AF447 Vanity Fair article

[PhilosopherPilot]

Sometimes the cause is poor airmanship or just a mistake by the pilots. I don't understand the religious-like fervor in which the 121 world seems to do everything in its power to avoid ever actually attributing it to that. There is always magical acrobatics performed to find some way to tag absolutely anything else as the root cause.

Why?

I'm not opposed to placing blame on the pilot if skill is the true problem. I think that skill is rarely the problem though. Most without the skill to make it as a professional pilot get weeded out eventually. It's just REALLY easy and tempting to look at the pilot and point fingers there without looking deeper.

I think the reason most pilots are so quick to blame other pilots is that they want to believe it couldn't happen to them. They are too conscientious or too good or too whatever to have a bad outcome happen to them. It's just hard to accept that even on the day when you are doing your best, and doing everything "right" a bad outcome can still happen to you. But friends, that's the cold, hard truth.

That reality is hard to swallow because it flies in the face of the pilot "culture." It flies in the face of the assumptions we make on a day to day basis to keep the gumption to do our jobs.

 

[seagull]

At 500 feet they were on speed, on glide slope and were for the next few seconds. It appears to me that at that point the new check airman breathed a sigh of relief and likely took a look at the taxi chart to plan the next phase. Meanwhile, the student in the left seat sought out his previous several years of small narrow body sight picture while expecting the aircraft to hold speed, as would his previous airplane. He did not expect to see throttles move, the bus didn't do that. 8 seconds and then it was done.

 

[ppragman]

At 500 feet they were on speed, on glide slope and were for the next few seconds. It appears to me that at that point the new check airman breathed a sigh of relief and likely took a look at the taxi chart to plan the next phase. Meanwhile, the student in the left seat sought out his previous several years of small narrow body sight picture while expecting the aircraft to hold speed, as would his previous airplane. He did not expect to see throttles move, the bus didn't do that. 8 seconds and then it was done.

They weren't "stabilized" on speed though...there's a huge difference.

Does the 777 have a speed trend tape/vector/indicator/whatever?

 

[typhoonpilot]

They weren't "stabilized" on speed though...there's a huge difference.

Does the 777 have a speed trend tape/vector/indicator/whatever?

Correct, they were never stabilized by any definition of the word.

The "Speed Trend Vector" is an arrow on the airspeed tape that indicates predicted airspeed in ten seconds based on current acceleration or deceleration. It would certainly have been showing a fairly large arrow based on their deceleration.


TP

 

[Baronman]

You will after you've sat in the left seat of an airliner watching newhire after newhire FO, all experienced pilots, being all asses and elbows on the visual approaches while flying flawless instrument procedures every time. Every new guy struggles with the visuals, because they aren't purely regimented. Every visual approach is a little different than the one before it. But an ILS is pretty much just an ILS. No surprises.

While I worked with a European ab-initio program (these guys were already hired....the job was their's to lose) guess what we spent most our time drilling? Visual approaches and circle to lands (circling was common at their home airport -only 1 ILS).

As the instructor it was our job to place them somewhere around the airport, be it a 5 mile straight in or 5,000' right over the runway and clear them for a visual. We were looking for good speed, configured on-time, and stable while staying close to the airport.

Banging these out for a year was probably one of the best things I did to prep for airline flying.

 

[milleR]

Is the statement that instrument approaches are easier than visuals founded on the assumption that all instrument approaches are flown with automation? Would most of you consider a hand-flown instrument approach to be easier or more difficult than a visual?

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Sometimes the cause is poor airmanship or just a mistake by the pilots.

You're just as bad as @ppragman. No one is saying that poor airmanship wasn't involved. But that's not the point. The point is, why did they demonstrate poor airmanship? Flying an airplane isn't all that difficult. Sorry to bruise everyone's ego, but I can train just about anybody with an IQ over 80 to fly an airplane. This ain't rocket surgery. So with that in mind, something along the way created some degree of poor airmanship in these airmen. Again, they did not show up to the airplane that day with the attitude that they didn't care about safety and whether they lived or died.

