AirAsia flight missing

[3WE]

CB...procedure...AUTO FLT RUD TRV LIM SYS or AUTO FLT FAC 1 (2) FAULT or even AUTO FLT FAC 1 + 2 FAULT....FCOM... Single RUD TRV LIM failure...Dual RUD TRV LIM failure: FAC pushbuttons, OFF THEN ON. Unsuccessful?...Single FAC FAULT: FAC pushbutton OFF THEN ON. Unsuccessful? Leave the affected FAC OFF. All PFD info now coming from the same FAC, autopilot remains available...Dual FAC FAULT: FAC 1 + 2 pushbuttons OFF THEN ON (one at a time). Unsuccessful? You've lost autoflight, normal law protections and W/S detection. Best to divert...procedures for CB cycling of non-FCC systems such as the FMGC...

Whew, confusing. But, given that "reset" is kind of a general, fundamental term, you forgot to cite the definition section of the FCOM that "resetting" somehow means in this specific case that you don't switch it off or "pull it" (whatever the definition of "pull-it" is)- what page is that on?

...and it's still not clear why it's ok to pull up relentlessly in this case when it's been determined to be a bad thing for 172s, 150's, PA-28's Q-400's, and AF A-300's.

Also, I kind of routinely reset my laptop every few days...sometimes I even push and hold the button down forcing windows to tell me I improperly shut it down. And I also do that process for my smart phone and printer and Modem/Router and VCR and even dealt with a low-tire-pressure light on my car the other day by shutting the key off and on too.

[3WE]

One pilot out of his seat followed by a 53° uncommanded roll, sudden loss of autoflight, master warning, ECAM messages... Think about that.

Frightening. Maybe 15 seconds of fundamental fly the plane first might be in order...maybe some more training on that too.

[Evan]

Whew, confusing. [B]But, given that "reset" is kind of a general, fundamental term...

What do you think? Pilots are simply taken off the street and thrown into the cockpit? Here, you know how to run a laptop? Great. You are no certified on the A320!!

Certified pilots properly trained on the A320 (or just about any other modern aircraft) know that OFF THEN ON refers to the overhead pushbutton switch. Hopefully they also understand the in-flight purpose of breakers is almost always for reset. Thay are not power-off switches. The exceptions are for systems that lack a power-off switch.

[3WE]

What do you think?

I'm thinking about that uncommand (and assumed rapid) 53 degree roll that you suggested I think about, and then thinking about that in the context of your procedures for a number of different specific situations.

And wondering how United 232 fits in. Solid CRM, but a lot of IMPROVISATION.

[elaw]

Only knowledge is of value in technical discussions.

Oh goody! I guess I've come to the right place then, because I have some knowledge.

Really, this sort of "if my PC does this then it must apply to avionics" or "if my car's ABS does this..." is quite obviously of no value to this discussion.

No value if you're narrowminded, maybe. Which many in the engineering community are, but that doesn't make it right.

A PC and a car's ABS system both have microprocessors (or microcontrollers, which are just microprocessors with incorporated peripherals), memory containing data and program code, I/O, a power source, and a means of connecting everything together (one or more PC boards and/or wires/cables). All of those things have a variety of possible failure modes, some of which are singular and others of which interact.

A FBW aircraft's flight computers (and air data computers and all other computers related to the plane's functioning) have microprocessors (or microcontrollers, which are just microprocessors with incorporated peripherals), memory containing data and program code, I/O, a power source, and a means of connecting everything together (one or more PC boards and/or wires/cables). All of those things have a variety of possible failure modes, some of which are singular and others of which interact.

But you're claiming that knowledge of the possible failure modes of computers used on desktops and in cars has no value in understanding the possible failure modes of computers in aircraft? That's absurd.

[Vnav]

Evan,

My QRH (and every fleet QRH at my airline) has a section in the Non Normal Checklists Instructions dedicated to C/B resetting and 'cycling'. While it prohibits the reset/cycling of certain specific CBs, it also gives the Flight crew and Captain wide discretion to cycle when a system is degraded.

If you are under the impression that cycling of CBs is somehow uncommon or illegal, you are sorely mistaken. It happens all the time. Again, depending on the system, discretion and judgment come into play and thought must be given to whether a reset/cycle would have an adverse effect on safety or make the situation worse. I'm not familiar enough with the Airbus or their autoflight system to say whether this crew's action was warranted, but the larger issue of whether you think cycling of any CBs is 'insanity', then you should be aware that there are a lot of insane flight operations going on as we speak.

