[manjunathkl]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Yes, all very hard. But please read my earlier comments how it is a known phenomena that pilots when working under stress get so focussed, they begin to miss things, including such very loud alarms. I even posted a Youtube video where you can see, in the cockpit of a real plane, the pilot making a landing with the No LG alarm sounding very loud, very persistent and he does not respond and lands the plane........on its belly. Again, please read the whole thread.

If pilots start to miss things like lowering landing-gear before landing, extending flaps while taking-off and keeping the nose at the right angle to prevent stalling, that will just result in a lot death and destruction. We are talking about basics of flying. And stress is certainly not excuse to not "flying" the plane. Stress is part and parcel of a pilot's craft. I don't care how many simulation videos are there in which pilots make these fatal mistakes. If they can't handle stress and miss the basics of flying, they shouldn't be pilots [PERIOD]. Will we send our kids on a plane where pilots "might" be stressed? Not you, not me, not anyone.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Sorry, simply not true. Again, I have already explained this, please read my earlier posts.

You are assuming that I have responded without reading anything. I have read all threads till I replied and was not convinced with the explanation. All the treads giving benefit of doubt to pilots because he also died along with passengers. Assume a case where the accident was caused by ATC or ground staff, the same people who are giving benefit of doubt would be asking the offender to be punished immediately, just because the offender is alive. (This is the same thought process which make people trash the car guy in an accident between a 2 wheeler and a car). That is the emotional part, for which I too feel sad for pilots death. That doesn't take away the responsibilities of a pilot.
Pilots are not bus/auto drivers. They have greater responsibilities, they have to operate is tough situations, sometimes with contradicting data, unexpected situations, sudden changes etc. Hence their training and grooming is very thorough. Just giving human factors as an excuse is just setting the standards low on the expectations of the pilot.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Sorry, but that is just not a constructive comment. We don’t know if the pilots were stressed / sleep derived It was Ramadan, they might have been fasting and that is not good for your piloting skills. (although as I understand it pilots are told that flying is a legitimate reason not to fast.)

Completely disagree. Whatever I have said is all constructive, it is to improve the standards of aviation. If you ignore the blunders that caused a crash, it is destructive for the future of aviation. I see many here giving excuses and justifying some of the unpardonable actions by pilot. Plus religious beliefs if they are coming in the way of performing duties, then the pilot must have applied leave. What if people start bursting crackers on Diwali inside a plane?
Sorry, for being very frank, I feel it is better to be frank and achieve something constructive, than being super-polite and achieve nothing.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

You simply have no information whether any of your suggestions are true, so you should not make such suggestions. Or otherwise back them up with factual data. Just because we don’t understand what went on, doesn’t you can make such accusations.
PS: Please Please read all comments, go through the video, follow the posted links to the Aviation Harald. I am more than happy to answer any genuine questions and queries to the best of my abilities, but to Narayan earlier point, be prudent and maintain the correct decorum on these aviation threads.
Jeroen

Sorry to say this, including you, no one here has the full information. If I cannot make any accusations, you cannot dismiss it either. We are all discussing based on partial info that is available in public domain. Only investigators will have maximum facts at any point of time. Just because no one here have the full info, does it mean we must stop discussing or stating our obeservations (however wrong any single member considers it)? This is not an official investigation. So, any accusations made or defended is immaterial. What matters is improving our understanding through discussion and debate.

At last, I agree with you that we have to be respectful to eachother and maintain the decorum of this esteemed forum even if we have disagreements. I respect pilots deeply. I respect your opinion and expect that you respect mine. Sorry if I have offended anyone on this forum. That was never the intention, the intention is only to have a quality discussion.
Thanks, M

[skanchan95]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Please do not for a moment believe you even remotely understand the complexity and stress and work overload from the moment they realized they were scrapping the tarmac till the point the machine crashed.

Completely agree. There are a few - why did the pilots not do this, why did he not to that, kind if questions, which frankly are unfair to the crew. Who knows what the crew of PK8303 were facing at that point of time. The answer to the questions asked lies in the FDR and CVR.

