Continental TurboProp crash inbound for Buffalo

[cessnapuppy]

the solution?

After too many accidents caused by sleepy / sleeping drivers, driving hours in the long-haul trucking industry are now (at least partially) monitored via cameras on overhead gantries and in-truck recorders. Not as simple for the airlines, but it may come to this.

actually a real solution would be a series of cognitive tests administered by the computer: perhaps a pre-flight checklist presented to the pilot(s) (which has some subtle errors) and an eye-tracking video game like test.

next a breathalyzer and saliva test for cortisol (stress hormone) - The airlines wont go for this, not because of the cost, but because they benefit from the overbooking and the over scheduling. Most flights are uneventful and for those that are "eventful" the error rarely rises to that of a reportable incident.
besides, the recorders are useful AFTER the fact, not before. The CVR in this case showed only how unprofessional. overworked and under-skilled these particular pilots were (not to mention underpaid) I still cant believe they were making less that a customer service manager at Walmart*

*not to say that Walmart doesnt have excellent customer service

[rgbrock1]

ROB82/SROBARTS. Thank you for that info. I appreciate it.

So I guess my other question is: if the stick shaker activated due to a stall warning, and the normal reaction to this would be to point the nose down, in order to gain some
speed, why would the captain have pulled up instead? I know it's conjecture in trying to decipher someone's intentions but it is curious.

[One Outsider]

So I guess my other question is:.....

It should be mandatory to read a thread before being able to post on it. That should reduce the number of times the same questions are being asked over and over again by people who couldn't be arsed.

Or use the search function. It is not rocket science.

[MU3001A]

So I guess my other question is: if the stick shaker activated due to a stall warning, and the normal reaction to this would be to point the nose down, in order to gain some speed, why would the captain have pulled up instead?

AOA not speed. Why? well yes indeed.

[protectthehornet]

willieeverlearn

I mentioned early on in this thread that the uncommanded retraction of the flaps by the f/o was greatly disturbing to me.

I agree with you that this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I can imagine, as I previously posted, that both pilots had talked about tailplane stall before their time was recorded on the CVR...and of course this wasn't a tailplane stall....but they reacted as if it were.

there are great pilots with 2500 hours and terrible ones with the same flight time...why did I pick twenty five hundred hours...CAL had it when he flew NY to paris.

...that's Charles A. Lindbergh to you newbee pilots.

[AerocatS2A]

PTH, they didn't react correctly to a tail plane stall either, if he thought it was a tail plane stall he should have been reducing power but he increased it. Also, the CVR covers the entire flight, any talk of tail plane stall would have been recorded.

[protectthehornet]

aerocat

I meant that the cvr didn't record the conversation they may have had in the crew room

but you are right...adding power wouldn';t have been part of the tailplane stall recovery.

what do YOU think about retracting the flaps without command, or for any reason in this situation


I also recall early in the thread that someone would be fired if they lost altitude in a stall in the simulator...just begging you to pull back on the yoke ...re enforcing the wrong thing to do with the threat of losing your job.

[rgbrock1]

protecthehornet:

Has it been ascertained that the cause of the crash was a tailplane stall? Or was it
a wing stall? from what I'm seeing over at Airline Pilot Central forums the overwhelming consensus seems to be that it was a wing stall. (A couple of the pilots posting on that forum had flown with the PF - Renslow - on quite a few occasions.)

[galaxy flyer]

rgbrock

The NTSB report ain't out YET, so we don't know, do we? While wing stall theories have been thrown around and the NTSB animation indicates wing stall--that isn't FINAL! Please WAIT. (Emphasis added)

GF

[rmiller774]

I have read every post in this long and interesting discussion. Each time I see it said that there was an uncommanded retraction of the flaps I am puzzled anew. I wonder if that conclusion is a "fact". The typed text does not show an answer (yes or no) from the Captain in reply to the F/O's question about should she retract the flaps, but instead of an audible reply isn't it possible that she might have been given an affirmative reply in the form of a gesture or a head shake etc from the very busy Captain? I suppose the odds are slim but in fairness ----.

[Paul2412]

Less than $16,000 for an airline pilot??? That's £9,500!! I earned more than that when I was 18, 9 years ago.

Are we sure this is correct? If so, its criminal. Am I right in presuming that that is a basic wage, and that airline pilots clock up mammoth amounts of overtime which drastically improves this?