[Evan]

Evan,

My QRH (and every fleet QRH at my airline) has a section in the Non Normal Checklists Instructions dedicated to C/B resetting and 'cycling'. While it prohibits the reset/cycling of certain specific CBs, it also gives the Flight crew and Captain wide discretion to cycle when a system is degraded.

If you are under the impression that cycling of CBs is somehow uncommon or illegal, you are sorely mistaken. It happens all the time. Again, depending on the system, discretion and judgment come into play and thought must be given to whether a reset/cycle would have an adverse effect on safety or make the situation worse. I'm not familiar enough with the Airbus or their autoflight system to say whether this crew's action was warranted, but the larger issue of whether you think cycling of any CBs is 'insanity', then you should be aware that there are a lot of insane flight operations going on as we speak.

No VNAV, I'm not under the impression that cycling of certain CB's is uncommon or illegal.

I am fully under the impression that cycling of THESE CB's (or ANY FCC CB's) is uncommon and, under the circumstances of the incident, insane.

The final report concurs:

The FAC CB was not in the list of CB that were approved to be reset in flight and required for the pilot to understand the consequences.

The pilot clearly was not understanding the consequences.

Most importantly, whichever pilot was doing the monkeying did not understand that you CANNOT restore either FAC by simply resetting the CB (hello stealth factor). You must then cycle the pushbutton switches OFF and ON to restore the respective FAC. He probably intended to shut down one, restore it and then shut down the other. He probably thought FAC 1 was back online when he pulled FAC 2 but of course it wasn't because he hadn't recycled the overhead switch. So when he pulled FAC 2, he lost autoflight and got a master caution. He also got a massive surprise. That created some unexpected cockpit anarchy (What's it doing now?!).

Adding to this, he remained for at least another 8 seconds at the bulkhead breaker panel trying (hopelessly) to reset FAC 2 while the A/C began a yaw-induced roll (due to the rudder being left at 2° deflection) of 6°/sec. That rate is two times faster than normal and should be obvious to the crew, yet the PF did nothing for 9 entire seconds, allowing it to roll over to 53° left (which is beyond the 'upset' threshold). At this point he declared "Oh my God" and entered right stick. He did not realize the rudder was deflected and did nothing to correct for this, so roll was still being induced against him. He did enter a 15° back stick however, for unclear reasons. I consider this a result of disorientation and compromised motor skills when dealing with the unexpected and finding himself in an extreme attitude.

I'm also firmly believe that both pilots were focused on the CB antics for the first 9 seconds of the roll, looking up or backwards or anywhere but the PFD.

I can't explain the continued pitch command in spite of continuous stall warnings but what is clear (lacking the actual CVR) is that the PIC never called for control when he began making sidestick inputs. That was a clear breakdown of CRM of the worst kind.

What I am saying here is very simple:

• The very idea of pulling FCC CB's in flight without any technical guidance was outrageous and insane. And unnecessary.
• The actual RTLU failures that occurred were fairly benign and fault passive. They could have continued to destination on autoflight without a hitch.
• Had they stuck with ECAM procedure, they would have been fine.
• Performing this sort of improvisation on an A320 (or a 777 for that matter) can rapidly lead to a scrambled situational awareness and this is the domain of unthinkable piloting error.
• Which I'm sure, alongside some piss-poor pilot training standards, is what happened here.

The lesson that MUST be learned here (and in all the other IMPROV accidents, i.e. "windscreen bolts are all the same", "why can't we just use a forklift to mount the engines" etc.) is NEVER IMPROVISE if procedure is available. That lesson should be very well-learned by now but for some reason it is so damned hard to penetrate certain skulls in this industry.

So these needless tragedies will continue to happen on perfectly good airplanes.

[TeeVee]

Yes! This is what I also just said (read my posts carefully). The problem, and the crash itself, is the result of pilot IMPROVISATION. If Mx is on the line instructing the crew, that is not pilot improvisation. But they weren't.

yeah, because the grease monkey on the ground 2841 miles away from the cockpit crew can somehow prevent certain catastrophe simply by giving the instructions over sat phone or hf or via morse code.

[Gabriel]

...and it's still not clear why it's ok to pull up relentlessly in this case when it's been determined to be a bad thing for 172s, 150's, PA-38's Q-400's, and AF A-300's.

Fixed (subtly).

[Gabriel]

I'm thinking about that uncommand (and assumed rapid) 53 degree roll

Not so rapid really. It took 9 seconds. The problem is that, then, the pilot combined inputs to level up with relentless pull up.

What's up with some pilots that feel an irresistible need to just pull (and keep doing it all the way to their final destination) up no matter what when the manure hits flywheel?

