World-renowned aviation-industry consultants and former NTSB investigators John Goglia and Greg Feith have 100 years of worldwide aviation safety experience between them. In this hard-hitting podcast series they talk about everything aviation.
We can always improve a system, but, in my opinion, there is a glaring piece of information missing in this analysis, which leads to a conclusion that will do little to prevent a recurrence. In my opinion, it is wrong to suggest that if the aircraft had a better Ice Protection System (IPS) it could fly in severe icing. Until we make an aircraft with a fully heated exterior surface, it is not possible; I agree with the French manufacturer that there is no need to elaborate on how an aircraft might react when flying into situations in which it is not certified to fly. Would it help you to know how your car would be destroyed if you drove it into a rocky ravine? It better be a Tesla (‘Tesla plunges 250 feet off a California cliff, all 4 occupants survive’). The same applies to flying into a thunderstorm: if you don’t know how to avoid a thunderstorm, I doubt that the knowledge of all the destructive forces acting on your aircraft would help you find your way out of it. « In other words, can we expect a pilot to know how to exit severe icing conditions graciously if he does not know how he got there in the first place? » Knowing that no aircraft is certified to fly in severe icing, the first « ordre du jour » would be to not enter severe icing. How? Avoid precipitations. If the pilot enters precipitation in clouds, he will encounter situations that will challenge all the airmanship he has left and it may not end well, as we saw in these accidents. "Really, the question is; how to avoid entering severe icing." The answer is the same as avoiding thunderstorms: use the aircraft weather (WX) radar. WX radar does not see clouds, but luckily it sees precipitations where severe icing exists. All airline IPS can handle ice encountered in clouds, but no aircraft can maintain a flight in severe icing conditions. On the ATR this precipitation shows as green blobs on the WX radar screen. Avoid them. I think that the ATR IPS, even before Roselawn, was adequate to handle what the aircraft was certified for, by following the excellent Ice procedures that served me well for over 9000 hours of flying ATRs on three continents. WX radar training must be integrated in learning how to fly in icing conditions.
The trouble with this aircraft is the wing section/xsection which seems to encourage ice to form close to the aileron. I would not fly in this aircraft and it really needs redesign of the wing. Ground until modified, you guys have done a terrifically good job. I am a retiredCertification Engineer and private pilot. Other type of this aircraft are nowhere as critical and have i believe a different wing section
3 times I realized the door was not properly closed one the door opened. I ignored it and focused on fly the aircraft. Lesson learned! Use your check list!
1/. Why and how do ATC and the pilots get into a severe icing situation in the first place, and then stay there? If it's a surprise - which can't be here because of the constant warnings - then why aren't they changing altitude rapidly? ATC eventually said stay at 17,000 due to traffic, but that's where the icing was and it's up to the pilots to fly the thing safely. Would speeding up the aircraft 40kts saved it? 2/. Yet again we see (alleged) pilot inexperience and lack of quality as a major culprit. Together with blase', bored and disinterested attitudes when flying everyday sectors. Obviously it doesn't 'necessarily' matter the modernity of the aircraft, what matters who is up-front flying it. Lesser brands pay less and hire less. Are cheaper ticket prices worth your life? Guys we can do without the political stuff (we all know how reality works).
As a former Brazilian air traffic controller and ATR pilot, I'm glad that you mentioned the possible conflict of interest between the investigation and the Brazilian Air Force, as it really happened in the GOL/Legacy Mid-Air Collision. The ATC software (X-4000) had some serious built-in failures that led to that midair collision. It's important to note that CENIPA started their presentation mostly defending the fact that, since the pilots did not declare "MAYDAY," the ATC could not have provided any assistance. A true civil and independent Investigation Agency should be created in Brazil.
There is a plan to fly a Citation Bravo from Malaysia westward through Greenland n Iceland to Anchorage to Canada n finally to California within the next 2 months. I am very concern. Can someone share some advice to me?
"Increase Speed" light on with 169 KT, aircraft contaminated by ice, turn with a bank of 32 degrees, increased load factor, increased stall speed, those are the recipe of the tragedy.
