[MarkR]

Some interesting opinion in today's OZ, which has a number of aviation stories, and remarkably well written IMHO.

The crash of an Emirates B777 during an attempted go-around in Dubai last Wednesday was always an accident waiting to happen.

It was not the fault of the pilots, the airline or Boeing, because this accident could have happened to any pilot in any airline flying any modern glass cockpit airliner — Airbus, Boeing or Bombardier — or a large corporate jet with autothrottle.

It is the result of the imperfect interaction of the pilots with supposedly failsafe automatics, which pilots are rigorously trained to trust, which in this case failed them.

First, let us be clear about the effect of hot weather on the day. All twin-engine jet aircraft are certified at maximum takeoff weight to climb away on one engine after engine failure on takeoff at the maximum flight envelope operating temperature — 50 degrees C in the case of a B777 — to reach a regulatory climb gradient minimum of 2.4 per cent.

The Emirates B777-300 was operating on two engines and at a lower landing weight, so climb performance should not have been a problem. I have operated for years out of Dubai in summer, where the temperature is often in the high 40s, in both widebody Airbus and Boeing B777 aircraft.

Secondly, a pilot colleague observed exactly what happened as he was there, waiting in his aircraft to cross runway 12L. The B777 bounced and began a go-around. The aircraft reached about 150 feet (45 metres) with its landing gear retracting, then began to sink to the runway.

This suggests that the pilots had initiated a go-around as they had been trained to do and had practised hundreds of times in simulators, but the engines failed to respond in time to the pilot-commanded thrust. Why?

Read more at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opin...bc4e1e4b08665a

(And enjoy the readers comments )