Air Bus 300 crash in NY now blamed on co-pilot's improper use of rudder

"PS2727" wrote in message
...
As a multiengine instructor who has witnessed students applying full
rudder in
the wrong direction after a simulated engine failure then quickly apply
full
opposite rudder in the correct direction am I to understand that I was in
mortal danger from the tail breaking off? Seems that is a little late in
telling pilots how these things are designed....What next, we can't
reverse
ailerons when landing in gusty conditions without breaking something there
as
well?
..

No, the limitation applies to transport catagory aircraft.

Also, maybe someone can explain why the rudder limiter on this Airbus
didn't
protect the structure when its sole purpose in life is to prevent damage
to the
structure by limiting rudder movement at higher speeds

Good question. It was probably never anticipated that airline pilots would
fly the airplane like your multi students.

Mike
MU-2

I don't think this version was FBW Airbus

"Corky Scott" wrote in message
...
It was just a news blurb this morning on the local TV news, but they
claimed that investigators now blame the loss of the Air Bus 300's
tail on the improper use of the rudder by the co-pilot.

If true (that the co-pilot is actually being blamed), I find that
difficult to believe.

As Ron says, if you want to know what the NTSB says, you need to read their
report. The news media often corrupts matter of fact into alarmist
finger-pointing.

The truth is that, when there's an aircraft accident, the NTSB almost always
winds up blaming the pilot in their report. They will often assign
additional blame elsewhere, but the truth is that aircraft failures rarely
occur absent pilot input, and so pilot input winds up part of the report.

For example, if an airplane crashes due to an engine failure caused by a
manufacturing defect or maintenance error, followed by poor engine-out
landing, the pilot will be blamed for the poor engine-out landing.

Another crash might be a result of the aircraft stalling and spinning to to
the ground. The accident report will often simply say that the pilot lost
control of the airplane, without offering insight into WHY the pilot lost
control.

If you recall the Alaska Airlines accident in which the elevator trim screw
failed, I would be willing to bet that somewhere in the NTSB report, they
fault the pilots for not landing at the first sign of trouble. Which is not
to say that the maintenance practices involved weren't the primary cause.
(I would have checked the report before posting this, except the NTSB web
site is *really* slow today...possibly related to the Airbus accident report
having just been released; I've been waiting 15 minutes already, have no
idea when my query will come back, and figure there's at least even odds it
will simply time out with an error ).

The NTSB simply reports whatever errors they feel they've found. In the
Airbus crash, my understanding is that it's reasonably well-established that
the pilot DID use a control input that led to the failure of the rudder, by
exceeding the design standards for that control.

There may be a host of other reasons why the pilot did so (I am especially
intrigued by the point that Airbus claims that their fly-by-wire system is
supposed to protect against such event), but the fact remains that the pilot
is who made the control input that ultimately caused the accident. There is
nothing fundamentally wrong with the NTSB stating that.

So, seems that what we have here is a clear case of the NTSB reporting
facts, with the media filtering the report to suit whatever agenda they have
at the moment.

[...]
Either way, I find it difficult to blame the co-pilot for reacting in
what is likely a normal pilot response to turbulence. Surely all
airliners aren't so tempermental when it comes to rudder input are
they?

For what it's worth, the certification standards do not preclude all
airliners being so temperamental. FAR 25.351 requires only that a single
full-scale deflection be possible, followed by returning the rudder to
center, and an immediate full-scale deflection in the other direction may
well cause failure of the aircraft. Whether any airliners exceed this
design standard, I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that most
don't.

Pete

In deference to the NTSB, it has been mentioned here before that, left to
their own devices, they would not have initiated the "probable cause"
reporting that the news media and most of the rest of the world zooms in
on, but would have preferred to keep their report factual. This said, the
"C" and "F" shorthand we have become accustomed to ("C" for causal and "F"
for factor) appear to favor a superficial reading and attribution of
blame.

