Investigators: Crew action blamed for AirAsia crash

[Robbo]

CREW action and a malfunctioning joint were responsible for an AirAsia passenger jet crashing into the Java Sea in 2014, Indonesian investigators have revealed.

 

The investigators say crew action caused the loss of control and stalling of AirAsia flight #QZ8501 that crashed and killed all 162 people on board on December 28 last year.

 

It was found the Airbus A320 aircraft’s flight control computer had a cracked solder joint that malfunctioned repeatedly, including four times during the time and 23 times the previous year.

 

Soldering on the Rudder Travel Limiter System, which helps control the rudder’s movement, was cracked. The damage led to it sending repeated warning systems to the pilots.

 

After receiving a fourth warning, the pilots pulled circuit breakers on part of the control system in an attempt to reset the system.

 

Unfortunately, it turned off the autopilot and caused the plane to start to roll.

 

Subsequent flight crew action resulted in inability to control the aircraft ... causing the aircraft to depart from the normal flight envelope and enter a prolonged stall condition that was beyond the capability of the flight crew to recover,” the national transport safety committee said in a statement on Tuesday.

 

The plane crashed less than halfway into a two-hour flight from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

 

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/investigators-crew-action-blamed-for-airasia-crash/news-story/9f5b3d2ab211bb8a86f2665f18dbadc1

 

 

[rrogerramjet]

Is this a classic example of flight crew trained entirely on simulations and when the shiz goes down they don't have enough real world experience to handle an aircraft in difficult conditions?

 

"Subsequent flight crew action resulted in inability to control the aircraft ... causing the aircraft to depart from the normal flight envelope and enter a prolonged stall condition"

 

Just a thought....

 

Scary for me, cause I fly AirAsia all the time....

 

 

[Birdseye]

Is this a classic example of flight crew trained entirely on simulations and when the shiz goes down they don't have enough real world experience to handle an aircraft in difficult conditions?

The Air France over the South Atlantic falls into the same description. The move to 'blind obedience' in airline training goes back many years and certainly existed when I spent time with BA at Southall back in the late seventies. 'Don't think, just do' was the tenet then and that mentality probably still pervades the industry.

 

 

[rrogerramjet]

"'Don't think, just do' was the tenet then and that mentality probably still pervades the industry."***

 

***sorry my 'grab a quote' isnt working or I haven't worked it out..whichever...

 

That's a bit of a flamer...isn't that in total contradiction of the CRM training for all pilots now? Notwithstanding that no CRM will replace real world extensive piloting skills..

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Is this a classic example of flight crew trained entirely on simulations and when the shiz goes down they don't have enough real world experience to handle an aircraft in difficult conditions?

Blame the flight crew even though the fault had shown up 23 bloody times without a cure?

 

There comes a time to take a craft out of service until the fault is found.

 

 

[rrogerramjet]

bexrbetter, I think you miss the point of my comment.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

bexrbetter, I think you miss the point of my comment.

Yeah, I originally replied to your quote, deleted it and re-posted but forgot to delete your quote sorry and too late now.

 

Or...

 

You must be a Green Party supporter, bahahaha (sorry Marty )

 

 

[Birdseye]

That's a bit of a flamer...isn't that in total contradiction of the CRM training for all pilots now? Notwithstanding that no CRM will replace real world extensive piloting skills..

Sorry I'll do it again.

 

Yes, it is a total contradiction of common thinking about CRM. The human has a brain for a reason.

 

 

[facthunter]

The philosophy is the plane is designed to not be able to crash. ( eliminate pilot induced out of the envelope inputs/commands/structural overloads). It doesn't/can't anticipate all possible situations because essentially they are limitless. Earlier planes have massive systems redundancy. You could fly with a lot of stuff not working. This required a lot of pilot training and an extensive list of abnormal/emergency procedures checklists. Accountants like to employ easily replaced people. Highly skilled are engineered out of the system. Nev

 

 

[Soleair]

According to the BBC news this morning, the Air Asia accident occurred, as was said, following the autopilot circuit breaker being pulled.

 

But apparently the less experienced co-pilot did not recognize the stall, & the senior pilot was late in attempting to take control. As a result, the co-pilot was pulling back on the stick, while the captain was pushing, without either being aware of what the other was doing.

