Plane down near Moscow

Brennus335 · 15-02-2018 4:05pm

Candamir wrote: »

.. Also pitch and power settings for unreliable airspeed are memory recall items - for airbus anyway (the type I fly), I presume there’s similar recall checklists for other types, so there’s no routing around in the QRH..

Pitch & power settings for Unreliable Airspeed were only introduced as a memory item on my type about 12 months ago.

Now it's:

Flaps Down...... 85%.....10'
Flaps Up............70%.......4'

And those figures apply to all weights, altitudes, temperatures, engine types, type variants etc.

Candamir · 15-02-2018 4:11pm

Brennus335 wrote: »

The pitch & power settings are not the issue here.
The issue is the difficulty in actually identifying an unreliable airspeed scenario. Sometimes it can be so incidious, that it's very hard to diagnose.

Knowing pitch & power settings is useless, if you don't realise you're in a situation where you need to apply them.

I’d argue that knowing what pitch and power are required will allow you to understand that you maybe in a situation that is going off the rails. So for example, after take off, if you find that take off Power with 15 degrees pitch up in takeoff configuration is resulting in a speed increasing towards an over speed, then something is wrong, and you need to address it. It’s kind of the reverse of what you’re saying. If you know what’s a reasonable pitch and Power, you will know when something is not right. If you don’t know what’s reasonable, it will be a much longer time before you realise something is wrong. Everybody really should have an idea of what pitch and Power is reasonable for various stages of flight. That’s all I’m trying to say here, not that the underlying issues are necessarily easy to diagnose, but knowing what to expect will allow you to quickly see if you’re not getting it!

Candamir · 15-02-2018 4:13pm

Negative_G wrote: »

You are picking and choosing what you read to suit your own narrative. Weak.

Another poster said "power and pitch lads", implying that this simple advice can get an aircraft out of most sticky situations.

I then addressed that directly saying thats all well and good but if a the PF was suffering somatographic illusion, power and pitch may not help as the PF might not be 100% aware or sure of what the aircraft is actually doing.

The 'notion' as you call it was merely to address that another 'notion' that power and pitch isn't the answer to all problems and I put forward a logical example (which has caused many CFIT accidents) where power and pitch may not have a desirable outcome.

It really isn't that hard to understand.

If you’d like to make a point without being insulting, go ahead.

Candamir · 15-02-2018 4:17pm

Brennus335 wrote: »

Pitch & power settings for Unreliable Airspeed were only introduced as a memory item on my type about 12 months ago.

Now it's:

Flaps Down...... 85%.....10'
Flaps Up............70%.......4'

And those figures apply to all weights, altitudes, temperatures, engine types, type variants etc.

Airbus have them for a good bit longer than that - can’t recall exactly when they were brought in as memory items, but I was always taught to have an idea of what reasonable pitch and Power settings were - right back as far as flying twins in flight school. I think it’s a good habit, regardless if it’s recall or not.

Irish Steve · 15-02-2018 8:06pm

It is reasonable to assume that during the take off roll, the airspeeds agreed, otherwise they would (should anyway) have aborted take off. The weather reports are implying that the cloudbase was around 2600 Ft, so even though the air temperatures were below zero, icing should not have been significant until they entered cloud, unless they flew into precipitation, which is possible. That would have been the governing factor in the point where the airspeed became unreliable in the absence of Pitot heat, the implication is that things started going bad at about 1300 Mtrs. Yes, I know, I'm mixing feet and metres, but that is unfortunately how it's being reported.

The aircraft was not heavily loaded, so I find myself wondering why they had only made 6000 Ft at the point where things all went wrong, unless there were ATC or SID restrictions that prevented them from climbing at a rate that would seem more normal for a short haul flight, most of the short haul flights that come over Ashbourne are usually above 9000 Ft at that stage, some are higher depending on the winds. The other possibility is that there were other issues in play that distracted them from flying the standard departure, but there has been no indication from reliable sources that any sort of communication of problems had been made,

It is altogether possible that dealing with the unreliable airspeed became all consuming, in terms of attention, and that for reasons yet unexplained, they were unable to continue to operate "normally", and didn't have the spare capacity to let the people on the ground know that they were in trouble.

