Turkish airliner crashes at Schiphol

[timraper]

Artie Fufkin
stall not recovered because 450ft isn't enough, it's not rocket surgery

[Back at NH]

Why were the crew unable to recover it?

I would hazard a guess at very low speed and starting to sink fast. Plus the T/L's snapping back into retard again when the F/O let go of them probably put the lid on it.

[McGinty]

In response to Rubik101's question "Does the front of the aircraft slow down more rapidly than the portion behind the flight deck door?" the answer in the report was "yes".

It stated that the main undercarriage sheared off as it was supposed to, but that the nose gear dug in to the ploughed field and caused the cockpit section to decelerate faster than the rest of the plane.

[ericthepilot]

A failure of RA channel 1 made the a/c go to power flight idle.

The crew was in IMC conditions, so heads were inside looking at the nice pictures in front of them. Read and interpret. Yet the a/c stalled ...
No corrective crew action taken ...
as per Dutch "NTSB" report

So what is your conclusion ?
TRE captain copilot and third crew member on jumpseat were doing what ?

What did the CVR say, were they talking, sterile environment below 10000ft etc. ???

In the questions after, the Chief investigator specifically mentioned no avoidance actions were on tape or shown on FDR to validate rumors the crew made evasive actions to not "hit" anything.
They were just along for the ride, pretty much for the whole flight after AP engagement.

[fox niner]

Why is it normal in some airlines to always try to make an autoland? (apparently as is the case with Turkish)
In my airline (KLM) we like to make manual landings, as long as weather permits. It will keep you more involved with your airplane.
Just wondering.

[Navigator33]

Autopilot B was in command. Single channel approach so NO autoland!

[Lost in Saigon]

Originally Posted by D-OCHO

Quote:

I don't think it has been established WHICH F/O was in the right seat doing Line Indoctrination training.

This is the dutch text


Quote:
In de cockpit bevonden zich drie personen, de gezagvoerder, die linksvoor zat. Rechts bevond zich de eerste officier voor wie het een trainingsvlucht was.

I will translate:

Quote:
In the cockpit there were three persons, the captain, left front. On the right the First Officer for whom it was a trainings flight.

I rest my case. .

Before you rest your case...... Can you please confirm which F/O was in the right seat receiving training. Was it the one with 3,000 hours, or the one with 2,000 hours?

Also, do you happen to know if the jumpseat pilot was a safety pilot or another pilot just observing?

[Old_Fokker]

Crew Handling

Mr van Vollenhoven dit not react on Crew handling

Then why does the preliminary report of the Board which he presides specifically state that "Initially the crew did not react to the issues at hand" (end of Page 1, link to English version of report)?

Only FDR data is analysed, CVR is not

BS.

Again, Page 1 of the Preliminary Report:

"The voice recorder has shown that the crew were notified that the left radio altimeter was not working correctly (via the warning signal “landing gear must go down”). Provisional data indicates that this signal was not regarded to be a problem. [Emphasis Added]

All you read now in the press is speculations. (and rumour)

I am reading and quoting the official, preliminary report.

You, on the other hand, are the one of the persons who provided (Turkish) press with your own little account of what must have happened in the early hours after the event, even going as far as claiming that the crew crash landed the plane deliberately in that field ("The place he landed was the only option for the pilot and he had to make this decision in a split-second. The maneuver he made was topical jetfighter drill to reduce speed for impact. By this he maximized the chances for survival for the passengers, while knowing his own position would worsen. "!)

Your RAT OldF

Excuse me?

[DC-ATE]

OK.....let's cut all the BS here. (We'll see how long this lasts!)

Any 'professional' aircrew that lets their aircraft (with or without all the automation) get into the situation that this airplane was in when things started going wrong and can't recover because things went too far, has no business even looking at an airplane let alone flying one...period.

[Capt. Inop]

The NG allows fail operational operation since 2001, you just have to buy it (no idea if THY did that).

All our NG's delivered from Boeing factory post february 2003 are fail operational due to new hardware and activated rudder channel (rollout guidence, customer option).

Cat 3 B certified.

[uncle_maxwell]

radar alt redundancies?

Question to engineers/system designers/knowledgeable 73NG pilots:
- Is there no redundancy for the radar altimeter? If yes, why does the FMGC not use it?
- Why is rad alt the only source of truth? What about 'classical' alt (and it's five redundancies), GPS alt, DME distance (should be on any ILS no?), IRS alt etc. etc.??
Shouldn't the A/P and A/T disconnect if any of these sources do not reconcile??

If the autopilot only relies on rad alt without considering any other parameters, this accident shows quite a shocking design weakness, no? I would understand it on the 737 prototype, but the NG?

Please enlighten the rest of us...

