Another stall accident (In PSA, the P stands for Pinnacle)

[Gabriel]

This it was a young 59-years-old captain with just 25,000 hours of experience and only 7000 hours in the airplane type, a tween-engine transport category jet.
Thanks God that they upgraded the requirement for first officers to at least 1000 hours total time.

This time it was not deadly, partially due to luck.
One person injured, one engine possibly severely damaged (by luck not both), and a captain that it is quite clear doesn't understand how a wing is flown.
And he declared he knew about the Pinnacle accident. No diet Pepsi or four-one-oh involved as far as I know, though.

http://avherald.com/h?article=46fa4309&opt=0

Come on 3WE, start rationalizing why it is understandable that this pilot did what he did.

[Evan]

This it was a young 59-years-old captain with just 25,000 hours of experience and only 7000 hours in the airplane type, a tween-engine transport category jet.
Thanks God that they upgraded the requirement for first officers to at least 1000 hours total time.

This time it was not deadly, partially due to luck.
One person injured, one engine possibly severely damaged (by luck not both), and a captain that it is quite clear doesn't understand how a wing is flown.
And he declared he knew about the Pinnacle accident. No diet Pepsi or four-oh-one involved as far as I know, though.

http://avherald.com/h?article=46fa4309&opt=0

Come on 3WE, start rationalizing why it is understandable that this pilot did what he did.

Careful, 3WE is going to tell you that blaming incompetent pilots is your home base.

[3WE]

Come on 3WE, start rationalizing why it is understandable that this pilot did what he did.

Rationalize? I don’t like your tone.

Let me say this- when pilots do things that seem to defy the most basic rules...the fact is that they did them and some reasoning may have caused them to very intentionally do what they did...

Rationalizing...no...trying to understand what they were thinking...yes.

We will never know transport jet operation. I do; however, know of 172 secondary stalls and consider airspeed important...with my surprise, there was no stick pusher other than the 3BFMS computer- and the stick pusher DID activate and I did not_did died.

Soooo...to go up, you pull up 99.9% of the time...when that stall occurrs...maybe your mind is elsewhere...

Doesn’t mean he didn’t mess up...but it’s a rational explanation as to WHY he did it.

[3WE]

By the way Gabieeee, why was the PF dicking with the FMS while the PM was doing a shitty job watching the airspeed?

[3WE]

Careful, 3WE is going to tell you that blaming incompetent pilots is your home base.

Riding a bike can affect your view of home base.

[Gabriel]

Rationalize? I don’t like your tone.

Let me say this- when pilots do things that seem to defy the most basic rules...the fact is that they did them and some reasoning may have caused them to very intentionally do what they did...

Rationalizing...no...trying to understand what they were thinking...yes.

We will never know transport jet operation. I do; however, know of 172 secondary stalls and consider airspeed important...with my surprise, there was no stick pusher other than the 3BFMS computer- and the stick pusher DID activate and I did not_did died.

Soooo...to go up, you pull up 99.9% of the time...when that stall occurrs...maybe your mind is elsewhere...

Doesn’t mean he didn’t mess up...but it’s a rational explanation as to WHY he did it.

Did you actually read the AVH article? In full?
No, you didn't.

It was not just a moment of distraction. There were 200 things wrong not only in the accident sequence but also in what the pilot explained in the post-accident interview. Stalling the plane at FL 340 was just the Pinnacle of his poor airmanship.

The problem here is that the airline failed to train the pilot properly including stuff that he should have learnt in the first few hours of Cessna 150 and failed to identify the issue. A pilot that always keeps 200 knots when climbing to cruise altitude? And nobody ever noticed? The unbelievable thing here is that the pilot didn't kill himself and the rest of persons on board not only in this flight but in the previous 24,000 hours or so.

[3WE]

Did you actually read the AVH article? In full?
No, you didn't.

It was not just a moment of distraction. There were 200 things wrong not only in the accident sequence but also in what the pilot explained in the post-accident interview. Stalling the plane at FL 340 was just the Pinnacle of his poor airmanship.

