Wannabe?

No thank you, flying has always been a privilege for me, not a profession.

As stated in my original post, which you obviously didn't read, several hundred landings is enough to have experienced difficult wx conditions and unexpected events on landing, giving me a sense of empathy for the captain and respect for his decision under difficult circumstances.

And it must be said that the tone of your postings forgets what the first P in the site title means.

Said captain, several thousand landings! In an airliner!!!!

I think this may be my last visit to this website that has btw become a joke!!! Oh and I assume where lazy journos pick up "factual" stories when they are in a slow news day!!!! Prune your principles have hit the urinal! Danny step in this is not what you set it up for!!!!!

I think what you have to remember here is that a normally healthy and able-bodied person becoming incapacitated (for whatever reason) is a temporary (regardless of the outcome) and UNFORESEEN event. Having a prosthetic limb is a permanent full-time FORESEEN problem carrying risk on a daily basis.

Its a crazy rule because if he only had one eye he would not be allowed a medical so whats the difference with only having one arm? The idea of having two of anything important (engines, eyes, arms, legs) is if you lose one you've still got another - the old belt and braces.

And for those of you using the multi-crew argument to justify this situation please remember this - having a co-pilot is no good if you don't use them. This was a multi-crew operation and it still nearly ended in an accident.

I totally respect this chaps experience and ability and i admire his strength of character and true grit in the face of disability but I don't think he should be granted a medical and shouldn't be flying a commercial aircraft. And before anyone mentions Douglas Bader please remember that he was in an aeroplane ON HIS OWN and there was a war on - a totally different set of circumstances.

On this occasion Flybe were very lucky and they have been very quick to play this event into the long grass but let me ask this - what would be happening now if the aeroplane had have been damaged and people injured/killed? Flybe would be taken to the cleaners.

Yes, imagine no change to the situation EXCEPT the aircraft had had an accident and crashed on the runway.

What would be:

The view of the CAA;
The view of the airline;
The view of the travelling public?

This is the risk.

I'm sure the Captain is a great guy and an experienced and competent pilot.

However the risk doesn't change because of the outcome.

The risk is there for every member of the crew and all passengers every time he flies - because nothing has changed to alleviate the risk that caused this incident.

Well, that's a relief. I thought for a moment something serious had happened. :rolleyes:




The difference being that the gung-ho RAF chap did not have 60 fare-paying passengers behind him.



Except that the f/o was deemed to be not capable to taking over the flight. Which is why there definitely IS something for the fare-paying passenger to see here. A f/o should always be capable of taking over, even if it means a go-around and diversion. If not, there is something wrong (and I have seen that 'something wrong' several times in my career).

And excuse me asking, but how does one transition from control-column to tiller, with a mechanical hand? What sort of mechanics would allow such a swift transition? I would be interested to see the mechanics behind this, as would most of the passengers, I'm sure.


Silver

Silverstrata, spot on :-)

I suppose that many of the posters opposing a Class 1 Medical for pilots with a prosthetic limb might review their position if a tram ran over their arm tomorrow.

I was astonished to learn that a Class 1 medical is available in this case but the CAA information linked in one of the first posts seems to be a sensible regulation.

Unrelated to acceptable risk discussions for commercial operations, one of the most succesful German aces flew a significant part of his career with one leg only (Hans-Ulrich Rudel). While this might not be a yardstick for commercial operations, it is IMHO evidence that pilots with prosthetics can have the "manual skills" required for the art of flight.

Silver, while we don't know the exact mechanics of the prosthetics in question, the mechanics of the one shown earlier in this thread for motorcycles is shown online.

It's basically a quick disconnect. It doesn't specify the amount of force needed to pop the ball out of the socket so I'm not sure if the good hand is needed to assist the detachment or if it's easy enough to just lift and pop it out. It says the amount of force is user adjustable.

Theoretically if one had the brackets mounted on all the necessary controls one could just pop from one to another.

http://www.disabledmotorcyclerider.c...and/pieces.jpg

From the web site:

To those that think this pilot was "unsafe" or otherwise creating an additional hazard to flight safety: there have been plenty of aircraft crashed (and people killed) by perfectly functioning human beings with both hands on the controls of a perfectly serviceable aircraft.

I'd be happy to be on this pilot's aircraft.

How many "able bodied" pilots here would be willing to admit they lost hold of the controls (control column, throttle, or both) due to turbulence at least once in their life?

I believe I taught this fine chap to fly. I'd rather be sat in the back of an aircraft with such a decent sound aviator as him, compared to some of the other questionable types that were on his course and are now flying commercially.

His heads in the right place, the aircraft will follow.

