TSB Report on UPS A300 Crash. Good read.

[DanWEC]

This is a great read about what happens when procedures begin to break down.
I'm also a huge proponent of CDFA... my students, and everyone else is sick of hearing it. But hey, if it can happen to these guys......

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ ... E.facebook

[CpnCrunch]

Dubious piloting skills + lack of safety technology = hole in ground.

At least they didn't take any passengers down with them.

[DanWEC]

That's a bit callous, pilots did die, even if it was their own fault- nobody deserves it. At least there weren't any lawsuits, though if it was the States I bet someone would sue for lifelong pain and anguish caused by the mental grief of late packages.
Best we can do is learn from it.

[CpnCrunch]

Perhaps, but the laws of physics are also callous. I just think that all pilots should be at the top of their game in potentially hazardous situations like this, and ideally you should also have some technology to help save your ass if you do screw up.

[Meatservo]

Careful what you wish for. Some day the "technology" will be saving your ass as you sit on the couch not getting paid, because you won't be needed in the plane anymore. I think doing more to teach people not to screw up, is preferable to covering for lousy training with an endless sea of gadgets and beepers.

[ahramin]

I think the most important point here is that if you are still in the clouds when you get to minimums, go around. Every time, every approach type.

[kev994]

I think the most important point here is that if you are still in the clouds when you get to minimums, go around. Every time, every approach type.

Strongly disagree. If you are flying a constant decent profile, sure, but if you are doing a dive and drive you can still break out horizontally. Also, if you read the report, they had an excessive descent rate and didn't acknowledge minimums.

[timel]

Dubious piloting skills + lack of safety technology = hole in ground.

At least they didn't take any passengers down with them.

+1 dubious skills


Moral of the story, things go wrong, go around and start all over.

Guess UPS is probably not enforcing safety at all cost, the dead captain is taking the whole accident, what is it with training captains and CP?

I heard there was some talks of crew fatigue and ups operations being much more permissive, but TSB did not want to get involved for political reasons.


Ps Edit: enough technology today.

[CpnCrunch]

Careful what you wish for. Some day the "technology" will be saving your ass as you sit on the couch not getting paid, because you won't be needed in the plane anymore. I think doing more to teach people not to screw up, is preferable to covering for lousy training with an endless sea of gadgets and beepers.

Training alone isn't always sufficient, for whatever reason. Either every company has a few less-than-stellar pilots, or every pilot will screw up at some point. I used to think it was the former, but after seeing a highly skilled training captain pile it in I suspect it might be the latter.

[timel]

Training alone isn't always sufficient, for whatever reason. Either every company has a few less-than-stellar pilots, or every pilot will screw up at some point. I used to think it was the former, but after seeing a highly skilled training captain pile it in I suspect it might be the latter.

Human factor will always be there.

If you have pilots less than 2000 hours doing safe approaches with garmin 430, no autopilots and no glide on non-precision approaches at night, there are no reasons more equipped pilots should make holes in the ground with ten times more instruments.

This accident goes back to CRM, SOPs, company policies and an obvious lack of training and rigor from the airline.

Adding more technology will only add more barriers to knowing your basics and stay safe. There are more than enough buttons today to avoid accidents like this one.

[FlyingMonkey]

First off, have some respect CpnCrunch. ALL pilots, regardless of experience or lack thereof, make mistakes. Its unfair and arrogant to 'couch fly' and criticize this crew for what they did or didn't do! You weren't there!

Secondly, I think one of the biggest factors with this crash was fatigue. I used to fly med evac throughout the night and when you are at the end of a 14 hour shift in poor wx conditions, even the simplest of approaches can become difficult and mistakes very difficult to detect due to fatigue. I truly believe fatigue is a paramount issue in our industry and one of the biggest causers of pilot error.

[CpnCrunch]

Secondly, I think one of the biggest factors with this crash was fatigue. I used to fly med evac throughout the night and when you are at the end of a 14 hour shift in poor wx conditions, even the simplest of approaches can become difficult and mistakes very difficult to detect due to fatigue. I truly believe fatigue is a paramount issue in our industry and one of the biggest causers of pilot error.

I completely agree - hence my comment about technology.

[CpnCrunch]

Human factor will always be there.

If you have pilots less than 2000 hours doing safe approaches with garmin 430, no autopilots and no glide on non-precision approaches at night, there are no reasons more equipped pilots should make holes in the ground with ten times more instruments.

This accident goes back to CRM, SOPs, company policies and an obvious lack of training and rigor from the airline.

Adding more technology will only add more barriers to knowing your basics and stay safe. There are more than enough buttons today to avoid accidents like this one.

Certainly company policies play a large factor in this particular accident. However I was more referring to another accident where a highly skilled and trained (more than you and me, I would hazard a guess) 22000hr training captain with 7700hrs on type piled it in. Perhaps in that case there was also some deficient company policies at work. Anyway the fact remains that in both cases a little bit of technology would have saved their lives.

Also, the fact that the airlines have been putting in lots of safety technology in an effort to reduce accidents seems to refute your argument.

[timel]

ten times more instruments.

Certainly company policies play a large factor in this particular accident. However I was more referring to another accident where a highly skilled and trained (more than you and me, I would hazard a guess) 22000hr training captain with 7700hrs on type piled it in. Perhaps in that case there was also some deficient company policies at work. Anyway the fact remains that in both cases a little bit of technology would have saved their lives.

Also, the fact that the airlines have been putting in lots of safety technology in an effort to reduce accidents seems to refute your argument.

And think there is enough technology to fly this approach safe. What else would you want?

