Korean 777 Down in SFO

There is no excuse for poor airmanship and I would like to hear from the 777 guys here, but I can see how one can become complacent when using auto throttles all the time. Is it possible that they got disengaged without either of them noticing until it was too late? Sure, the slow airspeed should have been noticed, but if you are accustomed the system holding your airspeed right where you want it, it's possible to develop a bad habit of omitting it from your scan.
 
Just more proof positive that automation doesn't make anything safer, it merely allows companies to put slower monkeys at the big wheel versus yesteryear. This of course is intended by design in order to facilitate the further saturation of the pilot labor pool. This is most often seen in the regional airline ranks, but as we see in this case, it also permeates into the mainline widebody levels. Cabotage anybody? Makes that holiday drive to grandma look just a little bit less painful.
 
MAKG1 said:
What facts?

That was an opinion, and was not useful to determine what actually happened. For that, you're going to have to use actual, you know, evidence.
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The fact was he had witnessed CRM issues while personally flying as a crew member in SE Asia. Whether or not it has probative value re the specific crash ( I watch a lot of lawyer shows) is unknown but it seems to be a fact useful to understand CRM in Asian airlines in general.

Cheers
 
X3 Skier said:
The fact was he had witnessed CRM issues while personally flying as a crew member in SE Asia. Whether or not it has probative value re the specific crash ( I watch a lot of lawyer shows) is unknown but it seems to be a fact useful to understand CRM in Asian airlines in general.

Cheers
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No, it would be useful -- perhaps -- for designing a training program. It is NOT useful for understanding what happened. It might be if he had flown with the exact crew in question. But even then, only if it was recent.

And, umm, Korea is not in SE Asia. If you even think Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, Indonesian, etc. culture is all that similar, you're seriously ill informed. Now, pulling Chinese, Japanese and Korean culture into that is just off the charts.
 
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MAKG1 said:
No, it would be useful -- perhaps -- for designing a training program. It is NOT useful for understanding what happened. It might be if he had flown with the exact crew in question. But even then, only if it was recent.

And, umm, Korea is not in SE Asia. If you even think Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, Indonesian, etc. culture is all that similar, you're seriously ill informed. Now, pulling Chinese, Japanese and Korean culture into that is just off the charts.
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Whatever, I see that I have erred at my feeble attempts. My apologies and I will sin no more.

Cheers
 
MAKG1 said:
And, umm, Korea is not in SE Asia. If you even think Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, Indonesian, etc. culture is all that similar, you're seriously ill informed. Now, pulling Chinese, Japanese and Korean culture into that is just off the charts.
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I've lived in several of those countries, and I have family in one of them. It's been my experience that there are many cultural similarities between Thai, Cambodian, central Vietnam and N Indonesian people. They are not homogeneous, but they do share many traits including religion, some language, respect for elders, personal conservatism, and fatalism.

Since there hasn't been a 'Burmese' in about 20 years, I have no opinion on that, but I hear that the people of Myanmar also share traits with the previous. Never been inside though.
 
docmirror said:
I've lived in several of those countries, and I have family in one of them. It's been my experience that there are many cultural similarities between Thai, Cambodian, central Vietnam and N Indonesian people. They are not homogeneous, but they do share many traits including religion, some language, respect for elders, personal conservatism, and fatalism.

Since there hasn't been a 'Burmese' in about 20 years, I have no opinion on that, but I hear that the people of Myanmar also share traits with the previous. Never been inside though.
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Burma hasn't existed for 20 years. Burmese have. Just like Saigon is still there, despite being 38 years since the government there defined it away.

As for the religion thing...there are probably parts of Indonesia where that's true, as it's a vast place. But I didn't see a single person in Hue or Da Nang facing Mecca on a Thursday evening when I was there.
 
steingar said:
Nice to be on ignore. Must be me, since I AM Odin's gift to the universe. And don't you forget it, despite the ignore.
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LMAO...not even close.