 

Does not give one confidence for the basic (non computer aided) flight skills of these professional pilots - again.

 

Bruce

 

 

[facthunter]

It's nought to do with flying. It's to do with who is running the show. You can get it when two check Captains fly together. Someone has to say "I have control" and the other says "YOU have control." At the commencement of any flight where two pilots are involved it should be established and agreed who will be PIC and under what circumstances there would be a variation. Nev

 

 

[dutchroll]

Does not give one confidence for the basic (non computer aided) flight skills of these professional pilots - again.Bruce

So........you're going to tar all professional pilots with exactly the same brush now?

I'm a professional pilot (have been since I left school). Are you concerned about my flight skills?

 

 

[aro]

Is this a classic example of flight crew trained entirely on simulations and when the shiz goes down they don't have enough real world experience to handle an aircraft in difficult conditions?

The PIC was ex airforce with experience in transport and fighters so it's hard to make that case.

 

It is startling how similar this is to the AF447 case though. In both cases the autopilot unexpectedly disconnected, leaving the pilots with an unstable aircraft in alternate law. In both cases the loss of control was very similar. One interesting tidbit is that the dual control warning was overridden by the stall warning.

 

You wonder whether the autopilot needs some sort of fail-safe so that instead of disconnecting completely it would maintain wings level with pitch attitude/AOA and thrust based on last good data, to give the crew time to deal with the failure. The current system seems to require an immediate unusual attitude recovery in alternate law.

 

 

[facthunter]

Cruising altitudes are close to margins at the fast and slow ends. (Sometime too close) A basic mode won't be good enough. Mach hold is OK for a while. Altitude hold (the most used) is a trap if power is lost or downdrafts happen. Nev

 

 

[Soleair]

So........you're going to tar all professional pilots with exactly the same brush now?

 

No, of course not. My mistake - I should have written . . . 'some professional pilots'. Because, with all due respect for your profession, it is clear that some fundamental mistakes ARE being made in the cockpit, when to we humble private pilots, things like stall recognition is drummed into us early in our training.

 

 

[Soleair]

It's nought to do with flying. It's to do with who is running the show. You can get it when two check Captains fly together. Someone has to say "I have control" and the other says "YOU have control."

 

Surely cockpit procedures & discipline are everything to do with flying?

 

I'm sorry if I come across as an armchair critic. But it seems to me that there is evidence of some basic errors occurring in a profession which demands high standards of both training & discipline. Some would say pilots are paid well, not for what they do, but for what they know, & need to do, on the rare occasion that things start to go wrong.

 

Or is this an unreasonable viewpoint?

 

Bruce

 

 

[aro]

Cruising altitudes are close to margins at the fast and slow ends. (Sometime too close) A basic mode won't be good enough. Mach hold is OK for a while. Altitude hold (the most used) is a trap if power is lost or downdrafts happen.

I'm not suggesting something that would hold altitude or even course - just enough to give the crew time to take over with the aircraft under some form of control. I think this aircraft had rolled to a 55 degree bank about 6 seconds after the autopilot disconnected.

 

The AF447 report listed a set of pitch power combinations for loss of airspeed at different altitudes. If a degraded autopilot simply maintained wings level and airspeed/AOA/pitch+power depending on the information available, until the crew can respond to the autopilot failure it would be a big improvement.

 

 

[SDQDI]

So........you're going to tar all professional pilots with exactly the same brush now?I'm a professional pilot (have been since I left school). Are you concerned about my flight skills?

I am concerned about your skills Dutch, BUT maybe if I was to be taken for a flight in a Pitts with some basic aero skills demonstrated I could be convinced that you were quite competent . Would you like YQDIs coordinates?

 

 

[dutchroll]

So........you're going to tar all professional pilots with exactly the same brush now?No, of course not. My mistake - I should have written . . . 'some professional pilots'.

No probs - just making sure we don't get tarred with the same brush! I for one would totally agree that there are some airlines with very poor training and assessment systems. The accident airline is one that I personally would not fly with (and that was before this accident).

 

I am concerned about your skills Dutch, BUT maybe if I was to be taken for a flight in a Pitts with some basic aero skills demonstrated I could be convinced that you were quite competent . Would you like YQDIs coordinates?