[EconomyClass]

Well, as usual, I don't want to get snared in the many technicalities. But it seems to me there's an awful lot of incidents with Asian involvement in recent years. I went to a site that broke things down [http://www.airsafe.com/events/regions/asia.htm, and without considering these planes that crashed due to terrorist activity, it seems like Asia over and over. I've watched as the airplane builders sell to airlines bent on rapid growth. Like Emirates. And passengers seem to be able and willing to support global growth financially. But what makes me wonder is whether everything that goes with safety really grows along with it. The American air industry didn't just grow up overnight. It was a long,long process starting in the 1920's or earlier. Yet, now with easy global money, anybody who thinks they have a business model can get new or even used planes and scrape up some pilots of greater or lesser competence. Is this just the inevitable happening in this industry environment? The airlines who've learned hard lesson in decades of flying are about as safe as they can be. But the newbies? And their governments?

[3WE]

...I don't want to get snared in the many technicalities...

It's interesting to look at both sides of things. We have a big and high-quality aviation industry in the US, and it seems that some of our "lesser" pilots will find employment elsewhere with airlines from regions with not-so-high standards (The written standards may be largely the same, but there could be many intangibles.)

Contrasting this is nicer, newer, much-more-automated aircraft that are supposedly safer. In fact they probably are safer and the accident rate would be even higher without them?

...and there's also the very strange statistic of how few crashes have happened with "regional jets" (whatever they are). They tend to be flown by lower time pilots and tend to be operated by small "contract companies" and probably operate more in tough environments like smaller airports with less weather information. Maybe they are simpler to operate (Evan's acronym-laden list where in this situation you do this and in that situation such and such is disabled, but only when condition x exists- just doesn't seem the right way to design a plane where "fail-safe" and "intuitive" might be a good idea, nor a plane designed to operate counter to traditional aerodynamic responses.)

Then we have the Asiana 777 crash where the pilot seemed to fear stuff like hand landings on gorgeous afternoons with light winds and no one seemed interested in fundamental stuff like watching the airspeed and keeping your hands on the throttles...and then rumors of folks being pushed to be pilots when their hearts and skills lie elsewhere.

Of course, you could always make a personal no-fly list.

[3WE]

What's up with highly-trained airline pilots feeling an irresistible need to just pull (and keep doing it all the way to their final destination) up no matter what when the manure hits flywheel?

Fixed (Subtlety)

As to your original question, there are many answers:

-Pull up = Go up (99.99% of the time).

-FOFFIES Fear Falling.

-A general citation in Stick and Rudder of the stick being bent backwards after a dude crashes when "dive-bombing" his girlfriends house.

-They forgot some incredibly basic stuff?

-(Maybe forgot it when they memorized Evan's acronym-decision-tree (along with many other acronym-decision-trees for other problems like UAS and engine fire and dual ELACAS failure, and wake-turbulence-don't-use-rudder-for-yaw-even-though-you-use-rudder-for-yaw-when-landing-almost-all-aircraft))

-The many times where you and I have "half-argued" that it might be valid to minimize altitude loss and use aggressive pull ups and powerful jet engines to reduce said altitude loss- and which works well if you give a little attention to fundamental stuff like airspeed and/or stall warnings or even direct AOA indications.

(And thanks for the detail that the big roll was more gentle. Was there some reason that stick and rudder inputs were unable to right the plane? (whoops-check that, rudder use is for improvisational cowboys and strictly against procedure for some type specific aircraft and operations))

[HalcyonDays]

Reference the comment above by 3WE about fewer 'regional jet' crashes, that wasn't always the case. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in the US, there were quite a lot of regional jet and turboprop crashes. The situation was improved significantly with better training, better aircraft and better regulation.

I don't have a feel for whether what we see in recent years is a trend or isolated crap flying. Going back 30 to 50 years Western commercial airliners were crashing weekly somewhere or other. We've edited out most of the causes through better training, technology and regulation. So what's left are random human factors. Some of today's current problems in certain markets will be solved. China, for example, had a terrible record also 20-40 years ago but is now close to world class.

[3WE]

...Reference the comment above by 3WE about fewer 'regional jet' crashes, that wasn't always the case. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in the US, there were quite a lot of regional jet and turboprop crashes...

No.

Repeating and delving deeper:

Indeed, Regional Turboprop's crashed more in the 80's and 90's, but please list crashes of ERJ's and CRJ's. Take the props off (and get above the weather and get magenta lines) and the stats markedly improve.

It's fairly easy to contrast a turboprop from a turbofan and what that means to safety, but the comparison between "Real Airliners" and "Mini-Regional-Jets" (and that the Mini-Regional's seemingly beat the big iron)...that's interesting.

...and my point is not to offer THE answer (maybe it's just luck), but that the safety record is very interesting and raises questions as to why.