Air crash investigations Berganair Crash 757 ASI prob

[Guest disperse]

I have just watched the first few minutes and I am feeling SO ANGRY towards the pilots.

 

At 80kts they realized a large discrepancy between the 2 asi's.

 

believing correctly that the copilots was correct, they proceeded through V1 and took off. On climb the other asi came to life. Go autopilot and soon the captains asi is over reading to the point of over speed, overspeed warnings come on. Copilots asi shows a slowing. I'd just like to say at this point. With reduced thrust and a nose up attitude. And my total 10hr's training under my belt. I don't see overspeed likely. the Very intelligent Capt reduced thrust. The nose climbs, the stick shaker starts, The right wing dips and recovers, THE COPILOTS ASI, THE ONE THEY USED TO LEAVE THE GROUND SUCCESSFULLY, READS STALL SPEED. Yet not untill they are falling from the sky does the capt increase thrust. Last words, and this really winds me up "WHATS HAPPENING"

 

You know maybe I'm just ignorent and should watch the rest of the show....

 

150 odd people would of been safer with my cat flying the plane. At least it would of never left the ground.....which it should have not.

 

just remembered : plane had been sitting for 3 weeks...........Mmmm someone has a wasp nest in a pitot tube. BASTARDS

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thBZSdjUkO0"

 

 

[Tomo]

You learn that in basic instrument flying, if you are climbing at X degrees, with X about of revs/torque.... you must be climbing X amount of rate.

 

Maybe we/they need to focus on more limited panel stuff?

 

I reckon that is where Ultralight pilots get a head start if they go the commercial way later on, just simple little things.

 

 

[winsor68]

I checked in a pilot for a commercial flight back to Brisbane yesterday... His Police Air Wing Beech 1900 had a faulty altimeter so was grounded. I mentioned that I know a dude (MrT) who had just flown a 95.10 ultralight with no instruments... He was not suitably impressed... lol :ah_oh:

 

 

[Tomo]

I checked in a pilot for a commercial flight back to Brisbane yesterday... His Police Air Wing Beech 1900 had a faulty altimeter so was grounded. I mentioned that I know a dude (MrT) who had just flown a 95.10 ultralight with no instruments... He was not suitably impressed... lol :ah_oh:

Well I'd ground him also!

 

Difference between flying commercial, on instruments to flying something like the Wright flyer!

 

 

[winsor68]

Of course Tomo... the Beech1900 is a seriously fast aeroplane. If you were flying it with the wind in your hair you would be in BIG trouble because your hair would blow off!

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Yea, its easy for us sitting in our nice warm houses typing on our computers (which are working) to say what we would have done. If you listened to the cockpit recordings you can clearly hear sirens, buzzes, woop woops, all sorts of things. Stall warning and overspeed. Which alarm do you believe?. Do you assume they are all wrong. The guy was overloaded with warnings and conflicting information. Its not as simple as just holding an attitude and power setting when you dont know which instruments are working and which ones aren't. The narrator knew which instruments were working because the script was written years later once the investigation was completed. Put yourself in the cockpit on the dark night over the ocean with all those alarms going off. ;)

 

 

[Tomo]

Yea, its easy for us sitting in our nice warm houses typing on our computers (which are working) to say what we would have done. If you listened to the cockpit recordings you can clearly hear sirens, buzzes, woop woops, all sorts of things. Stall warning and overspeed. Which alarm do you believe?. Do you assume they are all wrong. The guy was overloaded with warnings and conflicting information. Its not as simple as just holding an attitude and power setting when you dont know which instruments are working and which ones aren't. The narrator knew which instruments were working because the script was written years later once the investigation was completed. Put yourself in the cockpit on the dark night over the ocean with all those alarms going off. ;)

Agreed

 

 

[farri]

Isn`t it interesting, Human Factors education is supposed to overcome these problems???????

 

Frank.

 

 

[Tomo]

Isn`t it interesting, Human Factors education is supposed to overcome these problems???????

Maybe they need an alarm kill switch? that way they don't get distracted, and can concentrate on flying the thing.

 

Agree with Motz, that we are all arm chair experts here, but a discussion is good to think about. Really the whole thing should have stopped before it left the ground with ASI discrepancies.

 

I like this type of stuff, as it gets you thinking. Even if we're all barking up the wrong tree.

