If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.
You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!
Relief pilot concept “cruising” down the wrong path?
9 April 2014 - 9:45am
Would you accept a car driver who is allowed to only drive on the highway but who has never learned how to get onto the highway, take the exit, drive in a city, let alone park the vehicle? Why would its equivalent in aviation be more acceptable?
As the rulemaking task of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) on ‘cruise relief pilots’ is about to finish its work and publish its proposed legislative amendments, it is wise to re-examine this concept in the context of today’s and tomorrow’s aviation.
‘Cruise relief co-pilot’ means a pilot who relieves the co-pilot and occupies the cockpit’s right seat above an altitude of 20000 ft (FL200) when the auto-pilot is mostly on. But today – cruise relief co-pilot as introduced in the EASA rules for Pilot Licensing (Part-FCL) – leads to major safety problems. The current legislation does not require the cruise relief co-pilot to perform any training for take offs and landings on the aircraft type he/she will fly on as cruise relief co-pilot. This means, it creates de facto a new type of EU pilot license, a kind of ‘auto-pilot license’ which is below the current – already weakening – pilot licensing standards.
Contrary to popular belief, the cruise phase of a flight is not that simple and requires alert, skilled, well-trained and fully attentive pilots to detect many potential hazards. There is a looming possibility of a technical malfunction or (medical) emergency, which each and every crew member in the cockpit must be able to safely handle, both above and below FL 200.
As experienced pilots and instructors say, the sense of flight is unnatural for a human being. Therefore, the methods of pilot training have been relevant since the appearance of the first aircraft.
Nowadays, flight simulation is critical to the operation of civil and military aircraft organisations. Much of training previously done in aircraft now is conducted in flight simulators. Moreover, flight simulation makes a major contribution not only to the enhancement of aviation safety but also to air accident investigations, studies of aircraft design or air traffic simulation. The role of flight simulators is increasing together with the growing modern aircraft systems. ........... From to
Trained, experienced pilots are a necessary and key part of aviation. Since the beginning, successful pilot training has always required two people – the experienced, knowledgeable teaching pilot and the pilot trainee. Now, thanks to Boeing engineers and researchers at the University of Central Florida's Institute for Simulation & Training, new technology is changing the game with a so-called “virtual co-pilot”.
The technology program creates a co-pilot avatar customizable in different genders, cultures and languages. When using virtual-reality goggles, trainees can see the virtual pilot and have an immersive training experience where they can converse and inquire the virtual co-pilot as they would with a real co-pilot.
The virtual co-pilot technology will streamline training and lower costs by eliminating the need for a second person on the flight deck, with the ultimate goal being a mobile package trainees can take home and practice multiple scenarios from the comfort of their living room.
Training seems to be the number one field that airlines like to outsource, which means they are more and more losing the control over the qualifications of one of the most important safety barriers: the flight deck crews.
Authorities, regulators, flight training organisations and the industry themselves all have different points of view on flight crew training, many of them are rather cost than safety driven.
Whilst the final product of training - an airline pilot with the right skills, competencies and personality - is the same throughout, there are many different ways and programmes to achieve them.
University of Southern California engineering professor and aviation safety expert Najmedin Meshkati’s summation of cockpit automation has a sobering ring as the aviation industry comes to grips with the interim accident reports of Air France flight 447, the Airbus A330-200 that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 people onboard.
The latest interim report, issued by the French BEA in late June, prompted particular focus on cockpit automation and flight crew interface after detailed analysis of the cockpit voice and flight data recorders that were recovered earlier this year. The report, though emphasizing that BEA does not assess blame, indicated that the pilots were inadequately trained and failed to properly identify a stall situation or react promptly to it. While BEA reiterated that a key factor in the crash was the inconsistent speed measurements from the aircraft’s pitot probes, once an emergency situation arose and the autopilot disengaged, the two on-duty copilots conducteed “no explicit task-sharing,” BEA said. Even though a stall warning alarm was triggered, “neither of the pilots made any reference to the stall warning” and “neither of the pilots formally identified the stall situation,” BEA stated. At one point, it noted, the stall warning “was triggered continuously for 54 seconds.”
