I do not mean to make light of this, but it is time to do something different. Pilot training, yes, but maybe making the captain's controls dominant? He's supposed to be the captain for a reason.
Incapacitation can work both ways. The control stick has a "PB" ("I'm taking control, dammit") button with which either more rational person can override a frozen one.
Cap must have forgot to push it. I didnt mean fo's stick doesn't work, just that if cap decides to use his it dominates. If he lets go fo's has control. Kinda the same thing without pushing a button. But hey, I only know what an Airbus looks like, not how it works. Lol
That's to lock it out for the duration....to take over instantly all you do is press and hold the button. After 40 seconds your sidestick is the only one that works. I've never had to do the 40 second push, but I have had to take control momentarily in the 320.
Truly sad when you hand control to a pilot who doesn't have a clue on how to hand fly an airplane. If you want sharper pilots, then you mandate a determined amount of manual flying into the everyday routine......and at altitude not just up or down from 10,000'.
From page 113 of the report: The Upset Recovery training was included in the aircraft operators training manual. The aircraft operator advised the KNKT that the flight crew had not been trained for the upset recovery training on Airbus A320, and this referred to FCTM Operational Philosophy: “The effectiveness of fly-by-wire architecture, and the existence of control laws, eliminates the need for upset recovery maneuvers to be trained on protected Airbus”. There was no evidence of DGCA findings for this incompliance of training.
Philosophy and pragmatics appear to differ. Philosophy prevails most of the time, and when nothing goes wrong.
You make the point no one else seems to understand... The Airbus is a 2 player video game. When the computers are working, manual flight is totally different from when the computers are broken... Alternate Law etc. requires a different skill set to maintain control without the normal protections. The side-stick priority control allows for neither pilot to actually be in control, and ends like this and AF447!
Let's not forget the fact that this crew took a minor ECAM message and turned into a hull loss. The Rudder limiter is in no way an emergency, nor was this plane unflyable. There's a reason you don't reset circuit breakers unless you absolutely have to. The pilots, like several others before them, fixated on something small and forgot to fly the plane.
According to the report, the Rudder Traveler Limiter System had failed numerous times over the previous year and the between-failure times were getting shorter. Post accident anaylysis showed the unit had corroded solder joints which appear to have precipitated the fault condition. The PIC had previously observed mx technician pull the breakers to resolve a previous instance while on the ground (a small but significant difference). The previous failures were not logged in a manner that highlighted the recurrence (I don't understand the nuances of the MR1 and MR2 logging) . At what point would trouble shooting have normally pulled and replaced the unit? Is this a typical maintenance scenario for the airline, for industry in general?
One would hope it it's not industry standard but being a budget Asian airline one wonders. That's another area the report falls short as the part (or board) should have been replaced ages ago. It not like it's hard to get and not like a major APU replacement or something. Plug an play and test.
Irrespective of lack of A320 upset recovery in alternate law you fly the aeroplane, it does not fly you full stop. The PIC should not have been out of his seat he should have taken control, fly the aeroplane and any instructions to the SIC to reset, especially when the SIC had 2500 odd hours flying time. Then the first thing is head back and call ATC for priority landing. The passengers paid the price for lack of basic airmanship. Was there provision for safely returning without resetting? The report deliberately sidesteps not having the authority to fly on that day, nor was the weather fantastic on that day either - all contributing factors and adding to the flying conditions and pilot pressure and stress to continue the flight.
AF447 Pitot tubes clogged, computer in alternate law SIC pulled back on the stick, QZ8501 Repeated failure of electronics on Rudder control, computer in alternate law, SIC pulled back on the stick all the way down, crew not trained on upset recovery.
No mater if the "computer" can run the systems on board the pilots still need to follow the number one rule. Fly the airplane. One needs training and the ability to understand the physics of flight. Without that you have a keyboard jockey in the pointy end.
