Tutti
← Back to Squawk list
(Video) NTSB Animation - Rapid Descent and Crash into Water Atlas Air Inc. Flight 3591
This animated reconstruction shows the sequence of events in the accident, which occurred at 12:39 p.m. central standard time on February 23, 2019. The accident involved a Boeing 767-375BCF, N1217A, operated by Atlas Air Inc. as flight 3591 carrying cargo. The airplane was destroyed after it rapidly descended from an altitude of about 6,000 ft mean sea level and crashed into a shallow, muddy marsh area of Trinity Bay, Texas, about 41 miles east-southeast of George Bush Intercontinental/Houston… (www.youtube.com) Altro...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
I retired from a flying career, and was able to work for a university, teaching beginning students. We had a great program, but there was a shift to teaching more of systems than basic airmanship. Management wanted the students to move through quicker and the talk was “the airlines will teach them what they need.” Myself and some of the other experienced instructors pleading for just 5 hours of Basic Airmanship was ignored. Most of the experienced instructors, including myself, have moved on. Having experienced total electrical failure in IMC, some engine failures with off-airport landings, and a few other emergencies, I was able to pass on to my students valuable life saving tips. I credit to my flight instructors for teaching me to “fly the airplane first!” Hopefully, there are still instructors doing so.
Where was the "Captain" while this was going on ?
I am not instrumented rated but the first thing I looked at was the instruments for both speed, altitude and the attitude indicator.Maybe if I was there, I would have panicked but it is certainly bizarre how he reacted. What happened to the captain during that time?
The captain was clearly out of the loop. With the jumpseat pilot, sterile cockpit procedures broke down and he was the last chance this flight had. He let things go way too far if he was even paying attention. 10 degrees off heading or 5 degrees off of pitch from where the plane should have been and it should have been his plane. How he let that pitch and throttle setting stand until it was too late is unfathomable. Sadly, there are many flights flying around the world right now with equal or worse crews onboard. I’m so glad I fly myself.
Proper pilot training has left the building. Seems there is a abundance of so-called pilots possessing a massive lack of basic airmanship skills and thought process. So long as the automation is functioning, the hapless passengers spin the roulette wheel with great hope that the automation performs spectacularly and reliance on the new age "pilots" being produced is not required in the most basic sense. Air France 447, Asiana 214, Colgan 3407, AA Eagle 4184 and a multitude of others including the US government on the verge of banning Korean Air from the US at the turn of the millennium because of it's horrendous accident rate due to a pronounced lack of essential and basic airmanship capability and skills illuminates how this problem has been allowed to fester for many decades. The total absence of stick and rudder pitch, bank, power, and configuration abilities are the primary common denominator in all of these types of accidents. The over reliance on automation has so degraded what skill a particular pilot may have had in the first place that in such circumstances the outcome is usually dire as the "pilot(s)" transition from crew member to passenger in a heartbeat all the while displaying the deer in the headlights what's going on mentality down to the crash site. The lack of basic airmanship skills is further sustained by the FAA now requiring additional hand flying during sim training/recurrent in addition to a heightened focus on upset training. Only time will tell if so many examples of "pilots" driving a perfectly good running airplane into the ground because of significant personal skill/knowledge shortcomings has been mitigated and reversed.
Atlas must have thought it was a good idea at the time to give two overly challenged "pilots" control of a large cargo aircraft. So how did that work out.
FO Aska was from Antigua and a miserable failure at three prior regionals, hence his involuntary departure from each. Yet he is hired by Atlas where he continues his headlong single-helix rush for the Darwin Award. The only place he should have been allowed to sit on any aircraft is in the passenger cabin!!!
The captain also had his own training/performance issues, though not to the extent of Aska. Placing both of them together allowed them to achieve their destiny. Sadly the jump seater was trapped in their mutual vortex of the Peter Principal gone terminal.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/tourism-cruises/article244215287.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-air-atlas-crash-pilot-unsafe-ntsb-2019-12
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2019/12/19/pilot-of-doomed-amazon-air-flight-had-poor-training-record-seemed-confused-before-crash-ntsb-report-suggests/#5f2eee2c79cc
https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/captain-first-officer-divided-control-in-fatal-atlas-air-767-crash/
And lastly the incompetents at the FAA need to get onboard with and implement recommendations by the NTSB and stop dragging their feet. There are an over abundance of cases where the FAA is asleep at the switch or complacent in allowing bad operators to flourish. Anyone recall the Payne Stewart Lear crash and the coddling the FAA provided that operator. Colgan 3409 is another example of FAA shortcomings in protecting the flying public. Congress had to take authority from the FAA and do the job they should have done by increasing pilot requirements after the Colgan crash slaughtering 73 passengers because of two losers on the flight deck. Up to that time one needed more hours to fly boxes VFR in a C182 for hire than to sit right seat in a regional airliner carrying unsuspecting passengers. Such regulations don't even rise to a measurable level of stupidity.
FO Aska was from Antigua and a miserable failure at three prior regionals, hence his involuntary departure from each. Yet he is hired by Atlas where he continues his headlong single-helix rush for the Darwin Award. The only place he should have been allowed to sit on any aircraft is in the passenger cabin!!!
