FAA AC: AC 120-109A
 

The FAA recently revised the AC120-109A "Stall Prevention and Recover Training" - superseding the previous AC 120-109 "Stall and Stick Pusher Training".
FAA AC

No idea if the timing is coincidental or not....

While I understand and would like to see the above made a universal requirement, I don't think that is as easy to universally implement as is necessary.

What might be a great help would be some simple modifications to the operation of Alternate Law that would give these weaker sticks a chance to catch their breath rather than throwing them directly into the pool of "Alternate Law, roll direct".

Something as simple as an automatic wing leveler in Alternate Law would probably have prevented both QZ8501 and AF447 and would not interfere with normal control. As I understand, there isn't an announcement of Alternate Law when the change occurs, just indications on the PFD.
I believe it is essential that pilots know that they are in Alternate Law before they consider making that first full deflection aileron input that panics them. All they need to know then is that Alternate Law means gentle corrections!

Discussions about stall recovery procedures are appropriate of course, but fall into the category of putting the ambulance at the bottom of the precipice rather than putting the fence at the top. Once you panic a person, unpredictable effects can negate your best training.

Whatever happened to stick shake?

It is especially not able to simulate any constant acceleration. Not more than 1g in steep turns, not less than 1g when recovering from a high pitch attitude. It may even confuse pilots when it actually lifts them out of their seat when recovering from a stall, making them feel they do something wrong...
Sim is for procedure and CRM training. Especially the latter would not have hurt in this case...

Automatics
 

Clearly there is a need for improved training. However these incidents which allegedly have a significant component of pilot error will only support the trend to increased automation. I don't envisage airlines reversing the trend and insisting on hand flying at high altitude except in the sim. I recall reading for some types the manufacturers advise against manual flying at very high altitude presumably because of the increased risk.

There is no way to practice high level handling because RVSM does not permit it. Most airbus pilots retire without having experienced direct law, dual hydraulic or EMER ELEC or forced landing. So there will always some failures that cannot be actually practiced but understood theoretically and that doesn't mean these cannot be executed when required. If the pilots of AF447 and QZ8501 knew the pitch, bank and thrust autopilot uses at those levels they wouldn't have done what they did. This awareness can be instilled in simulator by including it in training syllabus.

Perhaps positive G could be simulated if a simulator is mounted in a CENTRIFUGE... But negative G would still need another idea, I suspect.


RVSM may be, or is, an ATCC requirement. This could be relaxed for a finite time, say 15 or 20 minutes, by the current controller to allow a small amount of practice at hand flying when Traffic allows.

Someone mentioned a year or two ago that he had had to hand fly a B707 at F/L 41.0. He said that the two pilots found that they had to take it in turns for 20 minutes each.

( They would have covered much the same Air Mileage as I did, hand flying a York for several alternate hours on long sectors, also without A/P.)

LT

I've said it before and I make no apology for saying it again; one issue DID cause this accident. Two qualified and experienced ATPLs managed to stall a basically-serviceable modern aircraft into the drink from FL380.

That should NOT be possible. That should NEVER EVER happen. You can argue AoA indicators and control laws and sidesticks until you're blue in the face; what it needed was pilots who could fly the <expletive deleted> plane! If you lose sight of that, you've lost sight of the damned *profession*.

If the Captain had specifically instructed his F/O

" Please WATCH YOUR INSTRUMENTS..I am going to try to get the system working."

This might have been enough.

( Others may say " Leave the systems alone..." I cannot comment.)

LT

Experience and licence needed for my York flying as mentioned above :

CPL+ I/R , 450 hours total. My Captains required me to remain within 50 ft of cruising level and 1 or 2 degrees of course (C)

I noted my actual Instrument flying times in my log book, as suggested by a former R.F.C. pilot, who said it might be interesting some day !

L.T.