Whether it's training, equipment, culture, or whatever else, other factors at play contributed to the poor airmanship. And just saying "eh, they sucked" is nothing but a cop-out that does nothing to prevent future accidents. Getting to the root cause of the airmanship issues is what matters, not making yourself feeling better by saying "you guys suck!"

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Is the statement that instrument approaches are easier than visuals founded on the assumption that all instrument approaches are flown with automation? Would most of you consider a hand-flown instrument approach to be easier or more difficult than a visual?

No, still much easier. Following needles (after you've learned how to do it) is easy as can be. But putting a new guy at any random position around the airport and saying "clear for the visual" is a great way to get some entertainment for the day.

 

[jynxyjoe]

Is the statement that instrument approaches are easier than visuals founded on the assumption that all instrument approaches are flown with automation? Would most of you consider a hand-flown instrument approach to be easier or more difficult than a visual?

Depends. All things equal, they are both easy, a visual my head is outside most of the time so I'm not perfect on my 3:1, I'm scanning on the hand flown ILS so everything is much tighter. I think if someone were scoring me, I'm scoring higher on the handflown ILS while scanning.

Kind of depends what you mean by easier. For me I'd like to be perfect on any approach to an ILS and it kind of annoys me when I'm not able to refrence a slope, 300ft:1nm works fine but I'm pretty sure it's not perfect from an outside observer scoring. ILS backed up is easier because I always have the reference. Pure visuals are easier for the pilot because they're nothing to twist, brief, follow, hold him to a standard, blah blah blah.

Don't get me wrong, visuals are tough when you're in a new airplane (especially one with very different flaps and settings from your old airplane) with a new sight picture (200 guys can feel this pain) and new callouts and control nuances. Once you're used to the new airplane the only difference is currency. I do a million ils backed visuals, its occasional that I'm cleared for the vis at 5k abeam the numbers, so there is some dusting off the mental math I must do.

This thread sure is turning a strange direction. An accident is commonly a multitude of mistakes lining up, here it seems to come down to 1 or 2 contentious points.

 

[surreal1221]

I think we need to be honest with ourselves here.

Putting a pilot that has no turbojet experience, in a unique situation, and saying "cleared for the visual" is likely gonna jam him up the first few times. Add in the crew element. Add in the "flows." Add in the profile to be flown. Add in the airspeeds to be mindful off. Add in any traffic. Add in the larger situational awareness issues. And yeah, guess what - it may be a bit for the rook. But, it is something that can be "trained" if only training departments believed in allowing pilots to be pilots. (GASP!!!!!)

The problem I have is that there is very little hand-flying (re: manual flying skills) "training" in a crew environment at certain operators. I am sad to say that I strongly disagree with the training philosophy currently in use at my present operation. Heck, they've altered the way they teach crosswind landings because they've realized some pilots need more "transition" time from the crab to flare, so now they are teaching a VERY poor habit. I am extremely concerned with what will happen when some junior chump gets really jammed up during a crosswind landing because he yanked his crab out at 50ft vs. 10ft and below.

Whatever. Training poor technique is one reason we are going through the challenges we have as a profession.

Time will tell.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

This thread sure is turning a strange direction. An accident is commonly a multitude of mistakes lining up, here it seems to come down to 1 or 2 contentious points.

That's because it's all ego-driven. A concept called "illusory superiority." Pilots all believe that they're above the mistakes made by accident aviators, so the easy answer is "they just sucked."

It's similar to the famous study done back in the '80s on how people perceive their driving abilities. When surveyed, 93% of Americans said that they were "better than the median" driver. Obviously this is mathematically impossible, so it shows how people have a crazily high opinion of their own abilities. It's delusional. And pilots are even worse.

The guy who says "it can't happen to me" is the guy most at risk, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[surreal1221]

Stay away from that guy.

I hear he is horrible.

 

[Hacker15e]

Flying an airplane isn't all that difficult. Sorry to bruise everyone's ego, but I can train just about anybody with an IQ over 80 to fly an airplane. This ain't rocket surgery.

Agreed -- flying an airplane is a "monkey skill" that takes very little actual talent.

It is airmanship and decisionmaking that is the far more valuable and difficult to obtain-and-maintain skill.