The captain also had his own training/performance issues, though not to the extent of Aska. Placing both of them together allowed them to achieve their destiny. Sadly the jump seater was trapped in their mutual vortex of the Peter Principal gone terminal.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/tourism-cruises/article244215287.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-air-atlas-crash-pilot-unsafe-ntsb-2019-12
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2019/12/19/pilot-of-doomed-amazon-air-flight-had-poor-training-record-seemed-confused-before-crash-ntsb-report-suggests/#5f2eee2c79cc
https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/captain-first-officer-divided-control-in-fatal-atlas-air-767-crash/
And lastly the incompetents at the FAA need to get onboard with and implement recommendations by the NTSB and stop dragging their feet. There are an over abundance of cases where the FAA is asleep at the switch or complacent in allowing bad operators to flourish. Anyone recall the Payne Stewart Lear crash and the coddling the FAA provided that operator. Colgan 3409 is another example of FAA shortcomings in protecting the flying public. Congress had to take authority from the FAA and do the job they should have done by increasing pilot requirements after the Colgan crash slaughtering 73 passengers because of two losers on the flight deck. Up to that time one needed more hours to fly boxes VFR in a C182 for hire than to sit right seat in a regional airliner carrying unsuspecting passengers. Such regulations don't even rise to a measurable level of stupidity.
Safe flights happen between the ears, not due to some arbitrary amount of hours in a logbook. It wasn't hours these pilots were lacking, it was grey matter. What you learn and retain from those hours in your book is what counts. I've flown with 10,000 hr pilots that 'Russian roulette' is the best way to describe each flight and have flown with 250 hour pilots I would trust my family to. With lives at stake, it's pushing incompetent pilots onto the next operator that has to stop.
Your point is understood. In every career field the same will apply.
Success = ability X motivation. Ability = aptitude X skill. Aptitude is generally defined as IQ in the simplest and broadest terms. Motivation in the broadest terms = attitude. An individual may have an aptitude for one endeavor but not another. Most good judgement comes from experience, some of which comes from bad judgement. Hopefully an individual possesses the mindfulness of self assessment to learn from poor decisions. In Aska's case, the response by previous check airmen from previous employers clearly indicate he had an inflated sense of his "abilities" and moreover was in their opinion, not even cognizant of his shortcomings. What to do with someone that is blind to their own limited station? What is the likelihood they will ever be safe?
My reply addressed both aspects of experience/abilities/aptitude and the Congressionally mandated minimum hourly and ATP licensure requirement which one would hope translates into a higher caliber crew member. Unfortunately, the FAA's lax oversight and enforcement allows bottom feeding operators to exist.
The very essence of training is to gain experience and experience takes time and exposure to a medium. There are a percentage of those among us who plateau early (The Peter Principle of reaching one's level of incompetency)and should be expelled from the system. There are those who excel rapidly and may "suffer" at the hand of an imposed hourly requirement. However, in general, a normal individual with at least average intelligence and attitude will improve from experience gained over time. The classic definition of learning: a change in behavior brought about by meaningful repetition over time applies. But some, for lack of whatever trait(s) absent in their being will not be trainable to the level necessary for a specific job/task/career. So, for the vast majority of individuals, exposure of experiences over time produce greater success. And this does not negate that there are outliers on both tails of the Bell curve that do not fit the model, however, common denominator modalities are developed which apply to the vast majority of the population.
Success = ability X motivation. Ability = aptitude X skill. Aptitude is generally defined as IQ in the simplest and broadest terms. Motivation in the broadest terms = attitude. An individual may have an aptitude for one endeavor but not another. Most good judgement comes from experience, some of which comes from bad judgement. Hopefully an individual possesses the mindfulness of self assessment to learn from poor decisions. In Aska's case, the response by previous check airmen from previous employers clearly indicate he had an inflated sense of his "abilities" and moreover was in their opinion, not even cognizant of his shortcomings. What to do with someone that is blind to their own limited station? What is the likelihood they will ever be safe?
My reply addressed both aspects of experience/abilities/aptitude and the Congressionally mandated minimum hourly and ATP licensure requirement which one would hope translates into a higher caliber crew member. Unfortunately, the FAA's lax oversight and enforcement allows bottom feeding operators to exist.
The very essence of training is to gain experience and experience takes time and exposure to a medium. There are a percentage of those among us who plateau early (The Peter Principle of reaching one's level of incompetency)and should be expelled from the system. There are those who excel rapidly and may "suffer" at the hand of an imposed hourly requirement. However, in general, a normal individual with at least average intelligence and attitude will improve from experience gained over time. The classic definition of learning: a change in behavior brought about by meaningful repetition over time applies. But some, for lack of whatever trait(s) absent in their being will not be trainable to the level necessary for a specific job/task/career. So, for the vast majority of individuals, exposure of experiences over time produce greater success. And this does not negate that there are outliers on both tails of the Bell curve that do not fit the model, however, common denominator modalities are developed which apply to the vast majority of the population.