Swiss RJ captain "struggled" to fly without a flight director to tell him what to do
 

Flight International 11-17 December has published its correspondent's story on the Swiss investigation of the near loss of control by the captain and first officer of their Avro RJ100 after take off.

Extract: "Given the copilot's mistrust of the attitude indicators after a failure of a single reference system, the captain took over using the standby ADI but had problems flying on the standby ADI due to parallax error. The aircraft underwent a series of "changeable and unstable" attitudes oscillating with rates of climb and descent of about 1500 fpm which then increased to some 2500 fpm. Safe control of the RJ100 was at times no longer guaranteed, says the BFU. The report said the changes in attitude shows the captain was temporarily "overburdened"

The report goes on to say "with the assistance of ATC and eventual re-engagement of the autothrottle and flight director the pilots guided the aircraft to a safe landing."

The report said the aircraft sustained a brief instrument failure shortly after take off but the pilots incorrectly suspected a fault in the flight guidance computer.

So there we are. Flight director and automatic throttle saved the day. Thank God for the miracles of automation. Forget the need for pilots to fly using basic instrument flying skills when one ADI goes out, as long as the flight director tells the pilot how to recover from unusual attitudes. And of course full marks go to the autothrottles to unburden the captain.

I would have thought the last thing the captain needed was a flight director and autothrottles to save the day. This is yet another instance of poor instrument flying ability coupled with automation dependency causing a near loss of control. Parallax error is no big deal. Live with it.

"Safe control of the RJ100 was no longer guaranteed" said the investigators. What an indictment of the company training system that would allow the captain and copilot to get into such a mess. I guess the passengers wouldn't be too impressed, either:=

To put a little balance on this, and not defending the performance, but flying on the standby A/H is not easy and nor is it regularly practised. Whether or not it was needed as the attitude reference is another matter, but it was 'chosen'. Those of you who have not tried to fly IMC on the stdby A/H with a big AI possibly giving you different attitude information might want to try it in the sim and see how you get on?

If you have an errant main AI a priority is to find a way to cover it. Harking back to the days of the Lightning with its HUGE AI and small standby, you would have seen most pilots had a 'sticky' AI sized patch stuck on their bone-domes, and that was the next item used after control was re-established.

It is not easy!

Just why am I not surprised ......

But do you think anyone cares?

The company? Nahhhh, as long as it's cheaper to reduce training, to keep it to the legal minimum imposed by the regulator everything is fine. Because the moment there's a smoking hole you can simply blame the individual pilot. In terms of bad publicity the beancounters long ago have determined that such an effect fades quickly, that you can have an accident every 7 years and the savings in training vs. momentary loss off revenue still prevail.

The regulator? Nahhhh, they merely stipulate the very minimum of training, assisted by heavy lobbying of the airlines. If there is a loss of skill they shove it back to the airlines because they are responsible to detect such and to take action -> thus refer to above.

The customers? Nahhhh, as long as the price is right and the incidents not too widespread they take it that it happens to others only. They'd rather pay less than enhance safety. They believe that the regulator has to oversee safety. -> thus refer to above.

The pilots? Nahhhhh, as long as they can get a seat, trained or not, as long as they can upgrade and bypass others, capable or not, they will shut the f### up.

So there is only the abhorrent cynical "hope" that more incidents happen, otherwise nothing changes at all.

...... the needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before .......

Thank god I get to fly 9 out of 10 approaches raw data....

You have to do a raw data approach in the simulator every 3 years as part of EU ops.

Any decent company would insist that it is at least practiced more regularly.

Why not try it on a computer flight sim every so often? No jepoardy sitting at your desk.

personal integrity...
 

there is the hard fact that even if the captain does not allow hand flying, the F/O can mentally focus and observe as if their life may soon depend upon it, just what that autopilot is doing. and memorise it for various necessary events.

just last night, the F/O was flying a descent and approach, and i silently renewed my "mental notebook" by taking careful effort to dig into my head the various pitch and power settings that were achieving the various segments. we never know when we will get a loss of airspeed. but we don't want the real event to be the first time in a long time that we have gone through that mental exercise, nor do we want to wait for when the system brings it up in a sim session.

hard fact is, we have the opportunity to be better simply by our mental choices and determination regardless of exterior restrictions.

funny, when i try to get the F/O's to hand fly approaches, many decline. and those that do, suddenly start moving the controls fast and furious the second they disconnect the autopilot. i remind them that they have never seen the autopilot do that.

much can be learned by actively watching the autopilot when not allowed to hand fly.

