Firefly ATR argument in flight deck
 

A Firefly Avion de Regional Transport ATR-72-500, flight FY-3609 from Koh Samui (Thailand) to Kuala Lumpur Subang (Malaysia) with 70 passengers, was taxiing for departure when captain and second officer at the flight deck began to engage in a debate. While the aircraft lined up for departure on runway 17, flaps in takeoff position, shouting from the flight deck was heard in the passenger cabin. The initial takeoff run appeared sluggish, about half way down the runway engines were accelerated, the takeoff acceleration returned to normal and the aircraft rotated safely off the runway, shouting continued throughout the takeoff run. While climbing out of the runway flaps and gear were retracted, shouting still continued, at about 1500 feet AGL the aircraft rolled slightly right followed by pronounced roll to the left to beyond 45 degrees of bank, the aircraft lost about 500 feet of height before the wing rolled sharply level and the aircraft recovered from the dive. While shouting still continued on the flight deck the flight set course to Kuala Lumpur, about 15 minutes after departure the shouting ceased. The aircraft landed safely in Kuala Lumpur about 2 hours after departure.

An aviation professional on board of the aircraft reported he heard the shouting throughout takeoff and departure for about 15 minutes. The takeoff run appeared sluggish initially, engines were accelerated about half way into the takeoff and a normal rotation and initial climb occurred, the aircraft was cleaned and reached about 1500 feet AGL in clean configuration, when the aircraft rolled slightly right followed by a pronounced roll to the left definitely beyond 45 degrees of bank, probably around about 60 degrees of bank. The body weight was nearly completely lost during that time, he saw out of the window and felt that the aircraft settled in a spiral dive losing an estimated 500 feet of height before the aircraft snap rolled wings level within a second. Shouting subsided about 15 minutes after departure. Besides the shouting he was not able to hear any other cockpit sounds including aural alarms or stick shaker. The professional filed reports with the airline, Malaysia's DCA and the aircraft manufacturer, only the airline replied stating they take the incident very seriously and both pilots have been suspended but offering no further explanation of the events.

Another passenger reported he heard shouting from the flight deck during takeoff and believed the aircraft had been hijacked. The takeoff run was rather slow, engines accelerated during the run and the aircraft became eventually airborne. During the climb the aircraft rolled slightly right then rolled steeply left, he lost about 80% of his body weight at that time. The aircraft then rolled right to wings level, the weight returned to about twice his body weight. The shouting on the flight deck continued for about 15 minutes.

The airline told The Aviation Herald: We deeply regret and apologise for any distress experienced by our passengers and would like to make the following clarifications. After a thorough investigation, it has been concluded that while taxing and during take-off from Koh Samui International Airport, there was a crew resource management failure by Captain in charge which resulted in a "high powered" communication exchange in the cockpit between Captain and the Second Officer. This failure had lead to the events which took place during the flight however at no time did the aircraft stall. The Captain initiated the necessary corrective measures and the flight continued on to its destination without further incident and landed safely and securely in Subang. We would like to put on record that this form of communication is not tolerated by Firefly management. These findings were established during the Technical / Fact Finding Inquiry that was held to investigate this incident, which in turn made the recommendations for the appropriate action to be taken against the pilots and crew to ensure that this do not happen again. The Captain is no longer serving with Firefly. Once again, we would like to express our sincere apologies to all passengers on FY3609.

The airline did not follow up on questions that arose out this statement, that permits interpretations like the spiral dive was caused by the crew, unintentionally or even intentionally.

Malaysia's Directorate of Civil Aviation (DCA) chose to not respond to the aviation professional's and The Aviation Herald's reports and questions.

Lemme guess, was the captain an ex-pat perhaps?

Would love to know what they were arguing about. BTW, the report refers to the Second Officer being involved in the argument ... Does Firefly operate a 3 person cockpit crew, or should that have been 'First Officer' rather than S/O?

Ya.....that's the question I was gonna ask. Didn't know ATRs had a Flight Engineer ?? :8

Some airlines call any FO with less than a certain number of hours experience a second officer.

