Am wondering whether the LHS malfunctioning RadAlt might have more to do with this accident than it might seem... reading low, or even completly failed.

====

ATC vectoring at AMS. I asked this question a while back with no takers.. why is AMS different or noteworthy in this respect? Anything to do with noise abatement, approach path sensitivities or just simply exceptionally heavy traffic flows.

From 2000' with idle power and trying to regain profile, is the mode change to "Retard" signalled by anything other than a caption on the PFD? If not, could this be overlooked because of expecting normal A/T response and high work load trying to stabilise the approach and talking the F/O through the BEFORE LANDING checklist at a very late stage?

who's the RETARD here?
 

Shocking but results as I expected...It has been a while for me since I flew this bird, but if I'm correct you can derive from this info that they were not flying the approach in the APP mode. They never captured the GS at the FAF since it was descending throught the GS. In what A/T mode were they flying then? What about the A/T underspeed protection? GS capture (from above) automatically diverts the A/T in MCP SPD mode (with underspeed protection..)

As I recall the only reason that you can't move the Levers manually forward (without being retarded by the A/T back the same time) is because some MCP parameters haven't been met yet. Well for shore it wasn't the speed (40 below Vref)

We are missing some critical info in this first report... :ugh:

So finally we have the preliminary report.

Well, that's exactly what I said days before. It's completly consistant with all other data we had at our proposal and is very well depicted by the artistic animation done by Airrebel. So anyone still wants to add something to my theory? Moderator, still want to delete my postings although I always said it went this way? It really doesn't need a lot of rocket science to figure that outcome out of the scenery.


Dani

My personal views of AMS:

It's a challenging airport;

-It has 6 runways
-Changes to runways happen quite frequently
-They use speed control, and often high speed during vectors
-Only place I have been vectored down to 1200 ft and 320 kts
-The airport is big, and you need to be prepared for your routing after landing

Having said that;

-It's up to me to accept the vectors, speeds and runway changes.
-They always ask if you can accept a different runway if you are close in
-I have never had any problems flying into AMS
-Controllers are professional and good

I enjoy flying into AMS (all but landing 5 miles from the terminal)

Which also begs the question - what was the guy on the 3rd seat looking at ? The newspaper ? The view out the window ? Worrying stuff methinks.

If the APPROACH mode is was not armed, that explains why the jet descended below the glide slope. It does not however explain why the third set of eyes let it happen.

The all modes of the AFCS did exactly what they were commanded to do. It appears however the crew did not.:= All three of them were out to lunch.:eek:

Criminal... just plain criminal!:mad:

<non pilot here, but aerospace student in human factors>
If the aircraft indeed went into retard mode, while being way above 28 ft RA, I'm very concerned. While it is strange that the pilots did not notice the speed decay for such a long time (possibly relying on automation to maintain it), it should technically not have gone into retard mode at that altitude. If two radalts are available and they disagree violently, this information is not suitable for deciding to switch to retard mode.
It could show something that many believe: Automation cannot anticipate for all cases, and should keep the human in the loop for exceptions like these and alert the human of conditions that are obviously violating the flight regime envelope/constraints.
Anyway, there's surely much more to this incident, I will follow it carefully.

PieterPan- Only one RA signals the throttles to close in Retard. I'm not sure which. However, failure modes of indicators are designed not to fail at critical readings. RA is a digital system with self confidence tests.

My own feeling about AMS is nothing untoward. It is a very busy place, along with most big terminals. My experience has been nothing unusual. They vectored the flight around. I get to lots of places that can give tight turn ons. It is up to the pilot to configure and use his experience to either make it work or reject it.

Who's the RETARD!
 

Don't confuse the RETARD mode. If you descent in LVL CHG the A/T engages in RETARD first, followed by ARM.

Don't confuse this with the RETARD annunciation in combination with an CAT3/ Autoland.

Keep in mind we are now discussing something from a guys blog. It's not (yet) an official preliminary report.

There is no need in any more data. It is just a crew completely lost in doing nonessentials.

Just have the hands on the trottles and FLY!!!!

Yes, there are contributing factors, but EVERYBODY knows, it needs SPEED to fly. Look at the instruments! THREE Pilots, one overloaded, beeing a Rookie, one having to run a one man show, and the safety guy sleeping...

It was just an ILS coming in hot and high. If you do not know to play the MCP, fly it manually!

CRAZY, CRAZY:{

maybe..
 

CP rad alt painted over, yet "working" showing -7ft
+
APP mode + A/P + A/T
=
aircraft thinks it's autolanding and "flares" -> RETARD

(yes, i know it supposedly needs 2 channels, but on my first TR session the TRI showed us that, at least in the sim, IT CAN DO single ch autoland, he said "just in case u EVER need it)

Rainboe!
 

I see that you are a current B-737 pilot. (I have not flown this type, but many other types)

My question is: As "retard mode" is an autoland mode below 28 ft RH. is it possible that this mode can be activated at any other altitude on an aircraft with ALL (incl. the radio altimeters) systems fully operative?

brgds

flight path question
 

Using the OpenATC KMZ file on Google Earth and plotting the fix points from the 18R approach plate it appears that AMS ATC turned him SW 3 miles prior to IF/EH645....(cutting the corner) and per OpenATC logs he was at 1600ft while the plate calls for a descent 3000 to 2000. At FAF/EH645 he was just a half mile east of track...still 1600 feet...while the plate shows 2000 at that point. The first question is the validity, or not, of the OpenAtc data. IF (big if) the data is good then for those drivers who use the airport frequently is it a common practice of AMS ATC to cut corners? Absent a definitive maintenance or weather issue it would be a 3 way 'discussion' at this time...with Boeing, Turkish interests, and Dutch interests the three legs. I would suspect the upcoming Dutch press conference will be using carefully chosen wording and images as this is still preliminary...anyone know if it will be available live via the net?

And for the moderators....:D:D:D:D:D:D

The signal to close thrust levers in an autoland purely comes off one of the RAs. But I think Dimiair post 1013 is correct. If it's not to do with an autoland Retard, then the false RA indication is a false lead, a red herring. Alternatively, is there a possibility that with the A/T engaged, the sudden low reading of the critical 'faulty' RA produced a Retard demand? It doesn't seem very convincing.

It sounds like the left radalt failed, and the pilots may not have noticed, or handled it correctly. Also sounds like Boeing will discuss radalt issues and their effect on the AT system.

To the 737Ng Guru's here..
Is it possible that being hot and hi they selected 0 or airport elevation on the mcp?
Hence leading to an idle descent in FLC, with no approach mode selected? The resulting higher alt could have kept the engines at idle.

Sorry, I fly a bus to my Boeing terms and logic is minimal at best.

Perhaps the RA's played a factor. But by the looks of it, this is not really an issue in vmc. After all, unlike the bus, the thrust levers move don't they?

Again, sorry for the speculation. Just looking for insight.

LIVE news conference
In dutch though

Flight path questions...
 

Hiflyer1757,

Have you corrected for QNH? AS far I can see, you have not.

The actual QNH was 1027, so you must add 378 ft. to all altitudes from Google.

This issue has been brought forward in many earlier posts!

brgds