Hey all you 'aces' - read the OP - no-one is talking about 'raw data' flying! The incident I am reading about involves 'difficulty' flying on the Stdby AH. How many of you obvious aces have done that recently and accurately? Remember it takes only a degree or so of pitch to generate a 2500' RoC at high speed. Can you ALL read the stdby AI to that accuracy? No, I didn't think so.:ugh:

I am prepared to be mightily impressed at the obvious skill sets you obviously all possess (but a touch dubious..........).

Let's leave 'raw data' out of our posts as irrelevant, shall we?

Ah, the whited sepulchres are out in force.

You weren't there: cut the criticism, which appears to be founded on little more than your prejudices, and learn from the experience of others.

You wise@$$es read the full report!

My criticism was not only about the lack of skill of manual flying, I agree that doing so with the SAI is not easy, but look at the values good grief!
It is more so about the wild and random switching by presuming what went wrong, instead of analysing correctly, going by the real indications and doing the correct checklist.

That's just as much about training and standards of today as about manual skills.

If you criticise others of not reading the article, at least read the report yourself!!

why the title of the thread then?
 

rather leading isn't it?

and i see no link to any full report.

excuse me.

- Hmm! Did I miss the link to the report? We are all discussing the OP.

"the captain took over using the standby ADI but had problems flying on the standby ADI due to parallax error. The aircraft underwent a series of "changeable and unstable" attitudes oscillating with rates of climb and descent of about 1500 fpm which then increased to some 2500 fpm. Safe control of the RJ100 was at times no longer guaranteed, says the BFU. The report said the changes in attitude shows the captain was temporarily "overburdened"

Why not post a link so we can all be wise?

Edit: Out of interest, does the RJ100 have a stdby 'ADI' or 'AI'?

Steady the Buffs, BOAC:ok: if squinting at the small standby ADI is not raw data, I don't know what is..

Nevertheless, I bet my left ball withered though it may be, very few pilots will ask their simulator instructor if he minds if they practice flying on the standby ADI just to keep in practice. Most will avoid it like a plague because they know they will f..k up in front of the instructor. It is a fact of life in discussions like this on Pprune that generalisations are inevitable. Otherwise Pprune would just be blank pages since most of us do not know what really happened in these sort of incidents until the official report surfaces a year or more later.

A competent crew member will make bloody sure he remains up to scratch on basic instrument flying - one way or another. Reading through some of these replies it is self evident that there are captains out there scared fartless of letting their first officers hand fly "raw data" (ie no FD)

On the other hand I too have offered my co-joe the opportunity to practice raw data while line flying and the majority say thanks- but no thanks. Why is this so? It's a generational thing I believe like wearing base ball caps on the side or back to front as well as dark sunnies over the scone at night. It is called technical arrogance - or simply can't be bothered, Mate.

Seems to me from reading the Flight International report on the RJ incident, the crew were out of their depth with a relatively simple instrument failure. Or as the report put it "the captain was overburdened"
Nonsense. As the commander of his flight he simply displayed gross technical incompetence.

Tee - I still would be interested in a link! I did say in my post "Whether or not it was needed as the attitude reference is another matter, but it was 'chosen'" so the jury as ever remains out on that until we all see the 'full report'.

'Raw Data': To me, that means no 'artificial' aids to pitch, power and bank so yes, the stdby AI will absolutely be 'Raw Data', but most posting here, pound to a pinch of ****, I'm sure, just understand FD or AP/AT off, main instruments.

A lot might depend on the type of standby ADI/AI. The old electromechanical displays are indeed not easy to read and fly if not trained so. The newer PFD-style LCD displays are much easier to use. There is no parallax error to begin with and the display is very familiar as it is nearly the same as the "big" PFD. Those i know do not offer a FD, however they do an ILS/BC approach display if desired.

Raw data flying has something to do with it of course as it offers a cheap training in scanning, hand to eye coordination and building up of muscle memory not to mention the application of simple pitch and power technique. If one is not used to raw data flying and not trained on the standby AI the results will not be pretty, as displayed in this case.

