A Delta Airlines B752 was climbing out of SFO when they lost guidance, autothrottle, autopilot, and an EICAS message regarding TAT Probe. The crew worked the issues with dispatch and maintenance without success. After further discussion with dispatch and the duty pilot they decided to return to SFO as it would be too fatiguing to fly with limited capabilities and at time of circadian low.
oh common...Every regional pilot has flow 10 yrs plus with no auto throttles...u barely have to touch them in cruise...they created the delay by holding instead of continuing and calling mx enroute. This is a POOR CPT.
@@mtnairpilot using ARINC frequencies. You can Google the map. Airlines subscribe to the service and use operators to connect. You can hear the operator ask if the crew wants to be connected at the beginning of the tape.
@@zach6639no. He didn't do anything to his career. It's a weird administrative/procedural/regulatory gray area. Bottom line, he was fit for duty when he took off. After the mechanical which is technically legal and safe to continue to JFK with, the added factor of having been on duty for quite a while and the fact that they're at their circadian low, the Captain and crew deemed it the safest course of action to return due to an impending fatigue issue if he were to continue with the added procedural steps caused by the Autothrottle failure. It's dumb they even had to have that conversation. All he should have heard from Dispatch/Duty Pilot was "Roger, Captain."
I agree with the duty pilot. The aircraft pilots were not yet fatigued, were not flying in a fatigued condition and would not be landing at SFO fatigued. They were discontinuing the flight to avoid becoming fatigued due to a mechanical issue. Great call by the aircraft pilots and the duty pilot.
One improvement I would suggest for the duty pilot, and the PIC- make it clear that fatigue was not an issue at the moment, but it would be a concern after 5 hours flight with a mechanical deficit. IMHO, PIC made the correct aviation call, DP made a legal call.
I’m with the captain here too. I think what the duty pilot was saying is it’s better for them to call out fatigued after returning to SFO due to the mechanical issue, and not call out fatigued in the air.
Totaly agree. Return due to mechanical issues and explain/defend your decision on ground. If there is any doubt, for any reason, that the flight can be completed safely it is the PIC‘s duty and responsibility to decide on a course of action. No „duty pilot“ or dispatch is gone make that choice for you. I do find the whole conversation with the „duty pilot“ unnecessary. He knew very well what it was all about and kinda played stupid to put subtile pressure on the PIC to continue.
Old pilot or new pilot he made a good decision, inop autopilot/autothrottles and tat could evolve into something else 3 hours into the flight.Airplanes give us warnings. Old Pilot here.
@@jjsifo1 his autopilot and auto throttle was fine. Only the probe was still broken. But maybe he puttered around at low altitude long enough to have insufficient fuel, and maybe he found ways to get a go around or two to burn fuel and not land overweight so it wouldn’t go on the books and make his decision even more painful?
@@MrWoodyxpI don't think he was pressuring the PIC to continue at all, he was subtly advising him that it's not a good look to report fatigue while still in the air, even if it's impending and not current. He tells them to just call it a mechanical issue and that they should discuss any possible fatigue related issues off the net once they're on the ground. No need to report a fatigue out if it never actually happened, but once they use those words it opens a whole can of worms.
@@MrWoodyxp Subtle pressure? Are you kidding? The duty pilot was trying to get the PIC to make the correct realization on their own. At no point did they “subtly pressure” the PIC. I highly suggest that you listen to the audio again. And again.
When the PIC is concerned about fatigue, it should not be questioned, period. Also, this is the first ever vídeo I've seen anywhere that has audio beyond ATC. More please! Rewatched the video, why is the captain asking others to see if landing overweight is OK? My assumption is this is a fairly new captain. This is his call and it was not an emergency, so he should've been able to burn fuel. For those wondering, this happened on Sept 6, 2024.
He claims he wasn’t fatigued. He sounded more like he feared possible future fatigue. Dig deeper, beneath all those excuses, for the root cause. And it sure as hell didn’t look to be mechanical or airplane.
I'm just guessing, but I think the DP is hinting at "if you return citing fatigue, you shouldn't have gone flying in the first place" and it will seem a personal misjudgment. Wheras returning due to mechanical issue is ok and then because of delays etc. you are too fatigued to continue. He's just looking out for the PIC not getting a note on his record.
@@maartendeen8404 The thing is autothrottle failure is not a reason to return in itself. Look at Southwest, they didn't allow pilots to use autothrottles until 2010.
Sure but the duty pilot is trying to save him from a nightmare situation. If he says he took off fatigued then he is liable. If he is returning for mechanical then he isn't.
@@maartendeen8404 What the DP is doing is saving his ass. If he took off "fatigued" then he made a critical mistake and it is ALL on the crew. Mechanical is mechanical.
My dad was a career Air Force pilot and when I started flight training he told me once you start having a cascade of “little things” that you need to get it on the ground asap.
@@woodycumbie4569 a simple procedure in the QRH solved all the major issues, leaving only a single job-critical probe issue that maintenance and operations cleared for continuing the flight. An Air Force pilot wouldn’t make this bad a decision.
