"most people get that" Are you freaking kidding me? The media tells the sheep what to think...has nothing to do with the truth or the NTSB.
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Midwest Captain Writes About BUF Colgan Crash
- Thread starter DH106
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"most people get that" Are you freaking kidding me? The media tells the sheep what to think...has nothing to do with the truth or the NTSB.
MCDU
Well-known member
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- Mar 9, 2003
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From pprune. This sounds very realistic. Time will tell.
M
Autopilot level-off from a descent in an aircraft without autothrottles is a bit of a trap. Although I don’t know of any similar accidents, there’s beginning to emerge a story of a catalogue of similar frightening incidents on the Q400 where pilots have become preoccupied with resetting (or setting up ) the FMS and not noticing, whilst heads down, the body angle changing rapidly to nose-up (once below about 180kts the Q400 reputedly does this slowdown rather fast, iced up or not). The normal speeds for intermediate level-offs are 200 to 210 knots. It’s believed that Colgan 3407 slowed to as little as 134kts. Some of the anecdotes have both pilots heads down trying to resolve an FMS button-punching glitch and/or looking back at the special “wing inspection” lights illuminating the Q400 wingtips - to see if the ice is actually being dislodged.
Does the Q400 simply level off and start bleeding airspeed without any indications at all? Is setting this trap something that should be happening during high pilot workload on approach?
Should the autopilot instead be set to a descent rate and the altitude alerter set to clue the flight crew to do the level off manually - instead of the autopilot just capturing the altitude and slowing whilst awaiting the pilots setting of an appropriate thrust? At least then there would be an expected alerting chime or suchlike.
So did the "low time on type" Colgan Flt 3407 pilot respond to a sudden stick-shaker [and rapidly following stick-pusher] by raising the nose, cleaning up the gear and flap and attempting a go-round from a dangerously low speed (instead of taking the correct stall recovery action of adding power and lowering the nose?). At first glance, that possibility exists. Surprise can be quite a mind-numbing wake-up call. It’s called Instant Overload. It results from fatigue or loss of Situational Awareness (SA)
But why and how would he achieve 31 degrees nose up before the aircraft stalled and started spinning? Did he mean to? The logical response is “no, of course he didn’t”.
The simple answer is that that extreme nose-up pitch-up tendency would be the autopilot’s legacy to him after it kicked itself out due to reaching full nose-up auto-trim in pitch (in its attempt to maintain the set capture altitude against the added drag of ice, gear and flap - likely with something near idle power inadvertently LEFT set).
Once the autopilot kicked out and the panicky pilot added max power, the full noseup trim would be conducive to the aircraft looping the loop of its own accord. The pilot would be flummoxed by this setup and, after a confused pause, fighting hard against powerful nose-up trim forces to lower the nose. Adding max power at low IAS itself produces a powerful nose-up trim change. Add that to the already full nose-up trim state and they didn’t have a chance…… of avoiding a deadly stall/spin outcome.
I couldn’t imagine a nastier surprise. Fancy building in such a death-trap as an autopilot without autothrottle and an FMS that needs lots of head-down two-pilot trouble-shooting and reprogramming? His available solutions were:
a. Not to add full power, but just enough to keep it flying and, as per my flight school's SOP technique (see below)
b. Roll sufficiently (about 50 degrees bank) so that the fully back-trimmed airplane only pitched mostly into the turn - giving him a chance to wind the trim nose forward whilst minimizing the speed loss..
I had a similar situation (but not unexpected) tonight after a night take-off. The EFATO drill for a practice (or real) engine failure after take-off is for the front-seat student to raise the nose, simulate putting the throttle to “stop”, call Mayday on intercom and then he releases the stick after having run the pitch trim to full nose up (for his optimal survival seat-vector), places both hands on his left knee and calls “abandoning now” (simulating an ejection). The rear-seat instructor then takes over, banks into the circuit direction (turns “crosswind” essentially), to help the nose drop from around 25 to 30 degrees nose-up - all whilst running the elevator trim nose-down towards neutral and adding near to max power. It’s a silly drill (it’s like practising dying) but meant to be very realistic for the trainee - and it’s a requirement for him to do it prior to his NF3 night solo sortie. You wouldn’t want it to happen suddenly without warning however. It’d be a quite difficult recovery (particularly at night or in IMC).
