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Asiana Crash Pilot Set Throttle to Idle

C

CWOJackson

Charter Member
Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- An Asiana Airlines Inc.captain nervous about making a manual landing in San Francisco inadvertently disabled a speed-control system before the plane crashed into a seawall on July 6, documents show.
Lee Kang Kuk, a veteran pilot with Seoul-based Asiana who was being trained on the Boeing Co. 777-200ER wide-body, had momentarily adjusted the power without realizing the plane’s computers then assumed he wanted the engines to remain at idle, according to information released today at a U.S. National Transportation Safety Board hearing.

The documents, while showing the pilots made errors, raise questions about how auto-throttles on Boeing planes are designed and whether there’s enough training on using them. The safety board hasn’t concluded what caused the crash, which killed three teenage girls from China in the first U.S. airline accident with deaths since 2009.
Lee, 45, “believed the auto-throttle should have come out of the idle position to prevent the airplane going below the minimum speed” for landing, the NTSB said in a summary of an interview with him. “That was the theory at least, as he understood it.”
In most modes of operation, the speed-protection system on the 777 and several other Boeing aircraft won’t allow planes to slow too much, safeguarding against accidents such as the Asiana crash. The plane, on the verge of losing lift because it was almost 40 miles (64 kilometers) per hour slower than its target speed, broke apart after hitting the ground.

Continue reading at...http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloo...rash-Pilot-Set-Throttle-He-Didn-t-5056791.php
 
I would caution anyone buying into the wording of the press writings on the latest information on the accident investigation. There have been several articles published in the last 24 hours that had erroneous or incomplete information on the latest accident findings. Before anyone decides that this solely a case of Pilot Error, for quite some time there have been circulations between Boeing, the FAA, EASA, and Boeing Operators (of specific aircraft) regarding Autothrottle/Manual Throttle/Engine Response, and Software Fault issues with not only the 777, but with other newer generation Boeing Aircraft. The concern is significant enough to have triggered recurrent training changes to address the known faults. My cousin who's a senior 777 Captain & Check Airman told me they have been put through the strainer following this accident and several similar incidents of significant concern. No one on the outside knows the final report content yet but it was certainly a mixed cause accident and not solely pilot error. But yes, there are problems with the architecture of the Boeing systems and recommendations have been made for improvements on what they call "less than desirable features".
 
StormILM said:
I would caution anyone buying into the wording of the press writings on the latest information on the accident investigation. There have been several articles published in the last 24 hours that had erroneous or incomplete information on the latest accident findings. Before anyone decides that this solely a case of Pilot Error, for quite some time there have been circulations between Boeing, the FAA, EASA, and Boeing Operators (of specific aircraft) regarding Autothrottle/Manual Throttle/Engine Response, and Software Fault issues with not only the 777, but with other newer generation Boeing Aircraft. The concern is significant enough to have triggered recurrent training changes to address the known faults. My cousin who's a senior 777 Captain & Check Airman told me they have been put through the strainer following this accident and several similar incidents of significant concern. No one on the outside knows the final report content yet but it was certainly a mixed cause accident and not solely pilot error. But yes, there are problems with the architecture of the Boeing systems and recommendations have been made for improvements on what they call "less than desirable features".
Click to expand...

OK, but the report quotes from the official report from the US NTSB, and they ARE the experts on this subject! The NTSB publicly releases their reports as we are very much open on these issues and consider them matters of public interest. I do not disagree that there have been studies and tests done on autothrottle systems. The news article also very much reported the background concerns that you mention, so again, while one is well advised to take newspaper reports with a grain of salt, this article appears fair and accurate. The NTSB has not yet put their report of this mishap on their website, but they certainly will soon. Here is the link to their aviation mishap reports:

http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/reports_aviation.html

This is also the NTSB's website page devoted to this mishap:

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/2013/asiana214/asiana214.html

To the extent that there are autothrottle compromises in the design of this jet, I would simply say I have yet to see a perfect airplane and firmly believe no one ever will. As an instructor pilot myself, I teach using an aircraft system that itself contains a lot of compromises in its design. Instructors are briefed on these, and these autothrottle design concerns have already been provided to the airlines, who have the duty to pass them on to their pilots, especially their instructors and evaluators. So, returning to this mishap, my view is that regardless of any design concerns present, this mishap is nearly entirely, if not entirely, the result of failure of the flight crew to maintain situational awareness and clearly communicate their intentions to the crew for mutual backup. This is basic cockpit resource management (CRM).

I really don't hold the pilot flying to blame that much either. He was the student pilot receiving training. No one on this flight crew went to work that day wanting to kill people, injure people, or destroy a very expensive airplane. So, of course I have great sympathy for all of them. But, let's tell it plain and have the courage to do so. This mishap is primarily rooted in the failure of an instructor pilot to maintain control of the aircraft's configuration, as well as his failure to properly monitor the actions of his student. That's blunt. That's hard. But, that's the world we live in as pilots. The public deserves nothing less than our frankest level of professional accountability. Yes, again, I can certainly sympathize (likely better than most pilots truth be told) about having to work with a poorly designed aircraft, but that does not relieve us of our duty to keep control and maintain situational awareness.

Ken
 
Ken,

I agree with most of what you said, yes, ultimately it is the PIC & Crew's responsibility to stay within safe parameters but if anomalies present in the aircraft contributed to the accident, it wouldn't be the first time a fault within an aircraft's systems have led a crew down the fatal rabbit hole of disaster. Based on what I have heard from a member of the 777 community, the issues of inconsistent behavior in both automation and instrument software glitches have raised concern for some time. Here is some food for thought, during 777 simulation runs since the accident with nearly identical conditions(with a mix of known anomalies added in), the failure of experienced crews to recover was alarmingly high and the crews running the sim checks were fully briefed before beginning their runs. In more than one case in the sim, the crews attempted recovery well before the parameters of what the Asiana crew did and still impacted. As I've said, there are issues with the system architecture and issues that have appeared with the instrumentation that have been previously concluded by Boeing and the FAA to be a safety concern. At this point, Boeing is prohibited by Federal law from publicly discussing the Flight 214 accident but one thing is clear in the community, there is a hat dance going on at high level regarding the known issues and whether to leave the suggested changes as are(non-mandatory) or to order changes. The EASA however are closer to ordering mandatory changes for 777 operators that operated within European Airspace.
 
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Frankly, I would like to hear the details on your issues raised, even if by PM if you don't wish to post it publicly. That desire is simply wanting to know how things in aviation are going. In addition, since I teach CRM, instrument refresher, in addition to mission qualification courses and sorties, there might be something of value I can translate to my own students.

Thanks,

Ken
 
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