The problem here is that the airline failed to train the pilot properly including stuff that he should have learnt in the first few hours of Cessna 150 and failed to identify the issue. A pilot that always keeps 200 knots when climbing to cruise altitude? And nobody ever noticed? The unbelievable thing here is that the pilot didn't kill himself and the rest of persons on board not only in this flight but in the previous 24,000 hours or so.

Yes, I read it...some guy with a lot of hours was locked on a 1000 fpm climb and he and his copilot let the plane stall while he programmed arrival stuff...he WAS going to trim down when the stall warning kicked in...then, the concept of managing attitude seemed to escape him...

Several logic defying things happened, including a high hour, highly trained dude, familiar with four one oh behavior doing his own variation of it...

One key difference- The four one oh bunch was monitoring speed and attitude and requesting a descent...following SOME basic rules...

Is that rationalizing, too?

[KGEG]

Yes, I read it...some guy with a lot of hours was locked on a 1000 fpm climb and he and his copilot let the plane stall while he programmed arrival stuff...he WAS going to trim down when the stall warning kicked in...then, the concept of managing attitude seemed to escape him...

Several logic defying things happened, including a high hour, highly trained dude, familiar with four one oh behavior doing his own variation of it...

One key difference- The four one oh bunch was monitoring speed and attitude and requesting a descent...following SOME basic rules...

Is that rationalizing, too?

So to summarize you are acknowledging you recognize that this bunch wasn't even following "SOME" basic rules, or at least were just as or even less aware of what was actually happening as the other incident.

*throws hands behind head like Chewbacca*

[3WE]

So to summarize you are acknowledging you recognize that this bunch wasn't even following "SOME" basic rules, or at least were just as or even less aware of what was actually happening as the other incident.

*throws hands behind head like Chewbacca*

I'm sorry, I didn't know that the forum required that I list every screw up I could find as well as what they did right. Should I copy/paste the AvHerald link. I don't know you well, but I've made way too many posts over WAY TOO MANY YEARS (along with Gabriel) that you really shouldn't ever inadvertently stall a plane and that you ought to "constantly" monitor airspeed and a bunch of other stuff. When you don't, sometimes you run a 777 into a sea wall on a beautiful afternoon. Sometimes you stall an A-300 and descend 35,000+ feet while "pulling up the whole time". Sometimes you are distracted and descend into a swamp, sometimes you fail to advance perfectly working power levers and hit the ground. Yeah, they messed up a lot of stuff...they also amassed several thousand hours between them not_crashing an airliner, took off and arrived at 35,000 feet without ATC giving them a phone number to call...

It's mind boggling. How do YOU explain stuff like this? I don't need every last detail nor a 2000 word essay either. Thanks in advance.

[3WE]

By the way, while they did stall this aeroplanie, they did not stall it all the way from 34,000 feet to the ground...

I blame it on the fact that this is again, one of those almost-impossible-to-crash RJs (flown by what might not be the best pilots ever)..

[Gabriel]

Yes, I read it...some guy with a lot of hours was locked on a 1000 fpm climb and he and his copilot let the plane stall while he programmed arrival stuff...he WAS going to trim down when the stall warning kicked in...then, the concept of managing attitude seemed to escape him...

Several logic defying things happened, including a high hour, highly trained dude, familiar with four one oh behavior doing his own variation of it...

One key difference- The four one oh bunch was monitoring speed and attitude and requesting a descent...following SOME basic rules...

Is that rationalizing, too?

