been BOS, LGA, JFK, PHL, ALB, SRY, DTW, DCA, PIT, ORD, or a multitude of others. EWR had nothing to do with this accident.
There were a good number of Merlins, Metroliners, and Convairs flying in 1978. And they did fly into BUF. (As a side note: Nothing to do with this discussion. In BUF, I watched a Short pull on to the ramp in front of me and watched the ice sheets slide down the top of the fuselage across the tail out about two feet and break off.)
The power plants mounted on the aircraft and the passengers seated in the cabin had nothing to do with this accident. The type of engine had nothing what so ever to do with this. Many of the turbo-prop today are only a few blades and a casing away from a turbo fan.
Your comment: “30 years ago the airlines still wanted to show how safe they were so that the customer would buy tickets...now they want to show how cheap they are.”
Thirty years ago the word was “service,” safety was all but a no no when advertizing an airline. It was reputation, service, frequency and quality.
My original post had far more to do with responsible oversight, than discussion of what SOP did what. The oversight is where the responsibility for this accident should be headed. This would be one giant step forward in safety.
Just maybe if the oversight by the FAA had been a little stricter the flight would have been completed safely and this discussion would not be taking place. Sadly that so many people have been lost due to the “FAA minimum standard.”
What is the figure, all but one accident in the last eight years have been by regional carriers?
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Can't get link to work. Here is text.
FRIDAY, MAY 15, 2009
Thirty Seconds of Confusion
From a certain website that I'm not supposed to link to or even post to, I guess....
Beep!
"Three thousand for two thousand."
It was a dark night; the landing lights lit up the thick layer of clouds slipping rapidly around us. The plane bobbed rhythmically in light turbulence as we descended at flight idle power. Paul, my First Officer, slid his seat forward and cleared his throat.
"I was talking with what's-his-face the other day, our ALPA communications guy."
I looked over at Paul. "Yeah? What about?"
"Advertising. It occurred to me that we could do a much better job of getting out our message to the general public."
"Definitely."
"So why don't we put out some ads that capture people's attention?" Paul continued. "I was reading a magazine the other day, and there was this really brilliant ad. It featured a lovely voluptuous young lady, and she didn't have any clothes on - this was taken from the back, mind you - but this ad was for -."
PPPPPRRRRRBBBBBBBBTTTTTTT! DING DING!
The cockpit erupted into a cacophony of alarm horns and lights as the autopilot disconnected and the yoke began vibrating furiously. I snapped back to the instruments to find the airspeed dangerously low and the torque still at idle. I grabbed the yoke and shoved the power levers forward. "Set power!" I commanded.
It was obvious what had happened, we had leveled off at 2000 feet during the conversation without me noticing and bringing the power back up. Now, with the engines at full power, the airspeed stopped decaying and started creeping back. The stick shaker stopped momentarily.
"Altitude!" Paul called out.
Crap, we had drifted below 1900 feet. I applied some back pressure to the yoke. PPPRRRBBBBTTTT - the stick shaker started up again and the wings began a light burbling back and forth. Ish, don't want that. I eased the back pressure and gingerly nursed the altitude back to 2000 feet. The airspeed finally crept up to a safe number and I started breathing easier.
Fortunately for my career, this incident took place in a SF340 simulator rather than the JungleBus, and my "First Officer" was actually the director of training for a well-known regional airline. This company does stall training completely differently from most airlines, and in the aftermath of Colgan 3407 and Turkish 1951, Paul invited me to fly their jet and turboprop simulators and experience it for myself. We did departure stalls just after departure, approach to landing stalls while approaching for landing, and high altitude stalls at high altitude. A great many stick shaker events in the real world involve distraction at a critical time while on autopilot, so we did the scenario described above. While all of this might seem quite logical to an outsider, it is actually a revolution in the airline world. Moreover, it is done in apparent contravention of the FAA's Practical Test Standards.
In the last few days, a great many pilots - including some of the commenters on my last post - have been asking what in the world could possess a presumably competent airline pilot to pull up in response to a stick shaker - or for that matter, to use 80 to 120 pounds of force to override the stick pusher that might've saved his life. It's the most puzzling aspect of this crash. Even if the crew was relatively inexperienced, it is drummed into pilots from day one that you don't pull up in response to a stall. What could cause an airline pilot to abandon this most elementary of precepts?
Even if the pilot did survive to answer for his actions, I'm not entirely sure that even he could've given a satisfactory answer to the question. Since he is not around, all we - or the NTSB - can do is speculate about some of the possible culprits and do our best to eliminate them as potential causes of future accidents. There are three primary possibilities that have been discussed: 1) the Captain was a poor pilot to begin with; 2) he simply got confused in the heat of the moment; 3) there was some latent defect in his training. These are not mutually exclusive theories, all three could have come into play simultaneously.
