I can see that part happening but how did the PM let her do it until an actual runway overrun with this much ecxess speed? Should self-preservation instinct kick in there somewhere overriding procedures? There must have been something else we don't know yet.

This one crossed my mind as well. I have personally experienced something like this in a 777. AP was engaged all the time at the gate, and we found out it was engaged when we did the flight controls check after engine start. This disengaged the AP due to the control forces needed, and the wailer went off when it disengaged.
In our case it turned out that maintenance had engaged it to do some work, and had left it engaged, and left the cockpit when we arrived before the flight.

Didn’t AirFrance attempt a takeoff with the AP engaged in Port Harcourt with a 777? Thought they did…

EDIT

Found it. A/P engaged takeoff attempt:

http://www.avherald.com/h?article=428c9bdd/0000&opt=0

The avherald article doesn’t make sense. At the rotate call the PF looks solely outside whilst rotating until the runway / horizon starts to disappear then transfers onto the FD. At this point the pitch attitude will be around 7-10 degrees, which is the single engine climb out range, 2 engine about 12-15 depending how much improved climb. So they would have had to pitch forward again to follow the FD which would be totally counter intuitive unless you encountered severe windshear. If the FD was commanding a pitch down you would instinctively check the airspeed. If it was still increasing you wouldn’t push forward. If it was decreasing then either windshear or airspeed unreliable (like the lufthansa cargo 777 crew who had exactly this recently and did a great job recognising and recovering from it). If there’s any doubt then 10 degrees pitch and 85 % N1 will achieve a safe climb out. And as PM if the PF started pushing forward it would feel horrible and immediate intervention would surely occur?

With the Triple 7 on ground, selecting the first FD ON activates ALT pitch mode if selected MCP Altitude is within 20 feet of displayed Baro Altitude.

Some pilots have the bad habit of setting 100kts, Hdg 360 and Alt 00000 after shutdown. The electrical power up sets the MCP altitude to 10,000 (intentional design feature by Boeing?)

How the entire crew missed this during instruments scan, and during the Takeoff review and then blindly following FDs after initial rotation, if in fact this is what happened, is another question altogether....

OW

The aircraft was reportedly on the ground for 24 hours before departure. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t powered down and up again during this time (if true). This would put the default 10,000 in the MCP window. Not sure what led to the selection and when, but I guess the FDR data will tell us soon.

I just won’t believe that the PF was not rotating because the FD didn’t move upwards.

The PF is looking out the window, initiating the rotation at “rotate” call from the PM. No-one should focus on the FD at that particular moment.

There has to be something else to it! Must be! Whether the AP was engaged or some trim/flight control issues etc. It simply can’t be just the FD’s.
Therefore don’t judge the crew to easily before the initial report comes out.

I have never seen that! When you arrive on blox, you do the shutdown checklist, remove your rubbish and get the hell out of there!

That AF 777 abort with the AP engaged during the take-off run and so hindering the PF’s attempt to rotate is somewhat alarming!

Is it possible that the EK 777 fleet haven't had the updated software from Boeing that prevents the AP being engaged on the ground, it was released over 10 years ago?

Read somewhere the capt asked for fcu to be set when she realised it was at 0000 . PM heard request and turned auto pilot on instead , which is usual sequence I’m guessing ? If auto pilot was engaged with 0000 set would it nose down ? With shock a few seconds pass before auto pilot disconnected and climb initiated ?
All my speculation and no evidence this is what happen , not a Boeing pilot just adding to discussion .

fcu?
What’s that?
(10000 hours on 777)

"fcu?
What’s that?
(10000 hours on 777)"

Airbus jingo for MCP...

Nobody has yet mentioned that sometimes, if the SID initial clearance ALT is decided by ATC and is not yet known when the cockpit is being set up by PF for departure, some crews will set ALT 00000', as a reminder that the clearance ALT is not yet known. It is not uncommon to conduct a check and briefing of the SID or departure without knowing the initial clearance ALT. Time is limited at turnarounds, and crews will try to get as much done as they can, when they can. I am not saying this is safe, but I know it happens. Some crews will set a strange looking ALT, such as 4,100' or 3,999' to remind themselves.