It does seem outrageous that professional pilots would ignore a stall warning (thinking as a mere private pilot, drilled on stalls), but.... if the rudder on my Cessna suddenly kicked and threw the plane into a yaw and bank, maybe I'd be startled too. Airbus needs to make some changes. Why not degrade to a "Safe Mode", where the aircraft maintains wings level, thrust and AOA set to a known good level? Professional pilots said that is the fallback, simple enough to automate that. How about instead of "Stall Stall" it says "Stall, push nose down NOW!", like the ground prox warning "Pull up!". It costs nothing to do that. On the sticks, add a friggin' vibrator. Dirt cheap, easy mod. If the other pilot is moving the stick, you NEED TO KNOW NOW. The senior pilot can then tell the other pilot "My Aircraft", Sully style, and know if the other pilot is respecting that. In the case of Allah Akbar, he can punch that sucker out. These problems are very rare, but the consequences are severe. I would imagine that most pros NEVER encounter a stall warning in an AirBus, NOR have a situation where the other pilot is flailing away with the side stick, but if it does happen it's a crisis. The software has to take that into account.

I am absolutely with Centaurus on this one!:ok:

Along time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, we were being instructed in UA recovery in the sim by a chap of Asian extraction. The syllabus/checklist recall was the [then] new Boeing UA recovery program.

The input of the instructor was that the only way the recovery should be done by we inexperienced pilots was to do so on the autopilot. This was totally against the Boeing requirements [and for that matter, our employers!!]

My problem with this is that if the autopilot fails and causes an upset, you don't have an autopilot on which to recover [or would you trust the "other" one??] Thus, skip some years to sitting in the RHS over Europe, red light on the INS and the aircraft takes off in an upward left hand turn from FL330. Quick disconnect, recover and engage the other autopilot.

Back to Centaurus' argument; teach it right in the first place and it will stick, backed up by practice.

Indeed, when instructing the same sequence, I would complete the syllabus, then if we had time [mostly], do the same exercise, but freeze the pilot's PFD attitude in a non-representative position and get the guys to recover on the standby. Without exception, they all thanked me for the additional input.

G'day ;)

PS The "Bahrain Bomber" was the forerunner of this stuff and not really repeated until FBW machines came along.

Yup.

The more aircraft, or really any machine, are automated, with added layers upon layers of protection systems, the more removed from actually operating it safely, the pilot will become. They'll be thinking to themselves: "I won't have to xxx, because it will do it, or it will provide a warning". Well.... Maybe it won't.

I had to check myself out in a turboprop aircraft, and then undertake stall testing in it - and it does not incorporate any stall warning system in it's type design. I approached with caution, and managed just fine.

Less automation, and more training! The crews don't need to be stalling Airbusses around the sky to get the idea, send them in a DA-42 or similar for the stall practice. Oh, they can't safely take up a DA-42 on their own? There's another problem then!

quote Vilas :

"If the pilots of AF447 and QZ8501 knew the pitch, bank and thrust autopilot uses at those levels they wouldn't have done what they did"

You are absolute right Vilas

Knowing required PITCH + POWER SETTING at high altitude is essential !

And that is for all commercial aircraft.

I have made it a habit, when reaching a new FL at cruise, to look at pitch + power

If things start to seriously bad at high altitude = as PF stick to the memorized PITCH + POWER, and then start to solve the problem(s)

If you are an Airbus pilot, I highly recommend reading the book : "Understanding AF447". It contains so much valuable information, and will probably leave you sleepless for some nights, thinking about how fast things can go fatally wrong. As this accident is proof of.

...although the trouble started from system components failing in both cases. So adding more of those will probably not solve the issue. But it may save money in the short term, while more pilot training will cost money in the short term.

Is it more training or better and more relevant training?

Many people are advocating that the answer to this issue is simply more training so that “pilots can fly planes”. While more and better training is obviously a good thing and will improve the situation, training is not the magic cure for everything. Training can fail just like a pitot tube. Smart intelligent people can make mistakes. A better result will be obtained from multiple improvements of the many aspects that could help the pilot perform his important tasks.

More training is easy to implement because it reinforces the idea that the pilot is 100% responsible and takes the responsibility off the operator and manufacturer.

I'd like an AOA presentation on/beside the speed scale.
After all, it is available in the BUSS
(Back-up Speed Scale)

Let me throw one more ingredient into the melting pot here.

In the olden days when pilots did their basic training all the aircraft were aerobatic and spinnable and the instructors were almost exclusively war time and used to doing aeros etc.

Fast forward a few decades and spinning was eliminated from the PPL course and I believe it has minimal requirement in CPL training. At a CFIs conference I attended last year one member was berating the fact the instructors applying for jobs had only ever done a couple of spins in their entire careers.