The FDR was recovered earlier and the CVR was recovered today from the wreckage. Let us wait for the data to be decoded and an accident report compiled. Some posts have been judgemental and disrespectful to the dead crew(even if they were at fault).

A friend of mine who is an A320 pilot with a private airline once made a remark during a conversation - you know we pilots are a misjudged lot. Everyone out there seems eager to judge us and pass remarks without even having an idea of how stressful it can get in the flight deck, especially in an inflight emergency.

[vharihar]

Speaking for myself, I was speculating about why the pilot messed up the *first* messed, ie. why he was coming in high and hot. My speculations were *not* about the 2nd attempt, obviously they were far too stressed out by then and its unfair to speculate then; and I never speculated about that.

As another forumer said, I don't find it terribly wrong to speculate about the first attempt, as long as we are not disrespectful. And one of my posts could be deemed disrespectful to the crew I later realized, and apologized for that. But this stand that "no speculations till reports are out" is an overreaction I feel, and I called it out as such. Harmless speculation ought to be ok, I feel.

An example that comes to mind is, say a truck accident that we may see on roads. Surely some of us have speculated about it and may have made disrespectful comments in passing such as, "must be a case of drunken driving" or "must have been texting and driving", etc.

Why this double standard where its ok to speculate (to the extent that its unintentionally disrespectful) in one case but not the other?

As I was thinking more about this, I realized that the correct thing is not to "disrespectfully speculate" in aviation matters just bcoz one has "disrespectfully speculated" on road travel matters too. Instead, the right thing to do is to avoid "disrespectful speculation" at all times. And hence I apologized.

So my only advice to the preachers here is: Next time you go out on the roads, pls remember to extend that courtesy to road, etc related accidents too (if you're not already doing so). Don't limit the courtesy to only aviation related matters.

[NiInJa]

Update: The Cockpit voice recorder's Data module has been recovered from the site today. We might soon get to know what was going on between the Pilot and F/O.

Thank God, one part of my brain was forcing me to think that Pakistan is resorting to some military style tactics of hiding complete information from public and might have recovered the CVR much before Airbus officials arrived. Now I am corrected.

[V.Narayan]

Air Blue incident of 2010

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4JXmtEtBFc

Many readers must have viewed this excellent presentation by The Flight Channel. There are similarities between PK8303 and this earlier flight. The co-pilot of this Air Blue flight was an ex- Air Force fighter pilot. Each viewer may draw their one conclusions.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by manjunathkl

At last, I agree with you that we have to be respectful to eachother and maintain the decorum of this esteemed forum even if we have disagreements. I respect pilots deeply. I respect your opinion and expect that you respect mine. Sorry if I have offended anyone on this forum. That was never the intention, the intention is only to have a quality discussion.

That is great.

Originally Posted by manjunathkl

If pilots start to miss things like lowering landing-gear before landing, extending flaps while taking-off and keeping the nose at the right angle to prevent stalling, that will just result in a lot death and destruction. We are talking about basics of flying. And stress is certainly not excuse to not "flying" the plane. Stress is part and parcel of a pilot's craft. I don't care how many simulation videos are there in which pilots make these fatal mistakes. If they can't handle stress and miss the basics of flying, they shouldn't be pilots [PERIOD].

I don’t think anybody was making excuses. What I see is a lot of people being puzzled and being amazed as to how this could happen. I am merely pointing out that it is a well known phenomena, that whether we like it or not, happens. Again no excuse. It is not unique to aviation. Any high stress environment where people are subjected to an overflow of inputs, information in different shapes and formats is familiar with this phenomena. It happens to surgeons, it happens to process operators (e.g. nuclear power stations).

Again, no excuse. But in general I feel that many people have not a very accurate view of what being a pilot is. Or more precisely, what you can expect. They are not super humans. They do well, sometimes extremely well. But even today the vast majority of crashes tends to be primarily related to pilots not doing for what they should be doing. Or rather what the expectation is.

You might not like it, it might make you nervous next time you board a plane. But despite all of this aviation is still incredibly safe. So luckily these are execptions.

have a look at this report:

https://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/nl/med...t_s_dekker.pdf

It really emphasises that what is expected of pilots, e.g. the airplane manufacturers, the regulators, the airline, in many cases simply is not humanly possible.

