Air Tindi Flight Missing

[Illya Kuryakin]

All this talk of lack of training, how the crew should have made it ......well, before we get carried away, there was an instance a few years back where a real live AIRLINE CREW, stalled a modern wide bodied jetliner through thirty thousand feet into the south Atlantic Ocean...because their pitot tubes froze. Yup. Pitot tubes. Loss of airspeed. That was IT. Instead of selecting cruise thrust, and more or less, a cruise deck angle......these rocket scientists became, what I like to call, The Air France Swim Team.

How do you defend yourselves against an Air Tindi occurance? MEL. Read it. If you need TWO, fix it. If one restricts you to VMC, stay visual.
In all cases, even if it's not in an MEL, or if it is, try to imagine having the second one pack it in. If you're not comfortable with loosing both, park it.
Fly safe.
Illya

[Daniel Cooper]

From what I see on a googled King Air 200 MEL you don't need 2 working attitude indicators unless a second in command is required. No offense to King Air first officers but I don't they are required. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[cncpc]

From what I see on a googled King Air 200 MEL you don't need 2 working attitude indicators unless a second in command is required. No offense to King Air first officers but I don't they are required. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm fairly sure that you need to have a fully functioning autopilot for single pilot IFR. If you don't, then a FO is required by Transport Canada.

The company may specify two crew in its ops manual, regardless of whether it is a single pilot certified aircraft. So, I'd say that is also case where two crew are "required" and hence the need for a second AI.

[cncpc]

Did these guys have instrument ratings?
In the ground 84 seconds after no attitude indicators. Mind blowing they couldn't keep in air with rest of instrumentation.
Must be more to it than this. Basic altimeter and DG for straight and level in IMC will keep you alive.
Quite the training program this air tindi has.

I suspect the loss of AI would have affected the autopilot unless they were hand flying. That then would add recognition time to the mix and eaten into the 84 seconds they had.

I agree, must be more to it than this.

[Meatservo]

Well, we don't know if this particular aircraft was equipped with turn&bank indicators, a battery-driven standby horizon, or what. Did the autopilot cause an unusual attitude as the horizon failed, before disengaging, or were the pilots hand-flying, did the instrument fail suddenly or slowly, we don't know any of this.

It's all very well to boast of your prowess at recognizing and correcting unusual attitudes with your turn&bank indicator, but the distracting presence of a dead horizon rolling around like Sammy Davis jr's left eye, maybe an unusual attitude to start things off, I don't know, sounds shitty. I was stuck in thick forest-fire smoke in a beaver many years ago, and the D.G. stopped working. The horizon, turn and bank, everything else worked fine, but that damn D.G. slowly turning this way and that, and not turning when I was trying to turn, contributed to a powerful vertigo that I had trouble with. I had nothing to cover it with. Nowhere near as debilitating as a horizon going tits-up, which has also happened to me and is really no fun.

Lots of planes these days don't even have a turn&bank indicator. If you lost both horizons in one of those, you'd have nothing left.

[youhavecontrol]

"According to Jeremy Warkentin, technical investigator for the TSB, one attitude indicator wasn't functioning when the flight took off, but the crew flew anyway. The second indicator failed 84 seconds before impact."

Oh geez

178 seconds to live. On average. Google it if you need to.

"You can hear the wind tearing your aircraft... you see the ground... you open your mouth to scream, but you've run out of seconds"
Pretty sure I know most of that script by memory now.

[bobcaygeon]

From what I see on a googled King Air 200 MEL you don't need 2 working attitude indicators unless a second in command is required. No offense to King Air first officers but I don't they are required. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You can MEL the Copilot's AI if you have a functioning autopilot because the CARs don't require an FO if you have an autopilot in a 703 a B200.

B200 MMEL.JPG (29.7 KiB) Viewed 4702 times

[Daniel Cooper]

So if the above poster that stated the Captain's side was EFIS does that mean the aircraft was not airworthy?

[daedalusx]

Doesn’t matter. Air Tindi does not operate their 200s single pilot. The capts don’t do single pilot PPCs. If it left the ground with the right side ADI u/s then it wasn’t airworthy.

[Daniel Cooper]

Doesn’t matter. Air Tindi does not operate their 200s single pilot. The capts don’t do single pilot PPCs. If it left the ground with the right side ADI u/s then it wasn’t airworthy.

Air Tindi's president seems to agree with you.
https://nnsl.com/yellowknifer/key-fligh ... ndi-crash/

[Illya Kuryakin]

Doesn’t matter. Air Tindi does not operate their 200s single pilot. The capts don’t do single pilot PPCs. If it left the ground with the right side ADI u/s then it wasn’t airworthy.

And there you have it.
Illya

[Donald]

Air Tindi's president seems to agree with you.
https://nnsl.com/yellowknifer/key-fligh ... ndi-crash/

Do you have the whole article?

[lownslow]

That then would add recognition time to the mix and eaten into the 84 seconds they had.

Has the TSB said where they got the 84 seconds figure from? If it was internally recorded by the instrument then you can consider however long it took to notice but if it came from the CVR then that would be the actual time of recognition.

[Donald]

So were the pilots "give'ers" for flying a broken plane, or was the company "pushers" for not fixing known defects and asking crews to go?

In a perfect world, we know the correct answer (hardest thing about flying...).

But this is 703 northern flying with low-timers, and instances where companies take advantage.

[seven-oh-nooo]

So were the pilots "give'ers" for flying a broken plane,

I can't be everywhere at once. The thought of this keeps me up at night.

[leftoftrack]

.

