The issue is that the solution is bigger than the problem.

Suppose the insurance companies insist on a minimum 1,000 hours flying experience for all First Officers, as they did when I started out.

All very well, but how on earth would you satisfy the demand for pilots if you had to wait several years for them to gain the shortfall in hours after leaving their Flight Academy with only minimal experience?

Where in the World would they work to gain all that experience?

The industry has evolved in a way which now makes it virtually impossible to bring back the old-style training/experience requirements.

The answer is that, for the foreseeable future, there is no answer.

Whereas at one time the issue was that the aircraft had to be certified as 'Perf A', it is now becoming a situation where it is the pilot who needs to be so qualified - as it is a given that modern aeroplanes have the performance required to comply with all that is asked of them by the regulators.

Spanna

I'll give you a solution right here and now. Let people fly on until they are say 65. If they are fit and competent, why wash them out? Why get rid of your most experienced people. If they're "too old" for the line, get them training.

I don't know about Taiwan, I suspect it is the same mentality as mainland China you're toast at 55. What nonsense.

I ain't so sure about the 60-65 band.

Some are great, some not so. I have seen a couple that have gone down hill in a relatively short period ( ie under a month) reaction times drop off, mental processing speed etc etc.

Then they get a "bob was having a bad day, he knows what he is doing" from the TRE in the sim.

Then your into he only has a year left he will be fine territory.

SpannerInTheWerks
The US will see how that works now that first officers have to have 1500 hours.

MJ

I take your point but some deteriorate faster than others. I know some past it at 50 and others still sharp well into their 60's. Some, at any age who should have been never been allowed near an aircraft, ever.

Should there be such rigidity in the too old age? Just a thought.

Fair point I have only had issues with the 59-65's so far.

A reaction time test in the medical 55 plus would do the trick.

Agree it shouldn't be an age thing it should be a capability thing, unfortunately the LPC system isn't doing the job.

I thought it was 1,500 hours in the US, but I wasn't sure.

Well I'm still trying to keep the old grey matter working - currently studying for a Masters in Law in my late 50s.

Don't know what my reaction time is though - I suppose it's now a question of what's better a man who takes his time and presses the right button, or one who is young and inexperienced who jumps in and presses the wrong button!

China Airlines pilot jobs news for airline pilots and aviation schools

China Airlines Captain new hire age limit 56 apparently.

Apologies for the delay in replying, but my reactions aren't what they used to be...
After 40 years of aviation (not all of it airline flying) and 10 years of that instructing, I can't think of many accidents or sim/ line flying issues where split second decision-making (or lack of it) has been the problem.
In the vast majority of accidents and incidents, including those involving engine failure of a twin or multi, it is far more important to draw on experience or rule based, or skill based training to arrive at the correct decision, following from the correct diagnosis. Playing the video game with the "Do something, anything, NOW!" mindset causes more problems than it solves, and reacting sooner just gives the bad decision more time to have it's effect, particularly since the ensuing confirmation bias is not at all age related.
Just saying.

Please forgive a newbie ga pilot if this is a stupid question.
Given the data on the fdr and assuming no major unknowns, had the pilots done nothing more than use primary flight controls, would the plane remained under control?
In other words, was the auto feather and uptrim by itself enough to compensate for single engine flight?

Agreed, in this case they would have been much better doing nothing - just fly the damn airplane, control its speed, attitude, on a single engine ATR climbs well enough, they could have waited minutes to perform checklist at higher altitude, etc. Also an ATR pilot from a European airline told me his airline had 3 incidents in which prop feathered inadvertently due to a fault - no one crashed, in most cases the problem corrected itself after they went through the checklist and they regained full use of the engine.

Too quick actions and wrong actions - in this respect repeat of AF447.

exactly how it was done before....take guys with experience

So that us lot with thousands of hours don't lose out to some punk who paid his way into a job

its not a career if you have paid for it, its a hobby....

Livesinafield

You're very right there. This is where I abhor corporate culture. Money, money, money. They have seemed to forgotten their most valuable asset, apart from their aircraft are their crews.

If aircraft keep flying into the ground or water on a regular basis the insurance companies will wake and do something even if the authorities don't.

