I spent this weekend at the Bremerton Airshow. The place you find authentic aviators and the very passionate aviation enthusiasts. Pilots who know how to fly. I also spoke to many pilots regarding the Air India Crash, AF447, Jeju, the Endeavor Crash and more. We all agreed that speculation was a good thing because it makes aviators think. Thinking is a positive behavior. We learn. Typically it takes years before we hear the details of what happened, and then the lessons are lost, or perhaps repeated like the second MAX crash. If we think and analyze with what we see, we might just learn something to use for our future experience. Every scientist begins with observation.
AIR India 171
When AI 171 crashed, my first statement was, “That was intentional! Perfectly good airplanes do not fall out of the sky.” But I did not state that to the public, because that was “unfounded” speculation. Then we learned one of the pilots reported they had no thrust. However, watching the manner in which they flew their plane, without thrust, I clearly observed another problem. Without power, why did pilots keep the nose in the air and stall that aircraft?
The first officer was flying. Based upon that information, we can deduce the captain cut the fuel to both engines, while the first officer was flying. These fuel cutoff switches are called lever-latch, where they are not accidentally pulled. This was an intentional act. Then both start switches were replaced to on, trying to restart the engines. But the nose remained up. Did the First Officer not understand aerodynamics, or did the captain hold the nose up to stall? Who actually cut the switches? Why the effort to restart if they were intentionally cut. So many questions, with far too little information.
What we can learn from this accident, now, with the little we know is what to do when you lose two engines. Revisit Captain Sullenberger’s event and do what he did. Fly the plane into the best location possible. A river. Trees. A street. Maintain control and fly it to the ground.
FLY THE PLANE
Because the first officer was flying, I will speculate he held the nose up the entire time during the loss of thrust. I do not blame this pilot. If airlines and authorities are allowing pilots to fly without basic aerodynamic understanding, and never teach them… is this the pilot’s fault? No. This is a regulatory and airline responsibility.
Notice to Airmen: If you don’t have thrust, you must lower the nose. Reduce the angle of attack. Keep your wings flying. While US pilots assert that “only” third world countries have substandard training, they are wrong. Substandard training exists worldwide. Read Normalization of Deviance a Threat to Aviation Safety available in audible too to fully understand this issue. Thanks to the participation of 7400 pilots worldwide, we have the answers to this growing problem. Delta and Endeavor captains have proven this point.
Frightening Response
Sadly an A320 Delta captain (redacted) commented on my concern that the Air India plane stalled and my suggestion regarding the need to reduce the angle of attack and keep the wings flying. He said:
“If I lost both engines at rotation and seen buildings in every direction I could possibly go, I would also probably keep pulling back in order to be at the slowest possible airspeed on impact. They were probably trying hard to clear a building. Maybe they should have pitched down into it??”
There is nothing scarier than a pilot who thinks that pulling the nose up is the correct action if you lose all your thrust. The plane will stall, drop, and becomes a bomb. Pitch it forward, keep your wings flying and use whatever directional control you have to avoid obstacles and fly into the crash!
If the plane’s angle of attack was reduced to maintain flying speed, there appears to be areas from the crash site that these pilots could have avoided buildings. Perhaps flying over the tree tops may have enabled time for an engine to start. This conversation is something that all pilots should be thinking about. So when you lose both your engines, you’ll be ready.
That Delta Captain does not understand basic aerodynamics. If he were to have a bird strike and lose both engines, just as Captain Sullenberger did, and did what he professed was the correct course of action in his statement, he would have stalled his plane and dropped it on the city below, killing those in his aircraft and perhaps hundreds or thousands on the ground due to the location. This lack of understanding is an extremely serious issue.
How many more captains think they should pull the nose up with total loss of power? Then we have the Endeavor pilots (trained similar to Delta) who crashed their aircraft in Toronto because they did not know the correct course of action with an excessive descent rate. Therefore, they did nothing and crashed. If they knew what to do, we question why there was no follow through?
The aviation industry has another growing problem. Today’s training is not preparing our pilots for the unexpected. Now it appears pilots not only lack understanding of their equipment, but also basic flight skills. Why would two pilots think it’s okay to hit the runway at 1100 feet per minute, or a captain, sitting at his desk, not in the heat of the moment, decide that if he lost both his engines that pulling the nose up to slow and hold it there, would be the solution to survival? Frightening.
WHERE IS THE DATA FOR ENDEAVOR?
Air India provide the cockpit recording dialogue within a month. Why has Delta not done so with the Endeavor crash? What is Delta hiding? Perhaps this is the very reason they are going to an extended effort of trying to silence me again by threatening a lawsuit and falsifying the record to the court.
More so, why are pilots and the union supporting airlines’ substandard training? Do they not realize that when they hit a point of substandard performance that technology will be safer than they are, and will be replaced? Equipment will break. Pilots must be prepared. I do not blame the pilot. I blame the airlines who place profit over training and regulatory agencies that look the other way.
WARNING TO ALL
If you continue to allow substandard training, and automation takes over the pilot job because pilots lack understanding and the inability to perform when something goes wrong, you will see the next level of terrorism.
13 Comments
Totally agree with today’s training challenges as it also challenges the GenZ , Alpha and soon to be Bravo generation.
