Toronto - Delta Airlines CRJ-900 upside down, Flight 4819 from Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) to Toronto

jordane93 said:
This guy was a seniority list instructor. He could bid for whatever he could hold during a fly month.
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A fly month???

Do they alternate months, or is it 2 months of sim instruction and a month of flying?
jordane93 said:
Crew scheduling can’t just arbitrarily say, “well this guy is current but hasn’t flown the line in a couple of months so we’re going to pull him off the trip.”
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I'm sure the crew scheduling computer is programmed with currency limits that don't allow them to bust FARs at the minimum. I'm not suggesting they'd pull him off an already-scheduled trip, just that they wouldn't schedule trips without reasonably proficient crew* in the first place.

* Reasonably proficient at the minimum means legally current, but may well be redefined by the SMS process after something like this.
jordane93 said:
Maybe this accident will lead to instructors flying the line more
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Quite possibly.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
And as I discovered recently, the actuaries. I am 79, very healthy, more than 7,800 hours with no incidents, accidents or violations, yet forced to leave my CFI job at the local flight school because the insurance company will chose to no longer cover someone my age.
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FTFY.

My great-granddad is 10 years older than you are and still going strong.
 
Rene said:
FTFY.

My great-granddad is 10 years older than you are and still going strong.
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Well, Rene, I am not planning to quit flying anytime soon. I just renewed my CFI and my flight review, and I have a few things lined up as an independent instructor. As long as I can get a medical, I plan to keep flying.

Now, on the subject of risk assessment, I no longer fly IFR or night time.
 
Hate to sound like a looping MP3, but pilots' age is ALSO something I looked at, accident wise.
1740355271501.png
This takes ~25 years of homebuilt accidents and breaks down the percentage of total accident in that age group that were pilot error. I divide pilot error into two groups....Pilot Miscontrol (stick and rudder mistakes) in the blue bars, and Pilot Judgment in the orange ones. The short red horizontal bars indicate the total of the two types, the percentage of accidents due to pilot error.

You'll notice that Judgment Errors peak in the ~35-39 hour range, and tend to decrease over time...right up to 90 years old.

The Pilot Miscontrol rises a bit over time, but does tend to jump at age 80 and older.

As ever, these are *statistics*, not individual predictions. Certainly there are pilot in the 90+ age range perfectly able to fly; on the other hand, there are some that deteriorate early. And, of course, the insurance companies bet on the statistics.....

Ron Wanttaja
 
Good stuff, Ron. But it is limited to homebuilts and does not include the last two years. My experience in homebuilts is very limited, but the ones I know of here and at my previous airports were built by a lot of older guys who spent a lot of time building and not a lot of time flying. Yeah, generalizations are not very useful, but I would love to see a comparison with factory-built aircraft.
 
midwestpa24 said:
SkyWest and Air Wisconsin still operate the 200s.
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I feel sorry for the MX at SkyWest and Air Wisconsin.

I know quite a few of Endeavor's CRJs were ex-SkyWest planes. SkyWest also flys under the 'Delta Connection' name, as does Endeavor. But Endeavor is 100% owned by Delta, SkyWest is not.

I have not seen a 200 at ATL in at least a year.
 
Lindberg said:
Delta's liability will be determined by the facts, not a press release.
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and you know as well as i do that ANY piece of paper from delta that even hints at the fact that they MIGHT have know there was an issue will be used by the plaintiffs lawyers to increase the size of the settlement.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
Good stuff, Ron. But it is limited to homebuilts and does not include the last two years. My experience in homebuilts is very limited, but the ones I know of here and at my previous airports were built by a lot of older guys who spent a lot of time building and not a lot of time flying. Yeah, generalizations are not very useful, but I would love to see a comparison with factory-built aircraft.
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I know that I'm a noob. But to me CURRENCY is it. I haven't done the research. I don't have the data. But as someone in another thread said (and I'm paraphrasing) pilots who fly one hour a month are dangerous.
 
the superior pilot uses his superior knowledge and decision making to avoid needing to use his superior skills.

