Company Lip service to Go-around flying skills
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Once again blind accent on automation instead of flying a simple procedure
Thomson Airways has modified its Boeing 757 pilot-training programme to include a refresher on all-engine go-around following a missed approach incident at Bristol.
The aircraft (G-OOBE) entered an increasingly steep climb - pitching almost 31° nose-up at one point - during a go-around in gusting winds, during which its airspeed bled away from around 160kt to a minimum of 110kt.
UK investigators state that the 757's flight directors had commanded a high nose-up attitude as a result of the speed at which the go-around was initiated.
The aircraft entered a high rate of climb, says the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, with an "ever increasing" nose-up attitude owing to the combination of wind speeds, turbulence and full go-around thrust. This pitch attitude exceeded that indicated by the flight director.
As the 757 closed on the missed approach altitude of 3,000ft its automatic flight-control system reduced thrust as it tried to level the aircraft.
Investigators found that, although the captain had noticed the declining airspeed and encouraged the first officer to lower the nose, this was ineffective because the captain was unaware that the first officer had engaged the autopilot.
Despite the airspeed bleed and high attitude, the aircraft's stick-shaker did not activate.
Investigators determined that the crew had been "startled" and suffered degraded situational awareness during the high workload of the go-around. The probe into the incident, on 1 February 2016, adds that the winds had been "challenging" and that the first officer, at the time, had been undertaking his first line-training flight after a near half-year absence on medical grounds.
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Chasing FD needle indications in what should have been a basic go-around procedure. And why the blazing hurry to plug in the autopilot in the middle of a go-around?
The aircraft (G-OOBE) entered an increasingly steep climb - pitching almost 31° nose-up at one point - during a go-around in gusting winds, during which its airspeed bled away from around 160kt to a minimum of 110kt.
UK investigators state that the 757's flight directors had commanded a high nose-up attitude as a result of the speed at which the go-around was initiated.
The aircraft entered a high rate of climb, says the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, with an "ever increasing" nose-up attitude owing to the combination of wind speeds, turbulence and full go-around thrust. This pitch attitude exceeded that indicated by the flight director.
As the 757 closed on the missed approach altitude of 3,000ft its automatic flight-control system reduced thrust as it tried to level the aircraft.
Investigators found that, although the captain had noticed the declining airspeed and encouraged the first officer to lower the nose, this was ineffective because the captain was unaware that the first officer had engaged the autopilot.
Despite the airspeed bleed and high attitude, the aircraft's stick-shaker did not activate.
Investigators determined that the crew had been "startled" and suffered degraded situational awareness during the high workload of the go-around. The probe into the incident, on 1 February 2016, adds that the winds had been "challenging" and that the first officer, at the time, had been undertaking his first line-training flight after a near half-year absence on medical grounds.
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Chasing FD needle indications in what should have been a basic go-around procedure. And why the blazing hurry to plug in the autopilot in the middle of a go-around?
Once again blind accent on automation instead of flying a simple procedure
Or perhaps the OP was just reflecting on the increasingly blind accent on automation nowadays ...
Like wot it said, in fact.
Like wot it said, in fact.
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I'm going to play devil's advocate here. This might not be about automation but about crew mental overload and loss of situational awareness due to an unexpected event ("startle").
I'm reminded of another 757 incident a few years back, in Olso, where the crew also completely botched what should've been a routine G/A procedure after an unstable approach.
The Captain (PF), flying manually with ATHR engaged, started to apply huge control column inputs. The 757 pitched to 21 degrees nose up, before the Captain reversed input and plunged the aircraft to an extreme -49 degrees nose down steep dive at low altitude.
With the GWPS blaring both pilots yanked their control columns back and they somehow recovered at just 321 ft radio altitude, 251 kts, after a sustained 3.59G pull. The 757 zoomed back up at 40 degrees nose up until they finally leveled off at 4,000 ft.
This routine G/A was botched in manual flight, and in fact in this case automation could have helped reduce the workload in a period of mental overload. In the Thomson Airways case it's also possible that the FO turned on the A/P in the middle of the go around because he was similarly overloaded and wanted help from the A/P.
So I think it's too easy to blame "automation". The problem to solve may be a bit more fundamental than that.
I'm reminded of another 757 incident a few years back, in Olso, where the crew also completely botched what should've been a routine G/A procedure after an unstable approach.
