Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore

[parkfell]

Airbus will clearly be deeply unhappy about another event which ended in tragedy. Another non normal event which went horribly wrong.
Bottom line ~ training etc.
Certain aspects similar to AF447.

Question: would this be likely to have happened had it been a Boeing?

Airbus far better flight deck, and easier to fly with everything functioning normally.
However, when things start to go wrong, want would you rather be flying?

[ExDubai]

Airbus will clearly be deeply unhappy about another event which ended in tragedy. Another non normal event which went horribly wrong.
Bottom line ~ training etc.
Certain aspects similar to AF447.

Question: would this be likely to have happened had it been a Boeing?

Airbus far better flight deck, and easier to fly with everything functioning normally.
However, when things start to go wrong, want would you rather be flying?

It's not a question of Airbus vs. Boeing, it's a question of training and the degradation of piloting skills. Have a look at this study. A couple of years old but unfortunate nothing changed so far.

[xcitation]

@Parkfell

Certain aspects similar to AF447.

Question: would this be likely to have happened had it been a Boeing?

Airbus far better flight deck, and easier to fly with everything functioning normally.
However, when things start to go wrong, want would you rather be flying?

It boils down to knowing your a/c and not getting behind its situation.
In both this incident and AF447 the central issue appears to be PF failing to adapt/recognize the a/c changing from Normal Law to Alternate Law.

• In Normal Law with protections a full stick back input is safe/helpful.
• In Alternate Law a full stick back input is potentially fatal/detrimental.

The biggest strength of airbus being unstallable is turning out to be its biggest weakness i.e. are pilots affected by a denial or state of disbelief when confronted with a stall.
This issue was addressed in AF447 BAE final report. Clearly there is much more to be done to prevent future recurrence of highly experienced bus pilots entering stall and failing to recover.
Airbus is amazingly safe equipment so long as it is not flown into the ground when the protections are turned off.

[parkfell]

The bottom line is that unless you continue to practice your basic skills, your ability to cope will deminish.
Exceed 28 days without a "top up" then the slippery slope begins.
Even those who flew raw data for years before glass cockpit will not maintain their skills. It how the brain works.
Training is critical ~ agreed
Problem is to convince the beancounters that it is a sound investment.

[xyze]

xcitation

With due respect, the problem in this incident was not a failure to recognize a change in law - pulling back on the stick was inappropriate with normal law protections in place or not. The main issue in this accident, as was the case with AF447, is the failure of the PF to recognize that if the aircraft is descending at >10000 ft/min and is not in a dive then it is stalled, and to respond to this appropriately.

[Eyrie]

Lead free solder

I have read that lead free solder has 5% the shock resistance of conventional leaded solder. Leaded solder works fine on the tin plated leads of ROSH integrated circuit packages(better than unleaded). Tin whiskers are a problem with pure tin plating or unleaded solder.
The lead free solder debacle was brought to you by the Commissars in the EU even after it was obvious there were good alternatives to leaded solder. Another case of lunatic "green" policies causing harm.
The EU was worried about disposal of electronic assemblies containing lead. I'd have thought this was a disposal/re-cycling problem but they turned it into an enormous manufacturing/operational problem.
The funny thing is that of all the lead mined, 80% goes in to lead acid batteries, 5% into ammunition, around 5 to 10% in various industrial uses and a whole 1% in electronics. This was figures from 10 to 15 years ago that went around the electronics industry.
Certainly nowadays there is no more lead used in cathode ray tube leaded glass shielding (remember CRT's?) and surface mount components use vastly less solder than do through hole plated components with wires on each end.
I doubt the authorities will mandate leaded solder in aviation as it would contradict the narrative about lead being bad.

[Eyrie]

Sorry, that should read " NO good alternatives".

[Clandestino]

PPRuNe back to its usual

Report is quite lacking in explanation of technical matters, it's HF side is even worse, there are pages upon pages of copypasted material with limited connection to the issues investigated, graphs are hard to read and compare, whole enterprise looks like (feeble, I admit) attempt to protect image of well respected aviator who made string of errors that eventually proved to be fatal, recommendations are quite weak. However, I am very pleasantly surprised by the report.

