AirAsia plane missing between Indonesia and Malaysia

[GyvAir]

I know I shouldn't be reading this crap and that this is pretty much thread drift, but.. is this a real thing in many airlines?

Aviation expert Ruth Hanna Simatupang told the Jakarta Post that mandatory briefing to pilots by FOOs is a standard operating procedure.
flight operation officers (FOO)

"Nothing's new about the policy. It is a standard that has been applied regularly in the world. It is just one of the problems in the jungle of our aviation system. There are a lot of problems that need to be fixed in our aviation system.

She said the briefing will take no more than 20 minutes and the FOOs would give all necessary documents such as weather reports for pilots to study.

"After that, pilots will make their flight plan then submit it to FOOs for second thoughts or suggestions. Later, the FOOs will submit the discussed flight plan to the appointed air traffic control," she said.

She added that the transportation ministry must deploy more inspectors to ensure that the policy would be implemented seriously by airlines in the field.

Indonesia's transport ministry has now made FOO briefings mandatory before take-off.

"(The briefing is) not only about weather. The FOO should also detect if a pilot is not in good health," said Mr Djoko Murjatmodjo, acting director-general of aviation in the ministry.

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2 ... ter-pilot/

[GyvAir]

Tail section has been officially located. No FDRs yet though.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/airasi ... nd-n281171

[Eric Janson]

I know I shouldn't be reading this crap and that this is pretty much thread drift, but.. is this a real thing in many airlines?

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2 ... ter-pilot/

No - we normally get all flight documents sent to us by e-mail in the hotel 3 hours before departure. If additional information is required a simple e-mail takes care of it.

We use Jeppesen FD Pro on our iPads. I also normally check the satellite images online to see how actual conditions look vs. forecast.

At the airport we are given printed copies of this documentation by the people doing our handling.

I have not even seen the operations department at my Airline as I'm never at our office.

[YYZSaabGuy]

Good news: it looks as though the CVR and FDR have been located, although not yet retrieved: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-1 ... ieval.html

[GyvAir]

FDR retrieved. CVR, not yet.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/airasia-fl ... -1.2897398

I love how throughout the media coverage, they can't even get the quantity straight on the "black box(es)".
I know.. I know

[flyinthebug]

CVR now retrieved. This should give us a better picture of what was happening on the flight deck during those last few minutes. RIP to all the people lost, and my condolences to the families and friends of those lost in this tragic accident.

http://news.yahoo.com/divers-retrieve-c ... nance.html

[sstaurus]

News is reporting it appears to have stalled, according to the FDR.

[cgzro]

Hard to imagine a pilot with so much experience including military would a) climb so aggressively, b) stall it and c) be unable to recover. This may be more complex than pilot error.. perhaps a cargo shift in turbulence or too aft c of g or some other mechanical cause of the climb.

Apparently a preliminary report will be out on the 28th.

[BusDriver]

Hard to imagine a pilot with so much experience including military would a) climb so aggressively, b) stall it and c) be unable to recover. This may be more complex than pilot error.. perhaps a cargo shift in turbulence or too aft c of g or some other mechanical cause of the climb.

Apparently a preliminary report will be out on the 28th.

CGRZO, ever been unfortunate enough to be caught in an updraft? It could easily provide any aircraft with that sort of climb rate even with pilots pushing nose down. How long was 6000/min maintained? 5 seconds? 10-20seconds? I think the information being released is being dumbed down quite a bit. Once the FDR/CVRs are fully transcribed, they will have an incredibly accurate account of what happened. I sincerely hope this is different from AF447, but so far they are looking similar.

[cgzro]

No, never experienced updraft like that but have experienced impressive wind shear while flying vertically a mile or so from a retreating cell..that was impressive. I have no doubt an updraft of that magnitude is possible.

I suppose there are a lot if similarities to AF. I sure hope its not another pilot error or the engineers in Toulouse are going to remove humans from the loop even furthur .. And who could blame them!

[Heliian]

Just because someone has thousands of hours and military time does not make them a good pilot. There is a huge misconception that military flight time equates to top gun like skills. In fact, the military doesn't need you to be good at it, you just have to follow orders.

This is af all over again, i guess they didn't get the memo.

[cgzro]

Its not so much a case of better but better trained in one particular area. My limited experience is that military pilots seem to get vastly more unusual attitude training than non military. For example most pilots I know that have non military backgrounds have never even been upside down in an aircraft! I find it unbelievable that a working pilot would not want to periodically ensure they can recover from unusual attitudes because if you dont train for it you will not do it properly the first time.

[Old fella]

My limited understanding on heavy commercial airliners is that the training is orientated in not putting such aircraft in situations for the most part, not designed for(mishandling, convective weather etc). You navigate around thunder cells, not try to outclimb them with a heavy airliner that is close to its certified limitations. I don't know if in this situation unusual attitudes would have been the answer(aka AF) but I( limited knowledge) certainly stand to be corrected.