They keep telling us safety is their first priority. BS its all about money. If they paid their crews what the're worth, with their experience taken into consideration I would believe them.

CNN scroll banner reporting problem with both engines...

It is possible there may be more to the issue than just securing the wrong engine. Previous posts have speculated the engine data does not add up...

Anyone heard anything new ?

Ignore...usual cow manure...

16024 puts it very well. I don't fly anymore, but now this has drifted into age and training I feel involved. Sop monkey is right that an instant solution is to let people continue flying until they start failing medicals or OPCs. I understand they do this in Oz.

Just as "speed is everything", so is experience everything. Not that experienced pilots don't screw up, but they do avoid the errors of inexperience - of which over hasty reaction is a major example. OTOH they become vulnerable to complacency and, possibly, arrogance. Check what I said: I didn't say they become complacent, etc. I said they become VULNERABLE to it. Difficult, isn't it? The recruitment and training problem is how to recruit pilots with enough experience to call on when the automation lets them down. Because once they are on an automated type, they will stagnate in terms of handling ability, SA and airmanship. This is not prejudice - I've been in the profession 50 yrs, I still spend three days a week in the back of a sim, and this is what I see. I acknowledge that automation has prevented more accidents than it has caused, but it has caused some. And if you can't detect yaw because some automatic compensation masks it - that suggests the test pilots aren't properly representing the pilots to the designers.

I wasn't aware of the US 1500 hr requirement, but I think it must be the right approach. Time will tell

So, my point is that training, recruitment and certification (legislation, too) ALL contribute to the problem of crew errors. Experience, in my view, is a major defence. But there is no simple solution.

It will be interesting to see whether the overall outcomes of these proficiency checks will be published, in the interest of openness & transparency?

Behind the scenes, a scrutiny of the training records of the previous performances with these latest "independent" results might well reveal some interesting "blips".

CRM issues will not be resolved as the culture is so ingrained.
Start with the management.............:ugh:

It's a long time ago now - 14 January 1969 - since a BUA 1-11 crashed on departure from Milan Linate. The crew heard a bang from an engine immediately after take-off.

There was a third crew member in the cockpit - a Line Training Captain checking the co-pilot. The crew heard a bang from an engine immediately after take-off. This Line Training Captain misidentified the faulty engine and suggested to the Captain that he close the No.1 Engine throttle lever - which he did, and he then shut down the engine.

The aircraft was then force landed on snow covered ground, fortunately without loss of life or serious injury.

The accident investigators concluded that this accident was caused by the crew failing to recognise their mistake, which had resulted in them shutting down the wrong engine (No.1) in error following a compressor bang/surge in the No.2 engine. The crew also didn't realise the No.2 engine throttle lever had inadvertently also been partially closed.

Possibly a somewhat similar scenario to this TransAsia accident with a similar crew set-up of a senior line trainer on the jump seat?

I normally only browse but I see this thread rapidly developing into P2F discussions, age and experience discussions with statements being made that make no sense and have no bearing on this crash.


Let's face it, there are guys with 10-20.000 hours that barely know how to fly or use basic CRM principles and there are guys with 200 hours that do know how to fly and have a proper head on them with the good mentality...


Instead of discussing what measure should be taken to keep the old guys and make it difficult/near impossible for the newer guys, the solution should be in the training and screening itself. Keep the crap out in the first place and KISS.


And then perhaps return on-topic :).

Has it?

I'd be interested in examining that oft-claimed statement. Comparing the number of accidents & deaths caused by 'pilot error' on old-school aircraft with the number caused,or contributed to, by automation may yield interesting (and disturbing) results.

If we haven't reached parity yet, we will soon unless something is done about it...

Just a theory here, but have another look at the FDR trace, in particular around the time the #1 was slotted.

By pure happenstance, possibly because of where the #1 PL had been retarded to at this time, most of the engine instruments at this time would have been giving very similar readings, comparing left vs right.

Perhaps a contributing factor in misidentification?

Auto-feather can cause a momentary yaw into the operating engine as the prop goes into coarse pitch. After that transient impulse has passed the rudder input required to maintain longitudinal trim leaves no question as to which engine is still developing power.

Except when both engines are running but not developing full power at the same time.

