Great video and I agree with your points of view. I've been in the pilot training game for 50 years (in industry and as an inspector for Transport Canada) and when I was still active and running a major training program I required all our ATPL/CPL students to complete full blown upset training plus basic aerobatics, using a Citabria and Decathlon, before we would sign them off for the Commercial check rides. I have a basic philosophy which is "The first time you are upside down in an aircraft, you should not have a bunch of screaming passengers in the back...." I also agree with your point about "George" is there to help; not take over the responsibility of flying the aircraft.
I was fortunate enough to be thrown to the wolves before my first solo. I wanted more landing practice before my first solo and snuck in some taildragger time in a Citabria with a different CFI than my usual one. New plane, new CFI, new air space. This CFI had me practice the basics of slow flight, turns about a point, etc., and the garden variety nose-drop stalls. All of the basics I'd done in the DA40 and 172 with my regular CFI. Then during one of them he kicks the rudder hard over and all I see out of the windscreen is spinning ocean. To which he yells "Your aircraft!". The element of surprise and pucker factor cannot be trained in any other way. We then practiced it multiple times until it just became another maneuver instead of a "holy shit!" moment. Cruel to do to an 8 hour student? I don't think so at all. Sure, I wasn't happy about it, but wow did it change my perspective on things. What's required in the ACs is garbage. I firmly believe all students should be thrown to the wolves like I was, especially before their first solo.
Citabria is a great airplane. After my private I checked out in a 7KCAB and learned lots of aerobatics and did some banner towing in it. After getting my CFI I started teaching in it.
As my crusty old primary instructor used to say when talking about airline pilots in regard to their hours and experience: They have 1 hour repeated a few thousand times which isn’t the same as having 10,000 hours of experience. He had about 50,000 hours logged when I was learning to fly with him. I’ve always remembered that and never been too impressed by someone’s hours of flight time, unless it was flying in the bush or short haul cargo or similar.
I guess in Bush and short Hauls you dont use auto Pilot so you have to fly the plane yourself...So I guess he was saying airliners are just passengers except for the landing and takeoff.
@@hendersona49 Pretty much. I flew single pilot IFR in a 182 that did not have an autopilot … in the northeast, year round and at night. This keeps your skills fairly sharp.
@@NighthawkCarbine I'm questioning that as well. That's 2083 days of flying, 24hr a day. Or over 5 years of non-stop flying. Not sure how old that man was, but he must have been one of the Wright brother's instructors.
Similar incidents have happened before. I remember a 747 that lost an engine while at cruise and when the autopilot lost control authority it rolled over and nosedived and broke the speed of sound. It was damaged form the overspeed had high G pull out but survived and was fixed. Just amazes me how this kind of thing continues to happen.
I remember that. I think it was a China or south Korea, but think it was a China flight over the ocean. They pulled some serious G's and injuries from those G forces, as well as a Stewardess that hit the ceiling.
My old CFII went to the majors and became a PI there. He recently retired - and quit flying. He states that what is coming up among pilots, both GA and commercial, is a mob of computer admins who know every button on the gadgetry in the glass cockpit, but have zero stick and rudder skills. Prepped sim scenarios don't help.
Scott, your comments about upset training after the upset are bang on. My issue with this accident is what were the pilots doing and thinking with the left throttle moving toward idle before the aircraft upset began. How can you miss one of the throttles going to idle with climb thrust selected? There probably was some yaw, even with the autopilot flying flying the aircraft - how can you miss that? There would also be some speed decay too. Recognizing these conditions before it becomes an upset is a basic flying skill. Like the MAX accidents, we are again witnessing “experienced” pilots failing at the most fundamental aspects of their trade to the detriment of those that are counting on them. The blame has to be shared with the aircraft manufacturers, regulators and airlines as well as the individual pilots.
As a retired airline pilot with 27,000 hours ( 21,000 in command) on various Boeings I concur with your statement. Some of exceptionally poor performances of so called experienced pilots baffles me. Air France 447 would be the preeminent case in point.
I’ve actually flown the accident airplane at its original carrier the 737 autopilot does not move the rudder so not only yaw but a large yoke control deflection would have been a huge indication they had a problem.
Scott - Great video! Should be required for every commercial pilot to watch. The reality is that 25 seconds was really more like 18 seconds or less due to the inaction that typically follows the "surprise" factor. I spent 41 years at the same airline you worked for and the most heard comment in the simulators after the implementation of FMCs was "What's it doing now?" The biggest part of the problem, in my opinion with the onset more complicated auto flight systems was due to the airline training departments training the "pilot" out of people with training mostly focused on FMC management - I've actually had instructors tell me that I must use VNAV and NEVER use Vertical Speed because there were no safety protections. My response was always "What do you think I'm here for!" and of course it got worse with the introduction of CRM when one instructor actually told me that by not using VNAV I was pushing my FO out of the green! This was for an altitude change of 2000 ft below 10. Seriously, I'm not kidding. The other problem with all of this is "liability" and the lawyers. Remember the AQP training and how quickly that disappeared? Anyway, I digress - This accident and loss of life was sad, unfortunate and unnecessary. I just have to wonder how much these training departments getting away from basic "pilotage" skills are responsible for the outcome.
I like your definition. When I was working in Aerospace, our mantra was, "If it isn't working as designed, and you don't know why, you can't say it's okay to fly." Very similar.
first time I went for a ride in a 2 place pitts and we went upside down.. that was a eye opener if you end up upside down in your small GA aircraft if you dont have great seat belts your head will knock into the ceiling big time and you will probably pull on the yoke/ side stick in Cirrus .. etc.. great video keep up the good work enjoy your presentations.
As usual, an excellent analysis of this terrible incident, which the general media has long since forgotten Scott. Thank you. Just so's you know, the CVR (or the critical parts of it) were recovered at the end of March 2021 and Reuters reported on 12 April that the data had been successfully downloaded. This begs the obvious question ......
Recently I watched a VERY popular flying youtuber who stated he could not understand how you could stall an airliner at 35-40,000 feet. This airline pilot seemingly did not understand what the coffin corner is. He can get his airplane where he needs to go, but he seemingly does not understand how or why his airplane works. I was surprised.
didn't know your channel here yet and I am not a pilot, just little bit aviation enthousiast and don't understand English 100% but this were so great thoughs of you here, like that very much. Today saw at the channel mentour pilot this case of flight 182 and couldn't stop thinking about what could have prevented this, and so all your thoughts are really great for this case. Somewhere I saw also a picture of the captain of 182 and although it was only one picture that doesn't need to say anything but when I saw this, in addition to the other facts of this case, it popped into my mind: we also have to ask us, if sometimes, some guys are maybe not the right people for being a pilot - in the meaning of how they react especially at emergencies (not e.g. at daily life situations), because some guys are maybe great personalities, friendly and very skilled at normal situations, but some people maybe have a "too soft" personality to stay cool at sudden emergencies. And without that I can judge this really, at this picture, this captain looked to me like a very friendly but "too soft", emotional guy, who was then maybe immediately mentally knocked out. In this special case, I don't want to judge this finally, but I think some parts of the airlines or who ever have to ask themselves, if the personality is really checked enough of everybody who is getting into the pilot seats.
Hey Scott, Merry Christmas. Good video (once again). I too have an AF/trainer/major airline background and I agree 100% with your conclusions. In the last few years my employer was really stressing UPRT in the sim....I assumed it was trickle down from the Feds. I think your comment of "once it's doing something that I didn't input (paraphrased) it's an upset" is the best takeaway from the vid. This keeps whatever is happening from becoming actually severe. Nose low, throttle up, airspeed high recoveries in the tweet were kinda fun, but you really didn't want that to be the case in actual weather or while you're disoriented. On an unrelated/related point: when George has the plane, I'm temporarily elevated to management where I watch his every move with the intent to criticize heavily. I loved my First Officers. They kept me out of trouble on a regular basis. But, I watched them just the same (except for the heavy criticism part)....hey, it's my butt too. Fly Safe.
Gday Scott, theres quite a lot of emphasis on UPRT in the western world, probably more so in the last 4-5 years than ever before. In our 3 monthly cyclics it forms about a third of your assessment. This is a strange one and I can only guess they were not proficient and lacked training in UPRT. I’m comfortable to say the civil training in the sim I’ve experienced is quite good although the G forces aren’t there. I fly aerobatics occasionally on days off.
Scott, the points you make are valid, but the failed unusual attitude recovery of SJ 182 was the result of the crew not noticing an abnormal power setting and system malfunction... The throttle rollback should never have degenerated into an upset. IMO both the lack of noticing and correcting the rollback and subsequent failure to resolve the upset represent a significant lack of airmanship for a professional airline crew. A pilot having 10,000 hours of flight time can mean he has 10,000 hours of learning, or the same hour of airplane driving 10,000 times. "I was always afraid of dying. Always. It was my fear that made me learn everything I could about my airplane and my emergency equipment, and kept me flying respectful of my machine and always alert in the cockpit." - Chuck Yeager
Excellent presentation. The identical autopilot experience and also disconnected the autopilot to hand fly the approach and evaluated what I’d done wrong when safely on the ground.
