In other words, he didn't know how to fly the airplane; he'd been taught to fly the doodads.

Cary

Barnstormer wrote:[i]The pilot ... told the NTSB he didn't feel comfortable flying a visual approach on that cloudless, calm day,

Does that not blow your mind!?!?! How do you get to be Captain without being able to fly THE MOST BASIC approach?????????

I can't decide whether he think's saying that will help his personal case by making the company look bad, or whether he's just committed hari-kari...

He may not have felt well enough trained, nor comfortable flying a visual approach, BUT he had a BMI less than 40 and was not suffering from OSA.
Hey, good enough for me.

Brent

Haha Brent. Before I read your post I was gonna ask what his BMI was...

I have several friends that fly for Singapore, Korean, Asiana, and few others.

Their biggest concern is that they are routinely paired with First Officers with a TOTAL of 200 hours of flight time which makes taking a break on long haul flights impossible.

As one friend who flys for Singapore told me, "I can't ethically or morally leave the flight deck for anything other that a quick bathroom break, and after being scared to death a few times, I never let them land anymore"

The bottom line is that the First Officer was grossly inexperienced, and the Captain was incompetent.

I have a good friend that's a senior captain in the second largest airline in Latin America, and he told me that his main concern with new pilots is that they are so used to flying with all the new technology that turning the autopilot off and asked to do a visual approach is an emergency for them. Now, come on, really!?!?!?

More years ago than I care to admit, I was visiting friends in Dayton while assigned TDY to Wright Pat for a few weeks. Bob was a USAF pilot of some ilk, can't recall of what, whether fighters, bombers, transports, or what. He had accumulated a few hundred hours and felt he was pretty competent and probably was. He told me about an experience that he had, which made him feel like he wasn't competent enough, though:

In those days, some of you older folks will recall, locking the cockpit from the passengers wasn't done, and sometimes kids and other interested passengers were invited to come forward to the flight deck. Often the flight deck door was left open. Bob was aboard a civilian airliner, in uniform, and at some point one of the flight attendants (we called them stewardesses back then, remember?) asked if he'd like to join the flight crew up front. So he did, and he was then invited to take one of the pilot seats and hand-fly the airplane for awhile. He didn't feel uncomfortable doing that, until he happened to look back to the cabin through the open door and realized that he had some 200 people back there, counting on him to fly well. Suddenly he felt overwhelmingly intimidated by the responsibility.

I find it hard to imagine how I'd feel, if I'd ever been trying to fly an airliner back when I had only a couple hundred hours or so. Even now, with gobs more time than that, it would be pretty darned intimidating. On the other hand, for a designated Captain of any airline to feel intimidated hand-flying a visual, even in an airliner in which he had little time, boggles the mind. Good bet that his problems wouldn't have been any different in an airliner in which he had lots of experience, because his training and subsequent practice still was likely, "push this button, flip this switch, and the airplane will land itself."

Cary

I wonder if on board that crashing airliner there were any light plane pilots who were of course paying attention to the screwed up approach? And then to hear this explanation... so it WAS just shitty flying skills! Man I'd be looking for the best damn lawyer I could afford, truly a time to "sue the bastards". On the flip side, I love it when one of the pilots on this forum turn out to be air transport pilots.... that's the airline I want to fly on. They ought to post the pilot in command's flying background, so you could see it when you buy your ticket. of course the general public would think a Cub flying airline pilot was a bad thing, we know better.

courierguy wrote:On the flip side, I love it when one of the pilots on this forum turn out to be air transport pilots.... that's the airline I want to fly on.

Yeah, but I find it really disturbing to get on a 777, see the BCP logo on the captains flight bag and hear he and his first officer debating whether they are going to three point or wheel land when they get me to Houston...

rw2 wrote:

courierguy wrote:On the flip side, I love it when one of the pilots on this forum turn out to be air transport pilots.... that's the airline I want to fly on.

Yeah, but I find it really disturbing to get on a 777, see the BCP logo on the captains flight bag and hear he and his first officer debating whether they are going to three point or wheel land when they get me to Houston...

I just do it like I do with the Wagon, tail low and gently lower the little wheel. Just that one type has the little wheel on the back end and the other on the front.

