Atlas Air 767

[ReserveTank]

Doesn't the 767 have a "Go Around" annunciation or something similar on the PFD?

GA will become active in pitch and roll. Annunciated on the Flight Mode Annunciator.

It was probably in the heat of the moment for them, but always, always, always check the FMA is you want to know "what mama's doing." Of course it's 20/20 now.

[GyvAir]

They hit a negative 4 G dive initialy on the FOs push. All you hear is stuff hitting the ceiling and at one point a loud thud.

Would 4G negative be possible to achieve, even instantaneously? A loaded 767 is a lot of mass to make change its velocity that quickly by diving, isn't it?

[Boreas]

They hit a negative 4 G dive initialy on the FOs push. All you hear is stuff hitting the ceiling and at one point a loud thud.

Would 4G negative be possible to achieve, even instantaneously? A loaded 767 is a lot of mass to make change its velocity that quickly by diving, isn't it?

There is a pretty long arm between the 767 cockpit - where I presume the reading was recorded - and its lateral axis. The longer the arm, the higher the linear acceleration for a given angular acceleration about an axis.

[GyvAir]

They hit a negative 4 G dive initialy on the FOs push. All you hear is stuff hitting the ceiling and at one point a loud thud.

Would 4G negative be possible to achieve, even instantaneously? A loaded 767 is a lot of mass to make change its velocity that quickly by diving, isn't it?

There is a pretty long arm between the 767 cockpit - where I presume the reading was recorded - and its lateral axis. The longer the arm, the higher the linear acceleration for a given angular acceleration about an axis.

So, theoretical situation: Three g-meters, one in the cockpit, one on the spar and one in the tailcone, all reading simultaneously. At the inception of a sharp pushover and dive, there would be a high negative in the cockpit, a high positive in the tail and a moderate negative at the spar or lateral axis?

[DanWEC]

There's a plethora of articles out about disputes and safety concerns at Atlas/Amazon. Apparently people there were dreading something like this happening.
Of course it's taking a back seat to the Max thing, but may be just as relevant if not more so, being in our own backyard.

I haven't been able to find anything about the experience level of the crew, anyone know?

[telex]

There's a plethora of articles out about disputes and safety concerns at Atlas/Amazon. Apparently people there were dreading something like this happening.
Of course it's taking a back seat to the Max thing, but may be just as relevant if not more so, being in our own backyard.

I haven't been able to find anything about the experience level of the crew, anyone know?

CA total 11 000 hours and 1250 on type.

FO total 5 000 hours and 520 on type.

[Boreas]

Would 4G negative be possible to achieve, even instantaneously? A loaded 767 is a lot of mass to make change its velocity that quickly by diving, isn't it?

There is a pretty long arm between the 767 cockpit - where I presume the reading was recorded - and its lateral axis. The longer the arm, the higher the linear acceleration for a given angular acceleration about an axis.

So, theoretical situation: Three g-meters, one in the cockpit, one on the spar and one in the tailcone, all reading simultaneously. At the inception of a sharp pushover and dive, there would be a high negative in the cockpit, a high positive in the tail and a moderate negative at the spar or lateral axis?

Yes to 'high' negative in the cockpit and to 'high' positive in the tail. There wouldn't be a negative at the lateral axis at the inception of the push over - it would be close to 1g still.

If you're in the tail you'd hit the floor and if you're in the cockpit you'd hit the ceiling... hard!

[MZUNGO]

The CA was pulling so hard against the FO that he sheared the pins on the stick and at that point had no control.

this is unlikely. the 767 has a cam type override which requires 25 pounds of force to disengage one column from the other. also the same thing at the tail.
if the FO was holding full forward, all it should take is 25lbs of force from the Captain to disengage the columns. then they both have control of one elevator. until the columns are brought to the same place again, then they lock back together.

[Eric Janson]

That seems like an awkward set up for the toga switch...

Works very well - location makes it quite easy to push one of the switches when needed. Fingers on top of the thrust levers and you would hit the TOGA switch with your thumb.

A vast improvement on the 737 switches which are very poorly located imho.

[C-GGGQ]

Fair enough, just wondering how easy they are to accidentally bump vs a button on the side like you see in many.

[Eric Janson]

Fair enough, just wondering how easy they are to accidentally bump vs a button on the side like you see in many.

I don't recall ever doing it.

Nothing will happen unless you are in a condition where TOGA mode has armed.

Starting to look like inadvertent TOGA mode selection and a reaction to Somatogravic Illusion.

[CAL]

anymore theories on this?

[jpilot77]

Looks like inadvertent TOGA activation and the FO thinking they were about to stall. He then pushed to a 40 degree nose down attitude. The captain yanked so hard back on his control column that it disconnected from the elevators. Once they were below the cloud deck the FO tried to recover but it was too late. Also nobody had retarded the thrust levers either so with the nose down attitude the speed was enormous. There’s a lot of breakdown of said event over at Pprune.