There is definitely a significant difference of perspective in where we've gained our airmanship and experience. The community I'm from believes that the human is by far the most fallible part of the system and in the history of aviation that fallability has been the root cause of the vast majority of accidents and incidents. The "just culture" of the military flight safety system has literally hundreds of human factors archetypes it uses to identify, classify, and categorize the types of human errors.

Yes, "Why did they demonstrate poor airmanship" is the crucial question to answer. Obviously it is a system, and as you correctly mention there are lots of contributing factors that lead to particular human performance, but extremely often it is simply the raw human performance that comes up short.

It has nothing to do with feeling superior or taking the easy way out; I'll admit freely and publicly that I've made bad airmanship decisions and had mechanical execution errors flying, and that on numerous occasions those mistakes could have led to catastrophic outcomes. In fact, that is the norm -- pilots make dozens of decisionmaking and execution errors every flight (when judged against a sterile standard and in hindsight). The only difference is how significant those errors are and how great in amplitude they're allowed to get. There ARE variations in human skill and performance which dictate how well we are able to control the amplitude of those errors and/or recover from them when they are made. Individuals are not all inherently equal, nor are individuals of certain skill, intelligence, or experience levels somehow immune from making those errors. Certainly there are many examples in aviation history of highly skilled, highly trained, highly intelligent aviators just plain making bad decisions, e.g. failures of human performance.

I just don't understand the belief that there apparently has to be some outside factor that was the root cause of a failing in human performance, as seems to be the norm in many perspectives I read on JC.

 

[Hacker15e]

That's because it's all ego-driven. A concept called "illusory superiority." Pilots all believe that they're above the mistakes made by accident aviators, so the easy answer is "they just sucked."

On the contrary -- we all know that we are susceptible to making the exact same mistakes on any given occasion. Nothing at all to do with feeling superior, in fact quite the opposite.

It is the acknowledgement of this fact that demands we understand the mistakes and try to internalize what they did wrong so we won't make the same ones. That's the foundation of building airmanship.

 

[Joshwa]

My flying reminds me all too often that I'm not above the dumb mistakes made by others. I have an ego up there with the best, but the daft things I do on occasion and the odd untidy landing remind me I need to keep improving. Whenever people talk about the average line pilot, that's probably me.

As for the Airbus, a litany of landing incidents while training go to show that unlinked side sticks are a daft idea. I have learned plenty of smart handling tips just by watching what the Captain is doing with the yoke.

 

[jynxyjoe]

That's because it's all ego-driven. A concept called "illusory superiority." Pilots all believe that they're above the mistakes made by accident aviators, so the easy answer is "they just sucked."

It's similar to the famous study done back in the '80s on how people perceive their driving abilities. When surveyed, 93% of Americans said that they were "better than the median" driver. Obviously this is mathematically impossible, so it shows how people have a crazily high opinion of their own abilities. It's delusional. And pilots are even worse.

The guy who says "it can't happen to me" is the guy most at risk, as far as I'm concerned.

In your driver example I think it's possible they may not have understood what "median" means. American's and math.

It seems like ppragman is making a point he's troubled about pilots being able to fly as a whole. I see we are back on SFO and Asiana again instead of the thread topic, so if I'm mixing things up stop me. Like I was saying, ppragman may bear in mind the guy is new to the airplane and it going to make some mistakes. As adults get older, the brain doesn't work quite as fast as it used to, and it takes a little bit to correct the mistakes where as a young guy makes the mistake and fix it very quickly. I think ppragman may be confusing a guy new the to airplane making new guy mistakes with the industry as a whole. The industry as a whole has a safety record that is an order of magnitude safer than any flying out there. Should we handfly more? I'd say I hand fly enough and I know when I'm getting rusty, I think theres a communication problem still in cockpits right now and that's worse than any guy being rusty hand flying. You all see your own things, I get drawn to task saturated pilots not asking for help. "God dammit, I can't figure out why this is happening, help me figure this out." We have S&M safe words for being uncomfortable, "I'm uncomfortable with this." We need one for "I'm task saturated and have been for the last 10 heartbeats I need help unburying myself!" I think that helps the Asiana and AirFrance things if the pilot is self aware enough. Maybe the other guy needs a "Hey it looks like you're getting task saturated, if your next reaction is to get defensive you ARE task saturated, either listen to me talk you through this or tell me to take the controls."