What difference does this make to the airline product? There is no doubt in my mind that being trained in spinning and basic aeros etc create a much more robust pilot. (I speak as one who was civil trained). When spinning was in the PPL syllabus as an instructor if the student finished the spinning exercise thinking "whatever happens I am not going to let the a/c get into that situation" they had learned a good lesson.

I agree that training isn't everything but we have to face the fact that we seem to have a new generation of pilots now who seem unable to recognise an unusual attitude and/or recover from more than 30 degrees of bank and or an approaching stall.

I think better training inevitably means more training.

We can talk about the pros & cons of automation and side sticks vs control columns until the cows come home. But the one thing above all which can't be ignored, is that reading the CVR 'transcripts' of both AF447 and QZ8501, both PFs' responses to the upset can be summed up as "Oh my god, what has happened!?!- I'm trying to fix it but nothing's working as I expect it to!! -I don't really understand what's going on!!!", with the PNF seemingly even further behind the plane than the PF.

With respect to the two dead crews, what frightens me most is, did they perform any better in the situation, than would an untrained member of the public, whose automatic response would be panic, followed by, 'we're going down, I must pull the stick back to make it go up again???'

If this is the case, then it is without doubt a training issue, and matters of automation are minor concerns in comparison.

Not a member of the blame the flight crew camp here...

I still believe, without the control inputs of the other pilot confusing the flight control computers, any of the four pilots of AF447 and QZ8501 was fully capable of recovering the aircraft from the upset.

How many more of these accidents is it going to take before this flawed man/machine interface is exposed for what it is?

Back to the basic training & CPL course discussion. Not only was there more basic flying, certainly spins & stalls; there were stalls in turns, incipient spin recovery; there were minor aeros and spins off the tops of loops; some were intended an others not. The unexpected ones were better training in fact. You learnt SA and not to be afraid when the blue side was below you and the horizon was AWOL. Spins under the hood were even more fun. Indeed that was with highly qualified QFI's, not hour builders who had just been spat out be the same school and who were searching for a 'proper' job.
Oh, and I forgot, a CPL course was 250hrs, not the mickey mouse 148hrs of today where the concentration is on MCC, CRM, AFDS and SOP's. Think what could be done with 50 hours extra. Let the dog of the lead and let the guys have some fun, perhaps even scare themselves a bit; but either way they will learn the envelop edges are much further away than they thought; of both the a/c and themselves.

Wannabee,

Control inputs do not confuse the flight control computers. The Bus flies just like any other aeroplane. Adjust pitch and roll as required to achieve what you need. If you want to take over, say "taking over" and press and hold the button, just like you are taught to. It ain't rocket science. But you need to recognise what is happening, and know how to fix it. Doesn't matter if it's a bus or a Boeing, A bad pilot will bend it.

Ranger One, et al; many posts reflect hindsight bias, particular when attempting to rethink ‘what’ happened, and then concluding ‘why’, choose an inappropriate response – cause and effect are not reversible in complex accidents.

Instead of looking for ‘cause’, think about what could be learnt from what has already been published; consider how this might relate to other situations, other people, yourself – airmanship, professionalism.

‘Blame and train’ is not a solution. It is impossible to be sure (‘NEVER EVER’) that the required human behaviour – via training – will be applied in all situations. The surprise in many posts ‘how could the human have done this’, is no more than the same surprise which the accident crew encountered – surprise clouds our thoughts and adds mental workload, which the report considered.
If we wish to judge that more effective training is required then the focus could be on avoidance and situation awareness vice actions after the event – proactive not reactive safety.

Pprune is a valuable forum for sharing ideas and improving safety; everyone is entitled to an opinion, but without justification then we may not be entitled to an opinion; justification requires well-reasoned argument.
I have no strong views on what happened in this accident, but from some previous posts I will now consider where the seat is positioned during cruise – can the controls be reached and moved to the maximum deflection, and if I leave the seat to switch something, reconsider “should I be doing this”, and in addition to continually noting the pitch power values in flight, check the normal range of trim settings for each situation.