[fleet16b]

Last weekend , I was speaking with a friend that happens to be a retired Test Pilot.
He is well educated in structural designs etc
As we spoke about this incident , he stated that he does not fly on airliners.
Why I asked.
His answer: most airliners are designed to withstand 4-5 g's only while most of our light aircraft are rated tp 9-10 g's
The reason is weight, costs etc
If this is so, violent weather with an agressive climb would have brought him close to the Operating Limits
Comments please

[Gannet167]

the military doesn't need you to be good at it, you just have to follow orders.

You may be surprised that many people would not agree with that statement. Obviously, dependent on what military you're talking about.

[cgzro]

His answer: most airliners are designed to withstand 4-5 g's only while most of our light aircraft are rated tp 9-10 g's

Id be surprised if most GA aircraft could take 9g. A typical aerobatic plane (150 Aerobat, Pitts etc) usually is limited to 6 repetitive with an ultimate G around 9 , so your typical 172 etc ultimate G is probably quite a bit lower than 9. This is just an educated guess so dont take it as gospel.

Anyway, as far is I know there have not been many structural failures lately but instead a bit of a run on what appear to be unusual attitude pilot errors.

However I'd point out that almost zero percent of non military pilots know what 2, 3, 4, 5 , etc G even feels like so would have no idea if they were approaching an ultimate design limit.

So irrespective of the cause, structural, or unusual attitude problems, unusul attitude training would be beneficial.

No doubt Airbus is working on software and hardware to detect and recover.

[fleet16b]

cgzro

Thanks for the comment
He was speaking generally (9-10 g max ) best case

[Heliian]

If this is so, violent weather with an agressive climb would have brought him close to the Operating Limits
Comments please

Maybe close to the certificated limits but it wouldn't have just disintegrated. More likely would be an unrecoverable "deep" stall.

You may be surprised that many people would not agree with that statement. Obviously, dependent on what military you're talking about.

Ya, ex-military guys.

[cgzro]

unrecoverable "deep" stall

I dont think its possible to certify an aircraft that can exhibit such characteristics as an unrecoverable stall. I thought the regs required demonstration of "normal recovery technique" or such at various approaches and configurations. PilotDAR can likely correct me here.

However I would guess that a pilot could keep an aircraft with powerful under wing engines at a high angle of attack while stalled by keeping on full power and keeping full up elevator.

Here again unusual attitude training would help because when an aircraft is not doing what you expect removing power and control inputs is usually taught. This is because power adds energy which is best removed when you are confused.

[Eric Janson]

Here's a link to an incident involving an Air France A340.

I'm not claiming that this is relevant - but it shows that you don't need an updraft to get a high rate of climb.

http://www.skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/1851.pdf

[cgzro]

interesting read. pilot disengages ap and pulls back when turbulence encountered then does not realize the ap is disengaged because overspeed warning has higher priority than ap disabled warning. Takes 30 seconds to realize and reengage. recommendation is dont disengage ap during turbulence, let computer fly.

i often imagine what it would be like to fly a tandem seat aerobatic aircraft with unlinked sticks that average, an override button to get absolute control , a light on the dash to say who has control and an auto pilot that does not move the controls... It just seems like a recipe for confusion because you remove tactile feedback as a means of communication between pilots and the computer. I think it would actually be impossibe to instruct unusual attitude recoveries in such a machine.

Anyway only two solutions .. More automation or a bit less and better training.. Much as it pains me to say , my money is on more automation.

[Heliian]

I wonder if anyone has ever recovered a fully loaded airliner from a full stall?

[.Ben]

I wonder if anyone has ever recovered a fully loaded airliner from a full stall?

I was watching a documentary on the development and testing of the new 747-8 and they were interviewing the test pilots and they mentioned how almost no airline pilots ever get to experience a full stall in an airliner, they mentioned that in testing they go to full stalls at altitude all the time and handled correctly they are "quite benign, followed by a video of a 747 stalling and breaking cleanly, in clear weather however.

[cgzro]

I believe its a certification requirement, cant be 100% certain but googling around seems to imply this.

Therefore I suspect that you can not sell a plane that does not recover from a stall using "conventional inputs" which would imply all have been stalled at max gross and rearmost c of g by test pilots.

My guess is that the only thing "special" about a big jet aerodynamically speaking is the position of the engines which are going to make any stall worse due to the pitch up moment at full power but otherwise the c of g relative to center of lift is traditional in that the plane will drop its nose to recover if the pilot is not screwing around with full up elevator and full power as a stall recovery technique.

Anyway these are just educated guesses.

[xsbank]

My understanding is that most swept-wing aircraft have a nasty stall, which is why you are given so much warning with shakers and shouting and then you have the aircraft taking over with stick pusher. I have only ever flown a jet to full pusher, which is still not a stall. The resulting shove gives you a nose-down attitude right now and the build-up of speed is breathtaking.