Ryanairs High Speed approaches
 

From Todays Irish Independent..the full report can be read HERE

Sobering reading.

TSK

In the late 60s I believe that airlines would only accept single men for pilot training. Maybe that was just SOME airlines?
I guess that nowadays (!) marriage isn't the commitment that it used to be, but it is still possible to be physiologically and psychologically fatigued by the failure of an emotional relationship, be it a marriage or not. Or maybe the Ryanair pilot was worrying about the cost of the settlement?

Sobering reading indeed.

Looking at the FDR trace, at about 2000ft he had 12 decgrees pitch down and a peak vertical speed in excess of 5000fpm.

For a guy under so much " stress", to pull a smooth landing out of that AND stop without use of reversers is an incredible ( if foolhardy) piece of flying. Wonder how hot the tyres were.

Obviously the stress wore off on the turnaround.

I don't want to detract from the aviation side of this report but we have had exactly the same experience at our company with married personnel coming from our Australian office to the UK with their families, then things breaking up badly and the family returning to Australia, to be followed by the husband.

It seems that the higher European salaries and job opportunities that initially seem attractive are more than outweighed by expensive housing of significantly poorer standard than professionals would have in Australia, and other lifestyle issues as well. Schools, weather, overbearing traffic, crime, everything gets blamed.

A disgraceful display of unprofessional, dangerous airmanship.

He sideslipped the aircraft, exceeded Vfe by more than 20 knots, landed with only FL10 (instead of the usual Fl30 or FL40), ignored the F/O's callouts, set up a dangerous sink rate close to the ground, made no report ot the ground engineers of having exceeded max flap speed - the list just goes on and on.

There is no place in aviation for an individual displaying this sort of irresponsible, dangerous behaviour.
His licence needs pulling right NOW - permanently! :mad:

I haven't read the report yet (download problems) ... and I might sound a bit harsh ...but was this single crew ?? If not, did the second crew member just sit there and do his crossword ??

:uhoh:

No but his numerous call-outs/expressions of concern were ignored.

Add appalling CRM to the list of misdemeanours. I agree his licence should be taken away for ever.

Hi'er and Doors,

I couldn't agree more...but the unprofessionalism didn't stop there.

No reporting of the overspeed. No taking himself sick due to stress after such a dangerous display. First Officer who got back in the aircraft with him. No report after an uneventful flight back home. What happened to the concept of a Safety Culture? Or maybe that is an alien concept to this carrier.

As a pax, I am interested in the dilemma facing the FO in a strict command hierarchy.

Presumably the FO was young as well as inexperienced.

How big an ask is it to expect the FO to refuse to fly with the captain on the return leg?

The consequences would have been (a) severe financial impact on the airline, (b) official investigation, (c) possible dismissal of the captain or FO .... and ending of career etc.

In no way am I condoning what happened (which appears to be a disgraceful incident), but working in the human factors area (in another sector), I sometimes wonder how realistic are our expectations of young and inexperienced co-workers asserting themselves over older and more experienced colleagues.

After all, the FO has been trained in a system that acknowledges the capts superior skills (e.g. capt only landings) and if the FO makes his calls and the capt says "its okay, I can do this", then there must be a considerable dilemma and mental turmoil (a) the SOPs say this is wrong, but (b) my captain is experienced and he says he has it under control.... and he achieves a "safe" landing. How safe would a young and inexperienced (and highly replaceable) FO feel putting his neck on the line by walking away?

Add in a business model that mandates very fast turnarounds and tight schedules and that must increase the pressure to conform.

And to make it very clear to any Ryanair lawyers reading this post, I am not suggesting that the business model is inherently unsafe or that is encourages dangerous behaviour, I am just looking at the potential dilemmas facing a young person in a very difficult situation.

So, if nobody filed a report, how did it all come out then?

Although not condoning his actions in any way, I do respect the Captain for his honesty in the investigation. That HAS to be commended.

As in all FR -800s there's equipment recording many flight parameters, anything that's out off the ordinary is flagged. There's a chap in STN looking at this. So the captain couldn't hide from the evidence.

Speedy approaches!? Read the report, it wasn't the 'Low Drag' approach technique that caused this incident. Low drag works everyday, 24/7/365.

MK

As for the F/O, it was covered here in some detail that a Ryanair F/O had previously refused to fly after a very emotional and stressful altercation with a captain (in which, being familiar with the story, I consider the Captain was completely in the wrong).

The outcome? F/O was sacked the next day for refusing to fly, subsequent unlawful dissmissal claim settled on the courtroom steps.

Would LHR or any other FR appologists care to speculate what would have happened to this FO if he had refused to get back onto the (Now technically U/S!!) aircraft??

F3G,

Agree with you that this is a real area of concern. When things like this happen (sadly, they always will), one of the responsibilities of the other crew member is to act positively and assertively. We all realise that the inexperienced FO would need to feel very confident if he/she is to, albeit constructively, criticise an experienced captain. But the FO would also need to feel just as confident that the company would back him/her.

I've been in a similar situation and it is horrible right up to the moment that you actually open your mouth and say something and then there is (there was in my case) an amazing outbreak of reason on the flightdeck.

I'm sure this company realises that these capable but inexperienced FOs are the last line of defence against the kind of "physiologically and psychologically" impaired judgement displayed by this captain. It needs to take a very hard look at why this FO didn't speak up during or after the flight.


the Wings

Quote:
There is no place in aviation for an individual displaying this sort of irresponsible, dangerous behaviour.
His licence needs pulling right NOW - permanently!


Never made a mistake, HI´er ?



If Wizofoz´s statement is true, NOBODY should wonder about this story.

A climate of fear, created by management lunatics especially, never does any good...

How many limits and violations have to be exceeded before an FO says "Taking over"?

Is there anything in FR's Ops Manual to prevent the FO making a tech log entry regarding the flap speed exceedence if the Capt wasn't prepared to do it ?

It would have meant he wasn't refusing to fly (at least until the flaps were inspected)............or would FR sack him anyway for not preventing the Capt from doing it ????

I was given a similar scenario on a CRM/MCC course at CTC Dibden in 2000.

Ours was thus: Landing at Bristol in a 737 with flaps limited due to hydralic fault. Captain pilot flying, runway too short with malfunction increment but Captain determined to land anyway with no discussion of alternatives. What to do?

After much deliberation we resolved to make strenuous representations to the Captain to divert but if he would not agree then to back him up on the controls on the landing roll.

This course of action was endorsed by our instructors.

Forgive me, but the question has to be asked - why did the Capt leave the aircraft in ALT HOLD - surely if he had descended at T/D the whole incident could have been prevented? Having said that I don't know what FR use as descent speed (ECON/something else, whether they leave the FL100 transition in etc) which might have subsequently caused a few problems for him?

It looks like the days of the Romanians landing on the grass are coming back or are the back already?

Long days, 3000 hr captains and low houred F/Os combined with destinations with minimal equipment and come one wet and windy winter day, they could make the papers.

Aviation is a reactive business, action is only taken when blood is spilt. 101 check lists and onboard flight data monitoring, I'm not fully convinced that's protection enough from an accident.

Over to LHC......

MK

saskatoon999 you lose yer bet - taxi speeds ARE incorporated into FR's OFDM!