From the Southwest 1380 report where the engine failed climbing through FL320In the following video a 777 Captain describes an engine failure in a 777, aircraft rolled to 45° and roll control was so difficult he very briefly considered taking the aircraft through the remaining 315° in a barrel roll, beginning at 5:45,


As SLF when it comes to jets the lesson I take away is that an engine failure may not be that benign.

The SW B737 engines would have been in climb thrust, not cruise thrust. Thrust produced by the engines for the climb is greater than that required in cruise so loss of a higher level of thrust would certainly be noticeable to the crew and the airplane would respond more firmly to the assymetric thrust.

The report paragraph you quote states that the First Officer had the aircraft under control, returning the bank angle from 41° to 5° within 6 seconds. That was the point in my post - engine failure will cause yaw but in all ordinary, (uncomplicated) circumstances, is controllable whether on takeoff, climb, cruise, descent and approach. The event is practised in the simulator every six months or so.

The other event occurred on a B777 and with loss of thrust from the right engine, the aircraft responded to the yawing moment, (nose turning to the right in this case) and began to roll. The bank angle reached 45°. Control of the aircraft was handed to the captain, (normal decision depending upon circumstances in the moment), and the bank angle was reduced. The Incident Report does mention the challenge of control but the aircraft remained wings level.

There is no observable reason to compare either of the above events with the China Eastern accident. But, while rare, matters can get very complicated very, very quickly.

When the flight data becomes available, we will know better. Aviation has a way of making any one of us eat our own words, once in a while. I have dined at its table a number of times... :rolleyes:

The Chinese system is very different than the West. The high hour FO was likely a check airman in the right seat and doing either line training or an annual line check. The young observer FO is just in the jump seat to gain experience. A very common practice in Chinese airlines.

Typically you fly with 3 pilots so the young FOs can gain experience during their ab- initio training style program. They have 500 hours just of observation flights before they are fully checked and have about 1000 hours actual right seat time before they are signed off to operate as a solo FO.

Many times I flew as an Expat Captain on a 4 day trip and the two FOs would trade off each day of the 4 day rotation. You may think 31,000 hours is high and it it certainly is but most Chinese pilots are flying about 900 hours per year except the past 2 years of Covid, that is the norm. Pay is also based on flight time so they also want to fly that for max pay. The more senior pilots do get the more efficient trips also so less work days to get that 900.

The junior pilots fly 14 hour duty days and 4 sectors but only get 4 hours of actual flight time and pay credit. It was said the right seat may have been downgraded and that is also very possible if he had a serious under their standards mistake like a terrain warning GPWS callout. It’s a massive punishment culture and everyone gets punished for one guys mistake. They strangle many chickens to scare the monkey in China.

I flew 8 years in China and can say it was both the best of times and hardest of times. Unless you’ve experienced extreme scrutiny and evaluation of your every input you won’t know what I’m talking about but some of the flying was actually very enjoyable and some great Copilots I flew with, much better pilots than myself down to 500 feet, you just had to pay attention or they could get you into trouble easily with a hard landing 1.7 G or above.

The simulator training is by far the most intense you’ll ever get in the industry and runaway trim, rudder hardcover and jammed elevators and stabilizers are routinely practiced in the sim but no actual emergencies can be practiced in the aircraft.

The Southwest aircraft yawed and rolled because the engine suffered a uncontained catastrophic failure causing extensive cowling damage that dramatically increased airframe drag. Even given it was at a high thrust level and the aerodynamic drag it was easily controllable. That’s a very different scenario than what we know about China Eastern.

G'day PJ, The Captain described the roll upon failure as a "snap roll" and thought that they had had a midair, both pilots grabbed the controls to roll her back, did someone say startle effect? Unfortunately accident reports are rather dry accounts and don't relate what it was like to be there, does the sim replicate anything that could be called a snap roll upon failure? The engine vibration was such that it caused the intake cowling to separate causing massive drag, hence the aircraft reaction.

CVR now with NTSB in Washington
 

According to Reuters, NTSB has the CVR in Washington for downloading

Here:
https://www.reuters.com/business/aer...be-2022-04-01/

Wasn’t the FZ incident in Rostov an -800 nosedive with runaway trim wheel as a potential causative factor

megan, That video in your post 313 illustrates exactly what I have been writing on another thread about simulators being unable to reproduce the 'startle effect' and acceleration forces of the real world incident/accident. UPRT has its uses but, with the best will in the world, it cannot compare with reality.

Nope, it was deliberate trim due to spatial disorientation.

megan, Bergerie1 has kindly responded and I would agree with the assessment regarding simulators. The sim can produce very sharp "responses", including vibration, rapid changes in yaw, pitch etc., engine or tail scrapes and hard landings. On "dry" accident reports, it is impossible to write in a report on behalf of someone else who may or may not be alive, "what it was like". There is a long history of striving for factual reporting which has led to remarkable advances in data-capture & gathering. This one goal enables investigators to get as close to what happened and why so changes, improvements and validations of design, standard operating procedures, regulations etc., can reasonably be made. The science of human-factors acknowledges startle as a factor in behaviour but in the abstract. It's all quite dry for a good reason.

Sailvi767, re your comment: "The Southwest aircraft yawed and rolled because the engine suffered a uncontained catastrophic failure causing extensive cowling damage that dramatically increased airframe drag. Even given it was at a high thrust level and the aerodynamic drag it was easily controllable. That’s a very different scenario than what we know about China Eastern.".

Yes, agree. I believe that's essentially what I said in the post you have quoted:

@jlsmith - Chinese state media reported earlier that the CVR memory was so damaged that it had to be sent back to the manufacturer. Would make sense to do that via the NTSB.

So, back to the crewing. Was the 30k+ hr RHS FO a China Eastern captain that had lost his command due to previous flying related incidents?

If so, it potentially makes for an interesting dynamic on the flightdeck!

That particular incident (wrong QNH for NPA) is not confirmed to had been him, yet the demotion was a storyline from the beginning.

To my understanding CAAC News won't mistake RHS LTI for an F/O.

Although 60 may be and probably is the PIC age limit.

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Reminds me of egypt air 990

Really would be great if you read the Thread before spouting in.

We've established the Training Captain (he wasn't the FO) with the long hours was Jump Seating.

Have we established if that high time pilot (Zhang Zhengping) was demoted for a ground proximity incident and a failed SIM evaluation?

It becomes even more interesting if he was flying with the son of the man who made the decision to demote him.

The you of 'we' is wrong.
CM1 Young talent captain
CM2 Retiree F/O, overqualified (unclear reasons)
CM3 Cadet
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That is still single source, despite being a coherent story. The blog post was pushing a pre-planned murder+suicide narrative to score a political point.

Also the rumors of in excess of a dozen CEAir crewmembers positioning only flashed once, immediately in the afternoon.