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.

Technically, this is exactly how it works not in the PRC. Everything is a joint, comittee decision. To illustrate, for a business contract it is the stamp that matters, not the signature. ​TREs are not allowed to fail a candidate without approval. Etc.

Not ruling out a revenge motiff, just pointing out the local custom.

Thats not how people I know working there in non airline jobs see it working. The have committees for everything. They are rubber stamps for the real person in charge.

Don't know. Just assume/reflect that demoting a poster-instructor would need to include a CCP panel, worker's union council plus the flight ops management team of the local base and the HQ as well as agreement of their POI. After all, this is a government-run airline. Some of the stability and persistence comes from the stakeholders opposing each other. What's agreed becomes cast in stone.

Of course, if the suicide turns out to be true then logic would not have played a major role.

Kindly consider the edge of my previous post unnecessary as well as unintentional.

This story states that both recorders were sent to the NTSB.

Seattle Times

Recorders condition
 

Chinese official sources during the SAR operation clearly stated a number of times that the recorders would be send to Beijing for download and analysis.

As I posted earlier there was note of more serious damage to the CVR can than at first impression and needed manufacturer involvement (Honeywell). So the same might be true for the FDR now. The FDR can having been recovered days later after being exposed to rainy conditions.Both cans showed similar scratching damage and a little bending at one flat end, but no exposure to fire it seems.

If the recorders were not compromised during an earlier attempt (there always is a risk), then this may point to a longer time before analysis may be started.

This might be just the typical technical assistance to just download the recorders. It doesn't change the Chinese civil aviation authority leading the investigation.

They probably 'only' need to transfer the memory modules to a another circuit board.

Correct. Investigation protocol means that the NTSB will not make any announcements re findings.

Posts
 

@less hair - of course, it does not change the lead,

As dave says - all according to the well known procedures,… indeed,

@procede - I think the damage is more than that, … putting chips on another board is something you expect the Chinese are well capable of (can always send the required board) … after proper drying and such… but hope we will find out more later,

I think this is a case of "you do not want to mess it up, so you really want to leave it with those who have most experience with repairing it". And (de)soldering chips is something you have be really careful with as you do not want to overheat them.

Can be that even some memory IC are damaged. The Chinese have surely some capability in this case but I would send it to the manufacturer because they know best what to do to get to the data. You can easily destroy existing data with wrong methods. At least it shows, that the CAAC takes this serious to get to the truth.

While I have to be careful because I'm only getting info directly from current CE employees, at least internally the reason being given for the 3rd crew and the captain flying as a F/O is all about Covid. Effectively I've been told by former students of mine (Cadets for 3 Chinese airlines) that most domestic flights are being crewed by 3 pilots with all 3 pilots logging time due to the current downturn with covid and company minimum hour requirements.

Again without naming the company or person at least 1 of my contacts (A recently type rated 320 F/O) is that for the last 3 months every flight has had 2 Captains flying and him logging F/O time from the jumpseat.

Eh, need to check with them if there used to be 3 pilots on most domestic flights also before COVID (yes). Logging the jumpseat is normal because it is an official duty, although keeping captains current for take-offs and landings first does make sense.

Not blaming the messenger, the concept of 'least painful logically acceptable explanation' is well established and sadly aims to disconnect from analytical truth / causality.

Yes 3, even 4 crew in a cockpit is relatively normal. 2 Captains almost always operating a flight while actual F/Os as rostered as jump seaters is not normal. Again whether it's the reason, in this case, is completely unknown and the other explanation if the source is correct is definitely plausible, in fact, it would take a lot less than a terrain warning GPWS callout (upsetting a F/O whom has contacts in management could get you demoted). But at the same time, I've personally witnessed a F/O pass a type rating despite descending below MDA and having to be reminded on the MDA. (Someone didn't know I understood basic mandarin i think)

Also to whomever I read above saying their sims are hard I can agree, I was part of a management group that visited one of our contract airlines pre covid - our Head of Ops was a prior 737 Captain and commented on the standard expected of cadets, especially on your more specific emergencies like runaway trim and hydraulic failure - also some near impossible combinations of failures eg. V1 engine failure and runaway trim passing 2500 feet with flaps jammed

South China Morning Post:
The head of China’s Civil Aviation Administration has vowed to deeply reflect on all aspects of the deadly crash of flight MU5735 and step up safety checks with “extreme” vigilance across the industry.
Speaking in a teleconference on Wednesday, Feng Zhenglin, director of the Civil Aviation Administration, directed officials to increase their knowledge of aviation safety regulations and to carry out more thorough inspections to detect hidden risks.

Interesting comments - is he alluding to a possible maintenance-related oversight or technical issue being a possible cause?
I note an earlier post in the thread saying that the aircraft was on the ground for 2 days prior to the day of the accident. Was it in maintenance?

You mean that FR24 did not register a flight on the 17th and the 19th in the period 14-21st. So the 2 days were not consecutive.
Also (for completeness) note that FR does not appear to show maintenance flights. They regularly do show manufacturing (production test) flights.

I doubt it. These motherhood-type statements are fairly typical of the CAAC. They implemented a two-week nationwide inspection of all parts of China's aviation industry immediately after the accident, in response to Xi Jinping's directive to "strengthen the safety overhaul of the civil aviation sector to ensure the absolute safety of the sector and people's lives".

Global Times:
Chinese airlines take concrete measures to strengthen flight safety after crash

What does seem to be the case is that, of all airlines, Chinese or not, only China Eastern has grounded its 737-800 fleet. Other Chinese airlines are still operating them "as normal" and, afaik, the Chinese CAA (nor anyone else) has issued no general instructions or bulletins regarding the 737-800.

It might be as complex as rewiring the integrated circuit pins to the silicon pads due to the large g-forces. If the silicon itself is fractured - then almost no chance of recovery.

Squares, by cracked silicone do you mean the case or the die itself ?
If the case is cracked you can " decap " the dies from the case an transplant it
if it's cracked thru the die, then yes, game over.