I expected it to be even worse.

At least, now we know what happened, even if we are left wondering why.

Originally Posted by ZFT

How many crews today could really state they have received comprehensive UPRT or stall training? I would hazard a guess that not that many.

Whaddaya think, would former F-5E driver be exposed to comprehensive UPRT and stall training anytime in his career? Yea or nay?

Originally Posted by Cripple

The RTLU fault is a non event. Following the ECAM drill would have stopped the nuisance cautions and the a/c would have been Cat 3A and perfectly flyable. Unless you need Cat 3B, why even try a reset?

It certainly would not as ECAM actions were done 3 times before resorting to pulling the breakers and I suspect that alert was triggered when both RTLU channels lost power simultaneously. Still, question is valid: "There is problem with RTLU, so what?" Good answer to it requires excellent system knowledge, something mere ECAM operator might be tragically lacking.

Originally Posted by Cripple

it appears the CA was trying to make appropriate inputs to recover.

Originally Posted by marchino61

Yet here we have an accident which could have been prevented by the captain telling the FO "I have control", instead of fighting between the two sidesticks.

Originally Posted by RAT 5

Here, it seems the captain was trying to do the correct thing with control input, but was thwarted.

CVR transcript is utter disgrace but if the DFDR traces are anything to go by, well, feeble and intermittent nudges forward on the stick are just not appropriate action when faced with horrendous pitchup and stall warning.

Captain was lost too.

Originally Posted by HunderPercentPlease

Is there an issue with non-yoke inexperienced pilots just pulling up when in trouble (training conditioning from W/S, GPWS etc)?

Not so limited. Issue was identified by certain W. Langewiesche in 1944, when the only sidestick around was one on B-17s and that wasn't used at all. It killed people in yoked aeroplanes. It killed in western in eastern aeroplanes. It killed after stickpusher override.

Originally Posted by unwory

Could the PF become so fixated on levelling the wings that he was oblivious to pitch?

1. No
2. to support point no 1: rent A320 sim for 10 minutes, disable FACs, pull stick to aft stop, observe the amount of blue on PFD and force needed to hold stick full back

Originally Posted by wanabee777

That the FAA would certify a commercial aircraft designed with duel flight controls which have no tactile feedback between the two pilots is unconscionable!

Not the first time a PPRuNer claims he knows better than FAA. Stay tuned to see if it's really so.

Originally Posted by mac76

only last week we did first high stall recovery in bank & with wings level we took 3 to 4000 feet to recover

Either you did not do stall recovery or your sim is even bigger PoS than usual.

Originally Posted by Denti

Since AF447 we had high and low altitude stall recovery in virtually every simulator event on my previous aircraft (737) with the new stall recovery procedures once they were available.

There is no low alt stall recovery for 737. If you really stall her down low, best course of action is to put your head between your legs and kiss your ar$€ goodbye.

Originally Posted by tdracer

Perhaps a different method of stall warning is in order - during high stress/workload, the human mind tends to shut out aural 'distractions' - perhaps the "STALL, STALL, STALL" isn't getting through?

What workload?

Originally Posted by peekay4

At some point, a stick pusher might even be considered. Heresy, I know.

Not heresy, just ignorance. If I were to give one advice to aspiring & current airline pilots, it would be:

RTFHTBJ!

Stickpushers are not completely harmless, their malfunction can be lethal so they are used only when necessary and have to be overridable. They were overriden with fatal results a couple of times.

Originally Posted by alf5701h;

I was surprised that there was not greater focus on the pitch trim which could have resulted in a nose-up moment complicating stall recovery.

What stall recovery? The one following stall recognition that never happened?

Originally Posted by JFZ90

I can't imagine a scenario where a pilot would pull back in a pitch up stall.

You don't need to imagine; just read reports: Colgan, Birgenair, Pinnacle, I am too lazy to Google who wrecked 727 at Stony Point...

[xcitation]

@xyze

There have been airbus cases where spurious rates of descent and false stall warnings were correctly ignored. However to your point I think it helpful to add a dedicated AoA guage to avoid any question of what is betty doing now. I believe this is an option on the bus.