In some places though, setting a guessed ALT that turns out to be wrong by 1,000' and which does not get corrected could be just as dangerous. It should be possible to display a red "clearance?" flag instead of any figures in the ALT window for those places where initial climb ALT is given by ATC as part of the clearance.
.
Very odd though, if none of the 4 pilots noticed the lack of pitch-up following the 'Rotate' call. They must have noticed, so was there a pitch control problem?
.

The standard practice at the many airlines I've worked at has been to set 9900 during the preflight. I have never seen 00000 in my life. I would never allow it. It's just instinctively wrong. The 900 signals something is wrong and needs attention. Every time I look at the FCU and I see it, I think QUICK, DO SOMETHING. Though, thankfully I've never had to rely on it. One of my company's had the R.I.S.E brief which was mandatory to conduct before the BEFORE TAKE OFF checklist. Runway, Instrument Departure, Stop altitude, Emergency turn. There are literally a hundred different ways to prevent this stupid mistake from happening. The pre-departure MCP configuration is where you translate your discussed and agreed plan into reality. If it does not reflect your plan then I would say you have zero situational awareness and probably should not be flying a passenger jet. Boeing even help you with assuring it does (Airbus does not btw)...


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....da0abdbd3c.png

There used to be an SOP for a ‘take of review’ to be called for before the take off checklist. It was a good procedure and would (should) have caught this since you checked and stated the initial altitude and checked it vs the mcp setting plus called and checked the PFD modes engaged. I always verbalised and checked it even after the review was removed and had guys comment not to do it now since non SOP.

frankly, you’re wrong. What does chat, overspeed and speed brakes in other incidents have to do with this?

Yes, for almost 24 hours - the aircraft arrived from ZRH just before 0300Z on the 19th, departed for IAD just before 2300Z/0300L.

Except of course, in Dubai it’s 4,000’ for all SIDS… The problem of unknown SID altitude doesn’t happen at OMDB.

When four people miss something obvious there's a possibility that they were distracted. I quoted an incident of that nature how distraction happens even in benign cruise.

The NOTAM is real, so company was concerned about something that actually happened...

Has it been confirmed they were actually 4 in the flightdeck? or is this just based on the rumour posted here at the start of this thread that 4 crews had been fired .. Rumour that later seems to have been false. just like the "attractive young female" F/O.
Speculating is what we all do here, but we should be careful not to change rumours into facts to progress in one direction. Hammering the crew seems to be always the preferred option here nowadays,.

agreed 100% ...... get away from the ground at least above MSA and the figure out the real problem and then think about continuing diverting or returning back to base !

There is clearly some finger trouble here. On the 777 the policy is to rotate towards 15 degrees and once airborne follow the flight director. After the Air France incident the software logic was changed so that the autopilot could not be accidentally engaged on the ground when moving. However the autopilot will engage in the air below 200 feet and if 0000 is in the MCP window then it will fly level and descend. However there should be a very distinct "Don't Sink" aural that repeats.

Additionally if the flaps are approaching flap limiting speed the thrust will reduce automatically from the derated takeoff thrust setting which will not help the situation when close to the ground.

The autopilot is normally engaged by the pilot flying, not the P2.

I await further details with interest.

In takeoff mode thrust should be in fixed or reference thrust(is that in 777). How will it reduce unless it's controlling speed? Many airlines it's the PM whose asked to engage the AP.

in EK PF turns on his or her AP

Good luck with that the reports normally only state 64hrs in last 28 days etc

Respectfully (I like your contributions which are usually very interesting, detailed and knowledgeable), I feel you have it wrong here.

If there is not something extremely weird and rare coming up as external factor, it just looks like this crew was unable to simply fly their aircraft, which means to steadily pitch up after lift-off to ~15° nose up attitude.

It is completely irrelevant what the MCP should have been set to, what the FD was supposed to indicate, what the PM was supposed to monitor or call out, etc. Once you are past v1 and runway end lights are coming closer, you just fly your aircraft into the air with one hand on the thustlever and the other on the yoke/sidestick.

Such "raw data skills" are absolute basics, which any pilot in a cockpit seat of an airliner needs to be capable of doing at any time, since you can never exclude complex-automation-induced errors. More automation is not the solution, no human being can fix such complex-automation-induced errors within the needed short time frame. Only "raw data skills" of keeping your airframe in a safe envelope by using pitch and power can solve such situations.

