Weather was not a factor!
 

Not sure if this was already mentioned here:
Torqued: Air Asia Crash Highlights Risks of In-flight Troubleshooting | Business Aviation: Aviation International News

avionimc
I am concerned that the long term understanding of the QZ8501 accident will be, "They were just conducting unauthorized inflight troubleshooting."
That was definitely a factor in the accident of course, but we should never lose sight of the fact the loss was directly caused by a gross piloting failure.

The aircraft was actually capable of being controlled, but the improper crew reaction to the new configuration caused them to lose control. In this regard, the accident very closely resembles the AF447 accident.

Perhaps we need to be tracking an accident causal factor called, "Loss of Control-Unrecognized or Not Understood Control Configuration Change."

All comes down to the regulators.
Over reliance in automation and companies restricting pilots hand flying day to day on line ops combined with not providing recurrent sims for handling due to commercial and budget.
Initial type ratings give you the skills but how are you supposed to maintain them.

Hand flying a glass cockpit big airplane
 

Over several years, both here on PPRUNE and in several other forums this issue of "losing handling skills" keeps coming up.Certainly it is real, I even notice it affecting me even though I have 20,000 plus hours and have been an instructor on big jets for 25 years.

One answer, which is a method I use, during the initial line training/IOE period, is about once every 4-5 legs, just prior to flap extension, I turn off AUTOPILOT, FLIGHT DIRECTOR and AUTOTHROTTLE, providing conditions are suitable, and let them "feel" the machine.Many seem to take this practice into their flying lives, its very satisfying to see and the results show up in the SIM training as well.Pete.

Totally agree Pete however not all operators allow to reduce the level of automation to that level.
Then on the other hand some pilots/pic are too afraid to reduce the level of automation to that level in case they mess it up or can't get it stable again resulting in a go around and consequential fdap.
Sad times (i'll put a period there on the automation topic).

Automation did not remove the need for an engineer, there needs to be a systems engineer in the cockpit. Pilots cannot be expected to understand failure modes of automation , thats a specialist discipline and modern aircraft should carry a systems engineer.

Weather was not a factor!
 

Or, is it possible that airbuses are not really meant for human full understanding?

Notable accidents, and yes, easy to blame them on pilots:

• Habsheim airshow, 1988, seasoned crew. Still fresh in my memory, seeing that unbelievable crash on the French evening news that same day; it would not have happened with any other aircraft make.
• Air New Zealand Airbus crash in the Mediterranean (Perpignan) 2008, seasoned German & NZ crew, including engineers, no one understood, until too late.
• Qantas and Lufthansa substantial loss of altitude due to sudden uncommanded pitch-down descent, 2014, causing, at least in one occurrence, serious injuries. Remedy to that was to pull a CB, wasn't it? There too, seasoned Australian and German crews.
• Etc., etc.

You really are talking rubbish. Do you have even the slightest clue about how to fly an aircraft ?

Too low, too slow, nose high, back side of the curve.
The result was inevitable in ANY aircraft including Boeing or even a Piper Cub.

This one goes beyond pilot error into the realm of utter stupidity.
Functional test of alpha protection. The test instructions are very clear that the test MUST be conducted at 14000 ft and not less that 10000 feet AGL. Deliberately stall the aircraft to confirm that the alpha protection prevents the stall. Anyone who tries this at low level is way beyond stupid and certifiably insane. They did it at low level. DUH.

If the 'Air Crash investigation' reconstruction of these 2 accidents are to be believed I think you will find that they were contributed to, significantly, by the automatic systems doing what they thought was correct, but due to a few swiss cheese holes proved to be in error of what was required.

Quote:
Air New Zealand Airbus crash in the Mediterranean (Perpignan) 2008, seasoned German & NZ crew, including engineers, no one understood, until too late.
With all due respect Mr. Geek.
If it had been a Boeing non FBW, even with the frozen AOA vanes, it would have just recovered and flown away. The crash occurred because the computers got in the way and changed the control laws 2 or 3 times (Sorry, I last read the accident report a few years years ago so I don't remember the exact sequence.)
A clear case of "Loss of Control-Unrecognized or Not Understood Control Configuration Change."

