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Boeing 737 carrying 132 passengers crashes in China


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On 3/21/2022 at 10:28 AM, Bobby_Batronic said:

Possible emergency descent, level off and pilots overcome by smoke, fumes or other issue?

 

I though of this as well.

was the level off altitude low enough to not worry about low O2? or sub zero temps?

 

edit: just saw the level off altitude was 10k. If correct, then yes low enough for O2.

 

Edited by High Plains Drifter
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My understanding is that on the 738 (and pretty much all planes presently in operation), when you step on the rudder, you're going to feel resistance commensurate with your airspeed.  So it's going to be a lot harder to push the rudder pedals at 450 knots than it will be at 150 knots.
That's not necessary, because it's all fly-by-wire.  But the computer makes it harder to push the pedals at higher airspeed to signal to the pilot that less input is needed/proper at higher airspeed (which is the input the pilot would receive naturally if it were still manual control).
In those first-generation fly-by-wire planes like the A300, it didn't have that feature.  So it was just as easy to push the rudder pedals all the way over at 450 knots as it was at 150 knots.
But I'm going off my memory of what I was told years ago by SWA pilots who were very pro-Boeing and anti-"French-pieces-of-shit," to use a phrase I heard once or twice.  So I'll defer to your knowledge of the subject.

There's no reason to touch the rudder pedals once airborne unless an engine quits.
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50 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

My understanding is that on the 738 (and pretty much all planes presently in operation), when you step on the rudder, you're going to feel resistance commensurate with your airspeed.  So it's going to be a lot harder to push the rudder pedals at 450 knots than it will be at 150 knots.

That's not necessary, because it's all fly-by-wire.  But the computer makes it harder to push the pedals at higher airspeed to signal to the pilot that less input is needed/proper at higher airspeed (which is the input the pilot would receive naturally if it were still manual control).

In those first-generation fly-by-wire planes like the A300, it didn't have that feature.  So it was just as easy to push the rudder pedals all the way over at 450 knots as it was at 150 knots.

But I'm going off my memory of what I was told years ago by SWA pilots who were very pro-Boeing and anti-"French-pieces-of-shit," to use a phrase I heard once or twice.  So I'll defer to your knowledge of the subject.

Seems to me that the FCC could control that even without giving the tactile feedback.   Basically speed gain the amount of control to the rudder.

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1 hour ago, Ghost of LL said:

My understanding is that on the 738 (and pretty much all planes presently in operation), when you step on the rudder, you're going to feel resistance commensurate with your airspeed.  So it's going to be a lot harder to push the rudder pedals at 450 knots than it will be at 150 knots.

That's not necessary, because it's all fly-by-wire.  But the computer makes it harder to push the pedals at higher airspeed to signal to the pilot that less input is needed/proper at higher airspeed (which is the input the pilot would receive naturally if it were still manual control).

In those first-generation fly-by-wire planes like the A300, it didn't have that feature.  So it was just as easy to push the rudder pedals all the way over at 450 knots as it was at 150 knots.

But I'm going off my memory of what I was told years ago by SWA pilots who were very pro-Boeing and anti-"French-pieces-of-shit," to use a phrase I heard once or twice.  So I'll defer to your knowledge of the subject.

There is no feedback in the French pieces of shit. The system is designed to react the same and provide the same feel in all regimes under normal law. DaysOff is correct. There is no need to touch the pedals at all in normal flight, but the AA pilot input several large rudder movements in short order and exceeded the structural limits of the plane. I doubt he was thinking about maneuvering speed at all, but the subsequent investigation revealed a misconception about certification limits under that speed, and also some pilot upset training issues dating back to primary instruction using rudder pedals to recover so as not to exacerbate the stall over the down deflected aileron with a higher angle of attack. Basic spin avoidance. 
 

We don’t teach rudder usage at all in our upset training. We zero the angle of attack to unload the plane thereby placing zero stress on it, roll upright, get level within g limits, and then adjust power. 

Edited by Bobby_Batronic
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3 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

I'd just pull that knob thingy and rotate that doohicky over there. 

 

I might not be a pilot, but I post on Surly, so I'm pretty sure I'm right.

Grab a wrench and whack it a few times if turning it off and back on doesn’t fix it.

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44 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

We don’t teach rudder usage at all in our upset training. We zero the angle of attack to unload the plane thereby placing zero stress on it, roll upright, get level within g limits, and then adjust power. 