[Lost in Saigon]

Originally Posted by fox niner

Why is it normal in some airlines to always try to make an autoland? (apparently as is the case with Turkish)
In my airline (KLM) we like to make manual landings, as long as weather permits. It will keep you more involved with your airplane.
Just wondering.

No one has said this was to be a full Autoland landing. All that was said was that the aircraft was on approach with the autopilot on. It was also said that this is normal for Turkish Airlines and it is normal for ALL AIRLINES.

Misinformed, ignorant, people are reading to much into this initial report. It was not originally written in English and it appears as though the translation is causing confusion even with so called "experienced pilots".

[jumpy737]

Jumpy - I THINK from what I have seen that GPWS WAS working (gear warning?) so I guess the radalt had not 'failed' but simply misread?

With the #1 RADALT INOP only modes 1-4 are inhibited. Gear warning is a function of configuration and altitude so it would still warn the crew. What will not function is the warning below 1000 feet to 500 feet "too low gear".

[Nigd3]

Surely one of the most important aspects of the accident report will be why did the crew do what they did, not just the straight facts and the associated blame (to whoever/whatever).

If they were issued with alerts and data that would have told them what was happening, why did they choose their course of action. They did not purposely fly their aircraft into the ground.

If aviation safety is to be improved, especially with complex, integrated and automated systems, then the investigation should look into deeper aspects.

[BOAC]

Q*R*H - there is enough c**p in this thread without confusing it with an irrelevant topic. Because of Dimli and others, posters are still going on about 'autoland' and I have seen NO reference to that in any official output - have you? This appears to have been a Cat I s/channel coupled approach with A/T - that's all. I know not whether Turkish have a s/channel a/land fit or not. Either way it would have made no difference to what happened.

[Lost in Saigon]

Originally Posted by fox niner

ah....but I have read the dutch report and thats my mother tongue so don't worry.
and I am not an inexperinced pilot. especially not at AMS.

I didn't say you were inexperienced. I said even Experienced Pilots are being mislead by this initial report.

Please explain where you read that Turkish Airlines ALWAYS does CATII Autoland Approaches and landings......

[Capt.KAOS]

ven going as far as claiming that the crew crash landed the plane deliberately in that field ("The place he landed was the only option for the pilot and he had to make this decision in a split-second. The maneuver he made was topical jetfighter drill to reduce speed for impact. By this he maximized the chances for survival for the passengers, while knowing his own position would worsen. "!)

In this respect Mr.Van Vollenhove said at the press conference that "if you look at the flight path then I think there was at no time a discussion about where can we land the aircraft."

[GlueBall]

Breakdown of cockpit discipline and SOPs

From the preliminary report it is apparent that THY has some serious training issues to resolve, with emphasis on instrument scan during final approach.

It is inconceivable how this crew had failed to monitor their airspeed. A complete breakdown of elementary cockpit discipline.

[Northbeach]

I fly the Boeing 737 series jets, including the NG.

Question: was this crew flying an autoland approach? Was the flight management system set up to conduct an autoland operation: autopilot and autothrottles engaged both autopilots controlling the approach?

Observation: there was a known problem with the #1 radar altimeters. It had been observed in previous flights. And the flight data recorder had previously logged the #1 RA errors.

Question: was the “problem” with the #1 RA written up in the “logbook” or equivalent maintenance document? Follow up question. If the known #1 RA “problem” was not in the logbook, “written up” why was it not? And, if a known mechanical discrepancy exists is it an acceptable act (according to Turkish/IATA/EU law/policy) to NOT put the mechanical discrepancy in the controlling maintenance document for the aircraft (maintenance log or similar) at the end of the flight where the mechanical discrepancy was observed?

According to our “rules” (Company/FAA/U.S.A.) we need two (both) functioning radio altimeters to conduct an autoland approach. Unless we have declared an emergency and are using our emergency authority, we would be prohibited from conducting autoland (arm and engage both autopilots during an approach) operations with a known problem with either one of the two RAs.

Question: What is Turkish Airline’s rules regarding the number of functioning radar altimeters required to conduct autoland operations?

If both radar altimeters are required for an autoland approach, and the #1 radar altimeter was inoperative/problematic, are autoland operations permitted by Turkish Airlines and the Dutch authorities tasked with keeping their air transportation system safe? So, given the mechanical state (defective #1 RA) of this jet when it was flying the accident approach, if it was flying in the autoland mode, was this a legal operation?

The pilot in the right seat was “inexperienced in airline operations”, what does that mean? How much total time? How much jet time? How many hours of pilot in command instrument time? How many hours in aircraft with a MGTOW > 50,000 kg?

What was the experience level, same specific flight time experience levels as above, of the pilot in the observer’s seat?

If I were a plaintiff’s barrister I would be smelling lots of blood in the water.

[quickturnaround]

I would not like to fly with a speed of 40kts under FAS. It is amazing that the failure of just 1 RA could lead to this tragedy.