It's not clear from the recent posts whether a link to that atc audio/video is welcome or disallowed on this site. If allowed, here's one in Sweden that's likely to remain available due to their attitudes about freedom of information: http://88.80.16.63/leak/ba-038-air-t...ntrol-tape.wmv. If not, mods will surely deal with it. My apologies for not understanding, in that case.

In general wikileaks dot org is a good place to find such links.

More or less aside, I'm quite surprised that it's being so aggressively suppressed by the authorities, and also that at least a few voices here have expressed support for that position.

The nearest thing to personal sensitivities would be the captain's oopsie in giving the evac order, and besides forgiving him for being a mite excited moments after having crashed a 777 and survived, we know from him specifically that he supported the release.

I won't endorse hijacking of other threads by plonkers by indulging in off-track discussion! Some people definitely have ADD (attention deficit disorder)!

Rainboe,

But you miss my point. You seemed against CVRs being made public and indeed confirmed it in your first word of this reply. I don't see the difference between CVR recordings and ATC recordings in a crash. Whilst CVRs may capture the last desperate seconds of a fatal crash, this ATC tape records the emotional (albeit professional) response of people to witnessing a large commercial aircraft - which they are in a sense responsible for - crashing in front of them. By all means suggest that CVR recordings be private, but the same must apply to ATC recordings.

One big problem with realsing ATC and CVR tapes (after the ethical ones) is the issue of context. I'm sure you'd be the first person to attack the press for an ill-informed, ignorant and out-of-context analysis of the recordings. In fact you could imagine some tabloids spinning this recording to show a captain who not only got the callsign wrong, but was so incompetent that he transmitted the evacuation order over VHF.

You miss my point, plus there's no need for such an agressive tone. I never said that flight deck cameras are required as a result of this crash, I was using your quote to suggest that you think recording the flight deck is an invasion of privacy, which you've confirmed. I was highlighting your hypocrisy between ATC recordings and flight deck recordings.

If flight deck cameras being used for internal crash investigation purposes are an invasion of privacy, then surely ATC tapes released to the public is a worse invasion of privacy? I don't follow your logic - ATC have as much right to privacy as flight crew.

What hypocrisy are you talking about? You've steered this discussion off line. Flight deck CVR tapes are released to the public, why not ATC tapes? That same public has funded ATC and paid the NATs staff- I'm afraid the public 'has a right' to hear the results of its investment! If you are going to advcate cameras on the flight deck, then let's do the job properly and have cameras on ATC controllers so we can ensure that no Uberlingens happen again with controllers left alone manning the shop. Good idea, eh?

As far as I am concerned, my CVR recordings, which were meant to be totally private and only made use of if no pilots survived to tell the tale, can be subpoenad and published for the public's predilection. It stops there. I will not have a camera recording 'my office', including recording what could be the final moments of the pilots, for the greater entertainment of the guffawing public, because we all know such recordings will not remain private (as we were assured in the industry the CVR recordings would be- what became of that then?).

I seriously resent your remark about 'incompetence'. You are indeed a fool. For a crew flying perfectly normally then crash a few seconds later under very stressful circumstances- you don't understand what you are talking about and I suggest you shut it! You are obviously a desk bound engineer of some sort and have no operational literacy to make such a sweeping (and cruel) idiotic statement. Not even ATC. What do you know that you can step in here with such blundering comments?

What? I can't think of a CVR recording from a UK crash that's been released. I can't think of a Western one released or leaked since the 80s. Do you support the CVR recording of BAW038 being released to the public?

The AAIB/CAA principle certainly is that CVR recordings won't be released, it might even be law. You can't have on the one hand your complaints about the public listening and watching in on what you're doing, and on the other hand your seeming delight at being able to hear what ATC are doing during a crash.

I said:

I was clearly talking about tabloid spin!

Let me rephrase, the tabloids could quite easily suggest that the flight crew of BAW038 made mistakes, based upon a layperson's interpretation of the ATC tape. If such a suggestion were made in the press I predict that you would be one of the first to (rightly) condemn them. This alone is a strong argument to keep private ATC tapes.