TAROM RO371 in 1995 was lost in an almost identical way on an Airbus 310. One lever forward, one back, AP trips out and the crew are not ready to control the ensuing roll, yaw and dive. As they say, there are no new accidents, only new people to make them. Airbus commercial jets from the A320 series onwards have done away with back-driven thrust levers which eliminates some failure modes. Power output of the engines must still be monitored during high thrust operation especially when near the ground, in IMC or at night. The window to catch and sort the problem is limited.
There is no substitute for stall / spin recovery training, with real spins. The stalls we teach students are nothing like the real world. I feel fortunate to have flown 3 different aircraft types before doing my first solo. I went up with a different instructor and a Citabria (the Decathalon's close cousin). I wanted to get more practice with landings and the taildragger requires a bit more precision. That was all that was on the menu... So I thought. Before we got into the landings, the CFI wanted me to feel the plane out first. Slow flight, turns, etc. Practiced power-on & power-off stalls. Then without warning, he throws it into a spin and says "your aircraft!" For this student pilot, that was a quite the shocker. All I saw out the windscreen was the ocean spinning wildly. Training kicked in, PARE, the plane was flying straight & level, my stomach was some 1,000+ feet above us. We kept doing this until it truly became second nature and not even raising my pulse. Then we went for the landings. The startle factor was huge. A CFI and aircraft I had never met or heard of until an hour before, in an unfamiliar airspace and airport. I was just expecting to do a series of landings. Spinning an aircraft wasn't anywhere on my mind - - just like it'd happen in real life. After all, if you knew you were going stall or spin you wouldn't be in that situation to begin with. My regular CFI thought it was cruel and that it shouldn't have been done. I disagree. Seeing an unintentional spin, in the flesh, is a completely different animal than the nose just taking a little dip.
Scott. I'm a pilot and I enjoy vey much listening to your analysis...keep them coming. And I'd love to hear about John Denver's accident. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that he inadvertently depressed the rudder while reaching for the fuel switch.
We have done plenty of regular UA training in our sim training program. However I have heard absolute horror stories from other airlines, (particularly in that part of the world.) Just ONE example: Simulator recency training and a V1 cut - captain continues the takeoff with too little control input, loses control and crashes. Repeat right? No, let’s move on to the next in the sequence. That was first hand from one of our FOs who was flying with them while on leave of absence from us. 😳
Sounds like a lack of hand flying experience in that airplane. They always relied on the autopilot to do everything. So when something goes wrong, the crew has no idea what to do. They sat there and watched it roll over and crash into the water killing everyone on board.
If you're flying the plane, you're going to notice a loss of power on one side, just from the amount of correction you'll have to apply to compensate for it. So, even if you're not scanning engine power (as you should be) you'll catch it before it gets too bad. And you'll have plenty of time to figure out what's going on. But if the autopilot is flying the plane, it will gradually compensate for the imbalance. And if you're careless or distracted you might not notice. Then, when the autopilot kicks off, you're in a situation that requires immediate action. If, for example, your plane is icing up, the autopilot will increase pitch to maintain altitude. You'd notice if you were flying the plane. But when the autopilot pitches up it doesn't tell you. And by the time it disconnects, you may be out of time and out of luck. It seems like there's an opportunity for some engineering here. An autopilot ought to be able to sense -- just like you can -- when something's abnormal. Then it ought to be able to warn you, well before it has to disconnect, that there's an issue. On a glass panel, it could even tell you what the issue is and what to check. A system like that could be built in as part of the software. The point would be to tell you there's a problem well before the plane becomes unstable. But when the autopilot gets in trouble and then simply says, "I can't fly the plane. Here, you fly it..." Well, that's just not very helpful.
I wonder if the captain got out of his seat (against the rules) early and was not there to react/hand fly the jet and the FO was slow/hesitant to react. I find it hard to believe that two guys were strapped in their seats and just sat there and let the jet crash. There had to be some other contributing factor. But like you said, it could be two guys with mediocre trading and little or no upset recovery training. RIP
To go back to Dan's take on that winglet induced crash, he stressed that the pilot had his hands full in trying to gain control of the plane as there was no co-pilot to help him. Tamarack brushed this aside and blamed the pilot for a slow reaction. I went to Tamarack's website and listened to their spiel on the winglet and the narrator mentioned a "crew" many times along with the the winglet.operation. There was no other "crew" available for that unfortunate pilot.
This is the third flight I know of, that had the flight number 182, that met an unfortunate fate. The others: Pacific Southwest flight 182 in San Diego in 1978 and the bombing of Air India flight 182 over the Atlantic in 1985. Another "bad" flight number ? 191- or some combination of the numbers 1 and 9.😮
One of your best videos! So sad that those lives were lost. Scott, I’m so glad that you chose to review this accident. Questions remain as to why the pilots didn’t react to the upset. Was the throttle decline so gradual that they didn’t notice? Wouldn’t the plane begin to bank immediately matching the decline in throttle? It seems that the pilots would have noticed in time to correct the bank. Too bad the VR wasn’t recovered. The take off (and landing) procedure should receive the most concentrated attention from pilots when anything going wrong is most likely to happen and probably does, though it didn’t seem to be the case in this instance.
Perhaps maintenance could have deactivated the auto throttles and still legally returned the aircraft to service? The flight crew would have to set power and monitor. Frequently when the autopilot disconnects the edge of control has been reached and the crew does not react quickly enough.
Explained very well to me, a non airline pilot, for that matter, just basic knowledge. Agree. Airplane avionics alarm in this case ?? Needed ?? Thanks.
A proficient pilot would have detected what was going on in less than 10 seconds and taken corrective action long before upset recover skills were required. These pilots simply weren’t proficient.
I suspect that the local weather may have had a lot to do with this accident. Clearly requesting a weather diversion to avoid a storm cell implies that the aircraft may well have been experiencing turbulent conditions and departing from a smooth climb. The unnoticed gradual retardation of the throttle on one engine, turbulence and then a sudden autopilot disconnect, all combined to startle the crew, perhaps for several seconds. Since the entire episode only took 25 seconds from autopilot disconnect to impact with the sea, that really doesn’t leave a lot of time for recovery action. Recovery is possible in a simulator but unlikely in real life on a route flown routinely hundreds or thousands of times where most in flight problems develop slowly and the crew were taken completely unawares. There may also be cultural aspects involved where faced with an almost impossible recovery situation the crew accepted their fate rather than fight for control all the way to the surface. It has happened in the past.
Said it a thousand times & I'll say it again now. I believe all Pilots should start at the grass roots level & that is gliding, It'll teach you everything you need to know about "seat of your pant's" flying, then advance from there. History teaches this in so many cases world wide, this also apply's to G/A I know the Commercial world is different but getting to know "How it feels" can be instrumental in making decisions. Processing Trainee Pilot's through a School does not teach them real world expierence, no different than going to High School to learn the basics of learning how to learn. Other thoughts. Make better Simulators that can replicate real world scenarios. Oh wait that costs too much. Make better Aircraft Structures that exceed the "minimums" in case of an accident. Oh wait that costs too much. What is the cost of Human life? Love your video's Scott & thank you for highliting important details many may not think about. Happy Holidays. That's my 2 Cents worth as we say here.
As a far less experienced pilot than both of those pilots, I find it hard to imagine how you don't quickly notice and correct an unintentional reduction of power on one engine and the roll it produces. No special training is required for that. Isn't that just what pilots should do?
Paper work paper work it’s that important as a former crew chief and EMS Firefighter paperwork is everything. Maintenance workers can only go off what is written to what a problem is. I was lucky that I flew with my aircraft all the time so if something was wrong I knew right there which is important. Should a maintenance individual be on each flight? Great video.
I'm baffled how yaw and roll to the left would not immediately focus the eyes on the throttles first. Clearly there is no time to go through checklists. How can two pilots both miss the blindingly obvious? I agree with other comments - lots of impressive sounding total hours is no help.
Unbelievable that two “experienced” pilots could just sit there and watch this airplane destroy itself and everyone on board. A simple retardation of the right engine, or a disconnect of the autothrottles or a stop of the retardatiion of the left throttle to gain control of the aircraft is almost beyond belief for any pilot who knows how to hand fly an airplane...military or civilian. Automation is wonderful only if you first know how to fly without it. We did upset training for years at the airline I flew for, right up thru the 747-400...and you can be in a simulator upside down, believe me.,,been there, done that.
