EVA 017

[crazyaviator]

https://youtu.be/tFdXax7Zh_g

Conversation going on a PPRUNE ,,, ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE !!!! Taiwanese airline with a death wish. I will think twice about being a passenger on a chinese airline without an ex-pat captain !

[Jean-Pierre]

Why is the audio missing from 1:10-1:12? Maybe she accidentally told them to turn left?

[Black_Tusk]

Sounds like a lot of confusing instructions from ATC..

[Heliian]

She told them to go south several times. However, the pilots may have interpreted "south" as "self".

The directions were not confusing, the fact she had to repeat several times made it worse.

Airspace wasn't even that busy.

[telex]

Just out of curiosity; what races would you consider acceptable at the controls before boarding an airplane without an "ex-pat captain"?

What if the ex-pat Captain was Asian?

[crazyaviator]

SOMEONE regardless of race , religion, sex or whatever that KNOWS english well and can THINK AND FLY ( remember asiana at SFO ) EVA was flying straight towards towers at or below their height

[Rockie]

SOMEONE regardless of race , religion, sex or whatever that KNOWS english well and can THINK AND FLY ( remember asiana at SFO ) EVA was flying straight towards towers at or below their height

I'm curious how you're going to determine the Captain's competency and English fluency before getting on any airplane.

[Rookie50]

South is a pretty strange instruction. Turn left or right? Heading?

[Rockie]

South is a pretty strange instruction. Turn left or right? Heading?

Bang on. How about "TURN LEFT IMMEDIATELY HEADING 270"?

While they are slowly getting better US controllers are still attached to their own local language versus proper ICAO terminology. That's fine in Podunk Idaho, but not LAX, BOS, ORD etc.

[Black_Tusk]

SOMEONE regardless of race , religion, sex or whatever that KNOWS english well and can THINK AND FLY ( remember asiana at SFO ) EVA was flying straight towards towers at or below their height

Sounds like the EVA pilot had a better grasp of the English language than some pilots in QC and trainees all over the country.

[ogopogo]

Sounds like a lot of confusing instructions from ATC..

EVA was given an intial hdg of 090 and then received an instruction to turn LEFT to 180. This is a 270 degree turn..... Wouldn't this normally be questioned? Is this normal?

[Jean-Pierre]

I received 270 degree turn before. Could be for traffic, terrain, or noise. The audio from the part of the clearance that would say left or right is very conveniently missing. The pilot read-back left and I believe they wouldn't have unless they heard left because they didn't hesitate. I wonder why we have read-back since controller often don't check if read-back are correct.

To add to their confusion their GPWS was maybe going nuts since they were flying toward a mountain and being told by ATC to stop climb.

[J31]

The Nav display must have been red with the EGPWS screaming "TERRAIN TERRAIN, PULL UP, PULL UP!"

Like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NH6aNzcix4

[anofly]

I think a "turn left immediately to heading 180" is much better than the "turn south" i kept hearing.
there is something a bit fishy about the tape...

[pelmet]

Whenever you get a clearance that seems odd, confirm it. Any time that I get a simple turn instruction that involves something very out of the ordinary such as a 270 degree turn, I will simply ask to confirm the turn direction. Even more so in this case when departing from the south complex of LAX where a left turn will quite possibly conflict with north complex depatures.

There is no doubt that there are poorly worded ATC instructions here and that initiated the whole scenario, and a controller mostly concerned about traffic separation. But.....

You are on your own out there. I have been questioned about why I was selecting the terrain function when departing from a very mountainous airport in the direction of the high terrain. There was no weather anywhere within hundreds if not thousands of miles. Believe it or not, this opinion of the questioner came from an FCOM statement that the terrain function is not to be used for navigation.

Even if there was weather on this departure, an occasional look at the terrain until above it or having one screen selected to it can make a big difference in situational awareness, especially in a hectic situation like this where out of the ordinary instructions, low altitude sudden level offs and flying headings different than assigned were being flown

As far as I can tell, the ATC instructions were all understood even if the instructions were poorly worded. There appears to be a desire to clarify whether to turn southbound with a left or right turn prior to initiating that turn. If they were aware of the terrain ahead(ie Terrain display) they probably would have been turning without questioning.

Going at high speed below terrain altitudes may not be the best idea either.

[Canoehead]

Bottom line is that improper radio phraseology was used by ATC continuously and it almost lead to a disaster.

Flight should have also maintained some SA (obviously they didn't).

Everyone involved deserves some time off and some retraining.

[Axial Flow]

She sucked with her recovery from a screw up, plus she sounded like a person with ESL y'all. I assume most take off's and departures go very smoothly, but when someone in a panicked voice starts giving you non standard phraseology in a panic that adds a layer or urgency when you are unsure of what they want in the first place since it was her screwing things up. Maybe if she conveyed there was an aircraft closing in and also maybe an FYI about mountains ahead....

Watching them fly towards higher terrain on the youtube video made me cringe but that is also out of being habitually taken care of by a controller...Too bad most small aircraft have synthetic vision while airliners do not. It is still possible to hit things when you can you virtually see them but I believe when something is painted as a red mountain on your PFD or iPad then even my 5 year old would tell me something didn't look good or ask why is it all painted in red.

Foreflight offers a better visual on an iPad than most transport category airplanes....adding a stratus 2S to the mix you have more computing power and aviation safety than a 747 from the 90's.

Again, not sure how the Ex-Pat comment came about...there are much worse ESL examples I have personally seen than this. One is used as a training example for ATC controllers (pilot departing CYHM and took about 5 minutes to get cleared to the next altitude while I waited to get approach clearance).

[EPR]

Edited to correct my opinion below.

[crazyaviator]

That was totally controller error, too much ambiguity in the instructions to the EVA crew.

What have you been smokin son??
I agree that the controller was partly at fault, primarily the initial turn direction? and improper phraseology ( southbound) However on the tape:
at 1:20 left turn to 180 degrees was acknowledged and the pilot did nothing
at 1:45 Rt turn to 180 degrees was acknowledged by pilot
at 1:50 Rt turn was acknowledged
at 2:38 left turn to 270 was acknowledged
and none of the 3 commands above were enacted by pilot
at 2:50. 3:15, 3:55 and 4:20 controller says to go southbound and he never queries the meaning of south or southbound nor goes southbound
He is going straight at higher terrain and does NOTHING
For all the pilots out there the compass has north south east and west in it. NO excuse there !!!!
The EVA pilots failed in situational awareness, querying the controller, english, terrain avoidance, and common sense!!!
The controller erred in turn direction and phraseology BUT corrected it with MULTIPLE commands to go south and turn right.

[EPR]

Well I stand corrected, I listened to the recording again and yah Eva definitely screwed that up as well as the ATC ambiguity all lining up the holes in the Swiss Cheese, thanks cra-cra-aviator for pointing that all out to me.
In my defense, it wasn't the left handed cigarettes but i'll blame the Whiskey!..lol

[moocow]

Could this be a crew fitness issue? Long haul pilots barely get enough rest as it is. Don't know what legal rest is for Taiwan is but for HK, it's pretty bad.