PPRuNe Forums

PPRuNe Forums (https://www.pprune.org/)
-   Rumours & News (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news-13/)
-   -   Emirates B777 gear collapse @ DXB? (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/582445-emirates-b777-gear-collapse-dxb.html)

Capn Bloggs 21st Sep 2016 00:53


Originally Posted by Vilas
For those who find briefing one minute extra which doesn't cost anything is too much how can they justify practicing hours in SIM for the same purpose.

That is complete nonsense. 1 minute brief, for what? This, then that, oh hang on, this might happen, so let's have a quick chat about that!

Sim? 4 canned GAs from a bounce/skip, done in 15 minutes, not "hours". Let's be real about this. Compared to when we started doing sims decades ago, there is so much more stuff that we can't do in the aeroplane (this scenario for example) that the sim time has to be increased.

ACMS 21st Sep 2016 07:12

Rejected landings in the Sim are easy to practice, they take no extra time at all.
They can be done on any landing, anytime. After all we do many full stop landings in the Sim sessions, just make 1 or 2 a rejected landing. After airborne and under control re-position the Sim. Done.

Invaluable experience and a must do in my opinion.

safetypee 21st Sep 2016 08:02

1201alarm, #1761 :ok:
Re RAAS (or ROPS), I note the clarification.
Although these systems target the same safety issue the method and capability differ, particularly when evaluated against the questions at #1710.
Regulators and operators should be cautious when comparing them; small differences in systems, integration, and operation - procedures can have large consequences if not understood beforehand.

ROPS is a predictive system based on real time aircraft performance and the runway in use.
RAAS (Smart Landing) relates to a fixed distance or % of runway; it is reactive.
ROPS only requires a single GA procedure either in the air or on ground up to the last point of rejecting the landing (and of course the forward thrust lever position triggers the GA).
RAAS, depending on installation may require alternative procedures depending on situation and selects options.
On the ground ROPS advises crew actions against the assessed braking capability and predicted stopping distance, and may also increase the level of autobrake; RAAS only provides distance information.

ROPS is integrated with the aircraft systems and procedures; RAAS is an add-on where the differences have to understood in the context of the safety goal and operation.

https://www.eurocontrol.int/sites/de...safety-net.pdf

P.S. Does this operator use both systems? Would there be a desire to standardise procedures between fleets, ergo RAAS=ROPS thinking? Which, with inappropriate system comparison, could result in conflicting procedures.

4468 21st Sep 2016 09:04


Rejected landings in the Sim are easy to practice, they take no extra time at all.
They can be done on any landing, anytime. After all we do many full stop landings in the Sim sessions, just make 1 or 2 a rejected landing. After airborne and under control re-position the Sim. Done.

Invaluable experience and a must do in my opinion.
Absolutely spot on!

FAR more likely to have prevented this accident than any number of manual approaches!

RAT 5 21st Sep 2016 09:08

At that moment, you are 50' above a runway you can't see. You've just disengaged the autopilot, and ......

This is a statement that supports a following opinion; but...why would you disconnect AP on a multi-channel Cat3A approach to an intended autoland, especially when not visual at DH?

Considering all the various practice scenarios in the sim: it is impossible to dream up all the possibilities. So will training for a few minutes once every 3 years on recurrency cycles really solve anything. There was mention of all the safe manual landings with AT in use. Fact. However, SFX & DXB have thrown up a gotcha just waiting to bite the unwary. Accidents waiting to happen every day but prevented by, perhaps, SOP's, knowledge, luck, manual back up. Should those latent sneaky gremlins be allowed to still lurk in the dark shadows of control computers? Should the high priest of developing design be brought in to exorcise these demons?
Regarding more manual flying in today's highly automated a/c: It could help, in that a pilot who is in tune with their a/c's handling characteristics would have no hesitation in taking over; whatever the a/c threw at him they could wrestle the bronco back under control. The only SOP required would be to fly the damn thing as necessary. That way SOP's could be simplified to the common daily operation and any deviation thrown at the pilot could be sorted out as required. If there is an SOP for everything, but some are never practiced, or very rarely, it can lead to the pilot first trying to remember this long forgotten SOP while nothing is happening to resolve the situation. The delay in so doing can make the situation worse.
I once trained for an operator who did not have a particular GA profile written down, only the standard one. As an outside TRTO we wrote one for training purposes. It involved making selections on the MCP as required for whatever flap you were at and to navigate where you wanted yo go. i.e. fly/operate the a/c using the systems installed. This caused consternation in the customer's training dept and out came a curious SOP of '1 size fits all' variety. No discretion. I discussed it with friends in other airlines and they were bemused why an SOP was necessary. It was a normal GA that had some navigation variations and delayed flap retraction. You just did what was necessary. Why did you need a trained monkey SOP profile to do that?
So that is where we are in some parts of the world. Perhaps that is why there are those of us, from the older more basic world, who struggle to understand serviceable a/c crashing when they are supposed to be safer. Fly the damn thing. KISS. Aviation is an arena where I understand the problem but where is the difficulty.