@@FlyWirescottperdue correct I is never the same but the whole point is “upset prevention “and recovery. We in these aircraft type become very reliant on auto throttle system and it is the most single action that I personally question myself into, “ do I know what the AT is doing or is my hand just following the throttle movement unconsciously” it’s hard to do given the the AT system works so well for most of the time. We have to keep questioning ourselves all the time, just like you did in that ILS approach with A/P. Thanks Scott
G'day Scott, Yikes ! One other thing, When in a Spiral Dive with full Asymetric Power (full Power one side, nothing on the other), some Aircraft will wind up so fast that when the Power is cut to the Engine which has initiated the Spiral Dive, as the Wings level - the Decollage Angle will respond to the Overspeed Condition by raising the Nose so vigorously that the Wingspar fails from the G-Load... I squeak from experience of flying a thing called a CC-Lee Falcon, which was a 2-Channel R/C Motor-Glider which had no Servos or Aerodynamic Controls...(!) ; the idea was to launch it trimmed to fly straight & level at best Glide Speed, one Channel turned both Motors on full - which resulted in a 45-degree Climbout..., the other Stick either cut Power to the Inside Engine in the desired direction while climbing - or it applies full throttle to the Outside Engine, while gliding - to "nudge" it wherever one wanted it to go. One thus learned to Circuit-plan with exquisite care, to be able to return to the Launch point, and with practice one could judiciously titrate the Power to perform Stall-Turns, and occasionally a Loop, but generally it rolled off the top. The Turn-Stick was used for brief moments, because if one held full Asymetric Thrust for as much as 3 seconds the machive was Wings-Vertical in a 45-Degree Dive and accelerating. And, unless one felt like repairing the Wing, as well as the Nose, with Glassfibre, it was better to hold it in the Turn and accept a Crash while diving at 45-degrees, Wings Vertical, and cartwheel briefly ; rather than cut the Power and watch while the Decollage pulled the Nose up, breaking the Wingspar - and having the Fuselage go into the Deck vertically, causing much more complicated repairs. I still have the Model, it has about 40 hours, and it's weight is now twice what it once was - from all the Glassfibre & Epoxy (!). Did you manage to catch, "The Aviator's Moustache..., Mystery Solved !" ? A big part of Australian Humour is the Self-Deprecation, one must be able to laugh at oneself, y'see ; thus and therefore I giggles at Biggles... Happy Solstice Festival... Have a good one. ;-p Ciao !
Thanks Warbbles... but the correct recovery in a spiral dive is to pull power and roll out.... but you don't let the trim system pitch the airplane up.... you control it by pushing the yoke to control the G/Climb rate. It is a counterintuitive recovery maneuver.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Oh, of course..., when flying a real Aeroplane one has Aerodynamic Controls and can use them...; but until I bought the Falcon for my son I had never much considered using Asymmetric Thrust as one's only way to "control" an Aeroplane - other than having read the Reader's Digest account of the Airliner (Boeing 727 I think ?) which lost the Tail-mounted Engine and when the Compressor flew apart it took out all three Hydraulic Systems, and the Pilots successfully reached an Airport and more or less landed the Aeroplane - well enough that most of the Passengers were able to walk or run away from the wreckage. And I didn't know if you'd ever encountered the phenomenon of an Aircraft designed to use Asymmetric Thrust as the only way to control the thing ; which I regard as an intriguing sort of "Outlier", which is surprisingly rewarding to fly. I have another one called a "Sky Hero", which is only 9 inches Wingspan (compared to 1.2 metres for the Falcon), and the little one has it's Motors driving a Ducted Fan on each Wingtip ! The little one has digital proportional Throttles, so one gets both Motors idling, and then trims the Directional input to get it to glide in a straight line..., it won't fly straight without some (trimmed) power ; and with it's Motors on the Wingtips, it is incredibly twitchy in the Yaw Axis. There was a stage when China was exporting quite a variety of such 2-Channel Asymmetric Thrust Models, the "most impressive" was a Boeing B-29 with a 1.2 metre wingspan...; which was more complicated to fly because it's Propeller Discs, when not under power, could "blank" about a third of the Wing Leading Edge...., so adding a blip of Power to stretch an approach glide would result in a major speed reduction and then a Pitch-down as soon as the Power came off - so one had to keep micro-blipping to avoid dropping below the Glideslope. The B-29's Turn-Stick only cut power by 50% on the inboard Motors when climbing - or applied half-power to the outboard ones when gliding... It's the only 4-Engine machine I've ever operated (!), and until the supply of tiny little plastic propellers ran out it was very challenging to fly. The manufacturers in China were apparently striving to make and sell impressive little models which cost a tiny fraction of what a normal R/C Model would change hands for - and such models could indeed fly surprisingly well, in still air, if operated by someone who knew a fair bit about the secondary effect of Asymmetric Power application. Perhaps if one or both Pilots of this crashed Airliner had encountered some cheap Chinese 2-Channel Asymmetric R/C Models, they might have recognised what was going on in time to rectify their problem ? Pure speculation on my part, but it's an extension of what you were saying about Upset Training - to better educate people about what happens when their Aeroplane is not flying normally, and it's not going straight and level on Autopilot or manually trying to fly like an Autopilot...(?). I hope you had a good Solstice Festival, and that your new year is a good one...; your Channel is the best of the Crash-Analysis Channels of which I'm aware, so please keep on keeping on. And thanks for replying to my admitedly idiosyncratic input, too ; I do appreciate your responses. Have a good one. Stay safe. ;-p Ciao !
31st March 2021 BBC reports: Indonesian search teams have retrieved the missing voice recorder from the Sriwijaya Air plane that crashed into the Java Sea in January, killing all 62 people on board. Officials said it was found under 1m (3.3ft) of mud and that it would take up to a week to retrieve the recording. The authorities hope that data from the "black box" can give vital clues on the possible cause of the tragedy. Flight SJ182 had crashed minutes after taking off from Jakarta.
Upset recovery we don’t use rudder in passenger get. But this being caused by situation similar to engine failure, needed rudder input. Most likely they didn’t realise one engine power coming to idle as thrust livers wont move in this case. Aileron will deflect to compensate for the roll as long as AP engaged and control column deflection might have missed since they were turning to avoid weather. Once AP disengage, aircraft will roll violently and as it is nose down, they won’t reduce power as adding power is part of nose down recovery. This would have seriously impacted the controllability of the aircraft. If they realised one engine is having different power/idle power, they would have acted on it. Just an series of things like technical issue, weather avoidance, climb power all came together and crew got disoriented. We do practice one engine failure during descent in SIM (when i was in 737) while doing hand flying. When level off, people get caught off guard when they add power. Many pilots won’t realise engine failure as there is no control issue during descent. Since they already have other malfunctions, master caution which comes associated with the engine failure are very often disregarded in the SIM.
Thanks for commenting and watching Harish. If you don't use Rudder in upset recoveries you are doing it wrong, period. If that is what theya re teaching you in your airline then they learned the wrong lesson from the AA Airbus 300 crash.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Thank you for your input. 😊 Rudder usage during a recovery tends to overcorrect a situation. Though the recovery procedure says if aileron is not enough for control, rudder inputs can be useful. I never used a rudder in SIM for upset recovery. I could always manage with aileron. But as you said, actual conditions are different from SIM, rudder might be required in actual conditions unlike SIM. We have upset recovery practice every 6 months during IR/PPC SIM which is mandated by government. Normally Power, elevators and aileron are enough to recover as all these transport aircrafts are inherently stable.I personally felt less inputs from pilots are better in recovery. Very small rudder inputs might help/required but I don’t remember intentionally using it. Said that, this accident is caused by asymmetrical thrust which caused the upset. This situation required rudder and power adjustment. But it seems they failed to recognise the asymmetrical thrust. I have about 9000 hours in 737, 1000 hours in 777 and 800 hours in Airbus 320/321. Rest all are in single and multi piston engines.
when your automation tells you something is taking you off course, when do you just hand-fly by what you believe, and when do you go-around to re-assess what happened... after all, the autopilot setting mistake/fault could be doing other things you are not yet recognizing to your airplane. as a safe pilot, when do you say, my awareness is bellow what it should be to land... lets take the time to analyze it, then proceed?
Interesting that the voice recorder/recordings have not been released. That may tell what really happened with the two pilots and an apparent non response to the situation. As a 1000 hr PPL holder (haven't flown since 1988) even I could tell when power is being lost in an engine. Come on. Where's all the bells and whistles to let you know. Doesn't make sense to me Scott.
You would think the Pilot In Command would take the occasional glance at the air speed, artificial horizon and what ever flight attitude instruments. It's what they get paid for. Peoples lives depend on it. Craziness.
I'm baffled why they even got into this pitch/bank in the first place- how can pilots not notice one throttle pulling back? Don't they do engine gauge scans? It seems to me they should have caught this problem long before it started. Am I incorrect?
Anyone else see the parallels with Tesla-style auto drive systems? The very real risk of a disengagement on the part of the driver because the auto driver system 'has it covered' seems to me to be a recipe for accidents.
That was my question too. Apparently this is another ‘single point of failure’ design flaw in the 737 series of aircraft, much like MCAS and the lack of a clear annunciation of AOA disagreement. This was a slow-motion engine failure that we may assume (since we don’t have the CVR recording evidence) snuck up on the crew. A ‘N1 DISAGREE’ or ‘N1 SPLIT’ message with a chime might have made all the difference. My follow-up question is: with current training standards, would most line pilots know what power setting to use for their desired airspeed and rate of climb? Blancolirio raises this issue frequently. You can’t really tell what’s wrong, or fix it, if you don’t know what right is.
My question is how could this happen? Two people in the cockpit watching the airplane dive into the ocean? Why didn't they apply power to the retarding throttle? Reduce power in the other engine to stop the turn. Or, was this allowed on purpose? The CVR needs to be recovered and or read. I know some countries have refused to allow Boeing and or DOT to listen to tapes as most other airlines are in their respective government control. That might suggest another host of reasons for the crash sorry to say. Thanks for the story Scott. Never heard about this one.
I'm kind of surprised that auto pilots don't have some type of alarm when they're approaching the limit of their control authority. Instead of just tripping offline and leaving the pilot to figure out what's going on and react, some type of preliminary notification that the autopilot is reaching 75 or 80% of its control authority would alert the pilot and not catch him with his pants down.
Dumb question from a non -pilot: why do the automatic systems allow such a high thrust asymmetry in this phase of flight? I would have expected some kind of protection when one motor goes to idle and the other is at climb power. Or detecting the bank rate when there were no corresponding pilot inputs. Maybe that's what the pilot thought too.
