Australian Landing Contextualised
 

The Captain of an Australian JetStar airlines flight JQ57 forgot to lower the landing gear and had to perform a go-around because he was texting on his mobile phone air safety investigators have found.

The first officer twice tried to get the captain's attention to set a 'missed-approach altitude' and when he looked over noticed the 'captain was preoccupied with his mobile phone,' an official report into the incident said.

Australian Jetstar pilots had to abort touch-down because captain was distracted by mobile phone | Mail Online

If a pilot was texting while on approach, that would be grossly inappropriate, but the report you cite doesn't say that at all. It says that the captain was distracted by an incoming message on his phone [which he had presumably forgotten to turn off] and that he then tried to turn it off. If you're going to summarise the report, at least don't distort what it says, please.

Contextualised.....what in the love of everything does that mean :rolleyes:

The ATSB report can be found by following this link.

Cyrano, this is what the report says, my underline:

Who hasn't forgotten to turn off his phone and gotten a message during approach, usually "Welcome to xxx, costs etc". What about simply ignoring it and sort it out once at the stand?

Who knows..., could also be his girlfriend/wife.

However, not so pro.

This section of the report appears to summarise the phone part of the incident..

and later..

Captain oughtta be fired.

Forgetting to turn off a phone is not a sin. Failing to ignore the phone while on approach is a HUGE mistake. Allowing that distraction to interfere with flying the airplane, to the extent of failing to lower the landing gear, is inexcusable.

I think the OP probably intended a play on words!

On the flight deck, off with the phone. Pretty simple rule really.

Simulator Training
 

Add this scenario (and similar ones) to simulator training: Some annoying but low priority interruption during a critical flight stage.

I wonder how many people religiously turn their phones off in the cockpit but might forget in the simulator. All the instructor has to do is text, "Hah. Made you look."

This is what the inbox and voicemail are for.

Mmm, maybe a detailed chat to find out just what might have been coming in on the phone. And then fire him . . . unless it was for example, someone very sick in hospital, or some other really emotionally distracting issue, then some sick leave perhaps.

Hasn't it been a great week for showing off our professionalism on PPRUNE! Snow covered wings, mad CM1's, dazed and confused CM2's, fisticuffs on the flightdeck, pilots failing to notice a large hole in the fuselage and falling thru it and now someone texting on finals, really I think I'll vote myself a pay cut!:ugh:

Well done all the pilots calling for blood.

You know. A simple warning and something such as CRM and CFIT training wouldn't be enough though now, would it?
OFF WITH THE HEADS!

@lilflyboy262
Logic will not be tolerated in a discussion about Jet*.

He apparently failed CRM and CFIT training already, given the gravity of the situation. He's an allegedly fully qualified Captain, not an FO in training.

I've had 2 FOs in the past month use their cell phones while taxiing out. Both of them were new to the airline, though neither was new to the business. I let them know (individually and privately) in no uncertain terms that it would not be tolerated in my airline, and that was the only warning they would get.

I have NO CLUE why it would be tolerated in ANY airline...

Tsk, tsk, tsk. All these terrible Asian pilots! What horrible standards! They must all be sent to Hamble for real basic training again. It's time airlines employ only real, well trained pilots with impeccable backgrounds, not riff raffs like these. I am sure there are lots of such poor excuses for pilots around and we need to do something about it.

I don't think an Australian pilot was in command of this Jetstar flight, can't be because I heard that they are the best, top notch. Maybe the SIN ATC was at fault for not warning them earlier that they did not have their landing gear down. You know, the SIN tower controller should have them in sight through his binoculars.

Another reason was maybe the VHF communication on SIN tower was so bad he tried using his mobile phone to contact the tower. Don't be so quick to judge, people.

As Denti says just ignore the phone. However something is a bit strange about the timings. I do not know how long it takes to switch off your phone. But descending from 2500 feet to 700 feet would normally take around two minutes. That is a pretty long time to be out of the loop and implies a serious loss of situational awareness by the captain.

GERAGAU, there was no reference to race or culture in my post which was a light-hearted global tsk!tsk! at our profession, as, of course, were the incidents referred to. Please make sure you fully understand a post before accusing someone of Racism.

Have to say, my sheepdog dog Chica, has welcomed me back from a few trips in the past, with a a fine choral barking on finals.
Made the F/O question whether dogs were allowed in J Class!
Now, on our 777's, I am reminded by the Preflight Checklist.."Mobile phones off" so...no excuse!
Far worse than that,... when my daughters secretly changed my ringtone to a very long and difficult raspberry.!...Was nearly thrown out of Borders,.. phone in back pocket..incoming call!...

"It wasn't me!!!..Oh really.....:sad:

Geragau, with the exception of the Firefly incident the rest of the pilots are CAUCASIANS. It ain't nice to post something without reading through or cross- checking what macdo was referring to.

Oops, my bad!!!

It worked, it worked, it worked but I guess I gotta shut up now before I get banned.

And here we are being smacked by the CC when our phone is not immediately shut off in the conversation/last e-mail/text...

Just shows ther ain't nothing new under the sun:

Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Worrying about a measly light bulb in this case.

I don't think an Aussie pilot or any other pilot outside the USA would have 'gotten' a message.