By now it has been widely reported that the Captain failed five checkrides in his career. The first was his instrument checkride, back in 1991, on the partial-panel VOR approach and the NDB approach. He disclosed this failure on his application at Colgan. The next two failures, on his Commercial-Single Engine and Commercial-Multi Engine rides, took place in 2002 and 2004 respectively, and were disapproved for a fairly wide range of tasks. He only disclosed the instrument ride failure on his application. At Colgan, he failed a recurrent Proficiency Check as a First Officer and his upgrade/ATP ride. He also had to repeat a small portion of his initial PC as a new FO in the SF340.
There are a great many capable pilots who have a checkride bust or two in their past, but a long string of them raises warning flags. The interesting thing is that when you read through the NTSB Human Performance Group's interviews, everyone describes Captain Renslow as a good, consciencious pilot. Many FOs he flew with described him as above-average. Perhaps it's simply a case of not wishing to speak ill of the dead, but if he really struggled on the line you'd think the NTSB could've found someone who would have told them about it. It's hard to reconcile the popular Captain with all the checkride busts. It's possible that he simply wasn't a good test taker. That's not insignificant for our purposes: falling apart on tests can be a symptom of not coping well with pressure, period.
There was plenty of pressure to be had in the last thirty seconds of Colgan 3407. That the stick shaker was a complete surprise is self-evident. We don't know where the Captain's attention was in the moments before stick shaker activation; perhaps looking at the wingtips to see how the deice boots were coping, perhaps around the cockpit to see if anything had been missed during the rushed descent and approach checks. Maybe the long day had got to him and he was simply zoning out. It doesn't really matter; it's very unlikely he had any clue that the stick shaker was coming before it went off. It is difficult to explain to those who have never flown airplanes with stick shakers just how jarring their activation is - even in the sim, much less the real world. The whole idea behind them was to have one signal in the cockpit that is so overpowering and unmistakable that the crew cannot possibly ignore or misinterpret it. Both yokes shake so heavily that you can feel it even if your hands are nowhere near the yoke. Loud clattering noise fills the previously quiet cockpit. The autopilot disconnects with the accompanying lights and aural warnings. In the Q400's case, this is a loud horn that repeats over and over until you acknowledge it by pressing the autopilot disconnect button on the yoke. The Colgan crew never did so - they had their hands full enough already - and that sound must have surely contributed to the chaos and confusion that filled that cockpit in the last 30 seconds.
The sudden cacophony had a clear meaning: do something, now. The Captain indeed reacted very quickly, within half a second. More than a few pilots have suggested that he had tail stalls on the mind. It's possible. He'd just transitioned from an airplane that was known to be susceptible to tail stalls (early models, anyway) and had recently viewed the NASA video on tailplane stalls in recurrent training. The crew had been talking about the icing only a few minutes before. With a tailplane stall, of course, one would not expect to see the stick shaker activate, as that indicates a high aircraft angle of attack and, by extension, a low tailplane AoA. I'm not sure that the distinction would be evident to anyone within the space of a half-second, but by the same token I'm a little skeptical that anyone would think of a tailplane stall within a half second in the first place (much less remember that the corrective action for a tailplane stall is to pull up). It's possible that five or six seconds later the Captain mistook the stick pusher for a tailplane stall (they would feel similar in an aircraft with unpowered flight controls, although not in a Q400) and that's why he fought it. It's very easy to play these parlor games after the fact, having reviewed the NASA video and FAA circulars and discussed among ourselves. At the time, caught by surprise and with little idea of what's going on and events moving far faster than he could really think about them, I rather doubt that the Captain consciously thought about what he was doing, in the same way that the First Officer obviously wasn't thinking about what she was doing when she retracted the flaps in the middle of a stall. Amid the confusion, pure instinct took over.
Why that instinct might involve pulling when new pilots are taught over and over again to push may have its roots in the way that most airlines teach stalls. To begin with, they are not even stall recovery procedures; they are stick shaker recovery procedures. The ATP PTS directs you to recover at the first indication of a stall, which includes the stick shaker. Many pilots will never experience a stick pusher or a real stall in the simulator unless they request it; it was never part of the syllabus at Horizon or NewCo. The maneuver is typically taught and checked well above the ground. The setup is far from realistic: the applicant usually hand-flies and stops trimming well before the stall. The reason to do so is that it makes the recovery easier: the plane won't pitch up when you apply power. The purpose of stall training is really to prepare the student to pass the maneuver on the checkride rather than to prepare them for the possibility of being surprised by a stick shaker on the line.
