Emirates...is this for real!!???

[Bindair Dundat]

Originally Posted by desert witch

Yet their solution, is to hire more cadets. They advertised just today.
There was an experienced ex-cadet in this one.
And an experienced ex-cadet planted a wheels up 777 in Dubai Airport, not so long ago.
For a pilot to be a 777 FO in the US, he or she has already flown lots of General Aviation, lots of Regional, then more Regional as Captain, then lots of medium range as FO.
Compare the amount of exposure, to that of a Emirati cadet, with 3 landings a month, ILS to ILS fully automated.
Then add the company punitive culture.
And the best is, they stay on denial.
I am positive Emirates will have more of these.
I just hope they get as lucky as with all the other 'incidents', because imagine what could had happened with any of the few last ones.
And the ones that don't come to light.

Yes it appears Emirates has a winning strategy here getting rid of all their high time, competent and confident expat pilots in favour of Emiratisation and also equity hires which grease the marketing and PR machine for Western routes reaching the woke masses. Nice job!

[5star]

Embarrassing… Even after seeing this short vid on the internet.
The altitude checks AND the FMA are checked AND read ALOUD during preflight In Emirates. ( the call is “toga toga, lnav vnav armed” mostly, definately NOT “toga alt” ). The call is one of the (many) good and (to me) vital things in EK’s procedures. I have a lot negative to say about EK BUT their’ SOPs are well thought out and they are how they are for a very good reason.
SOPs were not followed, and when the **** really hit the fan, it looks like they all had no real clue what to do….
All very embarrassing to say the least and a very very close call it seems to have been….

[flyTheBigFatLady]

Originally Posted by desert witch

Yet their solution, is to hire more cadets. They advertised just today.
There was an experienced ex-cadet in this one.
And an experienced ex-cadet planted a wheels up 777 in Dubai Airport, not so long ago.
For a pilot to be a 777 FO in the US, he or she has already flown lots of General Aviation, lots of Regional, then more Regional as Captain, then lots of medium range as FO.
Compare the amount of exposure, to that of a Emirati cadet, with 3 landings a month, ILS to ILS fully automated.
Then add the company punitive culture.
And the best is, they stay on denial.
I am positive Emirates will have more of these.
I just hope they get as lucky as with all the other 'incidents', because imagine what could had happened with any of the few last ones.
And the ones that don't come to light.

they had about 5 of these in the last 1,5 to 2 years, but as they stay in denial public never hears or read of it. There are some horrific stories out there, leaving one fact, this company is incredibly lucky.

[MissChief]

Originally Posted by flyTheBigFatLady

they had about 5 of these in the last 1,5 to 2 years, but as they stay in denial public never hears or read of it. There are some horrific stories out there, leaving one fact, this company is incredibly lucky.

I concur. And going back further, such as the Melbourne take-off near-disaster, one can see that their luck continues to hold.

[FBW390]

Originally Posted by MissChief

I concur. And going back further, such as the Melbourne take-off near-disaster, one can see that their luck continues to hold.

After these several near disasters, I think relying on luck and on hundreds of new cadets, with 0 airmanship and 0 experience, is an extremely bad idea. I'm afraid they're going strongly in the wrong direction, into the wall! With 300 passengers on board...Luck has no place in an airline...

FBW 390

[Mr Good Cat]

Originally Posted by 5star

SOPs were not followed, and when the **** really hit the fan, it looks like they all had no real clue what to do….
All very embarrassing to say the least and a very very close call it seems to have been….

This is the bit I don't get. It's a good while since I flew out there, but the one thing you could be sure of in EK was absolute black and white adherence to SOPs. Especially after Melbourne. So if it's true that several SOPs were skipped or didn't work then things have obviously changed in that regard. Either that, or there's a lot more to the story that is yet to come out, something way outside the box.

[blind pew]

Besides the obvious errors why does the MCP not have a minimum default value of 1,000ft AGL programmed into the system when ground/flight switch is in ground mode?

[rudestuff]

Originally Posted by blind pew

Besides the obvious errors why does the MCP not have a minimum default value of 1,000ft AGL programmed into the system when ground/flight switch is in ground mode?

Because they didn't assume that anyone would ever fail to rotate and climb away, you know - flying the airplane?

[blind pew]

Rudeboy
fair point but in the quest to not pay for proper pilot training and standards « Automation is god « which they have sadly got wrong and continue to do so.
‘Even the Fokker 100 which had all time auto throttle and alpha protection didn’t as two of SR crews found out doing split ar@e visuals into Nice.
(open descent mode contrary to what the book stated). They were woken with the death rattle.

[SpamCanDriver]

Originally Posted by blind pew

Besides the obvious errors why does the MCP not have a minimum default value of 1,000ft AGL programmed into the system when ground/flight switch is in ground mode?