Look at the Boeing fiasco: Part of the problem there is also Boeing overestimating how pilots would handle and respond in certain situations.

Again, no excuses, just trying to provided context and insight as to why these things might happen.

Originally Posted by manjunathkl

Will we send our kids on a plane where pilots "might" be stressed? Not you, not me, not anyone.

It is not about being stressed. It is about how you deal with that stress and to what extend your environment will/can facilitate it. I can tell you there are certain airlines i will simply not fly on. I refused to fly JetAirways when they stopped paying their crews. Why? Because it is well established that even the most professional people start performing less when they have a lot of (private) worries. I don’t want the guys up front to worry about their mortgages, how they are going to support their parents, put their kids through school.

We expect them to perform, but it has been proven, at the expense of many fatalities, this is not the case. Pilots are just normal humans.

Originally Posted by manjunathkl

You are assuming that I have responded without reading anything. I have read all threads till I replied and was not convinced with the explanation. All the treads giving benefit of doubt to pilots because he also died along with passengers. Assume a case where the accident was caused by ATC or ground staff, the same people who are giving benefit of doubt would be asking the offender to be punished immediately, just because the offender is alive. (This is the same thought process which make people trash the car guy in an accident between a 2 wheeler and a car). That is the emotional part, for which I too feel sad for pilots death. That doesn't take away the responsibilities of a pilot.
Pilots are not bus/auto drivers. They have greater responsibilities, they have to operate is tough situations, sometimes with contradicting data, unexpected situations, sudden changes etc. Hence their training and grooming is very thorough. Just giving human factors as an excuse is just setting the standards low on the expectations of the pilot.

No excuse, just explaining, providing context on how these things work. I am not interesting in proportioning blame or responsibility. As far as I am concerned that might be necessary at some point in time, but does not serve any purpose in understanding what really happened and how to prevent future mishaps.

Originally Posted by manjunathkl

If I cannot make any accusations, you cannot dismiss it either. We are all discussing based on partial info that is available in public domain. Only investigators will have maximum facts at any point of time. Just because no one here have the full info, does it mean we must stop discussing or stating our obeservations (however wrong any single member considers it)? This is not an official investigation. So, any accusations made or defended is immaterial.

In my mind if you really want to understand what happened, in any complex situation in life, you need to follow a path of constructive reasoning and questioning. Only way to get to the root of the problem. Too often people jump to conclusion and just don’t dig enough.

Accusations have no place in this process. Accusing is about passing judgement and blame, not about understanding. There is a material difference.

You start asking question, and every answer you get should lead to more questions. You offer insights/observations with reasoning.

Originally Posted by manjunathkl

What matters is improving our understanding through discussion and debate.

Look forward to your constructive questions and insights

Jeroen

[Aviatoraval]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Gentlemen,

We don't want to be disrespectful to either the pilots or other members writing on this and other aviation threads.Some posts on this thread, on this page, are crossing that line.

Also some comments here are clearly from 'pilots' with only video game experience. Please do not for a moment believe you even remotely understand the complexity and stress and work overload from the moment they realized they were scrapping the tarmac till the point the machine crashed.
.

So very true. Lets try not to be rude and disrespectful towards a departed soul. They might have made a mistake or may be a technical error but lets follow this in true spirit

Originally Posted by Jeroen

You can listen to many ATC recordings. And professional pilots rarely if ever, lose their composure on the radio. That is drilled into any pilot from day one.

Yes, all very hard. But please read my earlier comments how it is a known phenomena that pilots when working under stress get so focussed, they begin to miss things, including such very loud alarms. I even posted a Youtube video where you can see, in the cockpit of a real plane, the pilot making a landing with the No LG alarm sounding very loud, very persistent and he does not respond and lands the plane........on its belly. Again, please read the whole thread.

Jeroen

Pilots do not lose composure over the air. All these situations are drilled like a muscle memory. You automatically take actions along with decisions which are substantiated after due diligence to CRM/ XRM/ checklists.

