A few observations to add context (partially stolen from PPRuNe):
- Pilot Flying (PF) was the Captain, 55 yo (presumably) more experienced pilot, who only got certified to fly that type (B767) in May
- Pilot Monitoring (PM) was a 38 yo first officer, also not very experienced on B767
- PF made a number of mistakes, going too high, too fast (partially because he was descending too fast), not catching the glidescope on time
- PM was concerned that the approach/descent was abnormal but kept his mouth shut as the more experienced captain was at the controls (Edit: apparently he did speak up but PF did not acknowledge)
- PM lowered the flaps much later than required (PF orders flaps lowered and PM executes, but flaps can only be lowered when aircraft goes below certain speed) and the flaps were lowered all the way as the plane crossed the runway threshold, which likely caused plane to "float" and overshoot even further
- Plane touched down too late, and left wheel even later, which likely precluded some braking mechanisms from activating (or the PF forgot to since was busy trying to put the thing down)
- PM finally said "too fast, go around" but PF ignored him (or likely did not hear)
- In these situations PM has the right (and obligation) to take over the controls and start go around by themselves, but he didn't, presumably because the Cap was driving
- PF finally panicked and started the go around procedure, bit realized it was too late almost as the front wheel exited the runway, idled the engines and reapplied the brakes.
So, yeah...
This is the spitting image of old pre-CRM thinking:
If I try to force the captain to go around, (or follow procedures or whatever), then i am exceeding my authority and will probably be fired. Some cultures have this sort of mentality a lot stronger than others, and it has zero place in the modern cockpit.
While a captain can pull rank, they really should only ever do it with respect to the first officer if: an inexperienced first officer is trying to insist on something dangerous or forbidden by law or policy, or if the captain fully understands an FO's concerns, is fully accounting for them, and as the person ultimately responsible for safety, has determined from experience and training that the current action is safer than alternatives, and would explain but cannot explain right now for workload/emergency status reasons.
That's it, the only two reasons.
Is this legislated, required policy, or is this something that you believe should be the case?
The reason I ask is, case in point, do you think the PM is going to be penalized in some way?
I don't think there's a law mandating it, but CRM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management) has been used and trained by all major airlines since the 1980s. The reason is simple: it doesn't really help to have two people in the cockpit if only one of them is making all the decisions.
I read several years back that most of the time when an accident happens the copilot knew something wrong was happening but wasn't willing to override the cap. This is a cultural change rather than procedure.
There have been big changes over the decades on that but the counterfactual is also that you could imagine lots of crashes from confusion in the cockpit during critical times if two pilots are working towards cross-objectives or are more occupied communicating to eachother than just doing what one person said needs to happen.
One more thing worth noting is that they flew through bad weather on the approach, which led to the deviation from the glideslope. But the actual issue IMHO is not going around when they noticed that the approach was wildly unstable, or at the latest when they noticed that they were going to touch down with very little runway left.
It's one of those situations where any one risk not occurring probably would have ended up with no excursion but all risks present at the same time made this outcome.
Exactly the situation The Rehearsal season 2 was about.
I wonder: would PM have taken control if they had more experience on the 767?
Having pilots fighting over the controls is not a situation anyone wants. The pilot monitoring saying go around should have caused an immediate reaction, the human factors behind why it didn't will probably feature prominently in the post-accident actions.
If any of the two pilots feel uncomfortable about the approach, they are actually drilled to just order a go-around, not politely ask and hint that they would prefer to do it like this FO did (wastes time). Ideally the pilot flying should then do it, but if they don't, the pilot monitoring can also take control (while clearly stating "my controls, going around") and do it. One major issue that I bet the NTSB will note in the final report is that both pilots were relatively new to the aircraft and to the airline, usually it's preferable to pair an inexperienced FO with more experienced captains.
(not an aviation expert, just summarizing various bits and pieces I gathered from various YouTubers over the last days)
Also not an expert, I wonder if there's some rule where a "Go around!" order has precedence over any other activity anyone in the cockpit wishes to perform.
As a passenger I had my first go around a few days ago, but we were 5km away from the runway.
Isn't it? Pretty sure its actually the drilled and trained commandment. If you doubt, speak up, and if that fails, take control. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_resource_management
There are a lot of things which are drilled and trained which have gone wrong in this incident.
Wouldn't be a case of "if I fix it then there was nothing wrong"? How do you, as an inferior rank, step in to correct something that you think is going to happen? Imagine the inferior officer steps in and lands the plane, wouldn't the superior officer say well duh that's what I was doing why did you intervene? It's an interesting conundrum, I think, and may exacerbate the reaction or lack thereof..
Your comment doesn't answer my question.
> Having pilots fighting over the controls is not a situation anyone wants
Nor crashing and killing 5 people.
The PM got his rating about 18 months ago. The PF only got his this past May. The PM had more overall hours, but this is looking a lot like a skills issue. He was flying an unstable approach. He wasn't configured for landing.
This pairing, considering past incidents with similar airframe vs. total hours disparity, really does look to be bad practice. You've got to acknowledge the human psychology. Part of it is probably the crazy pipeline over the past few years where people are racing to 1500 hours no matter how they log them, or they're getting on restricted certs with lower hours.