In a nutshell...
 

hahemmm....so they knew that they might have an AT/AP/FD problem.... thats a crew of a well respected airline?
A capt with 9400hrs of nearly 4000 on type? The F/O with 1500/1000 on type?

Woah.

Thanks H D. I agree with all the findings, the only bit I would change (which may be a translation thing) is no2,

the copilot did not try to continue to control the aircraft manually.

So, we have an a/c with two serviceable AI s, and quite capable of being flown (presumably on a full ILS on autopilot if they must) by P2.

Why would the Captain say 'that no heading indication was available'? Is the RJ100 compass system driven only by IRS1? If so, is there no standby?

Not exactly shocking news. Hell, most of us can't fly without an FD. Just wait until everyone has a HUD and it goes tits up. That's a complete ******* mess.

BOAC,
I have been told that the only disability that a man can have is a Bad Attitude. And you seem to have proven the point more than adequately.
My suggestion is that you stop riding on your past laurels and the fact that you have 15k + posts on pprune. I might have double that number amongst half my other handles alone.
Cut the attitude son. Gonna get you nowhere.

I don't like to quote, cause its a sign of weaknesses. So this will have to do..
"'Raw Data': To me, that means no 'artificial' aids to pitch, power and bank"
So what you're trying to say is that VSI for pitch, N1 for power and the standby horizon for bank are all the instruments that you would authorise for your 'standard raw data'. Of course the FD's would have to be off and the AT's disengaged!
You little imbecile, sitting in your little microsoft armchair. Do you even realise the complications that would hazard in a very regular jet such as the 380 flying a normal regular RNAV sid out of ZRH...!
No you don't. Which is why, I guess, you have all the time in the world to make those 15,800 odd posts on Pprune. Do you have even a tenth of those in flying hours matey.
Having said that, please respect what the other ppruners might have to say. Don't simply dab it aside just because it doesn't appeal to your sense of (in)sanity. Make space and then comment. Your comments are far too harsh for ppruners son. Tone down.
The next guy might just be your mentor ..

Raw Data means FD's off. Raw Lateral and Raw Vertical guidance only.
And nothing else.

Why don't you knock off a couple of engines too in your next sim session. Just to simulate 'Raw Data' eh ..
Off now.

I've been flying on DC-9-32/33/34/51 for five years - the FD was almost unusable and the primary horizon looked like a RJ100 standby horizon. We flew ILS approaches as monitored approaches to the minimum in dense fog and survived it:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-9_Cockpit.jpg
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. (wikipedia)

Ours didn't have any navigation box, just NDB, VOR, DME & ILS...

I think every pilot flying those planes should be able to carry out a line-up and an ILS approach to the minimum with those standby instruments and a ILS LOC and GP indication.

Just a note: King, your guesses on BOAC's background are probably wrong. ;)

Question on certification: for carriage of passengers, is it required to have redundant attitude reference systems, or are there shades of gray in that regulation set?

This incident seems to support the criticism of the industry, as it stands today, in terms of how often hand flying is needed to keep the skill from perishing.

If BOAC is who I think it is, the earlier post is hilarious!

Chaps - don't waste your time and effort on that poster, better we stick to looking at this incident. He/she has admitted to multiple pprune i/ds so you can draw your own conclusions. I'll speak to my next 'mentor' about it, and the thought of flying an RNAV SID out of ZRH..................:eek: Sleepless nights.

.....and I didn't understand much of the rant, anyway:).

Wouldn't expect you to understand it if you called it 'rant' BOAC.
Enuff said.
Now back to the real issue before the thread drift.
I fully agree. Raw data flying has become a kind of 'IP's only' zone these days. About time they brought it down to the weakest link and then developed it from there.
Raw data flying has become tough enough for the line pilot. Add to that the loss of a critical instrument and we have a bad recipe.
AH flying is surely a tough lil cookie to crack. Not all have the right tools.
Cheers

The nutshell info is not enough. You have to read the full report to understand what i meant with random switching and where the bone of the mistake is.

We train for Raw Data ( No FD, AT, AP ) ILS and NDB during the MCC/JOC course. At least some guys have some exposure.

Raw data is one thing - flying on the standby instruments is another. They are only there for regulatory reasons and not really intended for serious use. If they were, we would be expected to practice with them. In ten years, I have tried flying the sim once on the standby instruments and that was only because we had some spare time and I insisted.

