What I see more than a destabilised approach is an oscillating approach with textbook like waveforms - or shall we say repeating cycles of divergence / overcorrection until the ground got in the way.

"Having many hours doesn’t automatically mean you are suitable to be a captain."

This is manifestly true. Unfortunately, add a pilot union into the mix which will protect and promote even it's most brain-dead progeny unto the barricades and watch the crash rate increase. cf. Air France

I've checked if your quotation of the report is accurate. It is.

(from https://assets.publishing.service.go...JMCY_07-22.pdf )

What I'd like to have seen is a report without grammatical mistakes (past/passed). This is in the 'Conclusion' section, which, presumably, has been read and approved by at least one other person than the writer, and who could be assumed to either have decent English, or access to a technical writer/copy editor.

"It's just a typo!", you may cry - and indeed, writing 'has passed' or 'was past' both parse correctly, even if the sentence structure is strained. However, the AAIB is meant to demonstrate competence, so readers of the report have confidence in the conclusions, and if a simple error like this gets though, it makes the reader wonder how many other errors in their work are not so noticeable. Presentation is important if you want to appear competent. Details matter, especially when your organisation is expected to routinely make painstaking investigations. If you can't get the basics right, what else is going wrong?

Yep, when you start correcting the pitch, when you pass the intended glide slope, you can be sure to be oscillating. Just take care your pitch is roughly matching what is needed for the glideslope, when you get on the dots and your oscillation dampens out (fast).

The DRU figures clearly show the aircraft pitch only starts to change, when passing the glideslope, not before the glideslope is reached.

Semreh,

Written by an Inspector (or maybe Senior Inspector, which is usually an Inspector who’s managed to stay in the job for two years), looked at by at least two other Inspectors (or Senior Inspectors) probably in more than one meeting, messed about with by a Principal Inspector, probably in more than one meeting, then checked by the Deputy or Chief Inspector.

Yes, past/passed is poor. As was Stanstead not long ago. But I maintain that some effort to explain why an airline pilot couldn’t land, would have been a good thing to include.

It would greatly concern me if such information were held to be 'secret', given that it could have the potential to make a positive impact on risk assessment, training and so forth.

Unfiltered raw data on incidents/accidents correlated to age, hours, gender, position etc should be accessible so that *if* there's anything to this then trainers, regulators, employers, (and the public who get on a flying machine) may all be able to complete due diligence and reach conclusions on whether there are any statistically significant issues and, if so, how one might address them.

If, once thorough investigation has been carried out, there is something to be addressed then that detail must also be available to everyone without 'spin'. Should different groups then wish to exercise various opinions as to why it's 'better' to have statistically risky people in such positions that's up to them, but from a logic perspective there's be no excuse IMO. After all we'd not use components with a known low MTBF during overhaul when there are better ones available, would we?

In saying this I'm quite aware that there could be many reasons why one group might initially appear to have a greater number of incidents than another - it may in fact be nothing to do with biological factors - however without the necessary [unbiased] data it's extremely difficult to make any reasonable assessment. In the absence of traceable facts people are left to speculate, which can be quite corrosive.

Ultimately it's a complicated thing designing, building, and testing an aircraft, then getting it into the air, full of people, along to a destination and back without incident. Along that journey we try to use the highest quality components, the best people, the most proven systems, and we (hopefully thoroughly, scientifically without bias, and publically) regularly assess how that's going on so that any weaknesses or issues may be addressed. Factors relating to the drivers of these machines should not be exempted from such scrutiny, they are an important part of the process we presently utilise.

Apart from this incident, the recent AAIB investigation into the load shift and that AAIB coverage of that horror story of an ATP crosswind landing at Birmingham, you mean?

The AAIB in now sadly like the CAA.

In my personal opinion an organisation with zero credibility, a once formidable global reputation for probity, rigour and technical excellence is no more.

What instructor is going to wash out a female. A certain percentage of each gender that washes out will make false claims against an examiner. It could very well be the same percentage. But our society will immediately jump out in favour of the female pilot while ignoring the male pilot and examiner can kiss his training job goodbye. Perhaps he will have said Miss instead of Ms that got him suspended. Or perhaps it doesn't matter because ...."we have to believe".