P.S. Indeed there are some, now known gotchas, that should be incorporated in the mandatory type rating and not left to the good will of some trainers in some airlines. These are scenarios that perhaps the manufacturer had not envisaged. They had written a caveat and that they thought was that, but is it? I was at a Boeing meeting with my company and during our open discussion, when we queried some of Boeings changes in normal ops, they responded that we could advise them with our opinions as we flew 00's of line sectors every month. In other words they were admitting that they did not necessarily get it correct first time inside their limited world. Perhaps we operators should be more interactive with the manufacturers rather than just blindly following all their recommendations without question. We should be their R&D dept. Perhaps they do have chosen customers who do so. It would be a grand idea.

stilton 21st Sep 2016 09:30

Two clicks and you're back to a basic aeroplane (Boeing)


If you have ANY doubt as to what's going on with the automation, its not doing what you want it to do or doing it quickly enough this is just basic airmanship. Promptly and assertively apply thrust and make the required pitch input.


Thrust and Attitude are Primary in resolving this and most situations, sitting there, waiting and hoping the automation will do its thing and save the day is beyond ridiculous, its plain negligent.



AF447,


Korean Air SFO


Turkish AMS,



Just to name a few, starting to see a trend here folks ?

glofish 21st Sep 2016 10:10

This trend has been called some years ago already by many in the industry, i pledge guilty as well.

All have been shouted down from many sides, industry, airlines and automatic junkies. As the beancounters happily took their sides, it is cheaper to program than to select and train real pilots, they won, with the compliments of reigning greed.

Even if there is some awakening today, the battle is almost lost. The resulting children of the magenta are now chief pilots, trainers, aircraft developers, regulators and managers. They know nothing else and will stick to their mantra right to the end. :mad:

alf5071h 21st Sep 2016 11:15

Conventional safety analysis is based on 'most probable cause', which tends to focus on a single issue, e.g. Thrust levers, or rejected landing, or aircraft system.
Modern operations are increasingly complex and interactive, where rare accidents can have many (minor) contributing factors, which are only relevant when they come together in a particular situation or time frame.
The modern view of safety reflects modern operations, including the trend to evidenced based action, i.e. evidenced based training, which should avoid over-focus on a single event, or single issue.

Thus where is the 'strong' and convincing evidence for more training; given the extent of many successful flights vs this one accident?
The industry has identified problems with GAs, but these are more generic as discussed in the ASAGA report, where the dominant contributors involve complex situations which generate surprise and demand high mental workload; see 'defining the problem' p120 ASAGA "The crew must perform a number of actions and cross-check them in a short time. The induced cognitive overload may prevent the detection of deviations both by the PF, who is mainly concentrated on the PFD, and by the PM, who undertakes a set of tasks that divert his attention. Thus, a deviation, even in an important parameter or in the flight path, may not be detected by the crew."

It would be short sighted to require even more procedures which add to the situational complexity and increase workload; thus avoid adding SOPs or requiring more of the 'same' training in order to solve isolated problems.
Golden rules II, Educate, Communicate, Clarify, Simplify.

New safety thinking:- "the most probable cause was the conjunction of many apparently insignificant factors, which in isolation would not result in an accident, but together created a situation which momentarily exceeded the crew's ability to comprehend the situation and act accordingly". With apologies to J. Reason.
.

Capn Bloggs 21st Sep 2016 11:37


New safety thinking:-
So, press on. Nothing new to see here, bound to happen eventually once in a while... ?

portmanteau 21st Sep 2016 12:16

Agree Bloggs, methinks if there had been 300 body bags this time , the discussions though very useful would have had a different slant.

alf5071h 21st Sep 2016 12:42

"Nothing new to see here,". Short sighted Bloggs? ;)
Educate; better understanding of RAAS, knowledge of potential aircraft system integration problems with TOGA mode and thence the GA procedure.
Communicate; what was known about RAAS operation, mechanism of TOGA inhibition.
Clarify; procedures, when GA is applicable, and when not.
Simplify; GA SOP is not a Rejected Landing SOP, nor might be the Bounced Landing procedure.

Individually, minor issues which are unlikely to 'cause' an accident; together ... That's history, so as you say "bound to happen eventually once in a while... "

The industry needs a new pair of glasses; to use alternative views of accidents and safety intervention.

Capn Bloggs 21st Sep 2016 13:19


"Nothing new to see here,". Short sighted Bloggs?
I was joking, Alf. However, as my old man says, there are none so blind as those who will not see (including some posters on this board). Lots of yibber yabber about this button, not using that procedure, wrong procedure, lets brief it beforehand, pilots should know better yada yada yada but...