Prima facie, and in light of all the similar anecdotes now emerging about turboprops with this cheap option (i.e.no autothrottles and a heads down FMS keypad), this would have been the scenario surrounding Flt 3407’s fate. For that Colgan pilot it would have all happened very fast. It’s a nasty setup just begging for a tech remedy.
Automation can be a half-baked bitch.
M
Autopilot level-off from a descent in an aircraft without autothrottles is a bit of a trap. Although I don’t know of any similar accidents, there’s beginning to emerge a story of a catalogue of similar frightening incidents on the Q400 where pilots have become preoccupied with resetting (or setting up ) the FMS and not noticing, whilst heads down, the body angle changing rapidly to nose-up (once below about 180kts the Q400 reputedly does this slowdown rather fast, iced up or not). The normal speeds for intermediate level-offs are 200 to 210 knots. It’s believed that Colgan 3407 slowed to as little as 134kts. Some of the anecdotes have both pilots heads down trying to resolve an FMS button-punching glitch and/or looking back at the special “wing inspection” lights illuminating the Q400 wingtips - to see if the ice is actually being dislodged.
Does the Q400 simply level off and start bleeding airspeed without any indications at all? Is setting this trap something that should be happening during high pilot workload on approach?
Should the autopilot instead be set to a descent rate and the altitude alerter set to clue the flight crew to do the level off manually - instead of the autopilot just capturing the altitude and slowing whilst awaiting the pilots setting of an appropriate thrust? At least then there would be an expected alerting chime or suchlike.
So did the "low time on type" Colgan Flt 3407 pilot respond to a sudden stick-shaker [and rapidly following stick-pusher] by raising the nose, cleaning up the gear and flap and attempting a go-round from a dangerously low speed (instead of taking the correct stall recovery action of adding power and lowering the nose?). At first glance, that possibility exists. Surprise can be quite a mind-numbing wake-up call. It’s called Instant Overload. It results from fatigue or loss of Situational Awareness (SA)
But why and how would he achieve 31 degrees nose up before the aircraft stalled and started spinning? Did he mean to? The logical response is “no, of course he didn’t”.
The simple answer is that that extreme nose-up pitch-up tendency would be the autopilot’s legacy to him after it kicked itself out due to reaching full nose-up auto-trim in pitch (in its attempt to maintain the set capture altitude against the added drag of ice, gear and flap - likely with something near idle power inadvertently LEFT set).
Once the autopilot kicked out and the panicky pilot added max power, the full noseup trim would be conducive to the aircraft looping the loop of its own accord. The pilot would be flummoxed by this setup and, after a confused pause, fighting hard against powerful nose-up trim forces to lower the nose. Adding max power at low IAS itself produces a powerful nose-up trim change. Add that to the already full nose-up trim state and they didn’t have a chance…… of avoiding a deadly stall/spin outcome.
I couldn’t imagine a nastier surprise. Fancy building in such a death-trap as an autopilot without autothrottle and an FMS that needs lots of head-down two-pilot trouble-shooting and reprogramming? His available solutions were:
a. Not to add full power, but just enough to keep it flying and, as per my flight school's SOP technique (see below)
b. Roll sufficiently (about 50 degrees bank) so that the fully back-trimmed airplane only pitched mostly into the turn - giving him a chance to wind the trim nose forward whilst minimizing the speed loss..