And this brings us to the most outrageous thing about stall training at many airlines. Applicants are taught to hold their altitude throughout the maneuver. Again, this is due to the Practical Test Standards, which state that an applicant must:
Recover to a reference airspeed, altitude and heading with minimal loss of altitude, airspeed, and heading deviation.
The FAA never defines "minimal loss" of altitude. A great many instructors and check airmen have substituted their own standard, often 100 feet as several Colgan instructors testified. People can be and have been failed for trading altitude for airspeed during a stick shaker recovery. Instead, you are taught to immediately go to full power, and use whatever yoke force is needed to keep the airplane level while it accelerates. This often involves "riding the shaker" for some time. Let me say that again: we are being taught to stay in the shaker for longer than is necessary. Because we stop trimming at such a high airspeed, this can involve significant back force on the yoke until the airspeed increases again. Therefore, you are developing the exact motor memory that, if applied to a real-world situation like Colgan 3407's, will induce exactly the wrong control movements.
It's entirely possible that the Captain was reacting to the stick shaker exactly as he did in the simulator and simply overreacted a bit with the adrenaline rush. It didn't take that much back pressure to start the abrupt pitch-up after the shaker, only about 25-30 pounds according to the Flight Data Recorder. The fact that the autopilot was engaged right up to the stick shaker meant that the plane was trimmed for the speed at which the autopilot disengaged, which certainly didn't help matters when the Captain shoved the power levers forward during the pitch-up. I don't doubt that he was as surprised as anyone that his reaction to the stick shaker induced a 30 degree pitch up and subsequent stall. It was still a recoverable situation at that point; it was fighting the stick pusher the whole way down and retracting the flaps mid-stall that ultimately doomed the crew. These actions may reasonably be attributed to panic at a situation that had quickly spiraled out of control.
So why did stalls come to be taught this way? I think I see the FAA's original reasoning. A lot of training and checking used to be accomplished in real transport category aircraft, many of which reacted very poorly to full stalls. In the interest of safety, the FAA decreed that recovery be initiated at the very first sign of a stall. Simply increasing one's airspeed from a low number to a high number doesn't seem like a very difficult task, and nobody wants crews to be diving transport category jets at the ground in a low-altitude situation, so the FAA added the language about minimum loss of altitude. Transfer this to the simulator, where the element of danger is removed, and many check airmen began treating it not as a survival maneuver but a proficiency maneuver not much different than steep turns.
Many major airlines at least include simulator training to the stick pusher for their pilots, but as far as I know only Paul's regional airline has completely revamped the way they do stall training. They teach their pilots that reducing angle of attack promptly is the most important thing in recovering from a stick shaker, and that this involves both increasing power and lowering pitch to trade some altitude for airspeed. I tried both their method and the traditional method in the sim, and using the new method resulted in far less time spent in the shaker in exchange for altitude loss generally no greater than 200-300 feet (the scenario I described at the beginning of this post was using the traditional recovery method). Just as importantly, this airline trains and checks stick shaker recoveries using the most common scenarios in which real crews have encountered stick shakers: accidental reversion to pitch mode after takeoff, mountain wave at high altitude, leveling off on a non-precision approach, and turning base leg to final approach. Most scenarios involve the autopilot being on and trimming all the way to the low airspeed. They often give students low speed scenarios when they're not expecting them, and make ready use of distraction. In my own case, I knew exactly what Paul was doing when he struck up the conversation about the ad with a naked woman in it, yet I still found myself surprised when the shaker went off. The end result is that if one of their pilots ever finds themselves surprised by a stick shaker at low altitude, it won't be the first time they've had that experience, and they'll have accurate motor memory to call upon for the recovery.
So why haven't more airlines changed the way they train stall recovery? Surprisingly, the FAA isn't standing in the way: they wholeheartedly approved of the changes that Paul introduced to his airline's training program. A lot of it is simply institutional inertia. Until now, few have thought there was a problem that needed addressing. This a symptom of a reactive rather than proactive safety culture at many regional airlines. Another element is cost: many regionals' training programs are all about turning out pilots as quickly and cheaply as possible while maintaining a basic level of competence and safety. When you compare regional airline training syllabi to those at major airlines, you typically see fewer simulator sessions despite having similarly sophisticated aircraft and less experienced pilots. That means that certain things get glossed over, and no "superfluous" training is included. This accident will of course change the way we teach stalls - I fully expect to be using Paul's method next year (and I hope they call it "Paul's method" in recognition of his foresight) - but I do worry that it will take future accidents to expose other weaknesses unless there is a fundamental change in the safety culture at the regional airlines. I'll write more about that in my next post.
