First off there are always multiple factors involved in a crash. But in all of these crashes over reliance on automation was the key factor in the crash.

I’ll just hit the high points on each. Emirates flight 521 was a 777 that was landing in Dubai. Several factors were involved in them coming in fast and landing long. They attempted a go around by pushing the TOGA (Take Off Go Around) switches on the throttles after touch down. The TOGA switches are disabled on a 777 at 2’ radar altimeter and remain disabled until reaching 5’ for 3 seconds in the event of a go around. The crew rotated to a go around pitch angle of about 12 deg nose up retracted the gear and started to retract the flaps but the power remained at idle thrust. The aircraft reached an altitude of 85’ before it aerodynamically stalled and crashed. All the pilots had to do was manually push the throttles up to max thrust and the airplane would have flown. They relied on auto throttles so heavily that neither pilot thought to push the power up manually.

One of the mentionable issues in this crash was the extraordinarily long time it took to evacuate due to the passengers stoping to collect their baggage prior to evacuating the burning hull.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirates_Flight_521


Turkish flight 1951 was on approach into Amsterdam. They were shooting an instrument approach with the auto pilot and auto throttles on. One of the radar altimeters failed and read zero causing the auto throttles to falsely sense that they were in the ground which in turn caused the auto throttles to reduced the engine thrust to idle. The pilots failed to recognize that the throttles were at idle and allowed the plane to stall and crash. Once again all they would have had to do is disconnect the auto throttles and set power manually.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...Airlines_Flight_1951

Asiana Flight 214 was a 777 on a visual approach to runway 28L in San Francisco. The crew was forced to hand fly the airplane because the Instrument Landing System was out of service. They got high and fast on the approach while hand flying with the auto throttles engaged. They tried to adjust their flight path and speed by selecting the Flight Level Change mode (FLCH) which provides for an idle decent at what ever speed is selected on the Mode Control Panel (MCP). That works great except for the fact that once the throttles go to idle in FLCH mode they enter a hold phase. They will not “wake up” until the aircraft captures a new VNAV mode such as capturing an altitude. In this case they had touch down elevation set so there was no altitude to catch. With FLCH selected and the throttles in HOLD mode the aircraft will not maintain a selected speed via the auto throttles. This crew allowed the speed to decay to 97 knots prior to attempting a go around. The aircraft subsequently struck the sea wall at the end of the runway and crashed. All any one of the 4 pilots on that aircraft would have had to do is push the the throttles up manually and either landed or gone around.

Are we seeing a trend here?
https://www.ntsb.gov/news/even...na_BMG-Abstract.aspx

Stick and Rudder skills have gone by the wayside. I don't think spin recovery is required to get a pilot's license today.
I did my 1st spin in a Cessna 140 with a pilot who flew the "Hump" in WWII. More importantly he was teaching me conditions that would put me into a spin as to recognize them ahead of time.
Most pilots don't even practice the correct way to fix a wing that is starting to stall. [It is corrected with Opposite Rudder and NOT Aileron] Using the stick to correct it just compounds the wing stall even more.
In my opinion we have become too dependent on automation in all aspects of our lives including the cockpit.
If the Airlines and Aviation schools would provide a lot more simulator time some of these training issues could be corrected such as spin recovery or the falling leaf or dead stick procedures. Unfortunately this all cost money and time.

This is a good video that every pilot should watch and be familiar with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urn5cdKWPWs

Note: I do not fly Ag but have spent a lot of time around Ag pilots and greatly appreciate their stick and rudder skills which are needed for survival.

Very interesting. My uncle flew about 30K hours over the course of his 60+ years of flying. He was more comfortable in an airplane than anywhere else. He told me one of the biggest mistakes pilots make during an emergency is to simply forget to “fly the airplane.” He worked for the CAA/FAA, Navy, Reserves, PAA Africa, UAL, Pan-Am...all over the place in all kinds of planes. Neat guy, spent a few months with him writing his biography. But i knew I’d only be able to scratch the surface of his experiences.

In the USA there is a mandate that all air carriers have to start doing UPRT training. Upset Prevention and Recovery Training is an advanced maneuvers course that teaches recognition and recovery from multiple attitudes including inverted with different pitch and roll issues. It also includes advanced spin and stall recoveries.

I wouldn’t say stick and rudder skills are a thing of the past. I know a lot of youngsters who have very good stick and rudder skills. In fact I am very happy to see multiple aeronautical universities putting together aerobatic teams. In fact some of those little shits beat me in several aerobatic competitions last year!