In the Cartoon below, change the Flt No as required.
“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” Harland Ellison

http://i48.tinypic.com/14d3woh.jpg

My informed opinion.

http://oi65.tinypic.com/m8e6p5.jpg

Safetypee;

Sid Dekker also expressed it very well in his, "Field Guide to Understanding Human Error", where, in the Chapter, "They Should Have...", he wrote:

"What (you think) happened cannot explain people's behaviour", p.39.

FDMII

Yes FDMII. I really wish some of the people who post here would better educate themselves in the field of human error before so soundly crucifying the pilots.

That aside, it's still abundantly clear there is an interface that exacerbates the negative effects of human factors rather than minimising them.

One of them being an auto trim trimming all the way to make it comfortable to sustain the stall.
Where is the THS graph ... !?

To be fair, I have never flown a jet (so am unfamiliar with Airbus systems). But, the Airbus is type certified, as all certified aircraft, to a standard which includes the requirement that the aircraft must not require unusual pilot skill and attention to safely fly. It can't be presented as terribly difficult to fly through its full range of controlled flight. That's the airplane side of the interface.

The pilot(s) of an aircraft are duty bound to meet that interface halfway, with skill and experience appropriate to the aircraft type and the operating environment. Pilots are entitled to a learning phase, per type, or at least class of aircraft, during which they cannot be expected to have mastered all about the aircraft. But, when they are assigned as Captain, they better have it worked out.

For those times when I have flown passengers, I made damn sure I had mastered the aircraft. On a few occasions, that included taking the plane solo first, to assure my familiarity before carrying a passenger. That flight would ALWAYS include a few stalls - to the break.

Understandably, airline jet pilots don't have the same privilege to take the plane for half an hour refresher, as "small" plane pilots might. But in my opinion, that should be balanced off with these pilots having easy access to smaller aircraft for their refresher flying. I read that NASA Astronaut pilots are "sent" solo flying to remain sharp - so should airline pilots.

Some airline pilots seek out recreational flying, and keep their skills sharp - good for them, they are being true to themselves, and their passengers.

If their employer requires "training", great, but that does not need to be the only occasion when pilot build/maintain their skills.

It seems to me that there are some issues that we are missing and that maybe need to be stressed. First of all I apologize because English is not my mother tongue, so I hope I would be forgiven for grammar errors. Now let's go back to the topic. For start let me explain my background. Ex Air Force pilot, fast jet and tanker, now professional pilot, held rating on B 737, MD 80 series and now skipper on A 320 series. So we can say I have experienced (and indeed I did) all aerobatic that could be done in a fighter, including obviously stall and spin (they were forbidden but you know...at that time you were not a real pilot if you weren't able to fly such things). I have flown the B 707 as a skipper, and I had the luck to actually experience a real stall and recovery (intentional) at FL 350 coupled with a manifacturer test pilot. Then due to autopilot failure I had the chance to hand fly the thing from Milan to Caboverde (no AP, no ATHR) on course to EZE.
Actually there is no simulator experience that can give a faint idea of what is an high altitude stall: no way. In an heavy aircraft you are close to the Baffin Corner and also remember that the inusual pitch attitude is so extreme that can be very disorienting. Sorry for all of you that fly and stall any Cessna Piper or DA, but there are very few similititudes with a heavy sweptwing jet stalling at high altitude. The recovery also is very...interesting: we lost 12000 ft and we both knew what we were doing, we both went through a very detailed briefing and we were in daylight with CAVOK. It is one of the most vivid experience of my aviator career.
I have flown the B 737 and the MD 83 series: control column better than sidestick? Maybe...I am not really sure of that because it seems to me that when things goes terribly wrong in the flight deck no control column or yoke has been able to save the day.
Now for flying manually tha Airbus: actually when we talk about flying manually we talk about flying a beautiful FBW aircraft in normal law without AP and ATHR....with autotrim and a nice sidestick and a beautiful speed trend...so there is no problem to hand fly the minibus in this conditions.Problems arises when the flight law is degrade in Alternate, but in that case there is no way we can experience manual flight in Alternate law because obviously we cannot degrade intentionally the aircraft capabilities like it happened in this accident. One must understand that in Normal Law a pilot can use the sidestick abruptly to the mechanical stops and the aircraft will always give the best capability her can. Actually a EGPWS recovery from warning is flown exactly in this way, or a severe windshear. Completely different situation in Alternate Law, where the envelope protection is degraded.
An Airbus pilot, like any other pilot, must know pitch and thrust for some situations, and must know the capabilities of the aircraft; in my opinion is required a little bit more discipline in order to understand the actual capabilites of the aircrafts in the actual flying conditions: this is addressed only with the training.
Happy landings.