FRIDAY, MAY 15, 2009
Thirty Seconds of Confusion
From a certain website that I'm not supposed to link to or even post to, I guess....
Beep!
"Three thousand for two thousand."
It was a dark night; the landing lights lit up the thick layer of clouds slipping rapidly around us. The plane bobbed rhythmically in light turbulence as we descended at flight idle power. Paul, my First Officer, slid his seat forward and cleared his throat.
"I was talking with what's-his-face the other day, our ALPA communications guy."
I looked over at Paul. "Yeah? What about?"
"Advertising. It occurred to me that we could do a much better job of getting out our message to the general public."
"Definitely."
"So why don't we put out some ads that capture people's attention?" Paul continued. "I was reading a magazine the other day, and there was this really brilliant ad. It featured a lovely voluptuous young lady, and she didn't have any clothes on - this was taken from the back, mind you - but this ad was for -."
PPPPPRRRRRBBBBBBBBTTTTTTT! DING DING!
The cockpit erupted into a cacophony of alarm horns and lights as the autopilot disconnected and the yoke began vibrating furiously. I snapped back to the instruments to find the airspeed dangerously low and the torque still at idle. I grabbed the yoke and shoved the power levers forward. "Set power!" I commanded.
It was obvious what had happened, we had leveled off at 2000 feet during the conversation without me noticing and bringing the power back up. Now, with the engines at full power, the airspeed stopped decaying and started creeping back. The stick shaker stopped momentarily.
"Altitude!" Paul called out.
Crap, we had drifted below 1900 feet. I applied some back pressure to the yoke. PPPRRRBBBBTTTT - the stick shaker started up again and the wings began a light burbling back and forth. Ish, don't want that. I eased the back pressure and gingerly nursed the altitude back to 2000 feet. The airspeed finally crept up to a safe number and I started breathing easier.
Fortunately for my career, this incident took place in a SF340 simulator rather than the JungleBus, and my "First Officer" was actually the director of training for a well-known regional airline. This company does stall training completely differently from most airlines, and in the aftermath of Colgan 3407 and Turkish 1951, Paul invited me to fly their jet and turboprop simulators and experience it for myself. We did departure stalls just after departure, approach to landing stalls while approaching for landing, and high altitude stalls at high altitude. A great many stick shaker events in the real world involve distraction at a critical time while on autopilot, so we did the scenario described above. While all of this might seem quite logical to an outsider, it is actually a revolution in the airline world. Moreover, it is done in apparent contravention of the FAA's Practical Test Standards.
In the last few days, a great many pilots - including some of the commenters on my last post - have been asking what in the world could possess a presumably competent airline pilot to pull up in response to a stick shaker - or for that matter, to use 80 to 120 pounds of force to override the stick pusher that might've saved his life. It's the most puzzling aspect of this crash. Even if the crew was relatively inexperienced, it is drummed into pilots from day one that you don't pull up in response to a stall. What could cause an airline pilot to abandon this most elementary of precepts?
Even if the pilot did survive to answer for his actions, I'm not entirely sure that even he could've given a satisfactory answer to the question. Since he is not around, all we - or the NTSB - can do is speculate about some of the possible culprits and do our best to eliminate them as potential causes of future accidents. There are three primary possibilities that have been discussed: 1) the Captain was a poor pilot to begin with; 2) he simply got confused in the heat of the moment; 3) there was some latent defect in his training. These are not mutually exclusive theories, all three could have come into play simultaneously.
By now it has been widely reported that the Captain failed five checkrides in his career. The first was his instrument checkride, back in 1991, on the partial-panel VOR approach and the NDB approach. He disclosed this failure on his application at Colgan. The next two failures, on his Commercial-Single Engine and Commercial-Multi Engine rides, took place in 2002 and 2004 respectively, and were disapproved for a fairly wide range of tasks. He only disclosed the instrument ride failure on his application. At Colgan, he failed a recurrent Proficiency Check as a First Officer and his upgrade/ATP ride. He also had to repeat a small portion of his initial PC as a new FO in the SF340.
There are a great many capable pilots who have a checkride bust or two in their past, but a long string of them raises warning flags. The interesting thing is that when you read through the NTSB Human Performance Group's interviews, everyone describes Captain Renslow as a good, consciencious pilot. Many FOs he flew with described him as above-average. Perhaps it's simply a case of not wishing to speak ill of the dead, but if he really struggled on the line you'd think the NTSB could've found someone who would have told them about it. It's hard to reconcile the popular Captain with all the checkride busts. It's possible that he simply wasn't a good test taker. That's not insignificant for our purposes: falling apart on tests can be a symptom of not coping well with pressure, period.