The issue I see, and especially with some foreign crews is that their training and previous flight time is to structured towards transport flying. These guys never get the chance to go out by themselves and screw around in an airplane for fun. And that is where the enjoyment and real learning takes place in a young pilots career. It’s also a huge part of where the decision making process is developed.

Another issue is the management of many of these foreign carriers insists on auto flight use at all times if possible. The pilots who work for an outfit like that never have a chance to get the feel of their airplane. The day that they are unable to use automation they are screwed. Which is exactly what happened to Asiana Flt 214. That crew was so automation dependant that they couldn’t shoot a visual approach on a clear almost windless day to a 10,000 foot long runway. AKA completely incompetent in regards to flying an airplane, not managing automation but actually flying the airplane.

Same with both of the other accidents mentioned above.

The massive difference between my generation and American trained pilots in general is that I have always considered automation a tool, never a crutch. Automation is secondary to flying the airplane. It is exactly the opposite in many foreign countries where automation is primary and flying is an emergency procedure.

I flew my first 5,000 or so hours without any automation of any kind, in some of the worst weather imaginable in all kinds of rattle trap beat up old airplanes that provided plenty of tense mechanical situations. You either learned to fly, you quit or you got killed. That was the hard cold truth. I instructed, flew charter, flew Grand Canyon tours, dropped jumpers, flew bush, flew night freight, fire fighting, corporate, night freight again in DC-8s, got my first airline job on old school 737’s and finally wound up where’s I am today with multiple thousands of hours of hard core no shit flying time.

I’m not saying that path doesn’t exist nowadays because it does. But it’s getting rare and in foreign countries, especially Asia it’s pretty much non existent.

On a simpler note, throw in some metric conversion problems and things go to Hell in a Hand Basket very quickly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...der#Landing_at_Gimli

Grizz

quote:

Originally posted by Grizzly Adams:
On a simpler note, throw in some metric conversion problems and things go to Hell in a Hand Basket very quickly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...der#Landing_at_Gimli

Grizz

An example of really bad procedural skills, situational awarensss and preflight planning. But really good stick and rudder flying skills.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by surestrike:
In the USA there is a mandate that all air carriers have to start doing UPRT training. Upset Prevention and Recovery Training is an advanced maneuvers course that teaches recognition and recovery from multiple attitudes including inverted with different pitch and roll issues. It also includes advanced spin and stall recoveries.[QUOTE]

I noticed the word "start" which makes me wonder how many decades this training was not required.

I do see a few young aerobatic pilots with great stick and rudder skills but they appear to be the exception and not the rule.
I realize you come from a ATP Professional position but how what percentage of non- professional pilots really know how to avoid and / or recover from a spin or extreme attitude?
Automation is here to stay and I frequently have ridden shuttle trains at DFW airport with no human driving them. Driverless cars are already on the road in several places.
I see all the cockpits becoming MORE automated in the future and relying less on the skills of a pilot.
Compare a cockpit from a 1960's Piper Pawnee Ag Plane with today's modern Air Tractor and the difference is day and night.
GPS Guidance Systems- Real Time Field Mapping-
GPS Variable Flow Control and more keeps the pilot very busy.[most cockpits have 2 - 3 different computer screens plus the flight/ engine instrumentation]
Some day drones will probably take over Ag Flying when they become cost feasible. Not too many privately owned drones can presently carry 500-800 gallons of liquid.
I can see some day of having pilot-less airliners also.
Change happens whether we embrace it or not.

quote:

Originally posted by 224VALMan:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by surestrike:
In the USA there is a mandate that all air carriers have to start doing UPRT training. Upset Prevention and Recovery Training is an advanced maneuvers course that teaches recognition and recovery from multiple attitudes including inverted with different pitch and roll issues. It also includes advanced spin and stall recoveries.[QUOTE]

I noticed the word "start" which makes me wonder how many decades this training was not required.

I do see a few young aerobatic pilots with great stick and rudder skills but they appear to be the exception and not the rule.
I realize you come from a ATP Professional position but how what percentage of non- professional pilots really know how to avoid and / or recover from a spin or extreme attitude?
Automation is here to stay and I frequently have ridden shuttle trains at DFW airport with no human driving them. Driverless cars are already on the road in several places.
I see all the cockpits becoming MORE automated in the future and relying less on the skills of a pilot.
Compare a cockpit from a 1960's Piper Pawnee Ag Plane with today's modern Air Tractor and the difference is day and night.
GPS Guidance Systems- Real Time Field Mapping-
GPS Variable Flow Control and more keeps the pilot very busy.[most cockpits have 2 - 3 different computer screens plus the flight/ engine instrumentation]
Some day drones will probably take over Ag Flying when they become cost feasible. Not too many privately owned drones can presently carry 500-800 gallons of liquid.
I can see some day of having pilot-less airliners also.
Change happens whether we embrace it or not.

