This is post 29. Absolutely on point. What's the problem? Ab initio training is not training. It's rote learning. It's memorizing answers to pass an exam. It does not make you a pilot. It makes you a disaster waiting to happen. And when the computers don't save their asses, these pilots kill people and then, if they survive, just stand around wringing their hands and trying to "make sense" of what happened or "come to terms" or "find closure". It is sheer incompetence, no matter what the certificates and log books say. I suppose you could also blame airline management for allowing this culture to exist. Or society at large.
Well, I'm sorry but I don't think making a general slur to the training of all these pilots with such little information is 1) the right thing to do and 2) even close to being correct given how little was known.
Actually, it was exactly right, and has been proven more so as time has gone on. Even if there was a problem with the autothrottles (which is certainly possible), that is no excuse for crashing on a beautiful day with perfect conditions and an otherwise fully functional airplane. People fly without autothrottles all the time-- I wouldn't be surprised if they could even defer fixing them if they failed. At the end of the day, these guys are PILOTS, not trained monkeys. As PILOTS, it is their job to land the damned airplane. It isn't that hard. All it takes is a little skill and practice. If they couldn't perform that basic task, they shouldn't have been in that cockpit. I'm actually slightly sympathetic to the guy who was flying, coming from the Airbus. Even still, he should have figured it out... but I can understand how it happens. The check airman, on the other hand, is completely at fault-- whether the autothrottles worked perfectly or not.
Bob; I understand your concern about causation, but in this instance, a perfectly good plane was wrecked, people died, as a direct result of inattention. Period. When learning to fly you are taught not to get too slow. Period. They got too slow, with good engines. If they were paying attention, they would have been their airspeed going below Vrf. They had set the "bug" knew it had to be 137 kts. Rookie mistake, terrible but true. Comes from not enough manual flying and training that emphasized flying the computer, not the plane. Art
Well, that's your opinion. It might be true. But it isn't proven today and may not be proven when the investigation is completed. And, it may end up to have nothing to do at all with their training and a lot to do with their culture and operating methods outside/in spite of of their training. Or, it could be a combination of many factors that lead to this. Just like any incident, there are many factors that in combination led to the error. Some of these are not clear yet.
Bob- All the data and the interviews show this to be pilot error. Any good pilot is constantly cross-checking airspeed, altitude, and descent rate on any approach. Plus cross-checking the engine instruments. If one of them had even glanced at airspeed, they would have seen they were 20-30 knots below recommended approach speed. Any good pilot would have been able to feel they were too slow. Plus a glance at the engine rpms would have shown idle, not where you wanted to be. Trouble is, there were no good pilots at the controls of this 777, just like there were none in the Airbus out of Brazil. This is not a case of an aircraft screwing over the aircrew. It is a case of the aircrew not flying the airplane, which is the sole thing they are paid to do.
Each accident is a chain. Break one link in the chain and likely the accident doesn't happen. If the pilot had been on a stabilized approach, the accident wouldn't have happened. If the pilot had not selected A/T for the approach, the accident wouldn't have happened. If the pilot had rejected the visual approach, and insisted on a ILS approach, the accident wouldn't have happened. These are examples, and may not represent the exact details of the accident in question. What is clear, is that any competent pilot must be able to at a very minimum fly a stabilized approach on a clear day, to a 11,000' long runway, using the standard flight controls and make a safe landing. I've landed on a pair of wheel tracks in the grass with a few humps tossed in and no wizardry, and this is something that any 'throttle jockey' can handle. If these guys can't get this machine safely on the ground with all the tools avail to them, except vertical electronic guidance, then they don't belong there. It is an inexcusable defect - barring any control malfunction(which I believe will be the case, but will apologize unreservedly if a malfunction is found).
Give it up! The pilots are at fault! Yes it could be a combination of crappy pilots, their "culture" of compliance, their rote memory programing or any other excuses they or you want to make. There were 4 pilots (3 captains) on board. One was sitting in first class. why wasn't he upfront? I would think that company policy should require "all hands on deck" during TO and LND. How can 4 pilots sit back and watch the wreck happen? I'll go out on a limb and say, THERE WERE NO REAL PILOTS ON BOARD.
Yah.. give it up. Just tell the NTSB to stop wasting their time and go home. Pilot error. DONE. The experts on Fchat know everything. No, I don't think so. BTW: The one sitting in 1st class was there after his shift flying according to the rules regarding crew fatigue. That's why. But no.... you already know everything. Sorry to bother you with all these "details" that get in the way. What a waste of time!
