FOQA erroneous detections
Got an email two years ago for failing to stow thrust reversers for 50 seconds after application at an African destination.
Screen shot of my roster pointed out l was in SFO at the time.
Apology came back. Thing was, it was me, wrong date
Screen shot of my roster pointed out l was in SFO at the time.
Apology came back. Thing was, it was me, wrong date
Makes me glad I'm not an airline pilot!
If we are flying the company's aircraft the way we have been trained and asked to do, we need not worry. If something happened that took us outside normal company limits, and we recovered the situation - perhaps by going around and making another approach - then we should not be concerned, particularly if we tell the management about it before they see it in the data.
My boss once phoned me some days after I had gone around and asked me what happened. His tone suggested he was expecting a long convoluted excuse, so when I said, "Oh that's easy to answer; I cocked it up" (I was too fast on approach at the stability check gate). There was a pause and then the mood lightened considerably. He started laughing and said, "Oh, OK, well try not to do it again, bye !".
If pilots are flying outside the limits, then it is only common sense that reasons must be found. There might be training issues that the company has not spotted, and if a trend is noticed they can train against it. If pilots are flying like cowboys, then they need to be reined in.
The key is, most bosses find it uncomfortable to give you a bollocking, and having to do so puts them in a bad mood to start with. So if you cock something up, then 'fess up to the boss and/or write an ASR before they get the call from FDM department and have to pick up the phone to you
Erroneous data needs investigating too, but again, we should not be overly worried about this.
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Bum numbers are regular visitors in FOQA data centres. I'm not sure how they sneak in but their certainly do. So when exceedences are flagged they have to viewed in context. Overspeeds for example. If aircraft cannot accelerate and decelerate in fractions of a second. Unless of course there was significant windsheer. The windsheer can be detected from ADC data. Without windsheer, the airspeed exceedence can be ignited. So what I'm saying is that the value of a single parameter is not significant for a short period of time and any exceedence has to be viewed in context.
In your case, a ROD in excess of 1,500 FPM so close to the ground would be a memorable event. So if that didn't happen, the questions have to be:
1. What was the airspeed before, during and after the event?
2. What was the thrust setting before, during and after the event?
3. Where you fully configured?
4. What data was used to calculate ROD? Baro or calculated radio closure rate? The latter can be affected by too many other factors.
5. Why didn't the EGPWS chime in?
6. What sort of approach? If it was an ILS, then providing the glideslope was maintained and the airspeed remained constant then the ROD would have to have been constant.
Take a calculator, pen and paper to the repay. You may well have to do some maths.
Best of luck.
In your case, a ROD in excess of 1,500 FPM so close to the ground would be a memorable event. So if that didn't happen, the questions have to be:
1. What was the airspeed before, during and after the event?
2. What was the thrust setting before, during and after the event?
3. Where you fully configured?
4. What data was used to calculate ROD? Baro or calculated radio closure rate? The latter can be affected by too many other factors.
5. Why didn't the EGPWS chime in?
6. What sort of approach? If it was an ILS, then providing the glideslope was maintained and the airspeed remained constant then the ROD would have to have been constant.
Take a calculator, pen and paper to the repay. You may well have to do some maths.
Best of luck.
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Regarding my above post, I'm assuming the data is for the correct date, flight number aircraft registration, location and you actually operated the flight in question.
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My boss once phoned me some days after I had gone around and asked me what happened. His tone suggested he was expecting a long convoluted excuse, so when I said, "Oh that's easy to answer; I cocked it up" (I was too fast on approach at the stability check gate). There was a pause and then the mood lightened considerably. He started laughing and said, "Oh, OK, well try not to do it again, bye !".
If pilots are flying outside the limits, then it is only common sense that reasons must be found. There might be training issues that the company has not spotted, and if a trend is noticed they can train against it. If pilots are flying like cowboys, then they need to be reined in.
If pilots are flying outside the limits, then it is only common sense that reasons must be found. There might be training issues that the company has not spotted, and if a trend is noticed they can train against it. If pilots are flying like cowboys, then they need to be reined in.
I've been around long enough to remember the 'cowboys', legends in their own mind who wouldn't use checklists and flew Space Shuttle unspooled approaches in a 727.
250 to the marker and configure on the way down. Or, the 'tower watch this' zoom climb takeoff with pax onboard. 
FOQA and some of those other acronyms have cleaned up the business and made things safer, but perhaps more paranoid, for us all.
A few years ago we were sometimes flight planned at near our maximum Mach number to keep the crew duty day within limits. In smooth air no problem, Mr. Boeing builds a stable airplane. However, a few bumps (e.g. over Japan) or a temperature change and you could easily overspeed slightly and get the EICAS and aural warnings. Open the speed window, dial back a few knots, problem solved.
