Incident at Heathrow

[dixi188]

Flap 5.

Ease up.

I'm not extinct, just redundant.

[OBK!]

Might be that way in flight sim flaps 5 but not in reality.

PF does walk around in BA (pilot flying...as in if the captain is flying, he also does walkaround). And the comment about captain wanting first sector is comedy.

[Airclues]

No change. Generally the Captain takes the first sector,

Flap 5

I don't believe that was what BOAC was referring to? I believe (I'm sure that he can confirm) that he was referring to who did the walkround. When I flew for BA the pilot flying the sector did the walkround.

Has this changed?

[screwdriver]

Depends on the fleet.

[BOAC]

Screw - I think what has us all ROFL 'ing is the F/O 'twiddling his thumbs' and the revelation that "The aircraft is not sitting on the tarmac just outside of flight planning." - no wonder I used to have trouble finding the damn thing.....................

Love to know which 'airline' this comes from.....

[Permafrost_ATPL]

Thoroughly enjoying Flap 5 explaining to BOAC how commercial aviation works

Out of sheer curiosity, what do FOs do on the ground at BA when PNF? Does the captain take care of walk-around, tech log, cockpit checks, FMS setup and pax PA? I suppose the turnaround times allow it if that's the case. I wouldn't want to include the walk-around with the 25 min turnaround at my outfit...

[BizJetJock]

Who does what is extremely variable from company to company, and country to country. For instance, there are parts of the world where the F/O is not allowed to do the external check!

[Airclues]

On the BA Airbus the flying pilot does the walkround while the non-flying pilot does the FMS (or whatever it's called nowadays) setup. As far as I'm aware, this is common to all BA fleets. Perhaps screwdriver could tell us which fleet differs?

[OBK!]

Who does what is extremely variable from company to company, and country to country. For instance, there are parts of the world where the F/O is not allowed to do the external check!

...or start the engines, or taxi, or tech log, or reject/call stop! The previous airline I worked for didn't even have tillers on the RHS.

[Permafrost_ATPL]

Airclues

On the BA Airbus the flying pilot does the walkround while the non-flying pilot does the FMS

Interesting, I suppose it's a similar philosophy to the monitored approach.

[EcamSurprise]

Might be that way in flight sim flaps 5 but not in reality.

PF does walk around in BA (pilot flying...as in if the captain is flying, he also does walkaround). And the comment about captain wanting first sector is comedy.

Sounds like an interesting way of doing it.

At my outfit (short turns..) the PNF does the walk around while the PF sets up the cockpit.
From a 'monitored' POV, the other way around would probably make more sense!

[Ian W]

Heathrow Harry: that is not so. The risk is small (actually vanishingly small) but it is there. There have been ignitions on retail forecourts. Commercially available Mobile phones are not intrinsically safe and non "Ex" devices are banned in refineries and terminal process areas.

Yes, you have to try really hard to ignite fuel in a vehicle tank (and it usually happens from static from the phone across the filler neck rather than RF into vapour) but as an ex-oil company HSE person who investigated several retail site fires I assure you the risk is always there.

UKPIA - Refining Britain's Fuels - Mobile Phones on Filling Station Forecourts sums it up (the Energy Institute is the former Institute of Petroleum).

Rob (Member: Energy Institute)

NONE of the incidents on forecourts was due to the mobile phones this is stated in the report you provide.
Jet A does NOT lead to an 'explosive mixture' on an open pan in the same way that gasoline or AvGas conceivably might close to a refuelling hose.
Almost all the staff working around the aircraft now use handheld radios which are also not rated for within 'explosive mixture' environments.
Perhaps less concern should be given to 'vanishingly small' (unquote) possibilities of a smart phone causing a fire if they can obviate real proven risks.
'

[cessnapete]

Permafrost ATPL

In BA the PF always does the preflight walk around. On the the LongHaul fleets I am most familiar with the SOP is a complete role reversal including engine start.
All the types I flew had nose wheel steering on the FO side as well,l which facilitated this operation.
I think you will find Bond'll Dos don't tust the FO method, is a hark back to earlier times. I never carried out a preflight walk around with the Capt. Holding my hand!!

[Hand Solo]

Doesn't really matter if the PNF loads the FMC, the PF will still have to check it and brief the contents.

[BOAC]

It doesn't really matter who does what as long as SOP tasks are completed and checked (and crew thumb-twiddling allocated as per). Out of interest, in DanAir as an F/O I often flew the outbound sectors, and the same in BA at LGW. When I did my command training in BA I gingerly asked TCs why it was that Captains seemed to do the outbound sectors and was told "There is nothing written down, old boy, its just the way we do it ......." As a Captain in BA and Astraeus I ignored the "unwritten rule" and only with two F/Os regretted it.

Probably time to draw our own conclusions, boys and girls and drag this back on topic?

[Dan Winterland]

It sounds like BA have some fairly unconventional SOPs. Does this also extend to re-writing the manuals? Do the cowling latches actually feature in the walk around check?

[NigelOnDraft]

NoD - agreed, but it seems to me as a complete outsider that there's a big list of things which need to be checked, all of which are mission critical, and so they all need to be checked, not just some of them

Ummm... well let's start by pointing out that the walkround check is, by definition, limited to things that can be reached / seen by someone the height of whoever is doing the walkround, not opening any panels, nor allowed any tools except a torch. I would suggest that covers <5% of the "mission critical" items

[lomapaseo]

Things to keep in mind

You can't eliminate human error, only minimize it

Some ideas for minimization are

by rote

duplication of tasks

Tolerance to the error

The one lesson I learned in this incident was that the tolerance bit was not as much as I expected from my experience.

I suspect it's rather easy to recommend BA clean up their possibility of human error and SOPs but that just pushes a repeat downstream to somebody else next time for a different reason altogether.

I've seen lots of collateral damage to aircraft from small bits being dislodged and no loss of safe flight and landing that I can think of (I know somebody's gonna come up with one but it's the likelihood I work with)

I am surprised about the collateral damage as reported to the right hand engine leading to a fire. I would want this looked at very closely by the AAIB for opportunities for minimization of effect.

[EcamSurprise]

With regards to the captain doing the outbound sector- surely this depends on the weather conidtions and other factors
My outfit mainly does 4 sector days so in any case as a FO I will (usually) do one outbound and it's usually my choice which.

Sometimes it will be dictated by weather. For example
If the crosswind is crosswind is outside of my 25kt limit.

[Alber Ratman]

I'm an engineer and while I do believe that the PF should carry out his preflight walkaround in accordance with Flight Crew Operating Manuals, I feel its totally unfair that the Capt/FO who did the check in this particular case is should be lambasted in any way.. A task that has been stated in other forums by engineers in the know of this companies proceeduresand that would be stated on a task card as requiring signing as a duplicate inspection was signed and not done.
Just culture applies so the reasons why it wasn't done must be investigated..

The wording AMS's comes into play.. I have heard that before at another company.. Approved Mechanics? AKA Car Mechanics who have been crash coursed A Modules and given approvals after a couple of years? Am I on the ball?