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Lion Air crash

AussieMan

AussieMan

SOH Staff .."Bartender"
Reports are coming through that a Lion Air B737-8 has crashed just off the Indonesian coast near Jakarta. The aircraft had taken off for a one hour flight to the north and disappeared from radar 13 minutes into the flight. There is a report that the flight reached a height of about 5600' before suddenly descending to 3500' in less than a minute before disappearing off the radar.

There were 180 passengers and crew on board and first rescue boats on the scent report there is no sign of survivors.
 
im sorry to have seen this,real shame. normally here in the us this would have been all over the news...not in these times.
 
mmm,i watch MSNBC most all day every day,odd why id miss it,but i am me...i could miss my own self at times...
 
ABC, NBC and MSNBC had a report yesterday on the possible recovery of one of the 'black boxes' from the aircraft.
 
It was first covered a couple days ago on Yahoo News which redirects to the actual news site.
IIRC, the aircraft was a Boeing 737 and it was only about 2 months old.
It was also mentioned that divers had found cell phones and other such on the bottom which presumably belonged to the passengers or crew.

- Ivan.
 
Yes it is - but, we need to always take a peek at the backup digital standby attitude reference, fly attitude and set power manually for a reasonable speed as soon as possible while trying to figure out what is going on.

In the many Navy jets I have flown, they ALL had AoA indicators, either probe or vane types, but they were all analogue indicators. I never once had a failure, though NATOPS always covered it.

However, I suspect the input on these B737 systems are washed through some computer logic and that may have been the problem. Their STS trim system is quite complex.
 
Hello Mike71,

That was the gist of the article as I understood it also.
The failure of the AoA indicator by itself didn't kill these people.
It was more a matter of what the computer systems decided was happening based upon faulty sensor (AoA?) readings AND readings from other sensors and the combination of inputs probably did not match any condition that the computer program was designed to handle.
Basically a "Garbage In ==> Garbage Out" kind of situation.
There was mention of reprogramming the computers as part of the solution.

- Ivan.
 
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Back to Basics

We all have our own thoughts on this matter, based on our respective experience. I remember when being introduced to electronic flight instrument systems, having it hammered into me a quotation I'd heard many times before: "when things start to fail-Aviate, Navigate, Communicate and go back to Basics if necessary". I don't if it would have helped in this case, but in at least one case involving double generator failure in a Citation II, that quotation, (plus good Flight Safety International training), got me and my trainee F/O back on the ground safely with the aircraft intact. In these days of E.F.I.S. Systems is it possible there maybe an over reliance on these systems, and perhaps not enough emphasis on "Back to Basics"? Food for thought!
 
Agree. I also have thought a lot about the necessity of having a small but old analog style standby VSI as well as the new digital combi attitude/speed/alt standby instrument in many of these planes. To me, the old VSI was always a Godsend to good control in partial panel instrument flying.
 
The big problem, IMO, is a lot of commercial pilots aren't taught the Basics to go back to. They learn the basics of hand flying a plane, true, but very few things like partial panel, pure IFR with only the basic instruments, unusual attitude recovery, and so so on. Most of their training is on how to push the right buttons, at the right times, on the right computer. Very little "stick-n-rudder" training.
What a lot of private pilots, not to mention military pilots, get taught is left out of a commercial pilot's training. Including the Aviate, Navigate, Communicate mantra, that every pilot should have drilled into him.
Now, if it's not covered on a checklist, they haven't the faintest idea what to do. What happens when the computer dies at 35,000', M0.8? What to do when the plane suddenly flips over for no apparent reason. What to do if, just for an example, the AOA system suddenly becomes totally unreliable...:indecisiveness:

I'd would rather by far have a military pilot moonlighting up in the cockpit!

Anywho, all just my opinion. My father was a Navy Flight Instructor in SNJ's, and went on to become a UAL pilot. He would just shake his head when he had to train up a new co-pilot they assigned to him. Almost none of the basics on how to control a plane that was doing odd things up in the air. A lot of them would freeze if the bank angle got to more than 30°. Scary... :banghead:

Ok, shutting up now...
Pat☺
 
So True... A mate of mine is an instructor and he will agree with that. No stick and rudder skills at all nowadays, just button pushing...

Priller
 
That is changing now in the sims. I'm really happy the Army mandated that we had upset recovery training while flying King Airs. We used Zlin-242Ls initially, Extra 300s for offsite training and they use Grob 120TPs now. Outstanding training for all facets of my flying (I fly GA too). As I look into airline jobs and interview, full stalls and the same unusual attitude are now being incorporated into training.
 
I like watching his UTube videos. He always something interesting to share.
 
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