ERJ190 loss of control

[red_slr]

Apparently an ERJ190 was in for routine service and after its check was being flown out of Portugal back to its base yesterday when the pilots reported major loss of control after take off. The initial feedback is that some how controls were reversed (how?!!??) and they spent over an hour flying up and down in quite serious weather before some F16s came along and helped them get back down.

Needed 3 attempts at landing before finally getting it down.

6 people on board, 3 suffered injuries. Sounds like hell!

Some of the ATC is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIc8Rr-cKd8

Part 2 is also on there.

[mebe]

That was quite intense, wish it had the audio for the landing but impressive calmness from all concerned it seemed to me.

[Eric Mc]

Sounds very odd to me. Even though he keeps asking about heading for the sea, he doesn't seem to actually turn the aircraft towards the sea.

[dvs_dave]

Eric Mc said:

Sounds very odd to me. Even though he keeps asking about heading for the sea, he doesn't seem to actually turn the aircraft towards the sea.

Looked like he was only able to turn left, and when he did, was not able to accurately control when to stop turning. Same with altitude control. Couple that with IFR weather conditions and likely unreliabe instrument readings and you’ll get the crew constantly asking questions as to how far the sea was for ditching based on what their current suddenly different heading is.

I imagine they were in a similar predicament as the now infamous Russian “dancing plane.”

https://youtu.be/voDcdDx1Qbs

Edited by dvs_dave on Tuesday 13th November 00:36

[Tony1963]

It looks like an instruments problem. I very much doubt flight controls would suddenly respond in an opposite direction to the pilot’s command and then be ok again.

[Eric Mc]

dvs_dave said:

Looked like he was only able to turn left, and when he did, was not able to accurately control when to stop turning. Same with altitude control. Couple that with IFR weather conditions and likely unreliabe instrument readings and you’ll get the crew constantly asking questions as to how far the sea was for ditching based on what their current suddenly different heading is.

I imagine they were in a similar predicament as the now infamous Russian “dancing plane.”

https://youtu.be/voDcdDx1Qbs

Edited by dvs_dave on Tuesday 13th November 00:36

That's what it reminded me of - but a Tu154 is a "stone age" airliner compared to an EMB 190. The control systems on a Tu154 is closer to a Lancaster bomber compared to the all electric systems used on the EMB190.

[red_slr]

Apparently it had been in for a C check. Had there been pax on board I am sure it would have made headline news around the world.

[EddyBee]

I saw this on YouTube too.
Will be interesting to see what it was.

Although a lot of the Embraer 170/190 systems are Fly by wire, aileron control is achieved by your normal old school cable system (Obviously connected to a hydraulic actuators)
However the spoilers are fly by wire.

It may have been connected up wrong but I highly doubt it.
Not sure what the spoilers would be doing if you cross connected the cable runs up.

I’d expect a ” flight control no dispatch” message on the screen (EICAS) to come up if the spoilers were out of sync with the ailerons. If this pops up you’re not going anywhere.

As Tony said above it’s probably instrument related.
Aircraft seems uncontrollable but I’m guessing with a mixture of instruments reading incorrectly, no visual references, bad weather and panic it could well be the case.

[anonymous-user]

EddyBee said:

I saw this on YouTube too.
Will be interesting to see what it was.

Although a lot of the Embraer 170/190 systems are Fly by wire, aileron control is achieved by your normal old school cable system (Obviously connected to a hydraulic actuators)
However the spoilers are fly by wire.

It may have been connected up wrong but I highly doubt it.
Not sure what the spoilers would be doing if you cross connected the cable runs up.

I’d expect a ” flight control no dispatch” message on the screen (EICAS) to come up if the spoilers were out of sync with the ailerons. If this pops up you’re not going anywhere.

As Tony said above it’s probably instrument related.
Aircraft seems uncontrollable but I’m guessing with a mixture of instruments reading incorrectly, no visual references, bad weather and panic it could well be the case.