Have flown the sim on standby's several times and don't see what the fuss is. Even from the co-pilot's seat it is a piece of wee wee. Of course it helps if you have good support for heading changes and so on. Also if flying on the standby instruments from the co-pilot's seat, use ALL of the captains instruments, don't try and split between the standby on his side and your own ASI, VSI, and altimeter. If you are using them from the left seat, it is a very simple handling exercise. If you can't do it, you shouldn't be there.

Pity that Air France co pilot sitting in the LHS did not look at it!

@King on a Wing
 

What a fantastic rant. Let's try decoding it...

OK, so among your sockpuppets, you have found the time to post at least 30k posts, by your own admission.

But by your 'guess', having just half that number of posts is prima facie evidence that the poster is an 'imbecile' whose experience is confined to playing computer games.

You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to work out what we can deduce about your qualifications to comment then, do we?

Well, quite.

Have you considered asking your doctor what lithium can do for you?

Once a pilot - now a computer's sidekick
 

http://www.pprune.org/7343900-post102.html
I was wrong.
I am now sure that it will be needed some pteurosaurus help somewhere, somehow.
How small it is, as far offset, the std.by horizon is always an attitude indicator, and I challenge anyone to argue that his instructor taught him that it is secondary to the indications of the altimeter and variometer: DO NOT CHASE THE INDICATIONS OF THESE WITH THAT. For each configuration, speed, flight path and segment of an instrumental procedure, there is a prefixed "Attitude" and a "Set of thrust”. That's the secret to perform an instrument approach with raw data.
To BOAC
If I remember well during climb, above FL100 with almost 300 KIAS a 10° ANU is needed to maintain a 2500'/min climb (against a few degrees ANU for level flight with same speed).
To begin the descent from cruise it is necessary to reduce the attitude more than a single degree, but if I remember well the MD11, from about 4°ANU to about 1° AND to get to Vz -2500.
I remember that in one of my the last simulator Check on the B73 we had a double failure and made a "Manual reversion" approach and with Std.by instruments only.
P.S.
Even if I were King I'd stay away from sycophants and would encourage critics to get better!
Fly Safe
DOVE

Reading the BFU report shows that the commander had flown the necessary standby instrument detail only 2 months earlier and should have known there was heading info available.

Doesn't say much for a 'good to very good' Captain and a 'Training F/O'.

Parallax
 

Now where's that much spoken about parallax?

Photos: BAE Systems Avro 146-RJ100 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

wizzkid, thanks for the photo.

That standby gyro is better than the actual Attitude Gyro I was trained on in T-28's. :uhoh:

Point on parallax taken. :ok:

Am I missing something here? Surely the main purpose of the standby horizon is to enable a defective ADI to be identified. The captain lost his instruments. The first check is to compare the FOs ADI with the standby. If they agree, the FO has control. I've been out of flying for a while now, but I believe the two systems are totally separate, meaning that if the capt's flight computers go down, the FO still has a full set. He didn't trust his instruments (?) or perhaps he didn't want to fly the thing (?)

Australian regulations require testing of competency on standby flight instruments as part of an instrument rating tests. It is quite tricky in the 737 Classics since the stab trim has to operated manually by means of the big wheel. The copilot has no standby flight instruments although I think he has a clock if he is lucky. It is certainly a challenging exercise. If you do not have the demonstrated skill to fly on standby flight instruments to within regulator tolerances then you don't have a job because you will not hold an instrument rating.

Reminds me of another era when undergoing instrument rating tests in a RAAF Dakota where part of the test included conducting single pilot, asymmetric, aurul null NDB let-down, on limited panel (meaning no AH and no DG but you had a tiny E2 type compass held in place with two bungees between the pilots windcreens)

I must say, that required real instrument flying skill. But the satisfaction gained from being able to hack it was inestimable. What a difference between the knowledge in those far off days you could truly fly on instruments, to today's generation when a manually flown visual approach on a sunny day is beyond the capabilities of some airline pilots who are so automatics dependent. Comparing apples and oranges? Well, maybe. But I know who I would trust when the chips were down on a dark and stormy night.

looking and learning
 

IMHO the incident report does not review the crew’s activities in context, and the analysis and recommendations warrant wider consideration.