It's almost impossible and in all my years in aviation maint I have never seen a proper pre flight of the stab boots. Those stab boots need constant inspection and maint and are notoriously unattended by both pilots and maint. Holes render the boots inop as they cannot inflate giving a warning indication. Those boots get little attention all summer and when winter kicks in their failure hate increases dramatically. If icing is possible the boots must be on for several cycles prior to flight.
Thank y'all for sharing your knowledge and experience! As a Brazilian, I feel honored and grateful for helping to clarify what happened. The airline is from my hometown, and is the oldest company in Brazil still in operation.
Certification engineerThe controlling of the icing by the pilot cannotbesiccessively due to speed ofovongiwouldnotflyinthisaircrsft.I MY computer printer giving problems
I’m a retired certification and have tried to follow this up as I think these aircraft are unsafe e in icing and have had a few fatal accidents As far as I have found outyheahape of the wing section allows ice to form neartheailerons andcauseloss of control of course they blame on the pilot BUT it’s thewingsection used on the wing Aircraftmustbegrowded
Pilot training 101 - No auto pilot when in icing, suspected icing, or icing is likely. RIP. As a former airline pilot, and current instructor ...I would fly in the back of any ATR ----given the pilots where trained by a good airline. I'm not familiar with Voepass, or their training or icing procedures ...So, no judgement on Voepass. This could be one isolated case of pilots not following company and/or ATR procedures.
No airline should be operating the ATR aircraft, except in tropical areas where there is no possibility of icing encounters. You can trust no one in their respective selling business. Lives do not matter, money is king.
There is no mystery that these ATR turboprops are thoroughly under engineered. They should only be flown in the fairest conditions. There's something about the angle of the wings relative to the direction of travel that I find very unsettling. If the wings were a little bit swept back, like an arrow, and given a little bit more surface area to compensate, then I don't think this icing problem would be as big of a deal as it is. The trouble is that ice builds up all at once along the entire leading edge. When it reaches a certain threshold, all of the lift generated by the wings disappears with no warning. Because of that cutting angle, you've either got lift or you don't have any lift. There's no in between state -- no warning -- no chance for a pilot to respond. Flying an ATR is like balancing a pencil on a thread.
As a flying ATP and an ex R&D engineer in aeronautics (structure, aerodynamics and jet engines) and airspace technologies (mostly engines) seeing somebody writing“There is no mystery that these ATR turboprops are thoroughly under engineered” is TOTALLY erroneous and shows a TOTAL lack of knowledge and experience! After the grounding of the ATR for more than a year about 30 years ago and its new modifications, this airframe went into the most strenuous icing tests, above the limits of previous icing certification at the demand of the French and ATR, that even the FAA didn’t want to go that far, but finally accepted to increase the limits of icing certification. After these extreme tests, including in flight with a US airplane throwing cold water in cold conditions, the new systems and modifications passed those tests that no other same type of airplanes build at that time could go through and even most aircraft builders abandoned building these type of airplanes… only the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 survived these tests. So, saying “these ATR turboprops are thoroughly under engineered” is showing your total ignorance in this technical field… and a TOTAL lie through your ignorance. As a professional pilot, now, flying jets, you don’t want to ever stay in icing conditions, even with de-ice systems, ESPECIALLY when you encounter extreme icing, like supercooled water droplets. One of the advantage that jets have when encountering icing, compare to these types of turboprops which are limited to a MAXIMUM of 25,000 ft (with no passengers), is to climb above the weather. When we have to descend, we (professional pilots), do not want to stay longer than even 3 to 5 minutes (and this is even too long for conscious safety and serious flying). I have been in these conditions with moderate/severe turbulence (autopilot disengaged) and moderate to severe icing (and luckily for us that was “just” rim ice, not clear ice which is one of the worst icing you can encounter), and I wish I wouldn’t ever had to fly within it, but this lasted “only” for about 1 minutes as the approach controller was giving us instructions in a busy terminal area. Those are rare occurrences as good controllers generally try to make us circumvent these conditions, but sometimes there is no other way and they expect these conditions will not last long. If you had really listen to these knowledgeable gentlemen in this video, you will not have wrote down this nonsense and bashing this great and useful airplane. Pilots in this ATR were not up to the level required to be safe professional pilots and put the plane in these conditions, not the way around, especially with this MEL limitation they had. Learn AND listen before making “POVs”, because otherwise it will show your ignorance… and in this case it is flagrant!