 

 

[Thx1137]

I don't know how much human factors helps in events that happens suddenly or in quick succession. I remember in my training where I have been quickly overloaded, I recognised the human factors afterwards... Not to say that it is completely useless, I think it helps when we have time to recorgnise that a course of action might overload or cause problems for us. EG: Once when I was coming back from Maitland I was seeing some mist between me and my home field (first time I had seen mist while flying) and there was 35 minutes before last light, the first thing I said to myself was "right, no get-there-itis!".

 

Steven.

 

 

[farri]

Really the whole thing should have stopped before it left the ground with ASI discrepancies.Good Onya Tomo,I think you got my point.

 

So why didn`t it stay on the ground,I recall something about,Pilot In Command.

 

Frank.

 

Ps,Steven,you did get my point.

[motzartmerv]

perhaps by the time the IAS problem was noticed it was too late in the takeoff run to abort.

 

 

[farri]

At 80kts they realized a large discrepancy between the 2 asi's.believing correctly that the copilots was correct, they proceeded through V1 and took off.

?????????????????????????????????????.

 

Frank.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Whats your point Frank?. That the PIC should have shut the show down? Investigators worked out from CVR and FDR that at around 80 kts the discrepancy would have been realised. So the captain is barreling down the runway and realises something is wrong, takes a few seconds to register the problem, meanwhile the acft is accelerating and fast running out of room. Investigators spent days measuring and doing maths on weather or not they had time to abort, and after lengthy calculations agreed that the crew would have had time to stop the acft. Little comfort and completely useless to the guy driving the acft down the runway, with seconds to make the same calculations. For what ever reason they decided to proceed. Are we saying that the skippa recklessly blasted off giving no regard to the problem? Or would you think the seasoned captain made a command decision under the pressure of the situation, a decision he would have felt the safest option at the time??

 

Im reminded of a story I heard recently of an RAA pilot who got airbourne and realised his IAS was malfunctioning. The resulting stress and him never having been trained in the situation nearly caused him to prang. He did several go arounds and when he did touch down it was a heavy landing. In a servicable acft, other than the ASI, he came close to pranging. VFR, lovely day in a slow ultralight. Just imagine the mental workload on the skippa of a 757 on a short runway faced with the same problem.

 

 

[farri]

Thanks for your input Motz,valuabule.

 

Frank.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

Isn't this just a TV show? Wouldn't put too much credibility on the fine points at least, and you have no idea what they omitted to juice it up.

 

 

[Guest disperse]

I am aware of the difference between sitting here and being there.BUT at 80knts on the GROUND we have a instrument malfunction. and from my very simple knowledge an Very important instrument.

 

"Ah bugger what now ABORT" No Alarms at this point just a malfunctioning ASI

 

No lets just assume that the Copilot's ASI and continue on to V1 (now it's got to fly) So when the copilots ASI reads 150kts, the captain rotates and it flys. (I think it is fair to say that the Copilots ASI is functioning correctly)

 

Now there in a climb and and have reduced thrust to climb.

 

The captain turns on the Auto pilot

 

The Captains ASI is now reading an abnormally high speed, nearly overspeed The Copilots ASI reads that the plane is slowing.

 

Now I don't know about you, but if I was sitting in that seat, And had to bet my life on one of the ASI's. Taking into account the angle of attack and the thrust setting.

 

I'm going to go with the ASI that is not giving weird readings. The same one they used just a few minutes earlier For a successful/normal take off.

 

infact I'm betting that if they had removed the captains ASI before taking off. And only had the copilots ASI. Even with all the alarms and buzzers etc. They would not have crashed.

 

Captain decides to believe the overspeed warning and reduces thrust.

 

The result : forget the stick shaker, the plane is shaking, the wing is dropping, the nose is rising. I'm guessing that reducing thrust made it worse, lets try increasing it NO

 

No lets wait until we have completely stalled and now in a spin. Right now increase thrust.

 

This accident disturbs me because they failed to do the number one rule. FLY THE PLANE. Forget about all the things you don't know. And use what you do know. The Copilots ASI was correct and the Captains wasn't (proven at take off) Now turn off the auto pilot because there is something seriously wrong with the flight computer. And fly the Friggen plane. 150 people would probably be alive today had they done that.

 

 

[flying dog]

Ok,

 

I'll bite too.

 

A few things to observe.

 

Ok, there was a discrepancy with the air speed indicators.

 

The altimeter wasn't working correctly.

 

They were flying.

 

Engine revs + pitch = level flight.

 

They were at a fairly safe height when things started to go wrong. Set engine speed, hold pitch and hold altitude.

 

Turn around and go back to the airport.

 

Now, later on they got REALLY low. The GPWS went off. That should have been enough to tell them they were close to the ground. It is a different system and was working.

