LATAM Flt 800 UPDATE! Seat Issue?! 14 March 2024

Was the pilot shoved forward into the yoke by an inadvertent actuation of his seat?

LINKS:

Theme: "Weightless" Aram Bedrosian

[ronhunt]

Hey Juan, I spent the last 6 years before retirement on the 787. The switch on the back of the seat is used primarily to move the seat forward and aft to give you room to put your kitbag in place or get it out after the flight. there is not enough room to actually get into the seat from the outside along the window. As you can see when the seat slides back it also moves to the left (Captain's seat) or right (Fo's seat) giving you room between the center console to get into and out of the seat. The seats, when operated with the motor, move very slowly. The seats also have manual adjustments that can be used in leu of the motor and using the manual adjustment lever is really the only way you can get these seats to move quickly - however, it takes a little effort when seated and you have to be holding the lever in the unlock position while moving the seat. If you let go of the manual lever the seat will lock in the next notch of the seat track. Finally, the way the seat is made with the yoke cut-out in the front of the bottom seat cushion, there isn't anyway for the seat to contact the yoke and move it. With all that said, I don't see how you could trap a meal tray between you and the yoke because the seat simply doesn't move that fast electrically. When I first heard about this, my first thought was that a crew member possibly slipped and fell onto the yoke, when getting in or out of the seat causing the nose over - which I still think is what most likely happened. As to all the instruments going blank, I had that happen on a 777 on the way to China one night. All the MFD's and the Autoflight indications went blank, however, while you couldn't see that the autopilot was engaged, it remained so and the attitude of the plane never waivered. In that scenario, we never got the screens to come back and we flew a couple of hours back to our departure point on the standby instruments. It's just hard to imaging under what conditions the loss of the MFD's would cause the nose over. Anyway, this one will be interesting to see what they finally discover. Great video!

[embfixer]

Twice in my career as a mechanic I've seen the pilots seat move inadvertently. First was on a test flight out of "C" check. The seats on that particular aircraft are manual with locking pins that keep it from moving once adjusted. Unfortunately, one of the locking pins was bent just enough where they didn't lock all the way and on rotation the captains seat went straight back, he yelp and the FO immediately took control. We came back in, landed and swapped out the captains seat. The second time was a story relayed to me by a captain after a flight. This aircraft has electric seats similar to the 777. The Capt. dropped something, a pen I think it was, unbuckled and managed to get the buckle turned sideways and into the switch somehow. It drove it all the way forward and he was stuck turned sideways in his seat with his left leg jammed up where he couldn't move. He said after about 30 seconds of panic and confusion, he managed to get the buckle out and the seat moved back. No matter how well the design is, someone will find a way to defeat it.

[veeman]

I am a crew on the B787. It’s NOT the “back of the seat” mounted switch. Inflight, I have had the side mounted fore and aft seat adjustment rocker switch continue to move the seat forward even after I have lifted my thumb off it. The entire rocker switch assembly felt very loose. I wrote up the defect after the flight. If I had been a fat guy with a huge beer belly - the outcome might have been like this!

[robm]

Juan...I have been a flight attendant for a very long time and have NEVER NEVER seen a steak like the one shown in that picture that you show on this video. I know who you work for (same company as me)and I know they do not serve steaks of that size. Where did you get that picture? LOl

[genebruce]

I've been in turbulence one time. I was a civilian radar flight test engineer on a P-3 flight out of Pax River NAS. My job required me to sit behind the pilot to manage the radar computer. No seat; I just sat in the floor with a laptop connected to the radar for instrumentation. We would go out and fly back and forth along the exact same path for hours at a time to test the SAR mode of the radar. The radar was a single-mode-at-a-time system. It had a weather mode that worked well, but we were focused on our SAR tests. On one of our runs, we flew through a cloud that had drifted into our flight path. One second I was on the ceiling, the next, I was on the floor. No joke. We were all very lucky that nobody was hurt. Turbulence is a thing and that flight made a believer out of me. We'd have a look at the weather mode now and then after that incident.

[JustFamilyPlaytime]

"Have you tried turning it off and on again" is not what I expect to hear during pre-flight.

[arthurclarke]

Similar incident although with a side-stick. Royal Air Force Voyager ZZ333 9 February 2014 the aircraft suddenly pitched down while in the cruise at Flight Level 330. A digital SLR camera obstruction which was in front of the Captain’s left arm rest and behind the base of the Captain’s side-stick at the time of the event having been jammed between the arm rest and the side-stick unit when the seat moved forward.

[mileshigh]

One of the main rules when flying, is to always leave your seatbelt on!

[howardsykes]

I know all about powering a Boeing down. The SAS 737 in Bodo, Norway, (2016) was settled, the airbridge retracted & the engines started. After about what seemed 10 minutes of idling the Captain came on the blower & informed us that a light on his dashboard wouldn't go out. So he switched the engines off & he told us he was ringing maintenance in Oslo but it could be 90 minutes before anyone could fly up to us. Meanwhile I had a connecting flight to Copenhagen & on to Zurich. Finally the Captain informed us that he'd been advised to turn the plane off, wait 3 minutes & turn it on again, what in the computer mainframe game is called an IPL (Initial program Load). He did that as we sat in total darkness & stillness watching other aircraft depart (quite a new experience for me) & then as everything came back on & the engines were restarted that light on the instrument panel went out & we bolted for Oslo. Luckily airline crew in Oslo knew we were coming & rebooked us on other flights which was excellent.

