Regularguy

Someone asked, "Why didn't the LCA intervene?"

I have been an LCA on multiple airplanes and there is a built in issue with OEing a Captain, who's in charge.

The issue is even more acute with a new captain upgrade because he or she is used to the other person being captain and will often defer to the LCA instead of making the decision. At UAL we had an OE fly through a thunderstorm and destroy the front windshields and nose cone. The issue was each thought the other would either make the right decision or was OK with what was happening.

So the moral of the story is the only thing more dangerous than two captains at the controls is when a management pilot and a flight instructor are at the controls.

Regardless of the psych/human factor issues there is no excuse for the fact two people are dead, many more physically injured for the rest of their lives and not to mention the entire pax count is scarred mentally as well.

Bilsch

Quite an interesting dilemma (bold/italics emphasis added by me). I wonder if you all discuss these issues in your CRM training and general crew dialogue?

Having dealt with Asiana crews before in a maintenance capacity, I know how they are (or were back in the late 90's when i worked the flights) with the hierarchy.

Do you feel that you can bring up an issue like this before flying with a Management pilot (assuming you are a US Carrier based pilot) to put that issue aside before beginning your general crew duties Pre-flight?

kevinc5

NTSB presser this morning had the aircraft traveling at approximately 106 knots upon impact and at about 118 knots 16 seconds before impact at an altitude of about 200 feet. Apparently a go around was called for 1.5 seconds before impact.

Check Essential

103 knots !

Just heard that figure in an NPR report. They got down to 103 knots prior to hitting the seawall.

That is absolutely appalling. There were 4 pilots in that cockpit and nobody said anything until it was way too late to recover. How does that happen?

Shaggy1970

When your that far behind the power curve with that high of an AOA there is nothing in the world that could save you. Question to ask is why they allowed the airplane to get that slow, was the F/O and RO asleep? Basic Airmanship left that cockpit long before they packed a perfectly good airplane in!

MusicPilot

I guess we have to remember how Asian airlines operate. I know in the US we try to place CRM as the most important tool in the flight deck. Do you think anyone was afraid to speak up to the CA when things started to go downhill and then wait until the last minute before nothing could be done? If it was an OE trip with a LCA (not sure, still catching up on the details) what if the green CA was senior to the LCA? Just putting in the perspective that maybe the rest of the crew was afraid to undermine the CA.

chi05

I've been an LCA also and I remember the one thing that was preached to me was to never allow the aircraft to be put in a position where safety was compromised. I agree that when doing IOE with captains you want them to be the ones doing the PIC decision making. It's expected that they will make mistakes during training, that's how we all learn. But once things started making me uncomfortable it was my job to bring the aircraft back into a safe flight regime. My first priority was to get the passengers to their destination safely, teaching comes second.

That being said we still don't know the full story. I have no experience in dealing with Asian crews, but I have friends who have and have heard plenty of stories similar to those posted here. If this does turn out to be caused by pilot error and a lack of CRM hopefully this is the wake-up call some of these carriers need to turn things around.

Yoda2

While I agree with all the above, there are even more negative issues in play. Additionally I, for one, will not hesitate to intervene as necessary in any such situation in which I feel lives are at stake. I do not care, at all, who the person is I feel the need to question, take an aircraft away from or otherwise intervene. I learned this lesson during my early flying. I was in the jumpseat of a Lear (on the board...) merely as an observer. A new captain was transitioning to the left seat of the Lear without any significant turbine experience or even as an FO on type. He became fixated and overloaded during an approach. The approach was never stabilized. He got slow with a very high sink rate. I sat and watched this situation unfold to the point of being genuinely scared. The high time Lear instructor in the right seat let this deteriorate way too far; although he had told the IOE/PF about five times to check his descent rate. After the second warning the PF added power, though the amount was inadequate. All further warnings resulted in insufficient to no action; the guy was locking up. I had enough of this as we were now about a hundred feet above touchdown, at night. I had decided the heck with these guys I was going to reach up and slam both throttles to the stops. Just as my hand got halfway to the throttles, the FO's left hand came in front of mine and did exactly what I was going to do, slammed them to the stops. It was still a carrier landing but we survived and somehow without damaging the airframe. It did get an over power and hard landing inspection. One more second and we could have all been dead. In most cases there is no good reason to let things progress that far. Our entire training system needs a revamp from bottom to top. Additionally, while recognizing an aircraft needs a captain, all this negative hierarcy/culture stuff needs to stay out of the cockpit as well. Personally, I always tell other pilots flying with me to please speak up if you see anything that causes you concern...

DCA A321 FO

Being a check airman doesn't make you a good pilot or good leader (CRM). I despise the ones who cannot fly the plane.

xjtguy

Agree. The point of my post was simply that having an LCA/instructor at the cockpit does not a safe flight make.

Whether there's enough time to intervene/stop a bad situation or not.