Heads roll at Emirates
 

Confirmation i'm afraid.Both pilots involved in the overrun incident at J'burg have been sacked. Training manager has stepped down and will resume duties as training Capt.( Boss's son in law i gather).Nice to know that the guys out there have the full support of their managers and the company doesn't believe in using scapegoats.I think i'll stick to my 40% tax or should i say41%( having BALPA)has never felt so good.Shame on you Emirates :(

Firing people who made a mistake is the best way of having more mistakes made by anihilating the trust and feedback systems.

With recent atrocities in Saudi in mind, perhaps it would be an idea to change the title of this thread.....

Changed, agree.... Squid

Thanks BEagle.......didn't give it a second thought i'm afraid.Apologies if anyone may have been offended.Sad world we live in when even a turn of phrase can take on a whole new meaning.I don't know what the level of trust was like between managers and pilots but i bet this sacking won't have helped.The Company is expanding so fast they are trying to run before they can walk and the top level managment must be putting huge pressure on training dept's and pilots to deliver.(hence a lot of
the trainers leaving which only compounds the problem!) People must be too afraid to say to the top guys....no,this isn't safe,let's slow down and get it right. Any guys out there who feel this may be the case or were the two pilots involved grossly negligent?

Why
 

Does anyone know what justification was used, from what I have read on this site it was a loadsheet error, by someone else? dispatcher? that the pilot's could not have known about. If this is the case the sack is a horrendous way of treating these people. Even if they were at fault, has there been a finding within the investigation that the pilots were wilfully negligent, or that there was a fundamental flaw with the way they operated. If not surely training not sacking is the answer.

View From The Ground.
I am sorry to say you have not read this post with all its pages very well. The one thing that can be said with certainty, is that it was not a load sheet or trim error.
I am sorry to point out to you, it is 99% certain that it was Pilot error. Whether it was due to training or not we will have to wait and see.

OK
 

Apologies I was basing my posting on the early pages of that thread, and I had not read it all in detail. If it is proved to be pilot error then depending on the nature of the error training may be more appropriate than sacking, for all kinds of reasons, including maintaining an open reporting culture.

If this was the one where pitch angle was set by using the sidestick position indication as a target then I feel the blame has come to rest squarely where it ought to have. Forget the Masonic wails and stop denegrating "professional" by accepting consequence for action.

According to the article in flight, the investigation found that the crew had used non-standard handling techniques which lead to under-rotation.

They made a mistake but maybe a period of retraining (for the whole fleet), emphasising correct techniques, would have been more appropriate.

I agree that if the guys had made intentional violation of sop's then they must face the consequence,however,no guy is going to intentionally take out 150m of overrun and lighting for fun!I gather that it was the skippers first flight on the A340-300,which is a completely diff. beast to the-500 series.Was all this pointed out during his training and further more,why have both guys been sacked?

Ally Minium

But what a mistake to make

If deviation from SOP's ends up with an unforeseen problem due to an error of judgement. The consequences of that action should be accepted.

The problem with EK is that those pilots that see the problems are AFRAID to speak up and those that do speak up get SACKED or ABUSED in any way possible.

Finally the box of pandora will be opened!

Yes, well, when very senior training Capt's train the guys to "set the stick indication on 9 degrees" have those people also lost their jobs. "Well the FCOM s state 11 deg PITCH they say in response". "Oh no capt, the "preferred method" is ???????"

What a bloody disgrace. To the two brothers involved, the majority of us feel ashamed at your treatment and only hope that a visit to the international courts and worldwide publicity will expose that airline for what it is.

BYMONEK ...... truer words have never been said.

If there is a problem at EK then it can not be that serious or peoples feet would be be doing the talking.

Or is the allure of the big bucks and the life style sufficient to endure what is supposedly dished out.

So, for those which contributed to over 20+ pages of b~~~**** concerned with load sheets and trim hypothosis...have a deep thought before resuming your pious BS as fact.

Wrong rotation technique proliferated by the EK training department on one variant too many almost cost the lives of over 300 people.

F/O I believe considered resignation before being fired and now has excellent grounds for unfair dismissal... Cpt not sure but is pursuing similar legal action... all will probably be settled out of court to prevent public emabarrasment to 'award winning' EK management.

FA back up from an impotent trg regime content with climbing the tree vacated by far more qualified personnel than they could ever hope to be...

Anyone remember human factors before it was hijacked by CRM sound bites?

Oh, and sad Engineer... $ ?...FO!

Loungelizard

I seem to be quoting it a lot at the moment but the recommendation you describe is not an Emirates recommendation but one published in the Airbus Instructor Support Manual!

Mine is for the A330 and A320 so the figures will vary no doubt for the A340.

