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Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff

onemileatatime.com

331–340 of 580 posts

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

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't matter was in system. You run your checklists and configure for your own flight / your own departure etc. I am not a pilot, but that's exactly what I thought when I read the memo too. They should be putting responsibility for the next flight on the next flight's crew, not the prior flight's crew. Train each crew to assume the plane they're prepping for their next flight is FUBAR in every way, checklist e…

I’m not a pilot either but I am shocked that there’s not some standard “reset” procedure so that each flight starts with the plane in a consistent clean slate. It seems bizarre for any process to rely on the previous flight coincidentally leaving the plane in a certain state.

It doesn't matter what the previous crew configured, because you reconfigure for the conditions and scenario you're about to fly. And this is all part of the preflight checklist.

Even if something was missed, it's very strange to not realize that the plane is still on the ground when you can see the end of the runway, despite what the computers are saying. Usually pilots have trouble trusting the instruments over their own senses, but in this case it's like the opposite.

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

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! While the maintainer of the site is a "strong character", I would trust him for timeliness of updates and correctness of the information provided.

How is he a strong character? The only strong characters I've ever seen were other people in the comments, and I'm surprised he hasn't disabled them years ago.

The style of the web site has not changed for 20 years, insisting on his conventions of writing airline names (France instead of Air France), not allowing links in comments. The list goes on, but I haven't followed the site for a while so I don't remeber the details.

Not that I would have a problem with that. It's his site, I have not paid, so he can do things his style. It must be an unbelievable effort to gather all the information.

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

#333
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ba…

> Pilots are getting far too comfortable flying what the computer is telling them instead of flying the actual aircraft. I'm not a pilot but this stuff does concern me. If you Google around for GPS related accidents with cars the results are pretty mind boggling. There's a number of cases of folks driving straight into a lake because GPS told them to go that way. This plane incident reminds me of that.

I've just gone from a 2004 Corolla to a 2020 Serrato. It's a low end car but it has lane assist, braking detection when a car slows in front, cruise, speed limiter, etc. Combine all those settings with google maps and it easy for me to see how you could get complacent driving a new car and make mistakes.

All these features work well most of the time, but they all notably fail on, still frequent, edge cases.

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI: firm landings are actually correctly done, especially with rain or drizzle. It should not feel like a crash though. The worst landing I ever had was when I landed with no sensation of touching down on the runway (a zero feet rate of descent.) Both myself and my CFI went nuts trying to figure out if we were down, or still flying along the runway and about to bounce.

Is there no contact indicator or anything? I've never flown anything where I couldn't just look out of the window to check so I don't know but it feels like there should be :)

No there isn't.

This was at night also.

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

#335

You put your life in many other people's hands every time you step into an airport. If you use Chickens, Goats, and Passengers Airlines, expect not to make it to your destination in one piece. 737 NG (-6xx (736), -7xx, -8xx (738), -9xx (739)), MAX, and 787 are reasons not to fly on Boeing equipment. They have both obscure (Ducommun) and well-known history of cutting corners in design, testing, manufacturing, and who…

You, clearly, have never flown EK. I have six flights in EK first class under my belt. I've taken showers on their airplanes. I've enjoyed $1,500 bottles of 1964 port wine and cognac poured generously. I've eaten caviar and socialized at the onboard lounge. Believe me, EK is nothing like a "chicken and goat airline". It's world class all the way.

The fact that their service in first class is luxurious (which nobody is denying) doesn’t necessarily imply that their pilots are good.

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

#336

USA is one of Emirates key markets, I wonder why they didn’t mandate higher quality pilots for the routes. I’ve flown quite a few times and remember hearing American-sounding pilot names on several occasions so I know they have them on staff.

Why would Americans be any better pilots than people of any other nationality?

Presumably what matters is the standards of pilot experience and training that an airline demands, not what country the pilots are from. Perhaps some of the Americans working for Emirates do so because they couldn’t get jobs at a US legacy carrier. (I don’t know whether this is indeed the case; I’m just claiming it’s plausible).

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

#337
It is funny to see this guy in the comments:

> This sort of safety event will become more common as airlines hire based on equity, not skill.

I meet these people frequently in tech. It is never the Rockstar engineers making this complaint. Good to know it is not just a tech thing.

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

#338
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some countries have this problem of fake pilot degrees, is UAE one of those? Also wonder what kind of training did pilots receive during downtime in COVID to make sure their skills won't decay

Pakistan is the only country I’ve ever heard about having that problem. I doubt an advanced economy like UAE would be having this issue.

There are more Pakistani citizens living in the UAE than there are UAE citizens. So if Pakistan has a problem with fake pilot licenses, then so does the UAE.

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I wouldn't doubt one of the best airlines on the planet. However, the article claims that they hire pilots with lower flying hours as they cannot find experienced pilots like American or United does. I fail to understand this. Can't they just hire experienced pilots from other airlines instead of hiring the inexperienced ones ?

They can't, because their working conditions are terrible compared to those other airlines. Nobody with thousands of hours of jet time would ever switch from a US or EU legacy carrier to someone like Emirates.

This is pretty sad. Emirates, for all their glory doesn't pay their pilots well. I mean, what's the point in spending on stuff like fancy first class seats and all that without paying pilots well. True irony. Fanciest and the most comfortable airline for the passengers, the exact opposite for the pilots.

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

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I catch heat every time I mention that air crew training and certification standards are not uniform across the globe and that I am reluctant to fly on many foreign-flag carriers. (However, Emirates and most EU-flag carriers are ones that I would not hesitate to fly on.) Has anyone made some sort of a rough list of which carriers one can feel safe on?

My personal list is Tier 1 US, Canadian, British and German carriers as well as Qantas. Probably throw Air France and KLM in too. In Africa, Ethiopian would be the only airline I would fly if I had to fly an African airline. I probably would have had a middle eastern airline on the list before I did a project with them last year. After that, I learned a lot that made me stick to the list above.

In Africa, South African Airlines also has an exemplary safety record.

Air France dropped of my list of airlines to fly on after AF447.

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