At some point the feds decided that even a momentary overspeed warning was an 'exceedance' and needed to be logged and investigated as an incident. There was some verbiage in a systems manual that said the warning came on several knots before VMO/MMO but the inflight activation of a warning system required a maintenance writeup, a signoff and an operations report. Obviously I didn't want to spend my layovers trying to type an explanation into a computer form so I backed off the speed a bit to avoid the warning.
Did this make the operation safer? I'm not sure but I have found myself worrying about what went on the FOQA record and doing a go around because I was stable at 800 feet but not at 1000. Or delaying a takeoff because I didn't have data for the intersection in use even though the numbers for an upwind intersection with less runway looked good. Years ago folks would laugh at those decisions but now things are much more CYA in my observation. And, maybe I have more of a conscience knowing that any decision I make is recorded and subject to review, sometimes weeks later.
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FOQA erroneous detection part II
First of all l would like to thank each one of your messages, very good points. So l asked to review the data and to me it looks like a clear updraft, no egpws activation, no airspeed change, no glide slope deviation, no change in thrust and fully configured for landing well before the event was registered. My main point to my chief was that in order to have a rate of descent of 1500 feet per minute and no glide slope deviation, our ground speed should have been 300 knots. He was not interested to the facts, l guess he was sticking to his alternative fact, one only, rate of descent 1500 fpm. My first officer, local guy, thought he could persuade them, not interested either. I personally thing FOQA has improved safety overall, but unfortunately the use of it sometimes has created an histeric paranoia between pilots which often becomes the problem and not the solution. Thanks again to all of you.
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I pity you!
Thanks for the update. It looks like you are working for a bunch of ignorant half-wits who cannot and must not be trusted. I also fully agree with you that idiots like your chief will create a vast chasm between the office and line pilots. Incidents like this will prevent them from ever improving their workforce's abilities because they have broken the trust that has to exist between the two sides for this to occur. A few more smoking holes I'm afraid.
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For what it's worth, I once had a printout on landing stating that we had just made a severe hard landing. We looked at each other in amusement because as far as greasers go, we just made one of the better ones! Called up maintenance control who just shrugged it away stating 'it happens sometimes, probably a glitch in the system just as you touched down'. They would of course follow it up with other flight data, which I am sure showed that we made a very safe and ordinary landing, because I never heard anything of it again.
So yes, it does happen that the systems flag an event which you know never happened. Hopefully other objective data will back you up if you work for an outfit who will not give you the benefit of doubt.
So yes, it does happen that the systems flag an event which you know never happened. Hopefully other objective data will back you up if you work for an outfit who will not give you the benefit of doubt.
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This was probably KAL. A friend got hauled up because he took over from the local F/O who flared high, touched down at 2300 ft down a 13123 ft long runway at Vref-12 kts. Why, because he did not land before the 2000ft mark and he touched down below Vref-10! There was some windshift down at the touchdown zone...they didn't want to know or even care. Why dob him for landing at 2300 ft when it was within the 3000ft zone? Their answer, there was a " worrying uptrend of people landing beyond 2000 ft of late "!
After much arguments and several trips to the " OC ", he was off the hook. But they flagged him, got the checkers ( LCPs ) to breathe down on him on his line checks and even badmouthed him to the Boeing Sim guys!
Still wanna work for those nit-wits??? Life style commuting contracts? Give me a break. When things go bad, they can really go very bad over there.
After much arguments and several trips to the " OC ", he was off the hook. But they flagged him, got the checkers ( LCPs ) to breathe down on him on his line checks and even badmouthed him to the Boeing Sim guys!
Still wanna work for those nit-wits??? Life style commuting contracts? Give me a break. When things go bad, they can really go very bad over there.
The People's Republic of China was one of the first countries to have FDAP/FOQA. However, the way they use it is very different to those with more enlightened flight safety. In some PRC companies, pilots earn 'demerit points' from the flight data. Often the first they know there's a transgression is that they see their pay being docked! It's policing by data and although it does make the guys follow the rules, the issue is that they guys know the data parameters and will fly to them. They also know what they can get away with as it's not a parameter.
The net effect is a poor safety culture with no-one willing to report voluntarily and which means those errors not captured by the data (such as taking off with incorrect performance calculations) will never be known about. Until perhaps there is an accident - and even then the evidence may not be proved.
It's a poor way of using flight data and very ineffective. It's common in Asia and it's clearly the policy at saraceno's employer.
The net effect is a poor safety culture with no-one willing to report voluntarily and which means those errors not captured by the data (such as taking off with incorrect performance calculations) will never be known about. Until perhaps there is an accident - and even then the evidence may not be proved.
It's a poor way of using flight data and very ineffective. It's common in Asia and it's clearly the policy at saraceno's employer.
