Slashdot Mirror
Air Asia Pilot Response Leads To Plane Crashing (wsj.com)
hcs_$reboot writes: The investigation took a year, but we finally know why Air Asia Flight QZ8501, en route to Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya on December 28 last year, crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 162 people on board. The crash was caused by a combination of system malfunctions and improper pilot responses to cascading electrical and rudder-system problems. A cracked solder joint on the Airbus A320 resulted in an electrical interruption that caused computer-generated warnings of a rudder malfunction. The problem occurred four times during the flight. The first three times, the flight crew responded according to standard procedure, investigators said. The fourth time, however, the flight-data recorder indicated actions similar to those of circuit breakers being reset. That led the autopilot to disengage. Investigators said the crew was unable to react appropriately to "a prolonged stall condition," ending in the crash. The investigation points to weaknesses in pilot training in dealing with upsets, or when an aircraft is angled greater than 45 degrees.
Happy with your RoHS regulations now?
Have gnu, will travel.
However whilst the mistake the pilots made is serious it is just as serious in my view that the plane was permitted to fly in this condition in the first place. It seems the problem with this particular plane was well known and had been happening (at least) for a number of days since but had not been fixed.
as more and more planes fall out of the sky, and more and more trains run off the rails, they will continue to always scapegoat the pilot / train operator / whatever. how transparent can you get?
They had the problem 23 times in the last 12 months it says. For real? Maybe it might have been a good idea to fix it?
Turning off the autopilot doesn't crash the plane.
Sounds the pilot confused the daylights out of the poor guy trying to flyby saying "Pull Down". We still put real instruments in planes tho, don't we? Either pilot should be able to figure up and down....
None of which sheds any light on how the 'greater than 45 degrees angle' comes about!
I don't think I've ever been in a passenger jet where any angle ever reached 45 degrees (or more). It seems insensible to train for unlikely scenarios, and even less sensible to expect a pilot to respond properly to very unlikely scenarios quickly and accurately. I'm not sure I can google "proper procedure for A320 rudder malfunction" and get a response before I'd be dead....
I love how the headlines on CNN (and now WSJ) lead with "Pilot Error" but the BBC leads with
Faulty equipment was a "major factor" in the AirAsia plane crash last December that killed all 162 people on board, Indonesian officials say.
AirAsia crash: Faulty part 'major factor'
Yes the crew were not fully trained, but according to Airbus the plane couldn't get into the situation it was in, so why train pilots for that? Also the faulty part had been faulty for a significant amount of time. This flight was not the first flight that had issues with the particular equipment.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
And you'll have a good idea on the skill level of many international commercial jet pilots. Air France 447, Asiana 214, and now Air Asia QZ8501.
"You crash it wrong".
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The AirAsia pilots had not been trained for that scenario, [the investigator] added, because the manual provided by the plane's manufacturer said the aircraft, an Airbus 320, was designed to prevent it from becoming upset and therefore upset recovery training was unnecessary
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The pilot that was pulling back on the side stick all the way to the ground was a European. The Asian was trying to pitch down and recover but the opposing inputs from the pilots were averaged out by the flight computer.
OK I have a few issues with your post:
a) you're being extremely racist
b) the copilot was actually French, and not Asian.
c) it was the copilot that pulled back on the stick, while the stall warnings were on
d) they were both pretty experienced- thousands of hours flying
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"You realise almost the same poor pilot response happened on AF447 with three French pilots in the cockpit? Unfortunately poor training is becoming somewhat universal.
But one of them was proven to be under the influence of Republicanism.
Racist assholes, the only have a fraction of the brain and skills of experienced airline pilots. Also, they still feel that they need to post their stupid claims on message boards on the internet.
Sadly, there are a million things that can go wrong on any/every flight and it's impossible to train for all of them. Sooner or later a combination of events will occur that will be outside the envelope of the crew's training or their ability to respond effectively.
And, of course, sometimes it's just simple stupidity or poor training, or both.
I used to do a lot of flights to SE Asia, and if something happens way out over the water, you're just fucked, plain and simple.
