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Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

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Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

#111

Post by young_unixer »

kerneloftruth wrote: post #39
munchler wrote: post #29

Why is it even possible to enter a desired altitude of 0 feet into an automatic pilot? As a layman, it’s hard for me to imagine why anyone flying a 777 would want to maintain an altitude of zero at full speed for more than a few seconds (if that).

I'm guessing it's done on approach so that the autopilot won't keep the plane from landing -- which would beg the question of why the autopilot would even be on during takeoff or landing. As one would guess, it shouldn't have been on. Insight comes from a comment in TFA: "I’m a captain at a U.S. major airline with a lot of time in 777s. Something this doesn’t mention is the that even if ground level was set into the…

Lots of landings are done on autopilot.

Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

#112

Post by jacquesm »

topspin wrote: post #104
jacquesm wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd hope a regulator would turn their wandering eye to this airline, both from a hiring, operations and management perspective. There are errors on all of those.

Emirates is a Flag Carrier for UAE, apparently owned by Dubai's government via 'Investment Corporation of Dubai.' There is, therefore, no meaningful distinction between it and its regulator, so don't hold your breath on that hope either. The FAA will demur; bet the rent money on that. We're talking UAE money here, and that means most of the US Senate is on speed dial. No FAA functionaries will be troubling UAE over t…

Airplane manufacturers and regulators being too close is not good, see the MAX MCAS issue, airlines should be completely firewalled from regulators for very obvious reasons.

That's pretty bad. Here in NL was have a similar situation where the state is shareholder of KLM/AF leading to all kinds of bizarre decisions in recent times. But at least I'd hope that some people at the regulator would resign rather than avoid doing their jobs when safety is on the line.

Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

#113

Post by csunbird »

selectodude wrote: post #91
csunbird wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: My experience in piloting is just a couple of hours flying planes in kerbal space program. Wouldn't that much speed cause the plane to ascent naturally, even with zero pitch, just by the body lift? (Although, it is quite possible that real life planes have negative body lift, I have no idea)

They probably were given a command to stay at 4000 above ground (AGL) level after takeoff. The plane was to level off until further instructions from ATC. Since the plane was set to sea level on takeoff, the plane tried to level off at 4000 ft above sea level which…is not good. The plane was pitched down to descend.

Oh no. So, the computer was actually trying to keep the plane pitched down to avoid ascending naturally and keep the altitude stable. This is really, really bad.

Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

#114

Post by Simon_O_Rourke »

omegant wrote: post #82
onphonenow wrote: post #16

The memo from Emirates about not setting altitude in system to airport altitude is so weird. I really hope that's not the actual message Emirates is putting out there. It doesn't matter was in system. You run your checklists and configure for your own flight / your own departure etc. Memo should be to training / recruitment - where did you find these pilots to fly a 777? So they obviously didn't pre-flight the flight…

It goes way beyond checklist stuff. Imagine having an intermediate system in your Tesla, one between fully manual and the autopilot. This system uses the navigation capabilities of the autopilot to draw in the big screen some squares that guide you to your destination without the need to look outside. Something you may find in a videogame. This system is helpfull and easy to use, and allows you to pay attention to mo…

I would like to know what the Ryanair pilots are ordered to do by their higher ups. Been on a few of them in Europe and they all hit the runway pretty hard coming back down.

Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

#115

Post by [deleted] »

sokoloff wrote: post #10

Pilot (piston engine, with only around 20 hours of light jet dual). As a pax on this flight, I might not have noticed much unless I was looking out the window. This seems like a fault of the crew (obviously), but probably more on the PNF (pilot not flying) than the PF (pilot flying). Article says 4 pilots were on board, but fails to mention that 2 of them (relief pilots) were likely not in the cockpit on the departur…

[deleted]

Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

#116

Post by inglor_cz »

throwawayboise wrote: post #69
SkyMarshal wrote: post #54

At least this sounds like pure human error, failure to follow pre-flight checklists, and not a Boeing engineering/mechanical problem.

But engineering/mechanical problems can be identified, analyzed, and eliminated (or mitigated). Human error still finds a way around our many attempts (training, checklists, standardized procedures, etc) to prevent it.

Indeed. You can design some mechanisms as failsafe, but there aren't any failsafe pilots.

Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

#117

Post by throwawayboise »

pilot7378535 wrote: post #76
diebeforei485 wrote: post #33

> suggesting [...]the previous flight crew had left the altitude setting at [...] 00000 feet Does the system really display as "00000"? That seems like an odd design choice, I'd have thought just a single "0" would be far more legible in this scenario, especially if it's on a 7-segment display. I don't think passengers would have noticed this as anything other than a regular takeoff, because ATC does request slow cli…

Speaking of bad UX choices, the FAA is constantly dropping one or two or more digits from numbers like altitudes, runway lengths, heading, timestamps, etc. For example, "the runway from 180° is 5200 feet long" becomes "RWY18 52" which I suppose you get used to, but it's just begging for mixups.

AIUI it is a holdover from the days when such reports were sent by telegraph/teletype, and saving characters mattered. The abbreviations became standard convention and changing them now would be more disruptive than teaching new pilots how to decipher them.

Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

#118

Post by punarinta »

pc86 wrote: post #53
speedgoose wrote: post #15

75 feets is 22.8 meters. 234 knots is 433km/h.

Which is irrelevant, given this is about aviation where feet and knots are standardized in all but a few former Soviet block countries.

I’m flying an ultralight in Europe and my IAS is in km/h. And to be frank, probably all UL and PPL aircraft I’ve seen nearby use km/h, not knots. Not sure why it is so, but it’s definitely easier for my brain. :)

Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

#119

Post by throwawayboise »

Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #114
omegant wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes way beyond checklist stuff. Imagine having an intermediate system in your Tesla, one between fully manual and the autopilot. This system uses the navigation capabilities of the autopilot to draw in the big screen some squares that guide you to your destination without the need to look outside. Something you may find in a videogame. This system is helpfull and easy to use, and allows you to pay attention to mo…

I would like to know what the Ryanair pilots are ordered to do by their higher ups. Been on a few of them in Europe and they all hit the runway pretty hard coming back down.

I think GP is saying that Ryanair demands that pilots use the automation to the fullest extent, and disallows "hand flying" (with an exeption, one presumes, for when the automatic systems fail, and a hope that the pilots remember how to hand fly).

Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

#120

Post by EMM_386 »

onphonenow wrote: post #16

The memo from Emirates about not setting altitude in system to airport altitude is so weird. I really hope that's not the actual message Emirates is putting out there. It doesn't matter was in system. You run your checklists and configure for your own flight / your own departure etc. Memo should be to training / recruitment - where did you find these pilots to fly a 777? So they obviously didn't pre-flight the flight…

It's unbelievable that the pilot's didn't realize they were doing 215 knots while still ON THE GROUND and only decided to pull back on the yoke once they were nearing the end of the runway. They should have at least seen the end of the runway coming up and wondered why they weren't airborne yet. The ends are colored in amber and red as it gets closer to the end, it should be pretty obvious something is wrong. Pull back and get airborne, you're far past the point you are going to be able to stop.

Where's the basic pilotage here?

I'm a US CPL holder and there are numerous basic airmanship systems in place to prevent this. For one, you note your acceleration rate and how far down the runway you are. Then you have V1, V2 speeds where you rotate.

How you get to this level of incompetence flying a 777 is far beyond my understanding.

Pilots are getting far too comfortable flying what the computer is telling them instead of flying the actual aircraft. You don't fly the flight director command bars when they are telling you to stay on the ground and you're doing 215 knots. You ignore them and figure out what went wrong when safely in the air.

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