American in the news

[airplane wizard]

And you call yourself an airplane wizard?

j/k

ha ha funny =)

 

[airplane wizard]

Except for missing the airport TWICE.

Weak Dicks

missed it twice and they're not even regional airline pilots

 

[AA767AV8TOR]

The guy was a good pilot. He just had an off day. Bleeds were inadvertently left off in the off position and not discovered during preflight. They only discovered the problem passing through 10,000 when the light and horn started going off.


While running checklists, they let approach slam dunk them back into DFW and then on the second try they let approach do it to them again. During the second approach they finally discovered their mistake.


Unless you’re on fire or got someone dying in the back, there really shouldn’t be a reason to come back and land right away. And don’t let approach fly your airplane.


Lesson learned the hard way.


There by the Grace of God go I.


AA767AV8TOR

 

[aa73]

Very well said AA767... Can happen to any one of us. To those who criticize these pilots... take a look in the mirror: could you be the one being criticized some day too?

 

[njcapt]

The guy was a good pilot. He just had an off day. Bleeds were inadvertently left off in the off position and not discovered during preflight. They only discovered the problem passing through 10,000 when the light and horn started going off.


While running checklists, they let approach slam dunk them back into DFW and then on the second try they let approach do it to them again. During the second approach they finally discovered their mistake.


Unless you’re on fire or got someone dying in the back, there really shouldn’t be a reason to come back and land right away. And don’t let approach fly your airplane.


Lesson learned the hard way.


There by the Grace of God go I.


AA767AV8TOR

Thanks, this is the first time I had heard of them getting above 10k ft (any information whether they dropped the masks or not?). It makes the events leading up to the two go arounds a little more understandable. Why, when way behind the aircraft in an abnormal situation, they would accept two sh!tty vectors to the airport is beyond me - but they were under stress and who knows what the working relationship was like between the two pilots.

 

[thunderworm]

How many times is "bleeds" mentioned on the checklist at AA? on ours it is mentioned 3 times before takeoff. Preflight, before taxi, and before takeoff. We have the standard boeing checklists. Just wondering what thier's say. I can see this happening after a bleeds off takeoff or unpressurized takeoff (bleeds off with no APU). At my airline we have to brief the altitude/configuration warning horn before first flight of the day. First thing to do regarless of state of flight is to put on O2 masks. Just wondering if that is everyone's policy or only a few?
As far as gong around twice, who cares. The important thing is that it all ended okay and no one got hurt. To much emphasis is being put on going around tied to pilot skill. When we were all learning how to fly we were told if in doubt go around. where did we loose that valuable lesson?

 

[SLUF4]

The problem with checklists is lots of pilots still don't use them in the right way. They just readback the response without looking at what they are supposed to be checking. I've even seen people "reading" it from memory without even referencing the checklist. The checklists are there to prevent this kind of stuff, but too often we don't use them to our advantage. Not saying that's what happened here, but just getting on my soapbox.

 

[Golden Falcon]

Gee wonder why they didnt notice some lack of airflow anywhere??....

 

[Hugh Johnson]

FAR 25.841 (b)(6) Warning indication at the pilot or flight engineer station to indicate when the safe or preset pressure differential and cabin pressure altitude limits are exceeded. Appropriate warning markings on the cabin pressure differential indicator meet the warning requirement for pressure differential limits and an aural or visual signal (in addition to cabin altitude indicating means) meets the warning requirement for cabin pressure altitude limits if it warns the flight crew when the cabin pressure altitude exceeds 10,000 feet.

One of the problems of the certification process is each FSDO has their own interpretation of the FAR's. The airplane I fly has a nice lady saying "CABIN, CABIN..." if you you exceed 10,000 ft CA. This airplane appears to have a horn that can be confused with other system malfunctions. Dumb.

 

[HalinTexas]

Why were both bleeds ever turned off? Turning them both off is not on any checklist I remember. Packs? Maybe, but I still think they would have figured that out. Inner ears adjusting for several minutes.

AMR uses "to do" lists. Their checklists are very long. Of the times I've ridden on the JS, I don't remember seeing too many flows, but the checklists are very long.

If the pressurization switch was in MAN, there would be an amber "MANUAL" light on the overhead. Going back to one of the AUTOs would quickly, and possibly painfully, remedy that situation.

Is it possible that the CONFIG horn confused them? Landing vs. cabin altitude warning?

As far as the rush to land, I don't understand that at all. I'll give them credit for going around once, just to slow down until they were ready.

I'll repeat. There must be more to the story here.

 

[HalinTexas]

FAR 25.841 (b)(6) Warning indication at the pilot or flight engineer station to indicate when the safe or preset pressure differential and cabin pressure altitude limits are exceeded. Appropriate warning markings on the cabin pressure differential indicator meet the warning requirement for pressure differential limits and an aural or visual signal (in addition to cabin altitude indicating means) meets the warning requirement for cabin pressure altitude limits if it warns the flight crew when the cabin pressure altitude exceeds 10,000 feet.

One of the problems of the certification process is each FSDO has their own interpretation of the FAR's. The airplane I fly has a nice lady saying "CABIN, CABIN..." if you you exceed 10,000 ft CA. This airplane appears to have a horn that can be confused with other system malfunctions. Dumb.

Older Boeing designs use an intermittent horn. Same sound for T/O config.

 

[flythere]

Seems like we are back at the dilemma that Boeing is in with the 737. The orginal design is almost 50 years old, and the basic airplane has not changed a whole lot!! For dinosaur airlines like SWA, they don't want Boeing to make major changes to the current airplane and they surely don't want a new typed airplane!

So for the rest of the airline industry and Boeing who long for an updated
short to medium range modern airliner we'll have to continue to wait!

I'm convinced if Boeing could produce a short to medium range version of the 787, composite, fuel efficient and capable of hauling 150-200 folks, that would be a game changer!!

 

[HalinTexas]

Seems like we are back at the dilemma that Boeing is in with the 737. The orginal design is almost 50 years old, and the basic airplane has not changed a whole lot!! For dinosaur airlines like SWA, they don't want Boeing to make major changes to the current airplane and they surely don't want a new typed airplane!

So for the rest of the airline industry and Boeing who long for an updated
short to medium range modern airliner we'll have to continue to wait!

I'm convinced if Boeing could produce a short to medium range version of the 787, composite, fuel efficient and capable of hauling 150-200 folks, that would be a game changer!!

It would be easy to add a "CABIN" light on the overhead, like the B757, tied to the MASTER CAUTION system leave the horn alone. Might be a good idea to put a "T/O CONFIG" light or caption somewhere, too.

 

[igneousy2]

Except for missing the airport TWICE.

Weak Dicks

The laymen in the media can be somewhat excused for these ignorant mis-characterization...a pilot making these ridicules comments....well...I guess your last comment describes you best.

They asked for 2 360's to bleed off some energy. They were cleared for the first one and the controller couldn't work out the 2nd one so he gave them an alternative clearence. The airplane landed standing up with nobody hurt...sounds like a good job to me.

As far as this crew being confused, they stated very early on that they had a pressurization problem. No confusion.

As far as not feeling the airflow, you still have lots of airflow and airflow noise just from the recircs being on.