So the way I read it shyguy says one bust and you're out.

 

No, and as I stated before anyone can have a bad day in the box.

But we are talking about repetitive failures and failures in things that shouldn't be failed (recurrent home ground school for example). Page 11 lists those things. Note that the FO didn't have any. It is eerily similar to the PF/PM scenario that was Colgan at BUF. Can we at least admit that not everyone is cut out to be a pilot? And just because one passes a checkride doesn't make them a competent pilot. A failed PPL checkride and later a failed PC or a line check isn't really symptomatic. But it becomes a problem when one fails consistently, recurrent ground school failures, upgrade failure once, then upgrade fail twice, then as FO fail AQP day #3. At some point I think losses ought to be cut. It's symptomatic failures that should be red flags throughout the industry.

 

I agree and I think it was a way for the NTSB to strike a balance in regards to releasing information to the public some years back .
Thankfully the tapes themselves are not released to the public.

 

I am puzzled about the lack of automated RAD ALT calls on the CVR. What calls are programmed on a UPS aircraft? i would have expected a 100 then 50, 40, 30, 20,10 or higher values by pin programme.

 

I thought the PF called the runway insight and there after, the PM.

 

A mistake? What one mistake are you referring to?


They failed to clean up the FMS.

PM had a stellar training history and yet...here we are.

IMO-
Voluntary withdrawal is not the same as a failure. Might have been on the path to a failure, but we don't know the reason why.
What we do know is that 2 years later he successfully upgraded to the Airbus, and 5 years after that successfully upgraded to Capt on the Bus.

 

That's one of several errors. I highly doubt the NTSB final report will issue the probably cause as "pilots forgot to clean up the FMS leading to terrain contact."

 

No surprise that a thirty-ish snap at a non-union gig supports up or out.

Also no surprise an internet toughguy like he has had dimes dropped on him in his regional life.

Speaking ill of the deceased rather than the pure quest of mishap prevention is really bad karma.

I dub thee Corntrollio.

 

Shyguy,
Since so bold on judgment, and you have already determined the cause(s) of this fatal crash with your declarations, please share your thoughts on the factors leading to the accident. May as well.
SD
One who has made many errors in my professional career...

 

Well, Shyguy,

It is my opinion that they felt like it was a slam dunk approach and they were high.

As a long time bus FO, I know that profile will work if it's given the correct info. Where it does poorly, is if there are extraneous points in the FMS. As another example, if you put a lead-in VOR fix to an ILS, the FMS will assume you're really going to fly 40 miles north of the field and create a shallow descent path.

Likewise, even if you semi clean up a LOC approach, the descent can still be gooned up, you have to have the next point to fly over in front of you (whether it's the stepdown fix or the FAF, has to be the next one). If you don't, then the airplane won't intercept the VNAV path you are anticipating.

And when it doesn't intercept the VNAV path, a common technique is to command a V/S descent---especially when you THINK you're above the VNAV path.

And, a common descent rate ballpark for the outer regions of a non-precision approach is in the 1k-1500 fpm.

So, what I think happened is the failed to clean up the approach and were counting on the airplane transition to the Profile-Final Approach Mode for a VNAV arrival. There should have been other clues that the airplane wasn't where they thought it was, but they failed to catch them.

How were they trained on accomplishing this type of approach? What FMS pages did they have called up? FDX has a specific set of FMS pages?

There are contributing factors, but it's my opinion that if they had cleaned up the FMS, VNAV would have worked for them and we wouldn't have someone postulating a voluntary withdrawal from upgrade training 12 years ago was causal