I was always amazed at how reliable the engines were to be able to run for 12 hours straight in freezing cold temperatures without just blowing up or conking out for one reason or another.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
That doesn't mean he wasn't corrupted by those Asians that have respect for life.
They have respect for life.
In other words, this means that the "pilots" of the plane can't actually fly the plane, they just rely on computers to do everything. If those computers fail, well, they crash the plane.
Great... Air travel is very safe! Put your life in the hands of unskilled morons! Yay? Yeah, I will put my life in my own hands by driving myself.
plane data lie
reset power
plane data don't lie
splat
During the interview with the Indonesia AirAsia management, one of the discussion topics was related to upset recovery training. The approved Operation Training Manual covers the upset recovery training in Chapter 8. The module consisted of ground and simulator training. The ground training provides the flight crew with the background, definition, cause of aircraft upset, aerodynamic and aircraft systems in relation with aircraft upset. Recovery methods consider various aircraft attitude and speed including post upset conditions.
The upset recovery training had not been implemented on Airbus A320 training, since it is not required according to the Flight Crew Training Manual and has not been mandated by the DGCA.
worse.......
The Airbus A320 QRH chapter Computer Reset stated that: In flight, as a general rule, the crew must restrict computer resets to those listed in the table, or to those in applicable TDUs or OEBs. Before taking any action on other computers, the flight crew must consider and fully understand the consequences. The consequences of resetting FAC CBs in flight are not described in Airbus documents. It requires good understanding of the aircraft system to be aware of the consequences.
So we have a case of...
1. Alarm keeps going off
2. Reboot computer, hoping it will shutoff pesky alarm, but instead we don't understand consequences and knock out autopilot.
3. Without autopilot plane rolls and stalls, both human pilots do opposite things and make condition uncoverable.
Training issue....
Planes break, computers fail, and humans spill coffee. Pilots need the training to respond with automaticity when bad things happen We see this time and time again.
"events will occur that will be outside the envelope of the crew's training or their ability to respond effectively"
True but sadly this was not one of those situations. I have not read the complete report yet, but the summary provided in TFA clearly shows a complete breakdown of CRM discipline, no positive control of the airplane and a complete and total loss of situational awareness.
Those people worship George Bush, so they are subhuman.
After repeated problem history, auto-pilot flakey and shut off.
Plane is in a stall, descending rapidly.
Pilot commands second to "pull, pull, pull"
This enhances the stall resulting in a crash.
How can this happen?
Pilot had 20K hours including military jet experience.
Co-pilot had 2k hours. A relative newbee, but still qualified in theory.
Flakeys are hard to find, be they in the autopilot or the pilot.
Flakey plus stress is not a good combination.
Apparently, it is possible to be an experienced airline pilot without bothering to learn the most basic stress and stick and rudder skills.
But they did do an outstanding report of the accident.
> Sooner or later a combination of events will occur that will be outside the envelope of the crew's training or their ability to respond effectively.
Sure, but what kind of fucktard pulls back on the stick to a stall warning???
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"..No blaming of encryption or Snowden? I thought for sure they would utilize this crisis somehow.
Sadly, there are a million things that can go wrong on any/every flight
The root cause on this flight was cracked solder, likely do to European mandates for RoHS. Good old PbSn solder should be used on any mission critical electronics. The world uses millions of tonnes of lead every year. A few extra grams per plane would make a minuscule difference, but would have saved hundreds of lives.
Flight 447 went down fundamentally because the two of the tree pilots ( one in particular) didn't know the fundamentals about flying and held the aircraft in a stalled state until it hit the ocean.
It amazes me that neither of these pilots owned a license for a light aircraft which is mandatory for all Airliner pilots in my country (Australia)
The other issue on the airbus is if you pull the stick back until the stall warning goes off then keep it there until the aircraft pitches further up, the stall warning stops when the pitot tubes can no longer get a reliable wind speed.
Does anyone know if these pilots had light aircraft licenses?
