Co-pilot error caused AA 587 crash

Maybe you just need a big red "GO-FOR-BROKE" button for those cases
where flying according to the book is guaranteed to result in a
premature meeting with the ground.

In cases where extremely rapid reaction is necessary (such as waking up and
realising you are about to hit a mountain), the best thing to do is to put all
controls to their maximum and let the computer decide exacvtly how much can be
done and dyunamically change that as the plane starts to respond to those
requests for maximum change.

"Going for broke" will only yield a stall if you try to command maximum climb
when your speed just doesn't allow it. And in an emergency situation, does the
pilot actually have the time to think about just how much of a climb angle he
can achieve before stalling at current speed ?

nobody wrote:

Maybe you just need a big red "GO-FOR-BROKE" button for those cases
where flying according to the book is guaranteed to result in a
premature meeting with the ground.


In cases where extremely rapid reaction is necessary (such as waking up and
realising you are about to hit a mountain), the best thing to do is to put all
controls to their maximum and let the computer decide exacvtly how much can be
done and dyunamically change that as the plane starts to respond to those
requests for maximum change.

"Going for broke" will only yield a stall if you try to command maximum climb
when your speed just doesn't allow it. And in an emergency situation, does the
pilot actually have the time to think about just how much of a climb angle he
can achieve before stalling at current speed ?

That wasn't quite the scenario I had in mind, and I'd hope that any
pilot (commercial or otherwise) would realise that just pulling the
stick back as far as it will go is not likely to achieve the desired result.

The was an incident some years back where a crew lost control of an
airliner in turbulence, and pulled forces way outside the design
envelope inorder to prevent a dive into the ground. Also lowered landing
gear above gear down speed, etc.

The aircraft suffered severe damage, but landed OK. Unfortunately, I
cannot remember the airline, aircraft type nor location, which makes it
a bit hard to find.

Sylvia.

The was an incident some years back where a crew lost control of an
airliner in turbulence, and pulled forces way outside the design envelope
inorder to prevent a dive into the ground. Also lowered landing gear above
gear down speed, etc.

The aircraft suffered severe damage, but landed OK. Unfortunately, I
cannot remember the airline, aircraft type nor location, which makes it a
bit hard to find.





I believe it was a China Airlines 747, at SFO. I saw the aircraft the next
day. Hard to believe it came back.
The horizontal stabilizers and elevators were clipped off at about half
span. The gear doors came by after the gear was extended. The left aileron
had a two foot hole in it where a part came off of the leading edge, and
went through the obviously very extended aileron. There were wrinkles
everywhere. A commercial pilot in the cabin estimated 6 g's.


See: February 19, 1985, China Airlines Flight 006,
http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/publ...r/AAR8603.html)

Al Gerharter wrote:

The was an incident some years back where a crew lost control of an
airliner in turbulence, and pulled forces way outside the design envelope
inorder to prevent a dive into the ground. Also lowered landing gear above
gear down speed, etc.

The aircraft suffered severe damage, but landed OK. Unfortunately, I
cannot remember the airline, aircraft type nor location, which makes it a
bit hard to find.






I believe it was a China Airlines 747, at SFO. I saw the aircraft the next
day. Hard to believe it came back.
The horizontal stabilizers and elevators were clipped off at about half
span. The gear doors came by after the gear was extended. The left aileron
had a two foot hole in it where a part came off of the leading edge, and
went through the obviously very extended aileron. There were wrinkles
everywhere. A commercial pilot in the cabin estimated 6 g's.


See: February 19, 1985, China Airlines Flight 006,
http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/publ...r/AAR8603.html)



Yes, that looks like the one.

Although I cited this as an example where the ability to fly outside the
design envelope allowed recovery of an otherwise disasterous
situation, it looks to me, on a cursory reading, as if the damaging
accelerations occurred during a period when the captain was not trying
to recover control because he couldn't tell what the aifcraft was doing
anyway.

Oh well.

I'm amazed that the crew apparently thought it reasonable to resume
normal operation after a descent like that. They should surely have
realised that an immediate landing was indicated.

Sylvia.

I think this was their first opportunity to land. The aircraft was well
outside the envelope when a recovery ensued. I don't know what would have
happened to an airbus. This thing had shoe prints on the instrument panel.
Al


"Sylvia Else" wrote in message
u...


Al Gerharter wrote:

The was an incident some years back where a crew lost control of an
airliner in turbulence, and pulled forces way outside the design envelope
inorder to prevent a dive into the ground. Also lowered landing gear
above gear down speed, etc.

The aircraft suffered severe damage, but landed OK. Unfortunately, I
cannot remember the airline, aircraft type nor location, which makes it a
bit hard to find.