Stepturn:

You know the pilot of QF32, the A380 that had an uncontained engine failure, grounded himself for four months after that incident because he didn't think he was fit to fly, such was the impact of the incident. He also makes it very clear that the fact that there were five pilots in the cockpit on that flight was a crucial advantage. In addition to the normal crew of three, there were two additional check captains: a captain who was being trained as a check captain and a supervising check captain, who was training the check captain. While the pilot flew the plane the FO was completely consumed monitoring the ECAMs, with the other three supporting and monitoring both as necessary.

Putting aside the initial mistakes made in this incident, what was subsequently the situation was task overload, disorientation, masking of warnings and alarms, and an opaque and effectively masked primary operating device. Just as in AF477.

Isn't the final failure in all of this the poor CRM. The PIC knew what to do but not once did he take control or announce it.

I'm also a bit puzzled as to how any Airbus pilot would know to do that - take control. As far as we know - every pilot understands stall recovery is the same for all aircraft - nose down. Why would any PIC ever take control when his basic assumption is that the PF is obviously doing the right thing to start with?

He/She would be confused as heck watching the instruments and wondering why the aircraft is not responding as it should. He'd second guess the instruments before he second guessed his co-pilot. As time passes and altitude loss increases, effective CRM erodes, giving way to stress and fear and the longer it continues the less likely the chances of recovery.

The stall procedure in an Airbus needs to include PF's verbalization of the side stick position. 2 accidents would have been avoided by one simple PF call - "Sidestick Back".

Huh? I keep my skills sharp by hand flying the jet for takeoffs, approaches & landings whenever conditions and traffic permit. :ooh:

@nncO:

"2 accidents would have been avoided by one simple PF call - "Sidestick Back"."

Errrr... isn't that the exact opposite of what is required...?!

Dean

Too much emphasis on this PC nonsense. CRM is sitting down with a problem and collaboratively fixing it using "the team". Forgetting to say a couple of appropriate words when the aeroplane is plunging waterward at 12,000fpm is not CRM.

This situation required a dictator: "push the stick full forward NOW or I'll thump ya!" or better "Give me the friggin aeroplane, I'll get us out of this mess!" or I should say "My controls!!". As Han Solo said when they realised they were in the guts of the monster, "No time to discuss, this isn't a committee!" :ok:

I agree.
Basic flying skills are the foundation of everything, we build anything on top of those.
As such, I also feel there should be recurrent training for them to make sure they are rock-solid.

It might be so, yet being anonymous internet forum it (as expected) suffers from quite low wheat/chaff ratio, mostly brought on by good folks who get their kicks from proudly displaying their aeronautical ignorance here. I find it especially funny when convoluted and basically wrong theories are supported by reference to author's self-professed experience & expertise.

I'll try to answer a few questions I think might be worth answering, to the best of my ability. As usual, feel free to correct me.

1. What happened here?

Pilot induced upset, followed by pilot caused and pilot sustained stall that was broken only by disintegration of the aircraft upon impact with the sea surface. G trace shows no turbulence signature, aeroplane behaved i.a.w. flight control orders made, as long as it was aerodynamically possible to do so.

2. How often does it happen?

AFAIK, there is no proper study of it but there are fairly useful indications that it happens very, very seldom but when it does, it tends to be fatal.

First, in connection with AF447 investigation BEA analyzed frequency of multiple pitot blockages and found 40-odd of them on 330 and 340. All of them resulted in degradation of flight control law to alternate and AP disconnect. Some of them even went unreported as the crew didn't think much about having to handfly in altn mode, at high altitude. Some received stall warning. AF447 was unique not just because full back stick was sustained after stall warning, it was the only one where reaction to stall warning was to pull! So much for the "uncoupled sticks are gonna kill ya and we need stickshakers because overloaded crew won't hear anythıng"

Second, do you really believe that in this day and age of enlightened investigation authorities, flight data monitoring, Flightradar24, AvHerald and social media it is possible for some airliner busting couple of levels in extreme attitude and RoC unsustainable even at SL, empty and with maximum thrust and then stalling but somehow recovering and landing safely to go unnoticed? Yeah, neither do I. There were some lucky escapes like Dynasty 006 back in 1985. where diving aeroplane managed to get into VMC so the crew finally figured out their AHs were not toppled and recoverd or Flagship 3701, which was a real shame that the crew finally managed to kill themselves as the post-accident interview, revealing what in the world were they thinking as they forced aeroplane into stall and how did they manage to gather their wits (I suspect the distinct lack of them in the first place made the task easier), to bring it into more-or-less controlled glide would be precious.