TheInquisitor - I wouldn't be so sure. If you examine the accidents, deaths, incidents per thousand flights you'll find that flying is safer than ever. But this is of little consolation to the relatives and loved ones of those who have died. Now some of this can attributed to aircraft design. For example, the Asiana 777; who could image that there would be so few injuries and fatalities from that crash? I am also sure that cockpit automation is responsible for the current lack of incidents and accidents. Though what we are not doing as an entire industry is adapting our training and procedures to match the aircraft we are now flying. The whiff of old fashioned ex-airforce macho culture from the sixties and seventies can still be smelt within too many training and national oversight authorities. And I'll also agree that we have moved too far way from stick'n'rudder. It's been 20 years since I've tried to pull the wings off an aircraft. I've stalled a biggish jet (Fokker 100) a few times and had a good play about in a Fokker 50 but again, this was years ago.

What we all need is fewer pointless boxes to tick and regular, simple basic training for when horrible things happen.

I very much doubt it. There is such a huge gap between accident rate in old and new technology aircraft that it would be virtually arithmetically impossible to show the effect you postulate.

People have already done it, you can even do it yourself. There is some truth in it, but only some. It is indeed true that percentage of 'human error' accidents (as percentage of all accidents) increased comparing to old aircraft, so human errors indeed take a larger share of all accidents today. However because of vast difference between absolute numbers human error accidents as percentage of flights are still significantly smaller today. But ultimately customer doesn't care what is the cause of an accident, he/she wants to know chances of survival during a flight - and this is like 2 factors better today than say in the 60-ties.

Words of gold.

Lack of basic flying skills
 

Unfortunately another accident which seems to indicate that basic flying skills are being steadily eroded by lack of hand flying.
For heavens sake all the PF had to do was to adopt a slightly lower nose attitude, put his big flat foot on the rudder to keep it straight, control IAS with fine attitude adjustments, and then very casually call for any relevant checklist.....slowly deliberately, and with cross reference with the other crew.

What did they collectively do? Rushed into action, shut down the wrong engine, and then ...stall and loss of control.

AF447, crew couldn't gand fly an aircraft in the cruise with nil IAS indications. Result ...stall, and loss of control.

Asiana couldn't do a visual approach with an A/T malfunction, result ....stall and loss of control.

Turkish Airlines at Schipol couldn't handle Rad Alt causing A/T to prematurely close, (A/T malfunction).
Result.....stall, and loss of control.

Lion Air crew couldn't even do a bog standard missed approach when blind Freddy on a galloping horse would have done.

We as an industry desperately need to go back to basics, hand fly aircraft more often, teach crew to think, and not just act.

This crew had "all day" to slowly, deliberately respond to a malfunction. The outcome is tragically linked to a basic lack of flying skills.

The assertion by some on this thread that there is a need to "act quickly" in this situation is quite frankly patently wrong. This aircraft was at or above 1000' when the malfunction occurred. There is NEVER a requirement to rush EFATO procedures, and EFATO is typically practiced as a V1 cut. Thus was no V1 cut. I can see no combination of circumstances, (incorrect wiring, unscheduled Hotel Mode, etc etc), that could have made this tragic accident unavoidable.

One poster mentioned QF A380, and stated that QF didn't have the same time pressure. The QF crew had a non standard series of events that most definately did not fit into any checklist, they had to make things up and improvise, because no known failure ever anticipated what happened to them. Had they lost control of the aircraft it would have been "all over red rover".

My sad conclusion is with this latest accident....lack of basic flying skills. We as an industry need to rectify this, and rectify it RFN.

Lack of basic flying skills
 

You are absolutely right , no rush with an engine out ,fly the bird first .

Eventually automation will replace us. We'll still be sitting there "feeding the monkey" but in the end autopilots won't shut down the wrong engine, they will recognise unreliable airspeed and deal with it, they won't be susceptible to CFIT and so on. In the end flying will be safer than it already is. How far into the future? No idea, but it's bound to happen.
I saw the beginning of the process years ago on my 777 conversion with TAC, auto rudder on engine failure. It's not hard to imagine auto everything following eventually.

Lack of basic flying skills
 

"We as an industry desperately need to go back to basics, hand fly aircraft more often, teach crew to think, and not just act."