This is the danger of releasing tapes to the public without context, be they CVR tapes or ATC tapes. I see no distinction between them, for the reasons I've outlined above; neither should be released.

Rainboe, you've twice mis-read my post and responded agressively where no agression was called for. I suggest you take time to read posts properly before posting in anger.

Violator, I don't like conducting technical or industry discussions with someone who could well be a pizza delivery person Walter Mitty character pretending to be someone in the industry. We get a lot of those here. Many people have tried to get this section closed to 'unknowns', and I have to say I support it, but it has been judged to be impractical. Your profile is peculiarly empty, you discussion history limited. If you are such and expert you are qualified to take a leading position here and come out with some of the adamant and critical statements you have, opening up a bit on your expertise is definitely in order. Otherwise, I really don't like professional criticism coming from an anonymous 'nobody' and your remarks are ignored. What a dreadful thing you said.

CVR Privacy.
 

I've had to sit and listen to a CVR with the gentlemen from the AAIB following the worst day of my flying career. In the UK the CVR remains the property of the crew (under copyright laws believe it or not) We heard the whole tape, including the scurrilous conversations we had been having about management during the cruise. The AAIB asked P2 and myself if they could use certain parts of the transcript alongside DFDR data in the final report and we had to sign that we were happy for that. If either of us had a doubt then the CVR material would not be used.

If that CVR tape had become public would it have done anything other than provide tabloid titilation, and cause utter fury in the people we had been discussing as well as damaging the image of the company. No-one other than another pilot, or aviation specialist would have understood what was going on during the last few minutes of flight.

I bless the fact that CVR data in this country is private. The AAIB tend to use it, mostly to back up the pilots' initial statements, and to pick up what the pilots may have missed in their shocked state. We were treated with kindness and humour by the AAIB and our fears about anything private getting out were instantly allayed. IF CVRs were in the public domain I would have great concerns about how the data would be treated by the media.

Rainboe,

What are you on about? Instead of answering any of my points you launch into another bizarre agressive rant. I never said any dreadful things, have you still not understood my point?

I work for an OEM, I'm not going to make my personal details public.

I'd suggest the same is also valid for ATC tapes.

Off Topic:
This is what I truly despise about PPRuNe. In practically every single 'rumour & news' thread, some moron always posts something utterly unrelated to the main topic which results in other morons discussing it and thus, irrelevant discussions are created. Why are people discussing the legal issues with CVR tapes? Is this thread about that? No. So shut the hell up and go discuss this somewhere else. This thread is about the BA777 crash in January 2008 (yes, nothing gets past me), so only post relevant messages about the topic in hand. Yapping on about something so unimportant and unnecessary to the main topic is just ruining the discussion.

On Topic:
I have listened to the ATC tape and it appears that two mistakes were made by captain Burkill (which he has admitted and explained in his blog). Speedbird 95 was his callsign for his next flight (instead of his current flight's callsign, Speedbird 38) and his evacuation announcement to ATC (instead of transmitting it over the cabin PA system). Though both mistakes didn't really make any difference to the outcome of this accident, these were the only mistakes by the crew that we know of so far but we should remember the enormous stresses that they were put under and how little time they had to react to the dreadful situation that they ended up in.

Splendid job to the captain (for retracting the flaps), the first officer (for preventing a stall), the cabin crew (for a speedy evacuation), the air traffic controller AND the emergency services.

I think the aftermath could have been handled so much better though by BA. Why were the crew placed into the media spotlight shortly after the accident? I think the decision to do this had a slightly negative effect on the crew and BA overall. Look at how US Airways managed captain Sullenberger and the crew of flight 1549 after the accident last January. That's possibly why captain Sullenberger is highly regarded as a key speaker for the aviation industry now by his fellow workers.

EDIT: Haha, oh yes! Thanks Cav (I always get the number of years between Speedbird and Cactus mixed up).

Totally agree with you Joshilini, but something has got past you and that is the date. 2008 not 2007!


