ATC is not necessarily responsible for your terrain avoidance. That is something that depends on the country. In the US, ATC will not grant an altitude below the MVA but ATC in other countries, like Mexico, will. If you request a particular alritude, they assume that you the pic know what you are doing and have a good reason to make the request so they will grant it to you, even if it is below the mva.

ATC is not necessarily responsible for your terrain avoidance. That is something that depends on the country. In the US, ATC will not grant an altitude below the MVA but ATC in other countries, like Mexico, will. If you request a particular alritude, they assume that you the pic know what you are doing and have a good reason to make the request so they will grant it to you, even if it is below the mva.

 

Thanks Kev

My question is, as we all know herein that you are a very professional R/L skipper, and your opinions and thoughts are valued here, so, what amongst your erstwhile flying colleagues, specially the A320 air crews, is their evaluation of what Capt 'Sully' managed to pull off with that landing in the Hudson?

 

The landing itself, in fact the whole way in which the situation played out from the point in which they hit the birds to the final evacuation, of course, nothing but praise is due. To be able to ditch a plane like that with no loss of life or no major injuries is amazing.

 

Of course, there was the issue of the ditching switch not being pressed, but considering that the cargo doors ripped off, that's not exactly important. The ditching switch is not exactly one of those you really know about, or at least you didn't until this accident, but as I already said, the difference it would have made in this case was nil.

 

Then comes the fact that when tried in the simulator, five out of the five pilots that encountered the situation, made it back to La Guardia, though they had been given pre-warning, when given a 30 second delay, they all crashed. It begs the question as to how long should you take to make a decision like that, whether it's instinctive or needs planning. Seeing as La Guardia was not Sully's home base, I'm presuming he didn't know it like the back of his hand, and that in that case, he would have needed to plan. I'm sure that if it had been his home base, his immediate reaction upon seeing both engines spool back would have been an immediate left bank to turn back to the airport, again speculation.

 

Then the only other issue was not using the weather radar on take-off in an area with known birds, again, this is not standard practice, or scientifically proven, but it doesn't hurt.

 

Again, these aren't flaws, and you wouldn't really be expected to have done any better than he did, always room for improvement, but in this case his maneuver was as close to perfect as humanly expectable.

 

Capt. Rónán O Cadhain.

Thank you Capt Rónán for that analytical reply. So, Ch5 were indeed right to include Sully's achievement and airmanship in that documentary.

Thank you Capt Rónán for that analytical reply. So, Ch5 were indeed right to include Sully's achievement and airmanship in that documentary.

 

Oh of course, that's one landing that will be remembered for all the right reasons for many years to come...

 

Ró.

Rónán, being an A330 captain, I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on AF447 at some point.

Rónán, being an A330 captain, I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on AF447 at some point.

I'm sure you would, but this really isn't the thread for that...

 

Ró.

Dammit, you made me do a search! ;)

 

Given that you are (as far as I'm aware) almost the only person that can speak with real authority on the subject your thoughts would very much be appreciated on any of the threads discussing AF447.

 

Apologies for hijacking this thread.

For those interested, here's a photo taken about 30mins before the flight went down, If you look closely at the TAWS system you'll see that the Terrain awareness system is turned OFF, Now I'm not gonna pretend to know a lot about this aircrafts design, but I'd place money on that being one of the causes of the accident....

 

On another thread's link I saw a diagram of the aircraft with legends stating who built what. Noticably absent was any Russian manufacturer for major sub-systems. Presumably then, aside from being assembled in Russia, most of the parts and/or subassemblies came from the U.S. and the EU.

 

I note though that on the overhead there's at least one sub-panel/systeml that's probably Russian built, since the switches are clearly 1950's technology, and the labels are in Russian. Since I don't read Russian, I have no idea what those three switches control... :unknw:

 

I'm impressed with the styling of the aircraft, especially the fuselage. It's really an aerodynamic design! :hi:

I note though that on the overhead there's at least one sub-panel/systeml that's probably Russian built, since the switches are clearly 1950's technology, and the labels are in Russian. Since I don't read Russian, I have no idea what those three switches control... :unknw:

 

Yes, that panel is the FBW control panel, those switches were only there as it was a test aircraft, they will be replaced with ones more similar to the rest of the cockpit design once production models start being rolled out. The technology behind it is far more advanced than 1950's...

 

Rónán.

The technology behind it is far more advanced than 1950's...

 

After I posted the above, I thought a bit more and "guessed" that they were probably for the FBW systems. Note that I only stated that the switches were 1950's technology.

 

Goodness, even here in my own home I have 1913 technology switches that control my 21st century overhead lights! :LMAO:

After I posted the above, I thought a bit more and "guessed" that they were probably for the FBW systems. Note that I only stated that the switches were 1950's technology.

 

Goodness, even here in my own home I have 1913 technology switches that control my 21st century overhead lights! :LMAO:

My apologies father.

 

Rónán O Cadhain.

 

 

Dammit, you made me do a search! ;)

 

Given that you are (as far as I'm aware) almost the only person that can speak with real authority on the subject your thoughts would very much be appreciated on any of the threads discussing AF447.

 

Apologies for hijacking this thread.

 

I have posted one up for you now. Enjoy [if that's the correct phrase to use...].

 

Rónán O Cadhain.

Just saw the pics, look like it flew into the side of a cliff, will be a miracle if anyone survived

 

Seems like a scenic detour to impress the pax went wrong

 

https://twitter.com/...4/photo/1/large

Given that the bulk of the debris would have fallen straight down that vertical cliff (rather than splattered in all directions), it strikes me that the plane must have impacted close to the top of the debris field shown in that photo, and therefore might have cleared the mountain if they'd only been a couple of hundred feet higher. Very sad affair.

The voice recorder has been found. The data recorder is still missing.

 

We're accustomed to getting transcripts from these in the US media. Since this is a Russian aircraft which crashed in Indonesia, any ideas of whether information will be forthcoming?

Well, that's kind of hard to say, but what is interesting, is that legally according to the international agreements on AAIs, all the nations involved in any air accident are entitled to participate in the investigation (typically that is the country where the aircraft is made, the country where the airline is registered, and the country where the accident occurred). So that is certainly Russia and Indonesia, but since there are a lot of companies from all around the globe involved in the SSJ's construction, it does make you wonder whether the AAI international agreements set down in Annex 13 cover that, or if they might have to be altered in order to cover the fact that aircraft construction and parts manufacturing is now very often dispersed around the globe.

 

I should think this is one occasion where they will be rather keen to blame either the weather or the pilots, since there is a lot riding on the viability of the aircraft itself. With that in mind, if there is anything which can steer things toward finding error on the pilot's part, there's a good chance they will release it, which might seem callous, but it is invariably how things transpire when big bucks are at stake.

 

On occasions that sort of thing has led to mixed findings, the most famous incident where that happened in an investigation was the Tenerife Los Rodeos airport collision between a KLM and a Pan Am 747. The Dutch blamed the Spanish ATC, the Spanish blamed the Dutch crew, and the Americans blamed both the Dutch crew and the Spanish ATC.

 

Where that might be relevant to the SSJ crash and investigation, is that Indonesian ATC apparently cleared them to below minimum terrain clearance height, but of course the Russian crew asked to be cleared to that level, so you could see the potential for a similar round of recriminations.

 

Al