Air Asia 320 crash report
Discussion
Repetitive tail failures
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34972263
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34972263
Airbus spokesman said:
"Airbus has just received the final accident report. We are now carefully studying its content. With safety being top priority Airbus is fully committed to push the safety track record of our industry even further."
Which way?dukeboy749r said:
Ah, of course.
As for the life insurance, would this preclude passenger's relatives from claiming anything more then?
It seems the failure (in one form of economic punishment), may go unpaid - leaving relatives etc to only get what they had on policies.
Interesting if that is the case
I guess it's down to international law. Here, if someone crashes your car and the insurance pays out, you can't sue the culprit - because you've already had payment. If a life is insured, and that life ends, and the insurance pays out, I don't see that any more money is due. You can only die once. But law is a funny thing so I don't know. In reality I'm sure legal cases will buzz round the world at great expsense/profit for years. You'll have the country of the airline, the country of the victim and the country of the crash scene... whose law is the biggest?As for the life insurance, would this preclude passenger's relatives from claiming anything more then?
It seems the failure (in one form of economic punishment), may go unpaid - leaving relatives etc to only get what they had on policies.
Interesting if that is the case
I should have studied international law!
The article is misleading IMO.
The fault with the aircraft should not have caused two experienced pilots to stall the plane. They didn't follow the right procedure for dealing with the fault, then proceeded fly the plane into a stall by pulling back on the stick, not lowering the nose.
Echos of the Air France crash.
The fault with the aircraft should not have caused two experienced pilots to stall the plane. They didn't follow the right procedure for dealing with the fault, then proceeded fly the plane into a stall by pulling back on the stick, not lowering the nose.
Echos of the Air France crash.
Rob P said:
The article is misleading IMO.
The fault with the aircraft should not have caused two experienced pilots to stall the plane. They didn't follow the right procedure for dealing with the fault, then proceeded fly the plane into a stall by pulling back on the stick, not lowering the nose.
Echos of the Air France crash.
Correct!The fault with the aircraft should not have caused two experienced pilots to stall the plane. They didn't follow the right procedure for dealing with the fault, then proceeded fly the plane into a stall by pulling back on the stick, not lowering the nose.
Echos of the Air France crash.
For those interested, the full report from the KNKT/NTSC is here: http://kemhubri.dephub.go.id/knkt/ntsc_aviation/ba...
As usual there were a number of factors at play:
- A faulty solder joint on a circuit board causing warnings to the pilots about a rudder travel limiter system failure.
- The PIC then pulled the circuit breakers to reset the flight augmentation computers which in turn disabled the auto-pilot and put the aircraft into something Airbus call "alternate law" which offers little to no flight envelope protection.
- A slight yaw from the rudder then severely banked the aircraft
- Aircraft stalls
- Pilot flying (the first officer) then got overwhelmed with the unusual attitude and the captain giving commands like "pull down... pull down..."
- Aircraft continues to stall and neither pilot is able to recover with first offer's control stick pulled back the whole time.
The fact that two experienced pilots can stall a modern aircraft and are then unable to perform a standard stall recovery says a lot about the cockpit design of Airbuses and the training pilots are being given to operate them. Something needs to change I feel.
Edited by Moose. on Thursday 3rd December 01:23
Bar the many, many, factors of the accident - I still think the side stick is a poor design from an ergonomic, technical and human factors standpoint.
With the AF crash it was only in the final seconds that the other pilots in the cockpit realised the PF had the stick all the way back, and this incident seems in part to echo that scenario.
As usual in these incidents it comes down to the 'many holes in the cheese unfortunately lining up'.
I'm sure some of the airbus drivers can advise on how easy it is to see the stick position from the other seat (at night), but still I could imagine in a stressful situation all eyes would be on the instruments and troubleshooting, rather than checking the other pilot's hand position.
The whole 'averaging out' of inputs (unless they press the takeover button for 40s) seems just terrible logic especially when the rate of descent is up to 12,000fpm...
With this further accident, I doubt many pilots can still defend the side stick vs connected yokes for identifying what the other pilot is actually doing during an upset condition like this (not that it is an excuse but the phraseology of "pull down" from the PIC possibly didn't help) - again one of the many unfortunate factors in this incident.
