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Thomas cook b757 incident, what a total mess

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Thomas cook b757 incident, what a total mess

Old 16th Oct 2014, 10:08
  #161 (permalink)  
 
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But PM, how many pilots does your company dismiss each year on performance grounds?
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 10:23
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FANS - Currently we dismiss very few, if any. Those who do require additional time will invariably get a little more than necessary, just to make sure. But I'll admit several years ago that was not perceived to be the case. Unfortunately, the bad taste still lingers on for those who remember that time.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 10:35
  #163 (permalink)  
 
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FANS: I'm sure low fuel was a stress factor. Why do the CAA/ICAO allow us to carry such low fuel?

I have seen a real go-around handled badly. I know of a real EFATO where the gear wasn't brought up. These examples were both 'flown' by experienced captains, one of whom was a training captain.
In the days when we operated the B737-200 on the bucket and spade routes to the Canaries we were, more often than not, arriving at destination with minimum diversion fuel so there's nothing new in this and the go around was always manually flown.

Errors like omitting to retract the gear are usually caused by some form of distraction.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 10:48
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But isn't that the thing Bob, the skill and demands of operating a B737-200 regularly to its limitations are very different to those used to operating modern aircraft with automation.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 11:04
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But isn't that the thing Bob, the skill and demands of operating a B737-200 regularly to its limitations are very different to those used to operating modern aircraft with automation.
FANS, I know! I flew A320, B737-300/600/700/800 also - I made the remark for comparison - maybe we have gone backwards?

BUT I would argue that the basic skills required for safe operation have actually changed little, as this incident proves.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 11:10
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But do/did you find it much easier operating a 737NG/A320 compared to your B737-2?
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 11:16
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FANS, very good point and one too which I alluded to in earlier posts. Sorry JOHN SMITH, Post 137, can't agree."Two clicks and you have COMPLETE control in the same way as you would in any other aeroplane ". Nope. Two clicks and your side stick is still connected to FCC's that continue to talk to each other and protect you from any attempt at becoming a candidate for the Red Arrows. "Two clicks" and the thrust selectors (us babyboomers are used to "throttles") will give you whatever detent they are in with lots of protection. I don't think that is like any other aeroplane.

I flew thousands of hours on the 73/75/76 and if you disconnect autothrottle and autothrust and pull the control column fully back, THAT will be like ANY other aeroplane (except Airbus) and you will find yourself in the deepest poo imaginable.

The TC Skipper still looks to me like he reverted to type and even admits that he knew that he was supposed to be doing something with his thumb. All a bit too much wasn't it ? Airbus (?) sinch eh ? Click click, thrust selectors to that lovely , full forward detent(TOGA), everything taken care of. (Boeing, firewall the thrust levers after disconnecting autothrust and you are on your way to the best bar-b-q in town !

My contention is that years of protected flying on Airbus meant that our hapless TC Captain was still cuddled by a comfort zone that surrounds the new breeds of Airbus pilots which made him underperform with a handful of demanding aeroplane.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 11:18
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But do/did you find it much easier operating a 737NG/A320 compared to your B737-2?
I suppose anything is "easy" when you know how!

But I think the difference is that if you've been brought up on basic jets with round dials, a very basic autopilot and flight director, no auto throttle, no FMC etc over many years you become "hard wired" to confidently hand fly the machine through all flight regimes. You might be a bit rusty but you know you can do it.

Through no fault of their own we now have a generation of pilots who are not that confident about hand flying. This is a conundrum the industry has yet to solve.

And btw that does not mean I am luddite - I think automation is a useful tool to assist safe operation but it's the pilots that should be "running the show".
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 11:43
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I suppose anything is "easy" when you know how
Very true, but it assumes you're capable in the first place.

I agree with your points about confidence and experience, but would also flag the capability point. In very crude terms, I do not consider whether all would be able to fly your 737-2 operations of yesteryear, albeit many will never have to today.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 12:11
  #170 (permalink)  
 
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Landflap, it is seems that you don't understand Airbus, but have an opinion anyway. That's OK, but please call it your opinion, not fact.

If you want to be better informed in your opinion making there are some excellent, well balanced websites. There are also an awful lot of ignorant bigoted ones!
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 16:11
  #171 (permalink)  
 
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RoyHudd wrote:
UK ATC are issuing far more go-around orders than in previous years, with no comparable increase in traffic. I have experienced a couple of over-cautios GA orders in the last 6 months, at NCL. and MAN. We managed them fine, but were asking ourselves WTF? as we performed the manoeuvres and were actually quite annoyed about the whole things. (Human reactions) Has the defensive safety culture infected British ATC too? It really doesn't improve safety to be told to go-around for reasons that are more legally protective than practical. (This doesn't let the 757 folks off the hook, but it is a relevant part of the Swiss cheese model).
I no longer work in British ATC but did for 16 years and safety was and is still the main priority of controllers world wide. There are times we will let things run for as long as possible and other times you just know from early on that there's going to be a go around. We get no thanks for making a really tight situation work but get a whole lot of paperwork if it doesn't and we have done nothing to mitigate the situation. Those with less experience may not let things run as long as others, hence your perception of over-cautiousness.

Piltdon Man wrote:
Can you tell me how safety is improved by ordering a go-around? Just because a procedure is written down it doesn't mean to say it has value. As someone has written earlier, a dead bird or bunny on the runway killed by the preceding aircraft will be one less for the following aircraft to bump into. Ingestion is just smoke-screening the real issue, backside covering pointless edicts from above. Tell us and let us decide.
As I said earlier, there is some room for discretion and then there is no room for discretion.

