Posts by user "FullWings" [Posts: 28 Total up-votes: 31 Page: 2 of 2]¶

Not to mention the thrust lever positions would be correct for the amount of power. Thinking further, it would have been manual flight and if it was a low-level acquire, you should get SPD | TO/GA | ALT or SPD | LNAV | ALT and you\x92d get the autothrottle trying to keep whichever is greater of minimum manoeuvring speed or what\x92s in the IAS window (most likely V2). None of that looks or feels like engine failure - like has been said multiple times, if the engines are running at a decent power setting and you need more thrust, the dual engine failure checklist is not the place to start when you can just push the TLs forward for a better result?

If we assume that the report is factual, as there is no good reason to think otherwise, then the aircraft was serviceable and there were no faults, messages or warnings right up to the point the FCSs were moved to cutoff, as they would have been detailed in the report. The only unresolved question is why was this done?

Putting deliberate action to one side, if the FO was the PF in manual flight, as SOP the captain as PM would be making any configuration changes, MCP selections or switch movements. We know that the captain was a trainer and as such, it is likely that he was used to running details both from the instructor station and either seat. Given the constraints on simulator time and ever-increasing syllabi it is not uncommon for trainers to physically reset the sim to save time and that includes moving critical controls without diagnosis or confirmation in ways inappropriate for the phase of flight, even if frozen. It is likely that if you were doing a lot of training, you would become more practiced at this than the SOP multi-crew interactive method and unknowingly build a semi-autonomous routine in your mind that allowed these type of actions as there was no jeopardy. Normal line pilots are only trained/practiced/checked on the correct way of doing these.

I\x92m not saying that this is what happened, just offering one possibility as to how a competent crew could end up in a disastrous scenario and experience post-decision dissonance over what had just transpired.

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?

I think you\x92re not on your own here. There is a bit of criticism about the initial report withholding certain things and being incomplete but IMO it said what needed to be said in a neutral way. We now know it is a HF accident, not an aeroplane technical one and although I would like to know exactly what happened, I\x92m much less concerned for the 787 and aviation in general, to the point that in this case I\x92ve lost a lot of interest in the eventual conclusion, if there ever is one.

I think if you looked at the tech log history for most commercial aircraft in service you would find faults that have been rectified or are awaiting rectification under MEL/DDG restrictions. This is why these documents exist.

Seat 28D might have no recline, the logo light is U/S and and an EEC channel has a status-level message. A MMR might have been swapped out after the last sector and the systems are now operating normally. None of this kind of thing is news or surprising in any way as a random selection of airframes would undoubtedly display similar characteristics - a \x91clean\x92 ship would probably be a less likely encounter...

What a load of rubbish. Some of it would seem plausible without detailed knowledge of how aircraft systems work but most industry professionals would be able to poke holes in the posited theories, for instance: pinning everything on the fact that the RAT takes exactly 6 seconds to deploy and produce power. I don’t have intimate certification knowledge but I would bet a quid or two on the spec being ‘maximum 6 secs under the most adverse conditions’ and that at the airspeed and density altitude of the accident it might have deployed quicker. Who knows but it’s not something to hang your hat on and it makes every further assumption down the chain invalid. Engineers understand tolerances, hacks don’t.

Edit: Ninja’d by AAKEE but the point stands.

I see the point but this thread has also become useful when non-authoritative and potentially misleading information makes its way into the public domain via what many regard as reputable sources that are also widely read and quoted. Having SMEs who can explain the realities and point out inconsistencies and incorrect assumptions in what has been published is very useful.

It could possibly be an interesting failure mode of the FCSs but a) it still appears to require significant (deliberate) force to make it happen and b) on the accident flight both switches go to cutoff and are left there for some considerable time before being put back to run despite the crew being aware of their unusual position for the phase of flight (CVR). Chances of this happening without pilot input infinitesimal?