Posted on 12/23/2019 10:45:37 AM PST by lowbridge
The tragic last words of one of the pilots killed in the crash of a cargo plane in Houston contracted by Amazon earlier this year were, “Lord, you have my soul,” according to a chilling transcript of the cockpit voice recorder.
Capt. Ricky Blakely, First Officer Conrad Jules Aska and Mesa Airlines Capt. Sean Archuleta, who was riding in the jump seat, were killed Feb. 23 when the Boeing 767 operated by Atlas Air plunged into Trinity Bay.
Seconds after air traffic controllers rerouted the aircraft around some precipitation, the crew began losing control on approach to Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Aska, who had a record of repeatedly flunking flight tests, may have mistakenly thought the jet was stalling when its nose was pointed too high, so he jerked it down as the captain fought to pull up, according to the Nation Transportation Safety Board report.
He added full takeoff power without telling Blakely, resulting in pandemonium in the cockpit, according to the report.
-snip
Aska did not list his entire employment history when he was hired at Atlas Air, omitting two jobs with Air Wisconsin and CommutAir that ended after he couldn’t complete the training.
The director of training told investigators that “with that information ‘we would not have offered him a position’ based on the (co-pilot’s) failure to disclose that information on his application,” KHOU reported.
He also failed his practical exam when he was first hired at Atlas — and had left a prior job with Mesa Airlines when he was unable to upgrade to captain after two unsatisfactory simulator sessions.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Brilliant design there. Two people with control of the plane's control surfaces at the same time.
Happens every day
If that was you than say it...
why are you trying to pick a fight over a simple question that I asked?
Sounds like this guy was pushed right on thru by a series of ‘incompetant’ people.
“why are you trying to pick a fight over a simple question that I asked?”
LOL! Again you make an unfounded assumption!
The Captain reached around the throttles to move the flap handle, and activated the TOGA switches by accident. When the aircraft pitched up, the F/O overreacted and pushed the column full forward. The Captain tried to compensate by pulling back on his column. The opposing force was so great that the control columns disconnected. The Boeing 767 has an incredible safety record, and still does, this one was flown into the ground.
I am not commenting on his piloting which left much to be desired. I am commenting on the sufficiency of Jesus Christ which cannot be questioned,
Go around was activated:
The crew then began configuring the airplane for the approach and landing, and extended the flaps to 1. About 25 seconds later,the airplane’s FDR recorded fluctuations in the lateral acceleration of the airplane, and about5 seconds after these fluctuations were recorded on the FDR, the go-around mode was also recorded as being engaged, followed immediately by an increase in the thrust of the engines.
https://dms.ntsb.gov/public/63000-63499/63168/631156.pdf
Entire docket here:
Looks like 30 seconds elapsed from the flaps being set, to the go around mode being activated.
See #48.
I believe the Captain was reaching for the second flap setting when he accidentally hit the TOGA switches. At that moment the engines went to takeoff thrust, pitching the aircraft up. Captain immediately grabbed the yoke instead of the flap handle. Second flap setting was never made. When they broke thru the clouds, it was too late to change the aircraft’s pitch.
Figure 3 highlights the descent during the last two minutes of the flight with select paraphrased CVR comments overlaid. The descent appears normal until about 1238:31 and approximately 6,300 ft pressure altitude when the go-around mode was activated using one of the Go-around (G/A) buttons on the throttle quadrant: see Figure 4. There was no mention of initiating a goaround by the flight crew on the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), and flight 3591 had been cleared to descend to 3,000 ft. (The normal load factor, an, in Figure 6 shows that the airplane encountered turbulence at approximately 1238:25, six seconds before the recorded flight mode transitioned to G/A. The turbulence was likely associated with the cold front mentioned earlier and included instrument meteorological conditions or IMC.)
The airplane Euler angles recorded on the FDR are shown in Figure 5. The airplane pitch attitude increased from about -1˚ airplane-nose-down (AND) before G/A was annunciated to approximately 4˚ airplane-nose-up (ANU) six seconds later at 1238:37. The airplane then pitched AND to about -49˚ over the next 18 seconds in response to an AND elevator input.
At 1238:48 and 1238:51, the pilot flying (the first officer in the right seat) made comments about the airplane stalling that were recorded on the CVR. However, Figure 6 shows the recorded airplane wing angle-of-attack and airspeed were below -15˚ and above 250 kt, respectively. This is well below the airplane’s wing stall angle-of-attack.
Figure 7 shows an elevator split between the left and right sides of the airplane: the left elevator is associated with the captain in the left seat, and the right elevator is associated with the first officer in the right seat. The elevator deflections are similar until about 1238:46. At that time, the first officer is heard asking a question about airspeed on the CVR, and the elevators begin to split: the captain begins to pull from 2˚ to 8˚ more ANU elevator than the first officer. The split continues until about 1238:56, about one second after the airplane would have broken out of the reported 3,500 ft cloud layer. Both the captain and the first officer subsequently commanded ANU elevator until impact. (The normal load factor recorded by the FDR in Figure 6 is greater than 4g right before impact.)
https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/628156-atlas-air-3591-ntsb-public-docket-opened.html#post10643902
These days, the typical answer to a reference check is “Yes, Aska worked her in 2011 and 2012. Good bye.”
Maybe it’s more extensive in the airline pilot industry.
Some one mentioned that Aska had once worked programming the 737-Max MCAS system ... (/sarc)
The FO had a history of randomly pushing buttons when under stress:
When asked if the nature of his difficulty was lack of knowledge or skill, or just elevated
stress and anxiety, she said she thought it was mostly anxiety, but it was hard to say, and probably both. There were a few things that he did well, but they were things that he was expecting. Like for a single engine ILS he did good, but he also knew he was going to have to do that on pretty much every check in the simulator. For things he was unfamiliar with, it was a combination of the two (lack of knowledge or skill, or stress). When he did not know what to do, he became extremely anxious. She did not know if frantic was the right word, but he would start pushing a lot of buttons without thinking about what he was pushing, just to do something.
https://www.pprune.org/showthread.php?p=10644487
Is your name Sitting Bull or Geronimo? Aren't all of our names foriegn?
I spent a several years of my life investigating air crashes. It is somehow gruesome overall but more so in Africa with absolutely different challenges. Imagine a situation when it is not that easy to get to the site and you should expect that not only phones, tablets and laptops from the victims are gone but also flesh off their bones for dinner and the wreck disassembled for scrap metal and all of it on short order.
Oh Sh%* is also know as the Pilot’s Prayer.
This is going to get worse and worse as more unqualified Pilots are hired due to race and gender only.Aviation is going to be much less safe in the coming years
Obviously a lone wolf occurrence, atypical, never since repeated.
Thinking of himself alone, right up to the end.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.