Back in the news, "Man, we can do it, 41-it," said Cesarz

[KigAir]

Why do they censor the expletives in the transcript?

 

[User546]

A straight wing CJ is a very different critter than a swept wing airplane. Basically it is a jet powered Kingair.

No offense intended, I have spent my share of time in the left seat of a straight wing slowtation speedbump also.

You're defintely right, sorry I didn't think that thru a little bit more before I posted that. Sometimes I forget we're not really a jet.

I agree about needing more high altitude aerodynamics being a lacking subject nowadays. I have never been exposed to it in a training enviroment. Everything I have learned about it has come from my own initiative - reading books, articles, official studies, and learning from other pilots.

And thanks for pointing out that picture Rogue, at second glance you're right. Still sad to see it in that shape.

 

[NoPax]

I have never been exposed to it in a training enviroment. Everything I have learned about it has come from my own initiative - reading books, articles, official studies, and learning from other pilots.

No offense intended, but that's disturbing, and not the first time I've heard this kind of remark...I'm a piston airplane driver that doesn't make it above 10k (135 rules) and I am saddened to believe this is the case.

In Europe, the ATPL written exams cover the topic of high speed, high altitude aerodynamics and others in great detail, and I can see an argument for examinations like those over here or at least a hybrid...if there are many others out there with similar experiences.

I'm studying for FAA ATP exams now and feel it is almost too easy to get the rating...anyone else agree???

 

[TonyC]

I haven't read the CVR, nor am I an RJ pilot, but the press gets more facts wrong, and skews more aviation-related stories than even gun stories. Sheesh.

You should read the CVR transcript before you comment further. I have. IT would appear that, in this case anyway, the press is closer to the truth than you.

CVR Factual

I see that the press is spouting the usual innuendo and BS implications, rather than sticking to the facts. The article implies that your average RJ pilot is an "inexperienced" moron:

The fact is, the guys WERE relatively inexperienced, and they acted like morons. Relative depends, of course, on the standard to which you compare it. Compared to other Pinnacle pilots, perhaps they were not so inexperienced. Compared to mainline 121 operators, I maintain they were relatively inexperienced. A little more experience in operating jet aircraft at high altitudes might have saved their bacon.

"Oct. 14, 2004 accident, revealed how the pilots cracked jokes and decided to "have a little fun" and fly to 41,000 feet — the maximum altitude for their plane. Most commuter jets fly at lower altitudes." <--Implies that 41k is dangerous - it is certificated to that altitude, yes???!!!

It IS dangerous to fly at altitudes outside of the operating capabilities of the airplane. Being certified at a particular altitude does not mean that the airplane is capable of reaching that altitude under all environmental, weight, and CG conditions. A professional pilot would have at least consulted the published performance data before recklessly climbing to an altitude where he had never been before.

"Accident investigators are examining how well the pilots were trained — a key safety question as the number of regional jets keeps growing." <-- False logic....just because the number keeps growing, that automatically means there are training issues? No.

When the rate of growth and the limits of resources makes the quantity of pilots more important than the quality, yes, there are training issues.

"Jet engines work differently at higher altitudes, and it's unclear whether the relatively inexperienced Pinnacle pilots were aware that they had to be more careful in the thin air at 41,000 feet, the maximum altitude for their plane." <-- Oh, gimme a break....no comment.

Why not? Why no comment? Can you not speak intelligently on the subject? Is this beyond your level of expertise, too? Do you not think they should have exercised more caution at FL410? That's alarming.

"At the hearing, NTSB investigators plan to delve into the plane's flight limits and the proper recovery techniques when engines fail. They also want to know if the pilots knew those procedures and to learn the engine's performance characteristics at high altitudes." <-- The press should have taken a cue from this statement rather than fill their article with their typical pilots-are-idiots tripe.

Where did you get "pilots are idiots" from these two sentences? Two engines flamed out, and the pilots were unable to restart them. What's so bizarre about exploring the flight limits, the recovery techniques, and the pilots' knowledge of these? I would think it's their responsiblity to do that very thing.

I am NO fan of biased media, but it appears to me that you've let your own irrationality cloud your vision on this one.

"This is more a story of pilots having time on their hands and playing with things in the cockpit that they shouldn't," he said. Flying, he said, is as boring as truck driving most of the time. This was boredom and experimentation, these guys experimenting with things they had no business doing," Stempler said. <-- Again, you got to be kidding me.

