"difficult for the pilot to maintain control of the aircraft" sounds like quite an understatement.
F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
301–310 of 440 posts
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had no issue. Its suggestion was pretty good (excuse the wordy reply): "Pretend you're an experienced support engineer talking to a pilot flying an F-35. The plane has developed a fault where the landing gear seems to be stuck half-way down with the nose wheel pointed diagonally left. Aattempts to raise or lower the landing gear do not result in any motion. a single touch-and-go has been performed with no change in…
I'll be honest I couldn't bring myself to read the whole thing, but it leads me to hoping we never entrust vibe-coders to work on mission-critical systems...
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Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
And, of course, CNN only links to their own articles. Why bother linking to the actual report? The rise in sites that only link to themselves 99% of the time really frustrates me.
Journalism's failure to adopt linking to sources etc in the internet age is kind of infuriating. I get it, back in physical newspaper/magazine days, linking wasn't possible, and it takes a while for new norms to change and habits to form, but articles have been internet-first for well over a decade at this point. It should be completely unacceptable not to have linking to sources whenever relevant. I'm not sure I hav…
Sites with no external linking are like highways with no exits.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't read the article; read the report.
I’m guessing you also didn’t read the report given that he was indeed on the conference call.
One clear indication he was not, from PDF p14 (8 as numbered) ("MP"="mishap pilot"):
"At 21:12:52Z, the SOF informed the MP, “Alright the engineers uh are not optimistic about this COA but, extremely low PK [probability kill, meaning the probability this would fix the issue], but we’re going to try anyway is a touch-and-go on the runway, mains only, do not touch the nose gear, uh lift back off in all cases and have the uh have Yeti 4 reconfirm the nose gear position once your safely airborne.”"
No need for this if the pilot was on the call directly.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#305The article is somewhat sensationalistic. If you read the actual report you will find out that: The pilot was not part of the conference call! What froze was not hydraulic fluid for actuators (in some hydraulic line), but hydraulic fluid in the shock absorbers. The last paragraph of the article and seems to be missing a few words and reads as the investigators blaming the people directly involved, which is essentiall…
To clarify because everyone is confused here. The report is a little vague and information is buried in a couple places. Using PDF page numbers
> "The MP responded “14.5” ... and then opined a “conference hotel” was appropriate for this situation (Tab N-12)." (pg. 13)
> "The MP, utilizing the on-duty supervisor of flying (SOF) in the air traffic control (ATC) tower, initiated a conference call with Lockheed Martin (LM)" (pg. 8)
> "The SOF informed the MP he was on the phone with the conference hotel and Lockheed Martin were getting the LG subject matter experts (SME) on the line ...no transcript is available because the call was made on a personal phone rather than the legal voice recorder in the air traffic control tower" (pg. 13)
in the last statement, he means that the SOF was informing the MP that the SOF was on the conference call and would relay information. The mishap pilot (MP) was speaking to the supervisor of flying (SOF), almost certainly via radio. He asked the SOF, in the control tower to set up a conference call. For reasons, maybe of expediency or technical failure, or norms or something, the SOF made that call on his personal cell phone. The MP was not 'on the phone' but the SOF would have primaily functioned as a relay between radio and phone. The purpose of the call was to get information from the pilot to the engineers and from the engineers to the pilot. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate* means he doesn't need to cognitive load of actually listening as the SOF and engineers think through what to do and decide on a plan. He needs to fly the plane and provide information necessary to help figure out how to aviate.
If you want to harp on CNN for accuracy, I'm sure there are plenty of opportunities but this feels pedantic. It is like saying 'the astronauts weren't talking to mission control, they were talking to the capcom. Only the capcom talked to mission control'.
I suspect that in the non-public version of this report there is more discussion of the decision and alternatives to doing that call on a personal cell phone for two reasons. (1) As noted in the report it means that conference isn't recorded and a transcript is not available to the investigators (thats shocking to me). (2) Detailed aircraft systems information, which is highly controlled, is being discussed on an open line.
* Funny enough, the third time the report defines SOF, they have a typo "supervisor of lying" (pg. 36)
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#306The article is somewhat sensationalistic. If you read the actual report you will find out that: The pilot was not part of the conference call! What froze was not hydraulic fluid for actuators (in some hydraulic line), but hydraulic fluid in the shock absorbers. The last paragraph of the article and seems to be missing a few words and reads as the investigators blaming the people directly involved, which is essentiall…
Sounds like the sensationalistic and woefully inaccurate media reporting of the MAX crashes.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't read the article; read the report.
Sure, of course I will trust the report as the source of truth. But I'm interested in the reporting. There are, you know, journalistic standards, which are considered kinda "journalism 101"! For instance, getting the basic facts of a story correct - especially the facts stated in the headline . So I'm curious, did the reporter do their due diligence, and write the article in a way that is factually correct, but highl…
I’m curious why you’re getting this worked up when the report is clear that the pilot was part of the information flow in that conference call. This is a really minor case of a headline using less precise language.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still interesting part is: them trying to fix the problem - made the plane crash. Of course it couldn’t land but still, tweaking stuff while flying was ultimately causing loss of control.
The report actually says it could have landed. A week later, another F35 at the same base had the same problem, it landed with its nose gear 6 degrees off center and the pilot barely noticed. Basically, Lockheed Martin engineers told the air force to attempt re-centering with touch-and-go landings, but didn't realize that this could mess with the weight-on-wheels sensors and cause it to switch flight modes.
I’ve always wondered why weight on wheel modes don’t have more checks, detecting weight on wheels but seeing 150+ Indicated Air speed and RALT is greater then 15ft, maybe issue caution instead of screwing with flight mode.
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#309how many F35 crashed because of technical problems?
that's at least 4 now?
Re: F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still interesting part is: them trying to fix the problem - made the plane crash. Of course it couldn’t land but still, tweaking stuff while flying was ultimately causing loss of control.
The report actually says it could have landed. A week later, another F35 at the same base had the same problem, it landed with its nose gear 6 degrees off center and the pilot barely noticed. Basically, Lockheed Martin engineers told the air force to attempt re-centering with touch-and-go landings, but didn't realize that this could mess with the weight-on-wheels sensors and cause it to switch flight modes.
Not being able to do a touch-and-go without crashing afterwards seems like a significant flaw in the aircraft.
Isn't there an arrested-landing equipped version of the F35? Could this same problem happen with a bolter?