Here is a blurb from AIN with some more details


NTSB Hearing Reveals Details of Asiana 214’s Final Approach

During hearings on December 11, National Transportation Safety Board officials described the final approach sequence of Asiana Airlines Flight 214, which crashed at San Francisco International Airport on July 6. The Boeing 777 was cleared for a visual approach to Runway 28 Left where, as per a Notam, the glideslope was inactive. The left-seat pilot flying had logged fewer than 45 hours in the 777, while the right-seat instructor had 3,200 hours of time on the widebody. On a 15 mile final approach, the Boeing’s airspeed was at 210 knots as it descended with autopilot and flight-level change (FLCH) engaged. Descent altitude was set at 1,800 feet. The aircraft was high on final approach and switching to vertical speed mode did not help this situation. Final approach reference speed was calculated at 137 knots. On a five-mile final the altitude was reset to 3,000 feet in case of a go-around. At 1,600 feet and 3.5 miles from the runway, the FLCH switch was again activated, which changed the auto-throttle mode. [Boeing does not recommend using FLCH inside the final approach fix—Ed.]. When the FLCH was engaged, the autopilot tried to climb the aircraft to 3,000 feet. The pilot reacted by pulling the thrust to idle and disconnecting the autopilot. This put the autothrottles in hold mode at idle. At 1.4 miles from the runway and at 500 feet above the water the aircraft was still descending. With the thrust at idle, the left-seat pilot began to add backpressure to the control wheel to stop the descent and get back on the visual glideslope from the precision approach path indicator. The airspeed continued to decay–now slowing through 120 knots–although neither pilot mentioned it. Eleven seconds before impact a low-speed alert was heard in the cockpit. At eight seconds from impact and with the aircraft 100 feet above the water, the pilots moved the throttles full forward to initiate a go-around. Four seconds later the stick shaker activated and someone in the cockpit called for a go-around. The action was too late and the main gear and aft fuselage struck the seawall. The lowest recorded airspeed was 103 knots, 34 knots below the calculated safe reference speed.

This does blow my mind, sounds like a pair of inept morons... To realize I could be sitting in a commercial jet piloted by someone with less than my 500 hours total time let alone only 45 hours in type is kinda spooky. Now if only my personal aircraft was a little faster!

Milford Sound wrote:With the thrust at idle, the left-seat pilot began to add backpressure to the control wheel to stop the descent and get back on the visual glideslope from the precision approach path indicator. The airspeed continued to decay–now slowing through 120 knots–although neither pilot mentioned it.

These two morons are lucky they were so close to the ground, higher and they might have spun in killing all on board. Idiots.

RockHopper wrote:

rw2 wrote:

courierguy wrote:On the flip side, I love it when one of the pilots on this forum turn out to be air transport pilots.... that's the airline I want to fly on.

Yeah, but I find it really disturbing to get on a 777, see the BCP logo on the captains flight bag and hear he and his first officer debating whether they are going to three point or wheel land when they get me to Houston...

I just do it like I do with the Wagon, tail low and gently lower the little wheel. Just that one type has the little wheel on the back end and the other on the front.

LOL! Landing at Denver one time on a United flight from Boise (I think an Airbus). I noticed the pilot kept the nose wheel off the ground as long as he could. After parked at the gate and deplaning, I asked the pilot if he wheeled as long as he could. He said.... "You noticed that??" (with a big smile). I said.... "Yep, excellent job!"

I'm not a big airplane guy but Bob Reser, 30,000 hours in them, says the lift component of engine thrust in a tractor type airplane, in conjunction with approach trim setting, can stall the airplane. The pilot still does it by pushing the power in, with that trim setting, and not leveling the airplane with forward stick, or lets a computer cause that problem.

Last time we flew into Seattle--I think it was on Alaskan Airways from Denver--the landing was as perfect as they come. So when we were deplaning, one of the crew was standing by the open flight deck, and I had to ask--"OK, who was responsible for that landing?" He said, "That would be me." I said, "Almost as good as I could do." He said, "Next time, let me know you're aboard, and you can do it!"

Thankfully we were both kidding.

Cary