The dangers of woke to aviation and so much else. Exaggeration? How did that 767 guy at Atlas end up flying the line.

Ageing pilots is another factor. Whilst a number maintain their skills to the end of their career, it is an inconvenient truth to a lot of us older posters that this can also be a factor. I don’t think any one of the holes in the swiss cheese can be singled out. But Covid disruption has definitely increased the number of holes.

Time Traveller; I want to send you a private message but you’ve got the option turned off. Can you change that so I can send you a PM? Thanks

The data that would show gender differences in incident rate/report etc is there but is not accessible in the main. Which is interesting because I would hypothesise that if the data indicated female pilots had fewer incidents or reported more safety events thus demonstrating greater honesty/safety consciousness then any HR department/airline would be singing it from the rooftops so burnish their credentials. The fact is that none do and the female pilots pushing for greater gender balance don’t push for it either.

I suspect the reason is that women are too sensible to wave around a statistic like that which, even if true, would be a hostage to fortune.

Well no because if the data was properly analysed using inferential statistics then one off events would not make any difference. Trends over time might make a difference eventually but for example; the data up to present day could result in interesting results - for example; no difference, small difference, large difference. They would be interesting results in their own way.

Also I reckon women are just like men; some are too sensible, some aren’t and a whole bunch occupy them middle ground. So wouldn’t that mean a few less sensible folk (male or female) would be making that case by now if the data supported it?

It's interesting that when we discuss other accidents; involving only male pilots, I don't think we ever see, "well a female pilot in that situation would have been more cautious", or "a female pilot would have been able to multitask better" or whatever it may be.

In other words we only seem to see a gender debate when a woman pilot is involved?

The unfortunate truth is that trends usually don't give actionable intel towards stopping the next bingle. They look like they should mean something, but most times the next loss or embarrassment comes from outside of the focus at that time. In recent events, the only glaring example that really stands against that is the USS Connecticut's allision with the south china sea. The squadron command had highlighted deficiencies that seemed to be defied by the crew command, and either following being overridden by higher command or a change of heart, the event mirrored the concerns of the squadron command.

No trend picked up the 2 x B777 events in DXB, the take-off one or the GA one, they are system resonant events that come from what otherwise looks like a normal day at the office. The Exeter landing would not necessarily have been proceeded by actionable QAR alerting of stable approach criteria unless the screening looked at the full path of interest, rather than 2 snapshots. Even with screening triggering the unstable approach as an event, unless attributed to a common pilot, their problem doesn't get highlighted, it becomes a blip in the overall scheme of events. There are ways to get a meaningful understanding of the risks that the operation has, but it means a change of the manner by which we do business, and it is incompatible with pathological management teams, which are overrepresented in aviation.

I have observed a code of silence on these fora for some time now, not wishing to be drawn into any debates.

However, I feel the need to speak up this time and ask the mods to clean up this disgusting thread or close it. You can not seriously be suggesting that we are now blaming "the woke" and "female pilots" for landing incidents. What is wrong with you? Step out into the real world for a minute. And most of all, take a good look in the mirror.

Landing incidents are either the result of sloppy flying, fixation or lack of confidence. If, as you say, women are overrepresented in these type of occurrences, I'm willing to bet it's due to lack of confidence. I can very well see why someone would lose faith in their own abilities if they flew with condescending, patronizing assholes like yourselves.

Women are not extraterrestrials. Just like any living being, if you treat them right, support them and show them you trust them, you will see their ability and confidence come out. If you employ the attitude shown in some of these posts, you will make whoever is sitting next to you uncomfortable, make them retreat inside themselves and prime them to make mistakes. Were you never taught this aspect of CRM or did you never have the common sense to learn it?

I would rather fly with amoeba than with some of you on here.

Knowing the history of these unfortunate pilot(s) can be revealing…..the AAIB report of the A320 landing accident at KOS in July 2007 provided training details of the FO who was PF.
Reading it of course gave a remarkable feeling of hindsight.