I'll extend that to say as we get physically older and older and older, eventually our flying capabilities degrade. As long as us senior citizens fly within our capabilities, I think we are ok. Kind of like driving a car. Eventually old folks avoid driving at night or in rush hour (actual heavy rush hour, not the busy times some rural communities think is rush hour).
 
I guess I have missed something…can someone explained the crew mix?
 
wanttaja said:
I think "castoring" is the term you're looking for. Don't believe the 747 in the Kai Tak video has it, either. The B-52 is the only major plane I know of that has it. And it's not automatic, the crew has to dial in the amount.

Ron Wanttaja
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The tech order term is "crosswind crab system". Airplane wingspsan is larger than fuse length, plus outrigger gear (the only gears that are true "free castering" in the airplane). All combined means it can't reliably do wing low method, hence the gear crab system.

The C-5 also has the system btw.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
A fly month???

Do they alternate months, or is it 2 months of sim instruction and a month of flying?

I'm sure the crew scheduling computer is programmed with currency limits that don't allow them to bust FARs at the minimum. I'm not suggesting they'd pull him off an already-scheduled trip, just that they wouldn't schedule trips without reasonably proficient crew* in the first place.

* Reasonably proficient at the minimum means legally current, but may well be redefined by the SMS process after something like this.

Quite possibly.
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There will be a cost benefit analysis. More flying means less time in the sim. That means more instructors. That’s expensive. The crash was also expensive.

The cheaper option will win.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Do they alternate months, or is it 2 months of sim instruction and a month of flying?
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It varies by airline. A full-time sim instructor might flight every month, or every-other month. He might be built a schedule, or he might pick up trips for either from open trips or by displacing a line pilot from his trip. Each airline contract has some system for this for all flight-qualified employees who have non-flight duties.

flyingcheesehead said:
they wouldn't schedule trips without reasonably proficient crew* in the first place.
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It's binary. Each pilot is either qualified or not qualified. There is no "reasonably".

We are required to have three takeoffs and landings within the last 90 days. We are required to be current on our sim check rides. The timing of which will vary based on the approved training program. The CQ program used by most airlines of any size will typically have sim training every nine months. The non-CQ legacy programs were a check ride every six months for Captains and every twelve months for First Officers.

Recurrent sim checks can be one month early, in your base month, or one month late (grace month) and will still count has having occurred in the base month. If you go past your grace month then there will be requalification training, the length and content of which will depend on how long you've been non-qualled.
 
Larry in TN said:
It varies by airline. A full-time sim instructor might flight every month, or every-other month. He might be built a schedule, or he might pick up trips for either from open trips or by displacing a line pilot from his trip. Each airline contract has some system for this for all flight-qualified employees who have non-flight duties.
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I'm most curious about Delta/Endeavor, given that's who was left hanging from the seat belts here...
Larry in TN said:
It's binary. Each pilot is either qualified or not qualified. There is no "reasonably".
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The crew has to be qualified too though for the software to put them together on the schedule, right? No green-on-green for example. And IOE/OE can't just be scheduled with some random pilot. Or are the systems in place so primitive that these issues have to be manually dealt with?
Larry in TN said:
The non-CQ legacy programs were a check ride every six months for Captains and every twelve months for First Officers. Recurrent sim checks can be one month early, in your base month, or one month late (grace month) and will still count has having occurred in the base month. If you go past your grace month then there will be requalification training, the length and content of which will depend on how long you've been non-qualled.
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This is how my 135 was. Unfortunately, the desk job took priority enough times that I had to requal twice (both 2 months after my base month IIRC, so it wasn't the long-term requal). Still, yuck.
 
Looking at landing video many times I'm coming around to it doesn't look that bad? Could it be something mechanical that broke or did the pilot really drop it in that hard?
 
bonefishpete said:
Looking at landing video many times I'm coming around to it doesn't look that bad? Could it be something mechanical that broke or did the pilot really drop it in that hard?
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Jeff767 said:
A slight de flare in the last 10 feet.
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@Jeff767's comment kinda got overlooked, but I have a feeling that this may be one of the findings. As someone pointed out earlier, this was eerily reminiscent of the FDX80 MD-11 crash in Narita back in 2009. There were a lot of factors which are MD-11 specific dealing with cockpit to CG length and eye-height motion during a bounce, but one of the contributing causes was an unloading (de-rotation) after the first bounce. This effectively unloads the wings and transfers all the energy of the touchdown to the MLG, which they were not designed to take.
 
