Old, but interesting topic

Sammy writes:

Not in the seat next to them they wouldn't.

He doesn't have to be in the seat next to them.

The fact that it hasn't happened in all these years of aviation makes
it more than just a little unlikely. It's definitely so unlikely it's
silly.

The issue is not whether or not the scenario is silly, but what would actually
happen. In risk management, this type of thought experiment is common and
useful.

Not certified for IIIc means a good chance of hitting the ground so
hard you create a crater or stalling the plane at high speed a few
feet above the ground.

Hardly. It's still a much better bet than having a non-pilot try to land by
hand.

...and runways world wide are STILL being extended to cope with the
A380.

Those extensions may be premature.

There are still notorious approaches around the place.

You don't direct an aircraft with an emergency to a notorious approach.

The unrealistic perfect situation you mention is better called a
fantasy.

Automation such as I have discussed is more the rule than the exception in
airliners.

ATC can't reopen runways for you or make the weather go away.

It doesn't have to.

How does this not apply in an emergency?

In this emergency, there's only one pilot.

You have to do certain things
at certain times and if you can't within the time limit something goes
wrong.

Sometimes. Not all omissions will cause serious problems, though.

If all these things are working perfectly AND if you can instruct the
FMC and other automated systems correctly and in a timely manner.

They routinely work perfectly; they are very reliable (otherwise they would be
of no use). You can carry out the necessary operations easily with a bit of
help.

Takeoff and landing are rarely automated at the moment.

Take-off is rarely automated; landing is from time to time (even in clear
weather). But these are only small parts of a flight. And the part of the
flight that begins when the pilots are incapacitated in this scenario can be
fully automated all the way to touchdown and rollout.

No its not done every day by an untrained person.instructed over a
radio.

That's why such a scenario would be considered an emergency.

The fantasy is that everything goes right just because on this
particular day you have incapacitated pilots and that some janitor can
just be told to press a sequence of buttons to get the plane on the
ground.

Everything would go right, just as it does just about every day. It's
unrealistic to assume that the aircraft would coincidentally fail at the same
time as the pilots are incapacitated.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

On Mar 30, 3:49 pm, Mxsmanic wrote:
Sammy writes:
Not in the seat next to them they wouldn't.
He doesn't have to be in the seat next to them.

Show me your real world data.

The fact that it hasn't happened in all these years of aviation makes
it more than just a little unlikely. It's definitely so unlikely it's
silly.

The issue is not whether or not the scenario is silly, but what would actually
happen. In risk management, this type of thought experiment is common and
useful.

The issue we were debating was indeed whether or not the scenario was
silly. I do wish you'd actually read what was written instead of
trying to change the target.

If this were considered a significant risk by the risk management
experts of the world, we'd have a standing procedure on what happens
if both pilots are incapacitated just as we have procedures for water
landings etc. I'm not about to ignore the experts and listen to you.


Not certified for IIIc means a good chance of hitting the ground so
hard you create a crater or stalling the plane at high speed a few
feet above the ground.
Hardly. It's still a much better bet than having a non-pilot try to land by
hand.

Again dead is dead. Crashed is crashed. How's it better if a non
certified ILS ploughs you into the ground. I think what you meant to
say is that your chances are better with the non-certified autoland
than with a human non-pilot manually landing. However even then you'd
be wrong because chances are almost 100% it wouldn't be calibrated
well enough. I wouldn't like your odds of survival in either
circumstance.


...and runways world wide are STILL being extended to cope with the
A380.
Those extensions may be premature.

Yes again, the experts are wrong and you're right. People are just
throwing away millions of dollars because they're stupid and you're
the one with all the solutions for the world. How old are you? 12?

There are still notorious approaches around the place.
You don't direct an aircraft with an emergency to a notorious approach.

Ahhhhhh so now you are going to change that set in stone FMC
programming are you? I thought that would never be needed and that the
aircraft would magically continue to a full auto landing almost
unassisted!

The unrealistic perfect situation you mention is better called a
fantasy.
Automation such as I have discussed is more the rule than the exception in
airliners.

Another pathetic generalisation. In what part of the world are you
talking? Plenty of countries are running very old aircraft.