Isn't unloading the plane synonymous with placing zero stress on it?

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I'd just pull that knob thingy and rotate that doohicky over there. 
 
I might not be a pilot, but I post on Surly, so I'm pretty sure I'm right.

Pretty close to an Airbus pilot from what I've observed on the jumpseat. Why are they pushing and pulling knobs!
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1 hour ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

There is no feedback in the French pieces of shit. The system is designed to react the same and provide the same feel in all regimes under normal law. DaysOff is correct. There is no need to touch the pedals at all in normal flight, but the AA pilot input several large rudder movements in short order and exceeded the structural limits of the plane. I doubt he was thinking about maneuvering speed at all, but the subsequent investigation revealed a misconception about certification limits under that speed, and also some pilot upset training issues dating back to primary instruction using rudder pedals to recover so as not to exacerbate the stall over the down deflected aileron with a higher angle of attack. Basic spin avoidance. 
 

We don’t teach rudder usage at all in our upset training. We zero the angle of attack to unload the plane thereby placing zero stress on it, roll upright, get level within g limits, and then adjust power. 

such as the air france crash - always thought that was a 'propagating NaN' w/ the frozen pitot tubes.....

scrambled part of the pilot feedback display and then all hades done break loose.

but that would have likely have happened before / since, so who knows.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

We don’t teach rudder usage at all in our upset training. We zero the angle of attack to unload the plane thereby placing zero stress on it, roll upright, get level within g limits, and then adjust power. 

Yeah...getting all those fucking passengers out will lower the stress on it.

Maybe not on the passengers, though.

Edited by Ag with kids
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13 minutes ago, nedtugent said:

such as the air france crash - always thought that was a 'propagating NaN' w/ the frozen pitot tubes.....

scrambled part of the pilot feedback display and then all hades done break loose.

but that would have likely have happened before / since, so who knows.

 

 

Combination of things including frozen pitot tubes and the flying pilot holding full aft stick nearly to the water. 

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2 minutes ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

Combination of things including frozen pitot tubes and the flying pilot holding full aft stick nearly to the water. 

To be fair, my tubes would be frozen too if I was about to crash and yes, I would also probably be holding my stick and kissing my ass goodbye.

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2 hours ago, Bobby_Batronic said:

There is no feedback in the French pieces of shit. The system is designed to react the same and provide the same feel in all regimes under normal law. DaysOff is correct. There is no need to touch the pedals at all in normal flight, but the AA pilot input several large rudder movements in short order and exceeded the structural limits of the plane. I doubt he was thinking about maneuvering speed at all, but the subsequent investigation revealed a misconception about certification limits under that speed, and also some pilot upset training issues dating back to primary instruction using rudder pedals to recover so as not to exacerbate the stall over the down deflected aileron with a higher angle of attack. Basic spin avoidance. 
 

We don’t teach rudder usage at all in our upset training. We zero the angle of attack to unload the plane thereby placing zero stress on it, roll upright, get level within g limits, and then adjust power. 

Fail Nick Young GIF

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7 hours ago, DaysOff said:


There's no reason to touch the rudder pedals once airborne unless an engine quits.

That was the reason given when the American Airlines A300 crashed in NYC shortly after 9/11.  The co-pilot overacted to wake turbulence and caused stabilizer fail after too much rudder.  I think the design was changed shortly thereafter but it was totally 100% pilot error, not aircraft.

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On 3/22/2022 at 3:53 PM, Bobby_Batronic said:

Combination of things including frozen pitot tubes and the flying pilot holding full aft stick nearly to the water. 

Transcript from noted Air France crash. 
 
https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a3115/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877/

TLDR: One of the three flight crew was a shitty pilot and he drove that fucker down. 

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5 minutes ago, statsman said:

Transcript from noted Air France crash. 
 
https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a3115/what-really-happened-aboard-air-france-447-6611877/

TLDR: One of the three flight crew was a shitty pilot and he drove that fucker down. 

Partly. They were in a panic, and there were some issues with how stall recoveries were taught based on Airbus flight law logic, not understanding what law they were in or how much excess thrust is available at altitude. Also, since the sticks move independently of one another neither the other pilot or CA knew he was holding full aft stick until he mentioned it if memory serves. 