Like Mr Joroen says, actions under extreme stress are very different, there are accidents which happened due to fuel starvation or other malfunctions while crew were worried about something trivial.

Trust me when under extreme stress they say "Aviate-navigate-communicate". But many times you loose focus and tend to ignore warnings, chimes, Big red glow from lights.

Anyway lets all be constructive here without getting hyper and disrespectful and always remember

"Whenever we talk about a pilot who has been killed in a flying accident, we should all keep one thing in mind. He called upon the sum of all his knowledge and made a judgment. He believed it so strongly that he knowingly bet his life on it. That his judgment was faulty was a tragedy, not stupidity. Every inspector, supervisor, and contemporary who ever spoke to him had an opportunity to influence his judgment, so a little of all of us goes with every pilot we lose."

[fhdowntheline]

On a side note, I don't appreciate the new-age jets where you cant feel the sound of the landing gear being lowered or raised during landing or take off or even the flaps. I am a bit old school, love the "grind-thud-thump" of gear mechanism on the classic planes like the A300/310s, B737-Classics, B727, B747 (200/400) . Feels reassuring especially while approaching in zero visibility, thick cloud conditions.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by Aviatoraval

So very true. Lets try not to be rude and disrespectful towards a departed soul. They might have made a mistake or may be a technical error but lets follow this in true spirit. Trust me when under extreme stress they say "Aviate-navigate-communicate".

Lovely to have a young pilot on the forum. We all look forward to your contribution to our aviation threads. I'm sure we will have a lot to learn.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

On a side note, I don't appreciate the new-age jets where you cant feel the sound of the landing gear being lowered or raised during landing or take off or even the flaps. I am a bit old school, love the "grind-thud-thump" of gear mechanism on the classic planes like the A300/310s, B737-Classics, B727, B747 (200/400) . Feels reassuring especially while approaching in zero visibility, thick cloud conditions.

Good one! If you ever get the chance try and fly on a regional prop liner with a high wing. Get a window seat under the wing. You will see the wheel retract upon departure and it coming down upon approach. Very cool. Touching down is interesting too as you will be able to see the oleo strut compressing, taking up the planes weight as it settles on the runway. When the wheels touch the tarmac you see them spinning up with lots of smoke!

Its quite a sight!

[AirbusCapt]

Folks, it's not as simple as we assume. In the air any problem is rarely unidimensional. There are always various factors at play with many variables like the technical condition of the airplane, the pilot skills, mental and physical fatigue, atc, weather, company instructions, passengers, your cabin crew, your copilot etc.
Even the most simple problem gets challenging if not planned well. In a simulator we all go in with two certainly. One: the simulator is a box on the ground. Two: I will expect multiple, unusual failures today. So almost everyone performs well in those 4 hours of sims every six months.

In the air, on a clear blue day with calm winds, we need to train our mind to be the most vigilant, because even the smallest of challenges may catch us off guard. Bad habits like hurrying up, cutting corners (short approach, hot and high) may not cause any issue for a time (leading to the pilot assuming he/she is a god), however will bite him in the ass in anything lesser than ideal conditions.

As someone pointed out here, fighter jocks are very susceptible to trying and cutting corners along with poor CRM, it's embedded in them (highly desirable to be on the ball when flying fighters). Also in a small often single engined fighter, with limited fuel endurance, one needs to be quick in getting back to the ground, hence the idea is to be quick and dirty in solving problems, which is the exact opposite in civil aviation.
In India fighter pilots all start off as first officers for atleast 500 hours, before they are evaluated for command. This gives them time to understand, learn and re train their mind towards commercial flying. I am not sure what is the process in Pakistan.

[hdus001]

I shudder to imagine what the pilots would've felt in the minute before the crash.

So many questions,

Based on the news that he was much higher than normal and he intercepted the glide slope from above (almost never done this way), indicating he'd be coming in way fast too, is it likely the Airbus has safety mechanisms in place preventing gear extension if the plane is too fast?

