37.5 degree angle of bank, one engine out, gear down and at 500 feet

[The Ancient Geek]

Also from the chart, if they were that desperate to get on the ground, they were lined up with 36C then 36L shortly after. Doesn't really make sense.

My best guess is that this is what they tried to do but the chosen runway(s) were not available so they flew a short pattern to line up for the next available.
AMS can get hectic at times.

This was not a simple engine failure, the aircraft collided with a flock of heavy geese which implies a stong possibility of other damage. In the circumstances a desire to get back to terra firma ASAP is understandable.

Not the way I would have done it but it is easy to criticise, none of us were there.

[lomapaseo]

Ancient

No argument with the tone of your post but just a nit

This was not a simple engine failure, the aircraft collided with a flock of heavy geese which implies a stong possibility of other damage. In the circumstances a desire to get back to terra firma ASAP is understandable.

I had also asked myself the same question but in the end I concluded that the crew's action was probably only based on their instruments, overt symptoms, and fidelity of their training

It was only during the investigation afterwards that larger birds than certified for or other damage was noted

I hold nothing as yet against the crew but I suspect that that airline is in for a rough time on future flights into European airports until they meet standards

[kinteafrokunta]

You guys weren't there! You did not know what went through the captain's mind then...he must have had flash backs to the scenes of Sully's Hudson river ditching with the possibility of losing both engines. There was a possibility that he was thinking of a quick 180 turn, leaving the gears and flaps in place looking for some concrete to land the crippled plane. He was probably weighing all his options as well and handling the crippled plane with all the cockpit warnings and erratic indications. All you insufferable arm chair critics and Monday morning quarter backs should have a chill pill up your sixes.

[aterpster]

You guys weren't there! You did not know what went through the captain's mind then...he must have had flash backs to the scenes of Sully's Hudson river ditching with the possibility of losing both engines. There was a possibility that he was thinking of a quick 180 turn, leaving the gears and flaps in place looking for some concrete to land the crippled plane. He was probably weighing all his options as well and handling the crippled plane with all the cockpit warnings and erratic indications. All you insufferable arm chair critics and Monday morning quarter backs should have a chill pill up your sixes.

Thanks for that great assessment Mr. Troll.

[FlightPathOBN]

One has to understand what the criteria standards are for obstacle and terrain eval. When ATC states they dont have the obstacle data, they are in actuality right on.
Terrain and obstacle surfaces are evaluated, and the CONTROLLING obstacle per sector is reported, not all, only the highest one. Obstacle evals are done on a 5 year basis, and most are beyond that, so any construction in the last 5 years, will only show up IF it is the new control.
Obstacles shown on charts are for information only, as in, you are on approach, and there is a building or mountain close on final, you understand that yes, this was accounted for...
In most places, there is NO mandatory requirement, that the person is able to ascertain, to submit the construction to the FAA or relevant authority, as part of the construction permitting.

[Escape Velocity]

You guys weren't there! You did not know what went through the captain's mind then...he must have had flash backs to the scenes of Sully's Hudson river ditching with the possibility of losing both engines. There was a possibility that he was thinking of a quick 180 turn, leaving the gears and flaps in place looking for some concrete to land the crippled plane.

You have (inadvertently) nailed the basic reason for this totally mis-handled event.

He was probably weighing all his options as well and handling the crippled plane with all the cockpit warnings and erratic indications. All you insufferable arm chair critics and Monday morning quarter backs should have a chill pill up your sixes.

Unfortunately, you have drawn the wrong conclusions. At a minimum both crewmembers panicked and came extremely close to stuffing the airplane into a crowded neighborhood. At worst, one or both suffered from what I call the "Sully Syndrome".

I have seen an alarming increase over the last two years of the Hudson River ditching being used in training cycles. It is popping up as a shining example for CRM classes (dubious), has caused a new-found love for esoteric and useless systems debates (I walk away from these) but thankfully I have not seen it invade the simulator (hopefully it never does, either officially or unofficially).

I am not in any way trying to tarnish the performance or image of Capt. Sullenberger and crew, but face it, there is little useful information to be learned from that event except that when faced with a double flameout over a big city, look for the softest spot to land, and by the way, you don't have a lot of time to make up your mind. The Hudson River ditching has, however, created one of those nasty little unintended consequences: the Hero Captain has re-emerged! I can save us all, just let me get my hands on those controls!! Screw the checklist, I know better!!

What the Atlas Blue crew had was a routine bird strike after liftoff followed by the left engine rolling back with unknown damage. That's it. Nothing more. We all train for and practice this every six months. There is even a checklist in the QRH for this very event, plus a couple of memory items that are supposed to go with it. A TSB report and (so far) a 4-page discussion of this incident exists for one reason only: Hero Captain Syndrome.