I want to add I agree with those saying how interesting it was to hear the company comms. It’s a great new insight to the rest of what happens in the cockpit and just emphasises the number of people it actually takes to operate an aircraft, as well as showing us other tasks the pilots undertake.
It would have been interesting to hear the conversation between the captain and the duty pilot after they landed. Good on him and his copilot for putting safety first.
Yeh, that ain’t recorded, most likely, based on how strongly everyone seemed to be hinting to “take it off-line” so to speak. Those decisions (and behavior, communication) will probably be hard to answer for to the chief pilot.
The airline I retired from had a big poster near the time clock that read, "There is no task so urgent, that we must compromise safety". That should be the mandate, regardless of the occupation! ✈️
Every person planning a career flying a complex aircraft would do well to listen and study this video. These are the types of challenges you will face. Excellent job all around by all personnel.
Shoutout to the PIC for not caving into the operational pressure of completing the flight and standing on the decision he made. Could they have made it to jfk? Yes, but why add a hole to the swiss cheese model if theres no need.
@@operatordirt4611 yeh, I’d love to be a fly on the wall when he talks to a) the duty pilot offline, b) the chief pilot, and c) the simulator evaluators when he goes back in for training and explains why he can’t fly without a TAT probe. I don’t think those rooms will be filled with as much love. This is no hero story.
@@RetreadPhoto its not an issue of competency, its an issue of decision making. The PIC will always have the final say regardless of what ops or the chief pilot says. It sounds like they were close to dutying out and if anything else were to happen enroute, then you would be in a much different situation. I would rather explain to the chief pilot why some passengers had to get rebooked on the next flight than explain to the FAA why I made a poor decision in the case of an incident or accident.
Good for this pilot standing his ground on returning to SF and not attempting a 5 hour over night flight to JFK!!! That duty pilot sure didn't want any verbiage or comms regarding fatigue entered into the log! Glad everything turned out alright!!!
One problem is there is a condition of "fatigued" and a condition of "not fatigued" but there is no condition of "going to be fatigued." The air return goes down as mechanical, everybody's happy. That means additional delay and then leads to fatigued crew. Just like with "timing out" there's not really a protocol for "about to time out." Either it happens or it doesn't and the nature of the crew is to look ahead and plan and get the ball rolling so everything flows without delay, but the protocol begins with a certain condition that hasn't occurred yet but likely will. It's complex.
Nailed it! Not knowing what actually happend in SFO prior to the flight (in terms of delay, maintenance issue etc) dealing with these issues can be quite exhausting in itself. As i understand , they already operated the flight JFK-SFO… sounds like quite a rotation duty time wise… Was a bit irritated with the „Duty Pilots“ response and statements. We do have those too, but they dont generally interfere with ops wants airborne. We give them a call after shutdown if at all required.. Technical degradation of airplane systems can leed to fatigue earlier than usual. As you say, unfortunatly there seems to be no understanding of calling a quits BEFORE the onset of fatigue. Seems like everyone on ground just wanted to make sure they can’t be blamed.. cover your a.. mentality. Difficult but sound decision by the PIC. Well done
To be clear. He wasn’t saying he was fatigued. He said it would be “fatiguing” to continue 5 hours to New York after all the delays and added technical issues, not to mention somewhat stressful given how little holding fuel he had on arrival at New York. There may be no right or wrong answer to this Captain’s decision making, but I agree with the Duty Pilot, that no mention of the word fatigue should be used while airborne. Ex 777 Captain, 25 years commercial experience.
Its rare you get hear what Airline Dispatchers deal with. This is one problem on one flight. Domestic Dispatchers often touch 40-60 flights through an 8 hour shift and plan atleast half of those.
Excellent crew who stood their ground even when pressured by a few colleagues. The pilots are the ones in that cockpit and only they know how their day has been so far, how much more is predicted and how much they can trust their aircraft. Multiple issues on take off leaves room reasonable concern that more technical issues could show up through the flight, regardless of the fact most had ceased for now. We’ve seen it so many times, how there’s one issue, then 30 mins later a new one, then 10 minutes later 2 new ones…. Suddenly workload increases dramatically and during their window of Circadian Low, this can become a real safety issue. Plenty of those scenarios ended in fatal crashes. The fact they had the insight and awareness to think ahead and know that this could cause them big - far more dangerous problems - going forward a few hours, it’s commendable that they considered it, discussed it and then had the balls to follow through despite the people who tried to persuade them to continue. Dispatch wasn’t on that aircraft, nor was the DP. That Captain and his FO were the ones in the cockpit, meaning it’s their aircraft and their decision. Delta should take it as a compliment that the pilots felt comfortable enough to make this decision, as they’ve obviously experienced good CRM and command training, and must feel like it’s a supportive company, even if their colleagues on the night weren’t so in agreement. If I was on that flight and I knew this had happened and been discussed like this, I would be thanking the pilots on our return for putting the safety of me and everyone else above cooperate demand. I’d fly with this crew any day, anywhere. At the end of the day, it’s the Captains job to ensure his plane takes off, flies then lands with the same number of cabin and crew alive that they set off with. Any flight that lands safely, is a successful flight, regardless of where it landed.