"the aircraft will follow"

just like it did during the event in question - bouncing down the runway and out of control with nobody flying it. TBH it sounds more like the aircraft was doing the leading on this occasion!

I was under the impression that pilots, airlines and aviation authorities were supposed to mitigate risks, not just accept them simply because somebody is a nice guy. Perhaps I'm mistaken?...

For the record, my hands have come off the controls loads of times in turbulence however, because I'm fortunate enough to be able bodied my hands have found the controls again more or less immediately - and that's the difference! Anyone who can't see that isn't really thinking this through.

Hand on heart, if was in the same predicament physically there's no way I would want to fly commercially - my conscience wouldn't allow it. If ever my disability led to someone being injured (or worse) I would never forgive myself.

Couldn't agree more!

BUT you are not disabled so how can you know what your answer will be if you are? How do you know your point of view will not shift dramatically?

Finally, the investigation will provide judgement on this. Who are we to attempt to do so?

Has one checked if the 400 has a tiller ?

Why would this 'answer' have any bearing whatsoever on what the right course of action should be?

I think too many people have watched 'Reach for the Sky' and think that situation is analogous to this one.

The pilot should have no involvement in any decision making process which determines whether or not s/he is fit to fly, only to express a wish as to how s/he would like to be regarded.

yeah so tomorrow let's accept blind and deaf pilots, after all. :ok:

sorry but it is what you mean. We can always compare and reassure ourselves by saying, "there were worst situations before".

It's about mitigating risk and finding the right balance. I would suggest that after this incident the 1 in number has got significantly smaller so having a pilot with a prosthetic is even safer now than 2 years ago. Would we be finding the right balance if we said the safest course of action with regards to flying is to not get airborne? Of course not. Is finding the right balance letting every man and his dog with or without licence or with any medical condition fly? Of course not.

I am quite happy for the experts in their field to make up the rules and assess each and every case on its own merits. Companies then have to assess an individual's ability to complete the task in hand. I am happy to fly with the chap in question, not because he is a good bloke but because it sounds like he has a proven track record of being a good operator.......something I strive to be every time I go to work.

There has clearly been a mechanical failure between the prosthetic and the control column, but the problem was rectified and no one knew about it until 2 years later. The pilot has learnt and the industry had learnt. I would suggest that the likelihood of a recurrence is very unlikely.

How was it rectified ? As far as I know the CAA still allows any prosthetic arm to be used with no regard to its reliability.

I know some guys who use prosthetics, they do wear out and require replacement occasionally. So often they end up with multiples at times, the old ones and newer ones and sometimes continue using both. The newer ones may be more advanced.

I don't see any regulation stipulating that a prosthetic arm has to be the same one from day to day. The passengers might get lucky and fly with the newer improved one, or perhaps they fly with the older worn out prosthetic arm. Do you feel lucky ? This is an extreme scenario but it demonstrates that the industry values disabled pilot job retention, in the exact same job, far above passenger safety, even with the extra risks, now demonstrated and likely to occur again if prosthetic arm quality isn't ensured. Either give him a good reliable (built to aircraft safety standards) arm to use or find him a job that doesn't involve landing flares. Compared to a crash investigation how much can a good prosthetic arm cost ?

Has anybody yet satisfactorily explained how a disconnect between PF and the controls be deemed not to compromise flight safety? At any time but especially on landing?

If that's the case, why do we do the 'I have control', 'you have control' rigmarole?

Bird strike, go arounds, gusts etc could have been disastrous, yet the company and CAA presumably reckon safety wasn't compromised? Err how?

We have a huge credibility problem surely?

I got a response from Flybe when Neil McDonald thought I was a journo, but nothing since I honestly responded it was a 'private' inquiry.

Just to make it perfectly clear, my 'problem' is not so much it happened (which is bad enough) but that the Company's statement said that safety wasn't compromised.

All I can say is that people with a better understanding of the prosthetic/clamp involved and of the individual case deem this pilot safe to fly.

There are people on both sides of this camp that think they are right (as I am not discussing this with my wife I stand a chance of being right on this occasion!), myself included, but really all we can do is hypothesise because at the end of the day experts, I say again experts, have deemed the pilot involved safe to fly.

Another way I would like to describe risk assessment. Hands up anyone here who has flown with an ADD........yep me too. Who agrees that flying would be safer if we refused to fly with ADDs.........yep me too. Yet we sometimes might operate with one pack U/S (slightly mitigated by limiting our cruising FL), no APU, no autothrust, one generator inop........need I go on. We trust in the experts/manufacturers to come up with an MMEL and we then fly with the MEL. Every defect has been assessed for risk and as such has a 1 in .... number of becoming more than just a risk/threat. The point I am trying to make is that the risks associated with a pilot flying with a prosthetic arm have been assessed and found to be acceptable. If the paying public don't like it then that is fine, take a cab to Manchester or wherever it is you need to go but be warned, we all know about the statistics of deaths on the roads V dying in an aircraft accident!