The Cav ;)

Joshilini - "Splendid job to the captain (for retracting the flaps), the first officer (for preventing a stall),"

I thought the general rule is to let the investigators decide the facts before annointing villians or heroes?

Similarly, I cannot judge Colgan BUF, nor BA038. "Retract Flaps" G/B?
Causing, preventing Stall? Raising Stall Speed @ Stall Speed?

bear

Until what speed was the AP trying to follow the GP (leading 300m beyond threshold)?

Yes just look how the media "reinterpreted" the climate data/emails when that was "released".

S.F.L.Y. - the a/c was at Vref 135 kts, on a/p, on g/s, when the engines reduced to a power setting less than demanded but slightly above idle.

Obviously the a/c slowed. At approx. 115 kts the flaps were retracted from 30 to 25.

At approx. 105 kts, with no more airspeed to sacrifice to stay on g/s, the a/c started to sink below g/s and the a/p disconnected. Speed stabilized at approx. 100-105 kts.

The FDR readout is on page 6 of this report -

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...m%20Report.pdf

@ misd-agin...

Read the preliminary report. It states that the commander adjusted the flap setting.

So what? In the same time the aircraft was still under AP aiming at a point far beyond the threshold until it stalled. I never thought that the flap handle could be more important than holding the control column and checking the airspeed when the AP is pulling-up with no thrust.

S.F.L.Y - you must have missed the information from both the Preliminary Report and flying basics that reducing the flaps was aimed at reducing the drag when the power become lost.
You have correctly noticed that the speed control was critical and reducing flaps was aimed at maintaining the speed and the lift required to keep a/c in the air. This helped to keep the a/c aloft just for a few second longer but those additional seconds had tremendous influence on the final vertical speed.
The plane was flying and not falling down practically until the end. Final descent rate was about 1400fpm but if the plane kept flying just 3 sec longer it could have been at least 2x bigger with fatal consequences. See the diagram on page 6. Check basic physics.

Thanks for the information on flight physics. Since you're in the knowledge of how iron birds flies you should know that when you increase the attitude close to the stall speed the drag also increases very quickly (just look at a polar curve). So why reducing drag with flaps when the AP increases it?

You mentioned that the flaps were retracted to reduce the drag because speed control was critical. If this speed control was so critical why letting the AP spoiling it by increasing pitch (and drag) aiming at a point far beyond the threshold? If one thing was out of control during this landing it's obviously speed.

The shortest way is the straight line, flying above it at pre-stall speed is certainly a waste of energy which can't be balanced by flaps inputs.

With S.F.L.Y. here. No one can say if Captain Burkill made the wrong move. Raising flaps while short at low speed and high AoA is not something I would do. Dumping drag is also dumping lift, and the first thing that big bird is going to do with a cleaner wing is sink. If the nose is not lowered, and the Stall Speed is elevated by cleaning the wing, well, never Stall. Ever. Turkish Stalled and the nose occupants croaked. Then again, it may have been brilliant, I wasn't there.

bear

Joshilini - the report says the Captain retracted the flaps in an attempt to reduce drag.

The stall speed reduction from flaps 30 to flaps 25 is 2 kts. That requires a higher AOA to achieve the same amount of lift. I have no idea, and I doubt very many, if any, non Boeing test pilots know if reducing the flaps from 30 to 25 is a net reduction in total drag. I don't know the answer. I'll await the results of the investigation. However, based on the resulting AOA increase I tend to doubt that total drag was reduced.

If you have time you can test this in the sim. Set up a steady flight condition, fly Vref -20, and retract the flaps from 30 to 25. Fuel flow goes up, you're fighting more drag. Fuel flow goes down, total drag is less. I'd recommend turning level flight to increase the power, thereby making it easier to see any differences in power required.

misd-agin, your statement is very correct provided the aircraft flies the same speed. In this case the AOA didn't only increase to compensate the flap reduction, but also (and mainly) because the speed dropped seriously low. Flying just before the stall speed would involve a high fuel flow increase, meaning significant increase in drag. Letting the speed drop so low while aiming too far for touch down is definitely ending in shortening the path with high Vz impact as there's no other way to get back some of the wasted energy to maintain some lift on the wings.

