Turkish airliner crashes at Schiphol

[Me Myself]

100 pages, nearly 2000 posts - and you are no further on than saying that on the balance of probability -

1) no.1 LRRA failed, and ...

2) no-one was properly flying the aircraft, and therefore ...

3) tragically, the incident was almost certainly avoidable ...

Jumbo

Where did I ever assumed point 1 ) ??
As to 2) and 3)............... When an aircraft like the 737........be it 800 slams ( stalls ) into the ground by ( reasonable ) good weather one can assume point 2) is the correct answer also implying the obvious ........hence point 3) !!
That simple.
I frankly don't give a damn as to why the A/TH retard when they do. I simply disconnect and burry the damn things foward into the dashboard. I'm sure engineering would come up with some very interesting explanation afterward..........til then....I don't want fall off the sky.

[Stop Stop Stop]

Surely this thread has now reached its conclusion?

We have read all the arguments and know many of the facts that led to the accident. Some of us have seen the wreckage (myself included) and it is a sad sight I can tell you.

Why don't we now wait for the final report before starting these discussions again? I can see it starting into a Boeing v Airbus moving throttles v non-moving ones type of argument!

We know that the aircraft was not flown or monitored properly. Let us get the full facts before the blame is apportioned.

[BOAC]

We know that the aircraft was not flown or monitored properly. Let us get the full facts before the blame is apportioned.

- well done! I think that is known as a 'non sequitur'?

[737AvEng]

Question for 737AvEng: In case you didn't have the time to read the entire thread, one of the questions hotly debated earlier was: Why would RA1 logic be programmed to send a Retard signal (flare mode?) to the A/T upon indicating -8 feet when auto land was not selected and the approach was flown only on one coupled A/P in GS capture mode? I'm not a 737 jock, but several contributors had mentioned, just for the record, that 1 A/P can in fact do a full coupled CAT-III landing. OK, but in this case, the engaged A/P was not in A/L auto land mode

I've actually read the whole thread, and what a thread it has been! I believe I posted this info and others have pointed out that the right radio alitimeter feeds FCC-B and that the left radio alitimeter feeds the autothrottle computer (when no failure is present).

The autothrottle computer on the 737NG is programmed to retard even when not in autoland. Conditions are to be:

On G/S
Flaps > 12.5 degrees
27' or less of radio altitude

Irrelevant here. The RADALT was not showing FAIL.

Agreed and I have stated this before as well. The intent of my comment about failure signals is the reliablity of the radio altimeter transceiver. Rananim asked if the #1 rad alt HAD sent out a fail, would this have occured.

Graybeard said:

Pulling the #1 radalt CB upon receiving the false gear warning would have prevented the AT Retard. End.

Agreed, but I will let you folks debate the action of pulling CB's in flight.

Wizofoz said:

As would disconnecting the AT

Agreed and maybe this should be SOP when noting erroneous radio altitude below 2500'.

[Jetdoc]

737AvEng

Are you looking at wiring diagrams for the Turkish aircraft involved in the crash? Maintenance Manuals, Wiring Diagram Manuals and Schematic Manuals are issued by Boeing against specific aircraft. At best you are guessing. You or I don't know the specifications for that particular aircraft.
If there were any other critical maintenance related failures on that aircraft, I'm sure they would already have been highlighted in the preliminairy report.
While it is unforunate that the rad alt didn't completely fail, there is more than enough data being displayed in that cockpit to give the crew an idea of how the approach is progressing. I just can't get my head around how 3 people in that cockpit couldn't pick up on something to tell them things weren't right...........

[Finn47]

The Dutch have started moving the crashed aircraft into a hangar where it will obviously be reconstructed for further investigation:

Dutch remove crashed Turkish airlines plane : Europe World

[BOAC]

Time for a plea from the pilot's chair. With over 2000 posts now here, and probably around 100 actually relevant to the crash on THIS forum, can I point out to all those working feverishly with pin allocations, circuit diagrams, system logic flows etc, PLEASE NOTE it is not relevant to this thread. Certainly of interest to some (me included) and no doubt worth posting SOMEWHERE on PPrune - maybe the engineers' forum?

One more time:-

I don't think that I (hopefully a reasonably competent 737 pilot) would have noticed the -8 radalt indication, especially if training an F/O

It is more than likely that the GPWS 'gear' warning (the crew having then confirmed barometric height as 2000 above airfield) would have been dismissed as one of those annoying little glitches that all software produces on many occasions, and thus put into the 'of interest' box. Thus I would not even have given a moment's thought to touching any CBs - even if I had noticed.

I, in what may have been a 'hurried' approach, would not have considered the closed throttles (for around 80 of the reported 100 seconds) to be unexpected.

