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This was sent out to a bunch of us by one of our check airman a few minutes ago. Take it for what it is worth:
Low-down on Korean pilots
... Tom
Great post! I'm discouraged by the racism going around about this accident, but this isn't racism, it isn't prejudicial in nature, it's post-judicial. It is simply judicial. He doesn't talk about asians racially, he talks about Korean pilots culturally, from experience...
You just can’t change 3000 years of culture.
...and this is something I'm afraid political correctness may prevent the industry from dealing with. But I don't see a racial issue here and I still think you CAN overcome culture if the senior management is behind you.
Culture, whether company culture or the larger culture, is usually the driving factor in accidents involving violations of safe procedure (like continuing an unstabilized approach).
After reading this I am never flying Asiana or KAL. I'll even fly Air France if I have to...
3WE, it's my understanding that the autothrottles were "armed" but not engaged. That would go a long way toward explaining how the airplane got low and slow, before the real problem got sorted out about 20 seconds too late.
You win the prize for calling it first...SOMETHINGwas awry with the autothrottles!
Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.
Your guess is as good as any! Not even taking into consideration the displaced threshold, he should have been aiming 1000' down the runway.
I value your perspective more than you know. If I question it, it is for clarity rather than correction...
The article from Tom follows many of the 'feelings' I had when dealing with some crews.
I have 3 examples of my experiences regarding the evolution of the commercial aviation culture during my years with the airlines:
1) As a dispatcher with a few hours on a PPL, years studying for a AeroEng degree and a lifelong passion for anything that left the ground, I was committed to being professional and proactive. So when I confronted my management about the lax attitude towards dispatch, namely accurate weight and balance performance and realistic loadsheets, I was told that modern aircraft could fly themselves, so the need for accuracy was redundant.
2) 23 years after Tenerife and the CRM issues it raised, I was still seeing western Captains belittle their co-pilots with phrases like "did I ask you to speak?" in situations where the co-pilot was correcting an obvious mistake. More telling, was the atmosphere in Asian cockpits where the CP looked like he was there only to be impressed by the god in the left seat. So they just didn't dare say anything.
3) Turkmenistan crews... these were Russian trained old school seat of the pants stick and rudder guys, and despite flying up to date 757s looked at automation as an interferance of their love of flying. I heard that a failure-free flight on a Russin built aircraft was a rarity, so they were alert to anything and everything. When I used to give them their W/B trim settings, I never once saw them dial it into their FMS or even look at it. I was questioned this and they said that they will feel it when they rotate! Other dispatchers detested this refusal to follow procedure and I admit it doesn't sit well in this aviation culture, but secretly I admired their devotion to piloting skills rather than button pushing automation reliance. Plus the discussions between flight crew were truly teamwork. Still a bunch of cowboys and the station manager at LHR ran a car chop shop on the side... but I digress.
So the impression I got was that the world that CRM was trying to create has in some cases been super-ceded by the illusion of CRM. Not only is 3000 years of culture hard to overcome, but the egos of some people too. And these people know exactly what to do to maintain the illusion of good CRM.
Yet, we are still looking at the safest era of commercial aviation ever and still improving. Despite these exceptions.
I've mentioned in previous posts my concerns about the reliance on automation and the numerous cases of pilots expecting the aircraft to sort itself out once a few buttons are pushed and I think this is one of them. But there is also the issue of automation allowing people to become pilots when they are clearly not the right stuff, and being able to fly 10,000 hours with this truth hidden behind the amazing systems of modern aircraft.
I still think that without these aircraft and their systems, we would have a lot more accidents and deaths, so this accident is the lesser of many evils.
I think this pilot was HOPING for ANYWHERE on the runway and maybe the PNF was not that concerned because his visual approaches may have often resembled this and ended with a successful landing.
The examples above exist because the people who really run airlines (accountants) are more concerned with profitability and like many human beings, feel obligated only to create the illusion of proper procedures and safety being the highest priority.
While we all buy the cheapest seat available, we deserve the level of safety which that dictates.
Great post! I'm discouraged by the racism going around about this accident.
Two things.
1) "The power gradient/reluctance to speak up" has been evident in crashes with pilots of other cultures (Tenerife comes to mind as a biggie! THE NUMBER ONE LEAD Air France pilot and poster boy starts his takeoff, FO hints and hints that the runway may not be clear)
2) It's not racicst to say that some cultures (including oriental folks) place a heavier emphasis on seniority with limitations on challenging the senior person.
...the corporate world...yeah, there are times when a diverse team out perfoms a homogeneous team...then again, there is diversity solely for the sake of diversity and if your critical weakness aligns with a cultural tendency, then suddenly it's only a critical weakness for those who don't have this as a cultural tendency....
Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.
Investigators in the cockpit of the wreckage found the auto-throttle switches set to the “armed” position, meaning that the auto-throttle could have been engaged, depending on various other settings, she said. The disclosure is far from conclusive, but raises the clear possibility that there was a mechanical failure or that the crew misunderstood the automated system it was using.
First of all, isn't the PF supposed to have his hand on the thrust levers during an autothrust approach. Isn't that the reason those levers are servo driven? Isn't the role of the pilots to monitor the automation and take over when something isn't right? Is the 'fault-tolerance' of the autothrust system not the 'pilot flying'? (see: TK 1951)
Secondly, I highly suspect this is a case of stealth factor, where the crew did not have a deep enough understanding of the modes and how they interact, and that the A/T was in HOLD at IDLE by design.
On Tuesday, Mr. Clifford said that another party, not covered by the Montreal Protocol, could be vulnerable to claims: Boeing. The plane did not have an aural warning of low airspeed, he said, even though the safety board recommended 10 years ago that the Federal Aviation Administration convene a panel of experts to consider installing them. If the plane was unsafe, he said, the manufacturer could face suits.
OK, ambulance chasing has begun... There is already a low-energy warning. It's called stickshaker. A warning above stickshaker really shouldn't be necessary, but an announcement like "warning, idle thrust" after a certain period of time and sink-rate triggered at a certain altitudemight have prevented this one. But then we should just get rid of the pilots, really.
I hadn't thought about this, but in the final moments before touchdown, the PNF often has to:
"Kill" the pressurization.
Turn off the GPWS or some other altitude alert.
-others?
(Don't know if this applies to a 777 or not, but if so, it's an interesting question of distraction from watching really basic stuff to take care of automation, at a fairly critical time too).
Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.
First of all, isn't the PF supposed to have his hand on the thrust levers during an autothrust approach. Isn't that the reason those levers are servo driven? Isn't the role of the pilots to monitor the automation and take over when something isn't right? Is the 'fault-tolerance' of the autothrust system not the 'pilot flying'? (see: TK 1951)
Secondly, I highly suspect this is a case of stealth factor, where the crew did not have a deep enough understanding of the modes and how they interact, and that the A/T was in HOLD at IDLE by design.
OK, ambulance chasing has begun... There is already a low-energy warning. It's called stickshaker. A warning above stickshaker really shouldn't be necessary, but an announcement like "warning, idle thrust" after a certain period of time and sink-rate triggered at a certain altitudemight have prevented this one. But then we should just get rid of the pilots, really.
Agreed!
With the crew's admission that they thought the auto-throttles did not do their job, this is beginning to look like a similar Turkish 1951, much closer to the runway, again in which the crew did not do their job.
So the two people described by the UAL 744 F/O who were stumbling around on the tarmac 1,000 ft or so behind the final resting place of the fuselage, the ones who were ejected from the airplane, were likely the two flight attendants in the aft crew seats...what an ordeal!
SAN FRANCISCO -- Two flight attendants were ejected from the rear section of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 when it crashed Saturday at San Francisco International Airport but survived, federal investigators said Tuesday.
I've thought of this too. Do you think a senior pilot like this making his first hand-flown approach to SFO might want to impress his senior colleagues by greasing it down on the numbers? Consider the culture.
I rather think that it was not intentional, but the result of running out of speed with the engines at idle and too low to recover. The stickshaker was already active, so pulling up to try to arrest the descent and hit the second brick instead of the first one would not have helped.
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---
I hadn't thought about this, but in the final moments before touchdown, the PNF often has to:
"Kill" the pressurization.
Turn off the GPWS or some other altitude alert.
What????
In the final moments before touchdown none of the pilots have to do anything but fly and monitor. Yoke, rudder and throttles are the only things touched in the last 500ft and during the high-speed part of the roll-out.
--- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
--- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---
I rather think that it was not intentional, but the result of running out of speed with the engines at idle and too low to recover. The stickshaker was already active, so pulling up to try to arrest the descent and hit the second brick instead of the first one would not have helped.
I'm interested by the comment in the NTSB relaease that the pilot lost sight of the runway because of the high AoA. In the video, it looks like it was maybe 25deg pitch up on a flat GS. Again, having stood on the ground close to virtually every aircraft type on the ramp while it taxied in and still kept sight of the pilots to make sure they can see me, I find this surprising.
I do remember seeing a short pilot use a cushion because the seat adjustment didn't reach high enough for him.
Any other pilot on here ever lose sight of the runway on approach because of the glare shield?
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