And to Nate, if I could block myself, I would. I am the biggest azzhole here after all! :rolleyes:
 
N801BH said:
The guys had a 11,300 foot long runway to land on..:mad2::mad2::mad2:..
How could he miss.:dunno::dunno::(
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Well to be fair to him, he really did not miss it completely, he just forgot that he also had to land the back part of the plane and not just the front of the plane.
 
I heard a couple of hours ago on the local ABC radio station that the NTSB has not determined who was PIC.... And apparantly none of the 4 stooges have admitted to anything either...:mad2::mad2::nonod:..

Looks like "George" did it....
 
N801BH said:
I heard a couple of hours ago on the local ABC radio station that the NTSB has not determined who was PIC.... And apparantly none of the 4 stooges have admitted to anything either...:mad2::mad2::nonod:..

Looks like "George" did it....
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It sounds like anybody could have landed the plane, everybody thought somebody would do it, but nobody did it.
 
N801BH said:
I heard a couple of hours ago on the local ABC radio station that the NTSB has not determined who was PIC.... And apparantly none of the 4 stooges have admitted to anything either...:mad2::mad2::nonod:..

Looks like "George" did it....
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Perhaps they can use EdFred's flow chart. :D
 
MAKG1 said:
No, it would be useful -- perhaps -- for designing a training program. It is NOT useful for understanding what happened. It might be if he had flown with the exact crew in question. But even then, only if it was recent.

And, umm, Korea is not in SE Asia. If you even think Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, Indonesian, etc. culture is all that similar, you're seriously ill informed. Now, pulling Chinese, Japanese and Korean culture into that is just off the charts.
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Asian culture in the cockpit is not to question authority and to always respect the Captain, even if he is wrong. Time and time again there have been accidents over here where the Captain was doing something wrong and the FO would not speak up or take action in fear of retribution from the Captain.

This is all well documented and has been studied. The Western countries lead the world in CRM use and the Eastern countries are at the bottom.
 
R&W, based on your experience, would you expect deference to the captain to be a factor when the copilot is the check airman, as was apparently the case on this leg of the flight?
 
And that might be slightly useful if you were designing a training regimen.

If you have not flown with the particular crew in question recently, it is entirely inappropriate for any sort of accident investigation, whether formal or not. It bears no understanding and only reinforces a stereotype you clearly have.

If your "studies" meant what you say they do, Air France would have one more A330.
 
How many crews would you want to observe under controlled circumstances to determine if a problem existed?

MAKG1 said:
And that might be slightly useful if you were designing a training regimen.

If you have not flown with the particular crew in question recently, it is entirely inappropriate for any sort of accident investigation, whether formal or not. It bears no understanding and only reinforces a stereotype you clearly have.

If your "studies" meant what you say they do, Air France would have one more A330.
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The news is reporting the crew had the auto throttle set for landing speed, but they failed to recognize it had slowed well below that speed. :mad2:
 
A little insight from an instructor that worked over there. Not me, just reposting.

........




After I retired from UAL as a Standards Captain on the –400, I got a job as a simulator instructor working for Alteon (a Boeing subsidiary) at Asiana. When I first got there, I was shocked and surprised by the lack of basic piloting skills shown by most of the pilots. It is not a normal situation with normal progression from new hire, right seat, left seat taking a decade or two. One big difference is that ex-Military pilots are given super-seniority and progress to the left seat much faster. Compared to the US, they also upgrade fairly rapidly because of the phenomenal growth by all Asian air carriers. By the way, after about six months at Asiana, I was moved over to KAL and found them to be identical. The only difference was the color of the uniforms and airplanes. I worked in Korea for 5 long years and although I found most of the people to be very pleasant, it’s a minefield of a work environment ... for them and for us expats.











One of the first things I learned was that the pilots kept a web-site and reported on every training session. I don’t think this was officially sanctioned by the company, but after one or two simulator periods, a database was building on me (and everyone else) that told them exactly how I ran the sessions, what to expect on checks, and what to look out for. For example; I used to open an aft cargo door at 100 knots to get them to initiate an RTO and I would brief them on it during the briefing. This was on the B-737 NG and many of the captains were coming off the 777 or B744 and they were used to the Master Caution System being inhibited at 80 kts. Well, for the first few days after I started that, EVERYONE rejected the takeoff. Then, all of a sudden they all “got it” and continued the takeoff (in accordance with their manuals). The word had gotten out. I figured it was an overall PLUS for the training program.











