8 ms·

> It doesn't matter was in system. You run your checklists and configure for your own flight / your own departure etc. I am not a pilot, but that's exactly wha

> It doesn't matter was in system. You run your checklists and configure for your own flight / your own departure etc. I am not a pilot, but that's exactly what I thought when I read the memo too. They should be putting responsibility for the next flight on the next flight's crew, not the prior flight's crew. Train each crew to assume the plane they're prepping for their next flight is FUBAR in every way, checklist everything, fix it as necessary, and go from there. Don't rely on the prior crew for anything.

thewarrior 5y ago
I know nothing about aviation but it seems to me like the auto pilot software could use a lot of improvement. Why on earth would you give the pilot an instruction that would almost certainly lead to a crash ? It seems like there aren’t enough sanity checks. Any such dodgy situation should trigger an alarm and disengage the auto pilot imo.
- sitharus 5y ago
  Auto pilots disengaging and sounding an alarm in unexpected situations have lead to multiple crashes, also the autopilot wasn’t engaged at the time, but the pilot was following a computer created flight path. Commercial aviation is designed around highly trained people following defined procedures. Auto pilots are not supposed to second-guess the inputs because that adds to confusion and cognitive load on the pilots. Pilots tell the computer what to do, not the other way around. What _should_ have happened here is the pilot monitoring should be watching the instruments and calling out flight stages. When the pilot flying didn’t initiate a proper climb they should have called this out, or taken over control until a safe altitude was established. This wasn’t an autopilot issue, this was a breakdown on crew resource management.
- teeray 5y ago
  By my reading, auto pilot was not involved. Flight Directors are basically an overlay on the instruments showing where the pitch, roll, etc. of the plane needs to be to achieve the programmed navigational fixes.
  - lovasoa 5y ago
    Is there any situation when it would make sense to have the flight director set to an altitude of zero before takeoff ? If not, then maybe it shouldn't stay switched on and set to zero after landing when the crew leaves the cabin ? Couldn't it be reset automatically ?
    - teeray 5y ago
      Yes, if the field is below sea level. They do exist!
    - behringer 5y ago
      That's what the memo the airline company put out said about this. It's hard to say if it's a good thing or not, imagine an incorrect flight plan is entered but non 0, you could fly straight into another flight path or an obstacle, like a mountain.
    - crooked-v 5y ago
      The preflight checklist covers setting this (and all other parameters) to correct values. Not only did the flight crew not do that, the statement by Emirates heavily suggests that instead of making people actually follow the preflight checklists (which cover many other safety-critical settings), they're relying entirely on the plane being left in the right state by the previous crew.
jacquesm 5y ago
Yes, assuming that the previous crew left you a 'perfect and ready to fly plane' is one hell of an assumption to make. With tiny little pieces to collect if it ends up being wrong. Emirates has a pretty good rep but this doesn't help.
- 3825 5y ago
  > Yes, assuming that the previous crew left you a 'perfect and ready to fly plane' is one hell of an assumption to make. With tiny little pieces to collect if it ends up being wrong. This is very bizarre. I once had a morning flight out of Denver (not too long ago, August 2008?) and talking to people there apparently the plane had an electronics malfunction of some sort. They said they would fly us out as soon as the plane was ready but about ten hours later, they gave up and flew us out on a plane with a different airline (which I assume was not free for them, I doubt American Airlines would fly a plane for free for United). Point is the initial problem, at least what they told us, was some lights failed to turn on but they refused to fly. I thought flight crew were very risk averse but clearly not everyone.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That's proper procedure. When in doubt: fail safe. These guys even flew the plane back instead of being replaced by another crew, and that's with a plane that has just been used way in excess of its design parameters on more than one measure.
    - Zak 5y ago
      I've heard pilots put this as "it's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than to be in the air wishing you were on the ground".
      - GekkePrutser 5y ago
        Or "take-off is optional but landing is mandatory" :)
- 5y ago
amelius 5y ago
Perhaps this game should be part of the UX of cockpit controls: find the error, or lose your permits.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Hehe. Gamification for the win... I really don't want to think about the red team version of that.
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  In the US this is explicitly part of training for major airlines. They will line up failures in The simulator and have the pilots solve/fly through the issue. You can’t fly until you pass these checks
  - wiedehopf 5y ago
    Is it really unexpected failures or do they discuss scenario / do you expect one of a few typical scenarios? Really throwing failures at pilots without them knowing what's going on seems to mean too many fail or rather there is not enough time to train pre-discussed scenarios and do scenarios that aren't announced. I'm not sure it's really what you'd want.
    - Pasorrijer 5y ago
      It's truly unexpected failures,in the context of flying the plane. Basically every failure state in flying has a procedure, and as a pilot you're expected to memorize some, and know how to find and follow the checklist or red page for all emergency situations. Beyond that, you have to know how to assess and evaluate any emergency because that's your job.
    - hungryforcodes 5y ago
      It's exactly what you want, because it simulates reality. Unexpected failures are by definition unexpected.
      - 5y ago
tshaddox 5y ago
I’m not a pilot either but I am shocked that there’s not some standard “reset” procedure so that each flight starts with the plane in a consistent clean slate. It seems bizarre for any process to rely on the previous flight coincidentally leaving the plane in a certain state.
- op00to 5y ago
  It doesn’t. The pilots didn’t do their preflight checklist which would have caught a poorly set up flight computer.
  - atonse 5y ago
    Then I do fully support firing them. (If they didn’t follow the checklist) At first I saw they might have been fired and thought damn that is strict.
    - JimBlackwood 5y ago
      They are responsible for flying a plane full of passengers. Strict would be fair.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Right, but what I mean is that it shouldn’t be possible to skip those steps and have things coincidentally work because of the state the plane was left in. I’m not a pilot or even much of an aviation geek, so maybe I’m misunderstanding the description of this incident, but it sounds to me like this crew did what they always do, and that normally works fine, but this time it didn’t.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - nilsbunger 5y ago
      There isn't much in these planes that works "coincidentally" because of a previous flight -- almost all important state has to be reconfigured each flight. The article is over-indexing on the flight director's altitude setting. These guys missed many basic things, like rotating at V1 speed and in general monitoring the plane's situation.
Diesel555 5y ago
Some settings in airplanes are last left. And this is okay. If you had to reset every setting at all times it would cost time. Sometimes you find one that you go "man I wish that wasn't last left." Then software updates fix that. > I am not a pilot, but that's exactly what I thought when I read the memo too. They should be putting responsibility for the next flight on the next flight's crew, not the prior flight's crew. It's not a matter of responsibility, it's a risk mitigation measure. Adding the additional check is common in aviation. Yes, it is the next crew's responsibility, however if you can mitigate a risk by adding some procedure to what the previous crew does, at little or no cost until a software update is released fixing the issue, you do that every time.

