Posts about: "Jump Seat" [Posts: 36 Pages: 2]

Originally Posted by ACW342

Back in the days before it became illegal I used to blag my way into the cockpit on short haul flights using my RAF ID card. Part of the cockpit checks, if the third seat was occupied, was the question "Pax, seat belt on and secure?" to which I always responded "Seat Belt on and secure". I am sure that that Question and Response is still used on check lists and if that is the case that Q&R would have been recorded on the CVR. That should, hopefully, do away with the 'third person in the cockpit\x94 theory ACW342

Originally Posted by FullWings

I think what more likely did away with that theory for the investigators was the absence of the remains of a third body up the front and any audio of the door opening after the switches had been pulled?

As far as the gear lever being in the down position in the wreckage, it could be that the engine shutdowns occurred before the positive rate call and/or the gear was selected up but put down again when a forced landing became inevitable. The only paraphrased communication we have is to do with the engine controls - there was probably more but the preliminary report has omitted it because it\x92s not really relevant to the main event?

Originally Posted by double-oscar

It would have been useful if more of the CVR data had been released so as to see the crew interaction. Also the language used on what was released seems to refer to a third person.
However, from an operator perspective. Captain PM, FO PF. PF selects TOGA and follows the thrust levers, Captain confirms Thrust Set and replaces FO hands on the Thrust Levers. 80Kt call by PM, acknowledged by PF. Aircraft calls V1, Captain should withdraw hands from Thrust Levers and calls Rotate at Vr. PM is looking for confirmation the aircraft is climbing and calls Positive Rate. PF confirms and calls Gear Up. At this point the PF will be looking through the HUD looking to follow the flight director, the PM would be checking LNAV had engaged and at 400\x92 checking THR REF and VNAV SPD. However, at this point a loss of thrust occurred. So how was this apparent to the PF who would have been looking out with both hands on the control wheel. Reduction in pitch? GPWS call-out? Decreasing N1 on the engine instruments? EICAS ENG SHUTDOWN? What did the PM see? Who called out the situation? Were any actions called for? At some point as the generators went off line all the FO instruments would have blanked. Did the Captain assume control? I don\x92t think I would have been thinking about the Fuel Cut-Off switches at that point, yet they were specifically mentioned which does mean the switches were moved and it wasn\x92t some internal fault.
Hopefully, as the CVR is further analysed some more information will come to light.

Originally Posted by wondering

Or the handling pilot is trying to put the blame on the monitoring pilot. Apparently, the cpt had medical issues.

Originally Posted by wondering

Could there have been a third person in the cockpit tempering with the FCSs?

Originally Posted by arf23

does the ORDER in which the switches were operated give us any clues which seat operated them? I would suspect that most pilots always go left switch then right switch, or the right then left each and every time when switching off. We are creatures of habit.

I haven't seen it mentioned it yet that if the stabiliser cut out switches had been left in the wrong position from the previous maintenance, when would EICAS or some other system alert the pilots to this? Would the alert be in close proximity to when the fuel switches were moved?

As others have said I think what this episode has revealed is it's too easy to turn off the engines in flight, and that the fuel cut-off switches should only operate when the relevant throttle is at idle? or should have a 10 second pause when no WOW signal

and a definite yes to cockpit video, protected so only accident investigators can access it. I can guarantee the third MCAS event wouldn't have happened if the 2 Lion Air MCAS events had been caught on video. It still shocks me after the first Lion Air near miss where the jump seater saved the day that the plane was released to service "nothing found". And as/when found cockpit video would solve the mystery of MH370.

Originally Posted by tdracer

Not trying to be part of the on-going hamster wheel. But the discussions regarding the odds of this being pilot suicide based on historical rates are missing a very critical statistical point.
Let's just assume that rate of commercial airliner crashes due to pilot suicide is 1 in 100 million departures. Simply put, that means that if you get on a commercial aircraft to fly from point A to point B, the historical odds are that there is a 1 in 100 million chance that your flight will crash due to an intentional suicidal pilot act. However, the historical odds say that the odds of your flight crashing for any reason are several million to one. Since the turn of the century, the fatal cash rate has been something around 1 in 5 million departures.
Now, we know for a fact that the Air India 787 crashed - hence the probability of a crash for this particular flight is not 1 in 5 million - it's ONE! That means the historical odds of this crash being due to an intentional act by a pilot (i.e. suicide) is ~5%, not one in 100 million (obviously a rough number, but you get the idea).

Oh, another to consider with regard to a pilot having a monumental 'brain fart'. We don't know where the pilot's mind was at during the takeoff. Was he focused on the task at hand, or was he preoccupied with the health of his father and what he was going to do about it. About 35 years ago, my one-time fianc\xe9 left me for another guy. I was devastated. Some of my friends were worried that I might attempt suicide, but that never entered my mind. However, I was horribly distracted and my work performance suffered greatly since my mind was not on the tasks at hand. I could have easily done something really stupid that could have endangered my life - such as missing a stop sign while driving or running a red light because I wasn't paying attention.

Originally Posted by Xeptu

I have to say I'm really impressed with your work. It's no co-incidence that this image has been used noting that the rat is deployed which means the generators are already offline,
I'm equally impressed by how quickly No1 engine recovered. I think it's safe to say that this situation is not recoverable, but a truly impressive piece of engineering all the same.

Originally Posted by Dimitris

SLF here with engineering background.

Regardless of what happened and why regarding the switches going to off, there is now a documented failure mode of the system that needs mitigation (?):
Fuel switches off at less than XXX ft lead to unrecoverable AC.

If fuel cut off during take off leads to unrecoverable at less than XXX ft or risk of error i.e. switching one vs the other, then inhibit them. I'm putting it too simplistically, but if after V1 the AC is GO and there is a range of altitude/speed that engines loss leads to unrecoverable some mitigation is needed.

In the meantime maybe ban jump seating during such phases of flight regardless of it is relevant to this accident. If there is intention for something like that, less people with access reduces the possibility of happening.

Too much discussion I think for the 10s to bring the switches back to on.... Pilots are not super humans. By that time the situation the AC was at must have been very clear, some hands shaking is expected...

I wonder if based on the data from the flight, sim-runs have been made to see if the situation would be more survivable had the AC 'slammed' itself back to the runway.

--> Any estimation of how many seconds in 'off' would not change the end result? If it is 2-3 seconds, its better to stop discussing if 10s response by pilots was ok or not. The 'why' and 'preventive' of going to 'off' is a lot more important.

Edit: Have been reading tdracer posts for many many years now. Thank you!

Originally Posted by GarageYears

The problem here with inhibiting the fuel cutoff is that what happens if you have an engine fire less than your XXX ft ? You still need to turn off that engine, right? Now you could say turning off BOTH should be inhibited... what if they are both on fire and there's a nice flat space in front of you?

- GY

Originally Posted by EXDAC

I have seen no documentation of such a failure mode. There are many flight crew actions that can cause loss of the aircraft but these are not failure modes. In any event the need for mitigation of a catastrophic failure mode depends on the probability of its occurrence.

Originally Posted by EXDAC

Pull the fire handle(s)? Or do those that want the fuel switches to be inhibited also want the fire handles to be inhibited?

Originally Posted by Broomstick Flier

I am following this matters with great interest, as most of us professional pilots, but I have to admit that I somehow lost the plot with the many different threads here, so forgive me if this was already addressed or confirmed, but are we sure that both pilots were the only occupants in the cockpit? No jumpseaters? No flight attendants invited to watch the departure from the flight deck?