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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.
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?
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.
as more and more planes fall out of the sky
Wrong.
they will continue to always scapegoat the pilot / train operator / whatever
Who is "they"? Anyway the investigation that took a year was performed by rather independent parties. Plus, Airbus interest is to put the blame on the airline / pilots (Air Asia), Air Asia interest is to blame the aircraft (Airbus)... So after a year when all of those people having conflicting interests come up with an agreed outcome, it's likely to be not far from the truth.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Yes each aircraft has specific procedures. And training to go with, it's called type certification. Nothing special here. Quit playing with the circuit breakers and fly the damn plane. That's pilot error.
The plane can't get into that situation while the computer is in control. The Airbus flight computer has a final mode where it basically tells the pilots, "I give up, you fly the plane." Usually this mode kicks in when the computer is getting contradictory information from the instruments (AF447 where one or more of the pitot tubes clogged, causing simultaneous overspeed and stall warnings). So since it's possible for the pilot to end up in full control of the plane, it is imperative that they train for every likely situation. (AF447 crashed because while in this mode, one of the pilots continuously pulled back on the control stick almost the entire time the plane was in a stall, thus keeping it in the stall.)
That said, several of the recent automation accidents seem to be caused not by the automation itself, but by the crew misinterpreting what mode the computer is in and/or misunderstand what the computer will and will not do when in that mode. Asiana 214 crashed because the pilots thought the computer was in a mode where it would auto-throttle to maintain altitude, when it was in a different mode. TAM 3054 crashed because the thrust reverser on one engine was inoperative so the pilots relied on the autothrottle to slow that engine to idle. But when they moved the other engine control to idle then reverse (to deploy its thrust reverser), that disengaged the autothrottle which caused the other engine to spin up to the full throttle setting it was set at.
It would probably be worthwhile for the major airliner manufacturers to get together and standardize the automation modes and what is/isn't controlled in each mode. Then pilots can be trained against a consistent standard instead of having to re-learn all the automation when they change aircraft (what the second pilot was doing in Asiana 214 - if both pilots had been experienced in the 777, one of them may have noticed the error). The way it is now, it's like on one plane pulling back on the stick makes it pitch up, while on another plane pulling back on the stick sometimes makes it pitch down.
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.
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