There is a large pachyderm in this room, let's say a pilot has a total of eleven thousand hours..most folks consider that to be substantial. But let's say he has zero military and started as I did in a J3. He got all the tickets and progressed through a number of aircraft until he fulfilled his dream of flying for the airlines. Now after years of flying as copilot he progressed to captain. How much stick and rudder time does he actually have? Let's see, autothrottle on takeoff...autopilot shortly thereafter...the autopilot in conjunction with the autothrottle will fly the approach so all he has to do is touch the controls a few hundred feet off the runway. Yes, he has eleven thousand hours, sitting in the seat and monitoring the gauges. Of course, he has simulator time, but IMHO that is not stick and rudder time. If you watch youtube a lot there are several, airline types, I would not fly with nor would I want to see them in a real emergency. I live in SEA and I know for a fact the pilots are taken from a very small privileged pool of people. Not necessarily the best available. I would love to see you discuss this further in an episode.
Another fatal human flaw is to do only the bare minimum to get the job done. It's human nature. When things go to sh!t, sometimes you pay the ultimate price. We see it every day in all walks of life, not just flying.
I agree more than 100%! Just something that came to mind as I was listening... I don't fly/front or back in that part of the world, thank God! But say your in back.. You know your in a climb, you hear 1 engine give up. Then it banks to the dead leg, and starts a steep decent... no action from the front... no action from the front. I'm reasonably sure something is very wrong. I know "Stu's" are trained to give a response like "nothing is wrong sir"... I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think I could just sit there and wait for the crash. If I was wrong, and it was some type of "normal situation" I would be embarrassed, but alive!! It makes me wonder if anyone in the back of that jet said/did anything!?!? Any thoughts?? Thanks!! 8) --gary
I hate to say it, but it wouldn't make any difference. There is no way to contact the cockpit except through the Flight Attendant phone. And the doors are secure against assault.
I know this doesn't necessarily apply to this story, although if you had the voice recorder, it might. I would like to see some group that focuses on the psycology of a commercial cockpit, and have them evaluate if the changing environment is becoming almost a bit too much for 2 people. These are my 2 reasons: (1) Every pilot will tell you " I handle thousands of flights with a high workload, no problem". But actually, many other pilots being trained today are becoming more "average" than ever, not able to, EVERY single time, handle a high stress situation. (2) So many times, after a crash, it was often the same thing: Pilots were anxious over some unrelated thing in the cockpit, and that thing often meant extra paperwork or a missed promotion or loss work time. Outside pressures are creeping in, on top of newer and more complex systems that "should" always work, but must be understood if they don't. The cockpit is a bad mix of running a complex machine, while having to deal with mundane computations, boring often repetitive 2-way radio conversations, and crazy corporate and government rules. I think a 3rd guy doing the mundane garbage, while 2 pilots fly the bird, might reduce that workload. Or at least it might be worth asking that question again.
Since they were in the clouds, is it possible they never knew there was any problem until impact? If they thought the autopilot was on, and then steered around some weather, would that action on their part cause the autopilot to disengage or would they simply let go and expect the autopilot to resume control automatically. Scott, you don't have to answer. I'm just really wondering if the malfunctioning throttles were too subtle to detect and they just missed the signal that the autopilot disengaged. If so, the lack of visual cues coupled with the oddities of acceleration and turning vectors on the inner ear could have caused them to believe everything was normal, until it wasn't. No cockpit voice recorder makes it hard to know unless the flight data recorder shows significant attempts to alter course before the crash.
note that both pilots could likely have been focusing on going around the weather, thus, their initial concentration would have been on the radar not on their instrument dials, they would have to switch back to the instruments in midst of high stress and alarm induced confusion. they would face a cacophony of alarms and alerts, including bank, sink-rate, possibly some form of a thrust imbalance alert (not sure if they had it) master-caution, altitude, speed, etc... they would have known something was wrong, but possibly were in sensory overload from all the information suddenly coming in. only a theory, but a probable one I think
cleaning the connecters or contacts is a BS sign off. the mechanic either didn't know what was wrong or couldn't duplicate the malfunction and was probably limited by time pressures. this very very common. Besides that all connecter and contacts would be located in the cockpit on the pedestal or in the lower nose compartment under the pedestal All of this in a pressurized area not subject to corrosion. been, done that. If I understood you correctly you said upset brown, that could be short hand for what the pilot would see on the ADI if he was pointed nose down as opposed to upset blue if were pointed nose up.
No, it’s not a BS sign off. Numerous times I’ve correct discrepancies by cleaning contacts, reseating connectors, or re-racking boxes. We often receive incomplete or conflicting information regarding a squawk. Some instances we cannot duplicate the squawk. At which point the customer/pilot can either pay us more to troubleshoot and repair/replace suspected bad (and very expensive) components or we can “clean some contacts” and send it on its way. Operator usually opt for the latter. If it F/Ts on the ground and the customer chooses “no further action” there really is nothing we as mechanics can do. It is the pilot’s responsibility to review all maintenance performed and determine if the aircraft is in a safe condition to fly. If the pilot doesn’t like “cleaned contacts” , then by all means bring it back in and we’ll gladly continue working it.
Why don't the autopilots give a warning to inattentive pilots when control inputs are abnormal or unusual before they reach their limits and disconnect? Even just a few seconds of "your airplane" warning could be invaluable.
The autopilot does give an alert when it disconnects. They aren't smart enough to know what is really going on. People are supposed to know that stuff.
@@FlyWirescottperdue OK. but the people don't always pay attention. Why couldn't the auto pilot say "I'm working really hard", or "the rudder is at 80% and heading for 90%, maybe you should get involved?" It won't know why, but it could know that control inputs are extreme and failure is imminent.
Indonesia: Safety First. Outstanding lecture, Sir. We're grateful. The question stands, how stupid does one have to be, to board an aircraft in a country whose First Responders don't all have footwear?
Should never sell a high performance airplane to a third world airline. Put them back in propeller aircraft soothes can't kill themselves so fast. Make the fly the aircraft a 100% of the time and leave George at home.
Sobering analysis. I've never liked flying especially general aviation. If I was a commercial pilot I would damn well work on the skills to recover control of a plane that's initiating a dangerous bank or pitching up.
1:14 haha I just realized how jenky your chair is in the background, a barstool and a nominal wooden chair seat screwed to each side of a lazy susan haha I love it =) edit - clearly you're making a much more important point here, that i'm not trying to take away from, just got a chuckle out of it is all, thanks Scott for your content and insight all the same man... err, Sir.
As a North Sea Helicopter/Army pilot who was trained from day one on "unusual attitudes" I was shocked to find that prior to the Air France south Atlantic crash Airline checks did not include the training. I however disagree about the use of simulators, they are great tools when properly used. As a wise man said :" I use my superior pilot knowledge to avoid situations that require the use of my superior pilot skills"
I did not say that sims were bad, I talked about how important they are. But they do NOT adequately present the real world. Perhaps they would be ok for recurrent.
Great video and I agree with your points of view. I've been in the pilot training game for 50 years (in industry and as an inspector for Transport Canada) and when I was still active and running a major training program I required all our ATPL/CPL students to complete full blown upset training plus basic aerobatics, using a Citabria and Decathlon, before we would sign them off for the Commercial check rides. I have a basic philosophy which is "The first time you are upside down in an aircraft, you should not have a bunch of screaming passengers in the back...." I also agree with your point about "George" is there to help; not take over the responsibility of flying the aircraft.
Thanks Mike!
spot on sir. I wish all flight schools did these AQP maneuvers and experience training.
I was fortunate enough to be thrown to the wolves before my first solo. I wanted more landing practice before my first solo and snuck in some taildragger time in a Citabria with a different CFI than my usual one. New plane, new CFI, new air space. This CFI had me practice the basics of slow flight, turns about a point, etc., and the garden variety nose-drop stalls. All of the basics I'd done in the DA40 and 172 with my regular CFI. Then during one of them he kicks the rudder hard over and all I see out of the windscreen is spinning ocean. To which he yells "Your aircraft!".
The element of surprise and pucker factor cannot be trained in any other way. We then practiced it multiple times until it just became another maneuver instead of a "holy shit!" moment.
Cruel to do to an 8 hour student? I don't think so at all. Sure, I wasn't happy about it, but wow did it change my perspective on things. What's required in the ACs is garbage. I firmly believe all students should be thrown to the wolves like I was, especially before their first solo.
Citabria is a great airplane. After my private I checked out in a 7KCAB and learned lots of aerobatics and did some banner towing in it. After getting my CFI I started teaching in it.
As my crusty old primary instructor used to say when talking about airline pilots in regard to their hours and experience: They have 1 hour repeated a few thousand times which isn’t the same as having 10,000 hours of experience. He had about 50,000 hours logged when I was learning to fly with him. I’ve always remembered that and never been too impressed by someone’s hours of flight time, unless it was flying in the bush or short haul cargo or similar.
I guess in Bush and short Hauls you dont use auto Pilot so you have to fly the plane yourself...So I guess he was saying airliners are just passengers except for the landing and takeoff.
@@hendersona49 Pretty much. I flew single pilot IFR in a 182 that did not have an autopilot … in the northeast, year round and at night. This keeps your skills fairly sharp.
