Just sitting here at BKK about to head up to HKG on CX. Reading the incident summary the weather, runway conditions and what looked to be a touchdown a long way beyond the 1,000 ft markers. It got me thinking about QF1 VH-OJH 744 at the old Don Muang Airport from back in September 1999. Was this incident put down to a CRM issue and did you see much change bought in as a result?
It was most definitely a CRM event, and also a management one.
Basically upper echelons of the company had been pushing the use of flap 3 and idle reverse for landings in the 747. There was a lot of push back against this by various pilots, but they were generally disregarded, and described as ‘resistant to change’. There was a financial saving in the use of the flap 3/idle configuration.
In general there was nothing particularly wrong with the configuration, but it was pushed quite mindlessly, as the ‘standard’....so much so that some of the newer FOs had never seen a landing at full flap. As a configuration that you could choose to use in good conditions, to a long runway, it was fine. It was not fine as a ‘standard’.
Training were pushing this very hard in sims, to the point that some very heated words passed between some of the ‘old and bold’, who refused to use it, and the senior checks. The pressure was then also on the SCCs, to always use it, as a demonstration of how appropriate it was. The SCCs, by the way, get about a third of the flying that the line people do.
So, the scenario was that the FO was flying a style of approach that made the aircraft less stable, in conditions that were pretty poor, with an SCC who seemed to have something to prove. It was a recipe, that was fulfilled.
There were many subsequent changes, but mostly the line pilots take even less notice of management.