A single IRS fault/failure tripped the Flight Guidance Computer (FGC). This computer provides AP, FD, AT, but also, altitude alerting, auto pitch trim, flap trim compensation, and electric pitch trim.

When selecting flap between 0 and 18 (and vice versa) there is a significant change in pitch trim, which with an unpowered control system is felt directly on the control column. Normally flap trim compensation alleviates this force; the crew can assist / override this with electric trim. With a FGC failure, manual trim may be required, which for the lower flap angle selections requires quick and ‘extensive’ trim wheel movement; even with electric trim (but no FTC) timely action is important.
Thus inadequate/late trim application could have contributed to the altitude deviations / pitch attitudes, and together with the primary instrument and other failures, IMC, and coincident ILS join, then the flight path might be as expected. This failure situation is unlikely to have been practiced, particularly with disorienting/distracting factors (attitude mismatch/failure), bank attitude warnings (warranted/unwarranted), loss of altitude alerts, and P2 flying.

The apparent knowledge weaknesses of ATT/HDG caution (yellow) and cross side compass display might be understandable in the stress of the situation, which together with potentially disorientating bank angle calls contributed to P2’s doubts.

With an unusual technical failure combined with aircraft reconfiguration and manoeuvring for the approach, the crew could have been unprepared for the trim change and perhaps were situational disorientated by the flight deck indications. Situation awareness suffered, logical assumptions were made, which in hindsight have been questioned; but why should a crew seek deeper analysis if their mental model associated the latter incident with the first, particularly where the main indications were the same.

Unsatisfactory CRM is a glib comment without qualification. With hindsight, workload management might have been better. However, with P2 unsure of his displays, the Captain’s choice is to either fly and communicate, with P2 diagnosing, or put the workload on P2 with diagnosis and communication; however in this incident communication was a relatively high priority – inability to navigate and that ATC were very helpful; this is a judgement call and it would be unfair to criticise without experiencing the entirety of the situation.

Why recommend a technical change to the stby attitude instrument when it meets the certification requirements and has not been faulted over 20+ years in this and other aircraft types.
What parallax (#34); the instrument is satisfactory for emergency use (abnormal crosscheck #36). We should not expect pilots to pass an IRT with it and the resultant extended scan pattern.
Why should instruments fail more often with age of design; the current rate, although less than electronic versions, has been judged satisfactory.

The training recommendations will probably result in more practice with stby instruments, but this overlooks the significant point of the aircraft handling with abnormal trim operation - FTC failure. The crew need to have a ‘feel’ for the aircraft in this unusual configuration.
Not every situation can be simulated; realism in surprise and stress is very difficult.
We might teach ‘CRM’, workload management, and surprise management, in the class room, but who can assure that the correct behaviour will be recalled in actual situations. This begs the question if the operational scenarios in combination with rare events are extending human performance to the limit – perhaps it’s unrealistic to ask any more from the individual. The industry might be reaching a balance where cost of restricting operational workload matches additional training costs.

This was a serious incident when judged against the high standards of today’s excellent safety record.
The outcome was safe; it may not have been a tidy execution, but it was just within the limits of human performance (those particular individuals, in that particular situation).
The industry might learn from this; what went right, why. Also note the similarities with recent accidents – the role of trim and aircraft ‘feel’, the need to fly attitude not computations or feel/stick position, and difficulties of situation awareness / assumptions – both by the crew and the organisational system.
Is the industry assuming too much about the effectiveness of training, about crew behaviour, knowledge retention/recall, or the extent of / ability to gain experience of unusual combinations of events.

This was not a blame and train accident; it’s for looking and learning.

BOAC - a one degree pitch change could equate to 2500 FPM rate of climb/descent? (post#7)

That is one FAST Avro!

Herod has it in a nutshell ...as did ALF507 in detail
as for the king of the wing ..... oh dear .. :ugh: did anyone say ego issue ?
ok .. I did :E

I always practiced standby instruments only in our 757s. Attitude, airspeed,altitude and wet compass worked quite well, sort of like flying a Cessna 150 in the old days. Quite easy if you have your sh*t together. Try it sometime when you are just climbing out on heading and watch for lead and lag on north and south headings. Nothing has changed much in the last 40 years except pilots forgot how to hand fly on instruments with just the basics and depend on automation.