Also, on the go around, why try to do an ILS landing (very wide circuit), why not try do a tighter visual approach? (From a pprune track earlier in this thread, they crashed not too far away from the runway threshold; could they have made it in if they did a visual approach on the go around instead of trying to intercept ILS)

A couple of the radio calls were a bit strange too (like "I'm comfortable"), that didn't sound like any standard phraseology?

Would be great to understand and learn from this incident, however from what I've seen in the past, the final reports released officially will be very muddled, and the real reasons will be likely obscured due to political / financial pressures.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

With reference to the video posted by Balenoed about the flight representation, the Captain at 3:15 (apparently out of curiosity), just moments after take off, asks Lahore ATC about the runway lights.

Shouldn't he be preoccupied with flying or monitoring the departure procedure, flap retraction etc. Even if it is a mere observation, a pilot would hold it off until they have cleared the airport control area. It's not like something that posed immediate danger to the plane.

Let me first explain a little about what is known as keeping a “Sterile Cockpit Environment” and then come back to your question.

Although I don’t think there is any formal legal requirement, all pilots will be taught to keep non essential communications to an absolute minimum during critical phases of the flight. For obvious reasons, you need to focus on the job at hand and don’t get side tracked.

Many airlines and individual pilots such as myself will maintain what is known as a Sterile Cockpit. No non essential talking or tasks, activities during critical phases of the flight. Depends a bit on definition but it will always include the taxing to and from the runway, the actual take off and landing. How long you continue with a sterile cockpit into the climb or start during approach depends a bit. Although commercial airlines usually have very simple strict criteria as their take off profiles and landings are heavily standardised.

In my little planes, I could take up to four passengers. Everybody would have to wear a headset and the microphones are voice activated and in most cases everybody hears everything what the other says. So everybody also hears everything that goes on on the radio.

Prior to engine start I would do the passenger briefing, check their seatbelt, demonstrate oxygen mask etc. But I would also talk about the need for them not to talk at all going forward until I would tell them it was ok again. Once I start the engine i don’t want any distractions. Whilst still idling away I would need to talk to departure/Tower to get my flight plan and get underway. Usually once we were well established into the climb and were handed over from any airport controller and I knew we would not be getting any ATC instructions for while I would lift the Sterile rule.

From what I have seen/witnessed riding jump seat in many cockpits of commercial jets, most will go sterile just prior to push back.

So against that background the captains question does appear to be non relevant for the safe operation of the plane. However, a few thoughts/comments. It is clear he is acute observer and he has seen something that he doesn’t understand. The only folks that can actually tell him why are the ones he is currently tuned into on his radio. He knows he is going to be handed over to a non tower/departure controller any minute. At which point he would have lost the chance to pose this question, because the next controller has no knowledge iwhat goes on at the field.

At this point it was just a regular flight, completely normal take off. The captain notices something out of the ordinary and likes to understand. It does show he was paying attention to the overall environment. So although you could argue it was not essential for the flight, it does enhance/contribute to his insights/knowledge in general. And that is always a good thing.

Would I have done the same? Most likely.

Originally Posted by hdus001

is it likely the Airbus has safety mechanisms in place preventing gear extension if the plane is too fast?

Yes, above speeds of 260 knots when lowering the landing gear handle in the cockpit the actual landing gear will not deploy. With the handle left in that position, it will deploy as soon as the speed drops below 260 knots.

Originally Posted by hdus001

Also, on the go around, why try to do an ILS landing (very wide circuit), why not try do a tighter visual approach? (From a pprune track earlier in this thread, they crashed not too far away from the runway threshold; could they have made it in if they did a visual approach on the go around instead of trying to intercept ILS)

Technically you can intercept the ILS anywhere, even just above the runway threshold. So just flying an ILS does not say anything perse about how wide a circuit you will do. As soon as they lost both engines, they must have tried to take the shortest route to the runway.

Originally Posted by hdus001

A couple of the radio calls were a bit strange too (like "I'm comfortable"), that didn't sound like any standard phraseology?

No it is not, but I don’t think there was any misunderstanding what they meant. Why they thought they were comfortable is a very different matter of course.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

. In a simulator we all go in with two certainly. One: the simulator is a box on the ground. Two: I will expect multiple, unusual failures today. So almost everyone performs well in those 4 hours of sims every six months.