We expat instructors were forced upon them after the amount of fatal accidents (most of the them totally avoidable) over a decade began to be noticed by the outside world. They were basically given an ultimatum by the FAA, Transport Canada, and the EU to totally rebuild and rethink their training program or face being banned from the skies all over the world. They hired Boeing and Airbus to staff the training centers. KAL has one center and Asiana has another. When I was there (2003-2008) we had about 60 expats conducting training KAL and about 40 at Asiana. Most instructors were from the USA, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand with a few stuffed in from Europe and Asia. Boeing also operated training centers in Singapore and China so they did hire some instructors from there.











This solution has only been partially successful but still faces ingrained resistance from the Koreans. I lost track of the number of highly qualified instructors I worked with who were fired because they tried to enforce “normal” standards of performance. By normal standards, I would include being able to master basic tasks like successfully shoot a visual approach with 10 kt crosswind and the weather CAVOK. I am not kidding when I tell you that requiring them to shoot a visual approach struck fear in their hearts ... with good reason. Like this Asiana crew, it didnt’ compute that you needed to be a 1000’ AGL at 3 miles and your sink rate should be 600-800 Ft/Min. But, after 5 years, they finally nailed me. I still had to sign my name to their training and sometimes if I just couldn’t pass someone on a check, I had no choice but to fail them. I usually busted about 3-5 crews a year and the resistance against me built. I finally failed an extremely incompetent crew and it turned out he was the a high-ranking captain who was the Chief Line Check pilot on the fleet I was teaching on. I found out on my next monthly trip home that KAL was not going to renew my Visa. The crew I failed was given another check and continued a fly while talking about how unfair Captain Brown was.











Any of you Boeing glass-cockpit guys will know what I mean when I describe these events. I gave them a VOR approach with an 15 mile arc from the IAF. By the way, KAL dictated the profiles for all sessions and we just administered them. He requested two turns in holding at the IAF to get set up for the approach. When he finally got his nerve up, he requested “Radar Vectors” to final. He could have just said he was ready for the approach and I would have cleared him to the IAF and then “Cleared for the approach” and he could have selected “Exit Hold” and been on his way. He was already in LNAV/VNAV PATH. So, I gave him vectors to final with a 30 degree intercept. Of course, he failed to “Extend the FAF” and he couldn’t understand why it would not intercept the LNAV magenta line when he punched LNAV and VNAV. He made three approaches and missed approaches before he figured out that his active waypoint was “Hold at XYZ.” Every time he punched LNAV, it would try to go back to the IAF ... just like it was supposed to do. Since it was a check, I was not allowed (by their own rules) to offer him any help. That was just one of about half dozen major errors I documented in his UNSAT paperwork. He also failed to put in ANY aileron on takeoff with a 30-knot direct crosswind (again, the weather was dictated by KAL).











This Asiana SFO accident makes me sick and while I am surprised there are not more, I expect that there will be many more of the same type accidents in the future unless some drastic steps are taken. They are already required to hire a certain percentage of expats to try to ingrain more flying expertise in them, but more likely, they will eventually be fired too. One of the best trainees I ever had was a Korean/American (he grew up and went to school in the USA) who flew C-141’s in the USAF. When he got out, he moved back to Korea and got hired by KAL. I met him when I gave him some training and a check on the B-737 and of course, he breezed through the training. I give him annual PCs for a few years and he was always a good pilot. Then, he got involved with trying to start a pilots union and when they tired to enforce some sort of duty rigs on international flights, he was fired after being arrested and JAILED!