On the topic of discrimination, I am generally supportive of some of the views expressed by Stuka Child, although I find the language and presentation of the post no better than that of those he/she condemns. More generally, the topic of discrimination, whether it seeks to deliver positive outcomes or not, should be open to discussion, particularly if it might possibly have some relevance - more on this in a moment. To prevent or delete that discussion is akin to pulling down statues and tossing them in the harbour.

I truly doubt whether female pilots are better or worse than male pilots - all other things being equal. And to know if all other things are equal, it is necessary to record and analyse data where there may be relevance. To me, those who seek to prevent such analysis and subsequent discussion are likely to be afraid of what the results might show.

And one final point on analysing data - and this relates mainly to fdr’s comments - when looking at accident, and to an extent, incident data (particularly when looking at a fairly narrow subset of that data), the sample size is very small. There is no real value in looking for trends because the data is already marginal and, quite possibly skewed - whether intentionally or otherwise - by the sample selection. The most useful approach is to search for common factors in the events and then to investigate whether these are coincidental or a hint of a trend. Of course, that investigation will be of little value if it is done with preconceptions of what the outcome will or should be.

I bet you would rather fly with this guy.

https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/...1-519a3a7bd6ec

Unfortunately, people( I won't use the term amoeba) like you are willing to force us to.

Oh, and his family is suing the airline.

I think most folk on here are attempting to look at the issue dispassionately and to first gather the data, then analyse and then draw conclusions. And as fdr says quite rightly; past history is no indication of future performance. Trends don't indicate single events.

The vast, vast, vast, vast majority of accidents and incidents are caused by machines designed and flown in the most part by men. However enough females design and fly the machines for data to be gathered. The idea that there would zero statistical difference at all is highly unlikely but possible when accounting for gender ratio differences in the professions. I know in my own experience the most difficult and least competent pilots were/are guys. But that's anecdotal.

As for other poster(s) on here who use highly emotive language to shut down discussion and use shame to silence it; I think it says it all about your argument or lack thereof.

The pilot flying of this aircraft was a qualified and certified pilot. Happens to be a female. So what? Females have been high-scoring aces, have saved RPT jets in distress, and also been killed by male pilots who screwed up, biggly. There have been some notable crashes where the co-pilot was female, UAL585, Colgan, USBangla, and in none of those events would gender have made any difference to the outcome. Male co-pilots and Captains have been screwing up since Wilbur and Orville were working out how to make date night work, and that seems to be the direction we intend to continue with. The DXB departure was not dependent on the gender, nor was the arrival done by a group of male pilots.

A charge of bias towards females comes from a pretty interesting place, one has to ask why they were underrepresented in the first place; that is where the bias arose. Have just completed over 150hrs with one young lady, and she exhibited the exact same weaknesses in her competency as a male compatriot who had 10 times her experience. Whatever the issues are, gender didn't enter into the issues.

I agree with fdr, gender is irrelevant.

Go back to flight school. Examine the training records. Speak to the Flight Instructors, and the experienced ones will be able to say with a high degree of certainty as to who will turn out to be sound, and those who will always struggle post licence issue.

There will of course always be some late developers who will come good in the end.

Depending how the brain is wired up, the extremes of the spectrum will result in a natural ability or one where shear hard work is necessary to achieve the required basic skills. Ideally a “Steady Eddie” will emerge.

The Exeter report is rich material for students of CRM analysis. Learn from other peoples mistakes as you will not live long enough to make them all yourself.

Correct. The gender of the pilot is not a factor worthy of discussion here.

It is worthy of discussion though. If Easyjet is disqualifying 90% of the candidates who would apply if they could from their cadet scheme due to gender reasons only, it is impossible to avoid the average level of candidate talent decreasing significantly. A lot of people are scared to say this because of the politicization creeping into just about everything. Some right on this forum will disagree using their excuses but aviation safety comes first in my mind.

However, I am happy to get back on to the piloting issues of this thread.

I think gender concern especially over the easyJet scheme is just male protectionism. The problem with both of these pilots was basic decision making. It doesn’t need an OM A or B policy to make clear that multiple sink rate cautions and an approach that unstable should have led to the captain to either call go around or take control.