There was plenty of pressure to be had in the last thirty seconds of Colgan 3407. That the stick shaker was a complete surprise is self-evident. We don't know where the Captain's attention was in the moments before stick shaker activation; perhaps looking at the wingtips to see how the deice boots were coping, perhaps around the cockpit to see if anything had been missed during the rushed descent and approach checks. Maybe the long day had got to him and he was simply zoning out. It doesn't really matter; it's very unlikely he had any clue that the stick shaker was coming before it went off. It is difficult to explain to those who have never flown airplanes with stick shakers just how jarring their activation is - even in the sim, much less the real world. The whole idea behind them was to have one signal in the cockpit that is so overpowering and unmistakable that the crew cannot possibly ignore or misinterpret it. Both yokes shake so heavily that you can feel it even if your hands are nowhere near the yoke. Loud clattering noise fills the previously quiet cockpit. The autopilot disconnects with the accompanying lights and aural warnings. In the Q400's case, this is a loud horn that repeats over and over until you acknowledge it by pressing the autopilot disconnect button on the yoke. The Colgan crew never did so - they had their hands full enough already - and that sound must have surely contributed to the chaos and confusion that filled that cockpit in the last 30 seconds.
The sudden cacophony had a clear meaning: do something, now. The Captain indeed reacted very quickly, within half a second. More than a few pilots have suggested that he had tail stalls on the mind. It's possible. He'd just transitioned from an airplane that was known to be susceptible to tail stalls (early models, anyway) and had recently viewed the NASA video on tailplane stalls in recurrent training. The crew had been talking about the icing only a few minutes before. With a tailplane stall, of course, one would not expect to see the stick shaker activate, as that indicates a high aircraft angle of attack and, by extension, a low tailplane AoA. I'm not sure that the distinction would be evident to anyone within the space of a half-second, but by the same token I'm a little skeptical that anyone would think of a tailplane stall within a half second in the first place (much less remember that the corrective action for a tailplane stall is to pull up). It's possible that five or six seconds later the Captain mistook the stick pusher for a tailplane stall (they would feel similar in an aircraft with unpowered flight controls, although not in a Q400) and that's why he fought it. It's very easy to play these parlor games after the fact, having reviewed the NASA video and FAA circulars and discussed among ourselves. At the time, caught by surprise and with little idea of what's going on and events moving far faster than he could really think about them, I rather doubt that the Captain consciously thought about what he was doing, in the same way that the First Officer obviously wasn't thinking about what she was doing when she retracted the flaps in the middle of a stall. Amid the confusion, pure instinct took over.
Why that instinct might involve pulling when new pilots are taught over and over again to push may have its roots in the way that most airlines teach stalls. To begin with, they are not even stall recovery procedures; they are stick shaker recovery procedures. The ATP PTS directs you to recover at the first indication of a stall, which includes the stick shaker. Many pilots will never experience a stick pusher or a real stall in the simulator unless they request it; it was never part of the syllabus at Horizon or NewCo. The maneuver is typically taught and checked well above the ground. The setup is far from realistic: the applicant usually hand-flies and stops trimming well before the stall. The reason to do so is that it makes the recovery easier: the plane won't pitch up when you apply power. The purpose of stall training is really to prepare the student to pass the maneuver on the checkride rather than to prepare them for the possibility of being surprised by a stick shaker on the line.
And this brings us to the most outrageous thing about stall training at many airlines. Applicants are taught to hold their altitude throughout the maneuver. Again, this is due to the Practical Test Standards, which state that an applicant must:
Recover to a reference airspeed, altitude and heading with minimal loss of altitude, airspeed, and heading deviation.
The FAA never defines "minimal loss" of altitude. A great many instructors and check airmen have substituted their own standard, often 100 feet as several Colgan instructors testified. People can be and have been failed for trading altitude for airspeed during a stick shaker recovery. Instead, you are taught to immediately go to full power, and use whatever yoke force is needed to keep the airplane level while it accelerates. This often involves "riding the shaker" for some time. Let me say that again: we are being taught to stay in the shaker for longer than is necessary. Because we stop trimming at such a high airspeed, this can involve significant back force on the yoke until the airspeed increases again. Therefore, you are developing the exact motor memory that, if applied to a real-world situation like Colgan 3407's, will induce exactly the wrong control movements.