50,000 logged hours?
@@NighthawkCarbine I'm questioning that as well. That's 2083 days of flying, 24hr a day. Or over 5 years of non-stop flying. Not sure how old that man was, but he must have been one of the Wright brother's instructors.
50,000 hours sounds pretty ridiculous, an obvious lie kind of kills his credibility.
Similar incidents have happened before. I remember a 747 that lost an engine while at cruise and when the autopilot lost control authority it rolled over and nosedived and broke the speed of sound. It was damaged form the overspeed had high G pull out but survived and was fixed. Just amazes me how this kind of thing continues to happen.
I remember that. I think it was a China or south Korea, but think it was a China flight over the ocean. They pulled some serious G's and injuries from those G forces, as well as a Stewardess that hit the ceiling.
Outstanding distilled wisdom here :-)
My old CFII went to the majors and became a PI there. He recently retired - and quit flying. He states that what is coming up among pilots, both GA and commercial, is a mob of computer admins who know every button on the gadgetry in the glass cockpit, but have zero stick and rudder skills. Prepped sim scenarios don't help.
Scott, your comments about upset training after the upset are bang on.
My issue with this accident is what were the pilots doing and thinking with the left throttle moving toward idle before the aircraft upset began. How can you miss one of the throttles going to idle with climb thrust selected? There probably was some yaw, even with the autopilot flying flying the aircraft - how can you miss that? There would also be some speed decay too. Recognizing these conditions before it becomes an upset is a basic flying skill.
Like the MAX accidents, we are again witnessing “experienced” pilots failing at the most fundamental aspects of their trade to the detriment of those that are counting on them. The blame has to be shared with the aircraft manufacturers, regulators and airlines as well as the individual pilots.
As a retired airline pilot with 27,000 hours ( 21,000 in command) on various Boeings I concur with your statement. Some of exceptionally poor performances of so called experienced pilots baffles me. Air France 447 would be the preeminent case in point.
I’ve actually flown the accident airplane at its original carrier the 737 autopilot does not move the rudder so not only yaw but a large yoke control deflection would have been a huge indication they had a problem.
Scott - Great video! Should be required for every commercial pilot to watch. The reality is that 25 seconds was really more like 18 seconds or less due to the inaction that typically follows the "surprise" factor. I spent 41 years at the same airline you worked for and the most heard comment in the simulators after the implementation of FMCs was "What's it doing now?" The biggest part of the problem, in my opinion with the onset more complicated auto flight systems was due to the airline training departments training the "pilot" out of people with training mostly focused on FMC management - I've actually had instructors tell me that I must use VNAV and NEVER use Vertical Speed because there were no safety protections. My response was always "What do you think I'm here for!" and of course it got worse with the introduction of CRM when one instructor actually told me that by not using VNAV I was pushing my FO out of the green! This was for an altitude change of 2000 ft below 10. Seriously, I'm not kidding. The other problem with all of this is "liability" and the lawyers. Remember the AQP training and how quickly that disappeared? Anyway, I digress - This accident and loss of life was sad, unfortunate and unnecessary. I just have to wonder how much these training departments getting away from basic "pilotage" skills are responsible for the outcome.
Thanks Ron. I think that a lot of training is drifting away from basic pilot skills. Not good!
I like your definition. When I was working in Aerospace, our mantra was, "If it isn't working as designed, and you don't know why, you can't say it's okay to fly." Very similar.
first time I went for a ride in a 2 place pitts and we went upside down.. that was a eye opener if you end up upside down in your small GA aircraft if you dont have great seat belts your head will knock into the ceiling big time and you will probably pull on the yoke/ side stick in Cirrus .. etc.. great video keep up the good work enjoy your presentations.
Full 10....on the rating of this video. Excellent brief. Thanks
As usual, an excellent analysis of this terrible incident, which the general media has long since forgotten Scott. Thank you. Just so's you know, the CVR (or the critical parts of it) were recovered at the end of March 2021 and Reuters reported on 12 April that the data had been successfully downloaded. This begs the obvious question ......
That is interesting. Now we wait for the Final report... I'll update when that comes out. Thanks for watching!
You did an outstanding job on this video
Recently I watched a VERY popular flying youtuber who stated he could not understand how you could stall an airliner at 35-40,000 feet. This airline pilot seemingly did not understand what the coffin corner is. He can get his airplane where he needs to go, but he seemingly does not understand how or why his airplane works. I was surprised.
didn't know your channel here yet and I am not a pilot, just little bit aviation enthousiast and don't understand English 100% but this were so great thoughs of you here, like that very much. Today saw at the channel mentour pilot this case of flight 182 and couldn't stop thinking about what could have prevented this, and so all your thoughts are really great for this case.
Somewhere I saw also a picture of the captain of 182 and although it was only one picture that doesn't need to say anything but when I saw this, in addition to the other facts of this case, it popped into my mind: we also have to ask us, if sometimes, some guys are maybe not the right people for being a pilot - in the meaning of how they react especially at emergencies (not e.g. at daily life situations), because some guys are maybe great personalities, friendly and very skilled at normal situations, but some people maybe have a "too soft" personality to stay cool at sudden emergencies. And without that I can judge this really, at this picture, this captain looked to me like a very friendly but "too soft", emotional guy, who was then maybe immediately mentally knocked out. In this special case, I don't want to judge this finally, but I think some parts of the airlines or who ever have to ask themselves, if the personality is really checked enough of everybody who is getting into the pilot seats.
Very possibly a root cause.
Another REALLY outstanding video, Scott
Thanks!
Hey Scott, Merry Christmas. Good video (once again). I too have an AF/trainer/major airline background and I agree 100% with your conclusions. In the last few years my employer was really stressing UPRT in the sim....I assumed it was trickle down from the Feds. I think your comment of "once it's doing something that I didn't input (paraphrased) it's an upset" is the best takeaway from the vid. This keeps whatever is happening from becoming actually severe. Nose low, throttle up, airspeed high recoveries in the tweet were kinda fun, but you really didn't want that to be the case in actual weather or while you're disoriented.
On an unrelated/related point: when George has the plane, I'm temporarily elevated to management where I watch his every move with the intent to criticize heavily. I loved my First Officers. They kept me out of trouble on a regular basis. But, I watched them just the same (except for the heavy criticism part)....hey, it's my butt too.
Fly Safe.
Gday Scott, theres quite a lot of emphasis on UPRT in the western world, probably more so in the last 4-5 years than ever before. In our 3 monthly cyclics it forms about a third of your assessment. This is a strange one and I can only guess they were not proficient and lacked training in UPRT. I’m comfortable to say the civil training in the sim I’ve experienced is quite good although the G forces aren’t there. I fly aerobatics occasionally on days off.
Scott, the points you make are valid, but the failed unusual attitude recovery of SJ 182 was the result of the crew not noticing an abnormal power setting and system malfunction... The throttle rollback should never have degenerated into an upset. IMO both the lack of noticing and correcting the rollback and subsequent failure to resolve the upset represent a significant lack of airmanship for a professional airline crew.
A pilot having 10,000 hours of flight time can mean he has 10,000 hours of learning, or the same hour of airplane driving 10,000 times.
"I was always afraid of dying. Always. It was my fear that made me learn everything I could about my airplane and my emergency equipment, and kept me flying respectful of my machine and always alert in the cockpit." - Chuck Yeager
Jim, thanks for the comment, but I'm pretty sure that is the point I was making in the video.
Excellent presentation. The identical autopilot experience and also disconnected the autopilot to hand fly the approach and evaluated what I’d done wrong when safely on the ground.
TAROM RO371 in 1995 was lost in an almost identical way on an Airbus 310. One lever forward, one back, AP trips out and the crew are not ready to control the ensuing roll, yaw and dive. As they say, there are no new accidents, only new people to make them.
Airbus commercial jets from the A320 series onwards have done away with back-driven thrust levers which eliminates some failure modes. Power output of the engines must still be monitored during high thrust operation especially when near the ground, in IMC or at night. The window to catch and sort the problem is limited.
17,000 hours of watching the autopilot fly the airplane? It's pretty common in parts of the world.
Outstanding Scott, especially your "Cool Pilot Shit".
Well done.
There is no substitute for stall / spin recovery training, with real spins. The stalls we teach students are nothing like the real world.
I feel fortunate to have flown 3 different aircraft types before doing my first solo. I went up with a different instructor and a Citabria (the Decathalon's close cousin). I wanted to get more practice with landings and the taildragger requires a bit more precision. That was all that was on the menu... So I thought.
Before we got into the landings, the CFI wanted me to feel the plane out first. Slow flight, turns, etc. Practiced power-on & power-off stalls. Then without warning, he throws it into a spin and says "your aircraft!" For this student pilot, that was a quite the shocker. All I saw out the windscreen was the ocean spinning wildly. Training kicked in, PARE, the plane was flying straight & level, my stomach was some 1,000+ feet above us. We kept doing this until it truly became second nature and not even raising my pulse. Then we went for the landings.
The startle factor was huge. A CFI and aircraft I had never met or heard of until an hour before, in an unfamiliar airspace and airport. I was just expecting to do a series of landings. Spinning an aircraft wasn't anywhere on my mind - - just like it'd happen in real life. After all, if you knew you were going stall or spin you wouldn't be in that situation to begin with.