Do you honestly believe that a Boeing can recover reliably from a low level stall ?

Heck YES, given the same initial conditions as the XL Airways A320.
They are aircraft that have been designed and tested to recover.

Even the XL airways recovered from the stall nicely only to be sabotaged by a change from Normal Law to Direct Law, then to Abnormal Attitude Law. Problem was, the trim was already cranked full nose up by the system as they approached the initial stall. It was the excessive nose up trim that caused the loss of the aircraft. (Maybe a warning system is required as you approach full nose up?)

Your question should really be do I really think every ATPL rated pilot can recover from a stall? On that count, we have seen too many failures.:(

Boeing
 

Somebody is forgetting about Turquish B737 approaching Schiphol or Asiana B777 approaching SFO.

Not really.
On the Turkish B737:
What do you expect to happen when the autothrottles pull the throttles to idle on an above the glideslope approach-but not for the reason you would expect.

By the time the crew finally realized they had a problem and forced the throttles up, it was almost too late. When the autothrottles then snatched the throttles back again, it was too late.
You have to watch your airspeed on approach. You really cannot delegate all the responsibility for watching your airspeed to the systems. You must monitor and control airspeed. Insufficient power on approach means you are going to be landing short. Same goes for Asiana's 777. Different reasons for insufficient power, but same short landing result.
These were not primary stall accidents, even if the crews got to some high AOA in attempt to buy air time.

In XL 888 crash, the FBW changed law from normal to direct, because landing gear was down. The THS was at max. nose up position in manual mode. The elevator moved accordingly to sidestick input, mostly full ND, but couldn't counter-react the pitch up moment. The FBW switched to alternate for landing gear up. Intersting is the alternate law behaviour with elevator movement in opposition to sidestick input - reference Final report, FDR graph in page 113.
In conclusion, good luck with improving the "manual flying skills" in alternate law.

Both Ryanair and Thomson line crews managed it from self-inflicted positions at low level and unfavourable conditions (night, IMC) with a massive startle factor and quite impressive pitch attitudes. I believe both managed to recover from IAS less than 100!!!

One NG, one classic.

The trouble with using very advanced systems to make flying easier, is that they degrade the very skills that you desperately need for when those same advanced systems fail.

The point that strikes me from reading the report a few times is that having seen the reset on ground procedure it was "felt appropriate" to try it airborne .. now thats a no-no for line flying.

That and the failure to bring the units online again by pushing the reset buttons to regain dark cockpit, then add the stick back stall recovery !!

And where was the crew brief before the cb pulling started ?

It's very simple to blame the architecture and turn this into a A vs B slanging match, but really ... the aircraft and it's occupants should have survived, and it would appear that human intervention prevented that.

Please enough with the AvB slagging contest!

Sometimes things go awfully bad. In some planes they go bad because they lose a prop blade. Does this mean we should start beating on turboprops because "jets don't have props"?

Nah, come on peeps. Meddling with the CBs in the middle of the flight was never, has never been and will never be a good idea, something pilots MUST have learned at least since that bad bad crash in the US many moons ago. The one where they pulled a CB to prevent unwanted noise, but that also meant they tried to take off with no flaps or anything. One single survivor - the rest was carnage.

I would suggest you ponder about what Machinbird said. Maybe there needs to be another category of accidents: "Loss of Control-Unrecognized or Not Understood Control Configuration Change."

The Kazan 737 crash would probably be a candidate for this. Very low level stall, nose dive, all caught on camera. You really should take your beta blockers before watching that video.. *joke*

Torqued: Air Asia Crash Highlights Risks of In-flight Troubleshooting | Business Aviation: Aviation International News
Air Asia flight turns around after 'technical issue' - CNN.com