BugSmasher1960
Even to use a microwave or mobile phone to its full capability requires the user to study the user manual and understand the system. Most people use these devices for limited applications by seeing how others do it. It is freighting that some pilots do the same in the air while using automation. A pilot started a thread on this forum by stating his bad experienceof of auto thrust not by asking others their opinion but by directly accusing the manufacturer of being irresponsible and producing an inefficient auto thrust system and wanted to create a community protest. When someone pointed out his blunder in using ATHR he quietly disappeared. The SFO and Paphos incidents are examples of crew's ignorance of auto flight/ATHRsystem. What they thought should happen was based on the pilots insufficient knowledge of the ATHR and it simply was not designed to happen. AF447 was a massacre of the innocent because they did not have any idea of what was happening and what needed to be done and out of fear of the unknown did something so bizarre that it defies all logic. Initial training, periodic monitoring and evolving as things happen or don't happen is the way. But it must be incorporated in the SOP with consultation with the manufacturer and not one individual adding something here and another one deleting something there. Profit making is treated as something very mean but don't forget it is the very raison d'etre of airline's existence. What other purpose Airlines are run for?

JS, # 1075,
The earlier post expressed a feeling about the subject, this preceded the main point of concern.
Debating the what, where, why, of a feeling would not contribute any more to this discussion, particularly as individual experiences and viewpoints will differ depending on experience and knowledge.
Few pilots are familiar with determining what a crew may have been doing based on an external video of a landing. The video lacks context, the crew's awareness, intent, the actions, system behaviour, auto / manual landing, etc. Most of the comments were about the human, often being supposition and seeking error and blame, and with little thought of an aircraft system error or malfunction.
Much better to start from the position that the pilots were trying to do their best, and then consider if this was sufficient for the situation, then why, and what could contribute to that.

Many debates in this forum consider how something should be done vs what actually happens in operation; flying by the book (SOP) vs actual flying.
Furthermore with the hindsight of this thread the quoted Boeing text appears incomplete - "When the go-around mode is initiated," - the text assumes a particular situation. What happens in specific, rare conditions where GA mode is not initiated even though selected ... Someone has overlooked the point; a hole in the logic or the text, a latent factor, a hole in the Swiss Cheese.

Dani - when you ease your hand pressure from the throttles, without taking your hand off the throttles, you will feel the throttles attempt to move backwards. If that were to occur at that moment you just disconnect the a/t's and assume manual control.

Been there, done that, got the T shirt, as have many Boeing pilots when there's been a disconnect betwen the expected level of automation and the actually level of automation.

A perfect example of applying the wrong SOP. But why did he do it? Perhaps it was because he wasn't trained to think, didn't think, or even just didn't understand aerodynamics. Perhaps it was fear, perhaps it was lack of training, or perhaps it was a lack of aptitude. Or perhaps it was a combination of all of those things.

The thing is I often see the blind application of SOP's without any thought, along with blind faith in the absolute reliability of automation. Things have been learnt by rote & are applied by rote. I don't know if it is a training issue or an aptitude issue, or perhaps a bit of both. Perhaps laziness & lack of professional discipline, thought & study are part of the issue as well.

Whatever the reasons, if the industry continues to move down the path it is on & pilots forget how to be pilots & lose basic flying skills, there will continue to be an increasing number of accidents. People will continue to ask "why did he/she do that?"

A major incident on a major airline in a major airport and so far there has been no official information released at all. It really is a wonder that this state of affairs has been allowed.
Happened 20 days ago.

I agree partially with that. If the SFO crew had been using manual thrust for the last two months the accident would never have occurred. The auto throttle should be nothing more than one tool that can be used to move the thrust levers, the other method, and it should be the primary go to method, is the pilots hand. We have set up a system whereby that is not the case, the go to method is the automated mode. It may not say that in an FCOM but that is the reality. The brain quickly develops preferred methods of achieving tasks and we have created the situation where the preferred method is the automation and manual manipulation is a bit foreign to us. So ingnorence of the system is a problem, but not as big a problem as re wiring our brains to favour automation over manual handling.
My two cents.

misd-agin,

Yes it is the pilots responsibility to look through the FD and not blindly follow it 100% of the time (try telling that to some sim checkers!). Usually it is fine but as we all know that isn't always the case..... that is where basic knowledge of pitch and thrust settings comes in. What happened to AF447 was tragic but easily avoidable and could easily be the same all over again with EK.

framer
I am afraid the primary method has to be automation backed up by manual skill. A pilot cannot keep switching off automation at the drop of a hat because he has insufficient knowledge of automation. Without AP You won't be able to stay in RVSM or operate CAT3. SFO happened basically because they didn't monitor speed and didn't know how the auto throttle works.

Not to mention the inappropriate use of FLCH SPD mode during an approach!