My regular CFI thought it was cruel and that it shouldn't have been done. I disagree. Seeing an unintentional spin, in the flesh, is a completely different animal than the nose just taking a little dip.
Invaluable advice to an ancient student pilot.
Excellent analysis, observations and insight as always Scott. Thanks
Much appreciated!
Excellent!
Thanks for sharing Scott, Best Wishes to You and Yours for a great New Year.
So professional. So articulate.
Excellent analysis. Hard to believe that those guys didn't notice what was happening with the throttles and their bank angle, etc.
That part of the world has a shit safety record
Good advice! Thanks
Scott. I'm a pilot and I enjoy vey much listening to your analysis...keep them coming. And I'd love to hear about John Denver's accident. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that he inadvertently depressed the rudder while reaching for the fuel switch.
We have done plenty of regular UA training in our sim training program. However I have heard absolute horror stories from other airlines, (particularly in that part of the world.)
Just ONE example: Simulator recency training and a V1 cut - captain continues the takeoff with too little control input, loses control and crashes. Repeat right? No, let’s move on to the next in the sequence.
That was first hand from one of our FOs who was flying with them while on leave of absence from us. 😳
Another well done accident review. We want more (reviews, not accidents).
Sounds like a lack of hand flying experience in that airplane. They always relied on the autopilot to do everything. So when something goes wrong, the crew has no idea what to do. They sat there and watched it roll over and crash into the water killing everyone on board.
There needs to be a rule - in a spin situation in any aircraft, the basics overule - hit the off button on that autipilot and recover the spin.
If you're flying the plane, you're going to notice a loss of power on one side, just from the amount of correction you'll have to apply to compensate for it. So, even if you're not scanning engine power (as you should be) you'll catch it before it gets too bad. And you'll have plenty of time to figure out what's going on. But if the autopilot is flying the plane, it will gradually compensate for the imbalance. And if you're careless or distracted you might not notice. Then, when the autopilot kicks off, you're in a situation that requires immediate action. If, for example, your plane is icing up, the autopilot will increase pitch to maintain altitude. You'd notice if you were flying the plane. But when the autopilot pitches up it doesn't tell you. And by the time it disconnects, you may be out of time and out of luck. It seems like there's an opportunity for some engineering here. An autopilot ought to be able to sense -- just like you can -- when something's abnormal. Then it ought to be able to warn you, well before it has to disconnect, that there's an issue. On a glass panel, it could even tell you what the issue is and what to check. A system like that could be built in as part of the software. The point would be to tell you there's a problem well before the plane becomes unstable. But when the autopilot gets in trouble and then simply says, "I can't fly the plane. Here, you fly it..." Well, that's just not very helpful.
Yes!
I wonder if the captain got out of his seat (against the rules) early and was not there to react/hand fly the jet and the FO was slow/hesitant to react. I find it hard to believe that two guys were strapped in their seats and just sat there and let the jet crash. There had to be some other contributing factor.
But like you said, it could be two guys with mediocre trading and little or no upset recovery training. RIP
To go back to Dan's take on that winglet induced crash, he stressed that the pilot had his hands full in trying to gain control of the plane as there was no co-pilot to help him. Tamarack brushed this aside and blamed the pilot for a slow reaction.
I went to Tamarack's website and listened to their spiel on the winglet and the narrator mentioned a "crew" many times along with the the winglet.operation. There was no other "crew" available for that unfortunate pilot.
This is the third flight I know of, that had the flight number 182, that met an unfortunate fate. The others: Pacific Southwest flight 182 in San Diego in 1978 and the bombing of Air India flight 182 over the Atlantic in 1985. Another "bad" flight number ? 191- or some combination of the numbers 1 and 9.😮
One of your best videos! So sad that those lives were lost. Scott, I’m so glad that you chose to review this accident. Questions remain as to why the pilots didn’t react to the upset. Was the throttle decline so gradual that they didn’t notice? Wouldn’t the plane begin to bank immediately matching the decline in throttle? It seems that the pilots would have noticed in time to correct the bank. Too bad the VR wasn’t recovered. The take off (and landing) procedure should receive the most concentrated attention from pilots when anything going wrong is most likely to happen and probably does, though it didn’t seem to be the case in this instance.
Thanks! The autopilot controlled the flight path until it disconnected.
@@FlyWirescottperdue 👍
Sometimes 17,000 hours of things never going wrong can work against you.
Perhaps maintenance could have deactivated the auto throttles and still legally returned the aircraft to service? The flight crew would have to set power and monitor. Frequently when the autopilot disconnects the edge of control has been reached and the crew does not react quickly enough.
Most of the time, in my experience, that is what happens.
Great commentary. Scott was there any mention of angle of attack sensor on this one ?
No, the airplane has two of them on either side of the fuselage. Same AOA vanes as the 737MAX (but not the same system).
Explained very well to me, a non airline pilot, for that matter, just basic knowledge. Agree. Airplane avionics alarm in this case ?? Needed ?? Thanks.
A proficient pilot would have detected what was going on in less than 10 seconds and taken corrective action long before upset recover skills were required. These pilots simply weren’t proficient.
I suspect that the local weather may have had a lot to do with this accident. Clearly requesting a weather diversion to avoid a storm cell implies that the aircraft may well have been experiencing turbulent conditions and departing from a smooth climb. The unnoticed gradual retardation of the throttle on one engine, turbulence and then a sudden autopilot disconnect, all combined to startle the crew, perhaps for several seconds. Since the entire episode only took 25 seconds from autopilot disconnect to impact with the sea, that really doesn’t leave a lot of time for recovery action. Recovery is possible in a simulator but unlikely in real life on a route flown routinely hundreds or thousands of times where most in flight problems develop slowly and the crew were taken completely unawares. There may also be cultural aspects involved where faced with an almost impossible recovery situation the crew accepted their fate rather than fight for control all the way to the surface. It has happened in the past.
Said it a thousand times & I'll say it again now.
I believe all Pilots should start at the grass roots level & that is gliding, It'll teach you everything you need to know about "seat of your pant's" flying, then advance from there. History teaches this in so many cases world wide, this also apply's to G/A
I know the Commercial world is different but getting to know "How it feels" can be instrumental in making decisions.
Processing Trainee Pilot's through a School does not teach them real world expierence, no different than going to High School to learn the basics of learning how to learn.
Other thoughts.
Make better Simulators that can replicate real world scenarios. Oh wait that costs too much.
Make better Aircraft Structures that exceed the "minimums" in case of an accident. Oh wait that costs too much.
What is the cost of Human life?
Love your video's Scott & thank you for highliting important details many may not think about. Happy Holidays. That's my 2 Cents worth as we say here.
I truly believe your nickel in the grass is worth ( saving) my life.
As a far less experienced pilot than both of those pilots, I find it hard to imagine how you don't quickly notice and correct an unintentional reduction of power on one engine and the roll it produces. No special training is required for that. Isn't that just what pilots should do?
Indeed it is!
@@FlyWirescottperdue Then what is it that kept these very experienced pilots from doing that?
Reminds me of Colgan flight DH8-Q400
Paper work paper work it’s that important as a former crew chief and EMS Firefighter paperwork is everything. Maintenance workers can only go off what is written to what a problem is. I was lucky that I flew with my aircraft all the time so if something was wrong I knew right there which is important. Should a maintenance individual be on each flight? Great video.
I'm baffled how yaw and roll to the left would not immediately focus the eyes on the throttles first. Clearly there is no time to go through checklists. How can two pilots both miss the blindingly obvious? I agree with other comments - lots of impressive sounding total hours is no help.
Unbelievable that two “experienced” pilots could just sit there and watch this airplane destroy itself and everyone on board. A simple retardation of the right engine, or a disconnect of the autothrottles or a stop of the retardatiion of the left throttle to gain control of the aircraft is almost beyond belief for any pilot who knows how to hand fly an airplane...military or civilian. Automation is wonderful only if you first know how to fly without it. We did upset training for years at the airline I flew for, right up thru the 747-400...and you can be in a simulator upside down, believe me.,,been there, done that.
Thanks for the comment... but I've done Upset training in Level D sims and it is NOT the same as the real world.
Exactly!!
@@FlyWirescottperdue correct I is never the same but the whole point is “upset prevention “and recovery. We in these aircraft type become very reliant on auto throttle system and it is the most single action that I personally question myself into, “ do I know what the AT is doing or is my hand just following the throttle movement unconsciously” it’s hard to do given the the AT system works so well for most of the time. We have to keep questioning ourselves all the time, just like you did in that ILS approach with A/P. Thanks Scott
Why is it that a modern aircraft does not have a “thrust imbalance warning”. Thrust imbalance has killed a lot of people.
G'day Scott,
Yikes !
One other thing,
When in a Spiral Dive with full Asymetric Power (full Power one side, nothing on the other), some Aircraft will wind up so fast that when the Power is cut to the Engine which has initiated the Spiral Dive, as the Wings level - the Decollage Angle will respond to the Overspeed Condition by raising the Nose so vigorously that the Wingspar fails from the G-Load...
I squeak from experience of flying a thing called a CC-Lee Falcon, which was a 2-Channel R/C Motor-Glider which had no Servos or Aerodynamic Controls...(!) ; the idea was to launch it trimmed to fly straight & level at best Glide Speed, one Channel turned both Motors on full - which resulted in a 45-degree Climbout..., the other Stick either cut Power to the Inside Engine in the desired direction while climbing - or it applies full throttle to the Outside Engine, while gliding - to "nudge" it wherever one wanted it to go.
