Posted on 12/12/2013 11:51:55 AM PST by Zhang Fei
An Asiana Airlines Inc. captain nervous about making a manual landing in San Francisco inadvertently disabled a speed-control system before the plane crashed into a seawall on July 6, documents show.
Lee Kang Kuk, a veteran pilot with Seoul-based Asiana who was being trained on the Boeing Co. 777-200ER wide-body, had momentarily adjusted the power without realizing the plane’s computers then assumed he wanted the engines to remain at idle, according to information released today at a U.S. National Transportation Safety Board hearing.
The documents, while showing the pilots made errors, raise questions about how auto-throttles on Boeing planes are designed and whether there’s enough training on using them. The safety board hasn’t concluded what caused the crash, which killed three teenage girls from China in the first U.S. airline accident with deaths since 2009.
Lee, 45, “believed the auto-throttle should have come out of the idle position to prevent the airplane going below the minimum speed” for landing, the NTSB said in a summary of an interview with him. “That was the theory at least, as he understood it.”
In most modes of operation, the speed-protection system on the 777 and several other Boeing aircraft won’t allow planes to slow too much, safeguarding against accidents such as the Asiana crash. The plane, on the verge of losing lift because it was almost 40 miles (64 kilometers) per hour slower than its target speed, broke apart after hitting the ground.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Computers don’t kill people. They only do what you tell them to do.
Uh...let’s see....what ever on earth happened to the air speed indicator? Oh! I guess senior captains don’t look at those anymore during flight.
I have a better idea. Teach them how to fly a airplane manually.
This pilot can’t fly a plane but Lee sure Kang Kuk!
Actually, not. There was an American pilot that trained airline pilots in the east. He said that there were many other problems that were from their cultural background — like never questioning anyone higher in command. They also did not like to get their “hands dirty” by flying it themselves rather than letting the autopilot do it.
The Asians are blaming this on Boeing throttle controls?? I guess being too slow according to the airspeed indicator was to much for those pinheads. Maybe we should ban Asians from flying in our airspace.
Capt. We Tu Lo....
AHA!!!! Bill Gates will be named in all lawsuits..
How pathetic that he couldn’t even fly in a straight visual approach.
It all goes back to basics.
Not enough forward speed to create lift.
You crash.................
/s
In the link to the video news story I just posted, this wannabe pilot was very concerned about landing manually because SFO’s automated glideslope was out of service.
LOL! On a VFR approach!
They need to be taught how to fly an airplane. If I was the president of Asiana I’d have every pilot checked out to see if they could fly and land small aircraft.
Like the old saying goes...
A pilot has to know how to aviate, navigate, and communicate. (in that order)
They don’t look at air speed or much else when they become conditioned to rely on the “expert systems”.
I know I am an old fart but I’m not buying computers as a replacement for people with experience that think.
I also think education is much better than training. Training is a man-powered alternative to a computer. Training works when everything is going according to the training script.
Technicians are trained. Engineers are supposed to be educated but education without experience just isn’t enough.
What about the navigator?
Ofa Kwee Gunnadai?
You’re correct that in Korea they don’t even train pilots to make manual landings.
“It all goes back to basics.
Not enough forward speed to create lift.
You crash.................”
He ran out of Altitude, Airspeed and Ideas all at the same time.
Run out of 1 and you can trade the otehr to gain that one.
Run out of 2 and you are in trouble!
This is what an education based around route memorization will get you....
Isn’t being able to fly by looking out the window and reading the instruments the most basic of all for pilots?
What fools don’t train the people to fly very expensive aircraft with hundreds of people on board to fly manually?
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