Is it my imagination or is this sort of thing happening a lot with those airbus planes? "Lot" being a relative term, I suppose, since the vast majority of the planes never have a problem. But it seems like there have been several high profile crashes lately that seem to be the result of a shitstorm of the pilots and the computer fighting one another. It takes a pretty long time for a plane to fall out of the sky like that -- more than enough time, one would think, for either the pilot or the computer to realize that their actions are not fixing the problem and try something else.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
A cracked solder joint that causes repeated spurious warnings, with the procedure being 'pull a circuit breaker and see if it goes away', certainly doesn't exclude poor training; and probably does suggest poor maintenance; but how much more 'true' does equipment failure need to be?
Certainly. But this article is not about AF447, it's about Air Asia Flight QZ8501.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
As best I can tell from wading through the delightfully obscure document, aircraft parts should be ROHS-exempt(either Article 2, section 4, one or more of subsections c, f, or g).
Have they tightened things further, or do you suspect that somebody in the supply chain got tired of stocking ROHS and non-ROHS versions and Airbus, or the Air Asia maintenance people, didn't browbeat their supplies hard enough to get what they wanted?
This isn't about training for a 1 in a million event.
Airbus claimed that they didn't need to do basic stall recovery and upset attitude training because the computer would prevent the airplane from getting into a bad attitude in the first place. In reality, most pilots do at least minimal training in stall recovery and unusual attitude recovery, in general aviation pilots flying single engine piston aircraft. The control inputs of the pilots caused this flight to crash. The electrical problem wasn't something anyone would train for but it wasn't what brought the plane down. Better trained pilots would have reacted differently and flown the plane.
Sadly, there are a million things that can go wrong on any/every flight and it's impossible to train for all of them.
Yep. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I don't think there was anything in the manual detailing how to deal with that particular series of events.
Sooner or later a combination of events will occur that will be outside the envelope of the crew's training or their ability to respond effectively.
The aircraft was landed safely, and not a single life was lost. If you're prepared to risk your life to bare-minimum and cut-rate maintenance, and inadequately trained pilots, go with a budget airline. If you want maximum confidence that you'll arrive in one piece, spend the money on a Qantas fare.
It ain't cheap, but it's the best you'll get.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
So the Airforce pilot of 20 years lacked training?
His Muslim culture, and history of killing christians was not a factor, in the final analysis?
Perhaps guess it depends who is writing the report....
http://shoebat.com/2014/12/30/pilot-indonesian-plane-went-missing-devout-muslim-slaughtered-christians/
And this is why pilots prefer boeing over airbus. Train the fucking pilots and let them fly the plane, don't try to design them out of the equation.
It's not that this kind of incident happens every day, either
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Yet it is not that difficult: '$ man A320'
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I am a NZer and currently live in the EU. I know several pilots personally. While AU and NZ run a similar progression to the US (with much stricter medicals and stuff), the EU for airline pilots does not. We must start with small planes, then get a instrument ratings, turbine ratings etc. Accumulate quite a few hours before we can even consider than an airline will take us on for big plane rating.
In the EU you do like a uni degree in commercial airlines and 3 years later your rated for the big stuff. Out of the blocks with far far less hours flying that we would have.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
> A cracked solder joint on the Airbus A320 resulted in an electrical interruption that caused computer-generated warnings of a rudder malfunction. The problem occurred four times during the flight.
The report also states that the problem occured 28 (!) times during the previous year, but Air Asia mechs didn't replace the unit. (Its a slide-in rack box, can be swapped for a spare in under 10 minutes).
Furthermore, even in case of lack of repair, if the pilots of the fatal flight turned back on the first or second warning, they would have lived.
It must be said that 3rd world countries should not be allowed to operate modern technology, since they lack the culture of responsibility and conscience that is required to properly maintain complicated equipment.
b) the copilot was actually French, and not Asian.
c) it was the copilot that pulled back on the stick, while the stall warnings were on
So it was AF447 again. Someone should teach the French pilots what to do in a stall.
Learn to love Alaska
Please provide a list of airlines who do not train their pilots what to do in a stall. I'll avoid those airlines. Apparently Air France and Air Asia are two.