I agree we find, at times, and almost surreal ability to put the blame on
the shoulders of the flight crew, and this latest incident is an example.
After all, one of the oft-cited criteria for assigning crew responsibility
(or "pilot error"), is the determination of whether the crew acted in
accordance with their training. It is after all unreasonable to expect the
crew to become test pilots and invent hitherto unexplored techniques in
dealing with an emergency, or to consider them at fault for not having
done so. Yet, from the information we have, this would appear to be the
standard being applied to this flight crew. Clearly, nothing in their
basic training, advanced training or type certification indicated they
could not use full rudder deflection for airplane control within
maneuvering speed.

If we accept the arguments submitted by Airbus, who claim they tried for
years to improve the training program at American to reflect this reality,
this further vindicates the flight crew, as we understand that this
training was never implemented. In our world today, had the unfortunate
first officer had the miraculous chance to survive the accident, having
been found at fault, he would certainly be fired, and could even face
involuntary manslaughter charges - a criminal. This smacks of
scapegoating, and one is hard pressed not to see a political expedient at
work here.

G Faris

On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 18:45:08 +0000 (UTC), (G Farris)
wrote:


In deference to the NTSB, it has been mentioned here before that, left to
their own devices, they would not have initiated the "probable cause"
reporting that the news media and most of the rest of the world zooms in
on, but would have preferred to keep their report factual. This said, the
"C" and "F" shorthand we have become accustomed to ("C" for causal and "F"
for factor) appear to favor a superficial reading and attribution of
blame.

I agree we find, at times, and almost surreal ability to put the blame on
the shoulders of the flight crew, and this latest incident is an example.
After all, one of the oft-cited criteria for assigning crew responsibility
(or "pilot error"), is the determination of whether the crew acted in
accordance with their training. It is after all unreasonable to expect the
crew to become test pilots and invent hitherto unexplored techniques in
dealing with an emergency, or to consider them at fault for not having
done so. Yet, from the information we have, this would appear to be the
standard being applied to this flight crew. Clearly, nothing in their
basic training, advanced training or type certification indicated they
could not use full rudder deflection for airplane control within
maneuvering speed.
snipped....

That is exactly what struck me when I heard the sound-bite version on
the news. Airbus did provide substantial information showing that
they warned American that there training methods with regard to rudder
control (particularly as it applies to roll correction) was flawed and
dangerous. Given the rudder control idiosyncracies of the aircraft
and the "flawed" training, it seems to me that the co-pilot should be
at least third in line for blame. It is also interesting to note that
there were several internal warnings form people within American
stating that the training was flawed and dangerous. As far as I know,
the training was not revised to reflect correct procedures prior to
the crash. When an aircraft manufacturer and the Airline itself warn
that the training is flawed, and the flawed training continues, how is
that the pilot's fault?
Rich Russell

Peter Duniho wrote:


The truth is that, when there's an aircraft accident, the NTSB almost
always
winds up blaming the pilot in their report. They will often assign
additional blame elsewhere, but the truth is that aircraft failures rarely
occur absent pilot input, and so pilot input winds up part of the report.

In this particular case, though, it appears that the [co]pilot was doing as
he was trained. If he was trained to do the wrong thing, it was the
training at fault and not the pilot.

As I read the article, while it does say that the pilot's actions caused the
crash, it does not appear to afix blame to the pilot.

- Andrew

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...

As I read the article, while it does say that the pilot's actions caused
the
crash, it does not appear to afix blame to the pilot.



Exactly.

In Canada the TSB tries to make it very clear that they determine the cause,
the do not assign blame... quote from their mandate: it is not the function
of the Board to assign fault or determine civil or criminal liability.
unquote...

I thought it was the same with the NTSB. (Their site does not respond
today, so I cannot refresh my memory on their mandate...)

It seems pretty clear that the "Cause" was the excessive waggling of rudder
by the pilot-flying.

"Blame" will be debated for a long time after the official report.

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
In this particular case, though, it appears that the [co]pilot was doing
as
he was trained. If he was trained to do the wrong thing, it was the
training at fault and not the pilot.

