Emirates blames pilot for A340 JNB accident

Interesting topic.

I remember reading somehwere that the laying the blame on the Pilot can only be confirmed after a safety committee has taken months to decide on what action a Pilot should have taken, whereas the Pilot in reality only had a few seconds !

The B777 has the same auto checklist.

…a good example of this is on the 727, the “before take-off “checklist has about 25 items..on the 757/767 its about 5 (please correct me any 757 drivers) Thats good design…

We had 4 items on our 757 before take off checklist. Interestingly on an A340, if you operate it in accordance with the original design criteria there are NO checklists between take off and landing!!! In reality there are two (after take off and landing) but these are actually completed by the aircraft for you.

PFD/MFD/EICAS/etc. are more of a result of the avionics manufacturer than the aircraft manufacturer. It’s not completely far to hold Boeing or Airbus responsible for their Honeywell set up or BendixKing layout.

The last thing I want is to argue about which is better or worse – but I’ll stnad by my point, both designs work, both designs produce results, and both designs are reliable! Regardless of how complex or simple they are…

And thats not being contested 😉

Your original post sounded like you were saying both systems work the same, when they do not.

Personaly I like Boeings approach, and I’ve never hidden that.

There is a point where you simplyfy everything so much, it becomes more complicated. The more Instruments and readouts you condense onto a single PFD the more complicated it becomes to call up the correct page or display.

The 777 and to an extent the 747-400, seem to strike a balance between mutil functional PFDs and analogue dials/ Static digital displays. You don’t need to scroll through several pages on info to get the display you want.

Thanks for the compliments, I’m not taking a jab at Airbus or engineers for that matter, My comments are more directed at alot of the non-flyers who, through no fault of their own see things much differently than a pilot. I flew some spec-ops at one point in my career, and due to low lighing conditions in the cockpit, my take-off checklist was narrowed down to Flaps, Stab trim, and pitot heat…the other 19 items weren’t important at that moment…..a good example of this is on the 727, the “before take-off “checklist has about 25 items..on the 757/767 its about 5 (please correct me any 757 drivers) Thats good design…..Don’t be dazzled by all the sophistication and gadgets in a cockpit..its not necessarily a more advanced design. Just read a great book about the design of the F-16..the designers purposely omitted alot of the sophistication and advanced features to keep it light and simple, turned out to be a great aircraft…alot of the Soviet fighters are designed in this manner as well…seemingly inferior designs, but easy to fly and maintain!
TTP

The way I see it; Airbus/Boeing both the same really

That may apply to the 777, but Boeings up to the 757/767 are very different to Airbus from a flight control viewpoint. On all those Boeings, none of which are FBW, when you move the control column, you know that you are moving a control surface (not directly you understand, but through the hydraulic powered flying controls – although the 732 certainly had manual reversion on its flying controls – practised that for real on my first jet conversion many moons ago)
On the Airbus, the stick is an electrical input into a computer, so (from a ‘traditional’ viewpoint) your input may not have a direct effect on the flying controls. As to which is better or worse, the arguement is pretty pointless – they both work, they are both certificated by the world’s aviation authorities, its just a different set of skills to learn going onto FBW types.

The engineers.

And judging from the content of TTP’s and Skycruisers posts Its pretty much obvious who that remark is aimed at.

The way I see it; Airbus/Boeing both the same really – each system asks for the same sort of information, both systems do what you ask – some planes might have a few more features, etc – but at the end of the day they’ll get you there…

I’ll take the word of a pilot on this issue.

There is such a thing as over engineering

Astounding!

Thanks TTP, thats a realy interesting snippet of information.

Thank you

skycruiser,

This is a subtle point and only those who fly complex aircraft can appreciate it, but I’ll try to explain it. Simplicity is a thing of beauty in an aircraft..all the gizmo’s and functions of an auto-pilot look great in a flight manual, and may sell a jet to a airline bean-counter, but as a pilot I’ll probably utilize 30% of those functions, and I don’t have the time or inclination to use the others. Heres a good example, in the 727, we have a rather modern updated cockpit…HUDS, Glass, and GPS..There is a GPS function that can plan your descents..So If center clears you to cross a point 10 miles south at 5,000 ft you can program the GPS to fly it…heres the problem, it will take you 1 minute, and about 50 keystrokes..and then you have to monitor the descent the whole time to make sure its going to make the restriction..it uses up all your time..or you can do what I do, multiply your altitude to lose times 3 and add a few miles for wind..this works, it takes about 5 seconds to figure out, and I can set it and forget it….Alot of military flying is like this..they purposely make things simple to reduce workload, so you can concentrate on whats important.
Alot of non-pilots have the perception that all these advanced features are a sign of an advanced design, when in reality, its poor design…Reminds me of an airshow I went to, and this guy was asking the F-16 pilot alot of questions concerning ranges, weapon parameters, and such..the F-16 pilot didn’t know half of them, and the civilian guy was correcting the F-16 pilot, who admitted He forgot these numbers and was amazed that this civilian knew them..The F-16 jock asked the guy if he flew 16’s and the guy said No, but he had memorized the F-16 flight manual from his computer game!!! Real pilots filter out 60% of the bull**** and concentrate on the stuff that really matters….Boeings seem to understand this a little better than the Airbus guys…At my airline guys going from the 757/767 to the Bus all say the Boeings are more “intuitive” as far as FMC programming etc…
TTP