One thus learned to Circuit-plan with exquisite care, to be able to return to the Launch point, and with practice one could judiciously titrate the Power to perform Stall-Turns, and occasionally a Loop, but generally it rolled off the top.
The Turn-Stick was used for brief moments, because if one held full Asymetric Thrust for as much as 3 seconds the machive was Wings-Vertical in a 45-Degree Dive and accelerating.
And, unless one felt like repairing the Wing, as well as the Nose, with Glassfibre, it was better to hold it in the Turn and accept a Crash while diving at 45-degrees, Wings Vertical, and cartwheel briefly ; rather than cut the Power and watch while the Decollage pulled the Nose up, breaking the Wingspar - and having the Fuselage go into the Deck vertically, causing much more complicated repairs.
I still have the Model, it has about 40 hours, and it's weight is now twice what it once was - from all the Glassfibre & Epoxy (!).
Did you manage to catch,
"The Aviator's Moustache..., Mystery Solved !"
?
A big part of Australian Humour is the Self-Deprecation, one must be able to laugh at oneself, y'see ; thus and therefore I giggles at Biggles...
Happy Solstice Festival...
Have a good one.
;-p
Ciao !
Thanks Warbbles... but the correct recovery in a spiral dive is to pull power and roll out.... but you don't let the trim system pitch the airplane up.... you control it by pushing the yoke to control the G/Climb rate. It is a counterintuitive recovery maneuver.
@@FlyWirescottperdue
Oh, of course..., when flying a real Aeroplane one has Aerodynamic Controls and can use them...; but until I bought the Falcon for my son I had never much considered using Asymmetric Thrust as one's only way to "control" an Aeroplane - other than having read the Reader's Digest account of the Airliner (Boeing 727 I think ?) which lost the Tail-mounted Engine and when the Compressor flew apart it took out all three Hydraulic Systems, and the Pilots successfully reached an Airport and more or less landed the Aeroplane - well enough that most of the Passengers were able to walk or run away from the wreckage.
And I didn't know if you'd ever encountered the phenomenon of an Aircraft designed to use Asymmetric Thrust as the only way to control the thing ; which I regard as an intriguing sort of "Outlier", which is surprisingly rewarding to fly.
I have another one called a "Sky Hero", which is only 9 inches Wingspan (compared to 1.2 metres for the Falcon), and the little one has it's Motors driving a Ducted Fan on each Wingtip !
The little one has digital proportional Throttles, so one gets both Motors idling, and then trims the Directional input to get it to glide in a straight line..., it won't fly straight without some (trimmed) power ; and with it's Motors on the Wingtips, it is incredibly twitchy in the Yaw Axis.
There was a stage when China was exporting quite a variety of such 2-Channel Asymmetric Thrust Models, the "most impressive" was a Boeing B-29 with a 1.2 metre wingspan...; which was more complicated to fly because it's Propeller Discs, when not under power, could "blank" about a third of the Wing Leading Edge...., so adding a blip of Power to stretch an approach glide would result in a major speed reduction and then a Pitch-down as soon as the Power came off - so one had to keep micro-blipping to avoid dropping below the Glideslope. The B-29's Turn-Stick only cut power by 50% on the inboard Motors when climbing - or applied half-power to the outboard ones when gliding...
It's the only 4-Engine machine I've ever operated (!), and until the supply of tiny little plastic propellers ran out it was very challenging to fly.
The manufacturers in China were apparently striving to make and sell impressive little models which cost a tiny fraction of what a normal R/C Model would change hands for - and such models could indeed fly surprisingly well, in still air, if operated by someone who knew a fair bit about the secondary effect of Asymmetric Power application.
Perhaps if one or both Pilots of this crashed Airliner had encountered some cheap Chinese 2-Channel Asymmetric R/C Models, they might have recognised what was going on in time to rectify their problem ?
Pure speculation on my part, but it's an extension of what you were saying about Upset Training - to better educate people about what happens when their Aeroplane is not flying normally, and it's not going straight and level on Autopilot or manually trying to fly like an Autopilot...(?).
I hope you had a good Solstice Festival, and that your new year is a good one...; your Channel is the best of the Crash-Analysis Channels of which I'm aware, so please keep on keeping on.
And thanks for replying to my admitedly idiosyncratic input, too ; I do appreciate your responses.
Have a good one.
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
31st March 2021 BBC reports: Indonesian search teams have retrieved the missing voice recorder from the Sriwijaya Air plane that crashed into the Java Sea in January, killing all 62 people on board.
Officials said it was found under 1m (3.3ft) of mud and that it would take up to a week to retrieve the recording.
The authorities hope that data from the "black box" can give vital clues on the possible cause of the tragedy.
Flight SJ182 had crashed minutes after taking off from Jakarta.
Upset recovery we don’t use rudder in passenger get. But this being caused by situation similar to engine failure, needed rudder input. Most likely they didn’t realise one engine power coming to idle as thrust livers wont move in this case. Aileron will deflect to compensate for the roll as long as AP engaged and control column deflection might have missed since they were turning to avoid weather. Once AP disengage, aircraft will roll violently and as it is nose down, they won’t reduce power as adding power is part of nose down recovery. This would have seriously impacted the controllability of the aircraft.
If they realised one engine is having different power/idle power, they would have acted on it. Just an series of things like technical issue, weather avoidance, climb power all came together and crew got disoriented.
We do practice one engine failure during descent in SIM (when i was in 737) while doing hand flying. When level off, people get caught off guard when they add power. Many pilots won’t realise engine failure as there is no control issue during descent. Since they already have other malfunctions, master caution which comes associated with the engine failure are very often disregarded in the SIM.
Thanks for commenting and watching Harish. If you don't use Rudder in upset recoveries you are doing it wrong, period. If that is what theya re teaching you in your airline then they learned the wrong lesson from the AA Airbus 300 crash.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Thank you for your input. 😊
Rudder usage during a recovery tends to overcorrect a situation. Though the recovery procedure says if aileron is not enough for control, rudder inputs can be useful. I never used a rudder in SIM for upset recovery. I could always manage with aileron. But as you said, actual conditions are different from SIM, rudder might be required in actual conditions unlike SIM.
We have upset recovery practice every 6 months during IR/PPC SIM which is mandated by government.
Normally Power, elevators and aileron are enough to recover as all these transport aircrafts are inherently stable.I personally felt less inputs from pilots are better in recovery. Very small rudder inputs might help/required but I don’t remember intentionally using it.
Said that, this accident is caused by asymmetrical thrust which caused the upset. This situation required rudder and power adjustment. But it seems they failed to recognise the asymmetrical thrust.
I have about 9000 hours in 737, 1000 hours in 777 and 800 hours in Airbus 320/321. Rest all are in single and multi piston engines.
when your automation tells you something is taking you off course, when do you just hand-fly by what you believe, and when do you go-around to re-assess what happened... after all, the autopilot setting mistake/fault could be doing other things you are not yet recognizing to your airplane.
as a safe pilot, when do you say, my awareness is bellow what it should be to land... lets take the time to analyze it, then proceed?
You always need to work on your situational awareness. When things don’t go right… that’s the trigger. Keep your head in the game.
I'll fly with you anytime.
Interesting that the voice recorder/recordings have not been released. That may tell what really happened with the two pilots and an apparent non response to the situation. As a 1000 hr PPL holder (haven't flown since 1988) even I could tell when power is being lost in an engine. Come on. Where's all the bells and whistles to let you know. Doesn't make sense to me Scott.
AF-447 revisited...
You would think the Pilot In Command would take the occasional glance at the air speed, artificial horizon and what ever flight attitude instruments. It's what they get paid for. Peoples lives depend on it. Craziness.
You would think that.
I'm baffled why they even got into this pitch/bank in the first place- how can pilots not notice one throttle pulling back? Don't they do engine gauge scans? It seems to me they should have caught this problem long before it started. Am I incorrect?
Nope, you’re not wrong.
My guess is, this country does not want anyone to know what the Flight Recorder has revealed.
Anyone else see the parallels with Tesla-style auto drive systems? The very real risk of a disengagement on the part of the driver because the auto driver system 'has it covered' seems to me to be a recipe for accidents.
Absolutely!
Is there any kind of cockpit warning for asymmetrical thrust (i.e. a large discrepency in RPM)?
No.
That was my question too. Apparently this is another ‘single point of failure’ design flaw in the 737 series of aircraft, much like MCAS and the lack of a clear annunciation of AOA disagreement. This was a slow-motion engine failure that we may assume (since we don’t have the CVR recording evidence) snuck up on the crew. A ‘N1 DISAGREE’ or ‘N1 SPLIT’ message with a chime might have made all the difference. My follow-up question is: with current training standards, would most line pilots know what power setting to use for their desired airspeed and rate of climb? Blancolirio raises this issue frequently. You can’t really tell what’s wrong, or fix it, if you don’t know what right is.
@@FlyWirescottperdue Thanks! Do you have an opinion on whether there should be?
My question is how could this happen? Two people in the cockpit watching the airplane dive into the ocean? Why didn't they apply power to the retarding throttle? Reduce power in the other engine to stop the turn. Or, was this allowed on purpose? The CVR needs to be recovered and or read. I know some countries have refused to allow Boeing and or DOT to listen to tapes as most other airlines are in their respective government control. That might suggest another host of reasons for the crash sorry to say. Thanks for the story Scott. Never heard about this one.
