T4810 - Checklist Pilots Go Swimming

[Colonel]

Better to spend too much time on checklists, so you can go swimming instead of landing on the runway.

Good job, checklist pilots!

[Big Pistons Forever]

A bit early to throw this crew under the bus. An engine failure after takeoff is not that big a deal for a transport category jet. You get to a safe altitude, work the checklist to get all the systems configured and come back for an uneventful landing.

An immediate return risks landing without everything sorted and could make your landing unnecessarily “eventful”.

Obviously in this case the situation deteriorated rapidly but it is entirely possible that at least initially it was not evident that the second engine was about to shit the bed. In any case a night ditching where the two guys who were first at the scene of the accident, survived does imply some good stick and rudder work in arranging the arrival.

[Colonel]

An engine failure after takeoff is not that big a deal

Interesting how these total engine failures - Sully, Gimli Glider, Azores Glider -
always seem to result in some very bitter argument. I know they're never supposed
to happen, but ....

IIRC the NTSB tried to fuck Sully, Pearson was hung out to dry, and Canadians
deeply hate Piche.

Interesting.

[Slick Goodlin]

IIRC the NTSB tried to fuck Sully

I was always under the impression that was more a media thing*. The headline “This guy is a hero” only gets so much attention before you have to switch over to, “…Or is he?” and it’s been admitted by all involved that the movie needed a villain. Of course the NTSB’s job is to apply doubt as required, maybe these incomplete snippets of investigation getting sensationalized are why the Canadian TSB generally keeps quiet until the whole report is written.


*reference: I met his FO Jeff Skiles and asked him.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Dual engine failures in jets are incredibly rare. In Piche’s case if he had actually followed the fuel imbalance checklist he would not have arranged to piss all the fuel out of the airplane. Yah, he did a nice job getting it on the ground with no power but like most forced landings the airplane got really quiet due to the actions of the pilot.

It will be interesting to see if this crew managed to turn a small problem into a really big one. Shutting down the wrong engine followed by a botched relight could explain the high engine temp on the good engine reported by the pilot. However I think I will give them the benefit of the doubt and note that surviving a night ditching is still impressive.

[Colonel]

Airbus changed the checklist after the Azores glider. Hm. Lots of hate in
aviation for Dick Piche despite the fact that he was given a broken airplane
which pumped fuel overboard. No one ever mentions that maintenance fuckup.

People in aviation become enraged and feel betrayed, when their religion
lets them down. You're simply never supposed to lose all your engines in
a large aircraft. When it does, it's a historical event (eg Al Haynes). That
anger can be re-directed to unsurprising places.

Remember the guy who lost both engines at LHR because of the design
problem of the Boeing fuel de-icers? He was blued, screwed and tatooed by
the airline. He didn't follow the checklist, and in the spur of the moment raised
the flaps from 35 to 25 which people months later figured out, stopped him from
landing short into some bad stuff. That poor guy did everything perfectly, but both
engines failed, so they fucked him really bad. Had to have a scapegoat.

I'm pretty sure the NTSB was not happy with Scully. I am certain that in the
accident report, I read that they shit on him for incomplete/incorrect
checklist completion, before his water landing. He was flying the airplane
instead of doing the stupid fucking paperwork, unlike T4810. Bad Sully.

They fucked Pearson pretty bad too, for the Gimli Glider. Yeah, I know he's
not perfect like a 21st century Canadian pilot, but he did the best he could.
Probably better than I could have. Pearson was again handed a broken
fucking airplane - no fucking fuel gauges, you believe that? - and was then
told to additionally implement Trudeau's metric system, but no one ever
remembers that maintenance fuckup, either, compounded by stupid fucking
politics.

Bureaucrats will tell you that their paperwork is more important than flying
the airplane, but evidence would suggest otherwise. Look at that decaying
airspeed and altitude on the T4810 ADS-B data.

EDIT

I'm spotting a pattern here. Dick Piche - hated. Captain Pearson - hated.
LHR Boeing guy - hated.

Al Haynes - adored. Sully - hero (despite not following the checklist).

Why do you Canadians hate so much? Is it some British class thing? When
someone does something well, do they threaten the order of society?

This is a rhetorical question. And an interesting one, IMHO.

Remember the JTF guy that took the long shot a few years back? He was
hated in Canada. If he was an American, they would have given him a medal
and made a movie out of life story.

Lots of evidence of hate and envy in Canada, isn't there? Why all the hate and envy?

Wasn't there an old guy who took out some Parliament building shooter? I couldn't
believe all the hate and envy spewed at him afterwards.

This is kind of pathological, guys. There is something really toxic there.

EDIT #2

My old friend Fern Villeneuve vs Bob Hoover. Both awesome sticks. But the American
is a hero, and no one's ever heard of Fern, despite him being one of only two living people
on Canadian coins, the other being the Queen of England. He was a big deal, and completely
unknown. Ok, Fern died a while back in a winter traffic accident - NOT in an airplane - but that
doesn't change the studied lack of recognition of the Canadian. AGAIN.

I guess this is a coincidence, occurring over and over and over again, decade after
decade after decade?

Edit #3

Canada had lots of hate for my old pal Don Cameron. If he was an American, he would
have been a hero. But Canada went out of it's way to shit on Don.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_797

You've never heard of Don, which I think proves my theory.

[anofly]

Piche was given an aircraft with a newly fitted engine? where they force fit the fuel lines to fit, and they broke? was that the one?
hes a hero of mine.
I was pretty sure he must have transferred some fuel a few times before he figured out he had a leak. I was pretty sure the airplane would tell you its leaking. He did a great job after that. I am sure we all had a few more things to check after indications of a fuel imbalance after that. We are all not going to go
"leak!!" the first time we have a fuel imbalance... but we might be more suspicious after what happened to him...

[Colonel]

I liked Dick Piche, and Don Cameron. Good guys, good sticks. Never met Bob Pearson,
but he was obviously was working as hard as he could after he was told to take a bite
out of a shit sandwich that was handed to him.

I'm not a fan of monday morning quarterbacks. These guys all did good, even if the
keyboard commandos could have done better.

And even if Canadians are ashamed of them, I like the JTF2 guys on Dwyer Hill Road.
Lots of fun!

[TundraTire]

I'm not a fan of monday morning quarterbacks.

Yet:

Better to spend too much time on checklists, so you can go swimming instead of landing on the runway.

Good job, checklist pilots!

Ironic.

[Colonel]

Ironic

No. Consistent. This is not exactly the first time I have observed that checklists can result in pilots fly worse.

Correction: there was irony here. Checklists - which are supposed to make them better pilots - made them
miss the runway, and go swimming instead.

I find checklist religion pretty tiring. Religion doesn't help you. Aren't you guys burning down churches these
days? Why?

Anyways, feel free not to learn from other people's mistakes, so you can make them yourself.