I hear what you are saying Villas and I don't necessarily disagree with you. The topic is complex and I think we may be speaking at cross-purposes a little bit.
I agree 100%. So if we break it down in search of a resolution we get,
1/ Why didn't they know how the Auto-throttle system works?
2/ Why were they not monitoring the airspeed?
I'm talking about number two. The automation is the reason that they were not monitoring the airspeed. There are many different ways that we could legislate to make manual manipulation less foreign to our current generation of airline pilots. Thats the specific part of the problem I was talking about.
Cheers

Under Annex 13 to the Chicago Convention, States in charge of an investigation must submit a Preliminary Report to ICAO within thirty days of the date of the accident, unless the Accident/Incident Data Report has been sent by that time. Preliminary Reports may be marked as confidential or remain public at the investigating State’s discretion. So, ten days to go to see if the preliminary report is made public.
It's interesting that the Chairman and CEO of Emirates, Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, is also:
- Chairman of Dubai Airports,
- President of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, and
- a Board Member of the General Civil Aviation Authority of UAE.
When you have someone sitting on the Board of the investigating authority who also represents the airline, the airport and the regulatory authority involved in the accident you might expect the whole process might move along a little faster; you certainly wouldn't expect any conflicting or argumentative testimony from any of the three parties the Sheik represents.

The probability of getting any objective and truthful report about a plane crash from any arab state is zero..even if the Sheik-your-money-or-your-life is not involved

At SFO the time below Vref was measured in tens of seconds(45??). It's professionally stunning that three pilots never looked at their airspeed for that amount of time. Or they did see the airspeed and never called it out or took corrective action.

FullWings
Unless the Dunlops are already being tucked up in bed ... and there is one of the key questions. As an onlooker, I may presume that even ONE Trent 982 could overcome the extra drag of leaving the gear down for another 15 seconds. Does the PM make the call? If the PM was the FO, then we might expect life will be uncomfortable.

Of course, the report may well confirm that the FD gave a cabin PA very shortly before landing to the effect that there was a problem with the gear. Or it may not ...

Alright already! We all know that... what's the solution? I'll tell you: get pilots engaged in "flying" a bit more! You lot can waffle on about SOPs and not knowing the ins and outs of the grand airbii and intricacies of other types all you like but if pilots don't have basic flying skill, mainly because they are not allowed to keep current doing it, then don't blame them when the likes of AF447 happens.

Isn't that so true? Simple little things like turning off the flight director in the climb or descent gives a little relief from the boredom of the automatics and sharpens the scan - providing that is not against the Koran or the local Deity of course.:E

In the simulator, unless during type rating or recurrent training he is not hamstrung by regulatory box ticking or a frowning management, then so much depends on the personal attitude of the simulator instructor towards practice of raw data hand flying. Simulator practice can be made enjoyable if the right personality is in the instructor seat.

To those who remark sarcastically that simulator training was never meant to be enjoyable, I say that is quite wrong. Even Maths can be made enjoyable in the class-room given the right teacher. But have the grim wrong teacher and maths becomes a loathed subject as many students have found out. Me for one. Same with simulator instructors where the Horror Box is often rightly named. Wise management will allow for more than just a couple of minutes manual non-automatics practice during simulator training. That policy, if regularly implemented, would have saved hundreds of lives in the past and also in the future.

I agree however sadly simulator time hasn't been about training or sharpening skills in a very long time, it is all box ticking exercises now. I can count on one hand the number of times I have actually received some constructive feedback in the debrief or given some time "off the record" to actually do some training, it just never happens anymore. The simulator has been abused and is so far from what it was originally designed to do.

The pilots aren't banned from looking at their airspeed indicators during the approach OR banned from looking at their pitch attitude while in cruise. Two simple things that would have made a world of difference.

My whole airline didn't know how the auto throttles worked. Our manuals, approved by the FAA, and our training, told us that with the Autothrottles ON, we would be speed protected. We didn't know about this autothrottle (non-speed protection) mode until the SFO accident.

The above is a MAJOR problem. Boeing knew how the system worked, but didn't communicate that effectively to my airline.

The NTSB report on Asiana OK214 flagged the issue of the crew's poor understanding of the airplane’s autoflight system as a contributing factor (Finding 10. As a result of complexities in the 777 AFCS and inadequacies in related training and documentation, the pilot flying had an inaccurate understanding of how the autopilot flight director system and autothrottle interacted to control airspeed, which led to his inadvertent deactivation of automatic airspeed control.)
The NTSB recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA):
- Require Boeing to develop enhanced 777 training that will improve flight crew understanding of autothrottle modes and automatic activation system logic through improved documentation, courseware, and instructor training.
- Once the enhanced Boeing 777 training has been developed, as requested in Safety Recommendation, require operators and training providers to provide this training to 777 pilots.
- Require Boeing to revise its 777 Flight Crew Training Manual stall protection demonstration to include an explanation and demonstration of the circumstances in which the autothrottle does not provide low speed protection.
The NTSB also recommended that Boeing:
- Revise your 777 Flight Crew Operating Manual to include a specific statement that when the autopilot is off and both flight director switches are turned off, the autothrottle mode goes to speed (SPD) mode and maintains the mode control panel-selected speed.
When that report was released two years ago, the FAA and Boeing danced around those recommendations such that they are currently classified as "Open - Unacceptable Response" on the NTSB register.
Interestingly, in noting the FAA's inaction as unacceptable, the NTSB stated that they were "... concerned that training improvements will be unnecessarily delayed and that the “lessons learned” will be limited to a single airline’s analysis, that neither the FAA nor other Boeing 777 operators will be aware of the problems found, and that no resultant training revisions will be made."
That was December 2014; 18 months later on a hot August day in Dubai and the NTSB's concerns seem to be prescient given what probably transpired.