BEA recommended that “regulatory authorities re-examine the content of [air transport pilot] training and check programs, and in particular make mandatory the creation of regular specific exercises aimed at manual airplane handling [including] approach to and recovery from stall, including at high altitude.”
So while the investigation and the debate on pilot-cockpit interface and appropriate training continue, there is a new focus on how automation has changed flight crew training procedures.
Meshkati warns that the aviation industry and its regulators have become “star struck by technological solutions” as a result of modern aircraft like the Boeing 777 having fatality-free records in commercial service.
“We have become complacent by thinking that technology will solve all the problems,” Meshkati said. In an ATWarticle Back to Basics (ATW, 6/09, p. 51), published just three days before the loss of AF447, Meshkati warned that gee-whizz technology “may be masking a deterioration and de-skilling in basic flying ability and that the lessons learned by generations of pilots may be lost to the new breed of pilots.”
Meshkati sees AF447 as the aviation industry’s Three Mile Island. “Business as usual is over,” he said, adding that many regulators do not yet fully understand the problem of technology, automation and the pilot interface, and are lagging industry because of manpower and funding issues.
Meshkati, a member of the committee that analyzed the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster off the US Gulf Coast, notes that “human ingenuity can now create technological systems whose accidents rival in their effects the greatest natural disasters, sometimes with even higher death tolls and greater environmental damage.”
“The effects of human error on these systems is often neither observable nor reversible, therefore error recovery is often too late or impossible,” Meshkati said.
Meshkati says the aviation industry must go back to basics and rethink how pilots interface with and are trained for the modern cockpit. “Many technology systems failures implicated in serious accidents have been traditionally attributed to operators and their errors. Consequently, for the problem of technology systems safety, an engineering solution has been suggested. For instance, many systems designers postulate that removing humans from the loop is the most convenient alternative for the reduction or even elimination of human error and therefore consider automation the key to the enhancement of system reliability.”
When automation is the problem
But Meshkati warns that in many cases, automation only aggravates the situation and becomes part of the problem rather than the solution. “In the context of aviation, studies have shown that automation is even more problematic because it amplifies crew individual differences and it amplifies what is good and what is bad. Furthermore, the automated devices themselves still need to be operated and monitored by the very human whose caprice they were designed to avoid. Thus the error is not eliminated but only relocated.”
Flight Safety Foundation president Bill Voss agrees that AF447 was a wake-up call. “If AF447 had happened elsewhere in the third world to a lesser airline, the industry might have glossed over it. But Air France is a sophisticated and proud airline, the A330 a state-of-the-art aircraft flying between two major cities. We really have to step forward now for the cause is far, far deeper and we must build the skills. It is time fix it,” Voss said.
Voss sees the problem as a failure to adjust training to the real demands linked to a gap that is filled by incomplete information and assumptions. “Pilots think that they can get into a high speed situation as easily as you could in the 707 and that is absolutely not the case. Aircraft are totally different aerodynamically today,” he said.
Voss also notes that while the standard stall recovery procedure is to increase power and put the nose down, it is also true for an Airbus that half stick back and takeoff-go around power will recover the aircraft because of the envelope protection.“The aircraft will do remarkable things,” he explains.
Voss, who spent time at Airbus in the A330 simulator after BEA’s interim report was published, said that what is lost in the transcripts of the accident is “how hard it is to get the aircraft into the position that the AF pilots did and then hold it there.
“You have to really strive to do what these pilots did. The initial pull-up was 7,000 ft. a minute—this wasn’t minor.”
Voss sees another training aspect that needs close attention. “It’s just not the training for that can be overridden by the person they sit next to on the line within a few months. Training doesn’t make a seasoned captain; other captains do,” Voss said. “We need to put procedures and processes in place so that it isn’t de-graded on the line.”
Voss notes that with reduced vertical separation minima at 1,000-ft. separation means that pilots are not allowed to hand-fly an aircraft over 24,000 ft. “Skills are being lost. We must go back and look at our training, for it is not consistent real world circumstances. There is a much higher risk of loss of performance at high altitude or degraded performance, like on QF32, than engine failures,” Voss said. “And regulators need to give up some of the sacred cows—which they are reluctant to do.”