It's entirely possible that the Captain was reacting to the stick shaker exactly as he did in the simulator and simply overreacted a bit with the adrenaline rush. It didn't take that much back pressure to start the abrupt pitch-up after the shaker, only about 25-30 pounds according to the Flight Data Recorder. The fact that the autopilot was engaged right up to the stick shaker meant that the plane was trimmed for the speed at which the autopilot disengaged, which certainly didn't help matters when the Captain shoved the power levers forward during the pitch-up. I don't doubt that he was as surprised as anyone that his reaction to the stick shaker induced a 30 degree pitch up and subsequent stall. It was still a recoverable situation at that point; it was fighting the stick pusher the whole way down and retracting the flaps mid-stall that ultimately doomed the crew. These actions may reasonably be attributed to panic at a situation that had quickly spiraled out of control.
So why did stalls come to be taught this way? I think I see the FAA's original reasoning. A lot of training and checking used to be accomplished in real transport category aircraft, many of which reacted very poorly to full stalls. In the interest of safety, the FAA decreed that recovery be initiated at the very first sign of a stall. Simply increasing one's airspeed from a low number to a high number doesn't seem like a very difficult task, and nobody wants crews to be diving transport category jets at the ground in a low-altitude situation, so the FAA added the language about minimum loss of altitude. Transfer this to the simulator, where the element of danger is removed, and many check airmen began treating it not as a survival maneuver but a proficiency maneuver not much different than steep turns.
Many major airlines at least include simulator training to the stick pusher for their pilots, but as far as I know only Paul's regional airline has completely revamped the way they do stall training. They teach their pilots that reducing angle of attack promptly is the most important thing in recovering from a stick shaker, and that this involves both increasing power and lowering pitch to trade some altitude for airspeed. I tried both their method and the traditional method in the sim, and using the new method resulted in far less time spent in the shaker in exchange for altitude loss generally no greater than 200-300 feet (the scenario I described at the beginning of this post was using the traditional recovery method). Just as importantly, this airline trains and checks stick shaker recoveries using the most common scenarios in which real crews have encountered stick shakers: accidental reversion to pitch mode after takeoff, mountain wave at high altitude, leveling off on a non-precision approach, and turning base leg to final approach. Most scenarios involve the autopilot being on and trimming all the way to the low airspeed. They often give students low speed scenarios when they're not expecting them, and make ready use of distraction. In my own case, I knew exactly what Paul was doing when he struck up the conversation about the ad with a naked woman in it, yet I still found myself surprised when the shaker went off. The end result is that if one of their pilots ever finds themselves surprised by a stick shaker at low altitude, it won't be the first time they've had that experience, and they'll have accurate motor memory to call upon for the recovery.
So why haven't more airlines changed the way they train stall recovery? Surprisingly, the FAA isn't standing in the way: they wholeheartedly approved of the changes that Paul introduced to his airline's training program. A lot of it is simply institutional inertia. Until now, few have thought there was a problem that needed addressing. This a symptom of a reactive rather than proactive safety culture at many regional airlines. Another element is cost: many regionals' training programs are all about turning out pilots as quickly and cheaply as possible while maintaining a basic level of competence and safety. When you compare regional airline training syllabi to those at major airlines, you typically see fewer simulator sessions despite having similarly sophisticated aircraft and less experienced pilots. That means that certain things get glossed over, and no "superfluous" training is included. This accident will of course change the way we teach stalls - I fully expect to be using Paul's method next year (and I hope they call it "Paul's method" in recognition of his foresight) - but I do worry that it will take future accidents to expose other weaknesses unless there is a fundamental change in the safety culture at the regional airlines. I'll write more about that in my next post.
How ironic,
-in the Buffalo case a/the Auto-throttle COULD have prevented this crash..
and
-in the Amsterdam case it caused it...
Nevertheless, as I posted many posts ago; I still think they were both caused by an A/C not being flown by any pilot; 2 wings, 2 working engines, no control problems etc etc, the 2 above "just" crashed for the rest 2 perfect airplanes.
RIP
-in the Buffalo case a/the Auto-throttle COULD have prevented this crash..
and
-in the Amsterdam case it caused it...
Nevertheless, as I posted many posts ago; I still think they were both caused by an A/C not being flown by any pilot; 2 wings, 2 working engines, no control problems etc etc, the 2 above "just" crashed for the rest 2 perfect airplanes.
RIP
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Reversion under stress.
Not wishing to promote thread drift but as a humble PPL my instructor (now a Captain with BA) taught me to gently pick the wing up with the rudder at the stall. Subsequent flying has taught me to question this one piece of his excellent training.
It is little nuances like this that once they have become part of your basic skills are very hard to "unlearn" and tend to emerge in moments of stress!
I wonder how likely it is that a reversion to a previous mode or mindset was part of the Buffalo crash?
It is little nuances like this that once they have become part of your basic skills are very hard to "unlearn" and tend to emerge in moments of stress!
I wonder how likely it is that a reversion to a previous mode or mindset was part of the Buffalo crash?