ATC can't reopen runways for you or make the weather go away.
It doesn't have to.

Well it does if you don't want to reprogram your final approach.

How does this not apply in an emergency?
In this emergency, there's only one pilot.
You have to do certain things
at certain times and if you can't within the time limit something goes
wrong.
Sometimes. Not all omissions will cause serious problems, though.

Yes but it only takes one to kill everyone on board.

If all these things are working perfectly AND if you can instruct the
FMC and other automated systems correctly and in a timely manner.
They routinely work perfectly; they are very reliable (otherwise they would be
of no use). You can carry out the necessary operations easily with a bit of
help.

Failures on aircraft aren't one in a million things. They happen every
day.

Takeoff and landing are rarely automated at the moment.
Take-off is rarely automated; landing is from time to time (even in clear
weather).

Yes, as I said rarely.

But these are only small parts of a flight.

Too bad the small part of the flight we are talking about is landing.

And the part of the
flight that begins when the pilots are incapacitated in this scenario can be
fully automated all the way to touchdown and rollout.

Only in some circumstances.

No its not done every day by an untrained person.instructed over a
radio.
That's why such a scenario would be considered an emergency.

Yes, because many emergencies end in disaster.

Everything would go right, just as it does just about every day. It's
unrealistic to assume that the aircraft would coincidentally fail at the same
time as the pilots are incapacitated.

Repeating yourself again? Have you turned blue yet? See above.

On Mar 30, 3:56 am, "Sammy" wrote:
If this were considered a significant risk by the risk management
experts of the world, we'd have a standing procedure on what happens
if both pilots are incapacitated just as we have procedures for water
landings etc. I'm not about to ignore the experts and listen to you.

Hmm. Since indeed very recently an airplane over Greece (?) lost
both pilots, it's definitely not an impossiblie scenario. If there
isn't a procedure in place (and apparently there isn't, since that
plane crashed with a poor flight attendant in the cockpit), why the
heck not?

Even the least imaginative of risk managers should think to have
attendants trained on what to do. If that crash had happened in the
US, there'd have been lawyers all over the place asking the same
question.

Curious,
Kev

Kev writes:

Hmm. Since indeed very recently an airplane over Greece (?) lost
both pilots, it's definitely not an impossiblie scenario. If there
isn't a procedure in place (and apparently there isn't, since that
plane crashed with a poor flight attendant in the cockpit), why the
heck not?

The Helios accident raises the question of whether or not securing the cockpit
in such a paranoid way is worthwhile. Which is more likely: pilot
incapacitation or hijack? It's an interesting question. If you protect
against one, you leave yourself open to the other.

The Helios flight crashed because nobody could get into the cockpit until the
engines ran out of fuel (which shut down electrical power and unlocked the
cockpit door), by which time it was too late. The flight attendant probably
could have landed the aircraft with radio assistance.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

On Mar 31, 12:19 am, Mxsmanic wrote:
The Helios accident raises the question of whether or not securing the cockpit
in such a paranoid way is worthwhile. Which is more likely: pilot
incapacitation or hijack? It's an interesting question. If you protect
against one, you leave yourself open to the other.

Count the number of total crew incapacitations. Count the number of
terrorists hijacks. I think you'll find that there are far more
terrorist hijacks. Securing the cockpit in a paranoid way has other
drawbacks though. I tend to think a lot of the supposed security since
9/11 is "security theatre" - all for show but not hard for a
determined terrorist to get around.

The Helios flight crashed because nobody could get into the cockpit until the
engines ran out of fuel (which shut down electrical power and unlocked the
cockpit door), by which time it was too late. The flight attendant probably
could have landed the aircraft with radio assistance.

Nope I don't think they could have. If they were used doors that lock
electrically rather the mechanically sound rather like a bad choice to
ward off terrorists.

The Helios accident raises the question of whether or not securing the
cockpit
in such a paranoid way is worthwhile. Which is more likely: pilot
incapacitation or hijack? It's an interesting question. If you protect
against one, you leave yourself open to the other.