Spot on post there 1201alarm. This should be a basic instinct for a pilot. It reminds me of an incident a few years back... On a 787, I witnessed an occasion when a trainer decided to get all excited about a small insect sitting on the windshield which when projected through the HUD ended up becoming the proverbial "speed bug". He cracked the joke right at V1, completely omitting the rotate call. The PF, new to type (new to Boeings), rotated anyway. After clean up, the trainer apologised profusely and commended the FO.

I’ve worked for an airline where SOP was to zero everything on the MCP after landing. Courses, heading, altitude.
I have never used the FD during rotation. What would an EK crew do if they forgot to switch on the FDs? Abort after VR?
If there is one time where Speed/Pitch is key, it’s during and after rotation.
Most pilots can take a quick look at the MCP and see if it looks right. 4 pilots missed 0000 in the ALT window. This is just weird.

I agree with you 1201alarm, as long as you have a perfectly fine plane, with engines running normally and no flight control issues, there is no single excuse to not fly the airplane on the correct path. You're flying the plane, the plane is not flying you.

Automation is a nice tool and there to help you, but it's not the primary way to fly the plane.

A couple of comments:

I’ve only ever seen one pilot set 0000, pre-departure, as a “reminder”. I advised that this wasn’t a good idea…

Rotation is not trained or based on the FD, although most seem to to stop or pause around 10 degrees, and then fly V2 + 30ish. Rarely saw V2 + 15.

Nearly everyone (EK) rotates too quickly. This can result in an FD pitch down command, if the pitch continues towards 15 degrees. (Opposite case of above.)

If the rotation rate is correct (2 degrees/sec) then the FD provides accurate guidance earlier, with stabilisation around 15 degrees, at V2 + 15-25.

EK introduced with the -200, with a ‘slower’ rotation rate of 2.5 degrees/second, noted in the FCTM and generally achieved.

With the -300, the wording changed to 2-2.5 degrees/second, and slower for the longer body.

Some still seemed to think that implied a choice, regardless of the model…

It should also be considered that this might not have been ‘just an MCP error’, and that unreliable airspeed (ie a genuine failure) may have been root cause.

Agreed 100%

I find it hard to believe that there was any kind of failure other than the human kind. They flew all the way to the USA from Dubai after nearly not getting airborne; if there was anything wrong with the aircraft, like UAS, DXB was just behind them for return. Information about how to go about flying is all in the manuals (FCTM especially) and I would be of the opinion that by the end of the flight they knew exactly what they’d done (or failed to do).

At least they didn’t try and reject at 220kts+ with <100m remaining; that would have likely got them into the top ten all-time air disaster list...

There is no excuse for this. The fail safe automation has once again failed to recognize the fact there are no fail safe pilots.

I have never disputed anything that you have stated. Only thing is I don't consider rotating at Vr to takeoff attitude as a raw data or any skill. It's very basic and surely these pilots were not doing their first takeoff. They missed setting up the MCP, they didn't include it in the briefing, they didnt check the FMA(unless not required in B777), all this is done on every takeoff day in and day out. I am trying to figure out what distracted them from doing so this one time. This cannot be called a complex automation induced error since automation behaved as programmed but pilot induced error. Offcourse none of us know the details. So we will have to wait.

Don’t we do radial scan when keeping the cross on the box ?
simple to say from the ground though.

Y’all need to do more hand flying. the utter reliance on the A/P outside the US just baffles me. And this is the result

I routinely hand fly my 737 up to FL180, and click everything off (including FD, AP and AT) coming down through 10,000, at least a few times a month. Keeps me sharp. Should be standard SOPs worldwide, would reduce a lot of these events

It’s very easy to spin the altitude selector instead of the heading selector on a Boeing - an error I’ve made myself. Is it possible one of the pilots spun the wrong selector as they were lining up?

Initial climb altitude in Dubai is 4,000 ft, so if a pilot wants to set the altitude window to zero in just 4 clicks, the altitude selector must be positioned to 1,000 foot increments, otherwise it takes time to make such selection.

Surely any half decent professional pilot should be able to look through the FD if the commands are rubbish. This is basic stuff.