I used to teach that the first memory item on any emergency checklist was "fly the airplane", followed closely by "take a deep breath" then "wait", then "Memory Items". "Don't panic", "don't be a hero" and "don't do anything stupid" were implied. Maybe not (sigh).

[clevlandHD]

DOVES,

on every airliner with swept wing (707 onward), the wing is twisted to mitigate the problem of wingtip stall. Modern wings will stall at the root first. Instead of wiki, you should read "Handling the Big Jets".
As for Deep Stall, it is a T-tail problem.

[henra]

Originally Posted by DOVES

Originally Posted by Doves

Capn Bloggs:
Pitch-up - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Deep Stall.

I hope this is not the source you take your aviation knowledge from.
Although it is not completely false you might want to check if what is written there applies to a modern conventional airliner post 1960's.

The MiG 15 purportedly showed such behaviour mentioned in the Wiki article. Quite a number was said to be lost for that reason over Korea.

However, as @clevland has mentioned time has moved on and the designers have taken steps to mitigate this problem. Twist and taper/ relative chord thickness will take care of it.

Empirically swept wing airliners which have stalled showed rather a mush- down behaviour (see also AF447) when applying lots of Nose up Trim to prevent the nose from dropping.
(There have been only very few cases of an airliner stall without siginifcant Nose- Up trim, the high Altitude stall/spin of a Tu-154 when trying to climb above a TS over Russia being the odd exception but that was a T- Tail)

Deep stall is a phenomenon that in its proper sense only exists in T- Tails.
In conventional tails you can simulate somewhat similar effects with violent Nose Up trim + Elevator.

There are no documented cases of a conventional tail airliner pitching Nose Up due to stall with a neutral trim and elevator.

[golfyankeesierra]

golfyankeesierra

Quote:
For report see this link

Pictures say more then words, take a look at page 17 (can't post the image).
Is this the image?

lomapaseo, yes, thanks.
That must have been some unbelievable stress for crew and pax in the first few rows with that noise coming out of the cockpit!

[Ornis]

If the commander turned back with the intention of landing on a reciprocal vector, comprehensible if wrong, but found he couldn't, why wouldn't he raise the gear (and increase thrust)? It just seems so basic. Is he is still flying?

[LeftHeadingNorth]

@Escape Velocity, A very sound post indeed. Is is amazing how a not so devastating event turned into major event...

I used to teach that the first memory item on any emergency checklist was "fly the airplane", followed closely by "take a deep breath" then "wait", then "Memory Items". "Don't panic", "don't be a hero" and "don't do anything stupid" were implied. Maybe not (sigh).

I wonder how many lives would have been saved had pilots done just that....

[sheppey]

Quote:
The captain had only 340 total flying hours when he first flew the 737 and the F/O had a mere 430 hours before going on to the 737. From then on the remainder of their flying hours was on the 737. Draw your own conclusions. In other words no sound past command decision making experience to fall back on.
- as presented, this is MEANINGLESS. PLEASE do not get hung up on this quote and produce pages of nonsense

Disagree. Others would argue the suggestion of very low flying experience of basic CPL before going on to the 737 had a lot to do with the rushed behaviour of the captain that very nearly turned into disaster. Many airlines would never remotely consider hiring a pilot with less than 2000 hours unless military trained. The captain in this incident would have had only PPL and CPL command hours ie no serious command on anything except perhaps a light single and light twin while under training for his CPL. Then he hops into the RH seat of a 737 at 300 plus total hours. Not exactly the highly experienced second in command of a passenger jet the passengers would hope to have. This is the inherent risk factor endemic in many airlines now and although statistics will no doubt prove it is cost-effective, it fails to disguise the fact that captains saddled with low hour CPL first officers better not become incapacitated leaving the cadet to fly single handed.

Like the captain, the F/O in the discussion also started off with barely the CPL in the RH seat of a jet. In other words no serious decision making time with which to fall back on. His whole career so far was as a subordinate taking instructions. This showed in his failure to prevent the captain making a series of seriously poor handling decisions.

[aterpster]

FlightPathOBN:

In most places, there is NO mandatory requirement, that the person is able to ascertain, to submit the construction to the FAA or relevant authority, as part of the construction permitting.

In the U.S. what about FAR Part 77?

[TonyDavis]

Very good post Sheppey.

I would suggest that the Dutch investigator has missed a golden opportunity here. Instead of concetrating on how to slaughter the geese, once they had determined that these 2 did not folow a basic procedure, they should have dug a lot deeper by questioning the crew on their knowledge of take-off procedures and the reasons we have them instead of Oh that was question 26 and the answer is A.

The PM should have been doing his job, which primarily is MONITORING. If PM does not know what should be happening then how can he monitor?

This is the problem of having 250 hour guys in the RHS unless they are very well trained. Even AF failed in this. This is not a new problem. Air Florida at Washington was another classic example of 2 pilots not knowing what was going on through lack of training. I remember the reams of paper coming out from Boeing and PW regarding EPR indications and the need to back it up with N1 and FF indications.