@@Speedbird61 3 planes crashed during that day. August 9th 2024: Chile, Brazil, Argentina, in a span of 6 hours. The plane's poorly designed and must be removed. Besides, it entered a flat spin. You don't enter a flat spin on the A320 by having SIGMET + autopilot. On top of that, another fellow FO (of an A320), warned minutes before the icing conditions to ATC. He basically undergo the same problems, but was able to recover, and landed safely. Source: 'Un piloto de otro avión pudo evitar la tragedia en Brasil pero la torre de control lo ignoró: “Nunca vi algo así”'
These gentlemen are from a time when the federal government wasn’t an f-ing joke like it is today. How times have changed, we used to have public servants who were professional and dedicated public safety and doing the right thing.
During my years in aviation, both inside and outside of government, I was often at a loss to explain how these highly complex technologies and processes worked as well as they did, and continue to do. People and organizations are often imperfect, but the collective desire to keep pushing forward is the secret sauce. Every era has to figure it out for themselves, and I will continue to do my tiny bit to help current and future aviation professionals to move aviation forward.
Seems quite counter-intuitive to have the autopilot NOT disengage when icing is detected and no Icing avoidance action occurs: since the first point in the checklist is "leave and avoid" the aircraft software *should* flag this in some fashion, and, if the autopilot function has to implement corrections that would be typical of an icing condition.... Really, ATR is allowing the autopilot to fly the aircraft into an unrecoverable status. Absolutely the pilots at fault for not following "the book", but the manufacturer has allowed the fatal situation to occur, by not implementing a "hard stop" condition when autopilot is on and ice detected and no corrective action taken And autopilot is forced to implement unusual trim/power But, what do I know, them Brasilian aircraft manufacturers are supposed to be pretty smart. Maybe Embraer is doing a better job on their very popular new Military transport.
I understand that many aircraft have problems with the autopilot taking the plane to a certain limit without warning. The autopilot informing what it is doing would certainly make aviation safer.
With the problems the ATR has had with icing over the years hard to believe they stayed in Icing conditions even with a Deicing Fault. Check list is very specific you have to get out of the icing conditions. Reduce altitude by 3-4000 feet they would of been clear of icing conditions. We thought after our accident in 1994 everything was done to make the ATR the safest Turbo Props to fly in icing conditions. We have been proven WRONG once again.
.. Too Many "Cooks In The Kitchen" .. Your Group Presentation "Is Not Focused" On The Accident .. You're "Wandering-Off In Many Directions" Instead of "Concentrating" on The Flight Data and The Weather .. Very Confusing for Your Audience .. We Want "The Bottom Line" .... Compare Your Presentation to "Juan Browne's" .. He Sticks to "The Data & Weather" & Makes a Thorough Diagnosis & Summary ..🙏😇
You know AA was bad enough when they were on their own but since the merge with U.S.AIRWAYS they got worse it’s bcs USAIRWAYS ironically had the upper hand in the merge they only kept the AMERICAN name bcs it’s bigger who ur really flying is USAIRWAYS…
Update to my prior comment: Thanks for including your dissertation with the episode docs. I'm reading through it now. I'd love to hear more discussion about some of the specific clashes the NTSB and FAA have gotten into, as well as for someone to explain the controversy over Mary Schiavo after ValuJet 592 and TWA 800. I've seen her referred to as "Scary Mary" by some in the industry, but I don't know much about what their actual criticisms are.
Thanks for taking the time to read my dissertation. It was a fascinating intellectual journey that took me well beyond my engineering and statistical focus. My dissertation was not the first in-depth look at the politics of aviation safety, and it won't be the last. It is a complex and evolving subject. One thing that radically changed starting in the 1990s is the aviation community and the general public's ability to access far more information about what aviation investigation organizations worldwide do. The NTSB is perhaps the organization that has more public access to its inner workings than any other national investigation organization, but access alone is not enough to enhance the quality of their investigations. In my opinion, it is up to the public, both aviation insiders and the general public, to take the actions needed to ensure that the NTSB continues to improve.