The Koreans are very very bright and smart so I was puzzled by their inability to fly an airplane well. They would show up on Day 1 of training (an hour before the scheduled briefing time, in a 3-piece suit, and shined shoes) with the entire contents of the FCOM and Flight Manual totally memorized. But, putting that information to actual use was many times impossible. Crosswind landings are also an unsolvable puzzle for most of them. I never did figure it out completely, but I think I did uncover a few clues. Here is my best guess. First off, their educational system emphasizes ROTE memorization from the first day of school as little kids. As you know, that is the lowest form of learning and they act like robots. They are also taught to NEVER challenge authority and in spite of the flight training heavily emphasizing CRM/CLR, it still exists either on the surface or very subtly. You just can’t change 3000 years of culture.











The other thing that I think plays an important role is the fact that there is virtually NO civil aircraft flying in Korea. It’s actually illegal to own a Cessna-152 and just go learn to fly. Ultra-lights and Powered Hang Gliders are Ok. I guess they don’t trust the people to not start WW III by flying 35 miles north of Inchon into North Korea. But, they don’t get the kids who grew up flying (and thinking for themselves) and hanging around airports. They do recruit some kids from college and send then to the US or Australia and get them their tickets. Generally, I had better experience with them than with the ex-Military pilots. This was a surprise to me as I spent years as a Naval Aviator flying fighters after getting my private in light airplanes. I would get experienced F-4, F-5, F-15, and F-16 pilots who were actually terrible pilots if they had to hand fly the airplane. What a shock!









Finally, I’ll get off my box and talk about the total flight hours they claim. I do accept that there are a few talented and free-thinking pilots that I met and trained in Korea. Some are still in contact and I consider them friends. They were a joy! But, they were few and far between and certainly not the norm.











Actually, this is a worldwide problem involving automation and the auto-flight concept. Take one of these new first officers that got his ratings in the US or Australia and came to KAL or Asiana with 225 flight hours. After takeoff, in accordance with their SOP, he calls for the autopilot to be engaged at 250’ after takeoff. How much actual flight time is that? Hardly one minute. Then he might fly for hours on the autopilot and finally disengage it (MAYBE?) below 800’ after the gear was down, flaps extended and on airspeed (autothrottle). Then he might bring it in to land. Again, how much real “flight time” or real experience did he get. Minutes! Of course, on the 777 or 747, it’s the same only they get more inflated logbooks.











So, when I hear that a 10,000 hour Korean captain was vectored in for a 17-mile final and cleared for a visual approach in CAVOK weather, it raises the hair on the back of my neck.
 
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wabower said:
How many crews would you want to observe under controlled circumstances to determine if a problem existed?
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Not relevant for determining a cause of an accident. You only care what actually happened, not what your prejudice says should have happened.

Playing statistics games (correctly) is appropriate for issues of training and risk reduction. It is NOT appropriate for this situation.
 
Palmpilot said:
R&W, based on your experience, would you expect deference to the captain to be a factor when the copilot is the check airman, as was apparently the case on this leg of the flight?
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In the pecking order the Check Airman is above the Captain, again, never question authority.
 
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hindsight2020 said:
Just more proof positive that automation doesn't make anything safer, it merely allows companies to put slower monkeys at the big wheel versus yesteryear. This of course is intended by design in order to facilitate the further saturation of the pilot labor pool. This is most often seen in the regional airline ranks, but as we see in this case, it also permeates into the mainline widebody levels. Cabotage anybody? Makes that holiday drive to grandma look just a little bit less painful.
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That's a bit of a reach... I don't know many regional guys and gals saying their aircraft are outfitted any better than a 777.

And that holiday drive is still a lot more dangerous in real numbers than parking your butt in an airliner...

Might need to rethink that idea a bit. There's problems with automation, and how to train people how to VIEW automation, but they're not the ones you call out, per se.

Similar problem in IT, really. The gist of it is my continual joke when things break down... "Ah yes, computers were supposed to make our lives easier, right?" What's hiding behind that joke is the fact that probably 80% or more of computer users don't actually design their systems in their companies to take advantage of the computers... have the computers do the things well that computer do, and leave the people in charge of the things people do well.

An example is "scripted support". Any CSR reading from the computer that's been put in charge of what they're allowed to say and do for a customer, is essentially not a CSR anymore. They've unplugged their brain and been told the computer is the better-engineered replacement.
 
