I wonder: would PM have taken control if they had more experience on the 767?
(not an aviation expert, just summarizing various bits and pieces I gathered from various YouTubers over the last days)
As a passenger I had my first go around a few days ago, but we were 5km away from the runway.
The clouds had been very thick for awhile. The plane was making those weird low-and-slow vibes that it makes on final approach.
We popped out of the clouds and there was a highway with cars! A huge parking lot! (An airport, too? Certainly, but I didn't really see a runway or any runway-adjacent stuff.) To my inexpert eyes, we just looked to be impossibly low for our location.
The folks in the cockpit apparently didn't like what they saw with their eyes, either. In an instant, the engines roared as they simultaneously pointed the thing upwards. My little pea brain was very impressed by the immediacy of the forces on my body as we disappeared back into the clouds after what was at most just several seconds of visibility.
Anyway, it was very clear that there was no hesitation to the go-around. However that decision was reached, it was then simply executed.
The next attempt went very smoothly about ten minutes later.
(The go-around can be seen here, if anyone wants to have a look at some pretty lines and maps from ADS-B: https://planefinder.net/data/flight/NK630/history/5-48596475 )
When either pilot calls for a go-around, both are supposed to drop literally everything else, execute the go-around without delay or hesitation, and then pause to analyze the situation once ATC gives them a heading and altitude or holding pattern to regroup.
The only thing lost in a go-around is fuel and time. Any sane airline will never punish a call to go-around if done so in good faith.
Yes, it does. I can't speak universally but I would generally expect it to be a written rule, if not then at least it's the expectation.
If this had happened and the captain had fought over the controls and still caused an accident, we’d be having a very different conversation. The FO would be lauded as a hero who fought to save the lives of those on the ground.
Is there evidence that PM ever called for a go around? I mean earlier, when it would have actually been possible, not 15 seconds before the end of the flight data recording.
From what I've heard, PM stated (repeatedly) that they were too high and/or too fast, and PF was not heard to respond.
Making the assumption the PM could have taken control cleanly if the power dynamic was so poor that they weren't able to demand a go-around seems iffy, typical stabilised approach gates are 500ft in VMC, with an aircraft travelling 3nm a minute, 40 seconds before touchdown.
But as I said, the human factors involved will be a huge focus of the accident investigation.
If anything, it would have been yet one more opportunity to avert catastrophe and perform a go-around. Pilots are trained for this, and it makes less than zero sense for a PM to fail to take the controls from a PF who is flying unsafely over some imagined fear of a battle for control while the plane jostles around hurtling toward the ground. The PM is obligated to do this by every written regulation.
If you have never actually been behind the controls of an aircraft, please just stop trying to confidently assert things about this subject.
If this site had a slogan, I think you just guessed it
That's a lot of assumptions.
> Having pilots fighting over the controls is not a situation anyone wants
Nor crashing and killing 5 people.
This pairing, considering past incidents with similar airframe vs. total hours disparity, really does look to be bad practice. You've got to acknowledge the human psychology. Part of it is probably the crazy pipeline over the past few years where people are racing to 1500 hours no matter how they log them, or they're getting on restricted certs with lower hours.
The training pilots go through to get type rated and to be allowed to fly by airlines is incredible. But knowledge is one thing, attitudes and behavior and truly taking safety to heart outside the sim is another. I bet this guy was slightly reckless in every model he's flown.
Another alternative is external social factors acting on the captain. Maybe he was distracted by personal issues. There again though, if you're not fit to fly that day, you call out.
That is not the reason this incident happened. This happened because the pilots continued to put it on the ground while ignoring at least a dozen clear and unambiguous indicators to abort the approach and go around.