A350 pilot startled by windshear alarm
 

Descended to 1200’ msl and 290 knots.
Who is allowing this level of incompetence to be in control?
Truly worrying.

Having two extra pilots on the flight deck did not seem to help.

I guess all that CRM, Type and sim training didn’t work. The fellow flying didn’t know that the autopilot was disconnected even though he was the person who deselected it? The Capt was basically flying solo when he took control after the overshoot.

This looks like a great argument for non-manned cockpit

This is the product of today's zero to hero flight training. They can program the crap out of the box but can't really fly airplanes all that well. AF447, OZ214 are only two examples of incompetence in the cockpit. United Airlines is on record saying their pilot hiring will prioritize race and gender over flying experience and qualifications. The FAA and international counterparts have lost all credibility. Scary times ahead.

its the future, like it or not
we should all just man up and face it

No pilots to startle if there’s no pilots in the flight deck to begin with, amirite?

no pilots in flight deck and no flight deck either, technically...

That's a lot of fiddling on the FCU so close to the ground after a go around, when a simple pitch and power datum to quickly recall would have made it easier. But I am not qualified on any Airbus so I stand down from further commenting on this.

But maybe I am wrong, I am not trying to Monday quarterback this. If it happened to them, it can happen to me and anybody else as well.

Dorf

You don't know the background of the pilots involved in this event. In that company there is a high number of former Air Force and Navy pilots. Far from the zero to hero flight training program you allude to.

This was an alert to wind shear ahead which simply required a normal missed approach, rather than a wind shear encounter which requires memory items to be applied. The startle effect in an actual encounter is far greater and requires the aircraft to be accurately flown manually with the co pilot in the loop calling out the wind so they know when they can resume normal flight.

AUTO TCAS is available on newer Airbus aircraft, perhaps wind shear needs an automatic response from the aircraft as well. This isn't what I would expect to see from a crew in charge of any commercial jet, let alone an A350.

JRK

Don't think I've ever seen anyone say it won't happen in the future. But it's not going to happen with today's technology, or anytime soon in my opinion.
It will equire true AI to completely replace pilots, once we have true AI all jobs can be done by machines

Not necessarily a good combination for a commercial airliner. Cockpit gradient can be influenced by a carry over of military culture. After a brief skim of the AvHerad article it looks like the F/O was still trying to control things after the Captain took over. Startle effect and poorly handled go arounds are nothing new and unless there is a clear statement of who is control then you have two pilots trying to recover the situation. In this case there was a third pilot who was talking to the F/O. Eventually the the Captain said "everyone silent" which seemed to restore order. The airline I am with has been using the sim to develop strategies to overcome startle effect and to look at the physical reaction a person experiences when faced with an unexpected event. In the report it is labelled as cognitive incapacitation. This is not limited to Airbus products, there have been plenty of examples of mishandled go arounds in Boeings.

Dorf

Can you provide the evidence of the United statement or are you making this up?

Probably another case of playing piano on Airbus mcp ...

Well they are going to have to doorknock to find them. The issue is that flying is not attractive as a career except to dumb ass white males. Don't ask me to scientifically prove it but the fact that most pilots in western based airlines are white males is not because there is some discriminatory process, in fact aviation would have to be the least discriminatory as if you have the license and the hours and a pulse then you are all they want. The simple truth is females tend not to be attracted to the pointy end. There does not seem to be any shortage of female ATCers so aviation does attract females just not into the flight deck.

There are procedural lapses and psychologists are having a field day. Sudden wind sheer warning in normal weather may cause a surprise but causing cognitive incapacitation is not very digestible. Then what wil happen in Hudson case, unreliable speed or in sever upset is unthinkable. The capt who was PM suffered from automation dependency. The AP had not tripped but was disconnected and they forgot. Normal principle is when you dial something on FCU you confirm appropriate aircraft reaction. That's what you do in EMER DES, TCAS or GPWS or even turning to avoid weather. This is a case of automation dependency which develops in time and degrades the scan and people get caught. This is what happened A320 Bangalore, B777 SFO, A321 in Islamabad. In first two they blindly believed in ATHR and allowed their speed to drop badly and in Islamabad the capt took for granted heading mode and dialling in NAV mode till Hdg went past 180, then on sudden realization pulled heading, the aircraft turned shorter way into the hills. So after AF447 A350 has automatic unreliable speed change over, it has automatic EMER DES, auto TCAS. So next will be automatic wind sheer manoeuvre.