Count the number of total crew incapacitations. Count the number of
terrorists hijacks. I think you'll find that there are far more
terrorist hijacks. Securing the cockpit in a paranoid way has other
drawbacks though. I tend to think a lot of the supposed security since
9/11 is "security theatre" - all for show but not hard for a
determined terrorist to get around.

The Helios flight crashed because nobody could get into the cockpit
until the
engines ran out of fuel (which shut down electrical power and unlocked
the
cockpit door), by which time it was too late. The flight attendant
probably
could have landed the aircraft with radio assistance.

Nope I don't think they could have. If they were used doors that lock
electrically rather the mechanically sound rather like a bad choice to
ward off terrorists.

I did not read anything to suggest that the cockpit door of the Helios 737
was ever locked. Admittedly, I did not see fit to research this incident at
length--and I also am not familiar with Helios procedures.

I do agree that a lot of the recent security initiatives are "security
theater" and I also believe that many have the net effect of reducing our
long term security by reducing our GDP.

The Helios case, however, seems much more interesting as an argument against
fully automated passenger carrying aircraft. Presuming that the report was
correct, regarding the outflow valve being left in manual/open; then there
is further reason to suppose that other flight crews may have found and
corrected similar errors before they became incidents or accidents.

Just a little "food for thought" ...

Sammy writes:

Nope I don't think they could have. If they were used doors that lock
electrically rather the mechanically sound rather like a bad choice to
ward off terrorists.

Not only would the methods I've described allow the flight attendant to land,
but in this case the flight attendant also had had pilot training.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Kev writes:

Hmm. Since indeed very recently an airplane over Greece (?) lost
both pilots, it's definitely not an impossiblie scenario. If there
isn't a procedure in place (and apparently there isn't, since that
plane crashed with a poor flight attendant in the cockpit), why the
heck not?

The Helios accident raises the question of whether or not securing the
cockpit in such a paranoid way is worthwhile. Which is more likely:
pilot incapacitation or hijack? It's an interesting question. If you
protect against one, you leave yourself open to the other.

The Helios flight crashed because nobody could get into the cockpit
until the engines ran out of fuel

No, it didn't, moron..


Bertie

On Mar 30, 2:06 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Mxsmanic wrote :
The Helios flight crashed because nobody could get into the cockpit
until the engines ran out of fuel

No, it didn't, moron..

No, it didn't what, Bertie? Really, if you're going to argue, try to
state your case instead of just flapping your gums. Otherwise you
just look stupid, which is probably not your purpose.

A flight steward, a student pilot, got into the cockpit about one
minute before it ran out of fuel. If he'd gotten in there an hour
before, all sorts of possibilities open up... including perhaps
reviving the pilots (although I'm not clear if that's possible...
anyone know at 34,000' ?)

Kev

Sammy writes:

The issue we were debating was indeed whether or not the scenario was
silly.

No, we were debating whether or not it's possible. And it is possible.

Assessments of silliness are subjective and have no place here.

If this were considered a significant risk by the risk management
experts of the world, we'd have a standing procedure on what happens
if both pilots are incapacitated just as we have procedures for water
landings etc. I'm not about to ignore the experts and listen to you.

The absence of a procedure doesn't mean that a given procedure won't work.

How's it better if a non certified ILS ploughs you into the ground.

It is unlikely to do that.

However even then you'd
be wrong because chances are almost 100% it wouldn't be calibrated
well enough.

How great would the error be, exactly?

Yes again, the experts are wrong and you're right.

No, they simply assume that the A380 will be a reality soon, whereas I do not.

Ahhhhhh so now you are going to change that set in stone FMC
programming are you?

The FMC is not programmed for a notorious approach to begin with.

Another pathetic generalisation. In what part of the world are you
talking?

All of the developed world now.

Yes but it only takes one to kill everyone on board.

One of that gravity is statistically unlikely.

Failures on aircraft aren't one in a million things. They happen every
day.

Even engines can run several hundred thousand hours without a failure. And
jet engine cores run even longer than that.

Too bad the small part of the flight we are talking about is landing.

Take-off is the only relevant part here, and it is already in the past when
the non-pilot takes over. Landing can be automated.

Only in some circumstances.

In the majority of circumstances.

Yes, because many emergencies end in disaster.

Most do not.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.