IMHO, that's an oversimplification. For example, some Private pilots are
trained to fly the VASI glideslope, while others are trained to fly a
steeper, power-off gliding approach. A pilot flying the VASI glideslope who
experiences a power failure will wind up crashing short of the airport, but
that doesn't mean that the practice of training pilots to fly the VASI
glideslope is necessarily wrong. Each method has positive and negative
aspects, and it's up to the pilot to make a decision regarding how to apply
their training.

As far as this particular accident goes, are you saying it's the case that
the pilot training specifically *instructed* the pilot to make large back
and forth rudder inputs? I haven't seen any documentation of that claim.
What I have seen are statements that the training neglected to mention that
multiple full deflection rudder inputs were bad; that's an entirely
different claim. After all, flying the airplane into a mountainside is also
bad, but I would be surprised if pilot training spends much time covering
that topic.

One could argue that pilots ought to be familiar with the certification
rules and understand that the rules only grant the pilot a single full
deflection of the rudder in one direction, after which the rudder can be
returned only to the neutral position. Regardless of training.

Now, that's a debate for another time, and I don't even feel that it's a
strictly "either/or" debate anyway. But my point is that ultimately it was
the pilot who over-controlled the aircraft, contrary to the certification
rules that govern the design of the aircraft. To that extent, it is
patently obvious that the pilot shares at least some of the blame.

Beyond all that, it is still factually true that the pilot's control inputs
are what *caused* the accident. My original point is that the NTSB will
state a fact like this, and the media will misinterpret to mean that the
NTSB is assigning blame or fault to the pilot. That's simply not the case.
The pilot can still be the cause of an accident without being to blame,
either partially or wholely. My use of the word "blame" obviously
distracted from what I was really trying to say.

As I read the article, while it does say that the pilot's actions caused
the crash, it does not appear to afix blame to the pilot.

Which article? This thread started with a "news blurb" Corky wrote about.
We were not afforded the opportunity to review the media report Corky wrote
about. If you mean the article that was posted here, that may or may not be
relevant to Corky's post.

In any case, the article to which you refer seems to more accurately convey
the NTSB's likely position (which we'll know once the report is actually
available).

Pete

Peter Duniho wrote:

Each method has positive and negative
aspects, and it's up to the pilot to make a decision regarding how to
apply their training.

This is only possible where the pilot knows that both possibilities exist.
If the training is as described, the pilot was given one way to deal with
the turbulance. There was nothing - of which he knew - with which to
compare it.


As far as this particular accident goes, are you saying it's the case that
the pilot training specifically *instructed* the pilot to make large back
and forth rudder inputs? I haven't seen any documentation of that claim.

It certainly sounds like he was instructed to use the rudder to try to
control aircraft in that case, at least from the article in question.
Whether he was ever taught to stop trying this method at a certain point,
I'm in no position to say.

What I have seen are statements that the training neglected to mention
that multiple full deflection rudder inputs were bad; that's an entirely
different claim. After all, flying the airplane into a mountainside is
also bad, but I would be surprised if pilot training spends much time
covering that topic.

That's not a fair comparison. One could make a reasonable guess as to the
result of flying into a mountainside. I don't think it reasonable to
believe that futzing with the rudder, even to an extreme, is going to cause
the tail to fall off. If someone told me that, I'd probably assume they
were kidding (at least at first). Who'd build a plane like that??


One could argue that pilots ought to be familiar with the certification
rules and understand that the rules only grant the pilot a single full
deflection of the rudder in one direction, after which the rudder can be
returned only to the neutral position. Regardless of training.

Now, that's a debate for another time,

True, but it is a good point. It's why I was "happy" to read that article
to which I referred earlier: it reminded me that the definition of Va has
certain "limits".

[...]
Beyond all that, it is still factually true that the pilot's control
inputs
are what *caused* the accident. My original point is that the NTSB will
state a fact like this, and the media will misinterpret to mean that the
NTSB is assigning blame or fault to the pilot. That's simply not the
case. The pilot can still be the cause of an accident without being to
blame,
either partially or wholely. My use of the word "blame" obviously
distracted from what I was really trying to say.

Agreed, esp. about the media mangling meaning.

- Andrew