45 - 60 degrees?
Bloody heck, I would have lost some body weight in that situation :eek:

weights or fluids?:)

First law of Malaysian politics and Malaysian anything: the Bumi is always right.

Must have amazing hearing to be able to hear an argument from the passenger cabin, over the props, and through a cargo door, ten feet of baggage space, followed by a cockpit door.

It all seems a bit suspect to me.

Farrell

Owh, you'd be surprised how loud some people can scream

Noise through cargo hold
 

Yeah exactly, was about to ask the same myself. Plus ATRs make a hell of a racket even when taxiing. Strange...

Farrell and Rudderleft

Well, if it was all boll**ks, why would the airline issue the statement they did?

Whether they could take off with snow on the wings? :}

Something about a conveyor belt. :}

Ooooo, must be a big conspiracy complete with bogus testimonials and airline statements...and you caught them!

Occam's Razor crumbles in the face of evidence like this.

Jeez, no-one's saying it was made up. Just curious as to how the argument was heard in the cabin, that's all.

But I guess we'll find out as someone's bound to have posted the evidence on You Tube ;)

They weren't arguing, they were singing along to Wham's Greatest Hits and got a bit carried away. The shouting coming from the cockpit was in fact the chorus to 'Club Tropicana' ;)

I'm voting for the "snow on the wings" argument. Can the usual experts please provide us with TAFs and METARs perhaps? :}:ok::E

This is just a wag, but maybe the argument was heard because the pilots were....shouting? Like the kind of shouting that was shouted so loud you hear it through noises that your brain automatically gauges are too loud to be pierced by conversation-level (or even mildly-raised) voices.

This is not unlike seeing a guy across a river on the opposite bank where rapids lie between you and he and create a general atomsphere of noise. He tries to tell you something by talking but all you see is his lips moving. But then, he's bellowing and although you can only hear his voice faintly, your brain computes and says "Wow, that guy must be shouting SO loud if I'm hearing him through all this racket".

Later in the telling, you wouldn't describe the encounter as some guy "faintly speaking" to you, but rather as "A treaked-up meth-head shouting at me to get away from his lab. Good thing there was a river between us or I'd have had to shoot him".

That's how I see it anyway

CaptainProp :

We don't know when this incident happened, so for the time being here's today's weather, which I'm sure is just as useful:


VTSM 201200Z 00000KT 9999 FEW020CB SCT300 31/26 Q1007 A2975 CB SW INFO M / RWY 17=

VTSM 201100Z 09005KT 9999 FEW020CB SCT300 32/26 Q1006 A2973 CB SW INFO L / RWY 17=

VTSM 201000Z 36008KT 9999 FEW020 SCT300 34/27 Q1007 A2974 INFO K / RWY 35=

VTSM 200900Z 30008KT 9999 FEW020CB SCT300 34/26 Q1007 A2974 CB NW INFO J / RWY 35=

VTSM 200800Z 32010KT 9999 FEW020CB SCT300 34/26 Q1007 A2976 CB SW NW INFO I / RWY 35=

VTSM 200700Z 32010KT 9999 FEW020TCU SCT300 33/26 Q1008 A2979 TCU SW INFO H / RWY 35=

VTSM 200600Z 33008KT 9999 FEW020 SCT300 31/26 Q1010 A2983 INFO G /RWY 35=

VTSM 200500Z 32007KT 9999 FEW020 BKN300 33/26 Q1010 A2985 INFO F /RWY 35=

VTSM 200400Z 01006KT 9999 FEW020 SCT300 34/26 Q1011 A2986 INFO E /RWY 35=

VTSM 200300Z 36005KT 9999 FEW020 SCT300 33/26 Q1010 A2985 INFO D /RWY 17=

VTSM 200200Z 00000KT 9999 FEW020 BKN300 32/26 Q1010 A2984 INFO C /RWY 17=

VTSM 200100Z 00000KT 9999 FEW020 BKN300 30/26 Q1010 A2983 INFO B /RWY 17=

VTSM 200000Z 00000KT 9999 FEW020CB BKN300 28/26 Q1009 A2982 CB N NW INFO A /RWY 17=


It's okay folks, you can thank me later! :}