> loss of all three computers isn’t inherently dangerous

You seem to be using a different definition of "dangerous" from the rest of us. Loss of systems that pilots are used to depending on is inherently dangerous. After that, degrees of luck, skill, and conservative planning become major factors in the outcome.

The loss of spoilers and reversers is itself dangerous. In slightly different conditions, e.g. snow, the aircraft would not have stopped where it did.

There was a Lockheed aircraft that ran off the end of a runway at an above-usual touchdown speed: the spoilers would not go up because for lack of weight on wheels, and brakes had no traction because spoilers were not up.

I don’t know what to say. Pilots are trained for this exact situation, flight plans are designed for this situation. Every reasonable measure is taken to ensure that this exact situation isn’t unnecessarily more dangerous than it absolutely needs to be. As proven by this exact incident.

You can talk about hypotheticals like snow, but this is a commercial airport. They will either have snow clearing equipment or they’ll redirect planes if they can’t clear the snow. It’s also Taipei where it basically never snows around the city. Simply put if it was unsafe to land this plane in this state with snow (and snow was believed to fall that day), then the plane wouldn’t even take off.

Lockheed aircraft aren’t passenger airlines, they have a completely different risk profile and risk appetite. I imagine Lockheed aircraft occasionally get taken down my enemy fire, but we don’t build commercial aircraft to handle that situation.

"[Not] unnecessarily more dangerous" is very far from the same as "not dangerous".

If you cannot imagine this identical failure occurring at a different airport, in different ground conditions, I don't know what to say. You might as well say Sully splashing down in the Hudson without loss of life was unsurprising because he was trained for emergencies. (And, incidentally, airlines do not, in fact, train pilots for "all engines failed"; it is considered too unlikely and too unsurvivable.)

Lockheed did make many, many passenger aircraft, and the failure I cited was, in fact, in a passenger aircraft. If you cannot understand changes in the aircraft business landscape, I don't know what to say.

> (And, incidentally, airlines do not, in fact, train pilots for "all engines failed"; it is considered too unlikely and too unsurvivable.)

Nope, that is wrong. Even before Sully, pilots are trained for All Engines Out. Aircraft even have systems to handle this like the RAT (Ram Air Turbine) which deploy on loss of power to enable critical systems like control surfaces and basic navigational gear (GPS, Radar, Artifical Horizon). Prop planes will feather all engines to maximize gliding distance. All Engines Out is definitely survivable and in some cases was even recoverable in flight.

After Sully, the practise of training for All Engines Out was expanded to even lower altitudes and earlier in the takeoff procedure (as noone had failed all three engines that low before). You can read that in the FAA report (and the Mayday Episode summarizing it).

There is other episodes too, like cases where the aircraft ran out of fuel (Gimli Glider) or flew through Volcanic Ash (BAF 9).

My brother is an airline pilot. He is given exactly zero hours of simulator time for "All engines out". That flights have survived the event does not contradict the fact.

Well, probably ask your brother again, because All Engines Out is required for a pilots license in the US and most other countries. Even Helicopter pilots have to train in the simulator for engine failure (autorotation landing).

It must come up in training atleast once and every aircraft has an "all engine failure" checklist for this exact situation (The FAA recommended the addition of a "all engine failure at low altitude" checklist as well, which I believe has occured).

Either your brother is incorrect about the simulator requirement, forgot about it or is flying a two-seater Cessna.

You can verify this also by watching some of the videos of popular pilots on youtube such as Mentour of 74Crew.

He flies 747s at the moment. Those have 4 engines. But he has logged a lot of 2-engine airliner time.

Yes, there is a checklist to pull out if all the engines fail. But, as I already said, the airline allows him exactly zero minutes of simulator time for it. I questioned him very closely about this.

People flying single-engine light aircraft have to think about engine failure all the time; but there are no single-engine airliners.

All engine failures in commercial airlines happen about once every two years.

Since 1953 there have been ~38 incidents where an airliner has been forced to glide (I.e. complete failure of all propulsion). That’s 38 incidents in 68 years. The incident rate has been falling while flight numbers have been increasing.

Since 2003 (it’s hard to get date before then) there have been ~600,000,000 passenger flights, and seven gliding incidents. So the odds of being on a plane with an all engine failure is around 1:80,000,000. Winning the lottery is around 1:45,000,000.

As failure cases go, thats really not bad. In the US around 104 people die every day in traffics accidents.

So if you wanna get hot and bothered about public safety, I would suggest you start there. Rather than criticising the safety procedures of the safest form of transport.

I have not, in fact, criticized the safety procedures of aviation. I have corrected your absurd claim that aviation emergencies are "not dangerous". It is an uncontroversial fact that people have died in aviation emergencies.

Of course I can imagine an identical failure happening at a different airport with different ground conditions. Just like I can imagine that there would be even more conservative safety margins to go along with possibility of worst ground conditions.

Do you think there’s a single flight plan used for every plane and airport? Of course there isn’t, a new flight plan is created for every single flight, with margin built into to handle the expected conditions in flight and at landing. So if you’re landing at an airport that gets snow, you increase your required runway allowance to ensure that a lose of all three flight computers doesn’t become dangerous.

Not dying when you missed seeing a stop sign and cruised through an intersection does not demonstrate anything positive about your planning. It only means you were lucky. That the plane stopped with only 10 meters to spare does not demonstrate a lack of danger; it demonstrates how easily the result could have turned out very, very different. Being only one second later applying brakes would have used up another 300 ft of runway.

If you imagine that an identical landing would not have been attempted on a snowy day, you know nothing about airline operations. And, if you don't understand the role of luck in averted disasters, it is a good thing you don't have any actual responsibility.

Go an read the report again. It clearly mentions that the pilots didn’t apply maximum breaking till they were a good way down the runway.

That strongly suggests the pilots were worried about locking up their wheels, and thus were applying the minimum breaking they though they could get away with. Up until they realised they were running out of runway.

The runways could have been an extra 600ft long, and they still would have only stopped within 30ft of the end, because it’s quite clear the pilots were trying to use up as much of the runway as they thought they could get away with. A perfectly reasonable approach when you don’t know how hard you can break without causing a loss of traction.

You shouldn’t read so much into the amount of spare runway left when you’re dealing with a situation where consuming every spare inch is the safest cause of action.

I am so glad you have no responsibility for public safety.

What can I say. The report and remedial actions pretty much agree with what I’ve said. So those who are in charge of public safety are taking a very different stance to you.

Guess we’re all screwed, probably explains why air travel has such an atrocious safety record compared to other forms of transport.