Originally Posted by Alf507h
The industry needs a new pair of glasses

You're right there. Maybe the impetus will come when portmanteau's scenario plays out...

alf5071h 21st Sep 2016 13:26

portmanteau, :ok:
Why should safety discussions be so biased by fatalities?
The objective of safety is to minimise the risk of harm - forward looking; the factors in this accident could represent an identical level of risk for a much worse outcome, except ... we were lucky, but being lucky isn't safe. (a strong airframe might be)
Safety discussions might benefit from looking at the overall risk, and separately the contributions from the many individual factors; forward looking, not curing what has passed.

Bloggs, still short sighted, you missed the ;), and ;) :ok:

vilas 21st Sep 2016 14:15


bound to happen eventually once in a while...
Sure! If one rejects everything other than manual skills solution. Or suggest procedures which throw the baby out with bath water. Include it in Briefing! what all can you brief? Learn the automation! You can't remember everything. Then the best option as I suggested before, didn't happen before may not happen again. Do nothing.

Capn Bloggs 21st Sep 2016 14:43


You can't remember everything.
As long as one remembers how to fly, NONE of the latest batch of prangs would have happened. Take those pink glasses off, Vilas! http://www.smilies.our-local.co.uk/i...es/glasses.gif :ok:

KenV 21st Sep 2016 14:52


Your flying a coupled Cat 3A approach into EGLL. It's 200m in fog. At decision height, when you don't see the required visual references, are you REALLY going to push the thrust levers forward and pull the yoke back, as your FIRST actions?http://cdn.pprune.org/images/smilies/eek.gifhttp://cdn.pprune.org/images/smilies/eek.gifhttp://cdn.pprune.org/images/smilies/eek.gif
In my opinion, definitely YES!! We clearly have been trained very differently.


At that moment, you are 50' above a runway you can't see. You've just disengaged the autopilot, and depending on the sequencing of your actions, you could well be holding the thrust levers against the drive motors, until you push TOGA.
In my experience, 50 feet above the runway in fog is not a bad and dangerous place to fly a plane manually. It is my opinion that the pilot should manually advance the throttles while pressing TOGA and manually establish the correct climb attitude (the FD should provide that). Once the aircraft is confirmed to be climbing and accelerating the pilot should clean up the aircraft and re-engage the autopilot and autothrottle.

I really don't understand why any pilot would think that automatics are required or even preferable when slow and close to the ground. This is not much different than a takeoff except you already have a little bit of altitude and you have a LOT more runway in front of you.


In the words of Sergeant Wilson: "Are you sure that's wise"?
My training says manual flying would not only be wise, but preferable in this situation. In any event my training would compel me to put hands on stick and throttle during this maneuver so if the automatics go awry or for some reason quit, I'm in a position to correct things immediately and instinctively without having to mentally review system logic, inhibition logic, or flight modes.


We're flying a passenger jet here. We don't really want to be exploring the aerobatic envelope 'a la' HOTAS F18!
Oh my!! HOTAS is a design philosophy for putting various combat system buttons and switches on the stick and throttle to allow a pilot of a tactical jet to control those systems without taking his hands off stick and throttle. It has NOTHING to do with aerobatics! I flew the same way when flying P-3s and a four engine turboprop derived from an airliner is mostly certainly not aerobatic. Neither is the P-8 which is derived from the B737.

In a passenger jet the only switches and buttons a pilot needs for a Takeoff or Go Around/Rejected Landing are TOGA and radio PTT and remarkably enough, both are on the stick and throttle. Why is that? Because those switches are designed to be operated by the pilot while his hands are on the stick and throttle! So I don't understand why anyone would train a pilot to put his hands in his lap during maneuvers that are at low airspeed when close to the ground. That is contrary to all my training and experience. Clearly some (many?) airlines train very differently. And in this case, that training set these pilots up for failure.

CONF iture 21st Sep 2016 15:02


Originally Posted by vilas
You can't remember everything

And you can't brief for everything ...
You live in the simulator world, the line is a bit different.
But if you want to detail all the alternatives in a FCTM, that's fine.

vilas 21st Sep 2016 15:27

20 years is enough on line. And for all that smartness contribute something substantial other than pot shots.In any case the pilots involved in these incidents have equally thick log books.

alf5071h 21st Sep 2016 15:45

vilas, from a previous post 'Humans are fallible, we will suffer error, but if we cannot imagine this - that we won't make mistake, whatever the training - then inappropriate conclusions can focus on solutions involving even more knowledge and training - blame.
It is a misguided belief that we can prevent all accidents or that we can foresee every eventuality, however improbable.'


We cannot foresee every safety event. Any contradicting argument must explain why we did not foresee this accident and have training in place.
Hindsight is a very powerful bias, and more often the least effective safety solution.

vilas 21st Sep 2016 16:30

alf5071h
I myself stated earlier that if it is one off error, happens! price of being human. I also stated that humans have no instincts in the air and flying is an acquired skill. Being human also means it is difficult to be same every moment. So I agree that we can see to that accidents are a rarity but cannot totally eliminate. Machines do repetitive jobs better so they are left to automation. But then you must know what it will and what it won't.


All times are GMT. The time now is 09:32.


Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.