Sluggo63 said:
...but one of the contributing causes was an unloading (de-rotation) after the first bounce. This effectively unloads the wings and transfers all the energy of the touchdown to the MLG, which they were not designed to take.
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This sounds to me like "rolling it on". I've never heard the expression "de flare", maybe that's why it got overlooked.

EDIT: However, thinking through what you wrote, "transfers all the energy of the touchdown to the MLG," I don't think ALL the energy goes to the MLG. The wing is still at a positive AoA, producing significant lift, right? Plus, some of the energy is reduced by the MLG rotating upward as it hits. All things considered, though, it's a technique that isn't worth the risk IMO.
 
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flyingcheesehead said:
I'm most curious about Delta/Endeavor, given that's who was left hanging from the seat belts here...
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It wouldn't be Delta/Endeavor, it would be Endeavor. Endeavor is a separate certificate holder with its own procedures.

I've never worked for Endeavor so I don't know how their sim instructors maintain currency.

flyingcheesehead said:
The crew has to be qualified too though for the software to put them together on the schedule, right? No green-on-green for example. And IOE/OE can't just be scheduled with some random pilot. Or are the systems in place so primitive that these issues have to be manually dealt with?
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Each qualification is binary. Aircraft and seat, IOE, 75 hours, 100 hours, areas of operations, and supervised entry airports.

bonefishpete said:
Could it be something mechanical that broke or did the pilot really drop it in that hard?
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That would be consistent with the information we have at this point, just like the Alaska landing gear failure at SNA in 2023. It is also consistent with pilot error, windshear, and probably a number of other things that we have thought of yet. We need more data.
 
hindsight2020 said:
The tech order term is "crosswind crab system". Airplane wingspsan is larger than fuse length, plus outrigger gear (the only gears that are true "free castering" in the airplane). All combined means it can't reliably do wing low method, hence the gear crab system.

The C-5 also has the system btw.
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Most transport aircraft do not do "wing low". We crab to compensate for xwind and use rudder to align in the flare, that yaw causing a rise of the upwind wing which we counter with opposite aileron. We might overcompensate the counter aileron and put the upwind gear down first but it would be a miniscule angle of wing low.
 
dtuuri said:
This sounds to me like "rolling it on". I've never heard the expression "de flare", maybe that's why it got overlooked.

EDIT: However, thinking through what you wrote, "transfers all the energy of the touchdown to the MLG," I don't think ALL the energy goes to the MLG. The wing is still at a positive AoA, producing significant lift, right? Plus, some of the energy is reduced by the MLG rotating upward as it hits. All things considered, though, it's a technique that isn't worth the risk IMO.
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You're right, I mis-spoke when I said "all the energy." I should have said something along the lines of "a much higher percentage of the energy."
 
dtuuri said:
EDIT: However, thinking through what you wrote, "transfers all the energy of the touchdown to the MLG," I don't think ALL the energy goes to the MLG. The wing is still at a positive AoA, producing significant lift, right? Plus, some of the energy is reduced by the MLG rotating upward as it hits. All things considered, though, it's a technique that isn't worth the risk IMO.
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You're still slamming 80K lbs of mass into the ground at 1000FPM (20 mph) or whatever the descent rate is. Add that to the tire spin-up load and any lateral load and the forces involved are substantial.
 
The original video taken from a surveillance camera, the one that is a little grainy and is viewing the plane’s left rear as it touched down, is worth seeing again. It has a unique angle that puts the touchdown in a different perspective than the most popular video taken by the pilot holding short.

 
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TrueCourse said:
The original video taken from a surveillance camera, the one that is a little grainy and is viewing the plane’s left rear as it touched down, is worth seeing again. It has a unique angle that puts the touchdown in a different perspective than the most popular video taken by the pilot holding short.

