SA 777 Stall on Departure?

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Quote: Hey, their training worked and the airplane was recovered from a potential upset.
Yup. The only training required seems to be reinforcing the transmit finger disconnect reflex before you start giving the PF some feedback on his flying.
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Scenario Based Stalls & Extended Envelope Training works.👍
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Quote: Gotta mind those FMAs.
My guess: Hand flying. Initial level off was 5000, they got cleared to 11,000 very close to level off. 5K was already captured and they were in VNAV ALT. Altitude window gets spun to 11,000 but knob is not pushed to command VNAV SPD and A/T to climb power. PF raises the nose to start the climb and gets slow.
Exactly what I was thinking!
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Quote: Exactly what I was thinking!
nope............
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Quote: Gotta mind those FMAs.
My guess: Hand flying. Initial level off was 5000, they got cleared to 11,000 very close to level off. 5K was already captured and they were in VNAV ALT. Altitude window gets spun to 11,000 but knob is not pushed to command VNAV SPD and A/T to climb power. PF raises the nose to start the climb and gets slow.
OR...

Master Caution beeper for the AIRSPEED LOW EICAS triggering (28:28 on liveATC), indicating they were below min maneuver speed. Then when he’s saying “Stall Stall Stall Stall Stall” the Master Caution beeper goes off again at 28:40 followed by the most likely AP disconnect triggering the Master Warning siren at 28:41.

Going to NGO I’d guess they departed with somewhere in the 740-766,000 TOW range with Flaps 15 based on my experience for similar range flights. The min flap maneuver to flap overspeed spread at those weights for Flaps 1/5 is about 3 knots. I’d bet money they retracted the flaps with not enough of an upward airspeed trend vector, while still 10-15 knots below min maneuver, with the autopilot on
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Quote: OR...

Master Caution beeper for the AIRSPEED LOW EICAS triggering (28:28 on liveATC), indicating they were below min maneuver speed. Then when he’s saying “Stall Stall Stall Stall Stall” the Master Caution beeper goes off again at 28:40 followed by the most likely AP disconnect triggering the Master Warning siren at 28:41.

Going to NGO I’d guess they departed with somewhere in the 740-766,000 TOW range with Flaps 15 based on my experience for similar range flights. The min flap maneuver to flap overspeed spread at those weights for Flaps 1/5 is about 3 knots. I’d bet money they retracted the flaps with not enough of an upward airspeed trend vector, while still 10-15 knots below min maneuver, with the autopilot on
Yeah, listening to the recording again, they were already in the stall before they would have had a chance to do what I suggested.
It's possible they could have messed up with the clean up maybe throwing in some bank with the power coming back for level off, but the speed issue you mention doesn't make sense.
At about a 766 MTOGW departure, Vref is about 185 KIAS and clean maneuvering speed is usually about 265 KIAS (Vref 185 + 80). At 265 you're well above the red "zipper" and usually sitting just above the amber foot.
Min maneuvering speed for flaps 1 is Vref+60 - 245 KIAS with a limit speed for flaps 1 of 265 KIAS
MMS for flaps 5 is Vref+40 - 225 KIAS with a limit speed of 245 KIAS
All those speeds give the standard 1.3G margin.

20 knot spread in both cases. I don't know where you're getting the 3 knot thing. You can fly very comfortably with flaps 1 or 5 after a Max GW takeoff at 245 or 225 and still be 20 knots away from over-speeding the flaps.
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Some of the comments in the thread about newbies off the RJ and such seem somewhat implausible. Admittedly speculation, but the kind of not-crisp, unfocused, younger-dialect of the PNF on the transmissions speaks presumably to him being not the CPT, which means the CPT is flying, which should mean he/she is not some newbie straight off the RJ, and should have sufficient knowledge of the aircraft and attention to anything tricky about transitions when that heavy. Which is why it's a bit of a head-scratcher to me.

Or maybe my premise is wrong and it was the CPT on the mic, distracted from communicating because he was focused on what the newbie PF was doing. I guess we'll eventually have a clue.

Most importantly, glad this ended well.
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Quote: Yeah, listening to the recording again, they were already in the stall before they would have had a chance to do what I suggested.
It's possible they could have messed up with the clean up maybe throwing in some bank with the power coming back for level off, but the speed issue you mention doesn't make sense.
At about a 766 MTOGW departure, Vref is about 185 KIAS and clean maneuvering speed is usually about 265 KIAS (Vref 185 + 80). At 265 you're well above the red "zipper" and usually sitting just above the amber foot.
Min maneuvering speed for flaps 1 is Vref+60 - 245 KIAS with a limit speed for flaps 1 of 265 KIAS
MMS for flaps 5 is Vref+40 - 225 KIAS with a limit speed of 245 KIAS
All those speeds give the standard 1.3G margin.

20 knot spread in both cases. I don't know where you're getting the 3 knot thing. You can fly very comfortably with flaps 1 or 5 after a Max GW takeoff at 245 or 225 and still be 20 knots away from over-speeding the flaps.
Oops, didn’t clarify that properly in my original post. The max speed of the current flap setting, and the min maneuver for the following flap setting are that close. Flaps 5 Max is 245, and min maneuver for flaps 1 at MTOW is usually around 245. So if you retract flaps early to keep from hitting the zipper, but don’t have the trending airspeed it’s not hard to end up below the min maneuver. Normal case wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but couple that with being distracted or something not being programmed correctly and could lead to issues
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Quote: Oops, didn’t clarify that properly in my original post. The max speed of the current flap setting, and the min maneuver for the following flap setting are that close. Flaps 5 Max is 245, and min maneuver for flaps 1 at MTOW is usually around 245. So if you retract flaps early to keep from hitting the zipper, but don’t have the trending airspeed it’s not hard to end up below the min maneuver. Normal case wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but couple that with being distracted or something not being programmed correctly and could lead to issues
Speculating on obvious faults is natural. I wonder about the same things everyone else has mentioned too. I get it.

This speculation predisposes us to ignore the insidious factors that got the crew into whatever happened, though. Perhaps we are all better served by letting the review of this event take place and gleaning what we can from a more thorough picture.

Also these guys are having a bad enough time already. If we won't get accurate insights through speculation we might as well avoid dragging our brethren through the rocks publicly.
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These incidents prove that it can happen to any of us! I distinctly remember after the Max crashes and other stall events that many around here boastfully stated.....”Us American pilots would have just taken control of that airplane and flown it, recovered and saved the day!......see what foreign trained crews did”

Be humble and remember this business is unforgiving!
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