The duty pilot was spot on. Don't call fatigue is you already operate the aircraft, altough I understand the point made by the captain was "we are going to be fatigued in the future" but as a precautionnary measure it's best not the mix the two together as it is each pilot responsability to not accept a flight if he feel fatigued.
Good call from crew, safety most important. Pilot fatigue is dangerous condition especially when dealing with a mechanical situation with the aircraft. The swiss cheese progression halted by good calls !!!! A good standard for all pilots to observe.
If you are not familiar with the working environment the situation while not at that moment, can become very stress inducing with a high workload. After a lengthy delay they will be making a 5 hour flight having to constantly actively monitoring throttle settings and speed in an environment with little room for mistake. Then descend through a real of potential icing without clear indication or advance warning. Then shoot an approach with little holding time and if necessary a diversion to an airport inside the area of known ice. All this being done at the end of a long fatiguing night when their circadian rhythm is at its lowest. That is the definition of risky. They did the right thing. Oddly enough this video may help them as Delta would not want the public to think they are forcing pilots to continue flying fatigued
From a former airline pilot during the early 2000s - By day 3 of a 3 day trip, I had involuntary micro-naps. The worst -BOS to Jackson, Mississippi. 6am departure, after landing at 8:30pm the night prior - Technically meeting the 8.5 hours of crew rest. Got to the hotel at 9:30pm, with a 4:15am wake up. Not good.
Great command by the captain. Cool, calm, methodical and most importantly held his own. Sensible decision despite the commercial pressure. They’d have been strung up if they’d been pressured into continuing and made an error. Great display of airmanship.
@@john7101it was an ambiguous comment but I understood the relevance of what the captain was getting at. Given the set of circumstances they’d already had to deal with, this could now become a fatigue issue if they pressed on. He wasn’t, at the stage of the call to ops, fatigued
Good decision making, although I would say he should have never even spoke to the duty pilot, no need for that when you have a plane full of people at 5,000 feet, poor communication overall.
This situation took the captain way too long to make a decision. They weren't flying to the moon. I understand following protocol by calling maintenance and dispatch, but after that, use PIC authority and make a solid decision. He wanted to return, but was searching for assurance from the folks in Atlanta that he was making the right decision. Bottom line, he and the first officer ALREADY DECIDED early on that they were returning so no need for the endless, incriminating babble while actually flying the airplane. All they had to do was thank maintenance and the dispatcher for their time, then tell them they're returning. Talk about the rest on the phone after shutdown at the gate.
@@buzzhazzard No he doesn't........... I've flown with captains like this. They look for any reason to not fly. That conversation with the duty pilot was painful to listen to. He was trying to get someone else to tell him to return to departure point. Also, I would never debate with MX over whether to return or not. 25+ years as a captain has left me with a certain skill set. I decide if I'M going to fly, then airborne WE talk about the current issue, then I DECIDE if we continue. I love my SFO overnights but the Doubletree Hotel is not worth my job. If it's safe, I fly. No auto throttles isn't the end of the world but the discussion of icing conditions and a TAT probe out leads me to believe the MEL had a few limitations. I still think he didn't want to do the trip, pretty FO not withstanding.
@@kalamageoI have been a captain for almost 25 years myself and have been flying for over 40. The assertion that a captain would make a decision based on how pretty his first officer was or that he might like a layover in San Francisco is simply stupid. I agree with your decision making process. It would be very similar to mine. So why would you agree with a guy who denigrates the profession by suggesting the decisions being made had to do with the attractiveness of a female pilot or his layover location. It's a stupid comment.
100% great call not to continue. Better to have this discussion on the radio than on your behalf at the NTSB hearing. The crew saw holes in the swiss cheese slices starting to line up, and took responsibility for keeping everyone in the air and on the ground safe. Increased workload, non-normal operation, decreased protections, circadian low, delays. This was a flight the NTSB would be very pleased didn't continue.
@@frederickschroeder4129 complete loss of FD before breakers were cycled, from what I just heard? They got it back into a non-redundant (TAT INOP) config with dispatch help.
For other low level Pilots like me . TAT total air temp sensor Total air temperature is important when monitoring fuel temperatures on long flights (fuel tank temps tend to approach TAT). Pilots use both TAT and SAT to help determine when to use airframe and engine anti-ice systems. My airline’s 767 procedures require the use of engine anti-ice in visible moisture (rain, snow, clouds) between +10°C TAT and -40°C SAT. TAT probe data is used for calculating Mach number and true airspeed which are critical for cruise flight and navigation. Engine thrust setting values and auto throttles require data from the TAT probe.