Surely the fault must have occurred once airborne, otherwise just getting it into the air would have been tricky?

Back in the day an SR-71 was lost on a shakedown flight out of Groom Lake because the Stability Augmentation System had been (partially) connected backwards, and the pilot got into a massive vertical oscillation at rotation (because the phase lag was 180 deg out of sync) and basically smashed it hard back down into the ground about 2 secs after the wheels left the ground.......

[red_slr]

Maybe because it was empty it could lift off without much input and only when they started to turn the problem was there?

[4x4Tyke]

Video of final approach on twitter presumable from the F-16

https://twitter.com/hashtag/KZR1388

[red_slr]

Wow almost went off the side of the runway!

[Tony1963]

My logical thinking:

The aircraft took off. If the controls had not responded correctly before this point, then the take off would’ve been aborted.

The weather conditions were poor, the crew weren’t seeing what they expected on the displays. They had no way of knowing when the gauges were correct.

With outside assistance, they were able to confirm that left equaled left, up equaled up etc.

With that assurance, they were guided back to the runway and landed ok.

I’m not a pilot, just a spanner monkey.

[Smiljan]

This happened on the 11th by the looks of it. Some interesting comments on the youtube video like this one

youtube said:

Just received some information from the "inside" of ongoing investigation - looks like maintenance guys switched the controls of the aircraft after Class C inspection. Right after take off, pilots tried to roll the aircraft to one side and it rolled completely to the opposite. Tried to turn on the autopilot a couple of times and when they switched it off the aircraft would roll to the left every single time. Also there was a brief 90º nose down dive with GPWS screaming. After stabilizing the aircraft they were left to fly only with rudder, elevators and engines almost for the entire time they were up there (basically they had to learn to fly the aircraft in 2 hours). Captain was so damn tired that co-pilot had to land the aircraft on third try breaking 3 runway lights. On board there were 6 souls, 3 pilots and 3 engineers, one of them had to be assisted in an ambulance because of heart problems.?

Will be very interesting to see how the investigation pans out and the findings.

There's a long thread on the pprune site but generally threads over there are full of people speculating, pretending to be pilots or general fantasists so read each post with that in mind.

https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/615312-air-ast...

Edited by Smiljan on Tuesday 13th November 21:14

[EddyBee]

Max_Torque said:

EddyBee said:

I saw this on YouTube too.
Will be interesting to see what it was.

Although a lot of the Embraer 170/190 systems are Fly by wire, aileron control is achieved by your normal old school cable system (Obviously connected to a hydraulic actuators)
However the spoilers are fly by wire.

It may have been connected up wrong but I highly doubt it.
Not sure what the spoilers would be doing if you cross connected the cable runs up.

I’d expect a ” flight control no dispatch” message on the screen (EICAS) to come up if the spoilers were out of sync with the ailerons. If this pops up you’re not going anywhere.

As Tony said above it’s probably instrument related.
Aircraft seems uncontrollable but I’m guessing with a mixture of instruments reading incorrectly, no visual references, bad weather and panic it could well be the case.

Surely the fault must have occurred once airborne, otherwise just getting it into the air would have been tricky?

Back in the day an SR-71 was lost on a shakedown flight out of Groom Lake because the Stability Augmentation System had been (partially) connected backwards, and the pilot got into a massive vertical oscillation at rotation (because the phase lag was 180 deg out of sync) and basically smashed it hard back down into the ground about 2 secs after the wheels left the ground.......

Exactly what I was getting at. It could be connected in correctly but the chances of it going anywhere are pretty much non existent.

I seem to remember a Hawk (I think) had flying controls disconnected for access to another component and put back together incorrectly. That rolled on take off and (from what I remember) the pilot tried to eject and hit the runway (whether this was Rumour at the time I don’t know)

I don’t think any paperwork was raised for disconnecting the controls so no duplicate/independent inspections were carried out.

