jedinein

Give a craftsman a spoon, and he can empty a bowl. Give a craftsman a shovel, and he can dig a ditch. Give a craftsman a CAT and he can move a mountain.

Why should we not demand better of our tools? It takes a few lines of code for the computer to determine that the number one engine is running as part of the takeoff check. Why not a few more lines of code to determine that number two is as well?

The cost is fairly minimal as compared to a hull loss and subsequent lawsuits.

But don't worry, that modification probably won't happen. Approaching the problem from a systems safety standpoint might suggest the pilot is human and therefore susceptible to making mistakes. Of course, the pilot as a craftsman remains the sharp end of the stick and pays the ultimate price for any mistake made by anyone along the line, including the engineer that thought "that'll never happen," the regulators and engineers that think "it happened, but that was an anomaly, it won't recur," and all that think "it happened again, but it'll never happen again," despite numerous demonstrations of the contrary by highly experienced, proficient, and well-trained airline pilots with and without college degrees, PFT in their past, hours of experience upon hiring, number of furloughs, or any other artificial rationalization by which one uses to claim "it happened to them, but it'll never happen to me because I'm [fill in the blank] ."

FlyerJosh

I agree to an extent... but to what end to we take the safety management concept. It could be argued that there are many other more pressing issues (statistically speaking) that could have catastrophic results than a flight crew taking off inadvertantly with one engine inoperative. My point is, while adding an "engine inoperative" check might prevent such occurrances, the likelyhood of a crew actually departing INADVERTANTLY with an engine inoperative is, IMHO, NIL. Therefore, is there actually a need for such systems? At the end of the day, there may be gaps in professionalism or attention, which result in delays or embarassment to company/pilots when they have to taxi clear, but safety is not compromised.

USMCFLYR

.....flying a single engine aircraft.

USMCFLYR

EasternATC

I agree, it's a slim chance they'd actually depart. However, there's a much greater chance of a crew running off the end because they tried to depart with only one burning.

Here's an accident that proves the fallacy of your thinking.

USMCFLYR

EasternATC -

Where is the tie-in with a gear up landing and the "...greater chance of a crew running off the end because they tried to depart with only one burning."?

USMCFLYR

Cargo Man

Really? No doubt you would get the stupid award for trying. But 8000-10000 feet is enough room to take off and reject three times in a -8.

bcrosier

I don't know about the CRJ or ERJ, but remember, not all turbines have cut-off gates!

EasternATC

The tie-in is that an experienced crew thought they'd done the checklist then pretty much blew off all the signs that something wasn't right, such as their jet not wanting to slow down and those pretty green lights not being on. Who'd have ever thought a highly-experienced crew could miss all that?

Not if it takes 7000' to get to V1!

My point is that for every time someone tried to dismiss these remote possibilities of inconceivable human error, we added metal to the scrapyard.

FlyerJosh

Okay... but plenty of folks have landed gear up- even with warning bells, whistles and horns and lights and other procedures. Several of these have resulted in runoffs/hull losses/fatalities.

But show me one accident where a crew INADVERTANTLY departed with an engine inoperative.

I'll agree that humans are fallible. But gee- if we are so worried that folks aren't going to catch the simple things like "gee... I didn't start an engine", maybe we should park the whole fleet and go back to horse and carraige.

Along the same lines- maybe we should put non-proximity windows and doors? I'd hate for somebody to depart with a cockpit escape hatch or window open...

EasternATC

Thankfully, I cannot show you such an accident. But the OP is about a couple of folks who tried! Anecdotally, I know of about a half-dozen instances of 727s trying to as well (I was at DCA 21 years).

I agree with you to an extent: we cannot--with procedures, design, hardware, software, whatever--guard against everything, nor should we always try. But remember that if--operationally--you can conceive of a certain set of circumstances, there's a very good chance they'll actually occur to someone, somewhere.