Ttex, the article comes from a magazine called aerosafety world. If it comes across as laying blame, then that's a shame... The magazine has always espoused just culture and bottom up safety management systems.

I read the article differently. I interpreted it to mean that the individuals involved lacked the skills training or experience to deal with the situation they were presented with and highlighted "startle factor" that was recently cited in the Canadian transatlantic upset when the co misidentified a star for another aircraft.

Yes, I also agree there are human-machine interface issues, for example, insufficient visual and physiological cues of approaching stall, or cues that could be confused with overspeed (stick shaker perhaps rather than audio cues), the stick input logic summation rather than one seat overriding the other). All of this can be dealt with through providing crews with relevant experience of these scenarios (as I believe most large carriers are doing with high altitude stalling sim training).

One question I have, (admittedly I have not gone through the hundreds of pages on here regarding air France) the captain takes a lot of flack due to poor briefing. Yet the effect of the circadian low on all pilots performance is not mentioned to my knowledge in a ny formal report. They must have been close to their circadian low bearing in mind the time of the accident, which can cause greater risk taking, complacency, poor judgement etc. I am guessing the crew had a 1 to 2 day layover, with probably a 24 or 48 hour crew rest period.

I fly a wide body Efcs controlled aircraft (aircraft captain) and Was truly horrified at the BEA report when published. It demonstrates that despite the best efforts of some of the worlds best engineers, a chain of events can lead to not only a complete loss of protection, but also that those systems designed to maximise SA acted to do the complete opposite; a full breakdown of CRM and SA amongst a crew with many thousands of hours of operation. Despite the af447 crash my own fleet still has not modified it's training programme to encompass such a scenario. We are military, so don't buy any of this crap that we are handling gods because this dumbing down of training and multiple failure sim scempnarios does not just include the civilian world. The over reliance on automation is affecting all of us, not just the civilian world.

VinRouge, I didnt say the article placed blame. I said that its reader will assume that nothing more than pilot incompetence caused 228 deaths.

My comments were specifically aimed at the article. To me, the article paints a misleading picture. This accident is too complex to do justice in four pages - as literally tens of thousands of posts on this very forum attest.

Edited to add: thanks for your input re the military and dumbing down and an over reliance on automation . I don't necessarily agree. I think at the environment has gotten so complex that average humans are too easily overwhelmed. Colin Chapman (Lotus ) had the engineering philosophy of "add lightness". It isn't a direct comparison, but aircraft designers appear to have taken an opposite tack from Chapman when designing the human machine/automation interface. Instead of reducing inputs when abnormals occur, modern airplanes add to the "startle effect" with a myriad of inputs. All Of which demand attention and distract the pilots focus from the truly important task of aircraft control.

Edit again. I really must turn off my iPad autocorrect .

Bubbers44 - the fact is we've sat through several recurrent ground school classes involving flight crews that did stall the a/c at altitude and didn't respond correctly. That was covered in the AAMP program that we all went through.

My first airline didn't have that course. Yes the last one did but a lot of people thought that training was a factor in the A300 crash out of JFK. I don't believe that but a lot of people do.

That's what the NTSB thought.

In 1951 I joined a company which had a trooping contract to do the routine replacement of troops between the UK and the Canal Zone, using Yorks with rearward facing seats for our 40 passengers. The contract stipulated that the flight deck crew must consist of Captain, First Officer and Radio Officer. PLUS a Second Officer, Navigator OR a Flight Engineer.
I had some 400+ hours and a recently renewed Instrument Rating. I was employed as a Second Officer. I was given a uniform but no training or notes. I was useless on our flight to Malta -I had not realised that a York was noisy. IT WAS !
I obtained a headset in Malta. During our daylight cruiising flight to the CZ, the Captain invited/ordered/ told me to sit in the RH seat and take over from the F/O. I was told " To keep the aircraft S/L at 9500ft, or rather at 9450 ft to allow for Position Error...AND not to wander about...Keep the a/c " On the Step at 165kts. Check my Gyro for precession etc." After an hour the F/O returned for the descent and Landing.
The return flight to Malta was at night after a days rest in the "VIP tents". Again I did my hour of handflying, now at 8450ft. There were no airways and only one intermediate NDB on our route. We used Quadrantal Height Separation. The A/Ps seldom worked properly.
On our flight back to the U.K. we had one that DID work, So I was able to take my first Astro fix. ( At that time Astro appeared to be something which Pilots " did not do..." And as for a new Second Officer....!)
Perhaps I got some surprised remarks.
At least I had made a start at hand flying, and at cruising level.
I had to start somewhere.
PS I was told that the Company was paid £25/head, I am not sure whether this was each way. The Scheduled fare to Cairo was £146/10 but may have added wines to the menu !

bubbers44 "My first airline didn't have that course. Yes the last one did but a lot of people thought that training was a factor in the A300 crash out of JFK. I don't believe that but a lot of people do."

Anybody else? Show of hands?

Hmmmmm.........

It used to be when stability was up, responsiveness was down. With the advent of computers, I believe you can have both stability and responsiveness up, which some might call "simpler to fly" and a very good thing, IMO.

TTex600, of course the aircraft are already designed to ensure pilot workload is no greater than it needs to be and also to ensure that what the aircaft is doing can be understood as clearly as possible. What I meant is that a reduction in the level of skill in pilots is already being anticipated in the future, and the design of the next generation of aircraft will take this in to account. I am not sure what this belief in proficiency is based on, whether its analysis of worldwide aircraft incident trends, feedback from airlines on the calibre of new pilots. It may just be a judgement call based on what your average school or university graduate may be capable of in 5 or 10 years time, compared to now or say 10 years ago.