An autothrottle (automatic throttle, also known as autothrust, A/T or A/THR) is a system that allows a pilot to control the power setting of an aircraft's engines by specifying a desired flight characteristic, rather than manually controlling the fuel flow. The autothrottle can greatly reduce the pilots' work load and help conserve fuel and extend engine life by metering the precise amount of fuel required to attain a specific target indicated air speed, or the assigned power for different phases of flight. A/T and AFDS (Auto Flight Director Systems) can work together to fulfill the whole flight plan.[1]
This is an excellent video. Pilots have to estimate if they will be fit enough to perform a landing in 5 hours from now, possibly resulting in a go-around and a diversion to an alternate. If anything happens during the flight the commander will be responsible. I am pretty sure that if anything would have happened all company parties involved would make sure that the commander will be blamed solely. Therefore it's a very good and professional decision to return to SFO, taking into account all factors, including a very PROBABLE fatigued situation 5 hours from now. Thank God the commander has the authority to do that.
If I was on that flight, especially after the delay, I would be frustrated, but I wouldn’t want to be on a plane with those issues in the middle of the night. Good call by the pilots.
Amazing that you got Delta Ops comms! I’m so glad the captain specifically called out his circadian low. Another reason I’m glad to fly Delta. Duty pilot was not just a dickhead, but providing an unacceptable distraction instead of helping solve the issue.
The way I saw it, the Duty Pilot was trying to save the actual pilots from a huge pile of BS.. "We just took off and now all of a sudden we are fatigued and need to return".. That would come with a lot of questions and paperwork, and possibly an investigation.. He was trying to save their bacon.. Mechanical.. You aren't fatigued. You are returning because of a MECHANICAL failure. The fact that the MECHANICAL failure would contribute to fatigue in 5 hours, we will talk about that later while we make out the report. Right now, you are returning because of MECHANICAL failure.
@@bobw53jrmaexactly. The duty pilot wasn’t suggesting they continue the flight. He was merely suggesting that they document the decision in the best way. Not only would there be fewer questions to answer, it was the more accurate description of what was causing the return. As the pilot noted, he wasn’t fatigued now, but he would have been fatigued at the end of a long redeye with higher than normal workload.
Thanks for putting all this together. I've watched countless ATC videos, and I think this is *the* most interesting video I can recall, especially the discussion between the captain and the duty pilot. There is clearly so much being said without being said.
What is everyone else talking about? Seeing a lot of back-patting and safety platitudes. This is a routine conversation with mission control but with comms hampered a bit by loss of some automation. I'm a captain on the Airbus side of things and I certainly didn't hear any pressure for the crew to continue. The captain was concerned about *future* fatigue but probably could've done without bringing that up with Maintenance - its not really their concern. When they don't understand, they want to talk to the duty pilot and then he gets confused because the only current issue is a mechanical one. Maintenance will only advise if the manuals would allow an operation to continue, which in this case it would. It's up the PIC to decide if thats the best course of action taking into account all the other factors, which is this case it wasn't. No railroading or cajoling here, sorry folks.
Some live feeders do include 'company' channels as a separate feed. Luckily the feed provider has one at SFO so I always make sure to check, but can be hit or miss. I was actually surprised to hear the phone patch to Atlanta.
@@avocadoflight Awesome job! The RU-vid algo pushed me one of your videos a while ago and I was skeptical due to your sub count - but immediately subbed after the first video, as I'm super impressed with the quality and attention to detail you put in the videos! Keep up the awesome work!! :)
🤦♂️ Painful to hear the back and forth regarding fatigue vs. broken airplane. I developed fatigue just listening to it. Awesome though, rare you get to hear grounds talking.
Too much info over the airwaves. "ops we're returning to SFO because we had a mechanical issue and don't feel comfortable flying across the country without it being checked by maintenance."
Agreed - was surprised the Duty Pilot was giving pushback - figured it was always the pilot's decision to call the flight on safety grounds and Company wouldn't question it
I agree with LOYALONESTILL. I think the duty pilot was trying to mitigate criticism of this whole shit show by ‘subtely’ convincing the captain that the reason for the return is due to a mechanical issue. If the PIC is saying on a recorded frequency that he and his FO are too fatigued to continue to destination (after getting airborne), then the PIC could be in more trouble for that statement alone than for any return to departure port. What was he thinking?!?!
This is an interesting conversation indeed. The root of the issue here is that the pilot is worried that having to nanny the throttles will increase fatigue. There is an argument to be made (on the ground!) that if you are concerned you can’t manage the throttles manually for the duration of the flight due to fatigue then you shouldn’t have taken off to begin with - after all the crew should be monitoring the automation actively throughout in case of a failure that isn’t detected in EICAS. However, the absurd debate about which box to tick on the ensuing paperwork should not be had in the air. Clearly the decisions to land was the safest and the crew should not be criticised for prioritising safety.
