Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

For those of you who don't read NTSB reports as a hobby, know that Preliminary reports generally do not assign probable cause or list contributory findings. They're usually just full of basic, factual information like the date, time, location, weather, info about the aircraft and pilot, and so on. So don't go into the PDF thinking you're going to learn the cause of the crash.

View on HN

While this is generally true and having read this report I do not believe it to contain any new material information related to the probable cause, it continues to paint the picture of the captain making a pretty big series of mistakes.

It really sucks that the FO could not intervene further as he clearly identified the problem and articulated the solution.

I certainly doubt there will be a satisfying ending to this one.

> It really sucks that the FO could not intervene further as he clearly identified the problem and articulated the solution.

First officer could have easily intervened, all they needed to do was call for a go-around. If the captain wouldn't initiate a go-around(AFAIU typical airline policy from my understanding is that if either pilot calls for a go-around then they must initiate a go-around) after being called for by the FO they should have initiated one themselves. The events from the CVR show only the captain ever called for a go-around after it was too late.

The CVR transcript is pretty damning I'm not sure what new details you expect them to uncover.

The alerts from the GPWS below 1000' signify an unstable approach, you go around, the end.

What they will investigate is the why they did not go around, but it's largely irrelevant.

It would be irrelevant if the pilots died, however, since they survived and potentially will continue flying, the why is relevant to not do it again

and potentially will continue flying

Hopefully not without some very thorough additional training and certification.

Even if they had died, it would still be relevant. It may point to deeper systemic issues at the company or could lead to identify additional ways to train aircrews to avoid this situation in the future.

It's always relevant but the NTSB's recommendations sometimes fall on deaf ears in a way that endangers future safety.

The fundamental question is why they pressed on and what we need to look for in other airlines to avoid this. Why was the FO so unassertive? Was this a common pattern at that airline? Was there pressure from the airline to minimize go-arounds?

Is this an issue with the re-training of rotor to fixed wing pilots?

> Was there pressure from the airline to minimize go-arounds?

The thing I've heard from the fine folks on the pilot forums is that for most airlines (granted, passenger airlines, not necessarily cargo), the reverse is usually true. An unstable approach generates a number of these warnings and the plane tattles on the pilot in real time, there will be repercussions for not going around.

> don't read NTSB reports as a hobby

This amuses me, as it clearly addresses a tiny minority of HN commenters, and I can only imagine the arcane, irrelevant documents each one of us has saved to our disk and open in tabs right this very moment

Editing Wikipedia for 17 years has left me with research superpowers, in any arena I should choose, and it unfortunately supercharged my ability to ruin dinner parties by blurting out series of factoids about any item that should be mentioned.

In fact, my research efforts and other actions may have been directly responsible for a security lockdown at an international airport once upon a time. I have no way of knowing for sure, and I was innocent of all malice, but imagine my surprise when I arrived to find the chaos.

I found the timeline of events from the flight data recorder to be fairly suggestive of a likely conclusion.

Though that's as a lay-person; I am not a pilot but would love to hear if the seemingly obvious issue is the likely root cause.

This one is blindingly obvious. Appalling airmanship, just like it reads.

Touching down 2/3rds of mile down the runway at around 25 knots over Vref. That was never going to go well.

Well yeah the report is not a bunch of nothing also. NTSB usually takes 12+ months to complete their investigation so they release a preliminary report within a month of the incident usually to share relevant factual information. But the investigation remains ongoing so they have the time to check all angles and come up with final conclusions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com