thewarrior 5y ago

I know nothing about aviation but it seems to me like the auto pilot software could use a lot of improvement. Why on earth would you give the pilot an instruction that would almost certainly lead to a crash ? It seems like there aren’t enough sanity checks. Any such dodgy situation should trigger an alarm and disengage the auto pilot imo.

sitharus 5y ago
Auto pilots disengaging and sounding an alarm in unexpected situations have lead to multiple crashes, also the autopilot wasn’t engaged at the time, but the pilot was following a computer created flight path. Commercial aviation is designed around highly trained people following defined procedures. Auto pilots are not supposed to second-guess the inputs because that adds to confusion and cognitive load on the pilots. Pilots tell the computer what to do, not the other way around. What _should_ have happened here is the pilot monitoring should be watching the instruments and calling out flight stages. When the pilot flying didn’t initiate a proper climb they should have called this out, or taken over control until a safe altitude was established. This wasn’t an autopilot issue, this was a breakdown on crew resource management.
teeray 5y ago
By my reading, auto pilot was not involved. Flight Directors are basically an overlay on the instruments showing where the pitch, roll, etc. of the plane needs to be to achieve the programmed navigational fixes.
- lovasoa 5y ago
  Is there any situation when it would make sense to have the flight director set to an altitude of zero before takeoff ? If not, then maybe it shouldn't stay switched on and set to zero after landing when the crew leaves the cabin ? Couldn't it be reset automatically ?
  - teeray 5y ago
    Yes, if the field is below sea level. They do exist!
  - behringer 5y ago
    That's what the memo the airline company put out said about this. It's hard to say if it's a good thing or not, imagine an incorrect flight plan is entered but non 0, you could fly straight into another flight path or an obstacle, like a mountain.
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    The preflight checklist covers setting this (and all other parameters) to correct values. Not only did the flight crew not do that, the statement by Emirates heavily suggests that instead of making people actually follow the preflight checklists (which cover many other safety-critical settings), they're relying entirely on the plane being left in the right state by the previous crew.

jacquesm 5y ago

Yes, assuming that the previous crew left you a 'perfect and ready to fly plane' is one hell of an assumption to make. With tiny little pieces to collect if it ends up being wrong. Emirates has a pretty good rep but this doesn't help.