I believe it was a China Airlines 747, at SFO. I saw the aircraft the
next day. Hard to believe it came back.
The horizontal stabilizers and elevators were clipped off at about half
span. The gear doors came by after the gear was extended. The left
aileron had a two foot hole in it where a part came off of the leading
edge, and went through the obviously very extended aileron. There were
wrinkles everywhere. A commercial pilot in the cabin estimated 6 g's.


See: February 19, 1985, China Airlines Flight 006,
http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/publ...r/AAR8603.html)



Yes, that looks like the one.

Although I cited this as an example where the ability to fly outside the
design envelope allowed recovery of an otherwise disasterous situation, it
looks to me, on a cursory reading, as if the damaging accelerations
occurred during a period when the captain was not trying to recover
control because he couldn't tell what the aifcraft was doing anyway.

Oh well.

I'm amazed that the crew apparently thought it reasonable to resume normal
operation after a descent like that. They should surely have realised that
an immediate landing was indicated.

Sylvia.

On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 at 08:50:15 in message
, Sylvia Else
wrote:
I'm amazed that the crew apparently thought it reasonable to resume
normal operation after a descent like that. They should surely have
realised that an immediate landing was indicated.

They didn't. Their destination was Los Angeles and they diverted to the
nearest they could which was San Francisco. The incident took place
nearly 300nm off shore when they were NW of San Francisco. Their route
would have taken them over San Francisco on the way to Los Angeles
(according to my globe anyway!)
--
David CL Francis

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 at 15:59:23 in message
, Sylvia Else
wrote:
The aircraft suffered severe damage, but landed OK. Unfortunately, I
cannot remember the airline, aircraft type nor location, which makes it
a bit hard to find.

You probably mean TWA Flight 841 on 4 April 1979. The was a Boeing
727-100 N840TW. It allegedly exceeded mach 1.0 briefly on the way down.

Is that enough for you to find it? Flight was planned JFK to
Minneapolis/St Paul. The landing was made at Detroit on Runway 03L after
one abortive go-around the pilot then approached at 205k where he could
maintain some control. When they attempted to tow the aircraft away the
right main gear started to separate; when they jacked it up to look at
it the right main gear fell off!

You could also mean China Airways Flight 006 from Taipei to Los Angeles
on the 18th February 1985. That was a Boeing 747SP.
--
David CL Francis

"Peter" wrote in message
...
Here to there wrote:

On Tue, 26 Oct 2004 18:51:45 GMT, Pete wrote:

But Molin didn't know he was putting more pressure on the tail than
it could bear. Why he didn't -- and who's to blame for that -- is the
subject of a bitter fight between Airbus and American.

I thought that was one of the main advantages of fly-by-wire systems,
to eliminate truly stupid actions of pilots. Sounds like Airbus shares
a lot of blame for the crash. It's like an auto maker made a car that
sheared off its wheels if the steering wheel was turned too quickly,
and the maker's response was to tell drivers, "Don't do that!"

Why the FACS failed to limit flight control inputs & why the rudder limiter
failed to limit rudder travel in this incident are two questions that have
not been addressed.
Ralph Nesbitt Professional FD/CFR/ARFF Type

Ralph Nesbitt wrote:
Why the FACS failed to limit flight control inputs & why the rudder limiter
failed to limit rudder travel in this incident are two questions that have
not been addressed.

First question: A300-600 is not FBW and there is no computer interpreting
pilot commands.

Second question: The rudder performed as commanded and did not exceed its own
travel limitations. Under normal circumstances, it would not have broken the
tail. However, it was a combination of rapid complete rudder movement with
side slipping of aircraft which put way too much lateral force on the tail fin
which snapped off.

You need a lot of rudder authority in flight if, for instance, you lose an
engine and need to correct for asymetric thrust. But that doesn't give you
carte blanche to play with the rudder with full left to full right rapid
movements while plane in side slipping and buffeted by turbulence.

"nobody" wrote in message
...
Ralph Nesbitt wrote:
Why the FACS failed to limit flight control inputs & why the rudder
limiter
failed to limit rudder travel in this incident are two questions that
have
not been addressed.

First question: A300-600 is not FBW and there is no computer interpreting
pilot commands.

Second question: The rudder performed as commanded and did not exceed its
own
travel limitations. Under normal circumstances, it would not have broken
the
tail. However, it was a combination of rapid complete rudder movement with
side slipping of aircraft which put way too much lateral force on the tail
fin
which snapped off.

You need a lot of rudder authority in flight if, for instance, you lose an
engine and need to correct for asymetric thrust. But that doesn't give
you
carte blanche to play with the rudder with full left to full right rapid
movements while plane in side slipping and buffeted by turbulence.

The issue with the incident in question was the complete vertical stabilizer
breaking off, not just the rudder fin.
Ralph Nesbitt
Professional FD/CFR/ARFF Type