Cruise climb at 1000 fpm
Cruise climb at 200 kts
Cruise climb in vertical speed mode.
And he thought that all that was standard procedure
Climbing through FL330 he notes that the airspeed is 200 kts and that the minimum speed cue is 180 kts,
Then he, the Pilot Flying, starts to enter data in the FMS. No word on whether he transferred PF duties to the FO (you have the controls) or whether the FO was assissting the captain with the FMS data and nobody was flying the plane.
After leveling off at FL340 he sees that the airspeed has decayed to 160 to 165 (remember, 1 minute ago he noted that the minimum speed was 180)
Of course, He immediately realized they were too slow and was about to use the autopilot vertical speed pitch wheel to lower the nose
But at that precise moment, the stickshaker activated.
Let's see, you intended to keep 200 knots, you note that the minimum allowable speed is 180 knots, you observe that you have 160 to 165 knots, you realize that you need to immediately lower the nose, and then stickshaker goes of.on you. What do you do?
Of course, nothing
And when after a brief moment of doing nothing the stick pusher activates, what do you do?
Of course, fight the stick pushed and pull back... 7 times... reaching AoAs of more than 14 degrees, at FL340.
Why he would o that? In an effort to maintain altitude (Wasn't he just about to dial the altitude down in the AP???) And ... Because he thought it was a false stall warning. What else could it be, right? Do I repeat? you intended to keep 200 knots, you note that the minimum allowable speed is 180 knots, you observe that you have 160 to 165 knots, you realize that you need to immediately lower the nose, and then stickshaker goes of.on you, BUT YOU THINK IT IS A FRIGGING FALSE STALL WARNING!!!!!
It took the FO to ask him please to stop doing that because "we have to get airspeed" for him to realize that that being 15 to 20 knots slower than the minimum allowable flight speed and having the stick shaker and stick pusher activate could be an indication that they might need a tad more of airspeed.
So THEN he lowers the nose and gains speed, and the "false" stall warning stops. But not before he flew long enough at a high enough AoA to disrupt the airflow on both engines and, apparently severely damaging one of them which failed with ZERO N1 and past-redline high TIT.
When asked to explain the company's stall recovery procedure, the captain said, "set vertical speed to prepare for the stall, then retract flight spoilers, apply full thrust and maintain 5 degrees of pitch." He said you should level off and once the airplane was at 200 knots the maneuver was complete. He repeated "they said 5 degrees."
And, of curse, he recalled the Pinnacle accident.

By the way, both the Pinnacle guys and these guys realized that they were too slow and that they needed to descend to preserve/gain airspeed. Neither of them did. Not sure about the "contrast" you mentioned. For me the contrast is more than the Pinnacle guys were out for fun doing all sort of crazy stuff during the climb (pulling Gs, pitching way up, reaching many thousands of FPM) and that the PSA guys were more lucky that only one engine failed.

The good thing about the pilot surviving the experience (other than he did not die and did not kill anybody, which is of course the most important one) is that he lived to be interviewed so we could get a clue of what was his state of mind. A sample of one is not a good sample, but I am starting to wonder if the Pinnacle, Colgan and Air France pilots (and others) had a similar state of mind. That state of mind is called "clueless". These persons don't belong to a cockpit. And it is the airlines' duty to keep them out until they do.

[Evan]

It's mind boggling. How do YOU explain stuff like this?

There are these things called 'accident reports' put together by experts in a number of fields after conducting lengthy investigations. Often, what they find is not, surprisingly, that the pilots didn't know how to fly an airplane or the necessity of monitoring primary instruments, but rather that a convergence of factors, from stealthy systems they were not adequately trained on to fatigue and human factors that confuse or diminish concentration, awareness and judgment. I know you will continue to resist that, but that IS how you explain stuff like this.

If it helps, there are occasional accidents where the pilots were just deliberately negligent or willfully reckless, but they are usually the easy ones to explain.

[3WE]

[More verbiage than at AvHerald; ending with:] These persons don't belong to a cockpit. And it is the airlines' duty to keep them out until they do.

Do you remember how to become an RJ captain? ITS described it some years ago.

PS: Did I ever tell you that I like to watch airspeed and give a lot of thought and attention when pulling up?

[kent olsen]

Two things I noted:
1- I remember a copilot many years ago saying the same thing, "ATC requires/expects a minimum of 1000 ft/min rate of climb". Where'd that come from? So I asked ATC, they said no.
2- Why did it take the NTSB six years to to complete their investigation after the preliminary report and this with a complete airframe and live pilots???

[Gabriel]

Do you remember how to become an RJ captain? ITS described it some years ago.

25000 hours, 3WE. Not 250, not 2500. 7000 on type.