Here's something to keep you at the edge of your seat

[FlyingStone]

Originally Posted by Centaurus

Just ask yourself honestly if the situation occurred where the captain becomes incapacitated in the cruise at 37,000 ft would the 250 hour first officer be able to safely fly that aircraft solo IMC all the way from cruise to the landing while making all the radio calls to ATC etc. Especially as his company limits him to a max crosswind component of 15 knots.
The uncomfortable truth is the airlines count on the statistical probability that this combination of circumstances will never happen in our lifetime. Next question please.

If they wouldn't, they would still have the safety pilot on the jumpseat, it's as simple as that.

With 2 autopilots, 2 FMCs, maximum assistance from ATC (mayday call), autoland available, it should be no biggie.

Will they make a mistake or two? Sure. Will the profile not be idle all the way with spool up just prior to landing gate? Not even close to that. But I have no doubts they would land the aircraft safely.

[vilas]

It's ironical that most accidents that we hear are caused by experienced pilots and someone inevitably drags the issue to 250hrs copilot. The latest PIA accident pilot had 17000hrs. It's not the number of hours or years but the quality of flying that one does that matters. The pilot has to know the design philosophy, it's systems including automation. Insufficient knowledge of automation is not over dependence but ignorance.
Under similar situation EK521 on 3rd Aug2016 B777 crashed in Dubai during go around. The aircraft touchdown before GA was initiated. According to the design philosophy of Boeing in this situation pilot needs to manually set thrust and attitude. The inquiry says they simply didn't know this. If these pilots had encountered this situation even after 10000hrs result would have been same. Accidents rarely happen with single ommission or commission. It usually requires a confirmatory action to crash which was provided by not monitoring the parameters, FMA etc. and the copilot retracting the gear as if that was the most important thing. It may be a design flaw but till the time it is changed pilot has to know it. Since there are virtually two different procedures and this one after touchdown one may not experience it in a life time will always be the black swan unless briefed before. When I suggested this few years ago some thought it's too much to brief everything. So be it.

[PilotLZ]

Originally Posted by FlightDetent

Perfectly capable. At 250 hrs, completely every single one of them. And all done by the book too.

It depends who trains them, and to what standard are they made to perform.

I am not disputing a narrow field of vision, non-existent experience, nor being just inches ahead of aircraft. But a single handed return to land with a malfunction is a piece of cake. They're young, sharp and motivated..

​​​​​

While a 250-hour FO is still about as far from proficiency as a man can be, performing a diversion to a major and well-equipped airfield with an autoland under MAYDAY and all ensuing assistance from ATC should not be completely beyond them. Descent on a conservative profile, ILS to autoland, stop on the runway. That's enough. After all, how come that the instructor releases their safety pilot if they are not confident that there will be someone capable of saving the day in case they're left alone at the flight deck?

[Judd]

Some doubting Thomas’ might be surprised that the better trainees (“young, sharp and motivated”) by the end of the MCC/APS course would be perfectly capable of dealing with this situation and cope well with a 20kt crosswind landing.
You would be amazed what a MPL student is capable of achieving at the end of phase 3.
Phase 4 is the type rating.

From the replies so far it is comforting to know Cadet/MPL first officers graduate on type with command skills notwithstanding basic CPL hours. On completion of the type rating in the simulator it would be a great confidence builder for all pilots regardless of experience levels but particularly MPL or equivalent graduates, to be given the opportunity to fly the aircraft solo from IMC cruise to landing assuming the other pilot is incapacitated.

Because of time limitations of simulator bookings, the practice could start at (say) 20,000 ft and 80 miles from the destination. Radar vectors available but the flight must culminate with an ILS and landing.

[Judd]

Remember when the flight engineer would have hollered obscenities at you if you touched the throttles when you shouldn't or didn't touch the throttles when you should have

Flight engineers hollering obscenities and today's principles of CRM are not exactly compatible in terms of flight safety principles. In my day I frequently had the misfortune to be crewed with some real dinosaurs among the ranks of that trade. I recall talking to one RAF F/E on the Handley Page Hastings. He was proud of the fact he could call an abort (whether it was technically justified or not) and by RAF rules the captain had to abort whether it was justified or not.

[FlightDetent]

Judd Eh, what command skill are we talking about? To land the A/C?

Standard excercise for cadets on the last SIM before the check-ride: At positive climb call the PIC goes u/s. After thrust reduction an engine stalls (the wrong one wind-wise) and fails with damage. 2/3 of max demonstrated crosswind and cloudbase at 220 ft. Reasonable cabin co-op and clear ATC liaison both required to pass.

And they make it look easy. Robotic, rota-learned? Perhaps, safe and organised nevertheless.

[PilotLZ]

The incapacitation exercise in the sim implies wearing headsets as the instructor uses the intercom to ask one of the pilots to go silent without the other one hearing it. Which was all well and good before the age of Miss Rona, when many training centres started discouraging sim users from wearing the headsets or donning the oxygen masks in the sim, citing hygiene.

