Urges Collaboration Between Boeing, FAA On Landing Systems

The NTSB has issued a series of safety recommendations to the FAA concerning MD-11 airplanes.

The board says the FAA should work with Boeing to (1) assess the effectiveness of flare cueing systems to assist MD-11 pilots in making timely and appropriate inputs during the landing flare, (2) provide a formal report on the findings of the assessment, and (3) if the assessment shows that flare cueing systems could be useful to MD-11 pilots, provide copies of the report to all US operators of MD-11 airplanes and encourage them to install such a system on these airplanes.

In addition, the board says the FAA should with Boeing to (1) assess methods for providing weight-on-wheels cueing to MD-11 pilots to enhance pilot awareness of bounced landings and facilitate proper pilot reaction and effective control inputs when bounced landings occur, (2) provide a formal report on the findings of the assessment, and (3) if the assessment shows that the weight-on-wheels cueing methods could be useful to MD-11 pilots, provide copies of the report to all US operators of MD-11 airplanes and encourage them to provide a means for weight-on-wheels cueing for these airplanes, and (1) evaluate the effect of brief power increases on simulated MD-11 landing distances, (2) adjust the values in published MD-11 landing distance tables accordingly, and (3) provide the adjusted values to MD-11 operators.

Finally, the Board says the FAA should reconvene the MD-10/MD-11 flight standardization board to determine whether currency requirements should be strengthened for MD-11 pilots.

The NTSB offered similar recommendations to Boeing.

FMI: FAA Recommendations, Boeing Recommendations