AirAsia Accident Report Released

wheelsup said:
These accidents have been unfortunate but say a lot about putting low skilled, low time pilots in transport category aircraft.
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The CA had over 20,000 hours and the FO over 2,200 hours including 1,300 (give or take a few hours) in the A-320, and both of them passed their most recent PCs without any issues so I'm not exactly sure how they can be low-time/low-skill unless you're referring to their FAC troubleshooting exposure time and electronic/computer systems engineering skills.

I'm curious as to what your suggested solution for these types of accidents would be . . . maybe make all pilots go through aircraft systems engineering school? Make them fly 1,500 hours in a C-172 or PA-28 that don't have anything resembling FACs or separate side-stick controls so that they can become proficient at basic stall recovery skills? Not to be rude or anything but if you're going to rant about crews like these being too low-skill and low-time to fly transport category aircraft, then the least you can do is tell us how our industry can solve your perceived issue.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
But these are two man flight crews. You can't just blame the one guy when the other one is sitting there too. This is a crew problem too, and IMO, industry-wide training problem.
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Well I really was blaming them both. The fact that the CA didn't take the controls definitively baffles me. Agreed there is a CRM issue present as well.
 
Generally when bad stuff happens, the copilot flies and the captain runs the ECAM. I really don't have any special powers in my left hand that a properly trained copilot doesn't have in his right.
 
Derg said:
Generally when bad stuff happens, the copilot flies and the captain runs the ECAM. I really don't have any special powers in my left hand that a properly trained copilot doesn't have in his right.
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That's what she said..... Oh wait....
 
JustinS said:
Well I really was blaming them both. The fact that the CA didn't take the controls definitively baffles me. Agreed there is a CRM issue present as well.
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Derg said:
Generally when bad stuff happens, the copilot flies and the captain runs the ECAM. I really don't have any special powers in my left hand that a properly trained copilot doesn't have in his right.
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The actual flying itself, generally speaking, is the easy part of most emergencies. The troubleshooting of the emergency itself is the more difficult part. Hence it makes sense for the more experienced person to be working the EP, while the lesser experienced person need only keep the plane from hitting other planes, the ground or anything attached to the ground, while assisting beyond that to the best of their ability.
 
MikeD said:
The actual flying itself, generally speaking, is the easy part of most emergencies. The troubleshooting of the emergency itself is the more difficult part. Hence it makes sense for the more experienced person to be working the EP, while the lesser experienced person need only keep the plane from hitting other planes, the ground or anything attached to the ground, while assisting beyond that to the best of their ability.
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While I agree with this thought process, when he started shouting instructions on how to keep the airplane flying would have been a good time to take control.
 
Wardogg said:
While I agree with this thought process, when he started shouting instructions on how to keep the airplane flying would have been a good time to take control.
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Agreed. If the basic idea isn't working as it should, then time to make it happen himself.

Because if aircraft control can't be maintained, then nothing else can really be done EP-wise.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Could be a bit of an English transition issue. Was that phrase spoken in English or their local language? I remember for the Egypt Air crash there was one phrase the NTSB members got an Arabic panel to translate and the best they could come up with was "get away in the engines." Sometimes there isn't a good enough English translation to what is being said, and in their native language, maybe the phrase being spoken was a "push nose down." But again, I don't know what was said or if the phrase was said in English or the local language.
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I figured it was English since the FO's words mention being translated from french.

Cherokee_Cruiser said:
The post above yours does pretty much hint that if the other guy wants to take over, make the intention known AND push the take-over button on the sidestick.
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True but the problem appeared with Air France and now this. When in the moment things don't always go quite as planned. If the CA felt the FO fighting him with the other stick then it may click to tell the FO to let go. As it stands every move the FO makes with his side stick does not make an equal move in the CA side stick or vice-versa. Airbus for whatever reason decided not to give haptic feedback to pilots in their aircraft.
 
I'm just curious - is there supposed to be a "correct" way of handing over the controls to the captain in a situation like this when it comes to CRM in complex jet aircraft? Is it similar to the "you have the controls; I have the controls" concept taught during primary training?
 