With the AF crash it was only in the final seconds that the other pilots in the cockpit realised the PF had the stick all the way back, and this incident seems in part to echo that scenario.
As usual in these incidents it comes down to the 'many holes in the cheese unfortunately lining up'.
I'm sure some of the airbus drivers can advise on how easy it is to see the stick position from the other seat (at night), but still I could imagine in a stressful situation all eyes would be on the instruments and troubleshooting, rather than checking the other pilot's hand position.
The whole 'averaging out' of inputs (unless they press the takeover button for 40s) seems just terrible logic especially when the rate of descent is up to 12,000fpm...
With this further accident, I doubt many pilots can still defend the side stick vs connected yokes for identifying what the other pilot is actually doing during an upset condition like this (not that it is an excuse but the phraseology of "pull down" from the PIC possibly didn't help) - again one of the many unfortunate factors in this incident.
None-Linked sticks has caused another problem for Airbus, shocker! We've seen multiple Airbus accidents where the incident has been made worse because both pilots were doing something different and, with CRM breaking down, neither pilot realised what the other was doing until it was too late.
Boeing don't have this issue as their sticks are linked and BAE Systems are making side sticks which are linked electronically with force feedback so that each crew can feel what the other is doing (an electrical version of the older mechanical linkages).
Boeing don't have this issue as their sticks are linked and BAE Systems are making side sticks which are linked electronically with force feedback so that each crew can feel what the other is doing (an electrical version of the older mechanical linkages).
IanH755 said:
None-Linked sticks has caused another problem for Airbus, shocker! We've seen multiple Airbus accidents where the incident has been made worse because both pilots were doing something different and, with CRM breaking down, neither pilot realised what the other was doing until it was too late.
The question is will Airbus do anything about it......I won't hold my breath.
Moose. said:
The fact that two experienced pilots can stall a modern aircraft and are then unable to perform a standard stall recovery says a lot about the cockpit design of Airbuses and the training pilots are being given to operate them. Something needs to change I feel.
Not specifically aimed at you Moose., but I'd like to add a little more to one of the things you said 
I think the Airbus philosophy has solved some common flight safety issues, but also created some new ones. The gentlemen and ladies who sit around a table during the airliner design process and think through as many conceivable failures they can imagine and then create procedures to manage them are, of course, limited by their own abilities of conception.
IMO, one such failure which has appeared a few times is unreliable airspeed and then the subsequent need to rely on pitch and power settings to fly the aircraft. The Airbus flight control laws, in most normal situations, allows the aircraft to be operated without much reference to pitch and power. Pilots that have converted from Boeing will probably always have the pitch/power grounding, but those that have spent their entire career on Airbus may not; so, a by product of the Airbus flight controls/philosophy is that pilots' pitch/power skills may be degraded over time or never really instilled.
This problem manifests itself when we see unreliable airspeed events or full raw data flying with no envelope protection. It was potentially a problem that the Airbus designers and initial operators neither predicted nor envisaged. Personally, I accept that as a reasoned explanation given the areas where the Airbus design has added to flight safety. However, once a problem has been identified it's imperative that both the manufacturer and the operator address the problem through system re-design and additional training where appropriate. That brings me to my point: in my own airline there has been a huge emphasis on both training and checking on the Airbus fleet with regard to unreliable airspeed and raw data manual handling. I don't doubt that it is the same case amongst all of the Western and first world operators of Airbus aircraft so it's unfair to suggest that it "says a lot about the training pilots are being given to operate them." That's way too general in my opinion and grossly unfair to the airlines working hard to be at the forefront of flight safety.
I have my own opinion, but whether airlines from developing nations have the ability, the financial means or sufficiently powerful regulatory authorities to address this particular issue is more of an unknown. Air Asia have certainly had their fair share of newsworthy incidents recently and each and every one directly relates to an area or threat that UK airlines and the CAA have specifically identified and trained crews to deal with. The goal of each of these 'threats' is to allow pilots to identify and guard against the initial causal factors of what could rapidly develop into a hull loss.
TL;DR:
There is a huge difference between airlines of developing nations and those of the UK etc. To say that the training that pilots are given to operate an Airbus is insufficient is too big a generalisation and in my opinion isn't a fair reflection of the huge amount of work that goes into developing and guarding against the specifically identified probable causes of a hull loss.