 

I guess it is difficult to comment about it, as "we" are VFR people not IFR. Flying IFR and being taught to "believe" the instruments above all else then being in THAT situation, it would be difficult to put aside what you had been told all the time to be the most reliable inputs.

 

However, I still believe, engine revs + pitch = level flight.

 

The rest they would have to work on from that.

 

As I said before: Turn around and go back!

 

 

[farri]

This accident disturbs me because they failed to do the number one rule. FLY THE PLANE. QUOTE]

The most important thing to do, at all times,by any pilot in any aircraft,and never,ever,to be forgotten.

 

Frank.

[Guest Maj Millard]

That's it Frank...if all else fails, fly the aeroplane. Unfortunatly this level of professional pilot have two things working against them to start with. 1. Their equipment (especially modern jet engines) don't fail very often, they can get very complacent day to day, unless they've just come out of their similator check.

 

2. They are not at all in the habit of flying by the seat of their pants ,without reference to a panel of instruments, especially airspeed. Of course as experienced pilots, they have the skills to do so, however often valuable time is wasted in making the transition, if that is what is required.

 

As far as cancelling alarms go (from a prev post). Fire alarms can be cancelled as they are loud and obnoxious, however other flight related alarms may not be designed to be readily cancelled for a reason. ............................................Maj...

 

 

[facthunter]

decisions.

 

80 Knots is miles below decision speed. If he did not have plenty of room to stop he was extremely illegal to use that runway. Aborting from 80 knots is no big deal.

 

Attitude flying is basic whether you are IMC or Visual, the principles are the same.

 

I have to assess this as if I was a passenger or had my kids on board.

 

The take off should have been aborted, If we keep going then the guessing starts. ..

 

What do you believe? Engage the autopilot. What data is it referencing? The good one or the degraded one, so how can you know it will fly the plane for you?

 

Most aeroplanes have warning lights that indicate disagreements. It is that important. The myriad warnings that come up only complicate the situation but crews deal with these situations in the simulator all the time. As has been said some warnings are able to be cancelled but SOME aren't. ( GPWS for example).

 

I believe that they should ALL be able to be cancelled, as once you have been alerted to a problem do you need something shouting the same message at you over and over, when you are in a critical situation? Hardly.

 

The basics of flying are the same whatever plane you fly, but the complexity of the systems interacting and bringing up lots of warnings would cause a fair amount of distraction. Nev

 

 

[farri]

80 Knots is miles below decision speed. If he did not have plenty of room to stop he was extremely illegal to use that runway. Aborting from 80 knots is no big deal.Nev

Thanks Nev,I didn`t know the TOS but I thought 80kts would be well bellow and there would have been plenty of runway left in front.

 

Frank.

 

 

[flying dog]

Facthunter,

 

I'd like to disagree with you on the alarms.

 

If things are failing, I kind of agree that you don't want it always going off, but if it is an important one and another alarm happens after the initial alarm and you have muted the initial alarm you don't know which alarms are still active.

 

Having it constantly yelling at you keeps it in your mind that the alarm is still active.

 

 

[Thx1137]

I am with nev on the alarms. The warning panel(s) will still show the failures. Once the noise attracts our attention and tells us something is up we know where to go for checking the status. For people at home the constant noise might help reinforce that things are bad but I find it hard to believe a pilot would cancel it and somehow think all is well!? It would be interesting to know if the effects have been studied.

 

On another forum about 757s I bloke that reckons he flew them said "I'll stop for anything up to 80kt, between 80kt and V1 I'll only stop for a fire, a config warning or an engine failure. After V1 I'll continue the take-off'". Another site said V1 was usually between 125kts and 155kts...

 

I see that if you search google for "Berganair Crash 757" this thread is the first link. Google must trawl here faster than I thought!

 

 

[facthunter]

Which alarms are still active?

 

Warning lights stay on. You can cancell a firewarning alarm bell but the light stays on untill the fire warning signal stops, even if the engine is shut down. Other inflight failures (Hydraulic alternator etc) are able to be recalled during descent (or any time) as they may affect the landing configuration, stopping distance, max electrical loads etc . Respectfully, if you haven't been involved , it would really be hard to envisage the environment in the cockpit, when the bloody systems go berserk and not ALL warnings are real. ( You have to treat them as if they are, or have a strong case to the contrary)

 

You are entitled to your opinion but consider the situation where for some reason or other, you have to fly in ground effect to stay in the air, Would you want the GPWS rattling off for ever, with something like "too low, Flap". or you have to land wheels up as in ditching. Not a big help. Nev