Pakistan plane crash: Jet carrying 107 people crashes into houses near airport

[Gabriel]

As opposed to just making that forward movement yourself. Again, why do we need a button to do that?

The button is not specifically related to the autothrottle. The button is to activate the Go Around mode which:

Will activate a climb to the pre-selected go-around altitude and a turn to the go-around heading in the flight guidance system, deactivating any other mode that was active until then, which in turn...
... If the flight director is turned on, it will display commands to to go to that altitude and heading, which in turn...
... If the autopilot is on, it will follow the flight director commands.
Additionally, if the AT is on, it will set up either climb or TOGA thrust, deactivating any other mode that was active until then (typically speed hold).

[Evan]

The button is not specifically related to the autothrottle. The button is to activate the Go Around mode which:

Will activate a climb to the pre-selected go-around altitude and a turn to the go-around heading in the flight guidance system, deactivating any other mode that was active until then, which in turn...
... If the flight director is turned on, it will display commands to to go to that altitude and heading, which in turn...
... If the autopilot is on, it will follow the flight director commands.
Additionally, if the AT is on, it will set up either climb or TOGA thrust, deactivating any other mode that was active until then (typically speed hold).

Yes, yes, I get all that, by what I'm saying is: why not have that done by advancing the thrust levers to TO/GA instead of some silly switches or buttons? The reasoning being, if the AT fails to advance the thrust for some reason using the button or switch, pilots can overlook this in the high workload of a go-around. As we have seen on numerous occasions.

The thing is Gabriel, the theory on this crash that is based on Emirates Flt 521 doesn't work. In the Emirates crash, the pilot hit the GA switch but, because the plane had touched down and was in ground mode, nothing happened, thrust remained at IDLE AND they missed that. On the A320, you have to advance the thrust levers into the TO/GA detent just to activate the GA modes (SRS / GA TRK), so the thrust is assuredly set.

I suppose the pilot could fail to push the levers into the TO/GA detent. I don't know how the TL resolver handles that position, but I would assume it would resolve to at least full CL power.

But that would be some first rate pilot error.

[Gabriel]

Yes, yes, I get all that, by what I'm saying is: why not have that done by advancing the thrust levers to TO/GA instead of some silly switches or buttons?

Because you may want less then full TOGA thrust.

The reasoning being, if the AT fails to advance the thrust for some reason using the button or switch, pilots can overlook this in the high workload of a go-around. As we have seen on numerous occasions.

And pilots wanting less than full TOGA may do a TOGA tap and miss checking that TOGA mode really activated, and then miss that it really did not activate because they missed going all the way to the TOGA detent. As we have seen in a few occasions too.

The thing is Gabriel, the theory on this crash that is based on Emirates Flt 521 doesn't work. In the Emirates crash, the pilot hit the GA switch but, because the plane had touched down and was in ground mode, nothing happened, thrust remained at IDLE AND they missed that. On the A320, you have to advance the thrust levers into the TO/GA detent just to activate the GA modes (SRS / GA TRK), so the thrust is assuredly set.

I know. This is not my prime theory (which is that they just touched down with the gear forgotten up), but I do not discard it either because...

I suppose the pilot could fail to push the levers into the TO/GA detent.

Exactly. Or fail to advance the throttles altogehter. Which can be an issue if they were still at the CLB detent (the AT will still target the speed set for the approach) or even worse if they had just retarder the levers at 20 ft.

I don't know how the TL resolver handles that position, but I would assume it would resolve to at least full CL power.

You know this stuff better than me, but my understanding is that if left at CLB (or moved to CLB from anothe rposition) the AT will just target the speed set unless you are in a IAS vertical speed mode (like TOGA or LVL CHNG) in which case it will set CLB.

But that would be some first rate pilot error.

Which many times is the case in these accidents. Remember TAM at Conghonas? The pilot "forgot" to retard one thrust lever, the plane never went into ground mode (no spoilers, no autobrakes, no reverse in the other thrust lever) and as the plane slowed down the "forgotten" engine started to add more thrust trying to keep Vapp. Everybody on board died and then some on the ground. And then one says :how can the pilot forget to close the thrust lever on landing???" Well, because the airline (and this pilot) was not flowing the established procedure for 1-reverser-inop. TIn the 3 last landings of that plane (with 1 reverser MELled) 3 different pilots followed 3 different methods, one of which matched the procedure.

If there was not major technical glitch that justified what the pilots did in the first approach, then it would be quite evident that these pilots were not great procedure / policy / common sense followers. Then crazy things can happen.

[Gabriel]

The good news is that the CVR and FDR data was already successfully downloaded by the BEA. I don't know how much they are going to disclose, but they will know very very soon what happen with a good degree of certainty. They will also have a quite good idea of how it happened, and they will start to question why it happened.

[3WE]

As opposed to just making that forward movement yourself. Again, why do we need a button to do that?

To AUTOMATICALLY make a BUNCH of minor adjustments DURING A HIGH WORKLOAD TIME from liberally powered up to a very precise and ideal setting.

Edit: Also, sorry, but this makes clear LOGICAL sense...Power levers are power levers...The feature where a computer detects and interprets power-lever movement and then takes over crosses that magic line into "what's it doing now".

If you want "full power" (or almost full power)- shove the damn lever's forward and keep it the same in Boeings and Air Busses and Cessnas…

If you want automatic power optimization- then have that be a separate button...A big red one for "Give me all you got Scotty" and a little conservative one for give me something less.

[ATLcrew]

kinda the same as most of the arguments here

Amen.

[kent olsen]

Lot of discussion about throttle position, but. Here you are, screwed up the approach (way to high, what caused that), to fast, forgot the gear, hit the engines on the ground, (I'll probably get fired for this) and Oh I still have to fly this thing back and land it. Oh no!!! both engines quit---------

[Evan]

Because you may want less then full TOGA thrust.

