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Cosmo, is it CFIT or uncontrolled flight into terrain --- in the case of Lion Air?
Thanks!
No. CFIT is not Uncontrolled flight, it is Controlled flight into terrain. Lion Air and Ethiopian were neither CFIT.
A CFIT example would be flying off of an airway (protected) in instrument conditions or at night and flying right into a mountain. You would be fat, dumb and happy right before impact. Not the case with Lion and company. That was a loss of control.
One other tidbit. If the trim is running away nosedown, perhaps by the MCAS system, and you are pulling back on the yoke to counter it, it can be physically challenging to get your thumbs into the trim switch and push UP to get the nose down. I do not know on the 737 Max if the manual trim switch on the yoke will even work when the trim kill switches are turned off. If they do indeed kill all trimming, you may have stopped the runaway trim but now have to deal with strong yoke forces that may be overwhelming. You would have to turn the trim kill switches back on (perhaps getting more nose down) to see if you can override that with manual nose up. You might have to keep the trim off and manually turn the trim wheels to regain control. All in all, a very challenging environment especially with a brand new co-pilot with very low hours.
Jim, that's what I meant. There were a classic couple of cases on Smithsonian Channel's "Air Disasters." One where pilot forget to puts flaps down, upon taking off (in one case) and landing (in another).
Thanks, for the clarification. There was an episode on that Lion Air crash. As you said, co-pilot lack of knowledge lead the pilot to do too much work and not monitor the instruments. IIRC.
Before I got on my flight back to Canada from Antigua this morning I was watching one of the US network news stations. They reported that the crash in Malaysia was result of lack of maintenance procedures and inexperienced pilots, likely different than the African accident. Not sure what to believe or how accurate their sources are but that is what I heard today.
Back home safe and sound, rode home in a 737 NG ? or something like that, never thought I would be so happy to ride in an older plane, lol.
This is why you don't want to believe what you hear and see on "news" stations. I can tell you from personal experience that every single time I have encountered a news report/image report on something I personally had knowledge of, it was incorrect. I can only imagine how often they get it wrong.
Now this was a real stunner. To think that an airplane, out of gas, would have difficulties maintaining altitude. Who knew? Never saw this one coming.
You may be just kidding ^^, and know that's not really true.
In case your not, any airplane, without structural damage, will glide and not fall like a rock. Even a 737 or 777. Remember Sully, who glided his airliner without power to land on the Hudson River?
You may be just kidding ^^, and know that's not really true.
In case your not, any airplane, without structural damage, will glide and not fall like a rock. Even a 737 or 777. Remember Sully, who glided his airliner without power to land on the Hudson River?
Sorry, it is a helicopter that flies like a rock. Airplanes fly like a rock with wings.
I have a pilots license for fixed wings, but once I took a helicopter lesson. I found out there is something called gyrorotate (or auto-rotate) (?) (someone can correct me if I got it wrong) and if the chopper loses power, and the blades can still function, they can stop the drop before you hit the ground. And supposedly, you can land safely. However, I have stood a few feet from a helicopter that was ferrying passengers from Disneyland to LAX when it had a problem, and it looked like a piece of paper that somebody wadded up. (all on-board died) So given a choice of an airplane or a helicopter to be in when it lost power, I'll choose the plane every time.
I have flown the H65 Dolphin with the Coast Guard when I was active duty on Kodiak island. Not checked out but they let fly it and play with their lives in non-rescue operations. Really a lot of fun.
You can do an autorotate for engine failure but when you approach the ground it is a seat of the pants feel as to when to pull the collective to stop the aircraft perfectly. There is no second chance.
There are some helicopters that use reciprocating engines. When those engines fail, things become somewhat dicey. Best to go to confession before going up in one of those.
03-13-2019, 11:37 AM