Less than £10K a year to be responsible for thousands of lives is ridiculous. That airline needs closing down.

[AerocatS2A]

rgbrock1, according to Bombardier, the Dash 8 does not have a problem with tail stall. The tail stall theory appears to be a red herring. What PTH is getting at is that the pilot may have believed he was experiencing a tail stall (due to experience with a previous aircraft type or something) and may have then applied a tail stall recovery technique when he should've been recovering from a stick shaker activation (it wasn't even a wing stall until he pulled back and induced one, the stick shaker had activated early because the increase Vref switch was on.).

PTH, I don't know what to make of the flap retraction. I haven't read the CVR recently but I seem to remember that she didn't ask if she should retract the flaps, she advised that she had already done it. My gut feeling is that it wasn't a thought out action but rather a desperate attempt to undo whatever had been done to make them lose control. Perhaps if she'd sat on her hands and done nothing for a few seconds she might have twigged to what was going on and been able to provide better support for the PF, but who knows? I really don't think either of them were thinking clearly at the time and being fatigued and ill probably didn't help much.

As I think Ive mentioned in this thread before, I've been in a similar situation in the simulator. Icing gear on but not in icing conditions any more and PF allowed the speed to decay until the stick shaker activated. I said "airspeed" he said "oops" and gave it enough power to recover the speed, we were 20 knots above the stall speed at the time and it was a non-event (we were also circling to land at night on one engine with no flight director or autopilot.) If he'd reefed back on the control column instead, we might have been in for some remedial training! Instead it was a debrief point.

[galaxy flyer]

paul2412

Yes, that is the going rate for commuter pilots. Supply and demand, it is pretty simple-lots of pilots seeking fame and fortune as future airline pilots and lots of people demanding seats at 9 cents/mile. The Captain was a "second career" guy who "learned" to fly in his forties and the F/O a grad of a pilot mill who figured "pay your dues" and be a rich airline pilot someday.

What needs to happen is for some folks to say, "NO!, I won't fly for free!" Any bets on when that will happen?

GF

[surplus1]

Would any of the experts please answer some dumb questions for me.

1. How exactly does the NTSB know that the PF pulled the yoke full back and held it there?

Yes, I know they have the DFDR - but what on the DFDR trace shows that the pilot pulled and held the yoke full back? Is it the position of the elevator as recorded or is it something else that tells them that? If so, what precisely?

2. How can you equate the level of a pilot's pay to an accident? Are highly paid pilots (there aren't many any more) less prone to accidents because of their pay scale? Are you really talking about pay, or are you equating low pay to inexperience?

3. What standard are you using to determine the flight crew's "experience"?

a. Is it flight hours?
b. Is it time in service (longevity)?
c. Is it time in 'type'?
d. Is it a combination of all of the above?
e. Is it something else?

I ask these questions because it appears, to me, that a lot of 'conclusions' adverse to the crew are being made, quite willingly it seems, based mainly on a series of premature comments from a particular NTSB official rather than on hard evidence.

If this pilot is going to be condemned for having made a gross error in airmanship by moving the controls in the opposite direction to what should have been done, don't you think that it should first be proven beyond all doubt? Based on what I've seen and read so far, I don't think that it has.

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

Originally Posted by surplus1

Would any of the experts please answer some dumb questions for me.

1. How exactly does the NTSB know that the PF pulled the yoke full back and held it there?

Yes, I know they have the DFDR - but what on the DFDR trace shows that the pilot pulled and held the yoke full back? Is it the position of the elevator as recorded or is it something else that tells them that? If so, what precisely?

NTSB Docket Item

Figure A2.1 page 18 (of the pdf) shows plots of both elevator and COLUMN position. Section 2.3 of the main body of the text contains:

General FDR data observations include:
...
2. The control column and elevator position were noted to move approximately 1/2 full travel in the aft/trailing edge up direction within 2 seconds of stick shaker activation.[7]
They were noted to again move aft/trailing edge up, to near full deflection, in the sequence of events after initial stick pusher activation, and finally to full deflection for the last 6 seconds of the recording.