And pilots wanting less than full TOGA may do a TOGA tap and miss checking that TOGA mode really activated, and then miss that it really did not activate because they missed going all the way to the TOGA detent. As we have seen in a few occasions too.

Point taken, for manual go-arounds with the AT off (do they happen anymore?) But the TO/GA button trap is more of a stealth factor requiring layers of systems awareness to avoid (what's it not doing now?). The TO/GA detent trap is just poor dexterity and half-ass piloting. And, yes, the failure to monitor is the silver bullet in either case. As I said, they haven't built the idiot-proof airliner.

I'm leaning strongly against a premature gear retraction/botched go-around as well. I'm thinking this was a case of one warning masking another and a failure to extend the gear.

[TeeVee]

As I said, they haven't built the idiot-proof airliner.

they kinda have. the problems we see, as you yourself have pointed out literally 100's of times here, is they haven't produced an idiot-proof pilot and that's because they are human. ALL humans screw up to some extent, and as along as there are humans controlling aircraft there are going to be crashes.

likely, after they build the human-less aircraft, those will fail as well, at which point we will revert to blaming the humans...designers that is.

airbus went a long way toward human-proofing its planes. then, we blame the pilots for "what's it doing now" and the industry for not turning pilots into systems geniuses, capable of remembering the exact failure tree for each and every conceivable failure onboard, all while staring at mother earth rushing up to kiss the cockpit at 700 mph.

[3WE]

***they haven't produced an idiot-proof pilot and that's because they are human. ALL humans screw up to some extent, and as along as there are humans controlling aircraft there are going to be crashes.***

Correct.

However, said crashes are usually very interesting studies, and the airplanes are not_built without discussions about the pros and cons of various automation and safety features. Heck, cue up Gabriel and Bobby on the subject of TOPMS...A nice safety check, or another distraction likely to RESULT in a crash?

Indeed this gives us a mixture of dead horses and not-quite-dead horses, both of which, unfortunately, make for some good beating...

Another particular not-quite-dead horse to beat is that Regional jets and their less-experienced pilots are making no progress in catching up to Airbus nor Boeing and their respective pilots on crashing...

I do contribute to several kilobytes of JP server space being redundant, when Evan posts overly bold, overly simplified, black and white comments about what we should do and how pilots are improvisational cowboy monkey idiots.

[kent olsen]

Before I retired I could see aircraft manufactures developing systems that take the pilot out of the loop. I flew with many pilots who would turn the autopilot on at 50 ft and off at 200 ft. I felt that soon there would be single pilot aircraft where in Part 121 the lead Flight Attendant would be capable of programing the aircraft down to an auto-land. I feel it is similar to back in the 60's where the airlines wanted to get rid of the Flight Engineer and his salary and the two pilot aircraft where developed. One pilot would help the airlines overhead. We'll see how that develops.

On the other hand I see a little more interest in training crews to experience flying skills in 121 aircraft than in the past. Case in point: Airbus, after the crash in the mid-atlantic. Where the sim training used to go into electronic aids after 1-2 hours in the sim, I heard they changed that to 5-6 hours of hand flying before introducing those electronic aids.

[pegasus]

Clearly there is a lot of fun to be had in esoteric technical discussions of toga buttons and all the rest. What has been clear from very early on is an approach so far away from stabilised as to beggar belief. A pilot so ego driven to the point of denial and delusion who described himself as "comfortable" as his misjudgements would deliver his aircraft at the runway threshold gear up at 250kts. Then, having managed to touch down on his engine nascelles, he makes no mention of this to ATC. You are left thinking of the teenager who scrapes his dad's car and hopes to find a quiet corner where a bit of scratch remover might allow him get away with it. He had many and early opportunities to admit that the approach was fouled up and go around. "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging"

[xspeedy]

Pilots distracted with chit chat about COVID

https://www.yahoo.com/news/probe-finds-procedure-violations-pakistan-080022866.html

[Evan]

Preliminary Report Out...

Cause, as feared: Stoogery. These 'pilots' should never have stumbled their way into an Airbus cockpit. A serious inquiry will hopefully determine how they got there and how many others like them might still be there as well.

- As I suspected, the aural alert heard on the ATC recording was a flap overspeed warning. This would have obfuscated the gear warning.
- Violation of sterile cockpit discipline.
- They reached waypoint MAKLI 6780ft high yet continued the approach.
- They ignored ATC warnings and remained over-confident.
- The deadly OP DES on approach routine.
- They extended the gear at 7221ft but then retracted them at 1740ft (an initiated go around by the F/O rejected by the CPT??).
- In any case, a complete absence of CRM. (Was the CPT unaware that the F/O had retracted the gear??)
- Pilots ignored cockpit warnings.
- No communication from ATC to the crew about either the gear status or the ground strikes.
- Fait accompli for a very broken aviation culture.

EDIT: it also occurs to me that the gear extension at that height was done to slow the aircraft and the retraction was done at the typical gear extension height. It sounds unthinkable but perhaps the pilot who retracted the gear had forgotten (or been unaware) that the gear was already down and simply moved the lever out of habit (in the wrong direction). And what about this crash is not unthinkable, so...

[flashcrash]

Preliminary Report Out...

Cause, as feared: Stoogery ...
- They extended the gear at 7221ft but then retracted them at 1740ft (an initiated go around by the F/O rejected by the CPT??).
.

Truly shocking. And the headline "distracted by chat about Covid" has the appearance of a not-so-subtle attempt to detract attention from the pathologically broken CRM. OK, I'm going to ask the question, not really expecting a serious reply, but how is it possible to weed out pilots like this from passenger-carrying airlines?