I'm not kidding. Flying is MORE boring than truck driving at times. There may be a cruise control, but there's no autopilot. How many times have you heard of truck crashes that occurred when team drivers decided to do a seat swap while driving down the interstate? When the Captain was standing in the galley drinking Pepsi and the FO was moving from the right seat to the left seat, who was flying?

When their 50-passenger glider was descending through 10,000 feet and they were swapping back, who was flying the airplane?

A professional doesn't fill moments of boredom with stupid antics. They realized they were stupid antics when both engines flamed out. They tried to cover up their stupid antics by lying about how many engines they had for ten minutes. They were more concerned about being in the correct seat when they arrived on the ground than they were about starting an engine.


Think about this again - - I get chills every time I try to run this through my mind. You're the Captain, but you're sitting in the right seat. It's nighttime, and the instruments in front of you are worthless. NO ENGINES ARE OPERATING, and you're descending through 10,000 feet. There are few lights on the fields of Missouri below. There is no airfield in sight. Your FO is standing behind you, having just taken off his oxygen mask and climbed out of your rightful seat, and he's waiting for you to climb out of his seat. Now, take off your oxygen mask, unstrap, and step away from the controls. The autopilot keeping the wings level and lowering the nose to maintain an airspeed now as you're standing behind the seats is probably the most intelligent piece of equipment, human or machine, on the entire airplane right now. Picture that in your mind's eye. Look up at the pilots' seats, empty. Intelligent people are supposed to be there, but the seats are empty. Look at the panel, half dark, the windscreen, full of darkness. Notice the deck angle - - the angle between your body and the floor of the airplane. Your toes are extended to keep you upright. You're leaning back as you step forward to once again occupy the seat you abdicated a half hour ago.


Now tell me how unfair the media has been.



Frankly, I think the media in this case has been fairly generous to the pilots.





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[EDIT: It's easier to spell "intelligent" once the passion has subsided somewhat. ]

 

[TonyC]

I'm studying for FAA ATP exams now and feel it is almost too easy to get the rating...anyone else agree???

I don't think the ATP alone adequately prepares a pilot for 121 Operations. If that's what you mean, I agree.

 

[PCL_128]

Think about this again - - I get chills every time I try to run this through my mind. You're the Captain, but you're sitting in the right seat. It's nighttime, and the instruments in front of you are worthless. NO ENGINES ARE OPERATING, and you're descending through 10,000 feet. There are few lights on the fields of Missouri below. There is no airfield in sight. Your FO is standing behind you, having just taken off his oxygen mask and climbed out of your rightful seat, and he's waiting for you to climb out of his seat. Now, take off your oxygen mask, unstrap, and step away from the controls. The autopilot keeping the wings level and lowering the nose to maintain an airspeed now as you're standing behind the seats is probably the most intelligent piece of equipment, human or machine, on the entire airplane right now. Picture that in your mind's eye. Look up at the pilots' seats, empty. Intelleigent people are supposed to be there, but they're empty. Look at the panel, half dark, the windscreen, full of darkness. Notice the deck angle - - the angle between your body and the floor of the airplane. Your toes are extended to keep you upright. You're leaning back as you step forward to once again occupy the seat you abdicated a half hour ago.


Now tell me how unfair the media has been.



Frankly, I think the media in this case has been fairly generous to the pilots.





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Excellent summary.

 

[Metro752]

I remember posting way back when this happened.

What made the engines go out? Technically speaking

 

[PCL_128]

I remember posting way back when this happened.

What made the engines go out? Technically speaking

The angle of attack blocked the airflow to the engines and caused them to flameout as the plane stalled.

 

[Immelman]

Here is my question after reading the transcript:

First... no comment about the pilots. Nothing needs to be said. The CVR is disturbing enough by itself.

Any guesses as to why the engines would not restart? They were down in more dense air and appeared to be trying to follow some sort of restart checklist. I am just genuinely curious in how it is that the engines wouldn't re-ignite.. they had an APU, they had fuel, presumably they had proper airspeed.

 

[BluDevAv8r]

Exactly what those two RJ drivers did not do. I beleive at one point they had a mach speed of .6 and an indicated speed of 180 kts of FL410. Geez, if I looked down at my airspeed indicator and saw those numbers, Id be lowering the nose and high tailing it to a lower altitude without hesitation. Those guys just sat there completely clueless to the fact that they had exceeded their flight envelope.