Lessons of QF32
Qantas Airbus A380 check captain David Evans was on the flight deck training another check captain when QF32, an A380, suffered a failure of its No. 2 engine shortly after takeoff from Singapore Nov. 4.
According to Evans, the near disaster with QF32 raised a number of scenarios that the airline had not trained for, such as cabin communication. Events after landing were potentially almost as serious as those in the air.
After QF32 was nursed back to Singapore nearly two hours into the flight and with the crew dealing with 53 electronic centralized aircraft monitor (ECAM) messages, the No. 1 engine could not be shut down because of damaged wiring and had to be drowned on the ground by the Singapore Airport fire fighters. At the same time, fuel was spewing from the damaged wing only yards away from brakes that were red hot indicating 900˚C. Complicating matters, the air conditioning failed and the aircraft electrical system reversed to essential power, leaving the crew with one serviceable VHF radio.
“We had never trained for this scenario,” Evans said. “We also had our cabin crew on high alert for two hours in the cabin ready to initiate a full evacuation if circumstances deteriorated.”
Commenting on recurrent training set by the regulator, Evans notes that he cannot remember any Qantas aircraft ever losing an engine at V1. “But training is now changing to take in black swan [unusual upset] events.”
Reflecting on his QF32 experience compared to AF447, Evans notes that the Qantas crew of five, with 70,000 hours of experience including two check captains, had time to deal with the 53 ECAM messages. “We had time, but AF447 was descending at 8,000 ft. a minute.”
Evans said that the sheer volume of information presented to the modern aviator means he must prioritize his or her time between the presented information and the “real world.”
“Modern technology is inherently very reliable. However, its very reliable nature can lure an unsuspecting aviator into a false sense of security. Adding blind faith into this information stream, especially if you are a Gen X or Y can have catastrophic results.
“AF447 may be an example of this. Two young pilots were at the controls of a state-of-the-art aircraft and faced with a loud and in-your-face false warning of an overspeed. This would have taken all their attention and was therefore reacted to. There were other cues present that were not reacted to, simple things like aircraft attitude and thrust settings,” Evans said.
“I see young pilots coming through Royal Australian Air Force air cadets that lack basic skills because they learned to fly using Flight Simulator,” Evans said. “With Flight Simulator most don’t buy the rudder pedals and thus their flying skills once they get into the real world are degraded.”
Evans also points out that many flying courses today only teach pilots about the onset of a stall. “When I learnt to fly my instructor took me into a stall and a spin and you experienced all the sensations and had to recover. We need to have aerobatics as part of the course,” he said.
Evans has also found that because many pilots learn on Flight Simulator on a desktop PC, they are focused only on what is in front of them, so “peripheral skills are lacking.”
Another observation by Evans relates to the modern glass cockpits that are appearing on light training aircraft. “When I am training young pilots, they are often transfixed on the primary flight display and do not scan other instruments such as the engine. They just don’t look around.”
This strikes a chord with captain Robert Sumwalt, a former chairman of the human factors and training group at Air Line Pilots Association, International, and now a board member of the NTSB.
“The NTSB has found that lack of monitoring of instruments is still a major factor in accidents,” Sumwalt said.
In 2002, Sumwalt co-authored a paper Enhancing Flight-crew Monitoring Skills Can Increase Flight Safety, which found that “effective crew monitoring and cross-checking can literally be the last line of defense.”
At the time Sumwalt cited NTSB’s examination of 37 accidents, which found that 84% involved inadequate crew monitoring or challenging.
Sumwalt added in the report that research conducted to support the Flight Safety Foundation’s approach and landing accident (ALA) reduction efforts revealed that 63% of the reviewed ALA accidents involved inadequate monitoring and cross-checking.
Additionally, inadequate monitoring was a factor in 50% of the controlled flight into terrain accidents reviewed by ICAO.
The BEA AF447 report said that the pilots were confused by multiple warnings in the cockpit and chief investigator, Jean-Paul Troadec, said black box data showed the crew had 4.5 minutes during which they could have corrected the aircraft stall, and that if they had responded quickly, the “situation was salvageable”.