ATN, you make the point you've seen countless guys screw the visual on different airplanes when they are new to the airplane. I'm guilty of screwing up a visual when new to the airplane because there isn't really a good system to say "Here's how your old airplane acted, here's where you're going to get in trouble." To ppragman, I'd remind him (and this is something I've been dealing with again), when you get new to an airplane or new seat of the same airplane, you just goof up stupid things from time to time. That's why we have check airmen. You do stupid things and can't figure out why all the time until you get on the ground, get unloaded and say, "dammit, why did I get so in trouble with the speed on that?" Or "dammit, what the heck happened back there when I threw that last knotch in?" I'm on jet #3, airplane #5 in a 121 enviroment. I have become pretty comfortable making mistakes and saying out loud, "Help me out because I'm freaking lost" in airlines with good training environments and bad. The bad training environments the instructor is going to get frustrated with you and it's up to you to keep the conversation on course and drop your ego. It appears the Asians even have a culture where the IOE won't speak up to a senior pilot and tell him "Hey I see you're going wrong with this part, let me talk you through this and let me know when you see what I'm talking about." More likely, if it's a bad training enviroment, the IOE guy is used to berating the FO because he can, and doesn't know how to be an effective instructor for the guy senior or junior to him. I lived with Koreans for about 2 years in college, their culture made it very clear to me everything is respect driven based on your DOB. My roomate and mates often talked about the intricacies of group dynamics when the older (age) is always the leader and if he's the dumbest of the group you're screwed. I'm not an expert, it's just something that stuck with me.

Wow I ramble. TLR myself.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

I just don't understand the belief that there apparently has to be some outside factor that was the root cause of a failing in human performance, as seems to be the norm in many perspectives I read on JC.

Because that's the reality. Something contributed to that human performance problem. Again, no one shows up to the airplane with an attitude that they don't care about safety. Up until the moment that airplane hit the seawall, they believed that they were doing something right. Getting to the root cause of why that was, what led them to get there, etc. is what leads to a safer operation. Simply saying "it was poor airmanship" is nothing but playing the blame game rather than trying to prevent future accidents.

 

[Joshwa]

Going back to AF447, ignore Langweische and Vanity Fair and watch this video. The gyrations, audio warnings and especially the PF's side stick actions (and reliance on FDs when they appeared). Made hairs stand up on the back of my neck watching.

 

[jynxyjoe]

Going back to AF447, ignore Langweische and Vanity Fair and watch this video. The gyrations, audio warnings and especially the PF's side stick actions (and reliance on FDs when they appeared). Made hairs stand up on the back of my neck watching.

We're kind of regressing showing this video but I still have to say:
He's at F360 or so, why does he think 8-12 degrees of pitch up is a good place to be? What's his best case scenario at those altitudes and that pitch?

There was a video on Netflix or Youtube years ago where the Air France training department talked about the recovery from (what they thought at the time was the problem) that event. It had something to do with TOGA and set 5 or 6 degree nose up. The Air France guy was ... in his normal French manner... absolutley certain that manuever would have saved the situation. Did anyone see that video or know what I'm talking about? After the findings came out and it turned our the FO was pulling back it made me wonder if that was what the pilot was attempting.

 

[seagull]

They weren't "stabilized" on speed though...there's a huge difference.

Does the 777 have a speed trend tape/vector/indicator/whatever?

Actually, for a few seconds around 500' they WERE at a constant speed, so no trend.

These two pilots were not "weak" in stick and rudder skills, sorry to burst anyone's bubble. The question, as pointed out, it WHY it happened. We know a lot more about how to answer such questions than we did even 5 years ago. It appears many here are stuck in a 30 year old paradigm to explain human performance.

Both of these accidents involved flawed mental models along with confirmation bias. Think confirmation bias is easy to get out of on your own? Guess again. Look at politics maybe? Look at human ability to believe something as true despite any evidence. The brain find way so rationalize or ignore anything that does not fit that mental model.
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