I am too lazy and drunk right now to research what assessment takes place with regards to prosthetics, I would be interested to hear from someone who has overcome their disability to fly with a prosthetic, even if posted through a third party to ensure annonimity. I bet we would be surprised.

One fine day I was in the back seat of an L-19 on a glider tow. After release I was flying it back. All went perfectly fine until turning final with flaps down:

the stick came out

the nose promptly dropped and the pilot in front exclaimed and took over.

With things mechanical failure does occasionally happen, whether controls, seatback or prosthesis.

In many tandem taildraggers, a stick is removable. Of course that exposes the danger of the stick coming out at inopportune times. Following the preferences expressed by some here, the stick should be welded in to preclude that failure.

However seatbacks break. If one falls on the rear stick and there's no rear seat occupant, the usual result is a crash with serious injuries or death.

Thoughtful risk management requires consideration of all factors.

Mechanical inspection?
 

With all the political correctness flying around, I feel some unease at this incident. And I think I've narrowed it down to a simple question:

- Is a complex prosthetic inspected like the rest of the flight controls by a (prosthetic) type-certified orthopedist or mechanic, at regular intervals? If not, why not?

@edmundronald: I feel unease any time an "able bodied" person crashes an aircraft, but curiously in those cases, it's always "let's wait for the facts before blaming the pilots", aka, "human error".

Don't make me sit here and dig up every report for a heavy landing in turbulence (resulting in structural damage/death), or videos on YouTube of pilots landing when a go-around would have been prudent, or the very recent event of an aircraft taking off with funnel cloud activity in the immediate vicinity of the airport no less. Micro-burst anyone? They got lucky.

In light of the comments in this thread, those above situations have ZERO EXCUSE for occurring, but I don't see anyone making the kinds of criticism seen here.

As many folks have pointed out, the standard for medical clearance can't be zero risk -- or we'd have no pilots. Because older people have more health issues than young ones, tightening the standards would tend to force out experienced pilots. Of course, not every medical issue is age-related, not every experienced pilot would be replaced by an inexperienced one, and not every experienced pilot is safer than every (relatively) inexperienced one. Nonetheless, any proposal to tighten the standards would need to consider the offsetting safety effect of reducing the overall experience level of the profession.

The risk exposed by this incident is the risk of adding a couple of mechanical joints to an aircraft that already has thousands of them. Perhaps there should have been better oversight and mitigation of this risk, but that doesn't seem to be a reason to have denied clearance to this pilot.

If there'd been an incident resulting from a need for the pilot to have two fully functional hands, that would have been more disturbing. Perhaps there is a risk along those lines, but if so, this incident didn't expose it.

Exam, all those things you mention are pilot induced or involve pilot decisions. Those issues will always be present. None of the them involve mechanical failure of components.

Adding a pile of mechanical parts of unknown quality in the form of a prosthetic bolted to the yoke adds a whole new layer of failure possibilities on top of the pilot induced issues you mentioned. Especially mechanical failures during the landing flare, when there's only a few seconds available and when most of the yoke inputs occur. How often do FO's practice recovering the aircraft and finishing the flare from prosthetic arm failure 2 to 3 seconds before touchdown.

( I admire this pilot and his flying skills, he deserves his medical. I'd fly with him every day as long as the mechanical arm they give him is reliable and airworthy. His arm needs a separate "medical", only from engineers and not doctors.)

Regardless of the percieved rights and wrongs of his medical certification, I don't think anybody who knows the pilot in question is questioning his professionalism, diligence or standard of operation.

The incident was, I believe, a first and very unfortunate. No doubt lessons will be learnt by the pilot himself, the operator and the CAA.

What really frustrates me is the 'clowns' that do things like the below and never get a mention on here with regards comprimising flight safety. How many times...

Titan B752 at Freetown on Dec 13th 2013, continued approach despite "PULL UP" EGPWS warning | AeroInside

Isn't that exactly what this was? One hand remaining; control column or throttles?

And also at a bottleneck with no redundancy. Yes, there WAS a second pilot but he wasn't used.


I was going to refrain from posting on this again but there is so much misrepresentation and lack of logic flying around that as an engineer and RAF/civil pilot I really have to speak out.

I've said before: a thumper can happen to anyone and I can certainly admit to a few. This is about risk management, in general terms, before getting airborne.

Edmundronald,

I understand your question, others have missed the point. See my post #169.

