I'm surprised fatigue is not mentioned more in the discussion of this incident. The takeoff was at around 3AM local time, and Emirates is well known for pushing their pilots hard (many pilots take a job there specifically to build hours quickly, despite the unpleasant working conditions, with the intention of moving to greener pastures once they've done that).
Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff
351–360 of 580 posts
Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It seems completely mad that an automated flying mode could be engaged in such an obviously suicidal way on a modern bulk carrier aircraft, without so much as a blaring warning and red flashing lights. You are assuming that there weren't blaring warnings and red flashing lights. Probably there were many. > To elaborate, why isn't an autopilot "aware" of whether the aircraft is taking-off/landing or in-flight? Autop…
You're talking about a GA aircraft autopilot, modern airliners go way beyond that. I don't know about the 777 but I believe all newer Boeings are FBW. Airbus has been FBW since forever. I'm mostly familiar with the A320 but that things is pretty much impossible to stall under normal operation no matter how much you misconfigure the autopilot.
No I am not only talking about GA aircraft. What do you think is going to happen if you turn off the autothrottle, manually set the throttles to idle and set the AFDS to vertical speed mode with a positive climb rate?
Here[1] is an NTSB report detailing how the AFDS and the A/T work together in a Boeing 777. They enumerate several different combinations in which the autothrottle does not provide stall protection.
It also calls out as contributing factor the crew’s mistaken belief that the airplane is pretty much impossible to stall.
1: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/...
Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US this is explicitly part of training for major airlines. They will line up failures in The simulator and have the pilots solve/fly through the issue. You can’t fly until you pass these checks
Is it really unexpected failures or do they discuss scenario / do you expect one of a few typical scenarios? Really throwing failures at pilots without them knowing what's going on seems to mean too many fail or rather there is not enough time to train pre-discussed scenarios and do scenarios that aren't announced. I'm not sure it's really what you'd want.
It's exactly what you want, because it simulates reality. Unexpected failures are by definition unexpected.
Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This logic makes no sense. First of all, the citizenship of Emirates pilots would not mirror the citizenship of the UAE itself. Most Pakistan citizens coming to the UAE are not coming to work for Emirates. Secondly, Emirates is able to do their own due diligance on pilot licenses, and since the problems with Pakistan licenses are well known throughout the industry, they would receive extra scrutiny. The problems that…
> Over-reliance on automation and complacency
this is a training issue, is it not? So related to qualification to some degree
Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff
#355On another note: I think that having Boeing 777 in the title here is a bit misleading, this was an Emirates aircraft and Boeing had nothing to do with this incident. Suggest replacing 'Boeing 777' in the title with 'Emirates aircraft'
The first question people will ask is what kind of plane it was as it has a huge relevance on describing the incident and its potential for disaster.
Or you could put:
"Random plane had random incident. Somewhere. Airline."
/s.
Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
My dad flew for 20 years in the Air Force. He more than once defied procedure that would have put him in jeopardy on a flight. He told me he was not going to die because of a bureaucratic rule written by someone whose ass was safely behind a desk. One was when formation flying, pilots were to keep both eyes on the lead, and mimic his flying. This led to several crashes where the whole team died because the lead flew…
> That wasn't going to happen to my dad, either, and he kept a length of iron pipe at hand to beat the student into letting go of the controls. That's awesome haha. Hope your dad is well.
> Hope your dad is well
He is two months older than Betty White! Sadly, he passed at 93. I sorely miss him. But thanks for the kind thoughts, I appreciate them.
Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
This logic makes no sense. First of all, the citizenship of Emirates pilots would not mirror the citizenship of the UAE itself. Most Pakistan citizens coming to the UAE are not coming to work for Emirates. Secondly, Emirates is able to do their own due diligance on pilot licenses, and since the problems with Pakistan licenses are well known throughout the industry, they would receive extra scrutiny. The problems that…
> Over-reliance on automation and complacency this is a training issue, is it not? So related to qualification to some degree
Complacency creeps in alongside experience, which holders of fake licenses tend not to have...
Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
My dad flew for 20 years in the Air Force. He more than once defied procedure that would have put him in jeopardy on a flight. He told me he was not going to die because of a bureaucratic rule written by someone whose ass was safely behind a desk. One was when formation flying, pilots were to keep both eyes on the lead, and mimic his flying. This led to several crashes where the whole team died because the lead flew…
Yes about the airbus but the problem there is also that there is no feedback, so the second pilot can't feel what the other one is doing. But in that case (I think you mean AF447) there was a lot more going on with confusing warning indications. They did however fly a perfectly functioning aircraft straight into the sea.
Yeah, that one. I was too lazy to look it up. Thanks!
Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly why the mass delusion propagated by Elon that Tesla's have full self driving is terrifying, and why "self driving" in general is a sinister lie that endangers the public.
The premise behind self driving cars that can handle most situations themselves relies on the assumption that a human operator is paying attention and can take over in situations the computer can't handle. I'm not a pilot, but it's likely that assumption can hold while flying at cruising altitude, but not so much when driving in various inconsistent road and traffic conditions.
>human operator is paying attention
Think of how silly this is though. You offload driving to a car, then...demand passenger give absolute attention every second that car operates itself. For one, this is a pointless tool if you have to monitor it all the time. For another, it is impossible that humans will be able to focus their attentions fully when they aren't really doing anything to drive the car. The better self-driving gets (say, safe and effective 99.999% or any incremental level higher), the less the human monitor will actually be watching. Thus the more likely any error will be catastrophic.
Re: Boeing 777 departing Dubai nearly had a major incident after takeoff
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
What is a Serrato? I've not heard of this kind of car. If it's a typo or something, apologies, I don't know what it could be. I'm not trying to be snarky, just genuinely curious what it is?