davparlr
Senior Master Sergeant
Air Disasters
I have been watching Air Disasters on the Smithsonian channel, mainly due to professional curiosity. I pondered what I would have done in those situations. I was often stunned by what I saw. In some instants nothing could be done. Equipment failure doomed the flight. But others, faulty procedure, poor training, and incompetence were sadly responsible. Here's some.
1. Some foreign airline professional airline pilots were inadequately trained on non-automatic flying techniques including landing which led to accidents when auto features were not available. In the early '70s, the C-141, which I flew, had completely automatic approach capability, including auto-land (which was not allowed due to lack of properly equipped runways). I always flew manual approaches and landing, very rarely using even altitude hold, wanting to maintain my proficiency. These airlines flew auto approaches on every landing and even trained that way.
2. Professional airline pilots lacking the ability to fly non-precision approaches. One airliner was lost because of the crew incompetently flew a non-precision approach (ILS was down, oh panic!) by drifting off course and descending BELOW the published minimum descent altitude (MDA) without having the runway in sight (could the runway not be seen because there was a hill in the way? Alas). There would have been no accident if the MDA was maintained. Back in the day, we were well trained in all approaches. We flew worldwide routes into places like Addis Ababa and Tehran where the approaches were ADF (four ADF in the case of Tehran).
3. The last example was the most baffling, the crash in 1999 of the Learjet 35 carrying the golfer Payne Stewart. The plane had a faulty pressurization system which failed at some point. The cabin altitude warning system worked, being heard going off in the background on the cockpit recorder (only last 30 minutes recording time so the crew was already dead). When the investigation group reviewed the published emergency procedures, donning the oxygen mask was not at the top of the list (I don't know if it was mentioned at all)! This should have been identified as a pre checklist action item. The group, when running a simulation, found out that the time to run the checklist exceeded reasonable time for maintaining cognizant behavior in an unpressurized cockpit at high altitude. Their opinion was that the crew tried to run the check list and died. What confuses me is how an experienced Air Force/commercial pilot with over 4000 hrs flying, including KC-135, and an instructor pilot, could not recognize the danger of hypoxia at high altitude and respond immediately to putting mask on. Mental acuity at high altitude only exists for seconds at high altitude. I think they estimated eight seconds. AF and I assume Navy pilots are trained to understand that fact and react accordingly. There is a reason that commercial flights instruct passenger adults to put their mask on first and then attend to children. Very sad.
I have been watching Air Disasters on the Smithsonian channel, mainly due to professional curiosity. I pondered what I would have done in those situations. I was often stunned by what I saw. In some instants nothing could be done. Equipment failure doomed the flight. But others, faulty procedure, poor training, and incompetence were sadly responsible. Here's some.
1. Some foreign airline professional airline pilots were inadequately trained on non-automatic flying techniques including landing which led to accidents when auto features were not available. In the early '70s, the C-141, which I flew, had completely automatic approach capability, including auto-land (which was not allowed due to lack of properly equipped runways). I always flew manual approaches and landing, very rarely using even altitude hold, wanting to maintain my proficiency. These airlines flew auto approaches on every landing and even trained that way.
2. Professional airline pilots lacking the ability to fly non-precision approaches. One airliner was lost because of the crew incompetently flew a non-precision approach (ILS was down, oh panic!) by drifting off course and descending BELOW the published minimum descent altitude (MDA) without having the runway in sight (could the runway not be seen because there was a hill in the way? Alas). There would have been no accident if the MDA was maintained. Back in the day, we were well trained in all approaches. We flew worldwide routes into places like Addis Ababa and Tehran where the approaches were ADF (four ADF in the case of Tehran).
3. The last example was the most baffling, the crash in 1999 of the Learjet 35 carrying the golfer Payne Stewart. The plane had a faulty pressurization system which failed at some point. The cabin altitude warning system worked, being heard going off in the background on the cockpit recorder (only last 30 minutes recording time so the crew was already dead). When the investigation group reviewed the published emergency procedures, donning the oxygen mask was not at the top of the list (I don't know if it was mentioned at all)! This should have been identified as a pre checklist action item. The group, when running a simulation, found out that the time to run the checklist exceeded reasonable time for maintaining cognizant behavior in an unpressurized cockpit at high altitude. Their opinion was that the crew tried to run the check list and died. What confuses me is how an experienced Air Force/commercial pilot with over 4000 hrs flying, including KC-135, and an instructor pilot, could not recognize the danger of hypoxia at high altitude and respond immediately to putting mask on. Mental acuity at high altitude only exists for seconds at high altitude. I think they estimated eight seconds. AF and I assume Navy pilots are trained to understand that fact and react accordingly. There is a reason that commercial flights instruct passenger adults to put their mask on first and then attend to children. Very sad.
