xjtguy

L-UAL had an incident, not close in nature, but similar enough coming out of Hawaii a few years ago.

Which goes along with what you said.

But he made it through the hiring process, right?

Timbo

EEC = Electronic Engine Conrol

It was supposed to be an over-boost/over rev preventer. It would on occaision go TU, and give you an EICAS (Electronic Indicator and Advisory System) message; (L or R) EEC INOP

The book procedure was; Slightly reduce power on the affected side, turn off the EEC, and then observe the engine limits, ie. Temp or RPM.

The 'short cut' procedure was, Pull the power back and turn the damn things off... Which is exactly what he was trying to do, but instead of pushing the square switches, mounte directly above the fuel control switches, he pulled both thrust levers back, reached down and -by habbit-, cut off both fuel control switches.

He then went into shock...and went TU, but luckily, the F/O had just come out of recurrent, and he quickly flipped both fuel control switches up. One motor re-lit right away, then they got the other one going with a windmill start.

They were about 1500' just after take off out of LAX, over the water. I flew with several F/A's who were on that flight a few months after that, they said, "...and all of a sudden, it got real quiet, we figured we were going into the ocean, and we started telling people to put on their life vests."

The story at the time was, UAL had done the same thing, but their guys were smart enough to turn around and land, and blame it on the airplane. Our boy started banging nails into his coffin, by getting on the PA and tellling everyone it was simply "Pilot Error" and then he continued on to CVG. Word from the F/A's I spoke with, who were there, was he was crying when they landed, told them it was probably his last flight.

Damn humans! Always making Human Errors!

Oh, right after that, they stopped making us do things from memory.

Red Forman

One of the passengers on this flight was also on the miracle on the Hudson flight. Talk about bad luck, or maybe very good luck.

xjtguy

The L-UAL one I know of was was more recent, withing the last few years. Like I said, not the same, but similar enough to pose the w-t-h question.

Sniper

Pretty much agree, major airline pilots don't make mistakes like this very often. The CA made a mistake. The FO, however, did not - he saved the day.

That's why it is important for BOTH members of the crew to be experienced, not just the Captain.

Sorry for the thread drift (the new rule of 'ATP required for the FO' is what is being referenced). I'm glad they moved the switches on the 767, and this incident helped put a halt to the 'everything by memory' procedures of the past. We're all safer for it today.

Timbo

I've not heard of the more recent one you are refering to. I did hear about UAL supposedly doing the same thing (whoppsy) before the DAL guy did his, and that was a long time ago, when the 767's were new. They did eventually move the EEC switches to the overhead, way out of reach!

Those 2 incidents (and some others) kept a lot of 727 guys from bidding the "Electric Jet". I knew many life long 727 drivers who wouldn't bid it (75-767) and retired on the 727.

They all said, "That ain't flying, that's pushing buttons!"

They were right.

xjtguy

Unless you're talking about some of AA's accidents. The PNF let the PF kill people. Didn't matter if it was the CA, or the FO.

As far as landing on a taxi way goes, it was pure luck that "saved the day" as you put it. Sure as heck wasn't a crewmember backing the other one up, verifying, crosschecking, etc. Despite all their qualifications and experience.

Cruz5350

I'm purely being facetious due to comments I read on another thread lol.

FlyJSH

Gosh, if that were the case, the impeccable Delta interview labyrinth failed. Is that possible?

KC10 FATboy

Not everybody at Delta went through the interview gauntlet. However chances are this guy did and goes to show you that everyone makes mistakes.