Different airline.
Posted on 12/19/2009 2:00:49 PM PST by naturalman1975
A NEAR disaster involving an Emirates jet at Melbourne Airport was the result of human error by two apparently alert pilots, air safety investigators believe.
The March 20 scare, when an Airbus A340 struggled to get airborne, was caused by an "inadvertent" keystroke on a flight computer.
The error meant the Dubai-bound aircraft was flown on the basis that it was carrying 100 tonnes less than it actually was, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said.
Its tail hit the runway five times during a botched takeoff.
The ATSB's interim report said the first officer "inadvertently inserted a takeoff weight of 262.9 tonnes, instead of 362.9 tonnes", and the pilot failed to pick up the 100-tonne shortfall, leaving the aircraft with insufficient takeoff thrust.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldsun.com.au ...
Ouch. That’s going to leave a mark. On their careers.
They got it airborne, and they got it back down on the ground with 275 souls on board. Whatever they did wrong, they did a lot right as well.
Arab pilots? Same ones who put that plane through a wall a few years ago?
Getting a plane back on the ground is routine assuming you didn’t create an even more serious emergency because of an oversight. These guys were just lucky they didn’t kill 275 souls.
Shouldn't the computer have told the pilots that they weren't gaining velocity fast enough?
The ATSB does not regard these pilots as having a routine flight and landing. They are reportedly pretty angry that the the Captain and First Officer were forced to resign considering the job they did. This plane took out the boundary fence of the airport, it went over houses at an altitude of bare metres above their roofs. I’m not a pilot, but many who were say they did an incredible job to avoid taking out hundreds on the ground as well as the ones in the air. They got it airborne, then flew at the lowest altitude they could as long as they could, to get airspeed so when they finally began their climb, they didn’t go straight into the ground.
No, Europeans - at least the Captain was.
You would think some kind of onboard computer would recognize an error like that early on.
I’m thinking that there is a design error in addition to pilot error. If that much of a difference can be caused by a single key stroke mistake, the there needs to be at least some form of accuracy check on the data input.
I don’t understand the “limited power takeoff”. It is entering a possibility for error. I assume you enter weight of aircraft, length of runway, altitude, temperature and the computer takes care of the power settings. Much better to just cram as much power out of the engines as possible and gain a margin for error says I. Ok I know you gain some fuel savings and perhaps engine life savings but look how much this cost. They dumped full tanks of fuel, bent the airplane and lost prestige for the airline. What does that cost is relation to the fuel savings provided by the puter?
All they had to do was push up the power when they saw the boundary fence coming up. Even after they struggled to get airborne all they had to do was push up the power to avoid going over houses at an altitude of bare meters. All they had to do was push up the power to avoid flying at the lowest altitude possible to gain airspeed.
Maybe you see a trend here? If you’re struggling for airspeed and altitude the first thing you do is get the maximum thrust you can from the engines. Since the lack of power for the takeoff was directly related to their erroneous weight calculations and since takeoff thrust is computed on weight, altitude of the airport, runway length and other considerations they had plenty of excess thrust to call on. They didn’t.
Airbus planes ARE a design error. I avoid flying on them. It’s a miracle that one ever got airborne.
The aircraft is a computer. Garbage in, garbage out. It’s up to the pilots to crosscheck the data and ensure it’s correct. There are several ways to do that but one involves the old “that just doesn’t look right” feeling that sometimes creeps into the back of your thoughts. Relying on the automation is a failure that’s very common these days.
So I hear AirBus is a fly-by-wire airplane. And every pilot input is filtered by the flight management computer. Wonder if the incorrect mass was applied to every action they took?
I guess you agree with those who say "any landing you can walk away from is a good one". ;-)
There is... it's the other pilot's job to check the data entry for something this critical...
The story says one screwed up with the wrong keystroke, and the other screwed up by not checking correctly...
One potential problem with that is airport noise abatement regulations.Many major airports have them,very possibly including Melbourne.My sister lives within a couple of miles of an Air Force base with handles a lot of C-5A's and I can tell ya from personal experience that those things are *LOUD* when they pass over her house,thanks,at least partially,to the fact that the AF doesn't have to answer to "community groups" like many civilian airlines do.
If Melbourne is such an airport I would think that "full power" is something a pilot needs to consider during takeoff.
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