Learn to love Alaska
I don't get this. The purpose of training is to be able to handle both known and unknown scenarios. It doesn't matter if the Airbus 320 was designed for this or that. There is always the possibility of something happening that aircraft makers where not anticipating, that is one of the reasons why we have humans in charge instead of just computers, because humans can solve unexpected problems.
If the pilots wheren't aduquately trained then their supervisors should be held responsible.
Air France certainly does train for it now. They didn't use to (and neither did other Airbus operators) because Airbus did not include it in the curriculum. They said their airplanes couldn't stall so it was pointless to train for it. The most we did was an "approach to stall" and recovery without actually stalling.
I'm sure Air Asia must have trained for it as well since Airbus has updated the curriculum after AF 447 and included stall recovery as a mandatory exercise, sending lots of communications about it to Airbus operators and requiring those exercises to be performed asap during recurrent training or even in separate, dedicated extra sessions.
But there's something weird going on here. The first officer apparently pulled his stick all the way back and made the plane climb at a rate of more than 10,000 ft/min before it stalled. That's a pretty insane maneuver and I can't find a rational explanation for it no matter what his training was. It's not an "inappropriate response" but rather a completely unprovoked action for no good reason whatsoever.
It might have been a technical malfunction in the flight control computers. There have been a few cases where Airbus pilots were accused of incorrect inputs in certain incidents where they luckily did live to tell, and where the pilots involved were adamant they did not give those inputs. Maybe there's a bug when the FAC circuit breakers are pulled. I remember one procedure that's sometimes performed on the ground, where such a reset also resets the stabilizer trim so it's vitally important to set the correct trim again. Maybe something like that goes on in the flight control computers during flight as well. Maybe the flight recorder confuses a flight control input with a trim input resulting from a FAC reset? Or maybe some integer overflowed?
As they say, "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys". Or possibly squirrels.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The same thing happened in this crash, that's the point.
I am not a licensed pilot but I've flown a plane on numerous occasions, nothing big like this. Isn't up the exact opposite of the direction you want to go if the plane reaches stall speed? I'm not positive, specifically with jets and their intake, but it seems to me that up would be the wrong direction pretty much always. Pointing the nose down to take advantage of the speed and get the lift needed to recover seems to be a more likely solution but, again, I'm not a pilot even though I know a few and have had the chance to pilot a number of planes.
(You don't need to be a licensed pilot to pilot planes. You can't land or take off but you can meander about in the air. I usually fly over my property once every couple of years and do a lot of the piloting for that and I've done so with a few other aircraft in other areas. I'm assuming that the actual licensed pilots are not lying when they have let me do so and told me that it was okay. I do understand the basics and have a general idea of the mechanics involved.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Aviation (and industrial, and marine) accidents are pretty much always an "accident chain" - and if any link in the chain is broken, the accident is prevented. This is why accident investigations don't just end at "Oh it was a cracked solder joint case closed", or "Oh the pilot stalled it what a dumbass case closed". This accident is no different - there will be a long chain of events, any one of them being stopped would break the accident chain and result in the aircraft reaching an airfield and being grounded until an engineer can come and fix the problem.
So a factor was equipment failure, but it's not the cause. The cause is all the factors in the whole accident chain which may include poor procedures, inadequate training, over-reliance on automation and that kind of thing.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
A friend of mine recently went through the BA (i.e. in the EU) ab-initio pilot training scheme. The training involved quite a lot of light aircraft hours (single and multiengine). About a year was spent flying light aircraft, including quite an intensive session in Arizona because the weather is reliable enough that you can pretty much guarantee to get several hours a day in a Piper Seminole without being grounded by icing or convective activity.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
It was clearly not written by a bunch of tiny-minded xenophobic assholes.
Exactly, when you're in a stall, you need to bring the nose down. In any airplane. Except maybe some military jet fighters that have so much engine thrust they can power their way out of any situation.