This is exactly correct. Look at the case where Singapore air 747 (one of the BEST trained airlines in the WORLD) took off on a closed run way and crashed on take off in Taiwan in a rain storm. Pilot error? Sure. Was he just stupid or insane? How could an idiot take off on a closed run way? What a dummy! No he was not stupid. The systems failed also to prevent it. Yes, he made a mistake... but other factors helped cause that mistake. Yes it was ultimately the pilot who made that mistake and made the decision to take off. But it was not his just being "an idiot" that caused it.
Is it true that the pilots didn't participate in a post-accident FAA drug test? ... maybe they did, and of so I didn't catch that info. Wondering if that (prescription or etc) may be a contributing factor in the 10+ hour long flight
Please, give it up. The NTSB is bound to investigate it thoroughly. They WILL come to the same conclusion. No mechanicals. Clear weather. Other planes all landing on the same runway without problems. What's left? The crew. Stay ahead of the plane. Fly the plane. Aviate, aviate, aviate. Then navigate. Then communicate. Don't get lost in the dials or numbers or one specific little item or problem. Check and double and triple-check. Basic, basic airmanship.
Really. So, you on your own have come to this conclusion. Why, I've very happy for you. Now, please tell us who will win the World Cup. I want to make a bet. As you know everything already, it should be easy for you. You can make us all some quick cash. Yes.. the crew. I agree. But what CAUSED the crew to act or think that way? That's the question that needs to be answered. Is there no possibility that some form of human factors are not involved here? None? It's just dummies driving the damn thing? Too bad everyone here has already decided it's just "poor training"/ bad pilots. We might actually learn something if we looked at what happened. No, I won't give it up any less than the NTSB should give it up. The truth is rarely obvious and often a matter of careful judgment after all the facts are in.
Loathe as I am to quote you - here we go. Culture, training, and lack of CRM CAUSED the crew to act or think that way. As another poster has mentioned, in the Asian culture it is sometimes better to let a superior fail, rather than point out the failure in advance and have him lose face. This is the antithesis of CRM. There were three men in that cockpit and only one person(until the final seconds) was being utilized. The other seats might as well have been filled with concrete bags for all the help they provided. At the risk of being vilified, at about 2000' in the approach when he was about 4-500' too high, and coming in a bit too fast, the IP should have pointed out that they were not on a stabilized approach and advised the PF to go around. At 600' in the approach their vertical descent was almost double the standard rate for the glide slope, once again the IP should have either TOLD the PF to go around, or taken control, then advise the PF 'I have the aircraft' and performed the go around himself, and let the captain tell the tower they were going around. The co sitting in the jump seat should have spoken up, someone should have realized that they were not set up to complete the task safely, but they all waited until the die was cast. It's a process, or a recipe and just like baking, if you don't follow the recipe, the finished product is not going to be very good to eat. I'm sure, right up until 7 seconds before the crash they all were thinking 'he can pull it off, I know he can pull this off'. Then in an instant they knew - 'nope, he can not pull this off'. Too late. Pilot(s) error, and in this equipment, with this amount of tools and training around them - inexcusable.
I agree with all of this. Geez my ONLY objection is people jumping to conclusions too early and painting too big a swath of blame across the board. But on Fchat, that's a crime to actually ask to wait for the facts to come out before claiming "victory". I swear it's like talking to a bunch of first graders when you ask a math question: "I know! I know! ooo-ooo--ooo--- I know"
Are there other factors in this case that led to the accident besides the poor flying of the crew? Most likely. The NTSB and Boeing will figure that stuff out to try and minimize those mistakes adding up in the future. It doesn't take a crystal ball to see that the pilots could have and should have landed the plane safely. We have hindsight to show us that and it is 20/20, crystal clear that the pilots effed up. You can tiptoe around that and make excuses. We can give them plastic trophies and a juice box and tell them that they are winners and send them home so no one gets their feelings hurt but the reality is that they caused an accident. They are paid and entrusted to perform and they did not. We can try and understand why but in the end that is the truth. They crashed the plane. If you spend much time reading NTSB accident reports, it almost always is pilot error. They are pretty bold in stating that. I think we all want to find the answers and we all realize that will take time. Are you being so defensive because you spend a lot of time in Asia in the back of those planes being flown by these crews?