[Tony1963]

“ don’t think any paperwork was raised for disconnecting the controls so no duplicate/independent inspections were carried out.”

That’s unforgivable. I’d like to read the findings and recommendations for that one.

Top Tip: the RAF really, really isn’t the best, and the MAA is perpetuating the very problems it was supposed to eradicate.

[eccles]

EddyBee said:

Max_Torque said:

EddyBee said:

I saw this on YouTube too.
Will be interesting to see what it was.

Although a lot of the Embraer 170/190 systems are Fly by wire, aileron control is achieved by your normal old school cable system (Obviously connected to a hydraulic actuators)
However the spoilers are fly by wire.

It may have been connected up wrong but I highly doubt it.
Not sure what the spoilers would be doing if you cross connected the cable runs up.

I’d expect a ” flight control no dispatch” message on the screen (EICAS) to come up if the spoilers were out of sync with the ailerons. If this pops up you’re not going anywhere.

As Tony said above it’s probably instrument related.
Aircraft seems uncontrollable but I’m guessing with a mixture of instruments reading incorrectly, no visual references, bad weather and panic it could well be the case.

Surely the fault must have occurred once airborne, otherwise just getting it into the air would have been tricky?

Back in the day an SR-71 was lost on a shakedown flight out of Groom Lake because the Stability Augmentation System had been (partially) connected backwards, and the pilot got into a massive vertical oscillation at rotation (because the phase lag was 180 deg out of sync) and basically smashed it hard back down into the ground about 2 secs after the wheels left the ground.......

Exactly what I was getting at. It could be connected in correctly but the chances of it going anywhere are pretty much non existent.

I seem to remember a Hawk (I think) had flying controls disconnected for access to another component and put back together incorrectly. That rolled on take off and (from what I remember) the pilot tried to eject and hit the runway (whether this was Rumour at the time I don’t know)

I don’t think any paperwork was raised for disconnecting the controls so no duplicate/independent inspections were carried out.

In that case, the aileron wasn't reconnected.

[Krikkit]

Smiljan said:

This happened on the 11th by the looks of it. Some interesting comments on the youtube video like this one

youtube said:

Just received some information from the "inside" of ongoing investigation - looks like maintenance guys switched the controls of the aircraft after Class C inspection. Right after take off, pilots tried to roll the aircraft to one side and it rolled completely to the opposite. Tried to turn on the autopilot a couple of times and when they switched it off the aircraft would roll to the left every single time. Also there was a brief 90º nose down dive with GPWS screaming. After stabilizing the aircraft they were left to fly only with rudder, elevators and engines almost for the entire time they were up there (basically they had to learn to fly the aircraft in 2 hours). Captain was so damn tired that co-pilot had to land the aircraft on third try breaking 3 runway lights. On board there were 6 souls, 3 pilots and 3 engineers, one of them had to be assisted in an ambulance because of heart problems.?

Will be very interesting to see how the investigation pans out and the findings.

There's a long thread on the pprune site but generally threads over there are full of people speculating, pretending to be pilots or general fantasists so read each post with that in mind.

https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/615312-air-ast...

Surely if the controls can be reconnected backwards or improperly that's a piece of piss poor design?

Sounds scary as st.

[mcdjl]

Krikkit said:

Surely if the controls can be reconnected backwards or improperly that's a piece of piss poor design?

Sounds scary as st.

Indeed. At work we make stuff a don't make safety critical stuff but have learnt to make each connector unique and in addition cables connect in one direction only if possible. It just makes setting stuff up easier!

[Smiljan]

From the pprune thread, above photo supposedly from the aircraft after the incident. The control wheel is full right, left aileron as arrowed showing full up, right aileron full down. Ailerons should be the other way around.

Right wing spoilers are up, as they should be.

Ailerons are cable operated servos on these, someone has made a huge mistake and the crew failed to properly carry out their control checks pre-flight.

Very, very fortunate it didn't pile on shortly after leaving the ground.