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Cockpit crisis: In five years, over 50 commercial airplanes crashed in loss-of-control accidents. What’s going on?
(take the time and read this EXCELLENT article). With low clouds and a fine mist hanging in the morning air, the pilots of Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 anticipated a routine approach to Amsterdam’s busy Schiphol Airport on Feb. 25, 2009. But instead of touching down gently on the runway, the white and red Boeing 737 dropped out of the sky and slammed into a muddy field just short of the airport, smashing into three pieces. Nine people died, including all three pilots. Another 84 were injured. (www2.macleans.ca) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Training could always be improved, but ultimately it is each pilot's own responsibility as a professional pilot to stay intimately familiar with the aircraft's systems and procedures for safe operation. I fly Boeing 737s and have invested in additional publications about my aircraft. I study on my own time to be ready when the automated systems stop working. The type rating on my pilot certificate requires me to do this. Professional pilots should take the responsibility for their own competence into thief own hands. Your level of professionalism is your own responsibility.
Well said Glenn. Any professional has continued education to maintain their current status. I certainly wouldn't want my personal physician to remain where he was at when he graduated from medical school. As with any profession, there will always be those that cut slack, doing just what they have to do to get by. Those are the one's we'll hear about when an upset comes along because they will not have the ability to recover.
I don't understand why people refer to these aircraft as smart, when they really are dumb. They lack a central computer to interlink all the data from all the instruments do develop their own situational awareness.
In the Trukish crash for example, a malfunctioning instrument prevented the increase in thrust contrary to the pilot pushing the thrust lever forward. Is that a smart airplane. Would it have happened if there were a cable connecting that thrust lever to the engine rather than a "smart" computer.
In the AirFrance crash the stall warning stopped sounding when the airspeed got too slow. Can an airplane fly slow enough that is won't stall? No it can't, so how smart is that system? I'd say not very. The "Super Smart" airplane, in spite of a high angle of attack, nose up elevator, decreasing altitude, negative vertical speed and low airspeed- didn't know it was stalled. Smart? I think not. An analog airspeed indicator and cessna 152 type stall horn would have been better in this case than the million dollar over engineered computers on this plane.
In the Trukish crash for example, a malfunctioning instrument prevented the increase in thrust contrary to the pilot pushing the thrust lever forward. Is that a smart airplane. Would it have happened if there were a cable connecting that thrust lever to the engine rather than a "smart" computer.
In the AirFrance crash the stall warning stopped sounding when the airspeed got too slow. Can an airplane fly slow enough that is won't stall? No it can't, so how smart is that system? I'd say not very. The "Super Smart" airplane, in spite of a high angle of attack, nose up elevator, decreasing altitude, negative vertical speed and low airspeed- didn't know it was stalled. Smart? I think not. An analog airspeed indicator and cessna 152 type stall horn would have been better in this case than the million dollar over engineered computers on this plane.
Rob: I'm not typed in an Airbus of anykind, Boeing and a handful of RJ's only, but doesn't AB have that central computer that overides everything and takes control away from the pilot if he hits the edge of the envelope? I've always been told that is one of the scariest things about the AB, at least from older pilots
I don't know who has that system or who doesn't, but if it was installed on either of the aircraft I mentioned, it didn't work very well, considering the outcome.
I know Boeing doesn't as I am typed thru a 767. I don't know how far reaching it is but that has been a major gripe that I have heard about the AB system in that the flight envelope parameters cannot be overridden by the pilot without a programming or law change, and in the case of an upset of some kind there is not time and that edge may be just what you need momentarily and fast to recover.In 447, the computer did play a big part. Like any of this modern day stuff, garbage in, garbage out and it acted according to the input it got. A glass cockpit and all that automation is nice for mundane tasks, but as you say, a few steam guages for a reality check every now and then would be nice. As a corporate customer, we special ordered a few in the 757 I had, just because I wanted them, but as an add on item, you won't find them in a commercial fleet.
As far as I am concerned, the high return area of improvement is man rating the machine, not machine rating the man.