Exactly, Have you guys ever met any Korean Airline pilots. That's one strange bunch. To make a long story short, We were doing run ups on a 707 after some heavy mods when I saw a senior pilot slap a junior officer and kick him off the plane for not obeying orders. Just be glad this was a Boeing Aircraft. If this had happened to an Airbus there would have been bodies all over the runway.
Mr. Mayor, they've been tried and convicted on Fchat. There is no wiggle room. The trial is over PS - What the NTSB is going to figure out is how systemic is this issue of pilots that can't fly and/or how to minimize confusion of transitioning pilots. Once that is done, MORE rules... Image Unavailable, Please Login
If this is your view, it is skewed, and inaacurate. Also, I think to most amateur and many pro pilots on this and other forums, it's akin to an M&M conference in the medical field. No one here that I can see who is a pilot or FO, or engineer has gloated or claimed any kind of victory. We are our own worst critics. It helps to make us all better pilots, and it creates and fosters a community where we self regulate, and self evaluate our own skills. To quote Alan Shepard, sitting on top of a million pounds of rocket and fuel: "Please lord, don't let me !$*&! up". Criticism of others in the nature of advancement. Without critical evaluation, standards or more accurately lack of standards gets people killed. The FARs are mostly written in blood. When not on a stabilized approach, the only action is to go around. That is in the ops manual for every US carrier flying today. It should be in the ops manual for intl carriers but I will defer on that. What's more, most of us do "know" what happened, and they are wrong as I said I will gladly apologize unreservedly should it be found that the plane was broke. This was the case with the other 777 crash in UK where the engines were commanded to advance but nothing came out of the tailpipe. The plane broke, but the pilots did the best they could given the circumstance. Same with Sully, same with the DC-10 that lost all hyd and crashed. Those guys used superior skill to attack a substandard situation and many people owe their very lives to that skill. At this point, these guys used inferior skills to make a routine landing that any stick jockey should make, and it affects us all. We should be critical, we should be harsh. When we aren't - people die.
No, not at all. But I don't like it when people just jump to conclusions and spread blame around at random after every tragedy that pops into the news. There's always something to be learned that is unexpected. I only ask to wait until the information comes in before blaming an entire group of people who have nothing to do with this.
Well the Airline Pilots Assoc agrees with you. Of course it is their job to blindly defend human error if it involves one of their members. That's what unions do. Pilots union criticizes Asiana crash investigation | Reuters
I'm familiar with and agree with the (native) Asian deference to superiors in general. However, it may be only partially applicable here. The IP was the superior in this case and so the deference factor should have been non-existent (might have to check on physical ages and pilot seniority here also though, as there might be a more complex interplay between physical junior but functional senior going on). In this case, it would be more directly attributable to a first time IP at fault for not stepping up to his responsibility to take over from the PF and exercising his functional seniority. The other two PNFs would have had double the deference factor in play though as they would be contradicting two superiors if they spoke out. That and poor seat-of-the-pants flying skills all around.
Taz, I guess that I have given the wrong impression of the cause of this incident. My impressions: Wrong philosophy in the training program. Total lack of CRM. Critical lack of actual flying skills. Lack of good flight deck procedures (scanning and X-checking) that would have warned them that they were out of shape. Inattention of the other " experts" on the flight deck at a critical stage of the flight...landing. Everything was mishandled and the blame goes into the flight deck and as i mentioned in another post, " The nut on the wheel." Since 1940 I have flown with too many pilots to list here but I have seen the good, bad, and stupid. I have flown with ex-Spitfire pilots, ex-bomber pilots, crop dusters, airline pilots, and with air show pilots practicing their show routines and I know what a good pilot looks like. I'll bet that nowadays one could count on one hand the number of pilots who can get out of his big tin bird and hop into a small plane of any kind and do even simple aerobatics. Very few could pilot a sailplane or perform in a Stearman or Bucker. The pilots with whom I fly occasionally all do or have done the things that I have mentioned. The pilots of 214 are not pilots, they are referred to as "operators" in their country. That brings me to another post where I described a flight with a button pusher who had memorized the training manual but his control inputs were those of an automaton, without smooth coordination or gentle blending. Eyes staring at the panel, and abrupt corrections made in response to what he noticed. He attempted to land into the sun at an island in the San Juans and I had to take the airplane away from him to get it back on the runway and was lucky to get it straightened out. We politely refused all subsequent offers to fly with him and after several stupid mistakes and close calls, he quit flying. I think of him in parallel with the Asiana incident. Re the entangled elements in the 214 thing.I was referring to all of the inputs trying to out-guess or uncover too many things when it all points to bad piloting.