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Something doesn't make sense
 
JimLAFB said:
Something doesn't make sense
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Hmmm.....the jet appears very stable all the way to the crash, almost like George is flying it.

Random guess, but I wonder if its a case of "autopilot was configured to fly it into the ground" and neither pilot attempted to flare because of a serious crew miscommunication about who the hell was actually landing. I know precisely zero about CRJ-900 systems, so I don't know whether it's possible to get the autopilot/fmc into a configuration that would fly it into the ground, but it probably would be. Sim instructor trying to show off how well he can configure the computer & the perfect storm of a disaster occurs.
 
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TrueCourse said:
The original video taken from a surveillance camera, the one that is a little grainy and is viewing the plane’s left rear as it touched down, is worth seeing again. It has a unique angle that puts the touchdown in a different perspective than the most popular video taken by the pilot holding short.

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By the way, I now know my original opinion above that the right wing hit a snowbank was wrong, it was a cloud of fuel.
 
jesse said:
Hmmm.....the jet appears very stable all the way to the crash, almost like George is flying it.

Random guess, but I wonder if its a case of "autopilot was configured to fly it into the ground" and neither pilot attempted to flare because of a serious crew miscommunication about who the hell was actually landing. I know precisely zero about CRJ-200 systems, so I don't know whether it's possible to get the autopilot/fmc into a configuration that would fly it into the ground, but it probably would be. Sim instructor trying to show off how well he can configure the computer & the perfect storm of a disaster occurs.
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No
 
My estimates show they were at least slightly left of centerline. And it's a 200' wide runway.
 
kyleb said:
They would have had to be 60' off centerline to get the wingtip to the runway edge. Not saying they didn't find a snowbank, but 60' off centerline is a horrible landing.
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I’ve been told that keeping the ailerons on opposite sides of the centerline is an unreasonable expectation.
 
unsafervguy said:
and you know as well as i do that ANY piece of paper from delta that even hints at the fact that they MIGHT have know there was an issue will be used by the plaintiffs lawyers to increase the size of the settlement.
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Delta’s liability will be limited by the Montreal Convention. It’s a ridiculously low number so I doubt there is much concern by Delta.
 
Jeff767 said:
Delta’s liability will be limited by the Montreal Convention. It’s a ridiculously low number so I doubt there is much concern by Delta.
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I would think Delta being a US company the suits would be brought in US courts. I know it’s Endevor but it’s a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta. Passengers will get paid.
 
Doesn’t matter where the suit is filed or what court hears it. The Montreal Convention applies. Both the US and Canada are Signatories.

An important aspect of the Montreal Convention is the “international” component of the passenger’s itinerary. If any part of the flight includes a stop, transfer, or layover outside of the initial country, the Montreal Convention can be enacted. The Montreal Convention still applies even if the accident occurs during the domestic portion of your international trip. For example, if you were flying from London to Dallas and then Dallas to Austin, and you were injured on the Dallas to Austin leg, the Montreal Convention would still apply.
 
Larry in TN said:
It wouldn't be Delta/Endeavor, it would be Endeavor. Endeavor is a separate certificate holder with its own procedures.
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Delta does INDOC and training at ATL, Endeavor does INDOC and training at MSP.

While EDV (or E9 it you are an old fart) is a separate carrier, Delta pulls all the strings. Delta Tec Ops raids our (EDV) hangar all the time (they work out on the de-ice pad in from of our hangar). Delta services almost all our ground equipment. While the are 'separate' on paper trust me Delta pulls all the strings.
 
pfarber said:
Delta does INDOC and training at ATL, Endeavor does INDOC and training at MSP.

While EDV (or E9 it you are an old fart) is a separate carrier, Delta pulls all the strings. Delta Tec Ops raids our (EDV) hangar all the time (they work out on the de-ice pad in from of our hangar). Delta services almost all our ground equipment. While the are 'separate' on paper trust me Delta pulls all the strings.
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No such airline as E9, it's 9E. From what I remember on sim instructors at Endeavor, they got one trip every 3 months, usually a 2 or 3 day, and that was it.
 
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