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39 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

I've read several long stories about that AF crash.  Sad story. 

Aviate. Navigate. Communicate.

 

Though ironically, lack of communication (among the flight crew) was the primary factor that ultimately allowed that crash to occur.

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9 minutes ago, SuperSport said:

Though ironically, lack of communication (among the flight crew) was the primary factor that ultimately allowed that crash to occur.

If any of them would have pointed the nose down and regained flight control (Aviate) -- none of us would be talking about them now.

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13 hours ago, 'stache said:

Did the black box survive to learn what happened? And if so, why don’t they make the whole plane out of the black box?

Since this is the third time this joke has been posted on this thread, I’d like to now point out that it’s not the plane that needs to be made of the black box but the people inside it. Otherwise you just have a black (orange) plane full of goo. 

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No.  captain for an American regional. Also trained guys in the simulator for a time. 

It was tongue in cheek. I saw you said pilot and instructor. The whole “Max was a foreign pilots issue” was the company line from Boeing and it’s well documented that said excuse is somewhere between disingenuous at best and total horseshit at worst.
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8 minutes ago, gmr548 said:


It was tongue in cheek. I saw you said pilot and instructor. The whole “Max was a foreign pilots issue” was the company line from Boeing and it’s well documented that said excuse is somewhere between disingenuous at best and total horseshit at worst.

I have no idea. I didn’t even bring up Max (and have no idea why he did) and have literally zero idea what either he is talking about nor what you are talking about, so… the only thing I was interested in was this particular incident and if he thought it was intentional or not. Thought people here might be interested (and it matches what other pilots on here seem to say- which I would have no idea of knowing if they are right or not). 
I’m also pretty sure that he knows way more about flying an airplane than you do and way less than some other people do. I’m not particularly interested in having a super star nba player coach my team, nor a baseball HOF’er as my general manager as being in an industry doesn’t make you an expert in all the goings on in said industry, but in a scenario where I know nothing and someone else knows something I’m not against asking for their POV. 
And with that I will bow out of this conversation as I know less than nothing about any of this shit and thought I’d pass along something from someone the board might be interested in. 

Edited by Wulaw Horn
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1 hour ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Damn that’s rough. 
 

though if my first inclination is that if you are nose up and full power but descending  then you have stalled happens to be the correct one, and my instinct to nose down is the correct one, then it’s a shame that two pilots didn’t react that way.  Chaotic environment to say the least, and it sounds like the flight software ended up working against them. 
also

i haven’t had a bunch of sim time training me to full throttle and nose up to prevent a stall. 

Edited by Pato del Muerto
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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html
 

incredibly long New York Times feature that basically concludes these crews were absolutely the morons my brother contended they were, that this problem should have never lead to any crashes if the crew in question had even the slightest bit of airmanship, and Boeing made a patch of a design to fix a flaw that they didn’t tell anyone about because they literally didn’t comprehend the incompetence that exists in various human endeavors, but was likely incredibly reckless on light of what they knew about how their customers were operating their airlines. Article is like a 30 minute read. Pretty interesting anatomy of a bunch of little things that all had to pile on top of each other to create a tragedy. 

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6 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Damn that’s rough. 
 

though if my first inclination is that if you are nose up and full power but defending then you have stalled happens to be the correct one, and my instinct to nose down is the correct one, then it’s a shame that two pilots didn’t react that way.  Chaotic environment to say the least, and it sounds like the flight software ended up working against them. 

Aviate.  What makes a plane fly?  Velocity.  Lift.  Sad that these well-trained people lost sight of that.

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10 hours ago, DalTxHornFan said:

This made me nauseated. The annotated transcript is incredible, especially where it documents the sheer human error that contributed to the crash. I didn't fly till I was 18 and had a couple of bad experiences early on, and until a couple of years ago I needed Xanax every time I flew. Whenever we hit turbulence I have to run through a list of reminders in my head to stay calm - the plane is more than equipped to handle bumps, this is really common, I'm more likely to die in a car crash, we'll be back to smooth skies in a few minutes, the flight crew is skilled and knows exactly what they're doing, etc. Obviously shit happens and pilots are human, but reading that play-by-play in stark detail is a tough reminder that sometimes things just go wrong.

I'm going to Germany this summer on an A330. Probably gonna have to renew that Xanax prescription.

Edited by austingirl
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