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Huck,
Agreed 110% - see some of my early posts on this crash.
I've hated the 121 stall maneuver from day 1 (3 airlines ago, the rest do it the "traditional" way too), and am convinced it had a lot to do with the crash of 3407. It's not stall recovery training so much as a demonstration of the ability to return an out of trim airplane from MCA to normal flight.
Just to add a bit, the key point to me about the "traditional" method is that the sim/aircraft is usually hand flown to the stick shaker without trimming, so a lot of back pressure is needed to maintain pitch at the onset of stick shaker. Capt. Renslow was undoubtedly used to applying back pressure (!) at the stick shaker, only this time the aircraft was trimmed. In other words, his completely wrong reaction of pulling back was exactly what he'd been trained to do. So, yeah they screwed up (getting slow, bugging no-ice speeds), but their training set them up to go from shaker to stall..
That said ,I have no idea why they didn't, one of them, remember how to recover from an actual stall. Could it be that the 121 training actually over-rode the Private Pilot 101 training? Or could it be that the puppy mills aren't emphasizing the basics enough? Could it be that neither their initial training nor their 121 training was very good? I don't know, but I am concerned by the implications.
Q.
Agreed 110% - see some of my early posts on this crash.
I've hated the 121 stall maneuver from day 1 (3 airlines ago, the rest do it the "traditional" way too), and am convinced it had a lot to do with the crash of 3407. It's not stall recovery training so much as a demonstration of the ability to return an out of trim airplane from MCA to normal flight.
Just to add a bit, the key point to me about the "traditional" method is that the sim/aircraft is usually hand flown to the stick shaker without trimming, so a lot of back pressure is needed to maintain pitch at the onset of stick shaker. Capt. Renslow was undoubtedly used to applying back pressure (!) at the stick shaker, only this time the aircraft was trimmed. In other words, his completely wrong reaction of pulling back was exactly what he'd been trained to do. So, yeah they screwed up (getting slow, bugging no-ice speeds), but their training set them up to go from shaker to stall..
That said ,I have no idea why they didn't, one of them, remember how to recover from an actual stall. Could it be that the 121 training actually over-rode the Private Pilot 101 training? Or could it be that the puppy mills aren't emphasizing the basics enough? Could it be that neither their initial training nor their 121 training was very good? I don't know, but I am concerned by the implications.
Q.
Last edited by q100; 18th May 2009 at 14:10. Reason: pore speling
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mustang sally
skip it. you missed the point and I'm not going to explain it to you again.
stall training in the USA....many pilots are shown that it is possible to raise a wing while the plane is stalled. I was shown this while being taught for my PPL...34 years ago.
When I was teaching, I taught...REDUCE ANGLE OF ATTACK before you do anything and as soon as the plane is unstalled, all the flight controls will work just fine.
Somehow people have gotten confused that you must level the wings before actually recovering from the stall. A failure in imagination if you ask me.
Many years ago, in prehistoric flying times, the stall would begin near the tip and the ailerons of the wing. Thus the admonition to not use the ailerons to pick up a wing. What could you use? The rudder.
Well, planes are now designed to start the stall at the root and work out so that when things start shaking the ailerons will still work.
To one chap who speaks about his instructor...I'm sure his point was not to stay in the stall forever and lift the wings with rudder, but he was demonstrating what could be done...
To the chap who somehow thinks that stall training/rudder use caused the problem with the Airbus which lost its vertical fin/rudder...we must remember that American Airlines had an FAA approved training program which encouraged the use of rudder in an upset situation. The plane was FAA approved to not break apart in flight and had no placard saying: if you apply full rudder from stop to stop above speed "X" the tial will fall off.
SO much for FAA approved anything.
as an aside: one time a visiting Englishman to the Palo Alto area of San Francisco,California, USA wanted to do some sightseeing in a Tomahawk (piper). He claimed he was an instructor and had plenty of time in Tomahawks...so off we went.
Did someone teach him to gun the engine repeatedly and swerve to take the runway, and do so with such VERVE as to bang my head off the side of the door...or was he just re-living a previous life while scrambling his mighty spitfire to intercept the Hun over the Thames Estuary?
I've seen so many things while ''checking out'' other people's sutdents. A cross wind landing technique of aiming for the downwind corner of the approach end of the runway and landing towards the upwind corner of the departure end. (this would not be my way of teaching anything except a desperation situation above crosswind limits mind you)
I've seen people starta slip to a crosswind landing from the OUTER MARKER!
So boys and girls there are lots of nutty things out there.
AND I STILL THINK the nuttiest think of all is to apply power and pull up when you get the shaker, instead of accepting the altitude loss and getting right out of the stall.
skip it. you missed the point and I'm not going to explain it to you again.
stall training in the USA....many pilots are shown that it is possible to raise a wing while the plane is stalled. I was shown this while being taught for my PPL...34 years ago.