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"Perform a prompt input on the side stick at VR. Typically put the stick cross symbol on the PFD initially to around 7.5 to 10 degrees. This is NOT a parameter to monitor as such, but merely an indication of the amount of stick input required.

The purpose of the prompt input is to overcome the large inertia of the aircraft and initiate an adequate and continuous rotation.

Avoid being aggressive on the stick, and once rotation rate is established, avoid further aft stick inputs, especially when pitch attitude has increased, so as to avoid tail strikes.

Rotate initially to target pitch of 12.5 degrees; once airborne, adjust the pitch to follow the FD pitch bar orders (SRS mode)."

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May I respectfully suggest before you make such broad statements about the Emirates training department you first address your comments to the Airbus flight test and training departments who have made these recommendations, I am sure they will be interested in your views

And no I do not work for Emirates. I have no idea why this incident happened except clearly the aircraft did not get airborne before the end of the runway. Are there any official reports about yet?

Spy

I don't intend to trawl through the umpteen pages here on PPRuNE, but I do recall figures of 9 degrees being quoted by some here as the initial target pitch attitude....9 degrees is way off 12.5 degrees and will invariably result in a significantly different profile and performance. At the time, I thought 9 degrees was a very shallow pitch attitude for any jet, regardless of weight, but didn't respond because I am not familiar with that specific series of Airbus.

Way back, we were always taught to go for a target pitch attitude, depending on weight and then adjust as necessary once airborne (airborne as opposed to rotation). Even on a mini jet like a B737 the pitch can vary between 12 degrees and 17.5 degrees, depending on weight, but the technique was always the same, target 15 degrees and then adjust; select the pitch and let the flight director settle down, then follow its direction. Everyone knows on the airbus that the cross represents something different on the ground; The cross is there to check you have full deflection of your flight control surfaces on the ground.

Notwithstanding the above, technique is vitally important. Pilots can only follow what they have been taught and maybe there is something lacking in either the manufacturer's published technique or that of the airline's training techniques. Remember back to the early incidents on the Airbus (A320) which were caused by ignorance of the flight crew of the various modes of flight (India)? After that, pilots were alerted to the 'big No NO's, such as the NFP turning his F/D off and the PF following orders on his! Lots of pilots learned by the misfortune of those that didn't have the benefit of that forewarning. The engineers who designed the systems could not understand why the pilots didn't appreciate these things!

Airbus technology is brilliant, but it can and will bite you in the ass, unless you are very lucky or very conversant with the technology. It's a big learning curve.

Sad to hear the crew lost their jobs. It would have been more appropriate to suspend them pending the results of the official investigation into the circumstances and the airline's training department's taught techniques.

EK used to be one of my heros, but I'm dissapointed by it's 'knee jerk' reaction to this incident. Maybe they thought this would 'gloss over' any perceived doubt of their safety by the travelling public. Sadly, they are mistaken in that regard, because a 'whitewash' is just that...a whitewash. Sacking the crew on the day, does not necessarily solve a more deep seated problem!

Spy

Your post is lucid and has some value, if this so called “slip” by the EK training department is indeed based on an Airbus memo and would be an isolated one.

That is unfortunately not the case, as any investigation that digs a bit deeper would/have most certainly find out.

The key issue is that EK is loaded with money and exploded since 1991.

The Arabs looked for some OPS managers and have hired the worst they could find. The only excuse they possibly have is that their hands were tight on their back.

To a certain extend it's their (the arabs) own fault, since they do not accept any critism and are vulnerable to sweettalking.


Maybe you forget the incident about one year ago (also widely discussed on PPrune) that led to a dramatic change in the recruitment policy; a change initiated by no one else that HH himself.

The worst thing one can do, is to put a lot of money in incompetence as that’s about the same as pouring fuel into a fire.

Jack the Lad - I think you're missing the crucial issue - the wording states that the cross-hairs should be placed on 7.5 to 10 degrees. It's not the cross-hairs that should be used, it's the aircraft symbol; the pipper. Using the cross-hairs is crazy and bad technique to boot. That, IMHO, is what is vital here - Airbus has it in their literature, as posted by Spy & there is an indication that some trainers/ institutions are suggesting that the cross-hairs should be used. Try it next time in the sim - put the cross hairs on 8 to ten degrees. At sea level you might get some reaction ( certainly not 3 degrees per second) but at 5500 AMSL very little is going to happen.

4HP

4HP

Not mising your crucial issue at all....go reread what I said.

Attitude is attitude and the airplane will respond to whatever attitude you set it. Whether you use 'pippers' 'hairs' or whatever, to achieve that attitude doesn't really matter; the moral of the story is don't confuse the reference point!