Worst Airline in the World?

[Malthus]

Heh, they had an episode of Seconds from Disaster on that incident. Unbelievable.

  Biggest airline EPIC FAIL in history.

In a funny-but-sad way, the recreation of the investigators when they figured out what had happened was hilarious.

"The kid ... was flying the plane!"

[Malthus]

Crappiest airline experience? I've been reasonably lucky in terms of service - even when things screwed up, usually I've been able to find someone to help. But in terms of sheer terror, nothing beats flying inside China in the late '80s.

The airplane was a rusting horror. I looked out the window and you could see that there were rivets missing and streaks of rust ... worse, it was a prop plane with Russian writing on the wings - and the Chinese and Russians haven't been friends for a very long time.

The seats had seat-belts, but they were purely ceremonial. They simply tied to the seats, and the seats were not bolted to the floor ...

We arrived safely, but I heard later that several planes had in fact gone down on that route in the past year.

[Caliga]

I was on a Comair flight from Atlanta to Gainesville, FL once and I could actually see engine oil leaking out of one of the turboprop engines for the duration of the flight.

[Ed Anger]

Skybus, in addition to flying Airbus planes (is the tail going to fall off this one?), nickled and dimed you to death with fees.

[DisturbedPervert]

Heh, they had an episode of Seconds from Disaster on that incident. Unbelievable.

  Biggest airline EPIC FAIL in history.

What is this? 

[Malthus]

Heh, they had an episode of Seconds from Disaster on that incident. Unbelievable.

  Biggest airline EPIC FAIL in history.

What is this?

Basically, Russian pilot has his kids along on a flight, thinks it would be a fun idea to have the kid fly the plane for a bit. Seats him in the pilot seat and lets him play with the controls, figuring that nothing could go wrong as the plane was on autopilot.

What the pilot doesn't know is that fiddling with the controls makes the autopilot think that it should disengage from those controls. So the kid ends up actually flying the plane, into a steep nosedive. The g-forces prevent the pilot from actually getting to the controls in time, and the plane flies straight into the ground, killing everyone on board (there was more to it, but this was basically the story).

The investigators find the corpse of the kid in the pilot's seat, and think he was just flung there in the wreck. Until they find the flight recorder and realize that the kid was flying the damn plane.

[DGuller]

And here's a Wiki article on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_593

[Malthus]

And here's a Wiki article on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_593

According to the show, the manufacturers bore some of the blame for having an autopilot disengage feature without a warning sounding.

Naturally, the lion's share goes to the pilot who puts his kid in the control seat during flight and lets him play with the controls.

[Barrister]

I'm off to Italy, but flying Condor Air and driving from Frankfurt.

Sounds like a better option than flying Alitalia.   

[Sheilbh]

Alitalia's got a dreadful reputation.  The only time I've flown with them they've been pretty good though.

Ryanair on the other hand :shudder:

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yes, Easyjet is "cheap and cheerful", Ryanair is cheap 

[DontSayBanana]

According to the show, the manufacturers bore some of the blame for having an autopilot disengage feature without a warning sounding.

Naturally, the lion's share goes to the pilot who puts his kid in the control seat during flight and lets him play with the controls.

Even I know that using manual controls automatically disengages autopilot... and I learned that from Microsoft Flight Simulator 95.

[Malthus]

According to the show, the manufacturers bore some of the blame for having an autopilot disengage feature without a warning sounding.

Naturally, the lion's share goes to the pilot who puts his kid in the control seat during flight and lets him play with the controls.

Even I know that using manual controls automatically disengages autopilot... and I learned that from Microsoft Flight Simulator 95.

I think the problem was that previous models *did* sound a warning. Thus, while the pilots were obviously criminally irresponsible to put a kid in the pilot seat (and paid for it with their lives, and the lives of everyone on board), the thought was that if the manufacturer changed this feature, they should have specifically warned people about it - all that lets the user know that the autopilot disengaged was an indicator light which no-one noticed.

[grumbler]

I think the problem was that previous models *did* sound a warning. Thus, while the pilots were obviously criminally irresponsible to put a kid in the pilot seat (and paid for it with their lives, and the lives of everyone on board), the thought was that if the manufacturer changed this feature, they should have specifically warned people about it - all that lets the user know that the autopilot disengaged was an indicator light which no-one noticed.

I am not sure that the manufacturer had changed policies or if the pilots simply had changed aircraft from one with an audible alarm.  The autopilot, in this case, was still engaged (though controlling fewer functions). 

One of the items not mentioned is that the pilot decided, before taking control of the wildly banking aircraft, to leave the co-pilot's seat, let the co-pilot sit down, and then take his own (the Pilot's) seat.  Had he simply taken over control of the aircraft from the co-pilot's seat, this accident would not have happened.  It just goes to show, though, how confused people can get:  before he got any further into the incident, the pilot wanted the crew in their proper places.  That was more important to him than actually regaining control of the aircraft.

Bottom line:  poor crew training, and poor decision making.  The argument that the manufacturer is somehow responsible, when no other aircraft were even endangered (insofar as i can find out from googling) by the lack of audible alarms, is untenable, in my opinion. 

[DGuller]

I think the problem was that previous models *did* sound a warning. Thus, while the pilots were obviously criminally irresponsible to put a kid in the pilot seat (and paid for it with their lives, and the lives of everyone on board), the thought was that if the manufacturer changed this feature, they should have specifically warned people about it - all that lets the user know that the autopilot disengaged was an indicator light which no-one noticed.

It's not that the alarm didn't make it into the new version of the plane, it's just that the pilots were flying an Airbus plane, while typically they were used to Tupolev planes that had the alarms.  Not only was the unusual lack of alarm fatal, but so was their lack of familiarity with how autopilot worked and disengaged, or that their plane had an automatic recovery system that they were counter-acting while attempting to manually pull out.  All those factors contributed to the crash.