Thomas cook b757 incident, what a total mess
 

I read the report today. What a fantastic learning read; I would highly recommend it. :ok:

Fairly poor airmanship I muss say. Everyone walked away but the outcome could easily be much worse.

I'm sorry but I don't buy the "demoted to first officer in March 2014 and that his salary would reduce significantly" bit as a contributing factor - I sympathize with his predicament but a professional can not allow such outside factor to impede on his performances. And if it did he was simply unfit for flight and should have reported as such.

It was not just the demotion and reduction in pay that was distracting him. It was the future direction of his career and life, as dictated by a fairly contentious decision by the company. Look at his age.

Agreed he should have done better on the day. But, perhaps because of the above, he should not necessarily have been flying on that day. Try taking yourself off the roster for psychological reasons; those same reasons will prevent you doing so. It is at this point that a good management team should be intervening, for crew welfare as well as safety. So why did the management systems fail? (Money?)

Botched GAs seem to be a bit of a regular problem recently.
Is this a training issue ?.

This one also raises questions about fuel loads, why did they not have enough fuel for a simple diversion ?.

One thing that does always make me think about departing with min fuel to short runways is the "what if" regarding a Flap/Slat problem, and then going looking for a runway long enough to land on (might not be our Fuel alternate) and the fuel penalty diverting there with some form of flap hanging out. One to keep you awake at night!

I do sympathise regarding the Captain's situation though - he may have felt because he was making it through his flights he was OK, but some extra stress overloaded him. It's not like he's the first person ever to stuff the thrust levers forward and keep following the FDs down on a go around.

Also, out of interest, is TCX the airline the AAIB Ops guys do their flying with?

Sounds like he reverted to Airbus go around technique and then became overloaded very quickly.

Jwscud,

The AAIB inspectors fly with a variety of operators, fixed wing and rotary, but they normally stay with one to keep the management simple (rostering, SOPs etc).

A major issue with go arounds is that airline pilots rarely do them nowadays so they become scary. This leads to fouled up landings from unstable or below minimum approaches.

Back in the days of hacking around the game reserves every landing was fully briefed and on a hair trigger for a go around because they were an almost weekly occurrence due to wildlife etc.

Somewhere an essential skill has been lost, a go around is not a failure - it is a wise move and should be the instinctive reaction when in any doubt.

"After the preceding aircraft had landed that crew advised of a possible bird strike which prompted the tower controller to instruct MT-6107 to go around"

This has happened to me as well. What the f do ATC believe will happen if I land a 250 ton 747 on a dead bird? A complete waste of time and fuel.

Not a lot probably.

OTOH if there's a possibility of a/c damage/debris or if bird was part of a flock that needs dispersing?

Full AAIB report is here:

Air Accidents Investigation: Download PDF document

'It's not like he's the first person ever to stuff the thrust levers forward and keep following the FDs down on a go around.'


Seriously ?


If you're that confused you have no business in the left or right hand seat, that's a basic flying skill that any professional pilot should have.


A go around in a B757 is simplicity itself, one click of the TOGA buttons and you get a nice, smooth 2000fpm climb and LNAV flies the MAP for you.



If you hit the wrong button(s) then just disconnect everything and fly it.


To get to 287 Kias with the flaps out is just unbelievable.

expat400

Very pleased to hear your viewpoint, takes me back to a very heated post comp check with a local examiner when I had the same scenario, landing aircraft reported possible birdstrike on the runway, I warned the succeeding traffic (DH8) and cleared him to land. "Should have sent him around" was the examiner's response. "Why?" to which no coherent response was received, just "I'm not happy with your actions" to which I replied "well pull my f****ing rating". Funny that never happened, nor was the occurrence written up on the de-brief, possibly for fear of my right to formally respond on the same form.

<<What the f do ATC believe will happen if I land a 250 ton 747 on a dead bird? A complete waste of time and fuel.>>

A somewhat uncharitable comment if I may say so. I was on duty at Heathrow early one morning when many bird strikes occurred. Both runways were closed and a number of aircraft were sent around. During subsequent runway inspection over 200 carcasses were removed - a record at the time. ATC will take action to preserve safely; that this may not be agreeable to some pilots is unfortunate.

Have not read the whole report in detail but was this really a (subtle) case of some form of pilot incapacitation?

Much money and resources seem to be pumped into the hardware but scant attention seems to be paid to the (human) software.

In safety critical industries the humans need to be functioning correctly in every respect.

I remember that when I was a Type/ Instrument Rating Examiner on the B757/767 (I'm retired now) the 2-engine go-around was frequently performed untidily in the sim, so much so that I included this procedure in my 'How To Do Well In The Sim' paper. It's disappointing to learn that crews are still getting themselves into trouble flying this manoeuvre.

That's why there are two pilots in the cockpit, both of whom should be adequately qualified, experienced and not fatigued.

HEATHROW DIRECTOR

I get your point but you're talking of an extreme event that might happen once every hundred years...
It will of course always be a judgement call when to close the runway. Someone reporting "a possible birdstrike" is not enough according to me. A warning to the crew on final and slowing down the following approaches to create a gap for an inspection should be enough. If the commander decides to go around he can do it but it should not be a mandatory action.

Incident occurred over a year ago and at that time,the Captain was facing job re-assignment in March of this year. I don't see a report date (although one is implied). Anyone know how the unfortunate Commander was treated by TC ? A major incident would normally lead to suspension(on full pay) pending the result of a full investigation. Just curious as to how different companies treat these cases. One company I worked for, a Capt scored a major black. Back at Base, Chief Pilot interviewed the offender and said, " Your employment is terminated with immediate effect. You now have 30 minutes in which to talk yourself back into employment ". I quite like that. Oh & before I am shot down, I do agree that the TC incident was more than a 'major black' but still curious about various company's handling of incidents.

Nowadays, with everyone waiting to jump on your back, maybe some ATCOS feel it is more judicious (& self preserving) to initiate a go around. I would not necessarily have done the same, but I grew up in the era of "operational common sense" & not in that of "blind pedantry". Not that I am in any way accusing this ATCO of being pedantic ! (just a commentary in one aspect of modern day aviation).
Nevertheless, I would not criticise the ATCO in this case without knowing exactly what all of the factors were; &, even then, I would support him in trying to deliver a safe service & protect his licence .
There is often more than meets the eye to situatons.

If the Atco had not advised the go-around, and the 757 had gone on to ingest debris on the runway, that Atco would have been f****d