As to flying without a license: unless the real pilot is a flight instructor, it's not officially allowed. You can only touch the controls of an airplane if you have a license or during training. Of course it does happen and it's perfectly harmless as long as the actual pilot is paying attention, but officially they are breaking the rules.
Which is precisely why each sidestick has a red override button. And you get a "dual input" aural warning. So that's not an excuse although I do agree that independently moving sidesticks are one of the dumbest ideas ever in aviation.
The Air Asia crew didn't even get a stall warning initially. He just pulled back all the way and started climbing with more than 10,000 ft/min. THEN the airplane stalled. I think there's something fishy about this incident, I can see no logical reason for this kind of input.
Sadly, there are a million things that can go wrong on any/every flight
The root cause on this flight was cracked solder,
Then make that "a million and one."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Sadly, there are a million things that can go wrong on any/every flight and it's impossible to train for all of them.
Yep. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I don't think there was anything in the manual detailing how to deal with that particular series of events.
And fortunately, due to their training, this event didn't fall into the "exceeded their ability to deal with it" category. Kudos to them for managing it and responding properly.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
It was more than just the fact of the stall, it was several things. They ignored the "COINCIDENCE" warning and the cockpit design actually prevented the two officers who were flying from actually seeing what the other was doing with the control stick. Their fatal mistake was willfully ignoring or missing the "COINCIDENCE" warning until it was too late to do anything about it. If they'd paid attention to that then they might all still be alive today.
A total "aviate, navigate, and communicate" failure, especially the "communicate" part.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Making massive generalisations like that tends to make you look less than rational and detracts from any point you might have had.
So by using your awesome "make massive generalisations" logic, all Alaskans are irrational fools who jump to conclusions. Yay! This is fun! Thanks!
the manual provided by the plane's manufacturer said the aircraft, an Airbus 320, was designed to prevent it from becoming upset and therefore upset recovery training was unnecessary
This is patently false. Fly-by-wire planes have multiple levels of degraded flight envelope protections, predicated by degraded sensor inputs, lost redundancies, etc. All of this is in the fucking manuals, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Stalls that initiate at high altitudes and continue all the way to the ground are a recurring problem and the pilots are to be blamed. If you're in any sort of a plane and there's no reaction to prolonged stick-up input, you have to let go and figure out what the fuck is happening. A mental reset, if you will. Perhaps people who are too easily confused by flight automation shouldn't fly the damn planes.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
> But there's something weird going on here. The first officer apparently pulled his stick all the way back and made the plane climb at a rate of more than 10,000 ft/min before it stalled. That's a pretty insane maneuver and I can't find a rational explanation for it no matter what his training was. It's not an "inappropriate response" but rather a completely unprovoked action for no good reason whatsoever.
Maybe it would make sense if everything was working properly.
With modern fly-by-wire, you're not flying the aircraft, you're telling it what needs to be done. Pulling back all the way on the stick means 'go up, as fast as possible', and the aircraft will go up as fast as it can, and it won't let it stall.
In a degraded mode what will it do?
At that point a lot of the fly-by-wire will have shut down; and it may well let you stall it (looks like it does, two aircraft have been lost that way.)
So maybe the aeronautics have been implicitly training the crew to use over-the-top stick inputs, and that leads to crashes in these kinds of situations.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Someone hard in denial. "This never happens, it must be wrong!"
Which is why I think sidestick control on an airliner is an incredibly dumb idea. With control yokes mechanically linked together, both pilots know what the other is doing. This is the second Airbus lost because of pilots not knowing what the other guy in the cockpit was doing.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
You don't need to be a licensed pilot to pilot planes. You can't land or take off but you can meander about in the air. I usually fly over my property once every couple of years and do a lot of the piloting for that and I've done so with a few other aircraft in other areas. I'm assuming that the actual licensed pilots are not lying when they have let me do so and told me that it was okay. I do understand the basics and have a general idea of the mechanics involved.
They were lying, but not in the way you would think. You need a pilots license to solo, but not to take controls of an airplane. Because takeoff and landing are the hardest parts (not hard, but most risk), they'll likely not let you have the controls at that point, but not for any legal reasons. It's perfectly "legal" for a person without a pilot's license to take off and land his first time in a plane. Not wise, but technically legal.