MikeD said:
The actual flying itself, generally speaking, is the easy part of most emergencies. The troubleshooting of the emergency itself is the more difficult part. Hence it makes sense for the more experienced person to be working the EP, while the lesser experienced person need only keep the plane from hitting other planes, the ground or anything attached to the ground, while assisting beyond that to the best of their ability.
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That's how I usually feel. It seems in this case the flying was the emergency. As long as A/C control isn't an issue let the the other guy fly and run the EP. When the other guy can't gain A/C control it's time for el capitan to take a stab at it. Some one has to fly or regain control before a checklist can even be thought about.
 
Derg said:
Generally when bad stuff happens, the copilot flies and the captain runs the ECAM. I really don't have any special powers in my left hand that a properly trained copilot doesn't have in his right.
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In this case, hopefully you do.... unload that wing here. Know how the pitch and power should look and how to recover from unusual scenarios. Know the flight mode you're in and comprehend what consequences that has. Those rules are true to all modern jet aircraft.
 
Pilot121 said:
I'm just curious - is there supposed to be a "correct" way of handing over the controls to the captain in a situation like this when it comes to CRM in complex jet aircraft? Is it similar to the "you have the controls; I have the controls" concept taught during primary training?
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That's pretty much exactly how it should have gone. The accident report addressed this with excerpts from Air Asia's COM.
 
For the Airbus guys, how hard is an A320 to hand fly in Alternate Law at high altitude? Or, since that's something few will ever do in an actual plane, can the Boeing drivers comment on how hard it really is? Seems fairly basic to this prop pilot.
 
RedBaron2000 said:
For the Airbus guys, how hard is an A320 to hand fly in Alternate Law at high altitude? Or, since that's something few will ever do in an actual plane, can the Boeing drivers comment on how hard it really is? Seems fairly basic to this prop pilot.
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Almost all commercial jets have positive stability so even in alternate law it should handle like a big Cessna.

The issue is that we are seeing low experience (but not necessarily flight time) pilots not comprehending that either a) a law mode has changed or b) that, just like in a Cessna you can't hold the yoke all the way back and stay in the air long term, you need to use less than full control inputs.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
...OR we can say hey, maybe the industry needs to change the mentality and the proficiency check and proficiency training events to INCLUDE cruise level flight upsets.
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My last training event a month ago did. High altitude stall recovery techniques, from about FL450. Takes about 10-15k to recover without inducing a secondary stall. This was just straight and level.. I can't imagine introducing a roll/yaw moment into the scenario.
 
RedBaron2000 said:
For the Airbus guys, how hard is an A320 to hand fly in Alternate Law at high altitude? Or, since that's something few will ever do in an actual plane, can the Boeing drivers comment on how hard it really is? Seems fairly basic to this prop pilot.
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I've only done it in the sim, but it's not difficult.
In alternate law, you don't have protections like, stall, overspeed, bank or pitch. So you have to fly it like a real airplane again.
 
RedBaron2000 said:
For the Airbus guys, how hard is an A320 to hand fly in Alternate Law at high altitude? Or, since that's something few will ever do in an actual plane, can the Boeing drivers comment on how hard it really is? Seems fairly basic to this prop pilot.
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Highest I've ever hand-flown (admittedly neither Boeing nor Airbus) was FL370. I didn't like it. AP was inop (pre-RVSM days).

Because of the thinner air the airplane tends to be less responsive, you need greater deflection of a control surface to achieve the same reaction of a lesser input in thicker air. Because the aircraft's reaction time for a given input (as compared to lower altitude) is increased, pilot's tend to over control the aircraft using larger inputs, and thus experiencing PIO.

The problem with that can be the so called coffin corner, where you may be near critical AOA for stall, but also near a speed at which the local airflow around the wing surfaces have reached Mach1. A shockwave over the wing develops and eventually can lead to mach tuck.

I'm not a fan of pilots intentionally hand flying an aircraft at altitude, but I am a fan of pilots receiving appropriate training in this area, especially concerning high altitude upset recovery.

Very good video here
 
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