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NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami

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Re: NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the spitting image of old pre-CRM thinking: If I try to force the captain to go around, (or follow procedures or whatever), then i am exceeding my authority and will probably be fired. Some cultures have this sort of mentality a lot stronger than others, and it has zero place in the modern cockpit. While a captain can pull rank, they really should only ever do it with respect to the first officer if: an inexp…

> CRM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management

Thanks, I was wondering why they would be using Salesforce in the cockpit

Re: NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami

#272
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turbofans being slow to spool up is jets 101.

So presumably OP never took jets 101. Neither have I. So what? The condescension remains unjustified and contrary to fruitful interaction. (See also the "lucky 10000" xkcd.)

> OP never took jets 101. Neither have I. So what?

So you,me and OP will likely miss a lot of nuance when discussing jets - after all, reality has a lot of detail. Stating the existence of blindspots is not condescension, having blindspots does not make one inferior.

Re: NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did fly jets, although not transport-class ones. Just to hammer home that everything here is correct, and the common thread through all aircraft types is disciplined execution. You fly an approach on airspeed and/or angle of attack, and on glideslope. Period. You're either there or you're correcting to get there, and you're correcting at a point that you don't need huge oh-my-God corrections in close. If you can't do…

Do companies punish pilots for go arounds for costing them fuel and delays? If not outright punished, does it cost them in potential promotion/raises? Do they look into a go around enough to determine cause or are all go arounds assumed pilot error by the company?

AFAIK all Part 121 Passenger operations in the US (and most worldwide) have a no-fault go-around policy. Most have eliminated even the minimal requirement to denote a log entry as to the reason lest that make pilots reluctant to do the right thing. Some airlines even have monitoring programs and will penalize pilots for not going around when they should even if they save the landing. They don't want a bad habit to develop (normalization of deviance) because some day the holes in the swiss cheese will line up and the pilot won't be able to save the landing - and by then it will be too late.

Part 121 Cargo and Part 135 Charter are ... another story. Quality of training and procedures vary a lot. Some are run about as well as the Part 121 Passenger operations. At others a go-around is a career-limiting move.

I do not know how 21Air operated - leave that to the NTSB to discover - but it would not surprise me whatsoever if Amazon leans heavily on their contracted ACMIs and yanks contracts for delays. A go-around means an extra 15 minutes (give or take) and Amazon cuts their logistics schedules razor thin so they don't have to pay for extra labor. A 15-20 minute delay in unloading the airplane can mean the sorting center staff and delivery trucks sit idle (though it wouldn't surprise me if they just stiff the delivery contractors for the wasted time).

This isn't necessarily done with ill intent - the middle managers at Amazon are just chasing their numbers and an operator that prioritizes safety will inevitably have worse on-time performance. As is often the case these days outsourcing / contracting can end up being a race to the bottom even if no one intends it that way. FedEx Ground is all contractors who bid on routes. If you ever wonder why the driver throws your package or leaves it in your driveway: they had to be the lowest bidder to get the contract and that means X deliveries per hour or they lose money. It just so happens that with air cargo operations this kind of pressure can easily lead to an accident.

Re: NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami

#274
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes, the Soviets never took risks. It couldn't be that humans are fallible.

telling yourselves that it was "communism" that did this as opposed to the stark raving lunancy of the current American regime is hilarious misunderstanding of political ideals.

No buddy. I'm just saying it wasn't "capitalism," which was your claim. I don't think you can pin this on Trump or his admin, either.

Re: NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami

#275
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t there a regulation for idle to full go-around thrust in a maximum of 8 seconds? If so, it’s tight… but i feel like they should have made it if they had stuck to that plan. They commanded full power 15 seconds before the crash, and were pretty close to (if not slightly above) their stall speed (depends on load). I suspect they just needed another 10-20 knots and enough energy to climb.

The fact they were even in that situation is only worth philosophizing about to a point. Because they were only in that situation due to what appears to be a series of totally unacceptable decisions that got them there. Based on everything that's come out, I'm comfortable saying as a former military aviator that in my opinion, this crash happened due to a complete failure of airmanship on the part of both crew member…

Advice I've seen many experienced captains give when you're FO and captain is fixated on landing: declare going around to tower. It avoids a fight over controls or the captain trying to override you; in that moment they're unlikely to jump on the radio and say "no we aren't".

YMMV though, I'm not an ATP.

Re: NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They didn't have much runway left at 00:15 and were far slower than 158 at that point You're correct. When they first annunciate G-A, they've missed the chance. (They almost certainly had enough airspeed to G-A even after touching down, though.) My question is whether throttling up for G-A at 00:15 is what caused the overshoot to extend out of the airport (versus if they'd committed to braking). This will come down…

> This will come down to runway conditions, braking performance and the throttle responsse of their engines. Well also, at what time point did all the tires finally make simultaneous firm contact with the ground? Ie were they going slow enough for braking performance to even matter?

