Posts about: "Action slip" [Posts: 115 Page: 6 of 6]

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Subsy
August 07, 2025, 09:06:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11934511
"...and here is my concern with our assumption of intent from evidence of action."

It is worth pointing out that action slips are actually incredibly common but rarely critical - or reported - events. Suicide attempts, by their very nature, have a significantly higher profile. Looking at the literature, action slips on the flight deck are actually pretty common but usually trivial - and that's the ones that get reported. Dangerous action slips are common enough that Airbus have openly available training material on them. Action slips that lead to situations that can't be recovered from are always going to be remarkably rare in an industry that goes out of its way to get the ergonomics right to avoid action slips as a result of designer error. A good example would be the similarity of location, action and shape of the flaps and undercarriage of the B17. The flight deck is one of the few places deliberately designed to make action slips harder to be dangerous and this shows how common they have been.

Action slips occur all the time - most of us have had a few - and used to be far more common in flight before aircraft were designed to avoid them. Suicide attempts remain remarkably rare, attempts with no clear buildup (that can at least be unearthed later) are rarer still and suicide attempts on takeoff are not something I can find online.

So if the investigation is left unable to infer intent from action, it's clear which intention is more likely and also which is more visible.
Last edited by Subsy; 7th August 2025 at 09:52 .

Subjects Action slip

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Lonewolf_50
August 07, 2025, 13:13:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11934640
Subsy: good points all.
What gets me, with the info I have available so far, is the reported delay in turning the fuel back on. This is a bit more striking given that the verbal challenge "why did you turn them off" got "I didn't" as a reply.
My experience with action slips is that "Ooh, sheet, moved the wrong thing, fix it!" is the more common reaction or behavior.
Spoiler
 



In the case of this flight, each bit of delay in getting the fuel flowing again made the chance of a quick enough relight to salvage the error (if error it was) more remote.
I think someone in a previous thread told us that they tried to salvage this scenario in the sim - fuel off about 3 seconds after takeoff - and found the results unsuccessful, but I can't remember who it was.

I have no interest in that TV show, given the avalanche of info and discussion here on PPRuNe since this tragic crash occurred.

Subjects Action slip  Relight

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hulkster
August 07, 2025, 22:40:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11934926
Originally Posted by tdracer
Having gone on countless flight tests during my career, I was always impressed by the competence and abilities of the Boeing Flight Test Pilots. Most of the flight tests I participated in involved at least one engine shutdown and windmill relight (part of our standard 'First of Model' FADEC software cert flight). The pilots would always use extreme care to make sure they got the correct engine - including putting their hand on the fuel switch and having the other pilot confirm it was the correct switch before setting it to CUTOFF.

But even Flight Test pilots can have a brain fart. Didn't happen to me, but it did happen to one of my best friends. They were doing in-flight start testing of the 757/RB211-535 (and the Rolls engine is a bit notorious for being a fickle in-flight starter). They were doing a corner point condition when the test engine went into a hot start. One of the observers said something like 'it's gone hot, shut it down'. The left seat pilot calmly reached down and shutdown the good engine . Fortunately they were at about 30k, and they were able to recover and get both engines restarted before losing to much altitude.

I was told the Flight Test pilot in question was immediately demoted from "Experimental Flight Test" to "Production Flight Test" (where they do routine shakedown flights of new production aircraft prior to delivery).
Thanks for sharing as I doubt I'm the only one who appreciates these "war stories" - as a LONG-time lurker, any post from you (or fdr ) gets my attention and I appreciate the inside insights about Boeing.

BTW, I was flying in a GA aircraft out of Renton (complicated story that had to do with non-rev travel closing up out of SEA, so my brother flew us to PSC which had good availability) and we thought it odd that there was a bit of hoopla going on ... but then realized it was the first flight of 757-300.
Last edited by hulkster; 8th August 2025 at 01:10 .

Subjects Action slip  Engine Failure (All)  Engine Shutdown  FADEC  Fuel (All)  Fuel Cutoff Switches  RUN/CUTOFF  Relight

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Submarine Yellow
August 08, 2025, 09:24:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11935104
Originally Posted by Subsy
It is worth pointing out that action slips are actually incredibly common but rarely critical - or reported - events.
As a teenager one of my favourite books was The Unsafe Sky, Air Safety The Terrifying Untold Story by William Norris. In it he quotes someone as saying (I paraphrase) "air safety is 8 things going wrong at once, an incident is 9 things and an accident is when 10 things go wrong." Or, to put another way, stuff goes wrong all the time, but rarely causes a problem and it is often that one more (the "tenth") tiny problem that is the final trigger for an accident.

Subjects Action slip

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za9ra22
August 08, 2025, 14:11:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11935237
Originally Posted by Lonewolf_50
....What gets me, with the info I have available so far, is the reported delay in turning the fuel back on. This is a bit more striking given that the verbal challenge "why did you turn them off" got "I didn't" as a reply.
My experience with action slips is that "Ooh, sheet, moved the wrong thing, fix it!" is the more common reaction or behavior.
This strikes me as one of the most apposite of questions in this incident.

If we take it as read - which I do but some clearly don't - that the preliminary report contains all the pertinent details as known at the time it was written, then that delay is rather inexplicable. The absence of any reported further confrontation or verbal exchanges on the flight deck rather suggests the pilots were not sure what had happened.

Even if it is taken as read that one pilot was acting intentionally, unless their hand covered the switches - in which case surely there would be some audible action or demand by the other - it would not likely take that long to act and correct the problem.