[Pax]. 'The captain had just put his hand on the sidestick when the copilot probably extended the speedbrakes without calling this out'

The copilot, confronted with the surprise effect in connection with the unexpected triggering of the predictive windshear warning, the change in the rate of work and the increased workload was then “absent” for a few minutes.

Well one or the other. Is there a role for speedbrakes in a windshear go around? [Pax].

This simply needs better training and stricter testing of pilots. The problem is arising because training and testing has been cut too far.

AI would cost billions to develop, billions which should be spent on better training. AI can't deal with severe electrical failure or fire or crew problems or ramp problems or passenger problems, so we are still going to need pilots. So let's train them properly !

At every SIM, each pilot should have the opportunity to practise 5 x go-arounds, 5 x OEI go-arounds, 5 x wind-shear, 5 x initial EFATO, 5 x crosswind landings, 5 x TCAS, just from the handling and initial actions point of view. Manual control without FD's where possible.

Each practise should have the five attempts consecutively, so the candidate can learn from their own mistakes and improve and refine their actions each time. Also every SIM should include unreliable speed and partial instrument panel flying.

Dull, and maybe even boring, perhaps, but we would all benefit from the practise.

Banana Joe

Does the specific background really matter that much? If you spend enough time doing nothing but staring at the FD, your skills will atrophy.

Uplinker
The incident is not about not knowing how to go around but about PF going berserk after hearing WIND SHEER and PM after taking over forgetting to follow up on FCU selections. All the billions will be wasted if this is going to happen. Simulator cannot produce startle unless perhaps give them a go around and cause some loud sound of explosion with blinding flashes of lightning. But they are likely press emergency freeze and run out. Instead of coming out with such conclusions it's better to stop accident/incident investigations and accept that they will happen and move on. Because for every pilot error some human factor is flashed as an epitaph or an obituary and every few years same human factors keep causing similar incidents
Only answer for human factors appears to be is not to have human presence.

Banana Joe

When he retired the skies became marginally safer!

Hi vilas, I think you've made my point for me. Because neither PF nor PM were practised enough, this wind-shear event caused them both to panic and do the wrong things, and not do some of the right things.

Had they been sufficiently practised, they would have smoothly performed the drill, both PF and PM working together.

The "startle effect" is an overused excuse. Pilots are, (or should be), trained for and have practised all the memory drills and will have performed many of the QRH drills, so there should be no startle effect.

As a mere occasional fair-weather well-rested leisure pilot, I wonder how much "after a flight of more than 11 hours" might have contributed to the incident.

Double crew, so only max 5 hours in the seat

This is just bad handling of an aircraft, pure and simple. Such incidents need genuine pilots, as the term defines.

Now the eternal question is why there were none present and how to remedy the situation.

In my humble opinion the remedy is only training and experience by exposure. But REAL training and not the actual placebo sim scenarios everyone can look into and prepare beforehand. They only please regulations but not real life. Pilots need to regain (or worse: aquire) piloting skills again.
The basic skill required here is: AP/AT off, wings level, pitch + power, then control the speed ….. It’s commonly called flying.

I don’t like the cries for another automatic feature. They can fail to engage, the AP can just throw it back to you because it does no recognise any valid mode or the AT can be engaged but refuses to act etc. etc. In all those cases it’s back to square one, meaning YOU will have to FLY it all over again.

I don’t like the cries for more drills or memory items. There are too many already. Quite often they are somewhat contradictory and more often than not they are prone to changes by rocket-science blessed chief instructors.

In case of confusion or startle, the human being is mostly only able to repeat two or three very simple, trained actions, which again is commonly called flying, but not the myriad of brilliantly crafted multiple step procedures on the 50+ pages in the QRH. They can be skilfully memorised and regurgitated, but it’s way more difficult to apply them correctly when needed. QED.

