Qatar. Take-off FUBARed. Again.
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I really love the "Please switch off the cameras" instruction. The naivety of it. Their thought process has to be "If no nobody records this event then no one will ever find out about it and we will never look stupid and will always be able to deny everything." This is a policy dreamed up by an eleven year old (from the middle ages). You would have thought the cabin crew's efforts would have been better spent thinking about what they might have to do next rather than being wasted to trying to get rid of evidence. This smacks of a company that has a very poor set of values.
PM
PM
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@PM,
on second thought, maybe after the "Attention Crew at Stations" message, the FA was concerned with having to evacuate (BA at LAS comes to mind) and wanted pax to stop recording to focus on the instructions to come. Plausible?
Yea - why let a smidgen of plausibility get in the way of a jolly good rant with a well thought out conclusion. Got to like the connection between the attendant asking to stop filming and company set of values.
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Rejected takeoff as per the Indian DGCA is a return to gate event to download CVR . Does anybody else have such a rule?
The moment we advance thrust levers towards takeoff thrust and then retard them even if ATC ordered the reject , it's a return to gate and download CVR 😢😢😢
The moment we advance thrust levers towards takeoff thrust and then retard them even if ATC ordered the reject , it's a return to gate and download CVR 😢😢😢
Please switch off the cameras
The world we live in has become very litigious!
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on second thought, maybe after the "Attention Crew at Stations" message, the FA was concerned with having to evacuate (BA at LAS comes to mind) and wanted pax to stop recording to focus on the instructions to come. Plausible?
As for this incident and whether "computer said no" the last plane I flew the fuel gauge consisted of a clear tube on the side of the tank so this sort of tech is way beyond me. I'll be interested in hearing exactly what happened.
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Her asking him to stop filming is not uncommon. Even on a normal takeoff much less a possible emergency. She spoke up only when he was filming her.
Many airlines frown on video taking during takeoff and landings. And many cabin crew male or female do not want you filming them . They consider it an invasion of their personal privacy.
Rightfully so.
Many airlines frown on video taking during takeoff and landings. And many cabin crew male or female do not want you filming them . They consider it an invasion of their personal privacy.
Rightfully so.
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This looks to me like the crew loaded Runway 22L in the Take-off init page and then departed from 22R.
22L at 8,400ft available (vs 12,070ft on 22R) was still likely long enough so the perf calculations came out OK.
As they began the take off roll down 22R the RAAS system would have began squawking repetitively
"On Runway 22R! On Runway 22R!", Warning the crew they were departing from the "wrong" runway.
The crew likely thought "WTF? Why's it doing that?" And sensibly decided to abort the take off and figure out WTH was going on.
22L at 8,400ft available (vs 12,070ft on 22R) was still likely long enough so the perf calculations came out OK.
As they began the take off roll down 22R the RAAS system would have began squawking repetitively
"On Runway 22R! On Runway 22R!", Warning the crew they were departing from the "wrong" runway.
The crew likely thought "WTF? Why's it doing that?" And sensibly decided to abort the take off and figure out WTH was going on.
Last edited by Astra driver; 13th Dec 2015 at 19:59.
An aircraft is not a 'public place', therefore the operators are within their (UK Law) right to prohibit photography
Astra
Any idea if the 350 "RAAS" is the same as installed in some Boeings? If (big if) it uses the same or similar logic there should have been a couple of aural prompts before spooling them up.
Reading through the comments on that article on the mail website really makes you despair at the level of the general public's understanding of what we do. Utterly clueless comments like the aircraft can take off by itself and others expressing in equal parts horror and comfort that it wasn't the pilot's decision to reject the takeoff! 
Having said that, with that level of intelligence and understanding surely they could all be in the frame to be the next CEO of Qatar Airways!
Having said that, with that level of intelligence and understanding surely they could all be in the frame to be the next CEO of Qatar Airways!
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Quote, "Any idea if the 350 "RAAS" is the same as installed in some Boeings? If (big if) it uses the same or similar logic there should have been a couple of aural prompts before spooling them up."
Wiggy,
I'm not an Airbus bloke, but I believe RAAS is a 3rd party system and therefore should behave similar in all aircraft types.
What I'm guessing happened here is that they inadvertently loaded 22L into the perf/take-off init page of the FMC's. Upon holding short of 22R, RAAS would have stated "holding short runway 22R" as expected. When lining up on the runway the RAAS would again, as expected, have stated "on runway 22R".
If they had departed from the same runway as loaded in the FMC that would have been the last call out they would have received from the RAAS under normal conditions, (The exception being in case of an abort when the system would announce runway distance remaining in 1,000's of ft).
The problem would occur when you start to move down a runway above a certain speed that is not the runway you have loaded into the FMC take-off init page, it then logically assumes you are attempting take-off from the wrong, potentially shorter, runway and announces repetitively, "on runway XX, on runwayXX" to warn the crew of the error.
In this case it would have been a case of "no harm, no foul", since the runway 22R is in fact longer than 22L, but the crew had no way of knowing for sure what the error was and wisely chose to abort.
This is of course just speculation on my part, but I think it's a highly likely scenario.
Wiggy,
I'm not an Airbus bloke, but I believe RAAS is a 3rd party system and therefore should behave similar in all aircraft types.
What I'm guessing happened here is that they inadvertently loaded 22L into the perf/take-off init page of the FMC's. Upon holding short of 22R, RAAS would have stated "holding short runway 22R" as expected. When lining up on the runway the RAAS would again, as expected, have stated "on runway 22R".
If they had departed from the same runway as loaded in the FMC that would have been the last call out they would have received from the RAAS under normal conditions, (The exception being in case of an abort when the system would announce runway distance remaining in 1,000's of ft).
