Movement of pilot's seat a focus of probe into Latam Boeing flight, report says | Hacker News Reader

Movement of pilot's seat a focus of probe into Latam Boeing flight, report says

reuters.com

17 pointszzzeek21 comments

The page Reuters links to is a good read also.

“While the precise details of the incident are not fully known, there is ample historical precedent for unintentional in-flight upsets or electrical issues. In 2014, a digital SLR camera became jammed between the left arm rest and the base of the side stick of a Royal Air Force A330 tanker causing a 4,400 foot loss in altitude and a maximum recorded descent rate of 15,000 feet per minute. The left seat was being moved “at the onset of the event,” according to investigators.In separate 2019 and 2020 incidents, drinks spilled on an A350 radio panel caused the shutdown of one of its Trent XWB engines prompting a redesign of part of the center pedestal that sits between the pilots.“

https://theaircurrent.com/feed/dispatches/pilot-seat-movemen...

I find it interesting/worrying that we specifically rule out drinks/liquids etc. in DCs or around any critical or even non-critical infrastructure, but it's perfectly acceptable to take drinks into a flight deck?

Yes, that is perfectly acceptable. Pilots can't be expected to go without anything to drink on long flights.

Food and drink are allowed in the cockpit, especially for longer flights.

Just a reminder / plea: please wait for the investigation and report before theorising about what happened, what is wrong, how that can be, allocating blame, etc. There will eventually be a full report with real facts and lots of details. At this point, it's too early to connect any dots.

If you don't want theorizing, is there anything meaningful to post? Is that a way of saying the story shouldn't have been submitted at all?

discussing the broad concept of safety is different from theorizing/speculating about the specific case.

This is a very particular article to discuss the broad concept of safety about piloting planes.

Aside from what afiori said, I do tend to think that it's not really necessary to have a post at this point. However, not having a post is slightly different to having one where we (hopefully) agree that it's too early to really discuss. In this way, the post is somewhat useful as a "nothing to see here, move along" notice, but not really as a discussion.

I'm no expert, but it seems quite concerning that something as simple as a seat movement might not be sufficiently isolated from flight systems to prevent an electrical short.

I read this as being caused mechanical, aka the seat moves abruptly forward causing the pilot who wasn’t expecting it to push hard on the yoke which tells the plane to dive. The point of the investigation now then is why did the seat move?

From the article:

> "The seat movement caused the nose down" angle of the aircraft, the publication said, citing another anonymous source who added the possibility of an electrical short was also under review.

Sounds like it may or may not be a short, but the fact that it might be possible is what I find concerning.

In small trainer planes, the seat gets moved back and forth frequently to accommodate students of different heights.

At least one crash has been caused by the seat rails becoming so worn that the seat slid back during takeoff and the pilot could no longer reach the controls.

The same thing can happen in old cars.

So what could it be this “seat movement” in layman term? The pilot was screwing a stewardess on the seat and inadvertently jerked the joystick causing the plane to nosediving??

The seats are sitting on rails and can be adjusted.

Yes, but how could it relate to the nosediving by just adjusting the seat?

Well if you’re holding a yoke and the seat moves forward you’re likely to push on the yoke

It really is that simple.

Seems unlikely they’d be holding the yolk during cruise.

In smaller planes with mechanical adjustable seats instead of electrical there have been several accidents due to the seat moving unexpectedly.

So much that the FAA has made regular inspection of the seat rails mandatory for a long list of Cessna models: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2010/11/08/2010-28...

Typically this happens during take-off when rotating. This particular failure mode doesn't make much sense for an airliner in cruise.

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