Coffin corner would like to disagree with you ;) (The actual coffin corner - not the one Maverick talks about where you're high enough to enter radar coverage and get shot at by SAMs...i digress).

I agree though - too much following the magenta and not thinking. Using full automatics is fine, but you should always be thinking ' is this pitch and power setting what i'd expect for the current situation?'. If not? yep, disconnect and sort it.

At Aberdeen, Europes busiest Heliport, the airspace between 500ft and 4000ft can at times be peppered with numerous helicopters just East and North of the airfield. So yes, I agree not a rush as in procedure wise but for the ATC and Pilot to go where directed that very much needs done fairly promptly to thread the needle to less busy airspace, but I can't imagine that would overwhelm regulars to the airfield.

Pressing TOGA in the 73 disconnects the AP, and in this case gave full TOGA thrust on the AT. TUI 73s have TOGA to LNAV automatically but I think ATC gave an early turn instead of the standard missed approach.

TOGA disconnects the autopilot, really?

Everyday of the week. Makes me feel more of a pilot too... :sad:

Yes 3Greens, AP disconnects with TOGA. Hence the numerous creative ways 737 drivers have found to fly a button generated go around.

Yep, that's what the 737 does.
Just when you need automatics the most, the A/P drops out as you go around

But your stated solution, (below), also involves pushing (disconnect) buttons and showing how clever you are, doesn't it? :)

Sounds a bit unnecessarily panicky to me - especially if you are just discontinuing an approach. And what about over-flying traffic above you?

If the Daily Mail think 1,500 fpm is "plummeting", then lucky they aren't pilots - they would find it quite difficult to descend !

AAIB report gives max rod as 3100 fpm. Lowest point was around 1500 feet.

Plummet or not it's not a good place to be when cleared level is 3000 feet.

Ok well some interesting comments here.

C52 please remain on this frequency 👍.

Respectfully if you’ve never flown a non FBW Boeing it’s difficult to know how much of a handful an untrimmed jet can be with the pitch power couple.
one major operator that I know of always trained manual flight, manual thrust. The problem of course is that selection of TOGA reengages the A/T. There have been many retests/ repeats of the G/A on LPCs because of this.
Many comments from non pilots on pprune forums have been excellent.

Noel I agree with all you said except to my definite knowledge at least 3 operators train G/As from above DA and from above GA altitude and have done for years.

Flying Clog, tongue in cheek/ a wind up/ trolling? Must be because it would otherwise be the worst advice Ive heard on pprune EVER 😂
AF447?

I note the AAIBs comments re recency and somotogravic illusion hmmmmn I’d be more interested in the crews sleep pattern in the previous 48hours.
I’d be even more interested in why 738 crews aren’t trained to disconnect the A/T during the G/A ( maybe they are).

BUT

The elephant in the cockpit is the fact that on a 21st century jet a normal function of the APFDS that has killed people before ( Air Dubai ? ) has not been designed out.

That is AP disconnect upon selection of TOGA.

This crew did not scrape the paint they did not hurt anyone, they got away with it. It wasn’t pretty but they sorted it out. There have been many incidents like this over the years some fatal some like this close calls and it will happen again.

I agree, we should go back to the era of real pilots with real pilot skills and writing off tens of airliners a year.

Isn't the elephant in the room piloting competency? The old tradional piloting, not the new button pushing piloting? The last line of defence, manual manipulation of the flight controls :uhoh:

Not pointing fingers at this crew, but all contributors who claim it's the 737s fault. The one thing I don't like is the difference between a G/A with AT engaged (throttles advance) and G/A with AT disengaged (you have to manually advance them). Easy to forget, hence the importance of keeping hands on the throttles for a while after pushing. The reduced GA thrust makes even the 737 a baby to go-around with.

One does not exclude the other. Modern planes with competent crew. The latter seem to sadly be lacking. There does not seem to be much confidence in oneself nor will to improve left.

Of course PCs come into it but if there is a known latent system failure it should be designed out.

Just saying lack of PCs caused this incident isn’t going to stop it from happening again.

If the AP didn’t disconnect upon selection of TOGA then this incident would not have happened and the next incident of this kind that surely will happen, won’t.

This would not have happened to a 747,757,767,777 or 787 but they all too have their idiosyncrasies.

Modern planes with competent crew.


Modern planes with competent crew who aren’t distracted by aggressive management and are not fatigued.

There I fixed that for you 👍😎😂

Oh dear! All I meant to point out was the benefit of practising high level go-arounds. Sim instructors please take note! In my particular case we (I) didn't do a brilliant job managing to climb rather than do nothing / descend. However I was flying manually which made it easier & quicker - and smoother - to recover than would have been the case if the pitch/power couple effect of TOGA, with the a/p in, which may have resulted in even more of a mess whilst I (or PM) pushed buttons, etc. I don't think this had ever happened to me before (in many years of flying) and had I practised it in the sim I might have made a better job of it.
Even though I'm no longer current it would seem that occasional hand flying (within strict parameters) would be a good thing but I gather many airlines now prohibit it: seems to say something about their confidence in their crews (or perhaps an individual's own confidence.........). Whilst I'm at it: Accountants & CPs - please make more sim time available to line crews - it'll pay off in the end!

Bunch of whiners...l

Dual A/P GA, both A/P and A/T remain engaged. Thrust commanded to reduced thrust ~88N1 if single press, full G/A thrust with second push. LNAV will engage for the MAP if armed. Catch: Dual A/P only available for ILS.

Single A/P, A/P disengages "without ambiguity." There's noise. A/T reacts the same as above. F/D will initially command a pitch up, searching for 1000 fpm climb until magenta command speed, present flap maneuvering speed for MGTOQ, then it will hold that speed in the climb. With flap configuration towards UP, the command bug will increase with it. This is the "auto bug" feature. With ALT CAP, this feature stops.

With fully manual flight, it's up to you. F/D will initially pitch up, but will be searching for command speed and eventually pitch down to recapture that speed. If you are rather high or early on the approach, TOGA will work, but the only way out of a coupled ILS is to.... what? Test question here. How do you get out of APP mode? With LNAV, you won't have this problem.

You don' have to jam "radar power" every time you go around, nor do you have to pitch for the sky. Learn to fly without the A/P A/T, and understand what the F/D is giving you.

Part of the problem as the report makes clear is in a mode not indicated in the FCOM, selection of TOGA at high RAs led to N1 mode rather than reduced go around thrust, so the crew got max rated thrust pile on, then rapidly come off as ALT ACQ engaged. Some major trim changes there.

Another example of Boeing dumbing down the FCOM - similar to the DXB 777 accident where the TOGA switch behaviour was similarly not well explained with critical detail removed over the years.

I hear you, I haven't read the report. Sounds like an ill timed push of TOGA but a resiliant crew must be able to get themselves out of such a situation too. I doubt a missing FCOM paragraph was the difference between good and bad outcome. Same as in Dubai, it was seat-of-the-pants flying, basic piloting, that was missing. Not intimate knowledge of the TOGA buttons.

One option: TOGA, but if on single A/P, the A/P drops out. Adds to workload.
Another option: Recycle the Flight Directors then select Level Change and any required lateral mode. Aeroplane goes where you want it to.
Yet another option: 'Detune' the ILS (one 'click' onto another frequency) then select Level Change. (A 'problem' with this one is to remember to retune the ILS, but it is do-able.)

But take a moment to think about it, say why you are doing it, then do so.