I'm not a pilot but as a train driver we have similar rules around fatigue risk and worksafe procedures. To me it sounded more like the DP was fine with the Cpt returning to SFO, but he was just trying to stop the Cpt from making a report that would result in more scrutiny than necessary. All he was telling the pilot was that he could get the outcome he wanted (not go to JFK tonight) while avoiding an investigation that might be uncomfortable for everyone, all he had to do was split it into two reports. First, report only that they decided to return to SFO due to the multiple instrument failures (even if they reset there's no way to know if they would trip again, which it seems they did since they lost navigation during the first approach attempt). Then, once on the ground, they can take themselves off duty because the cumulative delay would take them over their hours. In other words, rather than make one complicated and unusual report that would be a PITA for everyone to sort out, make two totally routine and ordinary reports that won't raise any flags. But since the Duty Pilot is a manager, he can't explicitly instruct the Captain to do that, he can only "strongly suggest" what might be in the Captain's best interest. The bit at the end about only having 10 minutes of contingency fuel for the alternate airport is what convinces me of that, because it suggests that after the radio conversation the Duty Pilot went back to the dispatcher and looked for a more acceptable reason they could put down as the official reason they returned to SFO.
Yea the duty pilot I understand why he said what he said. It raises concerns that honesty was just suggested would not be the best policy. In safety honesty always has to be the best policy . That is a cultural thing. Suggesting to not be honest is also a cultural thing .
12:19 Did everyone recognize when the duty pilot waved his Jedi hand and told the pilots they were returning due to mechanical and not fatigue? The pilot repeated the suggestion. A great insight to the corruption and game playing that goes on in commercial aviation.
They weren't fatigued, it would be an issue to report operating while fatigued, which they weren't. The call of returning for mechanical in order to prevent operating while fatigued was the right call all around.
Yeah, you have to be careful talking to maintenance and following their troubleshooting advice. There are Flightcrew procedures and there are Maintenance procedures. Once airborne we generally don’t go beyond QRH.
I don't blame this Captian....no way would I fly 5 hours manually at night and then the last brillant comment from Ops, you gonna have 10 mins of hold fuel by Albany......no way!
Great call to return. This is one of those situations where the Swiss cheese slices are starting to pile up and it’s better not to find out what the rest of the flight has in store.
Holy crap…it’s just the auto throttle…😂 if the autopilot were out..that would’ve been different. The MEL was referenced and okay to be dispatched. We flew the 727 without auto throttle everyday because it didn’t have one for cripes sakes. As a Captain myself on the 757 I’m sure we flew without the auto throttle. I’d hate to call the chief pilot on this one.
"We flew the 727 without auto throttle everyday because it didn’t have one for cripes sakes. As a Captain myself on the 757 I’m sure we flew without the auto throttle. I’d hate to call the chief pilot on this one." Yeah, but... you DID fly without the AT (which I also do on my jet) but this crew does not. It is not something they always do. And while I have crossed the ocean in a 76 without AT's, this crew has already had some sort of previous delay (late departure). So, yeah, if they did it everyday (as we did/do) and if it was on schedule (and not delayed)... get my point?
@@Capt_Tarmac it's not the auto throttle they lost the FD on the climb out, had to reset 4 breakers. 1/2 TAT INOP if I heard correctly. You'd continue 5h in that situation?
Fatigue is a valid reason to discontinue. But the TAT probe is also essential for the ideal gas law math underlying all the AP/FD flight control algo's, if INOP it was the right call here, not to proceed 5 hours in a non-redundant config.
@foobarf8766 exactly. 5 hours, through the night, after flying a turn from a near 6 hour flight, delayed 2.5 hours. They were butting up against max duty there anyway - maybe even flying an exception.
I'm no pilot but I'm assuming operating the throttle manually could lead to higher fuel burn as well and leave less of a safety margin if they have to hold when they get to New York
7:10 Pilot knows his limits, pride or peer pressure is not included in this decision. Consulted with the co-pilot and made the call. This is the kind of hard choices that have to be made, against the will of pencil pushers and penny pinchers that have no skin in the game. The bean counters took away the flight engineer... but the QRH says you can continue flight without the automation that removed the flight engineer in the first place. 🎩
The pride was getting on the plane knowing he was fatigued. The pride was taking off knowing he was fatigued. The pride was calling to try to convince people he was making the right decision instead of making the decision and going with it.
@@qwerty112311 the pilot was not fatigued when he came on board. He is foreseeing that he WILL be fatigued after flying manually without automation The danger is not now, it's in the future
I flew the 757 for over 25 years. I have to go against conventional wisdom on this. No Auto throttle is NO big deal. This crew was clearly not very confident in their flying skills. In the world of automation, pilots have lost basic skills. You climb to cruise altitude set the power and basically you are done until approach and landing. For those who are non aviators, this is analogous to staring on a 5 hour trip in your automobile and getting on the freeway only to learn your cruise control is not working and deciding to turn around and go home as a result. If fatigue is a big issue here, why did you choose to make that trip to begin with.