The training industry is presently geared up to spew out as many pilots as possible at the lowest price, hoping that the airlines will rectify the lack of knowledge. The regulators have also not helped by using multi choice to save money and then making the question database available to the schools for Rote learning. Also RAM is one of the airlines offering cheap type ratings.

Here was a golden opportunity for the Authority to really find out what is going on. However due to cost cutting is there anyone in the authority with the knowledge to identify the problem? The 2 pilots survived the incident (luckily) and are available for in depth questioning, not on just what hapened but also the rest of their knowledge.

[Denti]

@sheppey, completely wrong conclusion. There was a similar incident about 12 years ago at lufthansa out of HAJ at night. They struck a flock of geese on climb out and suffered a complete loss of thrust on one engine and heavy damage on the other one. Crew was a training captain and a fresh cadet out of their own training program. Both had started with the airlines flying school and went onto jets with minimum hours. They simply did what they were trained to do and landed after a normal circuit without the need to fly at 300ft AGL around the countryside for a considerable time.

The issue is not experience, the issue is training. Bad or no training and something like the case discussed in this thread might happen, good training and it is a lot more unlikely.

[MilPilot]

@Denti/Sheppey - This wasn't a complex emergency before the crew made it into one. So I agree with Denti that proper training would have lead to a lot better handling of this emergency.
I do however share Sheppey's concern when it comes to low hour pilots going straight to Airliners. They will be great as long as the answer is in the book and the training is good. I am not so confident that will be the case when the unexpected happens for the same reasons as Sheppey lists.

[before landing check list]

I met an Etihad 340 pilot the other night. I never met one of these before. By these I mean this guy may have been 25, he spent 2 years at their academy in Al Ain UAE where he got "about 200 hour with simulator" and he flew the C172 and the DA42. By simulator it was a procedural type only (switches, lights etc) Then he got a few hours in the A340 sim now he is in the right seat of a 340 with less then 300tt. I asked if they ever hand fly the thing. He said "company policy dictates autopilot on just after gear up and off on very short final (if at all). This is going to be the new normal. Draw your own conclusions from that.

[blind pew]

Henra
Great post surprising no one else picked it up.
If they did tip stall they would have had surprisingly high amount of bank!......

[BOAC]

sheppey - I'm not quite sure where you have been for the last 20 years or so! What sort of experience do you think is normal for a young F/O joining a jet fleet? Check the hours BA F/Os have on their first line sector. Everything you say is correct and desirable but not real.

Since this has now been dredged up, please note the Captain had 7540 hours, with 7200 on the 737 and 2410 in command on it. The F/O 2730 total and 2308 on the 737. Overall an experienced Captain, would you say? Well over twice the normal minimum for jet command, even in major airlines. Even the F/O was no 'spring chicken'.

The avation system with which I am familiar is designed so that experience is gained from a low level with time. I consider 'starting' hours to be desirable but irrelevant.

[DOVES]

clevlandHD:

Instead of wiki, you should read "Handling the Big Jets".

Valued sir.
I have read "Handling the Big Jets" when perhaps you were not even born, in 1966. And yet I keep a copy jealously.
Henra:

I hope this is not the source you take your aviation knowledge from.

Esteemed sir
I must confess that even after almost fifty years of profession, my thirst for knowledge forces me to drink from any source in order to improve my knowledge.
However I have at least 70 textbooks in my library about aviation:
10 volumes from the basic course, and about 3 volumes per plane I've flown: MB 326, Viscount, DC8-62, DC8-43, Caravelle, DC-10, DC-9 30, MD-80, MD-83, MD, 11, B737-200, B737-230, B737-300, B737-400: 14 x 3 = 52 + 10 = 62.

However, as @clevland has mentioned time has moved on and the designers have taken steps to mitigate this problem. Twist and taper/ relative chord thickness will take care of it.

Can I add autoslat, Elevator Power [down] etc. etc.. etc..
But why AF447 lost 38000 ft in 4 minutes? Perhaps because it went into stall, and the trim went all the way up, and there was fuel in the tail tanks?
But AIRBUS Does not stall !!!??? Or not???!!!
I repeat:
You all teach me that V2 = equal or more than 1,1 VMCA and 1,2 Vs. With such a bank (37,5°) Vs increment is 14%, so they were only: 1,2 – 0,14 = 1,06 Vs. “Deep” or not they were very very near to stall, and with the asymmetric thrust they had, God only knows why they didn’t get into a spin.

And their work load was increased by:
The Tower asking them, in vain, (and so repeatedly) to turn left instead of right
The stick shaker intervention
The GPWS activation

Were did priorities:
AVIATE, NAVIGATE, COMMUNICATE.
Go?
It seems to me that the airplane was leading them, not otherwise! And no crew coordination nor integration was going on.