[CAL]

my god how does that happen.....
how does it disconnect from the elevator does each side disconnect independently for a jammed stab event?
cheers for the info how completely random poor guys

[tsgas]

my god how does that happen.....
how does it disconnect from the elevator does each side disconnect independently for a jammed stab event?
cheers for the info how completely random poor guys

There is a limit in any given aircraft, to the amount of abuse that it will tolerate , before it exacts it's revenge.

Treat all aircraft, as if , your life depends on it, because it does.

[pelmet]

Looks like inadvertent TOGA activation and the FO thinking they were about to stall. He then pushed to a 40 degree nose down attitude. The captain yanked so hard back on his control column that it disconnected from the elevators. Once they were below the cloud deck the FO tried to recover but it was too late. Also nobody had retarded the thrust levers either so with the nose down attitude the speed was enormous. There’s a lot of breakdown of said event over at Pprune.

According to my inside sources, this is pretty much correct. They had speedbrakes out for descent and the 767 has a known burble caused by this that was misinterpreted as a stall. Toga pushed while captain not looking which initiated a climb and lots of thrust. The FO started pushing nose down too much which was opposed by the captain.

Or something like that.

[W5]

Pilot Of Doomed Amazon Air Flight Had Poor Training Record, Seemed Confused Before Crash, NTSB Probe Suggests

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremyboga ... 4348ce79cc

[ReserveTank]

Referring to the FO of the accident flight...
The industry in the US is booming and is desperate for pilots. Unfortunately, this means that there's a lot of bottom-of-the-barrel talent being pushed through training programs everywhere. I've trained with guys like this all through my career. They exhibit a common trait--a complete lack of situational awareness. Guys like this will keep shopping for an airline that will submit to the sunk cost fallacy, finally forcing the examiners to pass them. PRIA doesn't catch everything, as this story shows. I've worked with guys that were employed for several months before being fired due to failure to disclose multiple unsat checking events. They usually only get caught when going to upgrade. It's a crock if his family really goes after Atlas about working conditions. This FO had no business at work to begin with.

[daedalusx]

Copypasta from PPRUNE

Training Incompetency and Failures
6/27/11 - Resigned from CommutAir for failing DHC-8 initial
8/13/12 - Resigned from Air Wisconsin for failing CRJ initial
4/22/14 - Failed EMB-145 Oral at Trans State Airlines
5/11/14 - Failed EMB-145 Type Rating at Trans States Airlines
5/17 - Failed EMB-175 Upgrade Attempt at Mesa Airlines
5/17 - Nearly failed FO Requal after failing upgrade attempt at Mesa Airlines
7/27/17 - Failed B-767 Oral at Atlas Air
8/1/17 - Unsat Judgement/Situational Awareness during FBS-1 at Atlas Air
8/5/17 - Failed DBS-5 at Atlas Air
8/11/17 - Almost Failed FFSI-1 at Atlas Air
8/31/17 - "Regression of Situational Awareness" during FFSI-3 at Atlas Air
9/22/17 - Failed B-767 Type Rating for "Very Low Situational Awareness", incomplete procedures, and exceeding limitations at Atlas Air

Past Training Notes (directly quoted from the NTSB Docket)
Air Wisconsin CRJ Initial Failure - "They were conducting the emergency procedure cabin altitude ... where they are at FL350 or so, and he gives the students a cabin altitude message requiring an emergency descent to 10,000 feet" ... "Conrad then goes to descend the simulator. He was not sure of Conrad's background, but instead of descending on the autopilot, Conrad disengaged the autopilot and abruptly pitched down well below horizon. They got stick shaker and overspeed alert together. He was not sure if it was an extreme nose down, but remembered that it was abrupt input on the controls"
Mesa Airlines ERJ-175 Upgrade Failure (Instructor 1) - "He had previously failed simulator lesson 2 with different instructor, and he had requested a different instructor. She was conducting his retraining for lesson 2. She said his performance was a "train wreck" and he performed very poorly in this lesson. In the briefing room he did well, and explained things well. However, in the simulator and something he wasn't expecting happened he got extremely flustered and could not respond appropriately to the situation." ... "When asked about her comment in her notes about Conrad's "lack of understanding of how unsafe he was," she said he was making very frantic mistakes, lots and lots of mistakes, and did a lot of things wrong but did not recognize this was a problem. He thought he was a good pilot never had any problems and thought he should be a captain. he could not evaluate himself and see that he did not have the right stuff."
Mesa Airlines ERJ-175 Upgrade Failure (Instructor 2) - "He first met Conrad Aska during a recurrent checking event in March 2016. That session went ok and nothing stood out. He did have some trouble with the stall series. The problems were with his attitude control, and he had a hard time getting the airplane back to level flight" ... "He said when Conrad would make a mistake in training he had an excuse for everything"

The quote that stands out the most to me in this second Mesa instructor interview is, "When asked if Conrad would get startled in the simulator, he said that during one stall recovery, Conrad pitched down about 40 degrees for recovery, then a pitch up about 20 degrees. His flight path was all over the place."

[AirportCoffee]

Yikes. You would think the system would catch up to him sooner or later with all of those failures