S.F.L.Y - I've been told L/D is slightly faster than Vref. Slowing below L/D decreases your glide distance. Doing it too early, with not enough altitude to push over and regain L/D, is only going to increase your sink rate and resulting impact.

Just appears to me, crew had little time, they made some decisions, aircraft touched down with suitable pitch/roll and speeds and resulted in a great outcome on that day.

Touch down shorter could have been more of a problem with a drain of some sort I think they mentioned.

Touch down later and ramping up on runway from mud may have been more of a problem.

Hindsight is great after the events.

I still have my hat off to all the crew, well done.

Joetom - I agree, they had very little time and hindsight is 20/20. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't investigate, and understand, what was helpful and successful and what wasn't. That is the nature of our business.

@S.F.L.Y:

lets get the picture right:
we are flying B777 standard approach, at 500ft the speed is 135kias as needed, AP is engaged, gear down, flaps 30. Speed is getting too low so we increase the power, wait 4 sec for reaction, there is none so reduce throttles and reapply full throttles again, wait 4 sec for reaction. The a/c is now about half way down at 240ft, speed is 115kias. Pitch grew to +8deg. All this took 26 sec.

Due to lower speed the time we will stay in the air would be much shorter than this 26 sec (actually it was 17 sec). There are some buildings before we are over the threshold.

Just see how the flaps 30 are viewed from a side! Gear down+flaps form a huge airbrake which takes some 30..50% engines power to keep the speed stable!.
The drag/lift difference between flaps 30 and flaps 25 is like between landing and take-off because flaps 25 may be used for take-off.

afaik AP was doing what it was supposed to do - keeping the a/c flyin to the destination. The speed was too low, no reaction to AT so the attitude had to go up. With no engines reaction to manual full throttle PF had to react whatever way was available at such limited time/circumstances.

so there we are: at 240ft, flaps 30, 115kias with two choices: (1) fly at the a/c as is or (2) do something to reduce drag

if you know the drag difference between flaps 30+wing at appropriate attitude and flaps20+ appropriate attitude - than there is no brainer ;)

@ misd-agin + bearfoil

absolutely correct at speeds comfortably above Vs.
but when we are just a few knots above Vs, with the a/c slowing down - anything that keep the plain flying at above Vs has absolute priority.

Hi evryone

I haven't followed the thread for a very long time and it's grown to big to read it all.
Someone mentioned to me the Captain and the F/O had been given the sack by BA.
I have somehow a hard time believing it. Could anyone in the know confirm the fate of these 3 pilots ?
Thanks

See the captain's own post no. 2657 on page 133.

From his own website, found using the hint in post 2657: it appears that he left British Airways (implying by his own wish) to pursue a speaking role talking of his experience.


Chris N.

Wrong, the AP was trying to land the aircraft hundreds of meters away from the threshold as this is where the ILS leads. Trying to maintain this path at the expense of speed wasted energy and lead to high Vz.

We know the aircraft had enough total energy to reach its actual touchdown point and we know a lot of kinetic energy has been wasted by the AP... instead of being used to reduce the impact Vz.

Why do we need to have two pilots in the cockpit if none is able to monitor and control the airspeed through primary flight controls (which doesn't include flaps)?

What kind of low speed protection can be designed to maintain an ILS without thrust?
Rocket boosters maybe?

On the B777, as long as the autothrottle is armed (but not necessarily being used), it should automatically activate stall protection if an ILS is being flown using the autopilot or flightdirector in G/S (glideslope) mode, but only up until 100 ft radio altitude on the approach. Thrust should be increased to maintain minimum manoevring speed (approximately the top of the amber band) or the speed set in the mode control panel speed window, whichever is greater. The EICAS message AIRSPEED LOW will be displayed if this occurs.

Obviously, in the BA038 case there was no thrust available to increase the speed.

Question for the Experts
 

Isn't there a fuel cutoff switch in the B777 cockpit? Is it clear beyond any doubt that the crew didn't hit the switch by mistake? Would such an event be something that the "black box" would definitely have recorded? With all the exotic explanations being offered, isn't it just possible that the investigators have overlooked the obvious? Just asking....