[rockqc]

I don’t find the seat issues plausible for those reasons:
1- There’s a flap on the actuator so you really have to dig for it to actuate the seat by mistakes.
2- Even if you actuate it, the seat movement is fairly slow so you’ll notice the movement before hitting the controls. It’s not like your going full speed into the control column.
3- Unless you’re a big belly guy, even with the seat full fwd, I think you can still sit in that seat and not pushing on the controls.
And as for the autopilot disconnecting, unless you’re really pushing on the controls or you fall with all your weight on the yoke, if the autopilot disconnect, it won’t slam dive the aircraft since it’s already trimmed by the autopilot.

[Glegh]

Reminds me of RAF voyager 333 where the pilot put his camera in front of his armrest and when he moved his seat forward it pushed the sidestick down

[Catch_The_Irishman]

I had a total Dual FMS and PDU/CDU failure in flight where everything froze up once. Meggitt did stay alive. Went straight and level, advised ATC that they were going to lose me for a few minutes to which they replied maintain altitude and heading UFN and recontact and reset transponder when able. Reset the entire electrical system in flight and everything came back and the FMS did not dump the route! Washington Center was very busy during the witching hour but was most accommodating and all worked out. Of course MX said "Cannot duplicate" and all was well😅

[lordinquisr]

Thanks, Juan! I was so curious about this incident. Thanks for the deep dive…if you’ll pardon the pun.

[SJF]

I can't see how the switch could have been activated accidentally, it has a cover over it.

[bmused]

Something similar happened to an RAF Voyager (A330 Tanker). A camera lodged between the armrest and side stick for the captain was pushed forward as the seat was adjusted. Plane went into a nose dive!

[curoador]

Honestly in the current times I live for your updates ! Thank you so much Juan !

[jackoneil]

Dang, tragic example of the little unforeseen things that can kill you. When I was about 12' my father and his business partner bought a Cessna U-3A (Military version of the 310A) that had just came out of annual. His partner 'Jerry' was a low time single engine pilot who had a who had just soloed in the 310 and on a business flight. Jerry climbed into the left seat, I got in the right rear seat and my father, a high-time military pilot in the right, leaving his seat slid almost fully back so he could study a newspaper classified section on taxi.

As Jerry lined-up for take off my father double checked the takeoff items and said "let's go" Jerry shoved the throttles full-forward and after rotation and about 300ft in the air decided his seat was too far back, and pulled the seat latch and lunged it forward a inch or two and released the handle that failed to engage and as he rested back in the seat, I heard a "Clack! clack! clack!" as Jerry and the seat rocketed aft as he tightly griped the yoke with his left hand, pulling the 310 vertical and into a steep left roll until he ran out of aft yoke and the seat slid completely off the rails, and into the rear seat beside me yelling "TAKE HER! TAKE HER!", at which point my father lunged forward, grabbed the yoke, rolled and 'bunted' back over to level with the 310 on the edge of a stall. With Jerry and the pilot's seat, now at about a 60degree angle in the back seat next to me, he struggled to get out of the seat flailing his feet and arms, eventually rolling out of the seat, and from the back seat got the pilot's seat back on the rails.

My father continued flying from the right shaking his head, and as Jerry started to climb back into the pilot's seat and saying "All good! I'll take her!". My father barked: "What where you thinking! You stay back there!" As he shifted left into the pilot's seat.

As I recall the rear seat stop, a little $0.50 aluminum clip with a pin and cotter key was never in-place or not re-installed after annual. Many years later after several loss of control incidents and likely a fatal crash or few An AD was required for a secondary latch to prevent the front seats on some singles to prevent front seats from coming off the rails, but I'm not sure what if anything was mandated for the old 310's Perhaps Juan can tell us.

[davidbeattie]

When you are eating off of a tray on your lap. It is wedged between your gut and the yoke (sometimes pretty firmly with expanding girth). It doesn’t take much seat movement to force the yoke to the point that it disconnects. I remember when electric seats first debuted on the DC-10. Some creative pilot came up with a checklist for seat runaway (jammed balls) procedure.

[davidstuart]

Well, interesting. It doesn't look like the seat moves quickly enough to cause a "sudden" collision with the yoke, and/or an equally sudden retreat from the yoke. There were also reports (as I recall) of some shaking of the aircraft (not clear if it was before or during the dive). I'm agreeing with rockqc91 below - it doesn't seem plausible. I'm not sure if the autopilot, though, actually trims the aircraft, or overrides/disengages the trim and by doing so operates the control surfaces after bypassing the trim settings. I've never flown anything larger than a Seneca III - so I'm out of my lane, or victor airway, on that one.

[cooperised]

51 days sounds a lot like a 32-bit microsecond (edit: yeah millisecond, it was late at night lol) counter rolling over. Although that would be 49.7 days, 2^32/(1000x60x60x24). I still would be willing to bet that's what it was. In the airworthiness directive I mean, not in this incident.