The elephant in the room is that some people are just below average pilots and as long as they scrape through LPCs after practicing in the sim on a known profile every year they will be fine. Those people need to be weeded out but it is very hard. Many end up as professional copilots who can be very pleasant colleagues but are a liability when the operation strays outside their rehearsed little box. Major airlines and unions however currently allow people who are marginally competent to stay in the flight deck and with the shortages of crew the problem isn’t going away.

For many years in my former company we had co-pilots who had failed command courses and were permanent co-pilots. After many years of some quite marginal people being allowed to continue their careers a program was put in place called Managing Operational Performance. Thse who find themselves in that program either meet the required standards after further training or they are eased out of the company. The days of the not very competent being allowed to continue have long gone as I understand it.

This occurred at two in the morning on the first night of a cargo rotation during the early stages of Covid when schedules were disrupted and people were flying less. The weather was not great at a regional airport with what I would consider a shorter than average wet runway and a gusty wind. The company was going through turbulent times post Brexit and the working atmosphere may have been affected. The conclusion of many posters seems to be that this accident is probably the result of the wrong people flying.

I don’t think there is any doubt that both pilots performed poorly on this occasion. But I think it is simplistic to put it down just to poor selection and training. In my company multiple GPWS warnings without a go around would have led to a rapid tea no biscuits interaction with the safety department. The concept that the operations manual did not cover what to do if an approach became unstable below minimum also seems very strange. I would allocate more than a little blame to management and supervision. The reduction in flying due to Covid has been followed by some interesting incidents. The Easyjet high speed reject way beyond V1 at Luton and the Aberdeen missed approach with TUI are two that immediately spring to mind and in very reputable airlines. Multiple factors in my opinion played a role in this accident.

Cargo Ops with Covid pretty much stayed the same / got busier.

Generally you are right that cargo has done well unless of course you work for a Russian aligned operation. The report says though that the captain had flown on average 8 hours a month over the last 90 days, which even in night freight is at the bottom end. We can speculate as to the reasons for the low hours, but I think we can agree you might not be super current particularly if you were giving away some of your landings. I find it interesting that the co-pilot did both landings that night.

that’ll equal to 8 sectors a month, or 4 landings. I don’t get more on long haul.

Gender is irrelevant. Did they have a bad day, or was this one of many bad days? No consideration of training records or career history is a startling omission from the report. Pages and pages on what happened, nothing on why.

Forgive me, it is only startling if you have a presupposition that the AAIB is competent.

I quite agree. Regardless of the gender of the F/O the Captain should have taken control amd flown a go-around if it was apparent the approach was not stable. That is a Captains resposibility.

It is not relevant in a single instance to denigrate the performance of a particular F/O as it is the Captain's resposibility at that time to ensure the safety of the flight. It is anothe discussio altogether on how or why certain pilots continue emplyment when their performance is sub optimal.




Kind regards
Exeng

This crew (should) have been asleep all day to prepare for their night duty.

I wish them no ill, but they clearly went unstable after they had declared "stable" during their approach. PF should have gone around but if they didn't, PM/PIC should have gone around. "Stable" needs to be stable all the way down to the runway !

One potential safety problem with freight operations is time penalties. Ever since I did night Royal Mail flights years ago (with another company), and was told to close up and get going instead of re-tying a badly secured loose load*, I thought time penalties where aircraft are involved is unsafe, since it puts pressure on pilots and ground staff to get going.


*I ignored the command and resecured the load first. Load shifts can be fatal.

possibly previously stressed prior to last landing....feel bad for the crew..we all have had our share of screw ups...most nothing more than a bruised ego thankfully

Wasn’t it shortly after the accident in Exeter that West Atlantic binned all its UK based pilots? You have to wonder if there were any rumours doing the rounds that the crew would all be out of employment and this subconsciously caused stress and distraction

It was certainly around that time. Quite a few U.K. pilots in both seats were made redundant, with some offered a transfer to an associated company headquartered in Spain that also operates 734s (I believe 5 WA aircraft were transferred over to Swiftair and re-registered EC-XXX.) Others were offered a transfer to WA Sweden on the NG aircraft.

I’m not suggesting the above contributed to the accident but morale was pretty low at WA at around that time.

Rumour has it the DFO of the Spanish company was PIC for this flight.