Subjects Action slip  Preliminary Report

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tdracer
October 02, 2025, 17:31:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11963239
I watched it last night - nothing new or that hasn't been discussed endlessly here. Reasonably even handed, although I didn't like all the attention to the 737 MAX fiasco (IMHO, a Red Herring with regard to this crash).
Go into some detail regarding the possibility of pilot suicide (although not much attention to the "brain fart" possibility) - with the obligatory rebuttal from another pilot.
Lots of interviews with grieving relatives.

Subjects Action slip

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Abbas Ibn Firnas
October 02, 2025, 18:21:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11963266
Originally Posted by tdracer
I watched it last night - nothing new or that hasn't been discussed endlessly here. Reasonably even handed, although I didn't like all the attention to the 737 MAX fiasco (IMHO, a Red Herring with regard to this crash).
Go into some detail regarding the possibility of pilot suicide (although not much attention to the "brain fart" possibility) - with the obligatory rebuttal from another pilot.
Lots of interviews with grieving relatives.
Another pointless commercial broadcast then. Not surprising though, as the producers have no more facts to divulge than anyone, outside of the investigation team.
On a side note, I really would have hoped, that on this, a professional forum there would be a more appropriate means of describing a Cognitive lapse.

Subjects Action slip

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Chiefttp
October 02, 2025, 19:30:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11963302
On a side note, I really would have hoped, that on this, a professional forum there would be a more appropriate means of describing a Cognitive lapse.
This is a Professional Pilots website, not a literary or professional poets website😄
Last edited by T28B; 2nd October 2025 at 19:55 . Reason: brackets included this time

Subjects Action slip

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T28B
October 02, 2025, 19:53:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11963312
For Abbas Ibn Firnas, and your objection to using the well worn and easily understood term "brain fart"
Originally Posted by enderman
Not only that but if it was an action slip it wouldn’t have been BOTH cutoffs one second apart. Clutching at straws indeed.
If you have read this whole thread, you'll find that some of our contributors use the term action slip .
(The above post is from much earlier in the thread, numerous others subsequently also used that term).
As pilots (and other professionals in the industry) are human, they also use less formal terms from time to time.

Subjects Action slip

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Chronic Snoozer
October 03, 2025, 05:56:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11963517
Originally Posted by Abbas Ibn Firnas
On a side note, I really would have hoped, that on this, a professional forum there would be a more appropriate means of describing a Cognitive lapse.
It’s long been known as a ‘far cup’.

Subjects Action slip

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paulross
October 03, 2025, 11:17:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11963663
I have rebuilt the site that organises this thread by subject here: https://paulross.github.io/pprune-th...171/index.html

Changes:

- Build threads up to October 03, 2025, 05:44:00 GMT (built on October 03, 2025, 10:04:00 GMT).
- Added: "Brain Fart" and "Cognitive Lapse" to "Action Slip" subject.
- Subjects added: "Discovery Channel".
- "Likes" are available on the currently open thread.
- You can now respond in pprune to any post on my site under the appropriate subject by clicking the link under the post. This quotes the original post.

Project is here: https://github.com/paulross/pprune-threads
Raise issues here https://github.com/paulross/pprune-threads/issues or PM me.

Subjects Action slip  Discovery Channel

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paulross
October 03, 2025, 11:22:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11963667
Originally Posted by Abbas Ibn Firnas
On a side note, I really would have hoped, that on this, a professional forum there would be a more appropriate means of describing a Cognitive lapse.
It seems like "Action Slip" is commonly used on this thread.
I have gathered all the posts mentioning "Action Slip", "Brain Fart" and "Cognitive Lapse" on my site that organises this thread by subject , specifically here: https://paulross.github.io/pprune-th...ion_slip0.html

Subjects Action slip

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tdracer
October 03, 2025, 17:36:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11963896
Originally Posted by goeasy
Only adding to comments above… total waste of TV time. All Emotional interviews and rehashing of facts known long ago. I got so bored it never saw the end, as it was obviously just cast as a tear-jerker and not informative at all. No new facts or suppositions which is probably the truth in the circumstances.
To be fair, we're not the target audience - for 99% of the traveling public, it was a decent summary of what's currently known about the accident and educated them with regard to what's currently known. Too much tear-jerker stuff for my tastes, but that's the state of TV these days.

With regard to my use of the term "brain fart" - I have never, ever referred to myself doing something stupid as an 'action slip' - I always say I had a 'brain fart' (or perhaps a 'senior moment').
I don't really consider it disrespectful to referrer to someone else doing something stupid with the exact same term I'd use to describe myself doing the same thing.
You are free to free differently.



Subjects Action slip

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tdracer
November 28, 2025, 19:32:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11997347
Originally Posted by LondonSpotter
But it is interesting that they mention the digital-electrical ‘core’ system - I wonder if water getting in there DID cause this crash (or 'mishap' as the Indian media would describe it)
As has been discussed multiple times in this thread (and the other related threads), the fuel switches are hard-wired from the flight deck to the engines (and the FDR information comes from that same hard-wired signal).
There are no known ways that a 'core' system fault could shutdown the engines.

I do wonder about the stab system faults - although apparently corrected, a good pilot would have reviewed the log and known there had been issues. It might have left him 'pre-loaded' to take action for a stab system problem - which turned into an 'action slip' of moving the fuel levers.

Subjects Action slip  FDR  Fuel (All)  Fuel Cutoff Switches

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MaybeItIs
November 28, 2025, 21:11:00 GMT
permalink Post: 11997408
Originally Posted by tdracer
I do wonder about the stab system faults - although apparently corrected, a good pilot would have reviewed the log and known there had been issues. It might have left him 'pre-loaded' to take action for a stab system problem - which turned into an 'action slip' of moving the fuel levers.
Exactly! (WIS)

Subjects Action slip

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