I don't fly the CRJ but in the EMB-145XR at XJT, our climb profile is 290kts to .60M up to cruise. I've seen IAS in the neighborhood of the low 200's and even 190's at times. But again, different airplane with different operating limitations. Our ceiling is FL370. We are always good for our cruise altitudes as a result of our relatively lower ceiling, etc. I guess Embraer built this thing for the lowest common denominator like me.

Its amazing that there was no mention of the outside air temp on the CVR or a reference to the weight of the aircraft, the performance charts, something, hell anything. I ALWAYS keep an eye on the OAT, and airspeed when I climb to those altitudes.

This might be my ignorance but isn't OAT less important than the ISA deviation?

-Neal

 

[172driver]

I don't fly the CRJ but in the EMB-145XR at XJT, our climb profile is 290kts to .60M up to cruise. I've seen IAS in the neighborhood of the low 200's and even 190's at times. But again, different airplane with different operating limitations.

Yep, they're a lot different. We fly 290kts to .74M. Company policy and climb charts say a minimum of 250/.70 must be maintained to ensure you remain above Vmd/front of the power curve.

This might be my ignorance but isn't OAT less important than the ISA deviation?

Semantics. They're the same thing in different formats. ISA is just OATx2+15

 

[TonyC]

Any guesses as to why the engines would not restart? They were down in more dense air and appeared to be trying to follow some sort of restart checklist. I am just genuinely curious in how it is that the engines wouldn't re-ignite.. they had an APU, they had fuel, presumably they had proper airspeed.

The investigation seems to be focused on a phenomenon called Engine "Core Lock-up." Here's a presentation provided by Bombardier and studied by the board: Engine 'Core Lock-up' Phenomenon

It took a significant amount of time for the pilots to recognize the dual engine failure, and longer to apply the procedures. ( Dual Engine Failure Procedures ) Delay in moving both thrust levers to SHUTOFF and in establishing an airpseed of 0.7 MACH likely contributed to unequal cooling in the turbine sections, and the subsequent "lock-up." They never saw an N1 indication during their restart attempts.

Before the engines failed, they realized they weren't going to be able to maintain FL410:

2154:05​

​

[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]# thing’s losing it.​

2154:06[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 [/font][sound of laughing]

2154:07[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font].we’re losing here. we’re gonna be # coming down in a second here dude.

2154:09[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 [/font][sound of laughing]

2154:10[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]this thing ain’t gonna # hold altitude. is it?

2154:16[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 [/font]it can’t man. we # (cruised/greased) up here but it won’t stay.

2154:19[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 yeah that’s funny we got up here it won’t stay up here.

2154:22[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 [/font]dude it’s # losing it. [sound of laughing]

2154:23[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]yeah.

2154:38[font=Arial,Bold] CAM [sound similar to stick shaker]

[/font]
Yet, they actions they took once the engines failed didn't seem to indicate an appreciation for the urgency of the matter:

2155:23[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-? [/font]we don’t have any engines.

...

2155:29[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 A-D-G. [That's the third step of the procedure - - skipped CONT IGNITION - ON and Thrust Levers (Both) - SHUTOFF]




2156:07[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 we’re still descending aren’t we? are we holding altitude?


2156:10[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 ahh yeah we got it.

2156:11[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 okay.

2156:12[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 [/font]we’ve got a little bit of engine (windmill) in one of them.

2156:14[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font](really)? okay we gotta go to emergency *.

2156:17[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 [/font]we’re not holding alt- altitude.

2156:18[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]we’re not?

2156:19[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 [/font]no we’re not.
[/font][/font][/font][/font]

Did they think they could hold altitude with no engines? If they couldn't hold altitude on 2 engines, what made them think they could maintain the 0.7 MACH required for relight AND maintain altitude?


The Captain's ambiguous statment (or is it a question ?) at 2156:07 ("we’re still descending aren’t we? are we holding altitude?) will no doubt find its way into a CRM class someday. Was he telling the FO to descend, or was he really asking? What he SHOULD HAVE said was, "Push the nose over, we need to accelerate to 0.7 MACH." Clear, concise, action statement. Now everbody knows what the expectation is. Unfortunately, the airspeed issue wasn't mentioned until a minute later. Of course, it's not clear that he really had his "Captain's Cap" on as he sat there in the FO's seat, looking to the left at the guy who was supposed to be the FO. Here's what happened when he decided to get back in his seat:

2208:17​

​

[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]um. switch.



