allardjd 1,853 Posted March 29, 2015 Report Share Posted March 29, 2015 Is it cold enough there to inhibit rapid decay? Elevation is a little over 6,000', I guess, but have no idea what the temperatures will be running. I thought I read that there was a little snow the day after the crash. John Link to post Share on other sites
Quickmarch 488 Posted March 30, 2015 Report Share Posted March 30, 2015 There was another accident this morning - albeit not in the same class (of seriousness) as the GermanWings one under discussion here. An Air Canada A320 crash-landed at Halifax. All aboard accounted for although some injuries were sustained. I'm looking into more of the reporting, but at this time, it appears that the a/c landed short, taking out powerlines to the airport. See: http://rt.com/news/244953-air-canada-crash-halifax/ Edit: CNN Coverage here: http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/29/americas/air-canada-halifax-incident/ Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted March 30, 2015 Report Share Posted March 30, 2015 What a blessing that wasn't worse. Easily could have been. Hit a berm/antenna array over 300 meters from the threshold and the objects struck were lower than the threshold. He was already in trouble before he struck whatever he struck. Very serious WX at the time; localizer only approach at that end. Wind shear a possibility. Air Canada seems to be stonewalling, calling it a "hard landing". This looks like another case where Mother Nature has screwed us up in the sim. Runway is reported as 05, but it's 06 in FSX. The magnetic variation must have shifted since 2006, when FSX was published, forcing a re-numbering of the real-world runway. John Link to post Share on other sites
stu7708 244 Posted March 30, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2015 I wonder how this is going to change things for the flying public in the future. Not for the better, I'd guess. So far I've seen reports that a couple of European airlines will start adopting the practice of having an other member of the flight crew enter the flight deck if either of the pilots needs to leave for some reason. As you've said previously it's far from a perfect solution, but I guess they reason it's better to have a second pair of eyes/hands up there than not.... Link to post Share on other sites
donnybalonny 46 Posted March 30, 2015 Report Share Posted March 30, 2015 I thought that the auto pilot would have automatically put the aircraft into a climb at that point.If auto pilots do not do that then maybe they should, as this may have helped to stop this accident happening. Not an accident - homicide by intentional acts. John Its not official (yet) So you have to make statements like this one yours personal even though you most probably are right. They are still working on other posibilities like mechanical failure. Lufthansa (incl. Germawings) has said that from now on there will always be 2 in the cabin and many European airlines already had. The 3 Spanish airlines have had that rule for years. Link to post Share on other sites
MartinW 0 Posted March 30, 2015 Report Share Posted March 30, 2015 Q. I thought when the auto pilot was on and set to 38000 ft and you then selected 100ft and leave the auto pilot on, when the aircraft reaches a point where you hear " terrain terrain " I thought that the auto pilot would have automatically put the aircraft into a climb at that point.If auto pilots do not do that then maybe they should, as this may have helped to stop this accident happening. No, the bus doesn't do that. No aircraft does as far as I know. Low altitudes are often set when conducting a VNAV approach, and false terrain warnings are common. That's why there's a terrain warning inhibit button. If a suicidal pilot is intent on crashing the pane you are in trouble. Even if there are two pilots in the cockpit he can still crash the aircraft. He can still attack the pilot sitting next to him and then crash the plane. Do what you can on-board the aircraft of course, but the best defence is to make sure proper psychological evaluations are carried out on a regular basis and the reports submitted to the airline. It is said, that the individual in this case had medical notes at his home sighing him off from duty due to an eye issue. They were found ripped up. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted March 30, 2015 Report Share Posted March 30, 2015 Quote Its not official (yet) So you have to make statements like this one yours personal even though you most probably are right. They are still working on other posibilities like mechanical failure. Everything I say here is my personal opinion unless I'm quoting a source, in which case I try to use links, quote marks, italics, etc. to indicate that. In this case there are two parallel investigations going on under the French government. One is by BEA, their transportation safety authority and it is technical and like most air crash investigations will probably drag on for years as the bureaucrats feed at the trough. They are no doubt, "...still working on other possibilities like mechanical failure." The other investigation is by the judicial authorities and is criminal. They are very much convinced already that this was a homicide. The prosecutor said as much in no uncertain terms on the second day after the accident. Headline: "Fatal Descent of Germanwings Plane Was ‘Deliberate,’ French Authorities Say" "Those clues led French prosecutors to say Thursday that the co-pilot had locked the pilot out of the cockpit and deliberately crashed the plane." http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/27/world/europe/germanwings-crash.html?