Interview with Captain of Qantas 72 (A330 - 2008)

J

JeppUpdater

Well-Known Member
The now-retired Captain discusses the incident that injured over 100 people after a air data computer failure.
Background if you need it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_72


http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/...-leaves-pilots-powerless-20170510-gw26ae.html


The events of October 7, 2008, are not merely about how three Qantas pilots found themselves fighting to save a passenger plane from itself. It serves as a cautionary tale as society accelerates towards a world of automation and artificial intelligence.
In the air, complex computer systems already oversee a new generation of planes, reducing the control of pilots who spend long periods of flights keeping watch. The technology has helped make the world's ever-more crowded skies safer. Yet paradoxically, it is technology that threatened the lives of those on QF72. And Sullivan still harbours fears about greater automation of flying after the computer system on the Airbus aircraft he was captaining wrenched control from its three pilots in 2008.
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Pretty scary stuff, the A320 series has had a known ADIRS problem of uncommanded pitch down too. Through training and OEBs they've kept us aware of it and able to recognize/recover by turning two of them off. On our planes, as the software is updated they have supposedly "fixed the glitch".
 
Skåning said:
Pretty scary stuff, the A320 series has had a known ADIRS problem of uncommanded pitch down too. Through training and OEBs they've kept us aware of it and able to recognize/recover by turning two of them off. On our planes, as the software is updated they have supposedly "fixed the glitch".
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Please turn 2 ADRs off and not 2 Adirs.
 
bLizZuE said:
One ADR on, two off. Hope that fixes it.
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And in the heat of the moment, when the numbers don't matter, do it with a pinky and pointer finger only extended as in "hook 'em horns" [whatever that is] hit the outside two and leave the middle on. Less perilous aftermath that way . . . who knew!
 
bLizZuE said:
They tell us to keep ADR one on.
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Yep -- but,

hit the outside two and leave the middle on

Leaving the middle on vs. one of the other two has advantages that the other combinations do not.

So, pinky-and-pointer-finger to kill the outer ones if the poop hits the fan!
 
Educate me. (I don't normally go against 20 year instructors on the basis of "this guy on the internet said...")
 
The whole point of the exercise is to put the airplane into alternate law. It technically shouldn't matter which two ADR pushbuttons you press, barring failures of the one "remaining" ADR you chose to leave on. At our Co the guidance is just "two ADRs off and leave one on" but no specification on which one has to be on.

It's late at night now and don't have many brain cells left for heavy systems thinking, but my guess is there isn't any aircraft limitation requirement to leave ADR 1 on, rather, it's the fact that if things are that bad and going haywire, maybe the CA should fly so he/she can be PF with ADR1 on.
 
bLizZuE said:
Educate me. (I don't normally go against 20 year instructors on the basis of "this guy on the internet said...")
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I wouldn't either! :)

This technique does not go against any instructors though, as you're still selecting two ADRs off and leaving one of them on which is all the procedure calls for -- doesn't matter which ones.

The slight advantage turning off the outer buttons (ADR 1+2) may give you is that the remaining ADR, #3, is the one that can be sent to either pilot's display unit for use.

If you turn off ADR 1 or ADR 2, the information is stuck on one side regardless of who wants to fly. Assuming the PIC might want to hand over the jet to the F/O while they run through the QRH and perhaps get MX on the line following the memory item, ADR 3 info can be in front of the F/O. If the PIC wants it back, they can send ADR 3 info to the captain's side.

Hence the

Hookem_hand.png


when you reach up and click two ADRs off as the jet is pitching down in it's erroneous protection.

I'd like to think I would have thought of this and the easy way to remember it, but it was given to me by an instructor. :cool: I like it though; Airbus says this step must be completed within 15 seconds of the uncontrollable pitch down and it seems like a good option to have the air data be sent to either pilot's side vs. being locked in with one particular pilot having data for the rest of the flight.
 
I like it.

The recommendation here has always been to maintain CA displays.

Except- is this an extra step? Now I have 1 and 2 off, and to get 3 displayed I have to select it. Right?
 
That's all good and well, but I can't help but have an issue still with what it did at cruise flight the first time they were violently pitched down....
You're all saying push these buttons and you're gravy, but I still have a cabin of injured pax and flight attendants. I would find that highly traumatic whether or not there's an easy "fix" after it happens.

FlyingAccountant said:
Makes me wonder if the author is taking some license in describing how badly this event has supposedly ruined the skipper's life.
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This is why CIRP exists. Honestly, different people handle things differently. CIRP exists to try to intervene early, get people back to their normal routine and prevent the guy that say "i'm fine" and 18 months later is divorced and taking unnecessary risks that are out of the ordinary for them. I don't know about life ruining, but it would be a completely normal reaction for this pilot to start questioning the plane, have nightmares thinking about it or reliving it, and remember the faces of the passengers who turned on them as though they had done something to cause it. Is the journalist taking artistic license, I dunno. That's how humans cope, though it's different for everybody. If something like this happens to you, get in touch with your CIRP people and keep them on speed dial.
 
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