The Captain (PF), flying manually with ATHR engaged, started to apply huge control column inputs. The 757 pitched to 21 degrees nose up, before the Captain reversed input and plunged the aircraft to an extreme -49 degrees nose down steep dive at low altitude.
With the GWPS blaring both pilots yanked their control columns back and they somehow recovered at just 321 ft radio altitude, 251 kts, after a sustained 3.59G pull. The 757 zoomed back up at 40 degrees nose up until they finally leveled off at 4,000 ft.
This routine G/A was botched in manual flight, and in fact in this case automation could have helped reduce the workload in a period of mental overload. In the Thomson Airways case it's also possible that the FO turned on the A/P in the middle of the go around because he was similarly overloaded and wanted help from the A/P.
So I think it's too easy to blame "automation". The problem to solve may be a bit more fundamental than that.
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I agree with peekay4 on this one. Blaming automation has almost become the pilots' scape goat. We push crew to use a balance of manual skills and automation, but when anything goes wrong we immediately say they should have used the other method.
I think this gets to the heart of it:
Perhaps rather than the automation being at fault, it was the decision to allow the FO to attempt a landing in such conditions after so much time away that should be questioned. Not saying he couldn't handle it, but you don't throw "new guys" to the wolves on their first flight or, in this case, first flight back. Line Indoc is meant to train for the line, not to scare the hell out of you.
I think this gets to the heart of it:
The probe into the incident, on 1 February 2016, adds that the winds had been "challenging" and that the first officer, at the time, had been undertaking his first line-training flight after a near half-year absence on medical grounds.
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Company Lip service to Go-around flying skills
Second thread first post
https://assets.publishing.service.go...OOBE_11-16.pdf
This incident report on a botched go-around in a Boeing 757 reveals somewhat feverish activity in the cockpit for a seemingly straight forward visual go-around. The haste at which the PF tried to engage the automatic pilot a few seconds after initiating the go-around, suggests either he lacked faith in his own ability to fly a manual go-around; or the company policy was to engage the automatics as quickly as possible after a go-around and he merely followed a company recommended procedure. That procedure is flawed if this incident is any example.
Either way, we are seeing yet another situation where the accent on rapid engagement of the autopilot and associated automatics such as the flight director, over-rides common sense and good airmanship. If this is what is taught in the simulator during type rating and recurrent training, then is it any wonder incidents such this will continue to happen.
Time and again, automation dependency has proved a threat to the safe operation of a jet transport aircraft. A manually flown raw data go-around, whether visual or IMC, should offer no problem to a well trained competent pilot. The trouble is there are not many of these people around, anymore. That being so, it could be argued the blame lies squarely with training departments who consistently disregard the evidence that degradation of manual flying skills needs to be addressed by more than just lip service and a quickie manually flown visual ILS.
https://assets.publishing.service.go...OOBE_11-16.pdf
This incident report on a botched go-around in a Boeing 757 reveals somewhat feverish activity in the cockpit for a seemingly straight forward visual go-around. The haste at which the PF tried to engage the automatic pilot a few seconds after initiating the go-around, suggests either he lacked faith in his own ability to fly a manual go-around; or the company policy was to engage the automatics as quickly as possible after a go-around and he merely followed a company recommended procedure. That procedure is flawed if this incident is any example.
Either way, we are seeing yet another situation where the accent on rapid engagement of the autopilot and associated automatics such as the flight director, over-rides common sense and good airmanship. If this is what is taught in the simulator during type rating and recurrent training, then is it any wonder incidents such this will continue to happen.
Time and again, automation dependency has proved a threat to the safe operation of a jet transport aircraft. A manually flown raw data go-around, whether visual or IMC, should offer no problem to a well trained competent pilot. The trouble is there are not many of these people around, anymore. That being so, it could be argued the blame lies squarely with training departments who consistently disregard the evidence that degradation of manual flying skills needs to be addressed by more than just lip service and a quickie manually flown visual ILS.
Last edited by A37575; 18th Nov 2016 at 06:35.
The haste at which the PF tried to engage the automatic pilot a few seconds after initiating the go-around, suggests either he lacked faith in his own ability to fly a manual go-around; or the company policy was to engage the automatics as quickly as possible after a go-around and he merely followed a company recommended procedure. That procedure is flawed if this incident is any example.