I would almost certainly have called (or flown) a g/round at 500' radio, and would indeed have been attentively reviewing 'progress' from 1000' down as required by both commonsense and SOPs.

At that point I would hopefully have diverged from what happened. If not, I would hope to have seen (or flown) a 'correct' recovery attempt from the ensuing stall warning.

So, posts of 'why didn't they notice for 100 seconds', 'which pin on the radalt circuit board does what', 'was it Smiths or xxx equipment?', 'why didn't they pull the CB', 'see even with moving throttles.....' etc etc have no place being expanded or repeated HERE. Also until we have some of the CVR details, comments about 'heirarchy', 'ex military' and 'cultural issues' have no place either. We just do not know what was said or done.

This appears to be a major failure of the 'pink' software and that is where the focus should lie for pilots. Some of us find it difficult to believe as well. I'm sure the training fraternity are looking closely at the way we train and the standards we set, and yes, the manufacturer will be looking closely too.

[aviator17]

NO

"Maybe it's not all that easy to scream " speed " when a turkish captain is screwing the pooch." sorry but don't agree with that...

[Rainboe]

[BOAC]

Any Danish speakers here to help? I have tried a web translator on the page linked to by transoratia at post 1972 which APPEARS to say that the CVR may be showing distraction in conversation at the time of the stall warning, but the translator is not up to the job. This might just be the first data coming out from the CVR.

[RAT 5]

Many people writing many things about what they would have done with , and why this electron did this or that. I confess to not reading the last 80 pages in toto, but as this was an -800 there is a speed tape. If they were extending flaps they must have been looking at it to know when to select each flap setting. Why did they stop looking at it. In the latter stages of the approach, at final flap setting, the speed must have decayed into a very large 'amber band'. This is a great visual clue that something is not correct. It then starts to flash and there is an FMC message, long before S.S speed. Where were 3 pairs of eyes looking? So many clues missed. Why the A/T retarded, etc. etc. is not the primary concern of the PF. Why the speed is in the amber band is not a primary concern. IT IS, so do something about it and ask why later.
Am I missing soemthing?

[BEagle]

Quite so, Rainboe.

As in the A320 accident off Perpignan, from what one can deduce.

[BOAC]

Originally Posted by RB

On one autopilot, there is a minimum disengagement height so that throttle closure will not affect you.

- not in my understanding!

[Techman]

Originally Posted by BOAC

Any Danish speakers here to help?

There is nothing new in the article. It's a rehash of the DSB press-release mixed with the usual sensationalism.

[snowfalcon2]

Any Danish speakers here to help?

Not Danish, but understand most of it. I find no proof of actual CVR findings in the article nor about pilots having a conversation. It basically says the pilots were inattentive (uopmærksomme) during the fateful seconds.
The gist of the article is about Late Logging. It is established that several of the pilots who flew the aircraft on the previous flights noticed the malfunctioning RA but did not write it up.

[forget]

It is established that several of the pilots who flew the aircraft on the previous flights noticed the malfunctioning RA but did not write it up.

Where has this been established? So far as I can see, the only clue that the RADALT was faulty came from the FDR, after the event.

[snowfalcon2]

Where has this been established?

OK OK ... sorry. The article quotes the AEI secretary general who says the DSB has spoken with Turkish pilots who, according to the article, have said so. In other words, AEI claims maintenance had not been made aware of the fault.

[BOAC]

Guys - the Radalt is definitely contributory but not causal.

The reason I ask about the article is
from Transoratia

It says also that the plane crashed while the pilots were having a conversation.

[snowfalcon2]

Well, I disagree with Transoratia's interpretation, see above. Perhaps he was slightly casual with his choice of words, just as I was about the non-reporting of the previous malfunctions.

[Juud]

@ BOAC, so you can make up your own mind.

In the days before the accident in Amsterdam, Turkish pilots did not make a note in the tech log about the faulty altimeter on the Boeing aircraft that crashed in a field outside Amsterdam's airport. Thus the pilots failure to follow procedure has contributed to the accident which killed 9 people.

Says Fred Bruggeman, secretary general for the AEI, the European organisation of aircraft engineers, Aircraft Engineers International.
"The Safety Board has spoken with several Turkish pilots who flew the aircraft in the days before the accident. They admit not reporting the faulty altimeter the way they should have."

He adds that the AEI has been in contact with aircraft engineers in Turkey, who have confirmed that the aircraft's tech log shows nothing about a faulty altimeter.

AMS accident underlines AEI safety warning

The AEI has featured here on a R&N already, in different threads.
A search will show them, and then you can again make up your own mind re their credibility.