Pilot's body found still clutching joystick of crashed Taiwan plane

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Reuters

The pilot of a doomed TransAsia plane, hailed as a hero for his actions in the final moments before a crash that killed 31 people, was still holding the joystick in the plane's cockpit when his body was found, media reported on Friday.

The pilot, identified by TransAsia as 42-year-old Liao Chien-tsung, has been praised by Taipei's mayor for steering the plane between apartment blocks and commercial buildings before ditching the stalled aircraft in a river.

TransAsia Flight GE235 was carrying 58 passengers and crew when it lurched nose-up between buildings, clipped an overpass and a taxi with one of its wings and then crashed upside down into a shallow river after taking off on Wednesday.

The bodies of Liao and his co-pilot were retrieved from the almost-new turboprop ATR 72-600's cockpit still clutching the joystick, with their legs badly broken, investigators said.

FULL story and related video at link.




Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/06/us-taiwan-airplane-idUSKBN0LA04N20150206?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=71&google_editors_picks=true

[Blue_Tires]

1. The media should be careful with that "hero" narrative until the investigation is complete

that's all I'll say...

[Capt.Rocky300]

2. I Agree.

And to pick nits on the reporting, the ATR-72-600 doesn't have joysticks. It has conventional yokes.

[Javaman]

4. ATR-72-600 doesn't have joysticks...

the whole "joystick" thing jumped out at me too.

[trof]

7. Same here. No 'stick'. A yoke.

And 'joystick' is such a dated term.

[jmowreader]

15. What does Airbus call the sticks in some of its planes?

[trof]

17. side stick

[BobbyBoring]

12. I don't think they have an accelerator either

I think they have throttles.

[marshall]

5. The mayor needs to hear that

While the headline implies hero status by focusing on his "still clutching the joystick," the mayor is the one who praised the pilot. The reporters there could learn something from the cynicism of our media, and not take everything a politician says as accurate.

[pangaia]

3. As Captain Rocky points out.

Joysticks??




Not to jump to conclusions, well maybe a little..one engine quits and the props feather.. pilot(s) mistakenly think it is the other engine.. it is pretty easy to know which engine has quit as the aircraft will bank toward the engine without thrust. But, it wouldn't be the first time such a mistake was made...

I also enjoyed this line..

The flight crew stepped on the accelerator of engine 2 (righthand side)...

And yet again, makes you wonder about ANY reporter reporting on ANYTHING, eh..

[SnowCritter]

6. I don't think the pilot "ditched" the aircraft

"Ditching" usually implies a wings-level water landing.

[Adrahil]

11. From the video...

... the aircraft obviously stalled. It had the characteristic wing drop of a stall.... no doubt caused by the pilot's desperate attempt to arrest descent rate.

I heard this morning a claim that one of the engines failed shortly after take off and the other was shut down to stop a dangerous yaw and to attempt a two-engine restart. That sounds fishy to me. Any commercial aircraft ought to be able to maintain safe flight in single-engine operations.

[trof]

8. Not an uncommon mistake among novices.

Shutting down the wrong engine.
I taught Army pilots multi-engine flying in the Beech Baron for over a year.
We drilled and drilled and drilled engine out procedures till they could do them in their sleep.

Losing the right engine causes the aircraft to yaw to the right.
The first step is to use LEFT rudder to straighten the flight path.
ALWAYS fly the airplane FIRST!
I taught "Step on the GOOD engine.&quot rudder pedal)
Then pull the RIGHT (dead) engine throttle and prop control levers to idle.

Once you're trimmed up and squared away for level flight you can assess the problem and attempt re-starts.

Over and over, when I failed an engine, I'd have them say out loud, as they performed the procedure, "LEFT, RIGHT, RIGHT" or "RIGHT, LEFT, LEFT".

Based on the little info available now, I'd guess inadequate training.
Just my take.

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

9. Not that I can appreciate your post since I'm a non-aviator but a question...

I can see pilots having the wherewithal to do this in open space, but if this happens on take off over a major city with skyscrapers, etc... do you have time and options to RIGHT LEFT LEFT or do you have to mitigate crashing into builds along with correcting the flight?

[Capt.Rocky300]

10. I'd say that is a very likely contributor........

What the media has not reported is that the ATR-72 as well as nearly every multiengine turbo-prop built in the last 30-40 years has autofeather. That means the airplane detects the loss of power and all by itself feathers the prop which greatly reduces the drag caused by a windmilling prop. The pilot doesn't have to do squat right away other than put BOTH throttles all the way forward and fly the airplane. Once some altitude is gained then deal with the situation of securing the engine, fighting a fire if present and that is all done by the monitoring pilot (the pilot not actually manipulating the flight controls). Putting both throttles forward assures that maximum available power is being utilized. It won't have any effect on the failed engine but that's ok.

No doubt this crew had it's hands full as I suspect the airplane was fairly heavy and its performance diminished because of it. But it should be able to climb to a safe altitude higher than the buildings and return to that airport or another nearby. Taipei sits in a bowl pretty much surrounded by hills but I'm not sure if that was a factor here.

We'll just have to wait for more information from the recorders via the press and hope it is accurate and complete. Which I have my doubts about.

I know you probably know all this stuff Trof. I posted it for others who may not have had exposure to this kind of info.

[Baclava]

13. Pilots shut off wrong engine?

Data from the "black box" flight recorders retrieved from the wreckage suggests the pilots shut down one engine after the other lost power.

The main pilot could be heard on black-box recordings saying the engine had experienced a "flame-out", Mr Wang said, which can occur when the fuel supply to the engine is interrupted.

However, he said data showed that the engine had in fact been moved into idle mode.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-31162351

[Capt.Rocky300]

14. I've heard conflicting and confusing information.....

On the news last night I saw a gentleman (maybe it was Mr. Wang, I didn't catch a name) state "after 37 seconds, autofeather". But he didn't say which engine. The term autofeather applies to when the prop automatically feathers following an actual flameout or failure due to any number of reasons. It is triggered by a sensor and happens without any crew input.

The article claims the crew shutdown the left engine. The video clearly shows the left prop is feathered. The right is still rotating. If the crew did indeed shut it down that's not an autofeather. It's intentional. But if, as the Taiwanese gentleman stated on tv, an autofeather did occur and that was the only prop that was feathered, then it wasn't an intentional shutdown.

So, did the left engine flameout and autofeather and the crew get excited and in a hurry and fail to confirm which engine had failed? Then begin the shutdown procedure for the right engine which starts with retarding the throttle to idle then moves on to other steps that shuts off the fuel and feathers the prop. It appears they didn't do that since it was still turning in the video.

I'm not sure if we have an English problem or a misunderstanding on the part of officials as to what the recorders have revealed.

[quadrature]

16. can they look out the window and see the props (not)turning?

or the wings are too far back?

[jmowreader]

18. The wings are too far back

This might sound simplistic...but they make "lipstick cameras." They're video cameras about the size of a lipstick tube; the TV networks put them in race cars and on bobsledder helmets. Would it be possible, at least on new installations, to put lipstick cameras in fairings, mount them on the sides of the fuselage aimed at the engines, and stick a huge red button on the instrument panel that, when pushed, puts video of every engine you have on the centermost display? If they really wanted to get cool, pushing that button would also automatically "squawk 7700" because you wouldn't push that button if shit wasn't hitting the fan.

I recently found the "air crash investigation" shows on YouTube. There are several famous crashes caused by pilots shutting down the running engine, so this is an ongoing problem.

[trof]

19. Great safety idea on the cameras.