[greeners]

From p114 of the report:

"The Upset Recovery training was included in the aircraft operators training manual. The aircraft operator advised the KNKT that the flight crew had not been trained for the upset recovery training on Airbus A320, and this referred to FCTM Operational Philosophy: “The effectiveness of fly-by-wire architecture, and the existence of control laws, eliminates the need for upset recovery maneuvers to be trained on protected Airbus” "

[xyze]

Originally Posted by xcitation

There have been airbus cases where spurious rates of descent and false stall warnings were correctly ignored. However to your point I think it helpful to add a dedicated AoA guage to avoid any question of what is betty doing now. I believe this is an option on the bus.

Do these guages work in all situations (including during a stall)? One of the (I think) significant problems on the flight deck of AF447 was that the aural stall warning was inhibited when the airspeed became too low for the aircraft to reliably calculate AOA. This lead to the confusing situation whereby the stall warning would sound every time the crew started to take appropriate corrective action and the airspeed came back up into the range where AOA could be calculated. The rest is history.

[fab777]

Originally Posted by xcitation

I think it helpful to add a dedicated AoA guage to avoid any question of what is betty doing now. I believe this is an option on the bus.

At least it used to be. I flew a few busses equipped with that, fairly simple and speak by itself. A huge asset in an unreliable airspeed situation as well, if you can store 4 simple figures in your memory...

[Midland63]

Would the pro's mind taking a question from an SLF to aid his understanding?

Is the following a reasonable summary of what happened:-

To bring the FACs back online after having had their CBs pulled, it was necessary as well as re-setting the CBs to cycle their on-off switches. As the latter wasn't done, they didn't come back online and, absent both FACs, the a/c dropped from Normal to Alternate Law (i.e. fewer protections) and the A/P and A/T dropped out. This [what exactly and why?] caused a 2 degree deflection of the rudder which provoked a roll to the left which the FO (PF) didn't notice until it had got to 54 degrees. He responded with right and back stick, the latter to retrieve the altitude lost during the unprotected roll. Except he never seemed to release the backward pressure on the stick which caused the a/c to stall. It's possible the Capt realised the FO's error but, if he did, for some reason never affirmatively siezed control of the a/c from the FO who continued to apply back stick during the following 5 minutes until the a/c hit the water.

If that's roughly correct, then it looks to my untutored eye horrifyingly like AF447 repeating itself.

Also, is there an irony that the absence of an RTLU caused the loss of AA587 whereas the presence of one caused the loss of QZ8501?

[Ranger One]

Originally Posted by HundredPercentPlease

Of course they should. And no doubt this thread will gain many more posts saying the same thing.

But the constructive question is: why did two pilots, qualified to the levels the industry requires, fail to do what they were required to do?

Why?

That's the question that needs to be answered, and then the problem addressed. It's no good saying "idiots, move on".

Is there an issue with non-yoke inexperienced pilots just pulling up when in trouble (training conditioning from W/S, GPWS etc)? Are these problems caused by a complete lack of high altitude flight training? Is this a language/culture issue? Startle? Fatigue?

There are times when we need to react in a very small number of seconds - e.g. big-time windshear on late finals. Then, if the PF doesn't react correctly, it may be a case of 'IHaveControl INPUT' as fast as you can say it.

This was not such a case.

After Kegworth, our response was training and procedural; identify and cross-check the failing engine and ensure the correct actions are taken.

After this, and AF447, maybe we need a more rigidly disciplined procedural approach to upset situations, stalls in particular. CRM! Cross-check and verify, verbally and clearly: what is our attitude? What is our airspeed? Have any systems failed? What are the correct inputs, make them, and confirm they have been made?

Such an approach may have avoided AF, and this accident; it would surely be better than the chaos and evident lack of comprehension or situational awareness evident from the CVRs of both incidents.