I had a similar situation (but not unexpected) tonight after a night take-off. The EFATO drill for a practice (or real) engine failure after take-off is for the front-seat student to raise the nose, simulate putting the throttle to “stop”, call Mayday on intercom and then he releases the stick after having run the pitch trim to full nose up (for his optimal survival seat-vector), places both hands on his left knee and calls “abandoning now” (simulating an ejection). The rear-seat instructor then takes over, banks into the circuit direction (turns “crosswind” essentially), to help the nose drop from around 25 to 30 degrees nose-up - all whilst running the elevator trim nose-down towards neutral and adding near to max power. It’s a silly drill (it’s like practising dying) but meant to be very realistic for the trainee - and it’s a requirement for him to do it prior to his NF3 night solo sortie. You wouldn’t want it to happen suddenly without warning however. It’d be a quite difficult recovery (particularly at night or in IMC).
Prima facie, and in light of all the similar anecdotes now emerging about turboprops with this cheap option (i.e.no autothrottles and a heads down FMS keypad), this would have been the scenario surrounding Flt 3407’s fate. For that Colgan pilot it would have all happened very fast. It’s a nasty setup just begging for a tech remedy.
Automation can be a half-baked bitch.
Last edited:
eightdriver
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2002
- Posts
- 157
Thats how every Dash-8 and other regional truboprop is set up.... Autopilot, but no autothrottles. And yes they do have a warning to prevent this, its called situational awareness! Something that only comes with experience and cannot be taught at the pilot factory...
Although Scott's timing was a little off, he does make a valid point and I'm glad that both him and Sully are making this information public...8
Although Scott's timing was a little off, he does make a valid point and I'm glad that both him and Sully are making this information public...8
Last edited:
climbhappy
ex pat
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2002
- Posts
- 2,159
the inference is that safety is directly related to aircraft size... there is no correlation. you cannot make that argument.
safety is only related to training and cool under pressure. there is no age, no weight, no height and no airline size requirement.
case in point: US Air DC-9 crash on final in a thunderstorm in 1989 in CLT.
one cannot conduct a study from sully's perfect ditch which btw wouldn't have possible the day beofre the colgan crash with wind shear and winds gusting to 40 and 50.
while being vectored over the atlantic off jersey shore at 2000 in a 73, i looked at the whitecaps and said to my FO, "he was mighty fortunate that day to have mother nature deal with god's hand a calm,clear day in the northeast in the winter up north.
safety is only related to training and cool under pressure. there is no age, no weight, no height and no airline size requirement.
case in point: US Air DC-9 crash on final in a thunderstorm in 1989 in CLT.
one cannot conduct a study from sully's perfect ditch which btw wouldn't have possible the day beofre the colgan crash with wind shear and winds gusting to 40 and 50.
while being vectored over the atlantic off jersey shore at 2000 in a 73, i looked at the whitecaps and said to my FO, "he was mighty fortunate that day to have mother nature deal with god's hand a calm,clear day in the northeast in the winter up north.
SLUF4
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- Nov 21, 2005
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- 1,122
This is getting to be a little ridiculous. Anybody can make a mistake-doesn't matter if you have 1 hour or 20,000 hours. I'm quite certain the letter writer has made a few in his glorious career. Oscar Wilde said that experience is the simply the name we give to our mistakes. At what point do you become "experienced"? I believe there is no definitive point-we all learn something every trip, every time we have a simulator ride, etc... If you have stopped learning it's time to move on. There is a book I read a long time ago called the killing zone that describes the amount of accidents pilots have when they are between 50 and 350 hours of time. This is the most dangerous period that has any data associated with it. Most airline pilots-even at regionals have surpassed this level. As for keeping safe, all we can do is learn from the mistakes of others and ourselves. Yes, the pay is not what it once was, but that should never make us sacrifice safety.
I flew in the fractional world, And had a couple of retired airline guys try to kill me. But they had a lot of experience. So I bowed to them.Lol. I think keeping each other out of trouble no matter if you have 500 hrs or 30,000 hrs is key. back each other up, and if you are a young Fo don't hesitate to say something if the captain isn't aware of a safety related issue during flight. He or she will respect you a lot more. We all learn as we go along. So the question is Mr. Midwest pilot, did you start this job as a 30,000 hour pilot? Or when you applied to your first big job, you said "I have a lot of experience! I watched TOP GUN a lot." Mmmmmmm sounds like to me with your 25 years of flying that is when TOP GUN was out or was it Iron Eagle?
enigma
good ol boy
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2001
- Posts
- 2,279
Captain Kaley really should have left out his opinion that the accident might end up being labeled pilot error.