"The PF then engaged the autopilot, with the aircraft climbing and in trim, using the company mnemonic 'TAGL'"
(TAGL = Trim, Autopilot, Go-Around, and Lateral Mode)
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There is also some confusion whether the F/O was PF on both sectors or not. Las Palmas is generally a more benign airport then Bristol in the winter; confirmed by the weather. If the F/O was on a series of refresher line training there is no problem maximising PF duties, If his only sector at the end of a long day was into BRS, that could be challenging.
There was no comment about why the a/c ended up requiring a G/A, other than it drifted off and became high.
However, to understand better root causes, it would require answers to A37575's questions about company philosophy and use of automatics; otherwise we can surmise, going round in circles, from an incorrect starting point. This topic, about automatic dependency, has been debated from all points of the compass and from every angle on many occasions here.
There was no comment about why the a/c ended up requiring a G/A, other than it drifted off and became high.
However, to understand better root causes, it would require answers to A37575's questions about company philosophy and use of automatics; otherwise we can surmise, going round in circles, from an incorrect starting point. This topic, about automatic dependency, has been debated from all points of the compass and from every angle on many occasions here.
Whoever designed that thing needs their head read. How on earth can an aeroplane, with AP engaged, be doing 6000fpm when trying to level off at 3000ft during a GA?? And what was the ATS doing?? 110kts?? I'll bet that wasn't the selected speed or Vapp.
No wonder the crew "lost the plot".
Dark and bouncy. Dodgy for an FO who hadn't flown for 5 months?
Unless I'm missing something...
No wonder the crew "lost the plot".
Dark and bouncy. Dodgy for an FO who hadn't flown for 5 months?
Unless I'm missing something...
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Brits and surrounding Islands loves "mnemonics", whether it's for doing a briefing or just flying the aircraft.
Maybe it's time to revert to skills and common sense? This reduce-the-pilot-to-ape-like approach doesn't seem to work all that well.
Maybe it's time to revert to skills and common sense? This reduce-the-pilot-to-ape-like approach doesn't seem to work all that well.
Altitude capture modes can be very poorly programmed at high rates of climb, and often there is no way out of them apart from manual intervention.
The programming of ALT* was the root cause of the A330 flight test accident.
The programming of ALT* was the root cause of the A330 flight test accident.
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ALT CAP submode can be a dangerous animal.
With a high rate of climb going into ALT CAP the AFDS then follows a parabolic curve to capture the desired altitude and MAY disregard the speed set on the MCP.
If memory serves correctly on the 757 the first press of TOGA commands 2000fpm climb and with another it gives full TOGA thrust, hence the possibility of 6000fpm
With a high rate of climb going into ALT CAP the AFDS then follows a parabolic curve to capture the desired altitude and MAY disregard the speed set on the MCP.
If memory serves correctly on the 757 the first press of TOGA commands 2000fpm climb and with another it gives full TOGA thrust, hence the possibility of 6000fpm
Whoever designed that thing needs their head read. How on earth can an aeroplane, with AP engaged, be doing 6000fpm when trying to level off at 3000ft during a GA??
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At least in airbus that is not the procedure for putting AP on. First select FDs (if Off), get them in correct flight mode (OP CL/DES/ALT)and centre them manually before putting the AP. AP should not be asked to make corrections to flight path.
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Vilas I think in the boeings the AP wouldn't engage unless the aircraft is trimmed.
But in a go around (320), considering a raw data approach, FDs and ATHR would engage automatically, leaving only the action of autopilot engagement if required
But in a go around (320), considering a raw data approach, FDs and ATHR would engage automatically, leaving only the action of autopilot engagement if required
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The procedure I stated is applicable in general. In a GA although the FDs would appear automatically still you need to centre it manually before engaging the AP.ATHR will be armed (blue).
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Two threads merged by OP request. A bit too messy to attempt to tidy up the post sequences .. hopefully it will not be too difficult to follow the discussion prior to this post. Post relating to the start of the second thread is noted.
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Unaware? Ineffective?
Investigators found that, although the captain had noticed the declining airspeed and encouraged the first officer to lower the nose, this was ineffective because the captain was unaware that the first officer had engaged the autopilot.
I understand how the automation failed to do its job properly, but fail to see why the crew were unable to take control of the aircraft using basic flying skills and if need be, a little muscle.