Emirates 777-31H, (EK521) Accident - Final Report Out

[Kennytheking]

Originally Posted by SOPS

Ok ... let’s stop all this. I’m sick of reading all the ideas on TOGA, Airbus Thrust Levers .. what ever.

The cause of the accident was fear. Fear of being called into the office for a “long” landing. The Captain in question had already been in the office ( not a pleasant experience in EK) once before for a “ long landing’.

The point the touched down.. they could have stopped happily and that would have been that. But because of the stupid “ long landing “ warning they went around.. and because of fear, the Captain was not flying the aircraft but thinking of his future. As go arounds under a 1000 feet require a ASR at EK, the FO was probably thinking .. how wIl this affect my upgrade?

I’m sorry.. in EK and FZ, fear is the elephant in the room that no one talks about.

You are only as good as your last sector.

i don’t know the history of the Captain but I am sure a visit to the office would have been noted in the report.

in fact the report goes on to say.....

The Commander and Copilot FDM data on landings indicated that they never touched down beyond the touchdown zone.

i don’t disagree with your point about fear but it does not seem to be supported by the facts in evidence in this case.

[Uplinker]

Originally Posted by SOPS

Ok ... let’s stop all this. I’m sick of reading all the ideas on TOGA, Airbus Thrust Levers .. what ever..

No, let's not. If you don't want to read other posts about this, you go somewhere else.

[Dropp the Pilot]

How nice - after a long absence we get to see one of those vitriolic, curt, anti-EK rants which are entirely unsupported by the facts. It restores my faith in Australian culture.

[Wizofoz]

Originally Posted by Dropp the Pilot

How nice - after a long absence we get to see one of those vitriolic, curt, anti-EK rants which are entirely unsupported by the facts. It restores my faith in Australian culture.

I've disagreed with SOPS in the past, but he's right on this occasion. Obviously the event was mishandled- but why go-around at all? That can clearly be seen as a part of a punitive company culture where sense and judgement is banned and blind obedience mandated.

Why on earth would you go-around when you were down to your last 3000m of runway if there wasn't a psychology of fear behind it?

I was there 10 years, most of it in training- SOPS is right on this one.

[swh]

Originally Posted by Wizofoz

Why on earth would you go-around when you were down to your last 3000m of runway if there wasn't a psychology of fear behind it?

Exactly they went around because they thought they would get into trouble, trouble with the company because of a long landing, and trouble with ATC as they reduce the spacing so much even in conditions that would reasonably cause this sort of issue to require pilots to take early runway exits.

The accident also highlights that the Honeywell system is junk, it only looks at the runway behind them to tell them its a long landing. It should be looking at the amount of runway ahead, aircraft performance, CG, braking etc to determine if it can stop in the remaining distance. Next invention to come out of Honeywell will be a callout that tells you that you have just burnt 10 tonnes of fuel and nothing about the a amount fuel remaining.

A long landing on a dry runway that is 4447 meters in length with a serviceable aircraft in landing configuration must be absolutely terrifying. The margin they had on their inflight landing performance calculation would have been around 2000 m.

So you go around, it is still going to be 50 degrees, the wind profile on final is going to be the same, why do you want to repeat the same all over again when a perfectly good dry long runway is in front of you with enough room to stop twice over.

[tdracer]

Originally Posted by Uplinker

With FADECs, there is surely no need for a TOGA switch - you could simply push the levers fully forward, and the FADECs would prevent any excedences.

Not if the FADECs are operating in Alternate Mode (which, BTW, is dispatchable via the MEL)…

I wonder if they are sometimes used as a proxy for the N1/EPR gauges, leading to a lack of scan?

How can they be using thrust lever position as a proxy for the gauges, if they're not paying any attention to the thrust lever position? If the Airbus setup forces the pilot to scan the N1/EPR gauges, how come the Asiana pilot - who was in the middle of an Airbus to Boeing transition - failed to notice the engines were at idle? If you don't monitor the thrust levers, and you don't monitor the gauges, you're asking for trouble.

[tcasblue]

Originally Posted by tdracer

With FADEC, such problems are rare (although they do still happen on occasion due to an obstruction in the aisle stand itself), allowing some pilots to become lazy...

True, we had an RTO because someone placed a cup full of candies on the throttle quadrant, interfering with some of the throttles.

[tcasblue]

Originally Posted by Fursty Ferret

Regardless of your opinion of Airbus non-moving thrust levers, this is an aspect they got absolutely spot

Sadly, this can be screwed up as well, we had a very serious incident in the bus where the throttles were pushed forward too the go-around but moved only “one click” forward. There were other issues involved to create the incident but still, if it can get screwed up, it will.

Meanwhile, the EK style accident nearly happened to the same company as well, with tailstrike protection activating before things were finally figured out.

[Uplinker]

Originally Posted by tdracer

How can they be using thrust lever position as a proxy for the gauges, if they're not paying any attention to the thrust lever position? If the Airbus setup forces the pilot to scan the N1/EPR gauges, how come the Asiana pilot - who was in the middle of an Airbus to Boeing transition - failed to notice the engines were at idle? If you don't monitor the thrust levers, and you don't monitor the gauges, you're asking for trouble.

Agreed.
I cannot access the report any more for some reason - I just get error 404 - I did not know the PF was ex Airbus. So I cannot think how PF and PM got into such a pickle over a simple manoeuvre - all you really need is correct power on the gauges and correct pitch on the PFD. No further hypotheses from me on this. SOPS will be delighted.