I expect that, with no thrust available, the stick shakers would operate and the pilot would have to (be expected to?) override or disconnect the autopilot to avoid stalling. Initially at least, if left to it's own devices, I think the autoplilot would still attempt to follow the glidepath. Would it attempt to follow the glidepath until it fell out of the sky? I can't find a definite answer at the moment, sorry.

The crew did not have a switch-pigs whilst airborne - the recorded data would show that. Have you not read any of the AAIB reports? :ugh:

The report talks about "uncommanded" spars activation. I was referring to a "commanded" but accidental activation of spars. But looking at the report again, they say that the spars remained opened at all times. So that's pretty definitive. However, the report does not actually state that a commanded spars activation could not go unrecorded -- it says that an uncommanded one could not go unrecorded -- but I guess they felt it was obvious that either would be recorded. Thanks for the reply.

@S.F.L.Y:
oups - i had an impression that the ILS was much more advanced and would actually lead the plane to land EXACTLY at the beginning of the runway - but who knows - maybe i was wrong ;)
or maybe you have missed something ? Maybe it is just the localizer (direction guidance) that is located at the other end of the runway?

you seem to be pretty confident about this total energy but actually lets think: a/c was landing following the ILS slope, the speed and height were just right. Under normal conditions before final touchdown the engines would be giving some 50% thrust fo another 35..40 secs and this would make the a/c land exactly at the threshold as defined by ILS g/s.
So if the engines stopped some 40 secs too early this creates significant energy deficit. Exact amount of the missing energy can be calculated if needed. Just let me know if this qualitative description is not enough.
This is a little like driving your car into the garage: one do not seem to need much power to do so. But try to push your car into the garage without engine running...

could you pls remind us who did pushed the thrust levers to full? Didn't the pilots try to control the airspeed with the engines first, and only when has proved unsuccessful they have turned to the whatever else existing means were available to them: reduced flaps to reduce drag and lowered the nose to stay above Vs

Suitcaseman,

In reply to your earlier question. If available thrust reduces, the 777 autopilot will fly the ILS glideslope until the speed reduces to just above the stall. It will then ignore the glideslope, lower the nose and descend just above stall speed. If the 038 had hit the ground in this configuration everyone would not have walked away. That statement is based on having seen it a few times in the simulator. Full up elevator, (unheard of in a 777 landing) had been applied at the appropriate time just before impact to cushion it so that many of the occupants thought on touchdown that it was just a hard landing.

The speed protection logic is the same as if you have an engine failure at high altitude in the B777 but maintain alt hold. The speed comes back to just above the stall and then the aircraft descends at that speed and ignores the engine out target speed.

MaynardGKeynes wrote:
"Isn't there a fuel cutoff switch in the B777 cockpit?
Is it clear beyond any doubt that the crew didn't hit the switch by mistake?
Would such an event be something that the "black box" would definitely have recorded?
With all the exotic explanations being offered, isn't it just possible that the investigators have overlooked the obvious? Just asking...."


I'm not sure if this was a question to bait me into answering...but it worked!

Simply;
Yes, there are two fuel cutoff switches in the F/D.
Yes, it is clear the crew didn't 'hit' the switch by mistake... (I did check at the time!)
Yes, it would have done.
NO, the investigators (AAIB, NTSB, Boeing, BA or the Fire Dept's pictures) couldn't have overlooked it!

Thanks for asking though.

I was about to reply to 'Suitcaseman' about his question relating to 'stall protection' on an approach; but I see that it has been answered now.

thanks a lot

Retracting the flaps from 30 to 20, descending until approx 200' then flying level in ground effect and extending the flaps as the speed decays worked in the simulator enabling touchdown on the threshold of the runway.

What all that ignores is that in the simulator the event was expected, reaction to the power loss was immediate and the plan had already been formulated. The BA38 crew did not have that luxury and so really the exercise was a little academic.

It is by no means meant to imply that the crew should have done better.