You get what you pay for.
Edited by pushthebutton on Thursday 3rd December 18:09
surveyor said:
Given that opposing sidestick commands are so disastrous in an Airbus I don't really understand why the airplane does not make it really bloody obvious when it's happening.
Notwithstanding all the other holes in the cheese obviously.
Even if Airbus have concluded it's not economic to add feedback to the sticks it must surely be feasible for the software to give an alarm of stick conflict or some such.Notwithstanding all the other holes in the cheese obviously.
Moose. said:
The fact that two experienced pilots can stall a modern aircraft and are then unable to perform a standard stall recovery says a lot about the cockpit design of Airbuses and the training pilots are being given to operate them. Something needs to change I feel.
Quite right (the) Moose, so let's have the usual PHs accident investigation and identify the root causes. The aircraft design
Technical problems
Inadequate training
Weather
As you know, you can't really change the architecture or design ethos of the aircraft, it's easier just to blame the pilots. Obviously that doesn't address the root cause or improve safety though.
So what about these pilots, more or better pilot training might be a solution? Unfortunately training cost money and airlines run on tiny margins and the public fly on the operators with the cheapest tickets. In fact the industry is employing new pilots with less and less experience and airlines are checking and training their pilots less frequently. Many UK operators now have yearly simulator sessions when previously they were every six months. The manufacturers type rating courses are also inadequate, the focus is now on getting the pilots through in the shortest period of time. The manufacturers actually boast about how short their course is as an enticement to the airline to buy their aircraft.
And finally there are operators flying older aircraft with more defects like this one and its dodgy rudder. The manufacturer can mandate that the aircraft can operate with less defects but that's expensive and it might make the airline buy some other aircraft instead.
So everything is great, less aircraft are crashing, your flight is on time and it was cheap.
el stovey said:
Quite right (the) Moose, so let's have the usual PHs accident investigation and identify the root causes.
The aircraft design
Technical problems
Inadequate training
Weather
As you know, you can't really change the architecture or design ethos of the aircraft, it's easier just to blame the pilots. Obviously that doesn't address the root cause or improve safety though.
So what about these pilots, more or better pilot training might be a solution? Unfortunately training cost money and airlines run on tiny margins and the public fly on the operators with the cheapest tickets. In fact the industry is employing new pilots with less and less experience and airlines are checking and training their pilots less frequently. Many UK operators now have yearly simulator sessions when previously they were every six months. The manufacturers type rating courses are also inadequate, the focus is now on getting the pilots through in the shortest period of time. The manufacturers actually boast about how short their course is as an enticement to the airline to buy their aircraft.
And finally there are operators flying older aircraft with more defects like this one and its dodgy rudder. The manufacturer can mandate that the aircraft can operate with less defects but that's expensive and it might make the airline buy some other aircraft instead.
So everything is great, less aircraft are crashing, your flight is on time and it was cheap.
Actually, in this case you could, to a degree.The aircraft design
Technical problems
Inadequate training
Weather
As you know, you can't really change the architecture or design ethos of the aircraft, it's easier just to blame the pilots. Obviously that doesn't address the root cause or improve safety though.
So what about these pilots, more or better pilot training might be a solution? Unfortunately training cost money and airlines run on tiny margins and the public fly on the operators with the cheapest tickets. In fact the industry is employing new pilots with less and less experience and airlines are checking and training their pilots less frequently. Many UK operators now have yearly simulator sessions when previously they were every six months. The manufacturers type rating courses are also inadequate, the focus is now on getting the pilots through in the shortest period of time. The manufacturers actually boast about how short their course is as an enticement to the airline to buy their aircraft.
And finally there are operators flying older aircraft with more defects like this one and its dodgy rudder. The manufacturer can mandate that the aircraft can operate with less defects but that's expensive and it might make the airline buy some other aircraft instead.
So everything is great, less aircraft are crashing, your flight is on time and it was cheap.
You could give an audible caution on differential inputs, which might get the pilots attention.
It's not a great option, but it's a software only change so would be trivial to code (all the costs would be in compliance) and would be easy to roll out to the existing fleet.
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