Go around training needs simplifying

An opinion piece on go arounds shows that training needs to be simplified and improved. Three years ago a French study showed that a long haul pilot might do one go around every five to 10 years. It also showed that most of the pilots interviewed were well prepared for an engine out go around, but not with both engines functioning.

The crew on Emirates 521 began a go around after an alarm sounded that they had landed over 3,000 feet down the runway. During the go around, the crew would have had multiple tasks to go on almost simultaneously. The crew began climbing, raised the flaps to 20 degrees, and began raising the gear, but didn't advance the power until the airspeed had degraded to 135 knots, and the aircraft dropped back onto the runway and burst into flames. It's not clear if the crew attempted to use the TO/GA switch, but once weight was registered on the wheels by the aircraft the switch wouldn't have worked.

Go-arounds are considered an unexceptional part of day-to-day airline operations, to the point where tabloids treating them as newsworthy dramas can expect to attract a measure of scorn.

But such manoeuvres are not common as far as individual crews are concerned: a French study three years ago estimated that long-haul crews would carry out just one every five to 10 years.

That research concentrated on aircraft state awareness and discovered that crews involved in botched go-arounds were often no longer aware of the basic parameters – in particular the fundamental trinity of pitch, thrust and speed.

www.flightglobal.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

It sorta depends on where they're at.

I've had the delight of doing two TOGAs at Jackson International (JAN) in the last year. They built the runway so that it's perpendicular to the winds coming off the Pearl River, and so you get gusty crosswinds 100% of the time. EVERY time I land there, it's a rough time, but more than once they had to TOGA when the wingtip on the downwind side was about to scrape.

One landing we did two in a row, and the captain said 'one more and we're diverting'.

a reply to: Bedlam

If you're not on the ground, it's a simple matter of hitting the switch and the auto throttle takes care of the power setting for you. The problem comes in when the squat switch registers weight on the wheels. At that point the auto throttle doesn't respond to the switch, and if the crew gets overwhelmed trying to do everything they can forget that and assume that the power is going to advance, and it doesn't.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
...and if the crew gets overwhelmed trying to do everything they can forget that and assume that the power is going to advance, and it doesn't.

Oh, I agree. I have never had to deal with a trying landing/flight. Occasionally, the guys would tell me to take the stick and keep it going mostly one direction and altitude. I can do that, but most people feel safer if I'm not at the collective/stick/yoke for extended periods.

I can, however, easily see that enough extraneous crap and you could easily ignore yet another thing in a cluster.

a reply to: Bedlam

Automation has become a serious problem in the cockpit. Pilots are forgetting the basic trinity, and relying on automation. And then they get in trouble. It happened with Asiana in San Francisco, it probably happened here with Emirates, and with so many others.

yes, and the other thing is the inertial separator needs to be simplified....big label says engine ice helper....