I'm kind of surprised that auto pilots don't have some type of alarm when they're approaching the limit of their control authority. Instead of just tripping offline and leaving the pilot to figure out what's going on and react, some type of preliminary notification that the autopilot is reaching 75 or 80% of its control authority would alert the pilot and not catch him with his pants down.
And include a thrust mismatch audible and visual warnings.
Isn’t that almost ops normal for many carriers in that part of the world 😔
The sad fact is that they certainly don’t have a good track record.
is that a really long way of saying they never looked down and notice the throttles had come back?
yep, same thing happned with the 737MAX accidents.
What happens when the auto-throttles disengage? Do they return to idle or simply stay in their last position?
They should stay in the last power setting.
Dumb question from a non -pilot: why do the automatic systems allow such a high thrust asymmetry in this phase of flight? I would have expected some kind of protection when one motor goes to idle and the other is at climb power. Or detecting the bank rate when there were no corresponding pilot inputs.
Maybe that's what the pilot thought too.
I will never understand why when the engine starts to slow nobody took over and turned off the autopilot and hand flew the aircraft.
There is a large pachyderm in this room, let's say a pilot has a total of eleven thousand hours..most folks consider that to be substantial. But let's say he has zero military and started as I did in a J3. He got all the tickets and progressed through a number of aircraft until he fulfilled his dream of flying for the airlines. Now after years of flying as copilot he progressed to captain. How much stick and rudder time does he actually have? Let's see, autothrottle on takeoff...autopilot shortly thereafter...the autopilot in conjunction with the autothrottle will fly the approach so all he has to do is touch the controls a few hundred feet off the runway. Yes, he has eleven thousand hours, sitting in the seat and monitoring the gauges. Of course, he has simulator time, but IMHO that is not stick and rudder time. If you watch youtube a lot there are several, airline types, I would not fly with nor would I want to see them in a real emergency. I live in SEA and I know for a fact the pilots are taken from a very small privileged pool of people. Not necessarily the best available. I would love to see you discuss this further in an episode.
That would indeed be a fire starter!
Another fatal human flaw is to do only the bare minimum to get the job done. It's human nature. When things go to sh!t, sometimes you pay the ultimate price. We see it every day in all walks of life, not just flying.
I agree more than 100%! Just something that came to mind as I was listening... I don't fly/front or back in that part of the world, thank God! But say your in back.. You know your in a climb, you hear 1 engine give up. Then it banks to the dead leg, and starts a steep decent... no action from the front... no action from the front. I'm reasonably sure something is very wrong. I know "Stu's" are trained to give a response like "nothing is wrong sir"... I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think I could just sit there and wait for the crash. If I was wrong, and it was some type of "normal situation" I would be embarrassed, but alive!! It makes me wonder if anyone in the back of that jet said/did anything!?!? Any thoughts?? Thanks!! 8) --gary
I hate to say it, but it wouldn't make any difference. There is no way to contact the cockpit except through the Flight Attendant phone. And the doors are secure against assault.
So where were the crew???
I know this doesn't necessarily apply to this story, although if you had the voice recorder, it might. I would like to see some group that focuses on the psycology of a commercial cockpit, and have them evaluate if the changing environment is becoming almost a bit too much for 2 people. These are my 2 reasons: (1) Every pilot will tell you " I handle thousands of flights with a high workload, no problem". But actually, many other pilots being trained today are becoming more "average" than ever, not able to, EVERY single time, handle a high stress situation.
(2) So many times, after a crash, it was often the same thing: Pilots were anxious over some unrelated thing in the cockpit, and that thing often meant extra paperwork or a missed promotion or loss work time. Outside pressures are creeping in, on top of newer and more complex systems that "should" always work, but must be understood if they don't. The cockpit is a bad mix of running a complex machine, while having to deal with mundane computations, boring often repetitive 2-way radio conversations, and crazy corporate and government rules.
I think a 3rd guy doing the mundane garbage, while 2 pilots fly the bird, might reduce that workload. Or at least it might be worth asking that question again.
The trend is in the opposite direction as far as manning in the cockpit goes.
I wonder if they have a SAFO 05002 or equivalent requiremnt or ICAO AUPRTA requirement by their insurance company... TEM anyone?
Since they were in the clouds, is it possible they never knew there was any problem until impact? If they thought the autopilot was on, and then steered around some weather, would that action on their part cause the autopilot to disengage or would they simply let go and expect the autopilot to resume control automatically. Scott, you don't have to answer. I'm just really wondering if the malfunctioning throttles were too subtle to detect and they just missed the signal that the autopilot disengaged. If so, the lack of visual cues coupled with the oddities of acceleration and turning vectors on the inner ear could have caused them to believe everything was normal, until it wasn't. No cockpit voice recorder makes it hard to know unless the flight data recorder shows significant attempts to alter course before the crash.
note that both pilots could likely have been focusing on going around the weather,
thus, their initial concentration would have been on the radar not on their instrument dials, they would have to switch back to the instruments in midst of high stress and alarm induced confusion.
they would face a cacophony of alarms and alerts, including bank, sink-rate, possibly some form of a thrust imbalance alert (not sure if they had it) master-caution, altitude, speed, etc... they would have known something was wrong, but possibly were in sensory overload from all the information suddenly coming in.
only a theory, but a probable one I think
cleaning the connecters or contacts is a BS sign off. the mechanic either didn't know what was wrong or couldn't duplicate the malfunction and was probably limited by time pressures. this very very common. Besides that all connecter and contacts would be located in the cockpit on the pedestal or in the lower nose compartment under the pedestal All of this in a pressurized area not subject to corrosion. been, done that. If I understood you correctly you said upset brown, that could be short hand for what the pilot would see on the ADI if he was pointed nose down as opposed to upset blue if were pointed nose up.
No, it’s not a BS sign off. Numerous times I’ve correct discrepancies by cleaning contacts, reseating connectors, or re-racking boxes.
We often receive incomplete or conflicting information regarding a squawk. Some instances we cannot duplicate the squawk. At which point the customer/pilot can either pay us more to troubleshoot and repair/replace suspected bad (and very expensive) components or we can “clean some contacts” and send it on its way. Operator usually opt for the latter. If it F/Ts on the ground and the customer chooses “no further action” there really is nothing we as mechanics can do.
It is the pilot’s responsibility to review all maintenance performed and determine if the aircraft is in a safe condition to fly. If the pilot doesn’t like “cleaned contacts” , then by all means bring it back in and we’ll gladly continue working it.
@@Nemesisnxt Very well said, collegue!
What happened did the pilots stay home that day, or just leave there brain at home!
This is why I'm not a huge fan of the Tesla auto drive - works great until it decides to drive you off a cliff like has happenned.
Ugh! Poor maintenance and poor piloting!
Why don't the autopilots give a warning to inattentive pilots when control inputs are abnormal or unusual before they reach their limits and disconnect? Even just a few seconds of "your airplane" warning could be invaluable.
The autopilot does give an alert when it disconnects. They aren't smart enough to know what is really going on. People are supposed to know that stuff.
@@FlyWirescottperdue OK. but the people don't always pay attention. Why couldn't the auto pilot say "I'm working really hard", or "the rudder is at 80% and heading for 90%, maybe you should get involved?" It won't know why, but it could know that control inputs are extreme and failure is imminent.
If pilots would have hand flown aircraft longer , could they have noticed that left engine rolled back?
They should have known it pretty much right away.
I think pilots need to be vigilant , focused on take off ,climb and turn for every scenario , every time.
One thought is that the airline industry needs to retire 182 as a flight number😔
Computers, and check list over ruled common sense, and pilot skills.
Are we sure they didn’t react? Obviously the plane crashed but that’s not evidence that they didn’t react. CVR?
If they did react, it had no manifest impact on the flight path. If they did anything it was ineffective.
Everything about this incident screams to me of an intentional act on behalf of one or both of the pilots. No way this just happened.
Indonesia: Safety First.
Outstanding lecture, Sir. We're grateful.
The question stands, how stupid does one have to be, to board an aircraft in a country whose First Responders don't all have footwear?
Should never sell a high performance airplane to a third world airline. Put them back in propeller aircraft soothes can't kill themselves so fast. Make the fly the aircraft a 100% of the time and leave George at home.
Sobering analysis. I've never liked flying especially general aviation. If I was a commercial pilot I would damn well work on the skills to recover control of a plane that's initiating a dangerous bank or pitching up.
1:14
haha I just realized how jenky your chair is in the background, a barstool and a nominal wooden chair seat screwed to each side of a lazy susan haha I love it =)
edit - clearly you're making a much more important point here, that i'm not trying to take away from, just got a chuckle out of it is all, thanks Scott for your content and insight all the same man... err, Sir.
No worries!
As a North Sea Helicopter/Army pilot who was trained from day one on "unusual attitudes" I was shocked to find that prior to the Air France south Atlantic crash Airline checks did not include the training. I however disagree about the use of simulators, they are great tools when properly used.
As a wise man said :" I use my superior pilot knowledge to avoid situations that require the use of my superior pilot skills"
I did not say that sims were bad, I talked about how important they are. But they do NOT adequately present the real world. Perhaps they would be ok for recurrent.