The problem would occur when you start to move down a runway above a certain speed that is not the runway you have loaded into the FMC take-off init page, it then logically assumes you are attempting take-off from the wrong, potentially shorter, runway and announces repetitively, "on runway XX, on runwayXX" to warn the crew of the error.
In this case it would have been a case of "no harm, no foul", since the runway 22R is in fact longer than 22L, but the crew had no way of knowing for sure what the error was and wisely chose to abort.
This is of course just speculation on my part, but I think it's a highly likely scenario.
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An aircraft is not a 'public place', therefore the operators are within their (UK Law) right to prohibit photography
The QR flight attendant asking one of the journalists to "switch off the camera" did not go very well with the group. No doubt the PR damage control is continuing.
Astra
Looking at our FCOM our RAAS is a lot dumber than the one you describe.
There are lots of warnings in our "book" about it's limitations, one being that at low ground speed it will tell you that you are on or approaching any runway in it's database - hence my comment in an earlier post about occasional nuisance warnings at JFK in certain circumstances. Certainly when departing from 22R, full'ish length, heavy, you can possibly end up approaching the 31R intersection before the RAAS groundspeed inhibit kicks in...so at around 60-70 knots and just as you're hopefully about to call "power set" you can get a "approaching runway 31 Right" RAAS call....... I've had that gem personally on two or three occasions in a 777-300.
There are also dire warnings in our FCOM about the fact that our RAAS certainly cannot do any dynamic performance analysis, though thankfully it will of course call out if you're on a .."short runway" (company defined fixed distance)..and also calls out distance remaining to runway end in the roll out.... it's got various other warnings but compared with what you describe we must have version 3.1...
,
I'd hope the likes of the 350 must have version 10, it would certainly be interesting to know ...............
Looking at our FCOM our RAAS is a lot dumber than the one you describe.
There are lots of warnings in our "book" about it's limitations, one being that at low ground speed it will tell you that you are on or approaching any runway in it's database - hence my comment in an earlier post about occasional nuisance warnings at JFK in certain circumstances. Certainly when departing from 22R, full'ish length, heavy, you can possibly end up approaching the 31R intersection before the RAAS groundspeed inhibit kicks in...so at around 60-70 knots and just as you're hopefully about to call "power set" you can get a "approaching runway 31 Right" RAAS call....... I've had that gem personally on two or three occasions in a 777-300.
There are also dire warnings in our FCOM about the fact that our RAAS certainly cannot do any dynamic performance analysis, though thankfully it will of course call out if you're on a .."short runway" (company defined fixed distance)..and also calls out distance remaining to runway end in the roll out.... it's got various other warnings but compared with what you describe we must have version 3.1...
, I'd hope the likes of the 350 must have version 10, it would certainly be interesting to know ...............
Last edited by wiggy; 14th Dec 2015 at 15:24.
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An aircraft is not a 'public place', therefore the operators are within their (UK Law) right to prohibit photography.
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Wiggy,
"Certainly when departing from 22R, full'ish length, heavy, you can possibly end up approaching the 31R intersection before the RAAS groundspeed inhibit kicks in...so at around 60-70 knots and just as you're hopefully about to call "power set" you can get a "approaching runway 31 Right" RAAS call....... I've had that gem personally on two or three occasions in a 777-300. "
That sounds like another highly plausible scenario.
I personally really like having RAAS, others not so much because of the nuisance alerts.
I remember one occasion approaching Runway 25 at Twin Falls, Idaho and the RAAS authoritively announced "Approaching runway 26!"
A brief moment of "Uh-oh" in the cockpit followed by re-checking the localizer frequencies and confirming the correct airport on the map display confirmed we were lined up with the correct runway and airport. Found out later that the runway had been recently re-designated 25 due to magnetic correction.
"Certainly when departing from 22R, full'ish length, heavy, you can possibly end up approaching the 31R intersection before the RAAS groundspeed inhibit kicks in...so at around 60-70 knots and just as you're hopefully about to call "power set" you can get a "approaching runway 31 Right" RAAS call....... I've had that gem personally on two or three occasions in a 777-300. "
That sounds like another highly plausible scenario.
I personally really like having RAAS, others not so much because of the nuisance alerts.
I remember one occasion approaching Runway 25 at Twin Falls, Idaho and the RAAS authoritively announced "Approaching runway 26!"
A brief moment of "Uh-oh" in the cockpit followed by re-checking the localizer frequencies and confirming the correct airport on the map display confirmed we were lined up with the correct runway and airport. Found out later that the runway had been recently re-designated 25 due to magnetic correction.
I remember one occasion approaching Runway 25 at Twin Falls, Idaho and the RAAS authoritively announced "Approaching runway 26!....Found out later that the runway had been recently re-designated 25 due to magnetic correction..
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Could it be this new ROPS technology?
In October some FSF guys talked about new tech invented by Airbus: Runway Overrun Protection System. Looked good on video. (See link below)
AFAIK With Honeywell RAAS/Smartrunway it will be only some audio shouting like "4000 ft remaining" and so on..
But with this ROPS the system can and WILL max auto brake by itself without pilots intervention.
If it's true then on that flight the pilots were expecting to takeoff normally and then suddenly ROPS kicked in. Their first thought must be WTF.....
I guess Airbus didn't see it coming
https://rudypont.wordpress.com/tag/rops/
AFAIK With Honeywell RAAS/Smartrunway it will be only some audio shouting like "4000 ft remaining" and so on..
But with this ROPS the system can and WILL max auto brake by itself without pilots intervention.
If it's true then on that flight the pilots were expecting to takeoff normally and then suddenly ROPS kicked in. Their first thought must be WTF.....
I guess Airbus didn't see it coming
https://rudypont.wordpress.com/tag/rops/