It took nine minutes of frantic checklist activity before the crew announced to ATC that they were ready for the approach. On the hand-over to the Tower frequency, the crew were informed that emergency services were being positioned near the runway, and to continue the approach. Fox Tango (FT) Lead was also on the tower frequency. This vehicle co-ordinates the other emergency response vehicles and is meant to assist in the event of a passenger evacuation on the runway. Sod’s Law is never far away in these situations. FT Lead had to make the call that an over-zealous fire-tender driver had managed to get his large vehicle stuck on the soft shoulder of the runway, effectively blocking it. ATC had no choice but to tell the stricken aircraft on short final to go-around. There would now be vectors for the parallel runway, if, of course, that still-burning cargo compartment didn’t bring the aircraft down… Thank goodness this was being played out in a Level D Airbus simulator. Should I really be saying ‘thank goodness’? I’m not too sure. The nature of simulator training for transport category aircraft has much changed over the past 22 years that I have been flying the big jets. Crew Resource Management and other ‘soft skill’ aspects have come to the fore and have, through the shift to competency based training, enabled a better teaching and understanding of the emphasis we place on the hard skills. The scenario I have described above has not been a part of any LOE (Line Orientated Evaluation) or even LOFT (Line Orientated
sequence of failures and the way these failures would hugely affect the required decision-making process of the crew, due to the massive time pressure. The aircraft was heavy, which immediately brings in an additional checklist if an immediate return is required. Any inextinguishable fire warning has to be the single biggest pressure-cooker in the cockpit. The chance of fudging subsequent procedures is high, vastly affecting the outcome of the exercise. On top of that comes a completely unrelated failure of the slats, which is not necessarily hugely difficult in terms of procedure, but said procedure has to be executed correctly
The 'sweat shop' - Airbus A320 simulator flight deck.
to ensure the appropriate configuration and approach speeds are used. If the additional checklist for landing with slats or flaps jammed is omitted either due to mental ram capacity being exceeded,
Thank goodness this was being played out in a Level D Airbus simulator. Flight Training) that I have conducted in a simulator. Re-looking at this particular sequence of events, it is patently obvious that it is somewhat unrealistic in terms of the
Thus, the scenario that forces a goaround. As a training exercise with plenty of time available in the simulator and with a suitable de-briefing afterwards, there is probably a lot of value in this scenario, as it covers much of the complex failure combinations of ECAM actions, STATUS page use (this is a list of how broken the aircraft is following a failure) and multiple paper checklists. The process of getting the sequence of events correct is an exercise in itself – never mind the time pressure and possibly the most complex go-around procedure available to Airbus aircraft.
or through choice due to extreme time constraints, any form of a go-around would undoubtedly go awry, as the non-standard configuration requires very specific actions and airspeeds on the part of the crew.
As an evaluation, I would say this is too much, and it would result in potential substandard procedural performance by the crew, and a parting impression of simulator training being difficult, unreasonable and unpleasant. So why contemplate such a ‘lesson’ plan? Generation Three aircraft (Boeing 738, for example) and Generation 4 (Airbus, B787) have such comprehensive design and engineering features that a single failure of even a critical system is generally a nonevent. Having said that, the Boeing 737 MAX has proven to be exactly contrary to this design and engineering philosophy, that a single failure source causes the loss of an aircraft…but I digress. The requirement for certified redundancy has caused a dilemma for the designers of type rating skills tests and recurrent validation programs. This coupled with the acknowledgement
FlightCom Magazine
12