What happens when the airport altitude is 1000ft

[777JockeyIN]

Originally Posted by Rotaiva

One possible scenario...
I'd say none of the flight crew were staring at 0000ft

Right. I couldn't open the video. My guess is, they did set 4000 on the MCP.(its really hard for all the 4 to miss !) FMA was pitch mode was in ALT mode. They forgot to recycle the FDs and or Prev crew did not turn of the FDs. ALT mode on FMA is easy to be missed at that time. And after take off she blindly kept on following FD. This is possible right ?

[pilotguy1222]

Originally Posted by MissChief

I concur. And going back further, such as the Melbourne take-off near-disaster, one can see that their luck continues to hold.

I will go in between you and flyTBFL time-wise with 3 more ( USA, Russia, and France)

The main issue here is not automation at all. Automation is not followed during a takeoff roll OR during rotation. Pitching to a specified number of degrees(15°?), and then the automation “comes” to you. Clearly she never even got close this number.

As with several others, I am not surprised in the least.

[flareflyer]

Originally Posted by pilotguy1222

I will go in between you and flyTBFL time-wise with 3 more ( USA, Russia, and France)

The main issue here is not automation at all. Automation is not followed during a takeoff roll OR during rotation. Pitching to a specified number of degrees(15°?), and then the automation “comes” to you. Clearly she never even got close this number.

As with several others, I am not surprised in the least.

As usual here there many Chuck Yeager of the keyboard……..

[fatbus]

It's just basic flying ! She f..ked up big time , almost caused a crash .

[777boyo]

Originally Posted by fatbus

It's just basic flying ! She f..ked up big time , almost caused a crash .

Maybe a touch of thread drift here, but I wonder how many of todays airline pilots under the age of 40 brought up on magenta lines and automation have even heard of, never mind studied, the excellent "Handling the Big Jets" book by D P Davies? It may have been written many years ago but most of it is still relevant today as a primer to flying large jet aircraft and a reference volume. It became my bible when I transitioned from Twin Otters to the 737-200, and I still referred to it many years later while flying much larger types.

[Jack D]

Originally Posted by 777JockeyIN

Right. I couldn't open the video. My guess is, they did set 4000 on the MCP.(its really hard for all the 4 to miss !) FMA was pitch mode was in ALT mode. They forgot to recycle the FDs and or Prev crew did not turn of the FDs. ALT mode on FMA is easy to be missed at that time. And after take off she blindly kept on following FD. This is possible right ?

This sounds about right to me ! At a 3am dep time sometimes things get missed. Flight path control (or lack of it) is the main factor however.
despite F/d indications, as none of us were actually there we can only speculate at the moment . This sort of thing is not exclusive to EK
I would suggest .

[haughtney1]

If 4000 or even 1000 was set in the MCP, and ALT was annunciated on the FMA, the application of TOGA prior to 80kts would have cleared the ALT FMA annunciation.
perhaps TOGA wasn't applied prior to 80kts?
I'm truly baffled as to what went wrong as by my count there are 5 separate occasions to identify and confirm the MCP setting, more than that every SID out of sh1tsville has a stop altitude of 4000'

[JG1]

I seem to remember there being a tech bulletin about the MCP alt setting changing "by itself", which was later attributed to static electricity discharge when someone touched the MCP.

Now this captain being a lady she's probably not wearing standard issue antistatic shoes.

[ManaAdaSystem]

What does it matter what was set at the MCP after the last flight? An aircraft may undergo maintenance between flights, and switches/values left in any position. This is what checklists and procedures are for.
Four pilots in the cockpit and they let this aircraft accelerate to more than 200 kts while still on ground, then nearly crashed it by not doing the most basic manouvre every pilot in the world does every time he or she takes to the sky.
What will be the next handling session in EK sims? Learning to rotate without the use of flight directors? Or installation of an auto rotate system?

[haughtney1]

Originally Posted by ManaAdaSystem

What does it matter what was set at the MCP after the last flight? An aircraft may undergo maintenance between flights, and switches/values left in any position. This is what checklists and procedures are for.
Four pilots in the cockpit and they let this aircraft accelerate to more than 200 kts while still on ground, then nearly crashed it by not doing the most basic manouvre every pilot in the world does every time he or she takes to the sky.
What will be the next handling session in EK sims? Learning to rotate without the use of flight directors? Or installation of an auto rotate system?

My comment was related to the technical aspects, not the obvious Human Factors points, suffice to say I’m hardly surprised given the shoddy training on offer at times and reluctance by some to chop people who are clearly not up to a reasonable standard.
Getting rid of a Habibi for example, cant be good for ones career advancement, particularly after years of rectal pineapple insertion therapy at the hands of EK management.