In real operations, what is ever so slightly concerning is that some outfits only do the bare minimum of 8 legs of line training with a safety pilot - and that safety pilot will be released afterwards unless the performance of the trainee is absolutely dire. And, in many cases, that's a bit premature as a newbie is highly unlikely to get reasonably confident with only 8 legs and 4 to 5 landings as PF at best. Hence, they will be under far greater stress and far more likely to run into trouble, should the Captain go silent on leg number 9. I would say that raising the minimum requirements for safety pilot release to something like 20 legs, at least 10 of which as PF, and no input on the controls from the instructor on the last 3 consecutive landings would make sense. But here comes the main issue, namely that many bean counters consider any training surplus to the legal minimum a waste of productivity...

[Check Airman]

Originally Posted by FlightDetent

Judd Eh, what command skill are we talking about? To land the A/C?

Standard excercise for cadets on the last SIM before the check-ride: At positive climb call the PIC goes u/s. After thrust reduction an engine stalls (the wrong one wind-wise) and fails with damage. 2/3 of max demonstrated crosswind and cloudbase at 220 ft. Reasonable cabin co-op and clear ATC liaison both required to pass.

And they make it look easy. Robotic, rota-learned? Perhaps, safe and organised nevertheless.

One wonders how they'd do when the situation is unscripted. Not to say that a 25,000hr pilot can't be caught off guard, but I'd still feel more comfortable with a more experienced newbie in the seat.

[misd-agin]

Oh, the dreaded engine out in the sim. Or the crosswind landing Terrifying. Except...it's not for real. Any of the sim racers crashing get hospitalized in any of their wrecks? Screw it up in the sim? Put the sim on freeze, and some coaching from the instructor, and let's try again. "Ok, let's freeze right here. Did you see what just happened? Did you see what you just did? Don't to that because XYZ happens? Ok? I'll put you back on a five mile final and we'll do it again." That doesn't happen in real life. Real life is moderate turbulence, gusting winds, right at the max crosswind limit, and your brain going "unstable? Go-around? Nah, hang in there. Go-around? Nah, it's barely acceptable." While you're working hard and the pucker factor is real, even with 10,000, 15,000, 20,000, or 25,000 hrs. Turn off the runway and the legs start shaking from the adrenaline release as the other pilots congratulate you on winning, or at least tying, the fight. Yeah, I remember those days in the sim....except it doesn't happen in the sim.

[sheppey]

Standard excercise for cadets on the last SIM before the check-ride: At positive climb call the PIC goes u/s. After thrust reduction an engine stalls (the wrong one wind-wise) and fails with damage. 2/3 of max demonstrated crosswind and cloudbase at 220 ft. Reasonable cabin co-op and clear ATC liaison both required to pass.

And they make it look easy. Robotic, rota-learned? Perhaps, safe and organised nevertheless.

What a murderous use of a simulator and the classic reason why they are called the Horror Box. Just count the number of separate "events" foisted upon the student. PIC loses his marbles seconds after VR (a major non-normal) Seconds later an engine problem and engine failure with strong crosswind (another major non-normal totally unrelated to the captain snuffing it temporarily).

Although the writer doesn't say so, the mention of a strong crosswind coupled with 220 ft cloud base suggests the student is now required to land under these conditions (One engine out, one captain out, and weather bad. .

The word for that set of events all rolled into one session is commonly known as "Brutalising" and is a total waste of simulator time and money. I am astonished that any operator of good repute would sanction such a nonsensical approach and have the temerity to call it "training.".



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[kontrolor]

Originally Posted by FlyingStone

Yeah, gliders don't have much to do with stabilized approaches in a jet transport, go-arounds or balked landings. It's a completely different ball of fish.

Also, you will find that skill deficiency of an airline pilot is rarely, if ever, solved by sending said pilot to glider school. Finding root cause and creating a bespoke training training plan with simulator and line training is a much better tool.



Anybody can get themselves to a point where approach becomes unstabilized and I believe most of us have been in that situation at least once. It's quite natural to try and "salvage it" but once you give up, it's the correct execution of the go-around/balked landing which counts, and was not done properly here.

The answer was below your oriignal post. My point was, that this was one hell of a piece of bad airmanship, bad preparation, bad decision making proces, and lack of basic pilot skils - you don't just press buttons, you MAKE SURE the airplane is moving in right direction with right engine settings. Yes, unstabilized approaches happen, but this one was exemplary. It is NOT natural to salvage it. I was taught in my military days, that you don't salvage failed approach or anything you do. You do it again PROPERLY. Salvaging is exactly the second cause of this incident. This captain should be retrained to the bone.

The TOGA switches on the MD are palm switches. You are supposed to push the throttles forward and with your palm press the switches. Unlike the 737, you will get full thrust on the MD, and even if you can’t hear the engines, you will feel the push when thrust is set.
No matter what way they design the TOGA switches, thumb, index finger, palm or just throttles forward, we pilots will find a way to make it not work.

[Pilot DAR]

if the situation occurred where the captain becomes incapacitated in the cruise at 37,000 ft would the 250 hour first officer be able to safely fly that aircraft solo IMC all the way from cruise to the landing while making all the radio calls to ATC etc

This happened to me at about that phase of my flying. My Captain suffered food poisoning (airport cafeteria), and took a few hour "nap" while I flew to our intended destination (where medical treatment would be much more available if needed - it was not). The passengers were entirely unaware. Sure, multiple "events" could have saturated me, but the single event that passed all the workload to me was not a problem. I would hope that a pilot is not being allowed in the right seat without having been assessed for these minimum skills.