The problem is the current GA manoeuvre is adequate IF it is flown correctly.

The past has shown that relatively simple manoeuvres are often messed up leading to potentially catastrophic events. Where does that fault lie? You could produce a procedure with the most perfect series of actions that would guarantee the successful resolution of the event but if they aren't carried out in the correct order the whole thing fails.

Is this automation reliance, fatigue, training or complacency or a combination of all of those factors?

We all know that some training takes place with the minimum amount of time devoted to consolidation. The mandatory LPC/OPC box ticking exercises leave little or no time to 'have a look' at some procedures that you may wish to brush up on. Additionally home pressures, rostering, capacity and cost may often preclude getting an hours sim practice time and 'having a go' no jeopardy!

The simple fact is that the human machine has flaws. Flaws that we can train out but which seem to have too high a training cost for many operators these days.

All IMHO of course. :8

If a shipping man can chip in - if you have time to look at a check list or at the QRH, it's education. If it has to be done without conscious thought, it's training, and it must be trained for until it's automatic. This training comes at a cost.

All the talk about rotation angle is irrelevent if the engines delay into spooling up to provide the required thrust, which is strongly indicated in this event.

funfly,

I agree entirely, the discussion there was the viability of pitching to the PFI's. The question with this event is why did the engines take so long or fail to spool up properly? Was it system or human error.

When/if the interim report comes out and if it holds the full un-redacted account of what happened then we'll know.

All the talk about rotation angle is irrelevent if the engines delay into spooling up to provide the required thrust, which is strongly indicated in this event.

Which brings about the answer we are waiting for: why did they attempt a GA if the engines were already at idle, i.e. flare? Given all the sources of definitive information are available I'm going to wait for the definitive answer.

Assumptions
 

Wirb, #702 "Flaws that we can train out ..."
This is a gross assumption considering all of the challenges in modern aviation.
James Reason provides a more balanced view, in that the "human condition is difficult to change, but changing the working conditions can be more effective and often easier".
In particular by avoiding opportunity for combination of factors, e.g. its difficult to 'train out' a bounced landing, but the thrust control system could be improved to cover a greater range of situations with the same procedure.
The principle is to reduce complexity, aid consistency, and thence reduce training and documentation costs. Aim to reduce the need for the the human to detect and differentiate between situations or remember alternative procedures.

Similarly, in your #680; whereas technology should reduced workload you resort to workarounds to counter system deficiencies, introduce additional checks (FMA SOPs), place greater demands on human attentional resources, and thus with higher workload challenge the human ability (time) to appreciate what the aircraft altitude, speed, and thrust levels are.

@safetypee: as usual, you offer excellent insights.

Back to the basics of attitude flying and the old saw of pitch plus power equals performance. (Long running theme in the AF 447 accident discussion).

If the pilot flying the aircraft controls pitch and power (and correct wing attitude) he / she has set the conditions for what comes next. The pilot monitoring/co-pilot assists with the plethora of other tasks that take more hands, and require checklist, trigger the challenge reply chains, etc.

Has the system, in trying to reduce workload, cluttered up task management in a critical phase of flight? (Landing is a critical phase of flight).

safetypee,

I perfectly understand your reasoning it's just that the implementation sometimes isn't as straight forward as the engineering, both hardware and software, would want it to be.

Unfortunately this scenario has resulted in highly complex machines with a vast plethora of integrated systems which all rely upon each other with varying degrees of redundancy to mitigate for the inadequacies of the human mind.

As Tesla have demonstrated, where both the cars automated systems and the driver failed to detect a scenario which hadn't been anticipated by either the software designers or the hardware designers, the result was the loss of the drivers life. I am aware that Tesla state that the automation is in Beta but seriously? How far do we let the automation go?

Aircraft are seriously complex pieces of machinery. I like simplicity, it makes my day to day life easier and enables me to fly the sometimes ludicrous duty times I fly. However the increased tendency to 'hide' complexity and system cross over from the operating crew has a darker side. If the technical knowledge isn't there as to the cascade effect that a singular system failure might precipitate then the workload on the flight crew at a time of high stress will also increase. Complex systems presenting simple information should never replace the innate ability of those designated to 'fly' the machine from performing their job. We are rapidly approaching a point where the systems cascade of multiple failures or, even in the case of a single failure (AF), might cause sensory and capacity overload in under trained and overwhelmed crews.

The reason we have SOP's is simply to allow people who often have never flown before together to be able to work as a team and to realistically expect to get a standardised product from your colleague. Irrespective of what seat they might occupy.

Ironically the FMA purely supplies the information to the pilot as to exactly what mode the Autopilot system is in thus ensuring that the modes you've selected on the MCP are the actual modes the A/P is giving you! It's not an additional check more of an affirmation.

As the previous couple of posts here have alluded to the question here is WHY did the aircraft not climb adequately after what should have been a routine manoeuvre albeit with ground contact. Was there a failure of the A/T system? Did the engines fail to spool due to an EEC fault/logic problem or, more simply, did the crew fail to remember that the TOGA switches are inhibited after touchdown? A simple check of the FMA by the NHP would have seen that the A/T system was not in TOGA in that case.

So whilst I agree that simplicity is best we simply cannot ignore that we must train the next generation of pilots to understand that it is an aeroplane and as such they must also understand that occasionally it might need to be flown like one without the bells and whistles.

Reading, understanding, and knowing what you want on the FMA would fix most problems.

Read Mr. Bailey's article with interest. He present a compelling argument for the confusion may have happened (or not) when the PF initiated the TOGA using the switch. But I didn't see where he explained why the PNF (apparently mistakenly) thought the aircraft had achieved the positive rate of climb necessary before retracting the landing gear, or why, even if it he thought it had, he didn't leave the gear down as Boeing recommends for a TOGA after a bounced landing.

