Russian investigators believe the captain of a Flydubai Boeing 737-800 that crashed during a second go-around at Rostov-on-Don was psychologically unprepared for the manoeuvre and possibly suffering fatigue following a long hold. The aircraft had been arriving from Dubai late at night on 19 March 2016 and had aborted one approach – despite being stable with the runway in sight – owing to a windshear warning. Over 1h 40min passed before its crew requested descent for a second landing attempt. This attempt was also aborted – at 03:40, nearly 2h after the first – when a wind gust on the approach at about 1,000ft caused a sharp increase in airspeed from 153kt to 176kt. Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee says the captain's mindset was fixed on conducting a landing at Rostov, following the previous forced go-around and through concern over exceeding duty time for the return flight. As a result, it says, he had a "lack of psychological readiness" for a second go-around. This led to a delay in the captain's mental state adapting from carrying out a landing to carrying out a go-around. The inquiry adds that the crew's actions lacked co-ordination, with the lightly-loaded aircraft subjected to maximum thrust, consequently resulting in "substantial excessive nose-up moment" and "significant" pushing on the control column, up to 225N for more than 40s, to counteract it. As the aircraft climbed away the captain did not set and maintain the proper climb profile and demonstrated "insufficient knowledge and skill" with the manual stabiliser trim, activating it for an unusually long period of time – around 12s – as the aircraft entered low cloud. "The piloting – especially the precise piloting – of an out-of-trim aircraft is always complicated and implies the increase of the pilot’s workload, including the psycho-emotional component," says the inquiry. Excessive application of the stabiliser trim generated negative g-forces as the jet transitioned into a dive. This sudden onset of negative g-force can result in a startle effect, with pilots incapacitated and spatially disoriented and their vision or breathing potentially affected by unsecured objects, mud and dust being thrown up from the cockpit. The captain's psychological incapacitation and disorientation, says the inquiry, prevented his responding to prompts from the first officer – who, in turn, did not recognise the signs of the captain's deteriorating mental state in time to take decisive actions.


Source: FlightGlobal

Finnair is being forced to cancel two-thirds of its flight owing to disruption from a labour dispute involving the country's postal service. Although the Finnish flag-carrier is not part of the dispute, the aviation labour union IAU is conducting a support strike on 25 November. This support strike will have "major impacts" on Finnair flight operations, the airline says, with vital services at Helsinki-Vantaa airport – such as ramp handling, fuelling, catering and maintenance – being affected. Finnair says it cancelled 26 services on 24 November, ahead of the industrial action, and expects to cancel nearly 260 others on 25 November – about two-thirds of the 377 planned. The cancelled flights include both short-haul European links and a number of long-haul services, including those to San Francisco, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Bangkok. Finnair chief operating officer Jaakko Schildt says the knock-on effect of the postal strike is affecting 20,000 of the airline's customers. "We are doing our best to mitigate the impacts to them," he says. "We are working to find suitable re-routings for customers impacted by this, but re-routing such a large number of customers unfortunately takes some time." IAU says its members will "cease all work" during the stoppage, but says the action will end when they return to their shifts on 26 November.

Source: FlightGlobal

Airline chief executives hoping that the development of electric aircraft will boost the industry's environmental credentials will have to wait many years yet, an expert has warned. Andreas Kloeckner from German aerospace research centre DLR outlined the current state of electric aircraft development at IATA's Wings of Change conference in Berlin on 19 November. He notes that current research is focusing on small commuter-sized electric aircraft of around 19 seats, but that transports such as these are unlikely to fly before the late 2020s. Larger aircraft that could match the capacity of an Airbus A320 or a Boeing 737 will require new technologies such a fuel cells or hydrogen power, probably working alongside batteries, and will not be ready until around 2040, Kloeckner estimates. "The solution that we believe we can do is build a hybrid electric aircraft where there will be a system of hydrogen combustion generator plus battery, or fuel cells plus battery,” Kloeckner says. Under current technology, powering an A320-size jet for just 1h would require a battery roughly the same size as the aircraft. Despite the technological challenges of creating electric aircraft, doing so would bring numerous benefits. As well as reducing carbon emissions and other pollutants, electric aircraft would produce significantly less noise and be easier and cheaper to maintain, on account of the reduced complexity of engines that have fewer moving parts. Electric motors can also be easily scaled, meaning that small engines can be as efficient as large ones. This offers the opportunity to alter the configurations of aircraft design. However, developing electric aircraft will also require huge investments in the infrastructure for hydrogen or fuel cells, which would need to be the same globally. Batteries are also only environmentally friendly if they are charged with electricity from sustainable sources, Kloeckner notes.

Source: FlightGlobal