3. What do we do to stop it from happening again?

I don't know. It's really just the matter of psychology and from my (quite limited, I admit) perspective, I don't see any particular effort, coming from any aviation psychologist, in trying to make useful theory what the :mad: happens in severe pilot-induced-upsets. AF447 report was very weak on it, QZ8501 is utter disgrace.

However, I can tell you a few ways that some believe might reduce chance of the QZ8501-like event reoccurring but won't do good at all.

You can't prevent it by fitting connected controls; there are far more cases of conventional controls aeroplanes being pulled into stall or spiral dive till impact than FBW Airbi and having interconnected yokes did not help at all. For all the cries of "I need to see what my effoh is doing to his stick!", no FCOM or FCTM reference to "As PNF, observe your PF control input procedure" was ever brought forward.

You can't preventing it by installing AoA gauge. Pilot who forgets about maintaining proper attitude, which is the very basic of flying from the first second of his very first flight, stands no chance of checking alpha.

You can't prevent it by installing pusher, for it was shut off at Staines and overridden at Buffalo and Jefferson City.

You can't prevent it by increasing upset recovery training. Aerobatic aeroplanes quite differ in characteristics from transport ones. It is not true that airliners' high altitude stall characteristics are unknown; they are tested but recovery is effected immediately past alpha max and that's the data that is fed to sim manufacturers so sim can realistically reproduce it but no test pilot is suicidal enough to pull to alphas above forty, so that is the area of quite some conjecture. Anyway, the biggest objection to more training is that everyone knows it is training and one is prepared and knows what to do. In real accidents, crews were presented with flyable aeroplane and they only had to minimal corrections (or nothing at all) to keep it flying. It's not that AF447 or QZ8501 crews did not do the UA or stall recovery properly, they never initiated it after creating upset themselves in the first place.

You can't prevent it by having more CRM or more experience. A pilot who has a panic attack and reverts to atavistic notion that aeroplane is trying to kill him by diving and only way to prevent it by pulling the stick was very well described by Wolfgang Langewiesche in his deathless tract "Stick and rudder", back in 1944. Conventional wisdom has it that better training of airline pilots and multi-crew concept should eradicate this kind of accidents in airline environment. Alas, this is only partly true. While better training really seems to reduce the number of occurrences, in the accidents where one pilot goes brains off and gets into upset, the other is very inefficient in figuring out what's going on, no matter what his experience might be. Capt Irıyanto was a former fighter pilot so he for sure knew a lot about unusual attitudes and stalls, yet his attempts at recovery were weak and ineffective, showing that he dıd not understand the gravity of the situation. AF447 CM2 was former glider pilot, so he had to know about energy management. Captain of Swiftair MD-83 who kept pulling all through the spin into the spiral dive was freakin' TRE! What more experience and skill do you want?

Issue is what made these pilots forget the very basics of flying a couple of minutes before they perished. For the time being, it's either we don't have enough data to answer this question or our analysis tools are inadequate. Perchance both.

Airbus stall Training
 

My nephew sent me this last month ...

Airbus Stall Training: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WuPoVjOXLY

... and posed this simple question: "If they knew they were in a stall, even I would know what to to do - and if they didn't realize, how is that even possible?"

Beats me.

edit to add: What Clandestino said, but with less fibre :bored:

I was surprised how many commercial pilots fly gliders, and the one I asked (747 for Cathay Pacific) gave doing hand flying as the reason.

FD indication in a stall?
 

This accident, along with AF447 has led me to wonder what the FD would be displaying as the airplane was descending in the stall.

As the aircraft descended through the initial altitude (FL320 I think), would the FD have been commanding a nose up pitch order, thus further confusing a pilot who's been trained to "follow the FD"?