Some of my brilliant colleagues have installed a fire bell for a ring tone when the wife or scheduling calls. I can see where this is going when the phone rings at 120 knots on the takeoff roll. I've already been treated to an inadvertent demo while taxiing.

I had once a "Woop Woop Pull Up!" as a ringtone....yeah I know...
It did not last long, as I could see the scenario in IMC: "Disregard mate, it's only my cell phone, keep going...."

Still I cannot imagine what is more important on short finals than focusing on handling the aircraft, mind you at 700 feet, even a fire bell would be disregarded (silenced first) and treated as a ground emergency, so why a cell phone buzz is such a priority?

I would call any sim instructor sending me text messages during a check ride a sadistic bastard. This kind of example has been described in instructor courses as the "smiling assassin" model, and surely brings a note of negative training.

As for texting while taxiing or any other phase for that matter, I fully agree it should not be tolerated, but what do you do when it's your flight examiner who is still reading messages while LINING UP on the runway? You know what, I said nothing, when I get my checkride signed, I'll run the ship with what I hope are better standards than him. He switched off the phone after line up. I think we would have had an argument if he hadn't. I am glad I did not have to find out.

Back to the topic, if there was any fatigue aspect, leading to lack of managing priorities, it would be interesting not just to look at the last rest period and declare someone fit, but also getting the broader image of a week or two of duty before the event. Some work patterns though legal can turn a fully functional pilot into a hovering zombie...

Could somebody please explain what the "RAISE 8" method
is? Would it be elbowing him in the guts?

Yes of course - give him the instant boot. Sack him first, ask
questions later. Do not even ask him for any lessons that he
and/or the Company may've learnt through this event. Don't
even look at his record of service or consider any suspension
without pay of limited duration - just sack sack sack him! :hmm:

@Ye Olde Pilot, sorry if i did use the wrong word. English is just one of 5 languages i have to speak and i usually put it as third or fourth most important within the lot. Again, sorry for any mistake.

However, would you argue the point i was trying to make? Receiving text messages (called SMS over here) during flight happens, but it is no reason to rather handle the mobile phone than the airplane during final approach.

Perhaps the examiner was testing your command authority & confidence? ;) You failed by not telling him to turn his phone off, as per SOP and Commander's safety instruction. :)

(Note: there is only one commander on any flight, and in our company that person is designated on the flight documentation. For line checks, the designated commander is the person being checked - not the TRE in the right hand seat.)

I've never heard of "RAISE8" Slash - but in Ansett we had a "guide to appropriate assertion" which ran through five steps:

1. A comment on a point of difference. e.g. "I think we may be a bit high."
2. A specific comment on the difference e.g. "We are now 2000' above the descent profile."
3. The "If ... then" statement, using proper titles e.g. "Captain, if we do not extend the airbrake, then we will be too fast for the approach."
4. The urgency statement, e.g. "Captain, you must act now! Use the airbrake!"
5. Should the other crew member fail to respond to this point, then taking control had to be considered.

... there was of course a caveat that time constraints may require you to skip to any step. Certainly any time a formal title was used on the flight deck, it got your immediate attention that the other crew member was concerned enough to begin the formal steps towards a take over :ooh:

Sooo...maybe three ffurther steps = the raise 8 target.
Number 8 could be ...Please now feel free to immediately and appropriately use the crash Axe?

“The simulator session also identified a period of about two minutes between about 2800ft and 1000ft in the descent where no control manipulations or systems activation was recorded," the report said.

“In contrast, during that period, a number of tasks should have normally been completed in preparation for landing.”

These actions include putting the landing great down (which was still not deployed at under 500ft), selecting the auto brake and changing the configuration of the flaps.

It is likely that the first officer’s performance was “adversely affected by fatigue", while the captain did not appropriately monitor his actions or the aircraft's configuration.


Read more: Texting captain sparks Jetstar flight drama | News.com.au

In the report the 8 is in superscript and denotes the 8th explanatory note in the footer!

The footnote 8 just says..

If the method didn't work perhaps the method needs to be reviewed?

Why, I think the new age FO should be fired for not lowering the undercarriage, where's all the assertiveness they learn in CRM class?

He saw the captain was preoccupied, why didn't he take control? :rolleyes:

There is nothing wrong with the RAISE method; the problem is the FO didn't go to the letter 'E' and instead deviated from it - by setting the Missed Approach Alt himself.

Don't call for the review of a method you know nothing about. :ok:

Who cares about the stupid cell phone? Why did the gear not get put down? Obsessing over the missed approach altitude is worrying about the wrong item on the checklist. Got to have the rubber to meet the road, that's what is important.

More likely he was finishing up a level of Angry Birds.

It is still not right that he (the FO) didn't noticed until that late in the approach that the gear wasn't down. In my opinion, every modern aircraft out there is built and designed in such a way that you can fly it single-pilot if the aircraft is in a "normal state".

Why didn't the FO complete the approach by himself and later telling the captain in friendly words that he felt it was not proper what he had just done?

Why the FO wasn't sufficiently in the loop to tell or know the gear wasn't down until 500ft?

How hard is it to ignore a phone? How hard is it to put it away from yourself if it continues to bother you?

Both pilots were Australian.

Captain got fired, FO kept his job.