Of course, all that assumes the pilot is a licensed instructor, and almost all pilots are. The number one first job of pilots is instructor. Most pilots get instructor rating as part of their basic training, like instrument rating and other ratings related to what they are planning on doing (those who want to pilot commercially get turbine and multi-engine ratings, while those planning on only piloting smaller craft may pass on those, but often don't, even if they don't plan on using them).
Learn to love Alaska
If they had both reacted to the crisis in the same manner, then there wouldn't be that problem. Yes, there was a problem with conflicting inputs, but if both pilots reacted correctly, there'd have been no conflict. When you can't get the aviate right, you shouldn't be communicating, your attention should be on the aviation.
My favorite example of how it's done right was Captain Sullenberger, who had a fatal bird strike, then got the plane as stable as he could, then "navigated" to determine that he couldn't make any airfield, notified ATC he was landing in the Hudson, and didn't speak after. ATC couldn't believe that someone would land there, and asked for clarification, he ignored them. No reason to communicate the same thing twice, when it was obvious they heard it the first time. Also, when you are essentially holding, there's no aviation to do, but once you've made the navigation decision (and 3-seconds of communication to let ATC know), the aviation load increases, and there's no more navigation or communication.
But aviate, navigate, communicate is a rule that's mainly for the untrained to remind them that control of the craft is the priority, communication is one thing a lot of new pilots spend too much effort communicating, and miss some of the basics of control.
In the situation described, they should have been aviating, and ignoring a warning indicated they weren't aviating correctly, in addition to the French pilot's inappropriate inputs.
Learn to love Alaska
But there's something weird going on here. The first officer apparently pulled his stick all the way back and made the plane climb at a rate of more than 10,000 ft/min before it stalled. That's a pretty insane maneuver and I can't find a rational explanation for it no matter what his training was. It's not an "inappropriate response" but rather a completely unprovoked action for no good reason whatsoever.
Apparently pilot-to-pilot communication might have been a problem. From a CNN article:
[The Malasian accident investigator] also said the cockpit voice recorder showed confusing instructions from the captain to the co-pilot who was manning the controls at the time.
"The most interesting part that could be heard from the CVR is that whenever the plane went up, the captain said 'pull down.' ... To go down, the captain has to say 'push,' while to go up, the captain has to say 'pull' in reference to moving the side stick handle."
But there's something weird going on here. The first officer apparently pulled his stick all the way back and made the plane climb at a rate of more than 10,000 ft/min before it stalled. That's a pretty insane maneuver and I can't find a rational explanation for it no matter what his training was. It's not an "inappropriate response" but rather a completely unprovoked action for no good reason whatsoever.
AF447 did the same. They pulled back in level flight until they created the stall that killed them, and fell into the ocean without ever recovering. When in weather, disorientation is quite common (as in 100%), but good pilots will look down, not up. A pilot flying by the seat of his pants, and not looking at his instruments may feel that the "insane maneuver" was a good maneuver.
When you drive in a car, you are always in VFR. You look out the window, and glance down at your instruments every once in a while. When you are in weather at night (both this one and AF447), you should be looking at your instruments almost exclusively, as there's no useful information outside the windows. It's clear that the French pilot (again, both this one and AF447), missed the basics of flight. Pulling up in a stall, not paying attention to warnings, and causing the situation in the first place with an inappropriate climb rate. I hate that every crash comes back to pilot error, but sometimes it really is pilot error, even when exacerbated by a mechanical fault.
Learn to love Alaska
What, are you a cheese eating surrender monkey?
But seriously, it only takes one time in aviation to draw a pattern, because they are so risk averse. So two is quite a warning sign. DGAC should open an investigation into the training in France, because two major complete-loss events for French pilots making the same mistake is quite a large problem.