Evans notes that ECAM warnings can be confusing, but says pilots can cancel everything and simply go to the status page. “There is a short cut,” he said. “I did a simulator session recently involving volcanic ash taking out all four A380 engines and getting into the cabin, like BA9. Fire warnings went off in the cargo hold and cabin, but ECAM logic puts fire ahead of the engines. We of course knew there was no fire, but I had to get rid of six fire warnings before I could get to the engines which were the priority. ECAM wasn’t helping and added to the confusion. It taught us some lessons.”
While there is strong debate over the AF447 interim reports, it seems clear that there was a level of confusion as to what was happening in the cockpit in those last minutes, which corresponds with a NASA study on aviation automation.
The NASA Research Center was based on Royal Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine data by Marianne Rudisill in 1995 that surveyed more than 1,000 pilots from 20 airlines and aircraft manufacturers about pilots’ attitudes and experience with flight deck automation.
The strength of the study was that most respondents had flown aircraft from basic cockpit types like 727s through to glass 2 types such as A320s and 747-400s. It found the general consensus was that “safety is increased with automation, but automation may lend a false sense of security, particularly with inexperienced pilots.”
Pilots reported that there was a higher sense of “insecurity” during an automation failure and a general temptation to ignore raw information. The most worrying aspect was that pilots said their colleagues were “becoming complacent and relied too much on the automation but that was often because airline standard operating procedures mandated reliance on automation.”
In May, FAA Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking called for greater emphasis on using full-motion flight simulators with crews working together in handling real-world emergencies in its.
FAA administrator Randy Babbitt said the proposal represents the most significant shift in philosophy and training in 20 years.
“The new rule will require flight crews to demonstrate they can apply the skills, not just master them,” Babbitt said.
The key aspect of the change is that all flight crews will receive training in recognizing, avoiding and recovering from stalls and upsets.
“This new type of training will provide a more robust evaluation of pilots in [simulated] real-life scenarios,” Babbitt said.
The proposal came after the NTSB investigation and a congressional inquiry into the February 2009 stall of a Colgan Air flight 3407, a Bombardier Q400, that crashed in Buffalo, N.Y., and killed 50.
Babbitt said the pilot training emphasis will shift to focus more on comprehensive competence rather than mastery of “individual” skills. “The new training will require a more realistic and coordinated effort among the crew [being trained]. It will be a lot more like flight.
“I think the key piece here is that some of the simulation ability [now available] allows us to go past [training for] recognition and avoidance of a stall. Now you can actually put someone in a stall scenario and let them recover,” Babbitt said.
The proposed change would require that pilots be trained as a complete flight crew, coordinate their actions through crew resource management and fly scenarios based on actual events.
BEA, meanwhile, has set up a human factors working group to analyze “crew actions and reactions during the last three phases of AF 447, particularly in relation to the stall warning, cockpit ergonomics, and man-machine interface.” The human factors group comprises three BEA investigators specializing in human factors, a human factors aviation consultant, a psychiatrist specializing in risk analysis, an A330 test pilot and a type-rated A330 pilot. It will also consult with Airbus and Air France.
Evidence-based training
In 2007, IATA launched its training and qualification initiative to update and modernize the training of current and future pilots and engineers to accurately reflect the needs of flight deck operational procedures.
IATA, airlines and manufacturers are working closely and in collaboration with ICAO, and the final draft program is expected to be ready for sign-off by ICAO in November and to be applicable from 2012.
Civil Aviation Authority of Australia’s manager, flying standards, Roger Weeks, who is CASA’s representative on the TQI initiative, says the group has examined a host of data over the past four years, both accident and operational, to identify precise trends and problems with all generations of aircraft so that training can be tailored to changing demands and issues.
“For instance we have studied flight data for over 3 million flights, examined the NTSB database from 1962 and examined 22 aircraft types and looked at over 20,000 simulation evaluations,” Weeks said.
“A major test had been to identify criticalities in each generation of airliner.” The program is looking at the following areas for pilot training: Flight operations; Evidence based training; Instructor qualification; Multi-crew pilot license; Selection criteria; Flight simulation training devices.
However, Weeks cautions that it will be up to individual states to adopt the new training regime.
Much of what is being canvassed was adopted in Australia 20 years ago under competency-based training, which puts the emphasis on performing rather than just knowing.
Weeks said that since QF32 and AF447, CASA and the Australian airlines have been working on training for moreblack swan events.