Left main gear finally touched down at 00:19 and they slowed from 134 to 120 knots between 00:19 and 00:15.

Re: NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the spitting image of old pre-CRM thinking: If I try to force the captain to go around, (or follow procedures or whatever), then i am exceeding my authority and will probably be fired. Some cultures have this sort of mentality a lot stronger than others, and it has zero place in the modern cockpit. While a captain can pull rank, they really should only ever do it with respect to the first officer if: an inexp…

A pilot friend once told me that the Tenerife crash was a turning point for this sort of thing. I believe that was the origin of CRM training.

The ~"positive" side of that, the UA flight 232 disaster is often noted as an event that demonstrated the effectiveness of CRM as a strategy.

Re: NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did fly jets, although not transport-class ones. Just to hammer home that everything here is correct, and the common thread through all aircraft types is disciplined execution. You fly an approach on airspeed and/or angle of attack, and on glideslope. Period. You're either there or you're correcting to get there, and you're correcting at a point that you don't need huge oh-my-God corrections in close. If you can't do…

Isn't there a call out usually where the plane says "minimums" and the pilot flying has to verbally confirm that they are committed? You'd think for this flight, that would have been the final time to realize they need to go around? Or is that strictly just a visibility call-out?

No you must pass the stabilized gate well before minimums; legal requirement is usually 1000ft above the airport for IMC (instrument conditions), 500ft for visual conditions. AFAIK airlines can set higher minimums and may set other configuration gates (eg 1500ft gear must be out, flaps in landing configuration).

To be stabilized you must be lined up laterally (eg localizer captured) and on glide slope (vertically aligned). Airspeed must be Vref +/-10, final landing configuration (flaps, gear, etc), sink rate correct (Typically the pilot monitoring should make a callout for this (eg "Approach") and the pilot flying responds ("stabilized" or "unstable, going around").

The "minimums" callout is to verify that you can see the runway sufficiently to land. The exact requirements vary - a Category I ILS you can go down to 200ft without seeing the runway. A Category IIIb ILS is 50ft. Technically Category IIIc allows 0 so has no decision height and requires no "minimums" callout but I don't know of anyone crazy enough to allow this - you wouldn't be able to taxi off the runway with zero visibility.

The stabilized approach gate is a performance & configuration check. Is the aircraft configured for landing and on the correct performance profile with the expected automatic guidance?

Minimums callout (DA/MDA) is a visibility check. Can we see the runway to whatever degree our approach requires?

btw: If you are curious the various ILS categories impose performance and redundancy requirements on both aircraft and the airport ground equipment. Things like backup transmitters, self-monitoring to catch drift, battery backups, etc.

Re: NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the left main was not on the ground after touchdown for some time. The aircraft will not auto-deploy the spoilers nor autobrake until it senses weight on weels. It also locks out the thrust reversers. All for obvious reasons. The left wing was lifting because they came in way too fast. 30-40 knots above final approach speed. That's why they landed so flat - if they had assumed correct flare AoA the airplane would…

> The aircraft will not auto-deploy the spoilers nor autobrake until it senses weight on weels. It also locks out the thrust reversers. All for obvious reasons. While I agree the obvious course of action would be a go-around, a manual override for when you know doing the stupid thing is the least unsafe thing to do would be handy.

I disagree, the situations where you are not fully on the ground but still want those things are minimal, thats a go around need at that point. I bet it would be set off way more accidently then it ever would be on purpose. The systems are also highly redundant so its extremely unlikely they would fail and there would be a valid reason to override the computer.

Plus even in this case it wouldn't have saved them, it was too fast too far, plus Im sure there would be some unpleasantness if both engines went full reverse while one landing gear was still not on the ground, thats gonna be some yaw right there :p . Its kinda like saying what if I need to override ABS?

Re: NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“My controls” is something every single pilot has heard since day 1 of training and has a learned, immediate response to.

The power dynamic in training is obviously very different during training where the instructor is pilot in command. Making the assumption the PM could have taken control cleanly if the power dynamic was so poor that they weren't able to demand a go-around seems iffy, typical stabilised approach gates are 500ft in VMC, with an aircraft travelling 3nm a minute, 40 seconds before touchdown. But as I said, the human fact…

My response was to your point about “fighting over the controls”, as if there would have been a tug of war on the yoke as the FO tried to wrest control of the plane from the captain which is nonsense.

If anything, it would have been yet one more opportunity to avert catastrophe and perform a go-around. Pilots are trained for this, and it makes less than zero sense for a PM to fail to take the controls from a PF who is flying unsafely over some imagined fear of a battle for control while the plane jostles around hurtling toward the ground. The PM is obligated to do this by every written regulation.

If you have never actually been behind the controls of an aircraft, please just stop trying to confidently assert things about this subject.

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