This has been “kicked the can down the road ” mentality for to long now.
Universities, flight schools, parents ….wake the hell up and cumatively …lock yourself’s in a room and work out a solution to this shortfall. No more excuses, blaming ..there have been too many incidents/accidents as a result of inaction. And every airline CEO should support this! Every parent should support this.
Every Human should support this! We have a generation who does not want to learn. Want immediate gratification. And they like being given the answers to the tests, because it’s easy. Lock them all in the room is a great idea!!
Please note the Delta captain said “at rotation” which would the plane was about at flare height anyway.
Somebody pointed out that pilot suicide is now a major cause of airline crash deaths. It’s mostly automated now so why not just make it robotic? To describe what pilots of modern airplanes (myself included) as “flying” is a bit of a stretch already.
As for what to do in that situation, if a pilot was to just scream and cover their eyes I wouldn’t blame them. The engines weren’t going to restart. They were less than 300 feet above the ground and maneuvering to a better crash spot is optimistic. Not stalling and keeping the wings level would produce relatively the best outcome.
Jim, He was referring to the Air India Crash, and what they did. No soft coating that statement with semantics. Besides, the engines were starting to restart. Are you actually a pilot who promotes covering his face and screaming instead of flying the plane into the crash? OMG!!!
This is worse than I thought.
I’m just kidding, I would never stop flying and cover my eyes. I would probably scream though.
Lol… Yeah, I doubt that. I think you would be too busy flying the plane, get her on the ground, have a beer and then let the tears fall.
Robots aren’t perfect, any more than pilots are perfect. And communications links aren’t failproof.
Not totally sure about Air India 171 that the First Officer had any real choices, and his response was out of panic rather than airmanship. Total loss of power/engine thrust at 625 feet, which I assume is MSL, and assuming that the AGL was somewhat lower does not give much time to do much, but with a cooler head keeping the airplane flying would have given him some control to avoid the building.
I remember a crash in 1977 of a Southern Airways 242 where bad training lead the crew to make the wrong decision in convective weather. They ended up with busted windshield and no engines from hail damage. Unable to make their intended intermediate stop of Huntsville a Controller gave them vectors to another airport. However since they were dead stick, they were unable to make that airport and the Captain dead stick landed on Georgia Highway 381, and would have been okay if not for the fuel truck in a roadside gas station that was struck by the left wing. Point being, any off airport landing is an all bets are off affair. SA also had a micro burst crash which I think was in KBNA, where the Captain elected to lower the nose to keep it flying and control to impact the ground shiny side up. He was faulted for that decision as company policy was to fly the plane on the the shaker to fly out of the encounter. However weather data later showed that the micro burst exceeded the performance of A DC-9-31.
This crash is more related to some cultural issues than airmanship. The Toronto crash was purely incompetence in both seats, Failure of the Captain to take control, take action, and a First Officer that should not have been flying that approach. We also see this in the Asiana 214 crash in KSFO.
All in all and untenable situation for the FO in Air India 171. So I see Air India 171 and the Southern Airways crashes as examples where we can’t really second guess the pilot flying, but we can in the Endeavor 4819 and Asiana 214. Sadly as we see a decline in stick skills (analog) and critical thinking, ther will be more to come.
Phil, Thanks for your comment. Panic is an excellent word choice. And none of us know how we would react to such a surprise. I, too, thought this was a cultural issue until a Delta A320 captain said he would do the exact same thing. He said, he too, would have pulled the nose up to achieve the slowest possible speed. That comment wasn’t from a reaction and panic in the plane, but a thought out “What would I do” response sitting at the desk comment. And he lacked all understanding of aerodynamics. He’s been on property for 2 years and a captain and has not a clue. We all know that often we say we do one thing (correct) and then the event happens we might react or panic due to startle effect. But in this case, his comment was what he believed to be correct. I have the greatest empathy for that First officer, because I am certain that he was never trained, nor never thought about the possibility. But, with the number of bird strikes, pilots should start thinking about that. I am deeply concerned for the Delta Captain, but mostly wonder how many more don’t know what to do? But just as you mentioned training with Southern Air…And Endeavor 4819… training, and Asiana… all attributed to training. I do not believe the new generation of pilots think any longer either, critical thinking is gone. And yes, flight skills are declining rapidly. More to come I suspect too.
The Delta Capt flies an A320, thats why he said that. Airbus has alpha protection, he can pull the stick all the way aft and alpha protection would kick in and protect it from stalling as long as it is in normal law. I dont fly an Airbus but thats my understanding of how it works.
Thank you for that comment. I believe they would be in Alternate law (2)…and might have some protections, but not those in Normal Law. However, his comment was in defense of pulling the nose up and holding it there. Do that in any plane you will have a problem without engine power. When AF447 lost all their computers, they had engines, but they, too, tried to pull their nose up and hold it there. Even with power their angle of attack would not sustain flight. They had lots of altitude and they fell like a maple leaf into the ocean. Regardless, no plane can sustain flight with a high angle of attack where there is no longer lift.
The suicide theory has a serious flaw that both fuel control switches cannot be put off within 1 second ( 500 milliseconds each) as both are
spring loaded.
Have you read the AAIB preliminary report in its entirety?
I’m not sure if that’s true or not. I hope we won’t stop asking questions until we get an answer.