The NTSB also ignored all the reports of witnesses from the ground saying they saw what appeared to be missiles fired from the ground. No it was a center fuel tank spark. The A300 was an out of control FO problem. Ii would never let an FO rip the tail off, would you?

Depends if you knew that airbus had played with aileron and rudder sensitivity on that variant of 300 from initial certification, and that AA had allegedly decreased roll sensitivity in their wake turbulence upset recovery programme sim necessitating excessive rudder input to maintain roll control during simulated wake vortex upset recovery; for the best of reasons, but with tragic ultimate results.

The subsequent FDR trace of pilot rudder input can only be described as a pilot induced oscillation in yaw, due to negative transfer from a well meaning, but incorrect training programme that was designed to deal with wake vortex recovery. At least, that's what I gathered from the alpa and NTSB reports.

bubbers

bubbers44 The NTSB also ignored all the reports of witnesses from the ground saying they saw what appeared to be missiles fired from the ground. No it was a center fuel tank spark. The A300 was an out of control FO problem. Ii would never let an FO rip the tail off, would you?

You are thinkin TWA, flight 800. AA587 was an A300 into Queens. No missiles, no center tank spark. Eyewitnesses described smoke from the right side of the fuselage before the handling problems....

Relative to 447, the similarities are unfamiliarities, pilot to aircraft.... 447 wanted a gentle touch, as did 587. It did not work out. another cross catastrophe might be what AB learned v/v the VS, and metal to composite joinery.

Likewise at below 250 knots, the Bus Rudder is not limited, that turned out to be lethal. What AB learned from AA, is proprietary, but one would opine it relates to lateral G and the function of the RTLU..

"Bicycling" the rudder pedals? Who would object, the recorder shows the inputs, out of phase with the "turbulence', and the Yaw responses...

One can fly without a Rudder, but not without it's Fin. A shame the Rudder hinges are stronger than the VStab saddles.

Of course it was TWA 800 0n the missile sitings. The FO on the A300 was accused of reversing rudder inputs which I don,t think happened.

I wouldn't allow my FO to do that and neither would his captain. I think the NTSB has an agenda and they stick with it.

My bad not saying TWA 800

Yes, the photos of the stab attachments/saddle remains on top of the aft fuselage were quite frightening.

I forget which thread it was on, but Dozy stated something about using rudder for roll in stall recovery. The vertical stab-less Bus out of JFK is always on my mind when I have my feet on the pedals of a Bus.....on top of being trained to leave them alone for other reasons.

Apposite Pete Conrad quote
 

If you don't know what to do, don't do anything.—Conrad's advice for working in space, quoted in the book From the Earth to the Moon.

The Ultimate design load of the AA587 vertical stab was exceeded by rapidly reversing pedal inputs at high speed in dense air. A stall condition is by its very nature low-speed.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the advanced training given to that particular F/O was designed for the DC-9s and MD-80s that made up the bulk of AA's domestic fleet at the time - T-tail, rear-engined, less rudder authority required. Trying that same manouevre on any podded, low-tail design would have had the same result no matter what the particular type was.

TTex....

"Yes, the photos of the stab attachments/saddle remains on top of the aft fuselage were quite frightening."

bub...

"I wouldn't allow my FO to do that and neither would his captain. I think the NTSB has an agenda and they stick with it."

By the time the VS parted, the a/c was sideways, and had lost an engine off the wing. OFF the wing. Perfectly timed Ruddering? Maybe. I have never liked the method of attachment, VS, that is required with long distance vendoring. Add the Resin/Steel mate, and then consider the monster moment of that huge VS in extreme angle with the airstream.

Edit....587 was well under the speed 'limit'

How to acquire such an angle, and Why, in a non acro airframe? Rudder with caution, it says on the PFD. 587 is yet another case in point of utter failure brought on by lack of thinking, and lack of experience engineering/maneuvering.

And again the Investigators focus on the traditional 'culprits'.

Rooting the hoops deeply into the frames is nice, and building up the tabs onto the VS spars is likewise. Use pins that can lift a Battleship, but ignore the torsion? Intuitively obvious, but not Pre 'snap'? And resin burns, aggressively.

Engines too strong, airframes too cheap.....

Edit....587 was well under the speed 'limit'. So was the Rudder...

Edit.... Via the Doze.....

"A stall condition is by its very nature low-speed."

For the doughty Clandestino ...
Sorry, but you misunderstand. Naval aviation operations require CRM in multi-place aircraft, JUST AS regular airline operations require CRM. As I noted before, we got a lot of our material, to train our OPERATORS in CRM from the airlines. I had to be trained, and then I trained others.

Your response was a lot of words that added nothing.
I stated very clearly what is needed, and I'll stand by my point that such is a core multi-piloted crew requirement. You can't make a decision to take the controls unless you know when it is needed. To do that, you have to have enough SA to know what the aircraft is doing. You also have to have a belief that you may some day have to take the aircraft from someone else. There are some cultural norms to be undone when one is so trained.

This was also based on our discussion in one of the ATR threads, sorry to have over estimated your experience.

Or are you trying to say something else?

Regarding your wise acre response to my acknowledging a scan transition isssue: no thanks. The pitch and power chorus have been singing since long before the FDR's were raised from a watery grave. On that there is no real argument. My point is that without training (see what Tex keeps harping on) the habit pattern and scan patterns, and scan shifting patterns, can erode due to disuse. Or, in some cases, Are Never Established. (That appears to be what bubbers44 has such concerns about).

Lay on MacDuff, and all that. ;)

July 30, 2009.
August 02, 2009