On the broader topic if pilot experience, the one thing most of you are missing is that most of us who happen to be older than 40 and civilian trained DID start out with NO experience, but we were NOT flying paying passengers in scheduled service until we HAD experience.
My generation of civilians and most generations preceding mine spent years in the lower ranks before being hired into the cockpit of an airliner. Whether that airliner was a Piper Navajo, a Beech 99, a Banderante, a Twin Otter, a Metro, or else - that airliner was nothing more than a turbine powered version of the airplane we were already flying. The business allowed us to build experience on top of experience, to add technology a little bit at a time. The system in place today denies a beginning pilot the opportunity to build his experience layer upon layer.
Most of my college classmates worked as CFI's for thousands of hours. If we were lucky, we managed to move from there to a beat up Baron or Navajo flying film or checks at night. Then you took a Charter job at the local FBO. Before you were hire-able at a commuter (they weren't regionals back then) you had many hours making your own decisions, flying in real weather, dealing with ice (by avoiding the stuff) and in general learning how to take care of yourself.
I'm sorry, but being able to pass an ATP checkride in a sim is really no measure of experience and that's what is being sacrificed by the flying public when they buy the ticket from the cheapest airline.
Yes, I work for the cheapest Airline. Yes, I'm underpaid. Yes, twenty or thirty thousand RJ pilots would take my A319 seat in a heartbeat if I could sell it. There is no easy fix. Hopefully ALPA and the CAPA will be able to capitalize on the publicity and positively promote SAFE, WELL PAID pilots.
The Kaley letter may well be a case of "all publicity is good publicity". He did it, now we need to capitalize on the publicity.
Don't write your newspaper defending the crew, write your newspaper attacking the airline business for refusing to pay for experience.
On the broader topic if pilot experience, the one thing most of you are missing is that most of us who happen to be older than 40 and civilian trained DID start out with NO experience, but we were NOT flying paying passengers in scheduled service until we HAD experience.
My generation of civilians and most generations preceding mine spent years in the lower ranks before being hired into the cockpit of an airliner. Whether that airliner was a Piper Navajo, a Beech 99, a Banderante, a Twin Otter, a Metro, or else - that airliner was nothing more than a turbine powered version of the airplane we were already flying. The business allowed us to build experience on top of experience, to add technology a little bit at a time. The system in place today denies a beginning pilot the opportunity to build his experience layer upon layer.
Most of my college classmates worked as CFI's for thousands of hours. If we were lucky, we managed to move from there to a beat up Baron or Navajo flying film or checks at night. Then you took a Charter job at the local FBO. Before you were hire-able at a commuter (they weren't regionals back then) you had many hours making your own decisions, flying in real weather, dealing with ice (by avoiding the stuff) and in general learning how to take care of yourself.
I'm sorry, but being able to pass an ATP checkride in a sim is really no measure of experience and that's what is being sacrificed by the flying public when they buy the ticket from the cheapest airline.
Yes, I work for the cheapest Airline. Yes, I'm underpaid. Yes, twenty or thirty thousand RJ pilots would take my A319 seat in a heartbeat if I could sell it. There is no easy fix. Hopefully ALPA and the CAPA will be able to capitalize on the publicity and positively promote SAFE, WELL PAID pilots.
The Kaley letter may well be a case of "all publicity is good publicity". He did it, now we need to capitalize on the publicity.
Don't write your newspaper defending the crew, write your newspaper attacking the airline business for refusing to pay for experience.
Well said sir.
SLUF4
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- Nov 21, 2005
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Well, you can't paint this whole generation of regional pilots with a broad stroke like that. Some of us went the same route. Personally I instructed 4 years, moved up to King Airs, then Citations, then the RJ. I fly with new FO's at my airline that have done the same. We aren't all getting hired at 250 hours.
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