A couple of thoughts/add ons on simulators. How close to reality are they? Well, probably more than most pilots like to give them credit for!

There has been extensive research into this area. Pilot physiological response in the simulator (heart rate, blood pressure, perspiration, etc) are identical to a real life cockpit environment. When you get that massive failure, heart rates go up in real and in the simulator! Some will step out of those simulator rides with sweat stains on their shirts!

The USAF has extensive experience with drone operators. And amazingly they are experiencing the exact same symptoms as normal Air Force pilots. It seems remarkable that there is very little difference in physiological response for a combat pilot being shot and actually having his/her life on the line at and a drone pilot whose drone gets shot at, whilst sitting in a comfortable office environment on terra firma thousands of miles from the action!

What is or course true is that a pilot going for his SIM check ride knows with 100% certainty he is going to be faced with some challenging scenarios. Also, a lot is at stake for a pilot when going for his/her check ride. If you don’t pass, you have a problem!

However and here is where it becomes a bit more tricky. SIM check rides tend to focus on the well known problems. E.g. an engine fire, loss of an engine just after V1, loss of cabin pressure etc. I have seen quite a few discussions about whether it is useful to have more multiple failures, completely random thrown at pilots during SIM check rides. The jury is probably still out on that one. At the end of the day, you can only afford so many hours of SIM rides for your pilots. You can’t train for every eventuality, so you try to pick scenario’s that A: have a relative higher chance of occurrence than others. B: Are a sound basis for helping to understand dealing with completely different scenarios. Everything in life is a trade off.

I know next to SIM check lots of carriers do what they usually call "line checks". Which means an experienced pilot will come along and follow and observe his colleagues, from the moment they meet at the airport for their briefing, into the cockpit, during the full flight and debriefing. Afterwards, he/she will give them feedback on his observations, what went well, what could have done better. I believe at some carriers the observations and feedback are 100% confidential. So they will not be shared with anybody other than the pilots involved. This creates a very open, transparent and trust worthy environment.

Pilots are humans and no matter what sometimes we pick up a bad habit.

Also, good pilots will always be interested to find ways to better themselves. Even a 20.000 hour captain will/should never admit to a perfect flight. You should always be able to call out things that could have done better.

I had the pleasure of riding along the jump seat some years ago during one of these line checks. A good friend of mine was line check captain for a while. This took place on a 50 minute flight from Amsterdam to London. The captain on this flight was a veteran on type and also the co-pilot was pretty experienced with several types under her belt.

The de-briefing and feedback session afterwards lasted almost an hour and a half. Nothing big, but just a long list of things to think about, re think, why etc. Very interesting.

Jeroen

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

. The co-pilot of this Air Blue flight was an ex- Air Force fighter pilot. Each viewer may draw their one conclusions.

i seem to recall there was a time where for instance KLM would not recruit ex air force pilots. (70-80s?) Whereas they tend to have superior stick and rudder skills, they tended to have to much of a cavalier attitude. Certainly in those days!

Commercial pilots need to have an attitude to fly and operate the plane they never need superior stick and rudder skills. You will try your utmost to avoid situation likes that. Whereas it is integral part of being an AirForce pilot one would think.

In those days, KLM pilots were not supposed to fly privately. Although I don’t think they could legally prevent you from doing so, it was very much frowned upon.

Things have changed a lot. Of course, in the USA lots of army/airforce pilots have made the transition to commercial aviation and very successful too.

Although I am really not that familiar with Air Force type of aviation and piloting, my impression is that the sort of very cavalier type of attitude of military pilots is also a thing of the past. It is much more regimented and structured. Although what probably remains is the superior stick and rudder skills.

I do lover reading about this period though. Books such as the Victor boys or the Lightning boys give a very good insight on how it was being a military pilot in those days.

Also, these days we have seen many examples that for instance doing a bit of gliding in your spare time, can be immensely beneficial for commercial pilots to keep up their manual flying skills and honing your TLAR skills (That looks about right, versus relying on instrumentation)

Jeroen