@@juliogonzo2718 Very slightly, yes. Typically airlines fly at what's called "Long Range Cruise" which is slightly faster than optimal for fuel burn, but is more comfortable and saves a little time. There are cruise charts with both a power setting (based on altitude and weight) and speed. When setting it manually, you'd set the recommended power setting, and monitor the speed, making small adjustments as necessary (or if it's close, just accept slight deviations in airspeed). The autothrottles are slightly more efficient in making corrections, and the computer is better for making adjustments for wind. All this is relatively minor, however, and flying west to east you're almost always riding a strong tailwind and that side of the fuel curve is relatively insensitive.
@@juliogonzo2718not significantly or at all if the planned Mach number is flown. It’s only pain if in turbulence, which is when the auto throttles really earn their pay.
In the old 3 crew Boeing days before autothrottles and before the FAA disallowed it we would take naps at the controls with some restrictions so all three didn't fall asleep. We also read magazines when things were quiet and smoked.
I would think waking up at the controls could be startling. I used to have a job driving a tow truck night shift. I fell asleep in the drivers seat of the running truck, parked in the corner of an L shaped fast food restaurant. A car with loud exhaust exited the drive through and woke me up. For a split second when I woke up the parking lot looked like an intersection, and I thought I had fellen asleep at a red light. I nearly bent the brake pedal 😂
Glad those pilots stood their ground I thought for a second the duty pilot was going to make them continue on to jfk they did the right thing flying coast to coast in the middle of the night with no auto pilot and other issues plus being delayed has to be very stressful and difficult…great pilots..
Yeah glad they turned a plane around mid flight because their A/T went down?! How can you call yourself myself a pilot 😂 and let me guess… you think the earth is flat too
Did the PIC forget that he gets to call the shot and not dispatch? It sounds to me like he was under the impression of being pressed to continue by dispatch unless it was a fatigue issue.
Had this happen to me on the 767 two years ago it was a popped circuit breaker. Kinda shocking it controls all those. We were crossing the Atlantic tho so we went back to EWR
Quite a split crowd in the comment section vs good call and bad call. Without more details as to their delays and where they were within their FDPs, it's hard to say the best overall decision was made. As for an autothrottle issue, well, I've flown across oceans with no autothrottle and while there's a bit more micromanaging, it's hardly any more work than just sitting there staring at the instruments and stars. Personally, based on the way the Captain handled the call, his uncertainty of the overweight landing procedures, and for even allowing the call to escalate to a duty pilot, tells me this guy is too inexperienced to be a Captain of an airliner. This was a painful listen.
Jesus the duty pilot convo was driving me nuts. Yes there is a mechanical issue but there is a mechanical issue that WOULD allow them to fly but it WOULD be fatiguing to deal with given their situation. Both can be true.
Absolutly. The Duty Pilot new full well what the issue was. He tried to apply subtile pressure to the PIC to continue with his fake „i am confused“. Typical manager pilot behaviour. If something would have gone wrong, he would have been the first to blame the PIC for not calling a quits. Cover your a.. mentality.
@@MrWoodyxp yes it was like a political conversation which is terrifying given the responsibility these pilots have. Pilots on the plane handled it beautifully, but unfortunate they let the duty pilot win with the “mechanical issue” jargon.
It’s not fatiguing to fly without the auto throttle. I believe he’s concerned with making an approach in the early morning hours after a long flight and a long ground delay in SFO. It sounds like this was not supposed to be an all night flight but turned into one because of the delays.
Sounds like he’s totaling up links in the accident chain. Fatigue is no joke, it makes real smart people dumb, perfectly good aircrafts hit dirt. If he thinks it’s gonna be a problem, I’m with Captain.
Good call from the pilots. I think generally decent support from maintenance and dispatch. The requirement to explain the rationale to not proceed with the duty pilot seems odd, but reading between the lines the dp might just be covering their backs.
Good judgment. Broke the chain of events with good forward projection into later hours of the flight. Fatigue, weather, mechanical issue ..why press on?
He didn't want to fly without autothrottle and TAT inop because he could he could/should have called in fatigued or fatigue concerned on the ground possibly giving the airline time to call in reserve crew to do the trip. The discussion points to it.
When you commit to takeoff, or even start the ENGs you should check your fiscal limitations for all the fuel you carry, meaning what if you have to divert, have a bad failure at the end of the flight? Not saying they're not fatigued, but what kind of preparation was it done at the beginning of the flight? Since when is Auto Throttle a fatigue reason for return? I've been flying airliners for almost 20 years and this is the first time I heard something like that.
It's weird that they can't say "I am not fatigued now but I will be in three or four hours operating without auto throttles." So instead, the pilots are asked to lie because there's no checkbox for the truth. Do people not accept that a pilot can somewhat predict their fatigue levels in certain conditions?
I don’t know about hero, but yes balls. It’s hard to make that kind of decision when you just aren’t feeling it. He will answer a few questions and his chief pilot (if a good one) will back his decision without resistance. It’s important to encourage Captains to feel comfortable enough to pull the cord - you’ll get several who do it prematurely or unnecessarily but you have a safe environment and culture overall.
