Doug's find on Asiana SFO crash

i thought the joke was very funny, i think the accident is horrific. we did the same thing when the shuttle exploded. it was simply unbelievable, but I'm glad we can still somehow make fun of each other and not live in such doom and gloom. if some folks are offended, well i understand. i hope some day when life gets so bad you just can't stand it, some one special will come along and give you the best gift of your life, a belly laugh. they heal the soul.

 

The flight crew didn't have a lot of experience... and didn't pay enough attention in the cockpit as evidenced by the system recorders... now having the airline want to sue a broadcaster for, what now is apparent, a bad joke delivered flawlessly by a talking head, is just spin by the airline to try to reduce the real impact of the lack of training and attention by the flight crew.

 

NTSB Fires Intern Who Confirmed Asiana Pilot Names To KTVU-TV - Yahoo! TV

 

Pilot in SF crash had little experience with 777s - Local News - Charleston, SC | NBC News

I don't think 1.5 seconds is enough time to abort a wide-body...

 

The pilot flying (PF) only had his backup instruments (the "six pack") as the instructor pilot (IP) had disabled the PF's flight director (primary flight display; FD) while he (the IP) had retained his own FD.

This perhaps unusual condition results in the "autothrottle wakeup" (AW) being inhibited.

Four conditions are possible:

1) PF's FD is disabled AND IP's FD is also disabled ==> AW is forced, unless AW is turned off (but in the Asiana 214 case, the AW was "armed")

2) PF's FD is disabled BUT IP's FD is enabled ==> AW is inhibited (the Asiana 214 case, even though AW was "armed")

3) PF's FD is enabled BUT IP's FD is disabled ==> AW is inhibited

4) PF's FD is enabled AND IP's FD is also enabled (the normal case) ==> AW is forced, unless AW is turned off

The NTSB's final report perhaps said it best: the pilots present ... all three of them ... "had a faulty mental model of the 777's flight automation systems."

Forcing the PF to use his backup instruments, while the IP retained his FD, without fully understanding the impact of AW "armed" vs. AW "off" and AW "on", was an accident waiting to happen, which it certainly did.

Additionally there was faulty cockpit/crew resource management: the observing pilot stated "Sink Rate!" several times, but this assertion was not directed to a specific individual, nor was a suggested correction stated.

 

Welcome PeterHass for waking up this thread with new useful details. It now seems long and too many crashes ago. Few of those have been clearly linked to pilots' functional insufficiency. But I still think there are airlines around the world that are not training well enough.

My limited ASEL experience seems almost irrelevant, but when something seems not right, the six pack is anything but 'backup'. They have my full attention. Whether it should be otherwise for ATPs in complex birds, someone else would have to say.

On final. runway in sight, all sorts of junk going on in cockpit. I only have two choices: Make that 'sight angle' (runway perspective) look good and keep it that way to the threshold, or go around. PF is not just an abbreviation. Flying means FLYING!

There, you made me sad all over again.

 

Asiana 214 pilot flying had landing experience at SFO, but in B747s.

 

No, your information is mostly wrong. Just because the flight director was turned off does not mean the pilot flying was using "standby" instruments (which you refer to as a 6 pack I guess). Turning the flight director off (simply speaking) removes the command bars from that pilot's primary flight display and that's it as far as primary flight instruments are concerned. There's no "6 pack." Depending on Asian's configuration, they have some standby instruments of some sort on their forward panel (either integrated into one unit or a series of 2 or 3 instruments), but the pilot flying was most certainly not flying by reference to those instruments just because his FD was turned off. It's been a while since I have read the accident report, but I don't recall the flying pilot saying that he was flying by reference to the standby instruments. That would just be silly when he still all had his main primary and navigation displays available to him. You would only fly using the standby instruments when you have no other choice because you have had multiple failures of redundant systems- and that would be a REALLY bad day- although not as bad as this day turned out to be.

The autothrottle wakeup function is not turned "on or off." It is inhibited, however, depending upon what autoflight modes the aircraft is currently operating under and obviously the availability/mode of the autothrottle system itself. The wakeup function was inhibited through pilot action, which was a link in the chain that led to the loss of the aircraft.