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> The captain's unclear headspace became evident by his protracted tirade. He was likely mentally unfit for the task of captaining that day, and the rant was ev

by kakwa_ 3y ago

> The captain's unclear headspace became evident by his protracted tirade. He was likely mentally unfit for the task of captaining that day, and the rant was evidence of it. Reading through the article, that's not the feel I get. As presented by the article, the captain state of mind did had an effect, he was not at 100% of its mental capacities. But reading through the CVR transcript, the communication between the first officer and captain was good, and the crew did fly the plane from take-off up until the end which implies that the breach of the "sterile cockpit" rule before take-off did not had any major effect. They were fully focused on the task of flying immediately before and during the emergency. They simply both made mistakes/bad judgement calls. In fairness, the captain did make more mistakes, and some of these mistakes maybe may have been avoided if he was in a different state of mind. But at the same time he was placed in a situation where these mistakes could occur and become catastrophic (very old and unreliable plane lacking maintenance and ways to easily troubleshoot an engine failure). In my opinion, he, or any other pilot could have made the same mistakes even in a right state of mind. It's also an unreasonable assumption that pilots will always operate at 100% of their capacity.

mannykannot 3y ago
The question of whether the CVR recording demonstrates good communication is something of a red herring. As the article and NTSB report make clear, the crew deviated significantly from the correct procedure, which should have led to the unambiguous identification of the working engine. While the crew were not arguing, cockpit discipline had still broken down, with the result that the pilots talked themselves into believing that they had a double engine failure. The deviations started with the captain struggling with an overloaded radio channel, which should have been cut short by squawking 7700. Th article notes that the controller was a woman. Was that an issue in what followed? It’s a possibly-relevant factor that we will never get a certain answer to. No one is assuming that pilots will always operate at 100% capacity, which is one of the reasons for having procedures intended to catch common errors.

by kakwa_ 3y ago

mannykannot 3y ago

The question of whether the CVR recording demonstrates good communication is something of a red herring. As the article and NTSB report make clear, the crew deviated significantly from the correct procedure, which should have led to the unambiguous identification of the working engine. While the crew were not arguing, cockpit discipline had still broken down, with the result that the pilots talked themselves into believing that they had a double engine failure. The deviations started with the captain struggling with an overloaded radio channel, which should have been cut short by squawking 7700. Th article notes that the controller was a woman. Was that an issue in what followed? It’s a possibly-relevant factor that we will never get a certain answer to. No one is assuming that pilots will always operate at 100% capacity, which is one of the reasons for having procedures intended to catch common errors.