I'm a Mx controller, we have jaded perspectives...but I think the pilot was just being a pansy and didn't want to deal with manual throttle management. QRH said the flight was a-go mechanically, so there was no real reason to return due to a mechanical issue. He just didn't want to hand fly.
Points of interest: The Captain sounded knackered already! Was he looking for an excuse to end the flight early? The First officer sounded a lot “fresher” Why is having no auto-throttle more fatiguing? I submit having this extra task would increase their stress/arousal performance relationship. (Yerkes-Dodson law). We need stress for peak performance. Especially during night flights..! Safe flying all
We survived without autothrottle for most of my career. If the pilots couldnt handle unexpexted workloads due to their late departure they should have never departed. Sorry, im as disturbed by this crew as everyone on their company freq.
Interesting that they could get the company comms like that. I would highly question something here, is that these pilots are burning up fuel at their departure airport at low altitude. Even if they get everything fixed, then they have put the flight in jeopardy in terms of fuel to destination. stopping the climb at a low altitude not even above the mis safe altitude on the charts? Why? This problem can be worked enroute, and if they decide they don’t want to continue, just return, or divert. There is no time critical issue here, but they are making a fuel issue by holding at the departure airport. In their minds they have a,ready made the decision to return to the airport, and then later have a hard time justifying that decision. I learned a hard lesson long ago, don’t get off the purple line until something MAKES you. Dispatch later informs them they only have 10 min of hold fuel if they continue. That’s a problem that they themselves created, and it muddies the water later when they are looking for a reason to return to destination. While these pilots haven’t done anything really “technically” wrong, the captain fails here to be a leader and make the call on the spot, trying to pin his lack of leadership onto a mechanical problem., without making a lame ass excuse that they are suddenly fatigued due to a mechanical issue driving workload higher. When you certify “fit for duty”, you are taking that responsibility that you can handle what comes your way. He doesn’t need permission from his company to return for a mechanical and land, but he puts his authority as a captain into question by allowing these two paths to cross. His company Pilot rep has to clue him into this fact. He further attempts to put the decision to land overweight on the company as well. I’m guessing this aircraft doesn’t have the ability to dump fuel? 757? Make a decision captain! So in short, complete failure of leadership here on the part of the captain. A huge fail. Sad day to see a Delta pilot allow a flight crew to fall to such a low level of performance as a crew, fail as a crew, delta failed its passengers on this flight by placing this captain in command. To be clear, I’m not questioning the ability for the crew to abort the flight, I’m questioning the decision making and pathway to come to this conclusion. Return to sfo is fine if that’s what you want to do captain, but get your shit together and start acting like a leader rather than trying to feed all the “blame” to somebody else. Make a decision and stand tall. If this is the operational culture at Delta in general, I would be surprised, I would expect more than that from a great airline.
Not their job, thats the captains job. Maintenance will just tell you the aircraft is airworthy and able to continue a safe flight. The safety concern was the pilots themselves not the aircraft, totally unrelated to maintenance scope or work.
I’m not a pilot, so I’m hoping someone could please answer a couple questions. If this same situation happened at 2pm without any pre-flight delays, would it be safe to continue with the flight to JFK? Relatedly, would the pilot be expected to make the flight, assuming it’s safe (again, at 2pm with no delays)? I’m just curious. Thanks for any info.
Yes it would be safe to continue the flight with this exact issue. Even at 2am😉. Yes Pilots are expected to make the flight. This beeing the short answer. The longer version: All airplanes have a so called minimum equipment list (MEL) wich states which airplane systems have to be operational before comencing a flight. (Theese are differnt for different airplane types and operations). This MEL is only applicable BEFORE the flight and has no impact whants the flight is underway. If things go wrong in flight we use a checklist and/or QRH (quick reference handbook) to solve the issue. Weather the flight can then be safely and legaly continued is stated in these checklists. That beeing said it is always the duty and responsibility of the Captain to decide to abort a flight for safety concerns despite it actualy being „legal“ to continue. In this specific case the operation without functioning autothrottle is not that big of a deal, but places additional workload on the crew. On a normal day this might have been completly acceptable but here the pilot decided it wasnt. As they already flew from JFK to SFO which means they were on duty for several hours, the captain was concerned that they might get fatigued on the way back due to the now unexpected higher workload and it being the middle of the night (carcadian low is the time were the human body is conditioned to sleep and not as resiliant to fatigue which is defined as 1am to 5am approx). Being dead tired when starting the approach and landing 5 hours later is very bad. Of course the company (represented by dispatch and the duty pilot) wanted him to continue because it was legal to do soand tried to put subtile pressure on him. Of course if something would have gone wrong during the approach to JFK the blame would have rested soley withthe Captain for not calling a quits. Daily life of an airline pilot….I think he acted prudently but should have not sought absolution by the company in the air but defend his decision after landing. Hope that helps
Too much lawyering - too little piloting.... This Duty Pilot would make a great politician. I'd like to see the captain being more decisive. And clear that he's returning due to a maintenance issue but upon landing he will be booking off. (reason TBD later on). Interesting insight from having the company ops comms too.
