It is surprising to know how much we could learn from just watching this sort of documentaries. Not only that we get to analyze the cause of the crash, we are also able to understand those methods to avoid such mishap, in order to save the aircraft as well as the passengers. Being in this field, I feel that it is my business to sit down and watch this. My ground instructor once said to me, "Learn from mistakes other pilots had done but never ever make any mistakes that would allow others to learn from you.Because you might not be around to tell them your mistake.". We are lucky today that we are able to reconstruct the entire flight and learn from it with the help of the 'magic box' or the black box fitted in all aircrafts. It is called 'magic box' not only because it records the communication that takes place through out the flight and all the flight data, but also because our little black box will remain in one piece even after a disaster turns the entire aircraft into debris. Sometimes I wonder why can't they build the entire aircraft with the same material.(haha..).We can find out the speed the aircraft was flying at before the crash, the power setting of the aircraft, anything,from the black box. You name it. So long those data are from the flight management system (FMS), the black box would be able to give you.
With the advancement of technologies, pilots are no longer required to 'sit' on their rudder and fly the aircraft all the way to the destination. Autopilot system is a very good friend of all commercial airline pilots. But it can also be the cause of fatal accidents. Like the one in this episode of Air Crash Investigation of Flight 593 that belongs to Russian national carrier, Aeroflot bound for Hong Kong. 75 persons on board including crews. Good weather. Brand new aircraft. Fitted with latest technology. Yet it went straight down on frozen Siberian wilderness, killing all on board. It is a shocking discovery that during the chaos of Flight 593 trying to recover from the spin they entered, a 15-year-old boy was behind the control column on the left hand seat.
The captain's children, two girls and a boy, were on a short trip to Hong Kong with their father and two of them were brought into the cockpit by the captain's friend.It is, by law, against the regulations as no one is allowed to go into the cockpit unless you wear tight skirt and ready to serve the captain ...a cup of coffee, of course. It became stricter after 9/11. Usually, a secret code will be set among the flight crews before each flight and it'll be used by cabin crews to verify themselves before entering the cockpit. But of course when your father is the captain of the aircraft, I don't see any secret code is required. I bet it is exciting to sit in the cockpit with your father flying the aircraft. And being the father who is, of course, proud to be seen on the left hand seat, he then offered his son to sit on pilot's seat. Only morons would say,'No'. So, he got on to his seat put both of his hands on the control column and was warned by his father not to touch anything else but the control column. So he did just that. Only at one point, he pushed to control column against the direction of the autopilot.The system of autopilot works by controlling the ailerons, which means it controls the manoeuvrings of the aircraft along the longitudinal axis. Or in layman's term, it turns the aircraft left or right, depending on the preset waypoints on the FMS. If in any circumstances, the control column is forced to go on the opposite direction of the autopilot and held on to that position for more than 30seconds, the autopilot will automatically go off. In other words the aircraft is now in the hand of the pilot entirely. Or at least in the case of Flight 593, in the hand of a 15-year-old boy. The investigators were left wondering ; why isn't there any alarm or warning system that tells the pilot the disengagement of the autopilot system? ...besides the question as to why did the pilot allow his son to take the pilot's seat and fly the aircraft?.. d'oh..When the aircraft started to turn, slowly but progressively into a very steep turn, the dramatic movement of the aircraft begins to push everyone into their seats. Makes it difficult for the co-pilot to grab the control column, and pull it back to recover from the super steep turn. The boy was the only one with both hands fully on the control column and he could only take the most basic orders. He couldn't get up. His body feels twice his normal weight due to the force. With too much bank angle, the aircraft now starts to lose height. A warning system started to sound which signals the complete shut down of the autopilot. The plane is about to stall. The Airbus A310 has a fail-safe system that allows the aircraft to stay flying by lowering the nose. But this time the Airbus entered a steep dive of frightening 40,000 feet per minute. The co-pilot pulls back the control column as hard as he can to bring the Airbus out of the dive. The nose finally comes up and the aircraft begins climbing quickly. He managed to bring the aircraft out of the dive but now it's climbing too fast. During this time, the G-force starts to ease and the captain quickly leaps into action and back to his place that was, all this while, occupied by his 15-year-old son. Not a single commercial aircraft is designed with engines that can take the aircraft almost vertically up. They have now stalled the aircraft because the aircraft is an aircraft not a space shuttle that can be shot right up. It is normal for any aircraft to have its airspeed drops dramatically and experience nose drop when it stalls. This is so that airflow can be regenerated over the wings and lift can be created. Only this time, the Airbus entered a cockscrew dive instead. Chaos builds up even more. The captain kicked the opposite rudder hard to get out of the terrifying spin. Slowly they managed to level off the aircraft but not completely in control of it. But they ran out of time and hit the ground. Search and Rescue (SAR) team started to search for Flight 593 within few nautical miles from the last reported position. It was clear that no one survived the devastating accident.
After a series of investigations, they finally made a conclusion that there is no adequate training in upset situations and extreme flying conditions for the pilots. And by upset I mean the attitude of the aircraft which is beyond the normal flight i.e greater than 20 degrees nose up, greater than 10 degrees nose down, and bank angles greater than 25 degrees. That's because the captain as well as the co-pilot were both new to the aircraft. And apparently this weren't even taught during the training. Then, it came to the simulator system that helps investigators understand the situation better as the flight is reconstructed using it. They discovered that the pilots could have saved the aircraft during the spin they entered by simply letting go of the controls. The aircraft has an inbuilt survival mechanism that won't allow it to stall even at low speed.So simply by letting go the controls, the aircraft will slowly comes out of the dive and regain its attitude and 75 lives could be saved.
It ended just like that leaving me pondering on so many things. It dawned upon me that life is just like flying an aircraft. Sometimes in life, in order to survive, we ought to not only learn how to keep holding on but also learn how to let go. Just like Flight 593 that could be saved by simply letting go of the controls. Though it may sound a lil harsh to some, but if that's what it takes for us to move on, then just let go.
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