@Uplinker , there is no time in today sim session to practice five time in a row , as you probably know , is the regulator that want the pilot be trained at minimum level . “ They will learn on line training “ or “ They will learn on line flying “ is the mantra.
And then you end up with a released on line cadet asking where to look.
Yes many nice terminology , evidence training , competence training , but the fact are that if an instructor push for more simulator time , nine times out of ten will be indicated as “ bad apple “ from the management . Or we wanna talk the fact that , always the regulator , want the new generation of pilot be trained to Upset Recovery ( in an airliner ) when it is not on syllabus to expose the cadet to a spin or even a full stall during basic training .

The whole problem starts with basic flying training, degraded over the years, including stall recovery (eliminated from many syllabus), introduction of the MPL (basically saves airlines money at the cost of what they view as an unnecessary skillset), and cost cutting everywhere else, from Sim time to fuel uplift justification... everything is now the bare minimum because profit trumps everything.

For Airbus pilots most of whom retire without experiencing alternate/direct law routine UPRT training is a waste of time. AF447 wouldn't have happened if the crew was emphasized even in a classroom that in alternate law never pitch more than five degrees and just manage bank. The aircraft is envelope protected unless it enters a storm or something unusual attitude is not possible. Instead the simulator should have the ability to cause drop in speed or FD inaccuracies which will improve scan and promote better awareness.

Dorf

If pprune is a place we can speak freely without implicit woke censorship, can I observe the French have a record of basic handling failures of perfectly serviceable aeroplanes, stretching back decades. Pinning down what it is, is awkward, but the tough questions need to be asked.

The full BEA report ( avail on their web site in French) gives a slight different story .

Fatigue ; not a factor they say although departed SFO 3h late . each crew got sleep rest during the flight and good rest night before. .
No young MPL in there , . F/O PF : 45 years old, ATPL 8600h of which 1200 on A330. Capt PM : 41 years old , ATPL 8000 h 2000 on A330/350 of which 600h Capt.
Relief pilot : 50 years old ATPL 11.700h . 3400 on 330/350..
They just forgot ( all 3 ) to notice the AP was disengaged during the Go around,, which led to a sequence or errors and incidents including maneuvers following a loss of separation with a departing aircraft .
No CVR was available.
Actual windshear highly unlikely considering the weather and being after sunset. , not reported by anyone before or after .

I’m puzzled as to why there was any startle factor. The METARS prior to and during this arrival would have alerted me to the possibility of Windshear on approach (maybe even the ATIS stated it). I would have been self briefing (revising the QRH memory items) and later formally briefing the actions I/we would take in the event of a Windshear on final approach. Threat, error, management (TEM).

And why was that? Sorry don't read French, although some things obviously come to mind.

They do not say only this note :

vilas

Most pilots will never experience an engine failure - and far fewer will ever experience an engine failure during takeoff/initial climb. That's why it's so fundamentally important that it be trained for - because if you have the bad luck of it happening to you, you only get one chance to get it right.

Engine failure was indeed a rare occurrence till PW GTF experiment. Although I liked the innovation, in India it produced an engine shut down almost every five weeks before it settled down. Also engines are not specifically protected against birds, FOD etc. The point about UPRT is different. The airbus is specifically designed to stay within the envelope. That's not the case with unprotected aircraft where the possibility always exists. Giving more handling in degraded modes like alternate/direct law will serve the purpose. Stall becomes a possibility in alternate law stall recovery is already mandatory part of training.

As to Simulator training , the BEA report says they had a lot, and interestingly mention this :The report has a good analysis of the incident , makes comparisons with AF447, mentions the BEA 2012 recommendations made to EASA on startle effects , and add new ones asking to take into account of the high climb performance of modern twins when designing missed approach procedures (in ORY : complex, low altitude and a turn ).
The report should be later in English I suspect.

As LP Hartley so aptly put it, “ The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.” In aviation one of those things was the acquisition of experience, mostly bad, obtained the hard way with everything on the line. You can’t train for it, simulate it or acquire it in a world that has ironed out most of the wrinkles that made pilots wary and cynical and competent in a crisis. Today, better airplanes, technology and systems don’t make better pilots but they do make flying safer. Pilots are not what they were in the past because they very seldom need to be. That is a good thing, even when it does not appear that way.