Back in the 80s, the USAF had a program for spouses to ride along on designated "safe" training missions. This program suddenly ended when one such C135 crashed, killing all aboard. The investigation concluded that a spouse in the left seat had clicked in a bunch of nose-down trim (thinking she was pressing "push to talk" which was a similar rocker switch on the yoke for intercom and radio). When the autopilot tripped off the sudden dive pinned anyone not securely strapped in against the ceiling, which, unfortunately, included the pilot and copilot. By the time any of the real crew could reach the controls, the aircraft was already in an unrecoverable Mach-tuck dive. Aviation and guns should never be taken lightly.
> -----Original Message----- > From: Mercedes [mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com] On Behalf Of Larry > Turner via Mercedes > > > Speaking of A380s, there was a show on Smithonian channel called "Air > Disasters" which features various airliner/aircraft incidents. Yesterday > they featured a A380 with a crew of 3 that was on auto pilot when the pilot > brought his (9 ur old?) daughter and 15 yr old son into the cockpit and he > first let the daughter sit in the pilots seat and she let her hands rest on > the control yoke. Then his 15 year old son had his turn. He did the same > with his hands, but being stronger, he was able to put more pressure on the > yoke. That's when disaster struck as a feature of the new A380 (and many > other planes) kicked in -- when pressure is put on the yoke for approx 30 > sec part of the Auto pilot becomes disabled. At that point the 15 y.o. > teen was controlling the rudder while the autopilot continued to (try to) > control the rest. > Evidently this is a feature some commercial pilots like. At that point the > auto pilot tried to keep the plane on course by adjusting the other > controls. It appears the crew was not trained in this feature. > Eventually the plane began to roll while the son was still in the pilot > seat. But maybe forces kept him seated. So the situation continued to > deteriorate as the plane began to dive then roll and slow spin as the crew > tried to regain control - the pilot was seated once again. > Eventually they appeared to pull the nose up and stop the spinning, but as > the plane climbed they over-corrected and it was almost vertical when it > stalled. It appeared the auto pilot was still in partial control during > all of this which happened in approx 40 sec. All these maneuvers used a > lot of altitude and they ran into a mountain. The airline was the Russian > Aeroflot and they said that while what the pilot did was technically > illegal many did it. Hmmm. I pray American commercial planes have a little > better cockpit security. > > It's amazing to see the amount of info they get from the cockpit recorders. > > LarryT > > 91 300D > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