Arrow Cargo DC10 at Manaus on Mar 26th 2009, dropped parts of engine on houses
By Simon Hradecky, created Thursday, Mar 26th 2009 14:55Z, last updated Tuesday, Mar 31st 2009 12:25Z
250kg/550lbs engine part and damaged car (Photo: PD/EPA/Arlesson Sicsu)
An Arrow Cargo McDonnell Douglas DC-10 freighter, registration N526MD performing flight JW-431 from Manaus,AM (Brazil) to Bogota (Colombia) with 4 crew, was climbing out from Manaus, when the center engine (#2) produced a loud bang, described as an explosion by residents. The crew shut the engine down but decided to carry on to Bogota but then diverted to Medellin, where the airplane landed safely.
In the meantime fire engines and emergency services were racing to a neighbourhood of Manaus (rua Humaita, Terra Nova), where parts of the engine had damaged 12 houses and a number of cars. Parts found so far include nacelle and engine parts, the largest part weighing around 250kg/550lbs.
Manaus Authorities reported, that the control tower of Manaus was notified of the debris on the ground and radioed the crew of the DC-10. The operation of the aircraft was not impaired, so that the crew continued to Colombia.
Arrow Cargo confirmed, that the airplane dropped parts of the engine. The airline will compensate for all damages incurred by the accident. The crew continued the flight to Bogota on two engines with the third engine shut down.
The provider for all air traffic control services in Brazil, the Forca Aerea Brasileira (FAB) reported, that the crew was contacted by Manaus control tower after a loud bang was heard by the controller. The crew reported no abnormalities. After the debris was established on the ground, the area control center Cindacta 4 (Manaus) queried the crew again, this time the crew reported problems with one engine but decided to continue the flight. The serious incident will be investigated by CENIPA, Brazil's Center for Research and Prevention of Accidents, collection of evidence has started. So far the diffuser of the exhaust pipe, the rear part of the exhaust pipe and several small internal components of the engine have been recovered on the ground.
It is considered highly probable that this accident occurred through the following causal chain: When the aircraft retracted the slats after landing at Naha Airport, the track can that housed the inboard main track of the No. 5 slat on the right wing was punctured, creating a hole. Fuel leaked out through the hole, reaching the outside of the wing. A fire started when the leaked fuel came into contact with high-temperature areas on the right engine after the Aircraft stopped in its assigned spot, and the Aircraft burned out after several explosions.
With regard to the cause of the puncture in the track can, it is certain that the downstop assembly having detached from the aft end of the above-mentioned inboard main track fell off into the track can, and when the slat was retracted, the assembly was pressed by the track against the track can and punctured it.
With regard to the cause of the detachment of the downstop assembly, it is considered highly probable that during the maintenance works for preventing the nut from loosening, which the Company carried out on the downstop assembly about one and a half months prior to the accident based on the Service Letter from the manufacturer of the Aircraft, the washer on the nut side of the assembly fell off, following which the downstop on the nut side of the assembly fell off and then the downstop assembly eventually fell off the track. It is considered highly probable that a factor contributing to the detachment of the downstop assembly was the design of the downstop assembly, which was unable to prevent the assembly from falling off if the washer is not installed.
With regard to the detachment of the washer, it is considered probable that the following factors contributed to this: Despite the fact that the nut was in a location difficult to access during the maintenance works, neither the manufacturer of the Aircraft nor the Company had paid sufficient attention to this when preparing the Service Letter and Engineering Order job card, respectively. Also, neither the maintenance operator nor the job supervisor reported the difficulty of the job to the one who had ordered the job.
After depressurizing the cabin, Stone and his copilot then donned their oxygen masks and turned on the valve, but no oxygen appeared to be forthcoming. The sole-occupant pilots then passed out. Stone, a 4,200 hour ATP-rated pilot, said he awoke at 7,000 feet and recovered the aircraft......
The pilots struggled to navigate the aircraft after the failure of all the plane's instruments. With the pilots unaware of their true altitude, the plane's wing hit the water and it crashed shortly afterward. The cause of the instrument failure was a maintenance worker's failure to remove tape covering the static ports necessary to provide correct instrument data to the cockpit.
to 
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.