None of us were there, so it's hard to judge.

Plenty of us have been in similar situations and know how our performance levels decline when we are completely stuffed though.

I suppose if I have no chance of seeing ground anytime soon why would I be watching HUD at all?

I have no experience of a HUD, but this aspect was behind my question. If you can not 'look through' the HUD to your target is it that useful, or are even the symbols that clear? If the HUD's background is cloud or landing light glare-back is it the best option?

Beautifully clear, easy to see at night, imc or day VMC , it doesn't matter.

Which instrument(s)?

Framer...lets hope more of us will recognise challenges,greater than we are able to safely cope with,for ourselves,and for the sake of the passengers nerves...
I infer no criticism of this particular crew.......

Let's hope that.
It is a shame when the safety levels of an entire global industry with an amazing safety record are being eroded by shoddy rostering practices that don't consider circadian rhythm and we simply 'hope' that pilots will recognise when their performance capabilities are reduced to an unacceptable level.
This type of rostering is becoming more and more common and is making its way into all corners of the globe. In thirty years time when we have effective methods of assessing an individual's performance capabilities quickly and easily we will look back on a lot of these 'pilot error' crashes and say "No wonder the crew made a mistake, the industry was pretty naieve back in the early 2000's."

Indeed Framer.

Lucky dip rostering is the new FRMS. FRMS is, through the front door, a way of formalising a crew member's individual responsibility to declare themselves unfit. Woe betide anybody who calls in fatigued without a detailed log of their activities and sleep for the last two weeks.

Am I the only one raising an eyebrow as to why no interim report has emerged, don't suppose Uncle Sam would try & hide a trim runaway whilst working out how best to make scapegoats of the crew.

No you are not alone, add me to the list. Short of being complete bonkers,I simply cannot conceive how totally zonked out the crew needed to be, to have attempted such a stunt, which even a complete imbecile would find it hard to achieve. Moreover what are the chances of having a matching pair of such imbeciles ensconced together at the same place, at the same time.

About the same as on AF447? But AF447 managed a prile.

Yes that's it, Uncle Sam is trying to hide the truth.

You and the following poster are at the genius level....not.

I assume you've not worked for Flydubai then?

I have.

And I've had rosters just like the FO's, and I've sat there at stupid o'clock in the middle of the night, "totally zonked out", with absolutely no capacity to deal with anything untoward - I couldn't even read back our callsign, never mind cope with a non-normal. I was just lucky that (a) nothing went wrong, and (b) the other guy was sharper than me.

It ain't a conspiracy and it ain't rocket science - run an operation where fatigue is rife, keep sending knackered pilots up night after night, and sooner or later you'll have a smoking hole in the ground.

Unless you've been there, it's difficult to appreciate just how bad it is.

Thankfully I have not, ever. But accepting your word, my words to describe such practices would be callous disregard to everything we believe, know and accept as safety. Yes you were lucky, but so were all those innocents sitting behind you in complete ignorance of the state of affairs up at the front end. Sort of thing nightmares are made of.
The only way to put a stop to this sort of practice is to put the guy who is at the very top of the food chain behind bars, and to do so not after a catastrophic tragedy, but way before, when a whistle blower with the full weight and authority of the law and without any fear of loss of his meal voucher, can stand up in a court of law and point the finger in the right direction.
Regrettably, even if this may have been the case in this instance, there could be no way to prove it, as they say beyond a shadow of a doubt. Those poor fellas have zonked out permanently.

Or just call in fatigued as we are legally and morally obliged to do.

The interim report was published 4 weeks after the accident:
http://mak-iac.org/upload/iblock/310...20%28en%29.pdf

In any other world yes!
 

The problem of course is that if you call in fatigued when you work for a firm that has neither moral compass or legal viewpoints in the entire management team you endanger your career, your livelihood, your future and possibly your liberty.

I fear you do not quite understand how morally reprehensible the chief pilot and his direct report actually are.

They don't care if what you do is morally or legally correct know you just do it or end up on their radar. They simply don't care!

Your choices remain simple do as you are rostered, asked, told or face schoolyard tactics with the ante upped!

I personally voted with my feet. Best career move to date!

Well, whatever you endanger by calling in fatigued is still endangered if you don't. The difference being you might still be alive if you do.

Grounded a/c are the only things these types understand. What has amazed me over the years is how these types of managers float around the world popping up in new start ups who need "candidates with previous experience and proven track record." If their background check was subjected to half what a pilot applicant's is I wonder how many would be able to continue their style of management as a globe-trotting Dracula. Employee morale does not seem to appear on any manger's job description.

The 'manager' dimension has not changed since the very beginning. A bigger set of arrogant clowns it would be hard to find. Unfortunately, they contributed one part of the swiss cheese and this should be acknowledged. They take the ME dynamic of self centred personal agenda to a new level. Hopefully, karma will have its way inshallah.