This is one of those situations where there needs to be a zero-questions policy. If the pilot says he is fatigued, or may end up fatigued, land the plane at their discretion, and then drop it or investigate it.
@@supercalafraI think they were trying to save everyone a ton of headaches. Flying while fatigued would mean that you shouldn’t have taken the flight in the first place whereas the actual case is different and he is landing due to a mechanical issue. He is not fatigued and there is not a safety concern that needs to be investigated. The duty pilot was saving his ass by clarifying the root cause of the divert.
The decision as to whether or not to fly the Transcon for five hours without the auto throttle is the captains. A good captain will discuss this with their first officer. But ultimately if he feels that it is the best interest of safety to not do that it is the captains decision. Now he may expect to discuss that with his fleet captain, and were the chief pilot after he returns. The issue of fatigue is more appropriate once they’ve landed. The company may have opted to switch equipment and asked them to replay a different 757 and continue with the flight. At that point, the crew assesses their fitness for duty and makes the decision whether or not to say they are fatigued or fit. One other option would have been to have the flight to an intermediate stop, maybe Salt Lake City, where Delta has facilities and aircraft. I do not know if they have 75 sevens based there, but that might’ve been an option. I am not familiar with exactly how the TAT data integrates with the auto flight system and the flight management computers. I do know that on other Boeings like the 737 800 NG, loss of TAT probe will cause the auto pilot to default to right auto pilot control wheel steering only , you will lose RAV capability from your flight management computer, and you are no longer eligible to participate in RVSM airspace unless ATC gives you permission to be there. There is also the issue of cycling circuit breakers in flight in an attempt to restore the system, and whether or not this is approved per Delta‘s maintenance procedures. Now I say this, having flown my last leg in a falcon 50 from San Jose to Teterboro between midnight Eastern and 5:30 AM Eastern, in an airplane that is not equipped with auto throttles. In my former life, I had a leg as a first officer and the 737 800 NG with the FAA sitting in the Jumpseat, where we dispatched without auto throttle per the MEL and flew the leg. After landing at Dallas, the FAA inspector before he deplaned, complemented me and said I flew it better than the auto flight system.
I've not heard company comms before. That's very interesting. The duty pilot seemed to have difficulty understanding the idea of predicting being fatigued in the future without being fatigued now... It's a pretty straightforward concept...
My impression was that he was trying to keep the captain from reporting himself to be flying WHILE fatigued and to instead just declare a maintenance issue. Presumably the paperwork and possible regulatory repercussions of claiming "fatigue" in any way (present or future tense) would be more arduous and consequential than just declaring a maintenance issue and then explaining the "fatigue" problem behind closed doors.
@@ianbowers8138 Yes, but it shouldn't be difficult to explain the situation on the paperwork. It should be a standard consideration whenever there is a problem with the automation.
I'm a Mx controller, we have jaded perspectives...but I think the pilot was just being a pansy and didn't want to deal with manual throttle management. QRH said the flight was a-go mechanically, so there was no real reason to return due to a mechanical issue. He just didn't want to hand fly.
About to start another stretch of 3 nights flying all night 6pm-6am with multiple legs. Gonna try calling dispatch and let them know since no autothrottle and single pilot that I think it’s unsafe and fatiguing. Wonder how that will go over.
@@jpilot64 only by exposing yourself to financial hardship, which is a dangerous incentive. I don't want to rely on a pilot deciding whether something is safe, gambling with my life, based on their kid needing health care.
@@ArbitraryConstant I don’t follow your thought process. Are we saying we trust the captains with everything but self reporting? And kids get free healthcare anyway.
@@jpilot64 I'm saying expecting the captains to do the safe thing when they have to jeopardize their job to do so is an unfunded mandate and inevitably leads to tragedy.
@@ArbitraryConstant wow. That’s a stretch. Guess I’m used to operating in an environment where every decision made is backed by your own personal work ethic. There’s something to be said for ensuring you make good decisions you’re willing to back up, at risk of your own professional reputation / career. Are there actual instances of non unionized pilots making safe conservative decisions where they were summarily dismissed? Or is this just union rhetoric?
Being concerned about the PIC fatigue awareness over a long, cross country flight, with an airplane that is going to require extra attention, I feel was a good call. True, there's the second in command, but the 'pilot group' questioning how the PIC called it sounds like a way to get around an issue. Should the pilots fly when 'fatigued' (circadian low close on hand)? Is this a policy by FCC regulation or the company?
Lol the duty pilot is dead wrong on fatigue. You can’t knowingly depart fatigued, but if you become fatigued during the course of the flight, or believe fatigue would prevent the safe operation of the flight at a later time, you are entirely within your rights to cite fatigue as part of your decision making process.
Yep...from a pilot. I'm not typically for unions, but with pilots ..the public should be grateful. When I flew, I could cancel a flight for any reason that in my judgement, compromised safety .. without fear of loosing my job. I could also demand more fuel...even though the added weight cost the company $.