[JL]

TSB final report

https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repo ... w0015.html

[porcsord]

Condolences to all those affected.

This is one of the more harrowing reports I've read recently. It seems they broke out at about 2000agl and attempted a recovery, but with a descent rate of 34,000'/min were unable to recover at that point (about 4 seconds to act).

Reading this has got me thinking about the last time I genuinely flew partial panel. It's been longer than I care to admit, and will be going into the sim this week to get some practice.

PS

[flyingnorm]

This accident sequence has me asking some questions.

1. What are real world failure rates for G1000 or similar flight decks? Not talking about a bug or incorrect setting but rather loss of adhrs.

2. Do you find the company culture shifting when a certain piece of equipment is so unreliable that its always broke?

[airway]

I just skimmed the accident report, and did not see anything about what attitude instruments were installed in that aircraft that were available for use when both of their primary Attitude Indicators failed.

Did they have any of these?

Standby Attitude Indicator
Turn and Bank Indicator
Turn Coordinator

[porcsord]

I didn't see mention of other instruments other than there wasn't a third attitude indicator. They did have foreflight, with synthetic vision and adhrs through the garmin unit....

[digits_]

So were the pilots "give'ers" for flying a broken plane, or was the company "pushers" for not fixing known defects and asking crews to go?

In a perfect world, we know the correct answer (hardest thing about flying...).

But this is 703 northern flying with low-timers, and instances where companies take advantage.

I only see this getting worse. 2 months ago, nobody was afraid for their job, and people still did stuff like this.
Now you have the same low time pilots, but afraid for their jobs -if they still have them-, making it harder to say no again.

Things will get nasty. Hopefully all creative operators have read the accident report.

[YYZSaabGuy]

I only see this getting worse. 2 months ago, nobody was afraid for their job, and people still did stuff like this.
Now you have the same low time pilots, but afraid for their jobs -if they still have them-, making it harder to say no again.
Things will get nasty. Hopefully all creative operators have read the accident report.

"Creative operators" aren't going to learn anything from this report - none of the TSB's findings related to any kind of pressure from Air Tindi to undertake flights, or pointed so much as a finger at the operator's maintenance practices or operational controls. Sadly, this accident appears to be attributable 100% to pilots not dealing appropriately with a dual AI failure:

3.0 Findings
3.1 Findings as to causes and contributing factors
These are conditions, acts or safety deficiencies that were found to have caused or contributed to this occurrence.
For undetermined reasons, the left-side attitude indicator failed in flight.
Although just before take off the crew acknowledged that the right-side attitude indicator was not operative, they expected it to become operative at some point in the flight. As a result, they did not refer to the minimum equipment list, and departed into instrument meteorological conditions with an inoperative attitude indicator.
The crew’s threat and error management was not effective in mitigating the risk associated with the unserviceable right-side attitude indicator.
The crew’s crew resource management was not effective, resulting in a breakdown in verbal communication, a loss of situation awareness, and the aircraft entering an unsafe condition.
The captain did not have recent experience in flying partial panel. As a result, the remaining instruments were not used effectively and the aircraft departed controlled flight and entered a spiral dive.
The captain and first officer likely experienced spatial disorientation.
Once the aircraft emerged below the cloud layer at approximately 2000 feet above ground, the crew were unable to recover control of the aircraft in enough time and with enough altitude to avoid an impact with terrain.

3.2 Findings as to risk
These are conditions, unsafe acts or safety deficiencies that were found not to be a factor in this occurrence but could have adverse consequences in future occurrences.
If flight crews do not use the guidance material provided in the minimum equipment list when aircraft systems are unserviceable, there is a risk that the aircraft will be operated without systems that are critical to safe aircraft operation.
If flight crews do not use all available resources at their disposal, a loss in situation awareness can occur, which can increase the risk of an accident.

3.3 Other findings
These items could enhance safety, resolve an issue of controversy, or provide a data point for future safety studies.
A review of Air Tindi Ltd.'s pilot training program revealed that all regulatory requirements were being met or exceeded.

[digits_]

I only see this getting worse. 2 months ago, nobody was afraid for their job, and people still did stuff like this.
Now you have the same low time pilots, but afraid for their jobs -if they still have them-, making it harder to say no again.
Things will get nasty. Hopefully all creative operators have read the accident report.

"Creative operators" aren't going to learn anything from this report - none of the TSB's findings related to any kind of pressure from Air Tindi to undertake flights, or pointed so much as a finger at the operator's maintenance practices or operational controls. Sadly, this accident appears to be attributable 100% to pilots not dealing appropriately with a dual AI failure:

In an accident like this, where there are no passengers hurt, would the TSB interview other employees? If they only focus on company produced paperwork, chances are they wouldn't find company faults.

[YYZSaabGuy]

I only see this getting worse. 2 months ago, nobody was afraid for their job, and people still did stuff like this.
Now you have the same low time pilots, but afraid for their jobs -if they still have them-, making it harder to say no again.
Things will get nasty. Hopefully all creative operators have read the accident report.

"Creative operators" aren't going to learn anything from this report - none of the TSB's findings related to any kind of pressure from Air Tindi to undertake flights, or pointed so much as a finger at the operator's maintenance practices or operational controls. Sadly, this accident appears to be attributable 100% to pilots not dealing appropriately with a dual AI failure:

In an accident like this, where there are no passengers hurt, would the TSB interview other employees? If they only focus on company produced paperwork, chances are they wouldn't find company faults.

Fair point. I have no idea about the level of interviews the TSB undertook. I do question, though, whether there would've been pressure of any kind to dispatch an empty aircraft.