When I was teaching, I taught...REDUCE ANGLE OF ATTACK before you do anything and as soon as the plane is unstalled, all the flight controls will work just fine.
Somehow people have gotten confused that you must level the wings before actually recovering from the stall. A failure in imagination if you ask me.
Many years ago, in prehistoric flying times, the stall would begin near the tip and the ailerons of the wing. Thus the admonition to not use the ailerons to pick up a wing. What could you use? The rudder.
Well, planes are now designed to start the stall at the root and work out so that when things start shaking the ailerons will still work.
To one chap who speaks about his instructor...I'm sure his point was not to stay in the stall forever and lift the wings with rudder, but he was demonstrating what could be done...
To the chap who somehow thinks that stall training/rudder use caused the problem with the Airbus which lost its vertical fin/rudder...we must remember that American Airlines had an FAA approved training program which encouraged the use of rudder in an upset situation. The plane was FAA approved to not break apart in flight and had no placard saying: if you apply full rudder from stop to stop above speed "X" the tial will fall off.
SO much for FAA approved anything.
as an aside: one time a visiting Englishman to the Palo Alto area of San Francisco,California, USA wanted to do some sightseeing in a Tomahawk (piper). He claimed he was an instructor and had plenty of time in Tomahawks...so off we went.
Did someone teach him to gun the engine repeatedly and swerve to take the runway, and do so with such VERVE as to bang my head off the side of the door...or was he just re-living a previous life while scrambling his mighty spitfire to intercept the Hun over the Thames Estuary?
I've seen so many things while ''checking out'' other people's sutdents. A cross wind landing technique of aiming for the downwind corner of the approach end of the runway and landing towards the upwind corner of the departure end. (this would not be my way of teaching anything except a desperation situation above crosswind limits mind you)
I've seen people starta slip to a crosswind landing from the OUTER MARKER!
So boys and girls there are lots of nutty things out there.
AND I STILL THINK the nuttiest think of all is to apply power and pull up when you get the shaker, instead of accepting the altitude loss and getting right out of the stall.
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Oh dear... we do have a few issues, don't we? Think about what you are doing at the stall, protectthehornet; yes, I know it is POSSIBLE to 'pick the wing up' using rudder, even aileron. What you fail to understand is that it is not adviseable! You will merely increase the angle of attack on a semi-stalled wing! You might get away with it but you might also cause a spin to start. It is mis-handling of the aircraft and stems from a misunderstanding of what you are trying to achieve. Stall plus yaw is the pre-cursor to a spin and the use of rudder at stall recovery is very definitely designed to prevent further yaw and very clearly not to pick the bloody wing up!! Roll is a SECONDARY effect of the yaw control. It is this sort of thinking and incorrect technique that then, one day, leads to an unexplained spin from a stick pusher event that leaves many scratching their heads! It matters not one iota if you recover with wings not level - reduce the AOA and prevent further yaw. Job done.
Think about your upgoing wing in your dubious technique; the AOA will increase which is definitely not what you would want close to, or at, the stall!! You are arguing what you can get away with versus correct technique and i'll wager that so far, you have been a lucky pilot! One day it will bite you and hard! Heed my advice, sir!!
Think about your upgoing wing in your dubious technique; the AOA will increase which is definitely not what you would want close to, or at, the stall!! You are arguing what you can get away with versus correct technique and i'll wager that so far, you have been a lucky pilot! One day it will bite you and hard! Heed my advice, sir!!
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Me thinks, PTH must be smoking some home grown aged leaves, and I'm not speaking of grape juice. Or is Golden Bay Hash? Come on get a life...
PTH..... You responded to my posting about FAA setting the low bar. I did not mention or discuss stall recover or how it is trained. Only who is responsible for setting the minimum standard and who approves the manuals and training events.
It is the FAA who sets the minimum standards. It is these low standards that most, if not all carriers strive for, to control costs.
Back when Douglas was king, the FAA set the world standard. Now, many point to JAR OPS as the king of standards. And many of the IATA standards are more aggressive and restrictive than the good old FAA.
PTH..... You responded to my posting about FAA setting the low bar. I did not mention or discuss stall recover or how it is trained. Only who is responsible for setting the minimum standard and who approves the manuals and training events.
It is the FAA who sets the minimum standards. It is these low standards that most, if not all carriers strive for, to control costs.
Back when Douglas was king, the FAA set the world standard. Now, many point to JAR OPS as the king of standards. And many of the IATA standards are more aggressive and restrictive than the good old FAA.