Learn to love Alaska
Also, the voice recorder shows incredibly little communication. Apparently the captain pulled those circuit breakers without even mentioning this action to the F/O? There's nothing on the CVR and the investigators had to guess from secondary system parameters that this is what they did. That would be quite unthinkable in a Western cockpit. We would have had a conversation like
- "What do you think, should we try those circuit breakers?"
- "Yeah, sure, give it a try."
- "OK, it's number X5 and X6, these ones labeled "FAC 1" and "FAC 2", do you agree?"
- (looking back at the circuit breaker panel) "Yes, those are the ones"
- OK, pulling the breakers.
It would still have been the wrong thing to do, but at least there would have been some amount of deliberation. I don't ever want to fly with Air Asia if their CRM is this bad.
AF 447 did not climb with 10,000 ft/min. And at least they had unreliable airspeed indications (for a while, so they did not believe the correct indications later) and confusing aural warnings.
These Air Asia guys just had an autopilot disconnection and a rudder deflection that made the plane turn left. It's beyond me why they would start climbing at such a ridiculous rate.
I'm seriously wondering whether maybe the flight control computers were adding some sort of correction factor to the flight control input, and this was somehow recorded as a sidestick input even though it wasn't. That would help explain both these accidents, and several other incidents where similar inputs were recorded and the pilots later declared they had never given those inputs.
Maybe it's related to the AF crash. In that, they pulled back on the stick and the stall warning went away. They pushed forward, and the stall warning came back.
Apparently, the stall warning system didn't believe the angle of attack readings (which were unusually high, but basically accurate) and that automatically silenced the alarm, even though: stall.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"If they had both reacted to the crisis in the same manner, then there wouldn't be that problem. Yes, there was a problem with conflicting inputs, but if both pilots reacted correctly, there'd have been no conflict. When you can't get the aviate right, you shouldn't be communicating, your attention should be on the aviation.
Agreed, 100%.
My favorite example of how it's done right was Captain Sullenberger,
Yep, he had the knowledge, the training, and the skill, coupled with the steadiness and presence of mind to make all the right moves and do all the right things. And the result was the best of all possible outcomes. He's what every pilot should aspire to be.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
That makes sense. I've also probably just misunderstood them - as, now that I think about it, I don't recall them saying that I'm legally prohibited from landing the plane but that I could not land the plane. When I was a wee lad, my family was in a C-130 and I got to pilot that and that was kind of neat. Mostly, I just moved the turned and dove and rose a little. I was pretty young. My feet did not reach the pedals. Then I got to do the same on a commercial flight but I was a bit older. I still have a set of wings and a pilots cover from Panama Airlines. I think that was a 727 but it may have been the DC-10. Considering how different they look, it was that long ago.
I've considered getting my license a few times but it's just not something that I'd be interested in doing often enough to justify keeping up on it and staying proficient. I also know enough pilots at the personal level so I can just go fly around if I want to without much effort or preparation. A buddy recently bought a Bell helicopter, used of course, and I may take a stab at that. I understand the principles but I've never done it. It should be interesting.
Funny enough, I'm scared shitless of heights in many areas but flying doesn't bother me. I wasn't scared when I was younger but, today, I don't even like being on a ladder or even looking out the windows of tall buildings. Flying doesn't bother me at all.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
No, they started their ridiculous climb before there was any sign of a stall warning. Once they were in the stall, yes, they reacted similarly to the AF crew. But how they got into this mess in the first place, is quite different.
A buddy recently bought a Bell helicopter, used of course, and I may take a stab at that.
Funny enough, I'm scared shitless of heights in many areas but flying doesn't bother me.
Yeah, ride in the Bell, have him do a tight turn towards your side. You'll be looking out at the ground like you are falling out of your seat to your death. Your fear of heights will come back while in an aircraft. Planes don't bank nearly as much as helicopters. Though I've not flown a larger helicopter, just the little ones, I haven't the time or money at the moment to get a turbine and dual turbine rating, though they are on the to-do list.
Learn to love Alaska
I've been in military helicopters on a variety of occasions and, worse, they were piloted by Marines. However, that was before I developed my fear of heights, it'll be interesting. I'll surely do it - if for no other reason than to see how it affects me.