[Freehills]

I believe Swiss and 100% are correct. Our modern world which includes cheap flights for all comes at a price - we will kill a few hundred every now and again. No part of the "system" we fly under can be absolved - including ATC with their pathetic noise maximisation procedures and prohibition of visual approaches. Everything we do is driven by cost - cheaper is perceived as being better. Our training is cut to the minimum prescribed, clowns in flight ops. departments prohibit things like manual flight and manual thrust and we spend our entire lives saving pennies. The same rot has moved into our technical departments. The clever little MBA whizz-kids have worked out how few spares we needs to carry and how little time we need to fix things so that engineers are nown under pressure to release aircraft they would prefer not to. And all of this is overseen by imbeciles like EASA (stress on the middle syllable).

We will have a kill a few more thousand and get the public really scared of flying cheaply before things will change.

PM

Playing devils advocate here, from a Indonesian DGAC/ transport ministry point of view. LCC in Indonesia have killed I think 169 people since starting up 15 years ago. In the mean time they have flown 100m+ trips that would otherwise been on ferries or long distance coaches.

32,000 Indonesians die on the roads every year, can't find ferry deaths, but a quick google search shows ferry accidents in recent years with death tolls of 250+. Continuing to encourage LCC growth is absolutely the right thing for DGAC to do, and has almost certainly saved a large number of lives.

The calculus will be different in the West, and I can understand why EU would ban many Indonesian carriers. But in Indonesia, they have been a huge overall win

[roulishollandais]

Desesperating aviation !!! Desesperating systems' management !!!

I comply with jcjeant : How many deaths are needed ?
A shame for all our managers and regulators.
Rh

[autoflight]

Pilots are the final safety net

What were the captains thinking for at least the previous year about repetitive faults? In Indonesia (and possibly elsewhere) do captains think it is OK to continue flying an aircraft that has ongoing flight control problems?

Let me provide possible answers to my questions, but I would also welcome other input.

• engineers will finally discover the malfunction with a permanent rectification
• there must be a repetitive faults register with a red flag showing
• it is not really a pilot matter
• I won't make waves or I might lose my job
• the company knows what it is doing
• they must surely be talking to Airbus about this problem by now
• this couldn't possibly contribute to an accident
• there have been many tech log entries. I don't need to add to the list of what is already well known to the company
• I couldn't possibly refuse to fly this aircraft. Executive and check pilots are continuing to fly it so it must be OK. How would it look if I refused?
• I am only a co-pilot. Would it be illegal for me to refuse to fly this aircraft?

The accident report didn't seem to address the above very important issues. How come the accident report fails to consider the individual actions that aircrew can take to save their own lives before the event?

Readers who don't currently have the fortitude to save their own lives, take note.

[polka_dot_jersey]

Do these guages work in all situations (including during a stall)? One of the (I think) significant problems on the flight deck of AF447 was that the aural stall warning was inhibited when the airspeed became too low for the aircraft to reliably calculate AOA. This lead to the confusing situation whereby the stall warning would sound every time the crew started to take appropriate corrective action and the airspeed came back up into the range where AOA could be calculated. The rest is history.

The AoA sensors worked correctly on AF447, the issue was with airspeed. The aircraft was so deeply stalled that the static port was angled in such a way that it was giving similar pressure readings as the pitot tube, not the static pressure. Because of this, airspeed was calculated at an incorrect and much lower value. The computers had a built in suppression of the stall warning at low airspeeds, so even though the AoA was extremely high, the stall warning did not chime.

Keep in mind the stall warning chimed for a minute or two until the aircraft was severely stalled. Had their been an AoA indicator in the cockpit, would they have paid anymore attention to it than the audible stall warning?

[aterpster]

Ranger One:

After this, and AF447, maybe we need a more rigidly disciplined procedural approach to upset situations, stalls in particular. CRM! Cross-check and verify, verbally and clearly: what is our attitude? What is our airspeed? Have any systems failed? What are the correct inputs, make them, and confirm they have been made?

Such an approach may have avoided AF, and this accident; it would surely be better than the chaos and evident lack of comprehension or situational awareness evident from the CVRs of both incidents.

Would either of these accidents happened in an equivalent Boeing? (Control columns vs. side sticks.)

[DozyWannabe]

Originally Posted by aterpster

Would either of these accidents happened in an equivalent Boeing? (Control columns vs. side sticks.)

Yes, and they have. NWA 6231 and Birgenair 301 are two examples.