Is it a statistics game when you observe the same behavior (or lack) after an accident that were also observed in training?

MAKG1 said:
Not relevant for determining a cause of an accident. You only care what actually happened, not what your prejudice says should have happened.

Playing statistics games (correctly) is appropriate for issues of training and risk reduction. It is NOT appropriate for this situation.
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wabower said:
Is it a statistics game when you observe the same behavior (or lack) after an accident that were also observed in training?
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You have NOT determined this has happened, and you cannot from statistics alone. Severely flawed circular reasoning.

As I said, you can use games like that for risk reduction (which is fundamentally statistical), but not for establishing that any specific action has occurred. That must be determined from specific facts.

Dude, there are more than four Asian pilots. Quite bluntly, that's escaping you at the moment. The pilots involved in this particular incident might have an issue with excessive deference, or might not. Saying that all Asians do is both wrong and misleading. Saying that most Asians do is irrelevant (leaving the correctness of that assumption aside). This is an actual event, not a risk.
 
Dude, I've trained hundreds of Asian pilots, even more from Latin America and quite a few from Europe and could forecast almost to the minute when the deficiencies of the various groups would first be apparent during various sim sessions.

None of this is a secret in the training community. The red-ink deficiency numbers were recorded on their training records, the notes and comments are in their files and the corrective steps to achieve desired proficiency were carefully documented. I also knew, as did the other IP's and pod managers, that the behavior we carefully trained, coached and sought to ingrain would in all likelihood go out the window before their next trip, simply because that's the way they did it and nothing we said or did during a few weeks of training was going to change it.

When they returned in 6 months or 12 months for recurrent training, we knew we would see the same behavior that we had been forced to re-train during their prior visit, because we had seen it many times before. In the case of those who brought interpreters to their training events, we weren't ever sure what the crew was being told, only that they all looked very serious and seemed to nod in agreement at the appropriate times.

So you can continue to rant about what we don't know, but those of us who have seen it repeatedly for a number of years know what we do know, including how we played mix and match games with pilots of different seniority and experience levels (theirs and ours) to test the culture theory and hopefully instill a better awareness of the need for the junior guy to behave and react appropriately to achieve good CRM. I'd be willing to bet that none of it made a dime's worth of difference when they returned home.


MAKG1 said:
You have NOT determined this has happened, and you cannot from statistics alone. Severely flawed circular reasoning.

As I said, you can use games like that for risk reduction (which is fundamentally statistical), but not for establishing that any specific action has occurred. That must be determined from specific facts.

Dude, there are more than four Asian pilots. Quite bluntly, that's escaping you at the moment. The pilots involved in this particular incident might have an issue with excessive deference, or might not. Saying that all Asians do is both wrong and misleading. Saying that most Asians do is irrelevant (leaving the correctness of that assumption aside). This is an actual event, not a risk.
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MAKG1 said:
Dude, there are more than four Asian pilots. Quite bluntly, that's escaping you at the moment. The pilots involved in this particular incident might have an issue with excessive deference, or might not. Saying that all Asians do is both wrong and misleading. Saying that most Asians do is irrelevant (leaving the correctness of that assumption aside). This is an actual event, not a risk.
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I dont think anyone makes that generalization to 'all asians' or 'all asian pilots'. The questions being raised are about the training, promotion and CRM culture at a number of asian airlines and the pilots who come up in those systems.
 
It seems rather bizarre that the US doesn't have the jurisdiction to make the pilots wizz in a cup right after they flew a perfectly good plane into a seawall.
 
Oh, and ALPA looks like a bunch of dumbasses:

The Air Line Pilots Association, for a second straight day on Tuesday, criticized what it called the "NTSB's release of incomplete, out-of-context information" that "has fueled rampant speculation about the cause of the accident." It questioned whether some tools were available to the crew, claiming, for instance, that the "Instrument Landing System, a critical aid to pilots, (was) out of service."

A 'critical aid' on a day with clear sky and visibility out to Point Reyes :confused: .
 
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