NTSB update on Asiana 214

[Cool Guys]

Asiana Adopts New Pilot Training After US Crash

[ExSp33db1rd]

Cheap labour is a risk worth taking.

When I did my Command training, we completed Huggy Fluffy Team building exercises, and my 'team' came up with a suggestion that we said would make our airline 10% better that the competition.

Not interested, said the Managment, we only need to be 1% better, the other 9% costs money.

[Capn Bloggs]

Originally Posted by from the article

After a deadly crash landing last summer in San Francisco, Asiana Airlines is changing its training for pilots to encourage crews to talk more and change cockpit culture.

Good on them.

[Petercwelch]

Says it all

Gretchenfrage's post is the best most succinct explanation of the why of a number of recent accidents. Would that airline management would all read it carefully!

[Old King Coal]

Bravo and well said gretchenfrage

gretchenfrage - I salute you for a most succinct explanation of the truth and reality of the matter !!

[MrDK]

Although there is nothing "funny" about an accident, this statement had me nearly falling of the chair.

*** Kirstein said other airlines should take note of Asiana’s improvements
and understand the importance of open communication in the cockpit. ***

[Rwy in Sight]

MrDK,

I would be more concerned by the way an tryly independent and decent authority decides to add some political correcteness in their statement.

[mary meagher]

Three Three Mike?

TTM, I think you are being rather unfair to the two pilots who died in the Airborne Express crash in 1997. They were both vastly experienced in many forms of flying, with aprox. 8,000 hours each. They were test flying a 30 year old rusty DC8 with an unserviceable stick shaker. To say they crashed because of a failure of basic airmanship implies to me only that you haven't read or understood the whole report.

Anyone who flies any airplane when it has just suffered major repairs is, in effect, a test pilot. Most of us know that.

[mary meagher]

Airmanship Training at Very Low Cost?

Mods, forgive my double posts, but the subjects differ.

We have often flown experienced airline pilots at our gliding club. Aside from a tendency to round out (flare) at approx. twenty feet above the ground, they usually do well. Gliding training takes one back to basics, we cover stalls, spins, spiral dives, negative g, planning a SAFE circuit (pattern), we MONITOR the approach, we correct for UNDERSHOOTING - or the other extreme. And all of these exercises are done in real time in real aircraft and actual weather conditions (though seldom at night!).

So could I recommend gliding training as a prerequisite to becoming an airline pilot? (Sully was an experienced glider pilot).

[RAT 5]

All of the above could be covered in an aero's course followed by dead stick landing from downwind in a normally powered a/c. To learn gliders, specifically, is a whole new ball game and not logistically realistic.
The most simple of exercise in a big jet is to come over head the rwy at 90 degrees, 4000' clean speed, make a low drag CDA to either rwy, with or without PAPI. To my mind that should be in every 6 month check as a recurrency training. It was a common manoeuvre in my previous life, but is now frowned upon by the current crop of managers and so the crews have no idea how to do it. Simple basic a/c handling. Disappeared.

[RoyHudd]

No dead-stick landings today

Dead-stick landing....stable at 500 feet? Dead-stick practice could encourage unstable approaches, as happened with the Asiana SFO crash.

For normal airline ops, best to have the pilots demo a variety of visual landings in various conditions with 2 engines, (crosswinds, poor vis, both, neither) and the mandatory s/e approach and landings.

[MFgeo]

Mary:
Gliding training, like any hand flying experience, might help. However, it is no magic solution. Yes, Sully was a glider pilot -- but so was Bonin (PF of AF447).

[Centaurus]

Dead-stick landing....stable at 500 feet? Dead-stick practice could encourage unstable approaches

Come off the grass. That's like saying practice engine failures in the simulator could encourage cowboy pilots to pull an engine back on take off to keep current at engine failure technique. Dead stick landing practice in the simulator would quickly sort out skill deficiency in manual flying and basic judgement.

If student and private pilots are required to demonstrate proficiency in dead stick landings following an engine failure, then shouldn't we expect a jet transport pilot undergoing Loss of All Engines in the simulator and is unable to relight his engines, be also certified competent at the subsequent forced landing? After all, we practice putting airline simulators into unusual attitudes just in case it happens on a dark and stormy night.

Isn't that what simulators are for? In other words safe practices designed to improve piloting skills which have been shown to be sadly lacking judging by the number of spectacular crashes. A certain Boeing 777 operator comes to mind at SFO.

[punkalouver]

Someone at Korean was saying that they are now doing lots of visual approach practice in the sim. Since the past summer.

[SRS]

I know they have been doing visual approach practice in the sim, with 30 knot crosswinds for the last 10 years. Has not helped much.

[glendalegoon]

gliders:


gliders are designed without engines (motor assisted gliders aside). airliners are designed with engines.

the best practice would be in the type you are flying on a daily basis, not the use of dedicated gliders.

as to sully, I understand he took gliding lessons early in his flying career. that's nice. but the basic skills of airmanship are practiced every day in routine flying. they are called the four fundamentals of flight. and while he didn't shut down engines (to get rid of residual thrust) on a routine basis, i think the argument for flying gliders to help you fly airliners is pretty far fetched.

[bubbers44]

We always did a dead stick landing in the B737 once on each recurrent, usually from 10 miles out on a base leg. It wasn't hard but gave every pilot the training to not rely on engines if the day ever comes when you have none. I flew sailplanes too but it was a totally different type of flying and had very little to do with the sucess of dead sticking a 737.

[IcePack]

Some quoting the Hudson incident should read the report & ponder Alpha Prot.
BUT in no way do I wish to undervalue the skill of the PF, just to add balance to the glider pilot theory.

[Intruder]

the best practice would be in the type you are flying on a daily basis, not the use of dedicated gliders.

as to sully, I understand he took gliding lessons early in his flying career. that's nice. but the basic skills of airmanship are practiced every day in routine flying. they are called the four fundamentals of flight. and while he didn't shut down engines (to get rid of residual thrust) on a routine basis, i think the argument for flying gliders to help you fly airliners is pretty far fetched.

Unfortunately, we get WAY too little practice on a daily basis on the "basic skills of airmanship" in airplanes with autopilots, autothrottles, and FMS; and in a regulatory environment that forces us to couple up for 90% or more of each flight.

While I might agree that there is not a need for "dedicated" gliders or glider training for airline pilots, I am an advocate of encouraging EVERY pilot to get some training and time in gliders. Glider time is virtually 100% "basic skills of airmanship" time, and I still believe that I learned more about flying, per time spent, in gliders than any other aircraft. Some of those skills are not easily forgotten, and may come back at the most opportune times...

[Tee Emm]

The problem everywhere is that 95 percent of simulator recurrency training is on automatic pilot. Until simulator sessions are 50/50 automatics and manual raw data, no flight director, no autothrottle handling, then the current status quo will remain. In other words a low standard of manual flying skills.