This tragic human error would not have happened if the damn rudder would have worked properly. We can certainly find blame with the maintenance protocol that kept sending this plane aloft with an intermittent rudder travel limiter, BUT the real cause of this crash needs to be laid at the feet of the politicians who forced RoHS (Reduction of Hazardous Substances) on Europe. The fools voted the lead out of solder. The lead free solders are not as ductile and quite often crack because they are so much more brittle. This is not a problem if the 3rd brake light malfunctions on your Audi, but a rudder control system is another story.
RoHS and other moronic environmental laws resulting from a cult like congregation of junk science believers need to be throttled back to idle and magnetos turned off.
You pretty much summed up the "For the want of a nail ... the war was lost." story with that one Ric. The bottom line though is this was an error chain accident that could have been prevented at several different links in the chain. Its sad though, like so many crews, most foreign and some domestic, this crew was an accident looking to happen someplace when the first link broke.
Good points. I find disturbing that the crew lacked training in upset recovery due to the Airbus idea it is unnecessary because basically the computer won't let it happen.
The rudder system had failed OVER 20 times before and nothing positive was done to fix it? Maybe it is time they took the lead (the metal) out of those maintenance guys as well.
Did one or the other pilot simply say "I have the airplane"or "My airplane", with a confirming response from the other, "You have the airplane", or "Your airplane", or something equally complicated? If it works in a Cessna 152 trainer (and it does), it should work here.
Suggestion to Airbus Industries: Add a flashing RED light on top of instrument panel brow. Said light to illuminate and flash under the following conditions: 1) Alternate Law (FLY THE PLANE) active; 2) Dual Input and Conflicting Input condition arises; 3) One flash when either of the AP Disconnect Buttons is pressed for less than 2 seconds. Further recommendation on condition 1) above, install a crawl display that says in multiple languages "MANUAL FLIGHT ENGAGED - ALTERNATE LAW ENGAGED - FLY THE DAMN PLANE YOURSELF"
Three take-aways. 1. The airbus has a control design problem that contributes to these accidents. 2. Many foreign carrier training programs are insufficient. 3. At what point in time does any human brain say, "This input has done nothing to help the cause, try the opposite to see what happens."?
Even if Boss pilot screams at Slave pilot " PULL UP!!!!!" or "PUSH BACK!!!!" ( whatever) should not Slave pilot monitor what his inputs are doing to the plane? Basic flight training and experience (which was all i had) says if airspeed keeps going lower, Lower, LOWER!!! PUSH THE DAMN STICK FORWARD (STUPID). (And full power of course. Airbus has auto thrust which supposedly takes care of that for you) I only actually had situations where i did not push the stick fwd as speed dropped. Those were stall training exercises so my instructor did not actually call me stupid. But I'm sure i made him pee in his pants a few times with some of my weird landings!
this is another example of the two pilots contradicting control inputs. It seems to be common on "fly by wire" aircraft technology during an emergency situation. Sad event, what ever the reason.
The reason is that both pilots had no idea how to fly their airplane. The captain didn't know how to take control from the FO. He only pressed the AP disconnect button on his sidestick for 2 seconds each time. It has to be held down until you hear "priority left" and then still held for 40 seconds to lock the other stick out. The captain probably thought he was flying, but according to the CVR the "dual input" aural warning had been going off for some time indicating that both sticks were being used.....
Even the pilot who did try to disconnect briefly appears not to have understood things: even he didn't in the proper control inputs to break the stall with a large/persistent pitch down push.
I don't think it would be hard for fly by wire aircraft to have a force feedback system that provides tactile feedback on how the opposite stick is being directed. I would think this simple upgrade would prevent a lot of cross control issues in control inputs as both pilots could feel what the other is imputing.
A rudder control system problem that had occurred 23 times in the previous 12 months, coupled with the pilots' response, led to last year's crash of an AirAsia plane that killed all 162 people on board, Indonesian investigators said Tuesday.
AirAsia QZ8501 Crash: Final Report Points to Faulty Component, Crew Action
Indonesia's National Transportation Safety Committee released a final report, detailing the events that led to the AirAsia Airbus A320 crash last December that killed all 162 people on board.