A pilot is regularly "inspected" and signed off as fit to fly by a qualified person.
The aircraft is regularly inspected and signed off as fit to fly by qualified persons.

In the case of the aircraft, removal and refitting of any part of the flying controls requires a second person to oversee and sign off the job. Essential mechanical parts fitted to aircraft are required to have documented wear limits. Any worn component or incorrectly fitted part would be rectified to alleviate risk of failure.

Is there a similar system in place for prosthetic limbs required by pilots? If not, surely there ought to be because they are, in practical terms, part of the flight controls.

I repeat, The streets are not littered with bits of broken prosthetics.

They are , apart from the artificially.skinned, pneumatic/hydraulic, nerve-sensing servo-controlled masterpieces of engineering and cosmetics.

extraordinarily well-built, designed and engineered. Unlike a lot of industries, there is a strong element of moral and ethical responsibility within the broad medical industry.
I'd suggest, without any factual evidence, Prosthetics are less failure-prone than aircraft! (aside from having a few thousand less components)

Has it occurred to anybody that the Pilot maybe just didn't fully latch the "hand" to the Yoke? _incidentally....a balljoint,installed so that gravity holds the ball in the socket, will not separate ,if within it's articulation limits
the harder it's loaded, the tighter the two parts engage.

A gloved or sweaty hand can slip off a control. I defy anyone to deny driving off with a car-door on "first-latch" (if you haven't, you will!) this wasthe same situation,except the hand was mechanical.

This incident has been blown out of all proportion,here and a lot of people are surmisimg the bounce was due to the PF not having his hand on the throttles.

The supposition is flawed...by the time throttle- closure had any effect, the bounce would already have happened.......but the witch-hunters on their hobby horse are ignoring this possibility.

- absolutely. The subtle fact you have 'overlooked' is that a gloved or sweaty hand can normally quickly re-establish the necesary grip, or at least that is my experience. In addition the gloved or sweaty hand is capable of quickly being re-directed to another control or selector if need be. Therein lies a significant difference.

Yes, again, see my post #169 of 17th August and the second to last paragraph of my post immediately above yours.

Aircraft are sometimes subjected to zero and negative 'G', which rather negates that point.

If an able-bodied pilot had found himself in the same situation because he'd got cramp in the hand that was holding the control column would everyone be calling for his licence to be revoked too?

I haven't actually seen any evidence that "everyone" is calling for this pilot's licence to be revoked.....

OK, ShyTorque - If an able-bodied pilot had found himself in the same situation because he'd got cramp in the hand that was holding the control column would the same people be calling for his licence to be revoked too?

SP - most of us here recognise that cramp is a temporary affliction unlike amputation or other loss of limb etc. What is your point?

Would cramp affect the pilot instantaneously, rendering him suddenly unable to control the aircraft? This risk has been discussed amongst private pilots flying light aircraft solo, with sidesticks, on long flights, but the effect will build over time and the availability of an autopilot is one mitigation response.

The problem in the Flybe incident was that an unforeseen and catastrophic failure mode occurred (catastrophic in the sense that the prosthesis detached suddenly and could not be reattached in time to complete the landing.)

Now the failure mode has occurred, I am sure that lessons have been learned and response plans put into place, including briefing etc.

I am not calling for the pilot's medical to be pulled.

I'm not personally asking for anyone's licence to be revoked.

However, wrt to your question, your guess would be as good as mine. Either would be supposition.

Three Thousand

This is the bit where I think he made an incorrect judgement! He should have gone around or instigated a command to his FO to take control and go around.
Here able bodied or not there should not be any allowances at any phase of the landing the commander should be in a position to go around even with a bad touchdown probably even more so with a bad landing.

Having gone back to a safe altitude probably in a holding pattern the Commander should have fixed the problem and landed or if not in a position to do so got the FO to land under his supervision.

Probably never expecting the arm to detach the commander never briefed the FO in that likelihood or their roles in that situation which I am sure now he will do.
Continuing a landing where the commander is not in full control is inexcusable and that is a lesson to be learnt.

As for removing him ? That is a ridiculous suggestion but lessons learnt to insure it never happens again through special procedural training and CRM is not.
That should never be that a pilot who is not in full control should continue with landing

Was anyone harmed during this incident?:confused:
:E

Luckily no but there must be communication where a pilot in full control can take over.
I had a situation where my FO was landing in a business jet and somehow got his size 12 foot jammed in the rudder/brake pedal.
with the command I have control I took over and stopped the jet departing the runway.
Had I sat there and let him get on with it or had we not briefed for such an occurrence the chances are we would have departed the runway into the grass.

As stated I am sure one result of this will be an awareness of the incident and a briefing on how each pilot should react if it happens again which it probably will not.