American in the news

[SLUF4]

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Pi...ency_Landing_Dallas-Fort_Worth-131311394.html

 

[Bringupthebird]

Starving the media of red meat?! Someone should be ashamed!!

 

[pilotgolfer]

There has got to be more to the story???

 

[LAZYB]

Missing crew meals.

 

[labbats]

double post....

 

[labbats]

American Airlines is training all of its pilots in an effort to avoid a repeat of a pilot's mistake that prompted an emergency landing at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in April.

Timely news. :laugh:

 

[BentOver]

Is American training their pilots how to safely land within the first attempt or maybe the second?? All while handling a pressurization problem under 10,000 ft...

If they had an inflight fire on final would they ask for some 360's also, ya know, to figure out the problem?

 

[nimtz]

Nice gut and skewed tie Denny Kelly aviation safety expert. What a stellar image of professional appearance! I bet CR Smith would of hired you on the spot to fly a Condor.

 

[mesaba13]

Was it a 737 -300? A similiar issue caused the crash of an aircraft overseas (Air Helios 522). MX had repositioned a "dusty" Switch (one that is rarely moved) in the wrong position and the crew didn't put the witch back to AUTO and got a series of warnings in the climb. It sounds like this aural warning is one that is similiar or the same as a configuration warning. This crew was on the radio with their mx controllers and couldn't figure it out. They were also getting other warnings on some cooling systems because of incorrect airlfow rates.

It may be possible that the AA crew had a bunch of messages and I would think one should not land if you think you are getting configuration warnings.

 

[pilotgolfer]

Was it a 737 -300? A similiar issue caused the crash of an aircraft overseas (Air Helios 522). MX had repositioned a "dusty" Switch (one that is rarely moved) in the wrong position and the crew didn't put the witch back to AUTO and got a series of warnings in the climb. It sounds like this aural warning is one that is similiar or the same as a configuration warning. This crew was on the radio with their mx controllers and couldn't figure it out. They were also getting other warnings on some cooling systems because of incorrect airlfow rates.

It may be possible that the AA crew had a bunch of messages and I would think one should not land if you think you are getting configuration warnings.

AA only has the NGs...no 300s that I know of. Are you talking about the crash over in Larnaca? The crash in LCA was a pressurization problem. The warning horn for High Cabin Altitude is the same as the takeoff warning horn. I think they were trouble shooting why the T/O warning harn was going off as they climbed unpressurized and eventually blacked out.

That became a required briefing item at the place I fly now.

 

[flythere]

ongoing problem with identifying gear or pressurization! Boeing used the same horn for the landing gear warning horn and for the pressurization system. Intermittant vs steady, on the ground vs in the air!

The helios crash was a classic if I remember right, the pressurization switch was placed in the manual mode by mx and never returned to auto. Crew departed and never noticed the switch was not in correct position. Horn goes off as airplane climbs, crew never noticed the cabin failing to pressurize, eventually they all pass out.

Boeing started installing lights on the dashboard; configuration or pressurization, that was over 2 years ago, lights are still not active!

My oufit has modified checklists to catch this, not to mention a pre-departure brief on the first crew flight of the day!!

That horn can be very distracting in the busy terminal environment.

 

[airplane wizard]

Why did they(AA) have to back to land? Couldn't the switch be moved to "auto" in flight and the cabin would then pressurize ?

 

[Bringupthebird]

Maybe they were climbing and the high cabin altitude horn came on followed shortly by the rubber jungle. Gotta go back and face the music, but keep flying the airplane for crying out loud. Sure you need to be sensitive to ears. but most folks started out learning how to make approaches in unpressurized airplanes.

 

[flythere]

It appears they didn't know why the horn was going off! Well, they knew it was a pressurization problem, but from the sounds of the tower tape they didn't understand what was happening. Also the comment from the company about training or something leads one to believe they didn't fully understand. Since it was handled internally, we'll probably never know!!

The other poster had a good point, if the rubber jungle deployed, they no choice but to turn around!!

 

[IBNAV8R]

Really?? An emergency?? Was an emergency declared or was it just a return to field? High on approach? OK, you F'ed up the approach, do a 360 - not an emergency. Need another 360? You REALLY stepped on it but still not an emergency.

Now it sounds like all-knowing media might be gunning for the ASAP program - all for a single switch out of position (yeah, they shoulda caught it) and a slow news day.

 

[airplane wizard]

What is the rubber jungle?

 

[J.Otto]

What is the rubber jungle?

All the O2 masks drop in the cabin.

 

[igneousy2]

I WANT MY 5 MINUTES BACK!

Except for missing the switch position...sounds like they did a pretty good job to me.

 

[Jetjockey]

What is the rubber jungle?

And you call yourself an airplane wizard?

j/k

 

[vv100]

I WANT MY 5 MINUTES BACK!

Except for missing the switch position...sounds like they did a pretty good job to me.

Except for missing the airport TWICE.

Weak Dicks

 

[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.