Any time mate. I don't charge. Well actually......I can't charge legally. Although I have been known to graciously accept bottles of wine in return.

 

 

[facthunter]

Aro I don't know the intricacies of those particular aircraft, but the computers can end up disconnected from the plane and I don't think you can fly without them. Stick inputs are always modified. This is as far as I know so check it before relying on it. Nev

 

 

[facthunter]

Solair, just insert SKILLS as the sixth word of my post. I should have but, the general view emerging is that airline pilots can't fly basic attitude flying. I worry a lot about Airline Pilot levels of good experience and nature of skills taught, these days. There is a thing called a Multi Crew Licence where you are trained to operate in a multi crew situation, ONLY. You don't have a private Licence. I would be reluctant to fly with Airlines that incorporate that training philosophy. It's bad enough that the majority of pilots can go right through their careers and never do a spin. Money spent on training has been slashed to much less than 1/2 of what it was and you go and get your own Qualifications and front up with sometimes a log book from Grimm's fairy tales.

 

Many Airlines have had standards problems and have had to be forced to come under the Lap of Boeing and others to get their standards up to Euro levels. I hope it is up from here. I wouldn't want to envisage it going worse, but Accountant CEO's know only one thing,Cut costs. Passengers buy the cheapest fares and don't (or rarely) look at who they are flying with. Sometimes the cost gap is hardly anything and if you get stuck somewhere the savings will disappear in one day. What value do you put on your life? Nev

 

 

[dutchroll]

An Airbus does not become unstable in Alternate Law. It loses some of its flight envelope protections (including angle of attack/stall protection), but it does not become unstable at all.

 

The common thread in these accidents is that the aircraft has reverted to alternate law, lost its stall protection, and then they've managed to stall it without realising, or realising too late, that they now have to do a high altitude big jet stall recovery (which is not like a Cessna stall recovery - it chews up a lot of altitude). There have been a number of incidents where an Airbus has reverted to alternate law and the consequent flight, approach, and landing has been totally eventful.

 

You can revert to alternate law in straight and level flight and the Airbus will just sit there fat dumb and happy. It requires mishandling to get into these dire situations.

 

 

[aro]

An Airbus does not become unstable in Alternate Law. It loses some of its flight envelope protections (including angle of attack/stall protection), but it does not become unstable at all.

When I said unstable I meant that in these specific situations the aircraft would not maintain straight and level without immediate pilot input rather than referring to alternate law in general.

 

AF447: The autothrust disengaged during a speed change, so the thrust was set to less than required for level flight, plus there was turbulence requiring pilot input to maintain wings level.

 

AirAsia: The rudder was off centre so the aircraft immediately rolled when the autopilot disengaged.

 

There is also more than a page in the AF447 report describing Aeroplane behavior in reconfiguration laws which concludes:

 

...the approach to stall on a classic aeroplane is always

 

associated with a more or less pronounced nose-up input. This is not the case on

 

the A330 in alternate law. The specific consequence is that in this control law the

 

aeroplane, placed in a configuration where the thrust is not sufficient to maintain

 

speed on the flight path, would end up by stalling without any inputs on the sidestick.

 

It appears that this absence of positive static stability could have contributed to the

 

PF not identifying the approach to stall.

 

So I think by at least some definitions the aircraft is not stable with respect to speed. But if the autopilot has disengaged and the aircraft changed to alternate law, it also suggests that something has happened that might also destabilize the aircraft.

 

There have been a number of incidents where an Airbus has reverted to alternate law and the consequent flight, approach, and landing has been totally eventful.

No doubt. But what percentage of these incidents resulting in crashes would be OK?

 

 

[poteroo]

It requires mishandling to get into these dire situations.

A bit simplistic, but: Given that there have been suspect pitot/static inputs involved in some Airbus incidents - could pilots make use of a simple device like a Dynon D2 unit - where it is flying ground speed and GPS altitude? It has an attitude presentation, plus a magnetic heading/track presentation - so could it not be used to hand fly the aircraft using power x attitude? It need not be powered off the aircraft bus - just a larger battery that gave 6 hrs rather than the usual 2. There must be a simpler way to fly the aircraft when the computer misbehaves? happy days,

 

 

[biggles]

and landing has been totally eventful..

Er, Uneventful Dutch ?....... Bob.