_r=0 In legal terms, I guess this is very much like an indictment, where the prosecutor has made an accusation of wrongdoing. If the "defendant" were alive there would eventually be a trial and in most civilized countries there would be at least the nominal presumption of innocence. In this case there will be no trial - he's dead, along with his victims - but neither has there been any credible or even plausible, alternate, innocent explanation offered for what happened. I expect there may be something along the lines of a coroner's inquest to formalize the results, but I'm personally convinced by the evidence that's been released so far. If he's innocent, I'm the Archbishop of Canterbury. I'm prepared to eat crow if I'm wrong but I don't really expect to have to do that in this case. John 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted March 30, 2015 Report Share Posted March 30, 2015 Gotta go with Occam on this one too. Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 31, 2015 Report Share Posted March 31, 2015 You can bet your life that aircrew will be more scrutinised than ever now, and I hate to say it but especially so if they are , or have recently become, Moslems. I feel that this will have sewn the germ of an idea into many radical heads. Maybe the way forward for airliners would be to have them flown as drones, ie unmanned cockpits. However the public certainly wouldn't trust that idea just yet. They still want a guy up front, At the moment it is a rare occurance for this to happen......but for how long? Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted March 31, 2015 Report Share Posted March 31, 2015 Agreed Alan, the "copy cat" mentality of disturbed people is what worries me the most. Columbine of the Airlines Drone airliners doesn't sound too crazy actually. If a Flight Crew were onboard but locked out of the controls unless specific conditions occurred (All crew need to enter a code to take control...automatic turnover of command if the airplane has an emergency condition it can't deal with alone...etc.) Additionaly, a drone airliner could be "flown" by ground crew (with on-plane crew on standby) who are heavily monitored by security 24/7, with real time computer monitoring for any "suspect" control inputs that will lock THEM out if anything dodgy happens. Where there is a will, there 'might' be a way. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted March 31, 2015 Report Share Posted March 31, 2015 I think we're a long way away from unmanned pax flights. The technology is not ready and the pax are not ready. FAA/CAA/EU/ICAO requirements for required performance, redundancy will be draconian. If they are to be autonomous, the technology just isn't ready. If controlled from the ground, now the rogue pilot no longer needs to be suicidal, only homicidal, and the required communications devices/channels will present another vulnerability to failure or to sabotage and hacking. Bandwidth becomes an issue too - there are something like 65,000 scheduled pax flights every 24 hours world-wide. Can you imagine how much bandwidth would be required to control those from the ground? It's sometimes necessary to distinguish between the technically possible and the economically feasible, though in this case I'm not even sure that it's technically possible yet. The guys in the pointy end are still very necessary, for a number of reasons and will be for quite a long time yet. John Link to post Share on other sites
mike H 456 Posted March 31, 2015 Report Share Posted March 31, 2015 If he's innocent, I'm the Archbishop of Canterbury. I'm prepared to eat crow if I'm wrong but I don't really expect to have to do that in this case. John As I live near to Canterbury, it would have been nice to have met up John,but that won't happen as how can he be found innocent. It's a no brainer So will have to wait till I come over to the USA then Mike Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted April 2, 2015 Report Share Posted April 2, 2015 I just read a comment on PPRUNE that they have found the FDR - unconfirmed. John EDIT: This article cites other sources, including BBC and the Marseilles prosecutor. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/04/02/germanwings-copilot-depression/70818268/ JDA Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted April 4, 2015 Report Share Posted April 4, 2015 The FDR was indeed found and the data has been extracted and read. The French authorities have made an official statement that the FDR data confirms the earlier hypothesis that the crash was deliberate. One fact cited from that is that the First Officer made a series of adjustments to the autopilot during the descent to increase speed. I suspect he was "chasing the barber pole" on the way down as the allowable Mach number increased with decreasing altitude. The PPRUNE postings, which I normally find very interesting and professional have been different this time. There has been a small minority who have been continuously postulating anything and everything they could think of to find scenarios where the FO was innocent and did not deliberately cause the crash - hypoxia, seizure, confusion, panic, etc. Those have now fallen silent, however the majority of those still posting are now engaged in a major discussion of all the horrible things the airlines and the regulators are going to do (mostly to them, the pilots) as a result of this. Many want the cockpit doors removed entirely. Others want it moved so the forward can is in the cockpit. They seem about evenly split on whether having a member of the cabin crew come to the flight deck when one of them has to leave - some think it's a plus, some think it's meaningless and some think it's an additional risk. A vocal minority want to bring back the third pilot/flight engineer in the cockpit. They almost unanimously don't want routine periodic psychological testing as a condition of having a first class medical certificate, nor do they want video on the flight deck. The overall impression I get is that they'd very much like to see this event declared to be an outlier that will probably never happen again and that the world should just leave them alone, except that the airline management should be forced by the regulators to treat them better, pay them more and remove some of the horrible stress from their jobs, which have become almost unbearable since the advent of low-cost, accountant-managed airlines, 2-person cockpits, low time co-pilots and such. While I agree at some level with a lot of what they say, reading approximately the last half of the many hundreds of posts on the 155-page-and-running forum leaves me with the impression of a lot of whiners who are most concerned with how this event is going to affect them personally and how much better things were in the good old days. I'm sorry if that's unkind, but it's my honest impression as I've read or at least skimmed nearly every page of it since the crash. They make some good points about some things, but the overall impression is that much of the content is pretty self-serving and self-centered. John Link to post Share on other sites
Quickmarch 488 Posted May 6, 2015 Report Share Posted May 6, 2015 More in the pipeline. Last line in this report talks about a BEA report being released around noon (France) today. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/06/germanwings-co-pilot-practised-his-crash-on-another-flight-report Edit: here's the english language (PDF) link to the report - http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2015/d-px150324.en/pdf/d-px150324.en.pdf Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted May 7, 2015 Report Share Posted May 7, 2015 It's a sobering read, Aircraft manufacturers and airlines can build in all sorts of safety protocols, but none of them are defence against a lone "Nut Job" who decides to end their own life for whatever reason. Even if an automatic terrrain avoidance system could be built into airliners, such as is fitted to military aircraft, there would still be the possibility of it being deliberately disabled if the perpetrator was determined enough. How they will get around this problem eventually is anyones guess. Going back to a 3 crew cockpit may be the only awnser. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted May 7, 2015 Report Share Posted May 7, 2015 If the guy in either pilot seat is determined to crash the plane and picks his time, there's little anyone else in the cockpit can do to prevent it. John Link to post Share on other sites
hurricanemk1c 195 Posted May 7, 2015 Report Share Posted May 7, 2015 Look at that Fed-Ex incident in the 1990's - 3 man crew and would have worked, only for some good flying Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted May 7, 2015 Report Share Posted May 7, 2015 god i wish I hadn't been reminded of that...you got me curious, and i read the wiki bout the fedex incident. What a horrific nightmare struggle that must have been. I do NOT recommend reading that wiki article if you have a good imagination. Link to post Share on other sites
wain 879 Posted May 7, 2015 Report Share Posted May 7, 2015 watched a program the other week about the Fedex incident, the battle so hard with that guy, mustve been a very scarey thing for all who were listening too.. Link to post Share on other sites
MartinW 0 Posted May 8, 2015 Report Share Posted May 8, 2015 That was an utterly horrific incident. I recall the disgruntled employee was hell bent on crashing the aircraft into the Fed Ex building. I believe the captain was bashed on the head with a hammer. Still managed to execute some crazy manoeuvres though. Ironically he thought he was doing the right thing, but in reality it was making it harder for the co-pilot to disable the bad guy. The bad guy had a spear gun and all manner of weapons at his disposal. I would agree that if someone is crazy enough and determined enough, that even with 3 men in the cockpit you would have trouble disabling him. Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted May 8, 2015 Report Share Posted May 8, 2015 ...particularly if he is alredy seated in one of the pilot seats. John Link to post Share on other sites
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