If your approach is unstable but you get it back together at 450 feet (assuming you're aiming for 500 feet) should you be allowed the discretion to land? I'm thinking your rules say you have no discretion and you would have to go around. What would the ramifications be of you using your discretion here? Interview with no tea and biscuits?

We all have our rules and most of them are there for perfectly valid (to us) reasons and others seem asinine to us but we still follow them because they are perfectly valid to others: airport operators and their lawyers.

On several occasions I have had a routine, 4 hourly inspection take place and he finds FOD, be it dead birds, rabbits or bits of rubber crack sealant. Yes we've operated for up to 4 hours since it was last checked and nothing happened but the airport sees this as a problem and wants to inspect more often to cover themselves. If I know there to be something on the runway which may cause, however unlikely, an incident, it is in my duty of care to not let you use the runway.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 16:21
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Trouble is today if you go-around you then you are on min diversion fuel. So if you want to land at the place you have just gone around at you have to commit to it & hopefully land above final reserve. So now who is taking on the duty of care ?
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 17:19
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We are seing more and more cases where minimum fuel was not enough for safe operation. Penny pinching airlines will always try to minimise weight by carrying the minimum legal fuel load so maybe it is time for the regulators to increase the legal minimum to a safer level.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 17:30
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And that is a very important observation. The way things are in modern day economics, if we arrive at NCL on absolute PLOG fuel and ATC order us to go around (because of a possible dead bird on the runway) then we must surely immediately divert to our declared alternate (in this case - Edinburgh).

The only other alternative is that we give up our ability to divert and stay in the hold at NCL in the hope that the airport authorities declare that the runway and absolutely everything else that might just possibly fall foul of HSI is absolutely free of the ebola virus, the tree- huggers, the Green Party and UKIP.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 17:37
  #175 (permalink)  
 
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Cossack

If I know there to be something on the runway which may cause, however unlikely, an incident, it is in my duty of care to not let you use the runway.
One could argue that an alternative approach would be to advise the Pilot-in-Command that, for example, a dead small bird is on the runway centreline 500 metres from the threshold, and ask for his intentions with his aircraft.

That would CYA whilst providing the Captain with timely and useful information from which the best decision could be made.

Clearly if the obstruction is a dead cow/vehicle on runway it is a different matter.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 17:40
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A G/A isn't an emergency and shouldn't become one.


Power and pitch increase.
Flap reduction
PRGU.


That's the majority of the G/A in basic steps.


If the automation doesn't provide the correct response BE A PILOT. If you know the fix for the automation do it. If it's not obvious, OR if you're near the ground, or the autopilot or automation has produced an undesirable attitude or trend BE A PILOT. Fly the airplane. Since the automation isn't working as expected that leaves basic HAND FLYING.


Move up or down the automation level as necessary. If you're at a higher automation level and it's not going well, and if the fix isn't obvious or can't be accomplished immediately, get to a different automation level OR establish manual control.


This is automation/FMC/modern jet aircraft 101, isn't it?
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 18:14
  #177 (permalink)  
 
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maybe it is time for the regulators to increase the legal minimum to a safer level.
. . . or to rescind the new FTLs to reduce the likelihood of fatigue. But they'll do neither until an accident is shown to be directly attributable to one of these factors.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 18:34
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Top Bunk wrote:
One could argue that an alternative approach would be to advise the Pilot-in-Command that, for example, a dead small bird is on the runway centreline 500 metres from the threshold, and ask for his intentions with his aircraft.

That would CYA whilst providing the Captain with timely and useful information from which the best decision could be made.

Clearly if the obstruction is a dead cow/vehicle on runway it is a different matter.
Indeed it would and in times past that is precisely what was done. Now our hands are tied by edicts from the airport operator covering their a$$es. If you want it how it was, its no good asking ATC, you need to speak with the airport.

Last edited by cossack; 16th Oct 2014 at 19:01.
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 19:27
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Why is everyone giving ATC such a hard time on this?? The pilots up, not ATC.

Concorde crashed and burned because a small piece of metal from the engine reverser of the previous aircraft was left on the runway. Said small piece of metal burst a main tyre which smashed a fuel tank, which caused a fire, from which the very experienced French Concorde captain could not recover, although he did his best.

Who's to say the bird or bunny on the runway didn't go through the previous aircraft's undercarriage, breaking loose a brake line, or through the engine, liberating a turbine blade? So you land on that, and your tyre blows, and you run off the end. You would then all be saying "Why did ATC let us land when they knew something might have been on the runway and it should have had an inspection".

I ask again; why are the CAA/ICAO allowing us all to fly around on minimum fuel? This is an accident waiting to happen. A company jet landed at its alternate the other day with just 1400kg of fuel left in its tanks. It was legal, but was it sensible? Was it responsible?
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Old 16th Oct 2014, 22:37
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Taking a safe fuel load is the captain's responsibility.
It does, however, take some courage to stand up to the bullying management policies and their SOPs to demand more fuel than they think is necessary.

Should pilots be growing some balls or should the CAA be stepping in to regulate for more realistic legal minimums ?

Where is the problem, are todays pilots failing to ask for sensible contingency fuel or are the regulations inadequate.
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