Cognitive failure? Close to the ground so thought it was a standard 'take-off' perhaps? Selected Gear instead of Flaps? They've all happened before. The FDR will clear most of it up along with the crew accounts.

Wow! So many rumours!
 

This thread is going all over the place. We have contradictory evidence from those supposedly in the know.

Wheels down, wheels up. Bounced or didnt bounce? How can we tell? (except perhaps by listening to pax testimony?)

Impossible to call with so much conflicting info...

Just as pilots shouldn't "rely" on automatics, but rather use them in a "Trust, but verify" manner at an appropriate level depending on the regime or maneuver, this mantra also holds true for working as a crew. A PF's command to raise the gear after a PNF/PM's "Pos Climb" callout should only be given after PF also verifies the pos climb and therefore the callout is appropriate. I'd be shocked if EK's SOPs left only one pilot in a loopless, monitoring/decision-making/action process for a configuration change, pushing blind reliance on him/her by the other during a critical phase of flight.

Since my assumption is that EK SOPs provide for gear-retraction as a 2 pilot-looped operation, a cognitive breakdown/mistake on the part of one, whether PF or PNF/PM, is expected to be picked up by the other via verification before any action takes place. This is fundamental and has nothing to do with the intricacies of automatics peculiar to specific aircraft, but has everything to do with with a mindset of "reliance". Because humans are fallible, blind reliance on another human w/o verifying leads down the road to merely parroting a script of commands at certain triggers regardless of reality and, in the wrong set of circumstances, outside every pilot's prime directive to always fly the aircraft.

Reliance on automatics due to their complications and/or peculiar gotchas get a lot of bandwidth, deservedly so, but it shouldn't be forgotten that countering the root...a propensity to lapse into a mindset of reliance (which is a lapse in SA) itself...has a broader application that helps maintain vigilance across the spectrum to include fallible humans as well.

Who to believe?
 

Ironically, one (inside) post claims positive rate of climb (for a while) and wheels left down. The latter being a boon, apparently

This is one case where I think sitting and waiting for the facts might be the best tactic...

Because it's speculation as to a possible cause not a 'call' as the actual information from what caused the crash hasn't been made public yet. It would be inappropriate to attempt to discuss 'definitives' when they don't exist and in poor regard to the operating crew.

If the aircraft reached 150 feet in the bounce and the attempted goaround then the PNF was probably justified in calling "positive rate". One of the characteristics of the 777 is that although the landing flare is done with only one hand the rotate and goaround manoeuvre is done with both hands. Anyone who has seen lots of go-arounds on a 777 simulator will note the handling pilot gives a quick push on the TOGA switches and then pulls up to 15 degrees using both hands and looks at the PFD. The thrust levers then (should) go forward on their own. In the olden days the good old flight engineer made sure they did. These days the P2 very rarely backs them up. In the accident situation the non handling pilot was probably bringing the flap in to 20 and calling positive climb and raising the gear and then looking for the FMA indications and then wondering what was happening. Pitch and power saves the day however looking for and calling out the FMAs uses up valuable time, especially if you have not got the FMAs you are expecting (Thrust Toga Toga) The Asiana accident and now probably this one involved manual flying and an expectation of autothrottle to provide the required thrust.

I'd be hard pressed to believe that any landing could result in a 150 ft. bounce. Such a landing would probably result in collapsed landing gear and a severely buckled fuselage.

This is a very interesting incident in that it is (on first blush only) nearly identical to the Asiana incident at SFO. If the current hypothesis (that the crew went around and expected the AT to spool up the engines, when in fact they hadn't engaged TOGA for whatever reasons) then it is a fact that the evolution of both incidents was pretty much identical: Crew makes large pitch change that requires excess thrust to compensate for and expects AT to react accordingly, and within a few seconds things fall apart as the aircraft sheds airspeed because there was no corresponding increase in thrust.

And in both cases the failure to monitor the throttles happened in the final phase of landing, and in both cases it happened when things were not as expected. (Asiana was not stabilized and was high and hot for way too long, EK 521 appears to have bounced the landing for whatever reasons...) But in any case this would represent the second time in several years that a 777 was a total loss due to the crew failing to properly manage the AT in a critical phase of the landing process.

It could be a training failure, it could be a programming failure, it could be both, or it could be something else, but what I am seeing here is a specific problem with (at least) the 777 series, one that Boeing and regulators need to recognize, acknowledge, and work to ameliorate.

This is obviously all speculative at this point, but the similarities are surprisingly close, as is the outcome- it will be interesting to see if these two incidents result in a major phase or process shift in either training or operations, and/or in the programming of the machine itself.

Cheers,
dce

In that it involved a 777, yes. Beyond that ... really?

1. This crew didn't get 37 knots slow on final.
2. The weather as reported was less benign than the SFO event.
3. Operating philosophy similarities between the two airlines? Give that some time get sorted out.

Are you sure you want to take the "blame the machine" line, per your last paragraph? Seems premature. (A malfunction may have occurred that has yet to come to light ...)

I was thinking about this accident flying back across the pond this morning.

It appears there were some GAs by other aircraft prior to the event itself. A tailwind on approach turning to a headwind on landing is a positive shear and leads to increasing IAS, the auto throttle reducing power and a tendency to get high and/or float.

If a GA was initiated due to instability or landing deep, the IAS might have been quite high, so if you went to a GA pitch attitude, there might indeed be c.150’ worth of climb there (triggering a "positive rate") even with the engines at approach idle. After that the speed would wash off and the aircraft sink back towards the runway. If the pitch was raised further approaching the deck you’d get a bit of cushioning from going back into ground effect and a tail strike near the stalling angle...