I would imagine hand flying tends to use more fuel, and therefore costs more money. I can see why management discourage it. In my experience corporations don't like people to think. They much prefer it when people don't think, but blindly follow SOPs. Thinking people are troublesome, for all kinds of reasons.

"One poster mentioned QF A380, and stated that QF didn't have the same time pressure."

I'm not a pilot, but turboprop pilots here have described graphically the need to act quickly when a windmilling propellor (or engine/prop combination generating negative thrust) is rapidly bringing the aircraft to the edge of controllability.

I can imagine that when one has engine problems at low level over a city, with a training captain breathing down one's neck, one has an incentive to be, or appear to be, decisive. I can also imagine why, for various reasons, pushing the nose downwards to maintain speed might be somewhat unpalatable. One reason which springs to mind would be when a high-rise is filling your windshield.

I'm not particularly surprised at the fumbling under the apparent circumstances. It's human nature. I'm slightly more surprised that the flightpath didn't track the river more closely.

Err, in multi ops maybe. In a SEP, you need to get the nose down NOW! Low speed, high alpha, low inertia - you need to be quick with forward stick. But it doesn't take thought, just reaction in a Pavlovian manner.

Plenty didn't, and stalled and spun and died as a result. Including a guy I knew in a PA38 a few years ago. If he'd got the nose down instead of sending a Mayday he'd almost certainly be with us today.

FLY THE AEROPLANE!

Really? I beg to differ. Flight crew records are and must remain confidential.

No other industry would tolerate this intrusion, nor should ours.

The outcome is for the regulator concerned to determine what remedial action is required.

Surely the only reason the engine instrument readings were similar when the #1 PL had been retarded was because the miss identification had already occurred and the serviceable (#1) engine had been shut down?

IronDuck makes some good points. But there is one thing about flying. You have to do things quickly, but even more importantly you have to do things correctly.

The plane could have easily followed the river rather than over fly the densley populated area. On some of the maps of the ground track, I honestly though the plane turned due to not handling the engine out well.

Flying does cost money to do things correctly . And only the lawyers will make out on this flight.

This not the present and certainly won't be the futur in aviation. (especially with more LCC)

Don't rush, if in doubt, DONT RUSH
 

One more thing worth mentioning, DONT RUSH......EVER!

Fly the A/C, ....ie respond to the event, lower the nose to maintain V2, but time is not critical, you have at least 3 seconds, maybe more. Use rudder to keep the nose straight, follow procedures, at terrain clearance, (typically 400' AGL), commence identification and securing.

This is the typical procedure with a V1 cut, on the runway, prior to rotate, altudude zero, gear down flaps at T/OFF.

These guys had 1000'+, gear up flaps possibly up, and V2+, need to rush nil, zero, non-existent. Am I clear?

Used to fly the dash 8 q300. Very similar to the atr on power to weight. When we were given an engine failure at v1 we would state up trim and autofeather and then do nothing until acceleration attitude. In that time you could identify the problem and by the time it came to shutting down an engine you could be confident it was the correct one. There is never a rush to shut down an engine unless it doesn't autofeather.

@Gazumped

Totally agree with what you said! It's frankly surprised me reading some of these posts talking about reacting "quickly". In my younger days I was a multi-engine flight instructor for 5 years, and nearly every time we went assymetric and the student would panic we would have in correct rudder in-puts, or confirm the wrong engine etc etc. The solution every time, was to slow down, and work through the situation methodically. This priceless lesson still continues to assist me today flying jets.... Whatever happened to "nothing needs to be done in a hurry unless you're on fire"?

The torque fluctuations in the FDR data are interesting.

NH2 looks like it went to roughly 80%, if I'm reading it correctly, which must be well above idle, but possibly low enough to cause the torque to fall below the threshold for the auto-feather. With the engine still running, above idle, the torque would increase as the prop feathered. Would the auto feather cancel if the torque rose above its threshold? If so, the torque would fall again as the prop started to unfeather, and you could end up with an oscillating torque.

The #1 torque fluctuations have got me completely baffled though, as the prop shouldn't be cycling after the #1 condition lever was put to cut-off.

I suspect there is a lot more to this story to come. The indications in the cockpit may not have been as clear as some here seem to assume.