2208:20[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 [/font]yeah *.

2208:24[font=Arial,Bold] CAM [/font][sound of clunks]

2208:24​

​

[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]put it over there.

2208:26[font=Arial,Bold] CAM [/font][sound of clunks]

2208:30[font=Arial,Bold] CAM [/font][sound of chime, similar to master caution alert]

2208:33[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 [/font](start switch).

2208:35[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]hold this.

2208:38[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]it’s still on.

2208:43[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 [/font]you got it?

2208:43[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]I got it.

(Now the Captain is back in the left seat)

2208:46[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-? [/font]**.

​

2208:49[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]go to that check pull that check list up.

2208:52​

​

[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-2 [/font]okay.

2208:53[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]tell her.

2208:55[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]that’s it.

​

2209:00[font=Arial,Bold] CTR-C [/font]Flagship thirty seven zero one what altitude do you want to go down to?

​

​

2209:02[font=Arial,Bold] CAM-1 [/font]tell her we need to get direct to airport neither engine’s started right now.
​

2209:07​

​

[font=Arial,Bold] CAM [/font][sound of chime, similar to master caution alert]

2209:06[font=Arial,Bold] RDO-2 [/font]thirty seven zero one we need direct to any airport. we have a double engine failure.

2209:12[font=Arial,Bold] CTR-C [/font]all right you want to go direct to JEF?

​

As soon as he got back in the left seat, he made a good decision - - tell ATC you don't have any engines. (Shoulda done that 15 minutes earlier, dude.)
​

.​

[/font]



​

 

[Nova]

Semantics. They're the same thing in different formats. ISA is just OATx2+15

Wrong. ISA deviation is telling you how far from the standard atmosphere you are, hence an indicator of your performance penalty. Why do you think all the performance charts include ISA deviation variables? At FL300 you don't really care what the OAT is, but you do need to know the ISA deviation for performance calculations.

 

[irapilot]

TonyC - excellent summary and post.

 

[TonyC]

This might be my ignorance but isn't OAT less important than the ISA deviation?

Semantics. They're the same thing in different formats.

Wrong. ISA deviation is telling you how far from the standard atmosphere you are, hence an indicator of your performance penalty. Why do you think all the performance charts include ISA deviation variables? At FL300 you don't really care what the OAT is, but you do need to know the ISA deviation for performance calculations.

Well, well. It looks like we have a little debate here. I ask you, does the engine care whether it's ISA or OAT, Celsius, Farenheit, or Kelvin?

What is ISA, anyway? Why, ISA is the International Standard Atmosphere. It's a table of values, a "model" of the atmosphere used as a common reference. It was designed to allow for standardized comparison of conditions on a given day. On an ISA day (if there ever is one), the density ratio and pressure ratio at sea level are 1.0000, the temperature is 15° C or 59° F (that would be 288.15° kelvin), the temperature ratio would be 1.000, the speed of sound would be 661.7 knots, and the kinematic viscosity would be .000158 ft*ft/sec. (Did I mention the air density would be .002378 slugs/cubic foot?)

So, if I were to say, the temp at sea level today is 15°, or if I were to say it's ISA + 0, what would the difference be? Why, there would be no difference at all.


If I tell you the temperature at 40,000 feet ASL is -69.7°F, or ISA, I'd be saying the very same thing.

Now, if I want to construct a chart that uses temperature as a variable, I might choose to use C, or F, or K, or ISA deviation. It just really doesn't matter. In some cases, it might make the chart easier to use if I use ISA deviation. In fact, using ISA may allow me to assume a third variable in a 2 dimensional chart. However, building the same chart using Farenheit would have no effect on the engine. The engine just doesn't really care. -51.5°C or ISA+5°C, makes no difference. All the engine cares about is how many little air molecules it gets to see.



(Well, OK, so the last statement is a bit of an oversimplification, but you catch the drift. )




What matters to the operator is how the chart is constructed. If it's built using Farenheit, then OAT °F is most useful. If it's built using ISA, then ISA is most useful. Receiving information about the temperature in some format other than that with which the particular chart is constructed only requires converting it to that other format. No big deal.


.