Wysiwyg,

Just repeating what I’ve been told by alot of my friends who are flying the 320..They say it doesn’t take long to figure it out, but personally I don’t understand what the advantage of designing the flight controls to do that are…why not just design them to act like normal flight controls? too many engineers in the mix, and not enough pilot input. I see it alot with avionics and “switchology” I sometimes wonder why things are designed in such a way…its obvious a pilot was not consulted…Keep it simple!
Good luck on your training.
TTP

TTP,
I have to agree with you. In my company we operate A340/330 and B744 and B777. I talk a lot with the guys who have flown both Airbus and Boeing and just about all of them say the like both types but the airbus is too much like flying a computer where as they can feel part of the Boeings. To many people think that the Airbus is more technically advanced than Boeings….I feel people don’t know too much about the B777 then. It has all the gizmos of Airbus but it’s still a pilot’s aircraft and boy does it perform.

Wysiwyg,

Just repeating what I’ve been told by alot of my friends who are flying the 320..They say it doesn’t take long to figure it out, but personally I don’t understand what the advantage of designing the flight controls to do that are…why not just design them to act like normal flight controls? too many engineers in the mix, and not enough pilot input. I see it alot with avionics and “switchology” I sometimes wonder why things are designed in such a way…its obvious a pilot was not consulted…Keep it simple!
Good luck on your training.
TTP

Any ideas is what were the total flying hours of those two pilots on A-340 and which nationality they were from.

Don’t want to devalue the validity of your viewpoint but you can hold on aileron, etc in the flare on a bus. At around 100′ normal law fades into direct law allowing conventional crosswind techniques to be employed. I’ve got my first sim coming up week after next so I look forward to seeing just how well the flight controls are designed compared to conventional Boeing controls.

Andrew A340-600

Your assertion that the Airbus stick is better than the Yoke on Boeings is interesting, Do you fly jets? I’m going to say no, because it seems you just seem to like the stick better on a cosmetic level, though I do too! There are problems with the Airbus flight control philosophy in my opinion..I fly 727’s and C-17s (stick) For example in a crosswind, in the 727, I can place the yoke into the wind and Keep it there as I apply opposite rudder to align the jet….In the Bus you can’t keep the stick at a single position and hold it there because the way the flight controls operate it will keep on moving in that direction…for example in the Boeing if I hold ten degrees of right aileron into the wind it will stay at ten degrees..in the Bus if I hold the stick to get a ten degree bank…once it gets to ten degrees, you have to center the stick and then periodically deflect the stick again to maintain the ten degrees….It doesn’t take long to get used to this, but as a pilot, I like to have control over my plane..instead I have to play games with the computer and try and make it do what I want….its different, Boeings philosophy has always been the pilot is ultimately in control…not the computers…or some flight control engineer…saying that, I do wish Boeing would go with the sticks…more room easier to operate, and much cooler!!!!
TTP

thanx for clearing up the actual process wysiwyg, it seems that there is a definite room for error, if for example, the crew are tired or their workload is high…or they are inexperienced on type.

Pure pilot error in accordance with the incorrect technique stated above (according to the official sources).

It would be possible to have a very similar incident in a 757 or 767 if incorrectly trained and the pilot followed the flight director commands through rotation.

Both pilots were inexperienced on type. After engine start the bus puts a sidestick position indicator overlay onto the PFD. This is used to check flight control movement on the lower ECAM system display against sidestick deflection (not normally visible from the other guys position). It also allows the PNF to see what control inputs the PF is making on the take off roll. This display dissappears after lift off. The normal take off requires a rotation to a target pitch angle of approximately 12.5 degrees. The FO in this incident (the PF) pulled back on the stick at VR but instead of placing the aircraft symbol on the 12.5 degree up pitch line on the PFD he put the sidestick deflection cross on the 12.5 degree line. This is far too little pitch to achieve a proper rotation but did lift the nosewheel to 3-4 degrees. The FO now pushed forward to keep the sidestick on the 12.5 degree line so the nose lowered. Eventually the aircraft gained enough speed to gently fly off despite the low attitude but took out the lighting system at the far end. The captain (recently transferred from the Boeing) didn’t spot the FO’s error.

Incident rather than accident !