This is best said aloud but...
When you're in the Air Force, what do you call those things with rotors on the tail and on the top and engage in vertical take offs?
A helicopter.
When you're in the Army, what do you call those same things?
A chopper.
How about when you're in the Navy?
A whirlybird.
And in the Marines?
*points upwards towards the sky* Ook Ook!!!
Yes, I served in the Corps. ;-) I've told the joke at Tun's Tavern which isn't the real Tun's but is a themed joint that's mostly family friendly down in Quantico. It went over well enough but I have a bulldog tattoo and my unit coin so I can get away with it. I'd probably not suggest others try it.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Not in China, but I can't speak for the rest of Asia. In China, drivers regularly back up to run over their crash victims again, to kill them and save money on victim compensation. Though I haven't seen any other examples that indicate life isn't valued. Rather, the other stories I've heard are all isolated incidents.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
While we need thousands of hours to even apply for an airline. I should, it was what i was training for before a head injury excluded me from a class 1 medial for 2 years. In the EU you do much much less.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
The ride in the back of one is very different than the ride up front. Up front, both seats are designed to have maximum visibility. It feels like one of those amusement park rides where you are suspended from the top and tilted forward 15 degrees to have the perpetual feeling of falling to your death, and that's while the ride is at a stop. When you bank, you'll look to the side and see ground, you'll look up a little and still see ground. Your body will tell you that you are flying at the ground. A mean pilot doing that will add in a little too much pedal (so you'll be more pointed at the ground than ideal, but still quite safe), and you'll literally be pointed at the ground. That one maneuver, that one feeling, was the only one that scared me. Emergency maneuvers aren't scary, you are too busy doing things to be afraid. But that eternity while your mind freezes time to point out you are falling to your death, gives you that fear you shouldn't quite have.
If your friend's big Bell doesn't do it, go ride in an R22 and try it. That tiny thing is all glass and quite responsive to the stick.
Learn to love Alaska
I've noticed a lot more people saying "They have no respect for life" than I've noticed saying "We have no respect for life". I suspect that it's one of the things that is frequently attributed to cultures the speaker doesn't like.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I'll have 'em give me a ride. He was a chopper pilot during the Vietnam War so I'll trust him enough to fly with him. He's a bit old now, obviously but still of sound mind and body so it's sure to be scary. I'm sure he will appreciate the chance to make me scared.
I think I've seen the R22 in a documentary, well a Modern Marvels. It was one of their older ones. It's a kit? Looks delicate as all hell but I guess they're both popular and robust. My friend's Bell is used. I don't know which model it is but it's got seating for five in the rear (three and two facing them) and has room for two pilots. He's also the friend who owns an old 1940s firetruck and a crane for no obvious reason.
I've managed to accumulate a bunch of strange characters as I've passed through life. There's a lot of interesting people out there.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The R22 does look like a kit. Kinda flies like one too. But cheap and not a kit (cheapest fully FAA licensed helicopter), it's the most popular for student pilots. Helps that it flies poorly, so anyone that can master the R22 should be able to move into other helicopters more easily than if they learned on a huge Bell. Bad inputs are muted by the sheer mass of the Bell, leading to a more stable platform. But I haven't flown many different kinds. I'd like to, but the bigger ones are much more expensive to fly.
Learn to love Alaska
"They have no respect for life"... is frequently attributed to cultures the speaker doesn't like.
I suspect you're misattributing the cause. Value of life is something you only notice when it's not high enough, and "good enough" is something you define roughly based on whatever you're used to.
In other words, it's not "us against them". The Chinese don't say life is cheap in the US. The Palestinians presumably don't think life is cheap in Israel. And nobody says "life is cheap in my country", because that's the definition of normal.
And I don't hate China, but here's another example--four book publisher employees near China were just "disappeared" for publishing books critical of the Chinese government. Every big country does illegal covert operations, but this was flagrant and obvious. You can't just kidnap all the employees of a book publisher! Unless it's not a big deal, because who cares about four people?
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.