It appears that the DFDR did not have the facility to record control column forces as opposed to positions (thats a relatively recent requirement for FDRs). So no-one is ever going to meet your apparent standards of proof that the control column was "pulled". Maybe it moved full aft of it's own accord? But the only logical conclusion is that the pilot flying the aircraft was moving the control column. Especially since it did the opposite of what the stick pusher would have had it do if there were no pilot intervention.

[protectthehornet]

Pilot Pay vs. accident

Pilot pay is an indicator of many things at an airline.

If you pay poorly, you may cut corners on training (like not show someone what a stick pusher will do).

If you pay poorly, a pilot probably is not given good sick leave (paid sick leave) so one doesn't call in sick when one is sick.

IF you are paid poorly, maybe your health care plan isn't good either...and you don't get good preventive care ( I suspect that this wasn't a ''cold'' but an alergy...east coast allergens vs. west coast upbringing).

IF you are paid poorly, you can't afford a place to live in the new york area where you could have rested well.

IF You are paid poorly, you have your mind on leaving ASAP instead of improving things at your cheap airline. You are filling out forms to get hired, instead of reading more about how to pilot planes better.

I could go on and on and on...

[galaxy flyer]

PTH

Agree completely, all those "failings" are likely to be found in an operation that pays poorly, but that payscale she mentioned is not far off the commuter industry standard. I stand by my point that pilots will take that pay for the chance to be a pilot and the possibility to move on to the majors. And that is a hideously stupid idea. Why shouldn't "management" take up on the deal, especially if not doing so may end your enterprise's existence?

GF

[p51guy]

I agree totally. Poorly paid pilots at cheap airlines know they need to move on so are not motivated, they just want the experience for a decent job some day. No pilot should be flying passengers in an airliner without at least 1500 hrs. It is a shame they can hire totally unqualified people, nurse them through the training, and put them in the right seat because they are willing to work for peanuts. Qualified people are on the street but won't work for Walmart wages.

[protectthehornet]

p51 guy...right on

galaxy flyer...you said it was industry standard...and I say that the industry at large is headed for a disaster.

knowing what I know now, I would have just lied in my logbook and applied earlier to a big airline...faking all sorts of other things to support that. hours alone doesn't do it.

but...I can spot a good pilot or a bad pilot in five minutes in either a sim or a real plane.

talking to them...even watching how they get out of their car and notice the wind at the airport

p51 guy I know you know what I mean.

[WhyIsThereAir]

Poorly paid pilots at cheap airlines know they need to move on so are not motivated, they just want the experience

Now wait a minute here. Let's analyze this statement a bit. They "aren't motivated to learn", they "just want the experience to move on". But if they aren't learning, exactly what experience are they getting? Flight hours? Anything else? Like learning to be better flyers?

And just exactly what kind of incoming pilots do the Majors want? Someone with lots of hours that has never learned to fly, so can auger in one of their nice expensive A340s on the first try? Does that really make sense to hire someone to fly your expensive stuff if they can't find the flight deck and know how to put on the seatbelt?

I admit I'm not a pilot. But I do work for a really big company that has always paid rather less than the going industry average. And as a result, we get lots of people right out of school (can't afford to hire any other kind) with some education but no or bad experience. So we train them. And by and large (there are exceptions) they learn quickly and become really good at what they are doing. Then after about 3-5 years, they go off to another company that will pay them twice what we pay them to do pretty much the same thing or less. Since they ususally know more than they would have learned at the other company with high pay, they usually progress pretty quickly, and make a whole lot more money.

Now, maybe airlines are different. Maybe the $35K/year folks don't care if the pilots break the toys. Maybe nobody runs them thru a simulator. Maybe nobody asks them if they know what a rudder or flap is before hiring them, just looks to see that they have a degree in Flying from DeVry University. But if I was a pilot/copilot for Cheepee Airlines and had to fly with some 16 year old that learned in MS Flight Sim, I'd be darned sure I informally taught him enough stuff that he wasn't going to kill me. And if he couldn't be taught, I'd make sure I didn't fly with him. (No point in telling Management, they won't let him go until he augers in.)

(I have to wonder: Weren't there two people, both capable of flying the plane, sitting at the controls? Didn't they both have a yoke in front of them? If you are sitting there as PNF and watch the PF doing something absolutely boneheaded that you KNOW is going to kill you, is it your DUTY to remain silent and ignore it? Wouldn't it make more sense to swear and jam the stick forward? What the heck was the PNF thinking? Was he in the bathroom?)