Originally posted by 3WE
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Those breakers are there to be reset in flight, not to be pulled in flight. If you get an ECAM message AUTO FLT RUD TRV LIM 1, you run the checklist procedure using the overhead buttons to cycle the FAC. If this fails you continue cautiously on autoflight using the back-up. If you get AUTO FLT RUD TRV LIM SYS, you run the checklist procedure using the overhead buttons to cycle the FAC(s). If this fails you fly very cautiously on autoflight and hopefully divert and land as soon as possible. Using the overhead pushbuttons allows the units to recycle without sudden loss-of-power consequences. As long as one FAC is available, you don't lose autoflight.
YOU DON'T PULL FCC BREAKERS IN FLIGHT. That must only be done by ground maintenance. I assume maintenance did this to test and reboot the ROMS. That's perfectly fine on the ground. Doing this in flight (as ANY type-certified A320 pilot should know) defeats autoflight capability and speed-envelope protections. As we have learned here, it can also leave the rudder in mid-manuever, deflected off neutral.
Oh, what, you didn't know that? It left you confused? It scrambled your situational awareness? Why the sudden roll? WHAT"S IT DOING NOW?!! WHAT DO I DO NOW?!!
This is total breakdown of situational awareness brought on by IMPROVISATION and ignorance of procedure (and the reasons for procedure). Once SA is lost, anything can happen. As it has over and over again. And some of us go on about the horrendous piloting that results from this as if the pilots had clear situational awareness....
What they did here went far beyond 'pilot error'. Why? Because they had strayed from procedural discipline so far that they actually considered using an improvised procedure on a flight control computer in flight, despite having no idea how the systems actually work. This is called 'apeing': doing something by imitating what other have done without understanding what they are doing.
Maybe this works on your DC-3, your old cowboy flying crate when you just had to bang on that one thing every now and then, and then it's fine, it just does that, whatever...
But getting a seat in a FBW aircraft means respecting the technology, reading the manuals, learning the airplane systems, training on procedure, adhering to procedure and running ONLY the approved procedures unless ground maintenance is instructing you. If you can't fix it with procedure, shut it down and land the thing.
This is a case of pilot-apeing. This is horrifying! How do such pilots find their way into A320 cockpits?
There should and must be criminal charges brought against the airline for letting IMPROVISATION go this far in their safety culture.
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