IMHO, this is bullshit. The second worse aviation disaster in American history, and the co-pilot is being faulted for using the rudder to stabilize the plane after being struck by turbulence. In hindsight, yes, it appears that using the rudder to perform such a maneuver is an extraordinarily bad idea.
But to suggest that the co-pilot is at fault for using a technique that he was trained to use by his airline is what irks me. Everything in the news shows that no one at American Airlines seemed to be aware of the fact that this was dangerous, either because Airbus never told them or when they did tell them, nobody listened and passed this onto pilots. Also, apparently this particular model of Airbus was particularly sensitive to rudder inputs, another fact that no one bothered to pass on to the pilots.
Frankly, this seems to me to be a sort of shortcut around addressing what is a very serious safety issue with an Airbus aircraft. Given that a single rudder input at high speeds can lead to a catastrophic failure of a part of the airplane, isn’t it sort of the same thing as that Gary Larsen cartoon where the guy has a button on his audio-control panel that says, “Wings Fall Off?” What if a pilot just happens to accidentally kick the rudder controls in mid-flight at cruise altitude? It seems to me like the airplane should have been designed so that rudder inputs would be cancelled, or at least tempered, above certain airspeeds. Given that the whole plane is fly-by-wire anyway, this doesn’t strike me as a particularly difficult thing to do.
At any rate, I’m pretty confident that it’s unfair to blame the co-pilot for reacting in a manner that he was trained for the deaths of some 260-odd people. Any pilots care to comment?
It doesn’t seem to me that the co-pilot is actually being blamed by the NTSB, (no matter what that headline says). The report is saying that the crash was caused directly by the actions of the co-pilot, which is different from holding him fully responsible - note that AA and Airbus are both criticised, too.
The report says that the direct cause was the co-pilot using the rudders to stabilize the craft. But it directly faults American for training the pilots to perform that maneuver and it directly faults Airbus for the design deficiency.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the jingo used in NTSB reports. I can understand that the co-pilot’s actions were the proximate cause of the crash, but I don’t think he’s at “fault” or “to blame” in the sense that I know the words. Is the NTSB’s decison related in any way to legal liability around a crash?
I guess I’d tend towards blaming Airbus, they stated the “safe speed” of the rudder was 250 kts., and since the aircraft was below 10,000 feet, I assume it was under this safe speed. The fact that they didn’t program a less sensitive rudder or one that altered its sensitivity with speed suprises me.
I pit BBC News. What a crap article that is. Overstated headlines aside, if you’re gonna quote the words of the pilot and co-pilot during the crash, how about giving some sort of context as to what the jargon means? “Get out of it” and “Let’s go for power, please” are meaningless to me, since I’m not a pilot. Would it have been that hard for the reporter to ask someone what that stuff means in layman’s terms?
The whole time I’m reading these articles, I’m having the same thoughts as the OP. The fucking plane is fly by wire. Just add a line of code that if airspeed is larger then X, limit the rudder movement by 50% or something.
After the horseshit the NTSB cranked out after TWA flight 800 and the fiasco after the crash in Chicago in 1983 (I forget the flight number.) I am a little skeptical of of their “findings.”
A huge problem is that simulators do not behave like real planes when you exceed the envelope. The pilots are trained to the simulator’s behaviors, and when something bad happens in real life, shit happens like snapping off the rudder simply because the simulators don’t take thing like that into account.
Plus, the fact that the co-pilot could snap it off so easily means the Airbus has a structural problem.
Last shot: pilot error gets used a lot as a cause because the tend to not survive and challenge the finding.
IANAP, but I am in the aviation safety biz, and the simulator question in the first paragraph pays my salary.
I am not a pilot, but…Count me in the conspiracy-theory ‘It was a bomb’ crowd. Seriously, I don’t buy that the frigging rudder tore the tail off. Especially not right after take-off. Indicated airspeed was 255kts. My ass the tail tore off at that speed from rudder input.
Just think it through. If it was a bomb, there’d be obvious evidence of a bomb (ie obvious to investigators). Are you really suggesting that every person involved with the case has been bought off? And why?
Fine, so I didn’t read that bit. But goddamn, that use of normal control surfaces can result in the loss of precious bits is disconcerting. I know that you can do stuff that results in the loss of lift or turns you into a lawn dart or whatever, but what next, pull back on the fly-by-wire control column hard enough and rip off the wings? Sheesh.
I should research that using some quality made-in-America psi-devices!