3825 5y ago
> Yes, assuming that the previous crew left you a 'perfect and ready to fly plane' is one hell of an assumption to make. With tiny little pieces to collect if it ends up being wrong. This is very bizarre. I once had a morning flight out of Denver (not too long ago, August 2008?) and talking to people there apparently the plane had an electronics malfunction of some sort. They said they would fly us out as soon as the plane was ready but about ten hours later, they gave up and flew us out on a plane with a different airline (which I assume was not free for them, I doubt American Airlines would fly a plane for free for United). Point is the initial problem, at least what they told us, was some lights failed to turn on but they refused to fly. I thought flight crew were very risk averse but clearly not everyone.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That's proper procedure. When in doubt: fail safe. These guys even flew the plane back instead of being replaced by another crew, and that's with a plane that has just been used way in excess of its design parameters on more than one measure.
  - Zak 5y ago
    I've heard pilots put this as "it's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than to be in the air wishing you were on the ground".
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      Or "take-off is optional but landing is mandatory" :)
5y ago

amelius 5y ago

Perhaps this game should be part of the UX of cockpit controls: find the error, or lose your permits.

jacquesm 5y ago
Hehe. Gamification for the win... I really don't want to think about the red team version of that.
dghlsakjg 5y ago
In the US this is explicitly part of training for major airlines. They will line up failures in The simulator and have the pilots solve/fly through the issue. You can’t fly until you pass these checks
- wiedehopf 5y ago
  Is it really unexpected failures or do they discuss scenario / do you expect one of a few typical scenarios? Really throwing failures at pilots without them knowing what's going on seems to mean too many fail or rather there is not enough time to train pre-discussed scenarios and do scenarios that aren't announced. I'm not sure it's really what you'd want.
  - Pasorrijer 5y ago
    It's truly unexpected failures,in the context of flying the plane. Basically every failure state in flying has a procedure, and as a pilot you're expected to memorize some, and know how to find and follow the checklist or red page for all emergency situations. Beyond that, you have to know how to assess and evaluate any emergency because that's your job.
  - hungryforcodes 5y ago
    It's exactly what you want, because it simulates reality. Unexpected failures are by definition unexpected.
    - 5y ago

tshaddox 5y ago

I’m not a pilot either but I am shocked that there’s not some standard “reset” procedure so that each flight starts with the plane in a consistent clean slate. It seems bizarre for any process to rely on the previous flight coincidentally leaving the plane in a certain state.

op00to 5y ago
It doesn’t. The pilots didn’t do their preflight checklist which would have caught a poorly set up flight computer.
- atonse 5y ago
  Then I do fully support firing them. (If they didn’t follow the checklist) At first I saw they might have been fired and thought damn that is strict.
  - JimBlackwood 5y ago
    They are responsible for flying a plane full of passengers. Strict would be fair.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Right, but what I mean is that it shouldn’t be possible to skip those steps and have things coincidentally work because of the state the plane was left in. I’m not a pilot or even much of an aviation geek, so maybe I’m misunderstanding the description of this incident, but it sounds to me like this crew did what they always do, and that normally works fine, but this time it didn’t.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - nilsbunger 5y ago
    There isn't much in these planes that works "coincidentally" because of a previous flight -- almost all important state has to be reconfigured each flight. The article is over-indexing on the flight director's altitude setting. These guys missed many basic things, like rotating at V1 speed and in general monitoring the plane's situation.

Diesel555 5y ago

Some settings in airplanes are last left. And this is okay. If you had to reset every setting at all times it would cost time. Sometimes you find one that you go "man I wish that wasn't last left." Then software updates fix that. > I am not a pilot, but that's exactly what I thought when I read the memo too. They should be putting responsibility for the next flight on the next flight's crew, not the prior flight's crew. It's not a matter of responsibility, it's a risk mitigation measure. Adding the additional check is common in aviation. Yes, it is the next crew's responsibility, however if you can mitigate a risk by adding some procedure to what the previous crew does, at little or no cost until a software update is released fixing the issue, you do that every time.