UPRT is an extension of the already required advanced maneuvers training that we are currently doing. For the last 30 years or so advanced maneuvers training is a recovery from a roll upset to inverted, an extreme nose high and nose low recovery, a low altitude stall series at all different configurations and varying bank angles. It also has a high altitude stall series from several entry scenarios. UPRT expands the recovery envelope and the upset envelope. So when I say “start” it doesn’t mean that there isn’t already a training modual in place it just means that we are starting a new expanded program.

I agree with you that the average GA pilot lacks training, recognitions and recovery skills when it comes to extreme unusual attitudes and stall spin scenarios. Which is why I’m glad to see the emergence of collegiate aerobatic teams. It’s a good start and I hope it takes off.

Automation is here to stay, and as long as we do have manned aircraft those pilots need to maintain top notch stick and rudder skills as well as automation managemanet skills. You’ve got to be able to do both to be a proficient safe and effective professional transport pilot. Which is why I am all for the new UPRT training. I am also all for the hand flying initiative that we are currently seeing being emphasized on commercial flight decks. Whenever conditions permit and it makes sense to do so we are strongly advocating hand flying with automation off. It has always been the norm at my airline anyway. Very few pilots use automation at my airline for the climb or decent or the approach phase unless it is a safety issue or required as I’ve mentioned in my previous posts.

Ag drones are already here. Spot sprayers are becoming the norm and their size and capacity grows every year. Pilotless transport drones are inevitable as well. They aren’t going to be operating with passenger in the near term but they are coming.

I am going to let you in on a little secret. Back in the non glass minimally automated jet days, life was much simpler. You’d do a walk around, have a few basic switches to check for your preflight, get a heading and an altitude on departure, get a radar vector to your destination. Maybe bounce over a couple of VOR’s enroute, proceed direct to an airport VOR and maybe shoot an ILS or a VOR approach to a landing. It was chill, laid back and fun.

The work load of a highly automated airplane is actually quite a bit higher in the preflight, departure and arrival phases. It’s about the same in cruise. There are far more traps and I gotchas in an FMC equipped, highly automated aircraft than there were in an old hard ball coal burner.

quote:

Ag drones are already here.

I am very aware of this but I have not seen one that can carry 800 GALLONS of payload at 150 mph thru an Arkansas Delta Rice field that is ONE SQUARE MILE.

https://airtractor.com/aircraft/at-802a/

I do recognize that eventually there will come a civilian drone with this kind of Lifting capability. Some Ag Aircraft Spraying businesses are already using drones for field mapping. [Much more economical than a real airplane]

This manned aircraft can lift 710 gallons:

https://www.thrushaircraft.com/en/aircraft/710p

Not too hard to imagine a drone could lift 800.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobster:
This manned aircraft can lift 710 gallons:

https://www.thrushaircraft.com/en/aircraft/710p

Not too hard to imagine a drone could lift 800.

Find me an example of a CIVILIAN Drone on the market TODAY that can lift 800 gallons at 150 MPH and cost under 2 Million Dollars.
I stated in previous posts this will happen in the future but NOT TODAY.

The Military has drones that can lift this much and more but they cost about 15 million dollars each.
http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fac.../104470/mq-9-reaper/

The AT 802 cost approx 2 million dollars.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/...evtol-cav-500-pounds

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/20...lift-500-pounds.html

500 lbs is a long way from 800 gallons.

quote:

Originally posted by 224VALMan:

quote:

Originally posted by Bobster:
This manned aircraft can lift 710 gallons:

https://www.thrushaircraft.com/en/aircraft/710p

Not too hard to imagine a drone could lift 800.

Find me an example of a CIVILIAN Drone on the market TODAY that can lift 800 gallons at 150 MPH and cost under 2 Million Dollars.
I stated in previous posts this will happen in the future but NOT TODAY.

The Military has drones that can lift this much and more but they cost about 15 million dollars each.
http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fac.../104470/mq-9-reaper/

The AT 802 cost approx 2 million dollars.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/...evtol-cav-500-pounds

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/20...lift-500-pounds.html

500 lbs is a long way from 800 gallons.

Exactly, we are a LONG way from having economically feasible full capability civilian drones. The other thing most people don’t understand is the massive infrastructure needed to effectively operate a full capability out of visual range UAV.