And yes, dealing with unreliable airspeed is a lot simpler in the sim than it is for real, for all sorts of reasons, and it's hard enough to get it right in the sim. I think quite a few of us could probably say, quietly to ourselves, "there but for the grace of God go I".

Negative_G · 15-02-2018 8:30pm

Irish Steve wrote: »

And yes, dealing with unreliable airspeed is a lot simpler in the sim than it is for real, for all sorts of reasons, and it's hard enough to get it right in the sim. I think quite a few of us could probably say, quietly to ourselves, "there but for the grace of God go I".

What about "power and pitch" though?

If only the the crew had done this, all their problems could've been solved.

You are correct though, dealing with an abnormal situation in the sim or even just talking about it over a coffee in no way compares to dealing with something similar in the air when the multitude of other factors come into play also.

View Profile · 16-02-2018 12:05am

Irish Steve wrote:

And yes, dealing with unreliable airspeed is a lot simpler in the sim than it is for real, for all sorts of reasons, and it's hard enough to get it right in the sim. I think quite a few of us could probably say, quietly to ourselves, "there but for the grace of God go I".

Yeah I agree. We all hope if we face such a situation we'll react correctly.

After facing a few minor non-normals on the line I try to break the situation down to the basics.
Fly the plane first- refer to the attitude indicator. That looks good?
How's pitch and power?
Check speed. Is it within limits?!
Engine indications ok?
Electrics/hydraulics/pressurisation?

The rest is unimportant until you figure out what's going on.
Let the FO fly ( if appropriate) while you troubleshoot the bigger picture.

Sim training helps, but much more important is hand flying. You learn much more about your aircrafts traits that way.

smurfjed · 17-02-2018 11:22am

it will in return cause momentary weightlessness even further making one believe that you are in a stall and as such the recovery should be initiated.

I assume that you are talking about general aviation aircraft?

I've sat beside a very experienced instructor in the sim where we were given a pitot heat failure, the situation deteriorated as we were climbing, speed increasing to reach the aural VMO warning, so he reduced power, we got the stall warning, he increased power once again we got the aural VMO warning, this continued a few times, as this was happening we were descending quite rapidly. The guy couldn't identify the situation that he was in. All of the causes and changes were quite benign, but the result was bloody nasty.

The training centre had developed this scenario in response to AF. The corrective action was power and pitch and my type had a FMS page with altitude and airspeed, so this was used to identify which set of instruments were giving the correct information.

And to answer a previous question, i doubt that many airlines allow their crews to practice such manoeuvers multiple times as sims cost money with a packed syllabus.

martinsvi · 17-02-2018 8:39pm

smurfjed wrote: »

I assume that you are talking about general aviation aircraft?

not sure what you mean? Avherald reported that the vertical load was 0G at certain point

BowSideChamp · 18-02-2018 1:00am

As usual, pilot error to blame.

The pilots of a Russian airliner that crashed and killed 71 people failed to switch on a heating unit — leading speed sensors to ice up and provide wrong information, investigators said Tuesday.

https://nypost.com/2018/02/13/pilot-error-blamed-for-deadly-russian-passenger-jet-crash/

martinsvi · 18-02-2018 1:10am

BowSideChamp wrote: »

As usual, pilot error to blame.

the official statement didn't specify that it was the pilots that failed to turn the pitot heat on. All that was stated was that the heating was off without giving detail whether it was due to a pilot error or a malfunction. NY Post are really jumping ahead of theirselves

smurfjed · 18-02-2018 7:50am

If you overreact and push the nose down, it will in return cause momentary weightlessness even further making one believe that you are in a stall and as such the recovery should be initiated.

I guess that I don’t see the automatic relationship between momentary weightless and believing that you are in a stall. But there again I don’t know the stall characteristics of the An148.

martinsvi · 18-02-2018 12:51pm

smurfjed wrote: »

I guess that I don’t see the automatic relationship between momentary weightless and believing that you are in a stall. But there again I don’t know the stall characteristics of the An148.

neither do I.. I was just speculating about factors that could have played a part in a potential loss of situational awareness ..

Plane down near Moscow

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