Once on vectors, the Board reported, the first captain should have commanded the FMS be switched from nav mode to approach, for proper sequencing, but he was apparently distracted by a short conversation from the first officer about other runway options and forgot. Despite a displayed “discontinuity” message, the FMS was never correctly sequenced, which left the autopilot unable to capture the approach and generate an internal glideslope to assist the crew on the way to the MDA using the more common continuous descent final approach (CDFA) method. Although the first officer verified the approach, she did not notice the non-appearance of the computer-generated glideslope that would have avoided the traditional, less stable nonprecision technique of diving for the MDA that was eventually employed.

There is an obvious SOP deviance. No communication between the crew.

The A300 crossed the final approach fix 200 feet high and was slowing to final approach speed when the captain became aware something was wrong and switched autopilot modes to vertical speed, first requesting a 700-fpm descent, but quickly increasing that to 1,500 fpm, in violation of UPS stabilized-approach criteria. He also did not mention the mode change to the first officer, who was occupied with the before-landing checklist. Thirty-nine seconds before impact, the captain mentioned that the airplane was “way high,” although in actuality it was not.

And yes fatigue could be a perfect explanation of all of this.

[CpnCrunch]

And think there is enough technology to fly this approach safe. What else would you want?

You forgot to mention the fact that the company had disabled the 500ft and minimums callout, they hadn't installed the free Airbus update which would have alerted the crew sooner, they hadn't updated their database up to date, etc. The irony is that they had all the technology that might have saved their lives, but it was switched off for whatever asinine reason.

[DanWEC]

It was the poor operation of the technology itself that was a large part of the problem. The captain set up the approach wrong, in the wrong mode. Then, on autopilot, selected a destablizing descent of 1500 FPM at the faf. No hand flying at all.

Throwing more tech at humans who can't operate the existing ones properly, won't save any lives. Then you'd just get into an endless piling of f*(&ng layers, each one to safeguard the last. BS.

[CpnCrunch]

Throwing more tech at humans who can't operate the existing ones properly, won't save any lives. Then you'd just get into an endless piling of f*(&ng layers, each one to safeguard the last. BS.

Good point. However some technology is going to help you no matter what - synthetic vision and TAWS come to mind.

[watermeth]

I think the most important point here is that if you are still in the clouds when you get to minimums, go around. Every time, every approach type.

If you are flying a constant decent profile, sure, but if you are doing a dive and drive you can still break out horizontally.

Dive and drive with your first jet and we'll see if you'll dive and drive with an A300...

[Rookie50]

Secondly, I think one of the biggest factors with this crash was fatigue. I used to fly med evac throughout the night and when you are at the end of a 14 hour shift in poor wx conditions, even the simplest of approaches can become difficult and mistakes very difficult to detect due to fatigue. I truly believe fatigue is a paramount issue in our industry and one of the biggest causers of pilot error.

I completely agree - hence my comment about technology.

Fatigue. Always there in the background ready to kill, rarely mentioned as a primary cause on a report.

[kev994]

I think the most important point here is that if you are still in the clouds when you get to minimums, go around. Every time, every approach type.

If you are flying a constant decent profile, sure, but if you are doing a dive and drive you can still break out horizontally.

Dive and drive with your first jet and we'll see if you'll dive and drive with an A300...

At 1500 ft/min, unless they were doing 300 kts or flying a tactical approach, I think it's a safe bet that this wasn't a constant descent profile.

[watermeth]

yes you're right it wasn't, because he hadn't set the FMS correctly in order to see a computer generated descent angle as stated in the report.
an SCDA is the safest kind of descent in a (big)jet. dive and drive is northern style

[timel]

yes you're right it wasn't, because he hadn't set the FMS correctly in order to see a computer generated descent angle as stated in the report.
an SCDA is the safest kind of descent in a (big)jet. dive and drive is northern style

Actually TC is making stabilized approach mandatory for everybody, soon...

[ahramin]

I think the most important point here is that if you are still in the clouds when you get to minimums, go around. Every time, every approach type.

Strongly disagree. If you are flying a constant decent profile, sure, but if you are doing a dive and drive you can still break out horizontally. Also, if you read the report, they had an excessive descent rate and didn't acknowledge minimums.

Alright I'll rephrase. Don't descend below minimums. If you are doing a dive and drive (why?), level off at minimums and stay there until you get to your MAP, then go around. I would have thought it was obvious to anyone with an instrument rating.

[Donald]

dive and drive is northern style

Actually, some northern operators have UNS FMS's which provide a pseudo-glide slope on RNAV and ndb approaches, even in the jurassic airplanes.

[peekay]

Alright I'll rephrase. Don't descend below minimums. If you are doing a dive and drive (why?), level off at minimums and stay there until you get to your MAP, then go around. I would have thought it was obvious to anyone with an instrument rating.

IMHO you got it right the first time. Leveling off at the MDA means an unstable approach and should be avoided.

When able it's best to fly CDFA (SCDA). Contrary to what some might think, CDFA is not (necessarily) a constant angle approach to the MAP; instead it is a constant angle approach to the MDA typically to a point before the MAP.

So the best practice is to abandon the approach and initiate go-around climb upon reaching the MDA -- even though we haven't reached the MAP. The restriction is that any missed approach turns should not be initiated until the MAP.

If you fly a CDFA to the MDA, then level off there and keep flying to the MAP, then I think you've just defeated the whole purpose of the CDFA approach because now you have a non-stabilized approach segment.

Flying a proper CDFA means either you're on a stable approach or you go miss, with no gray area in between.