I've been a passenger for one go around. One rainy night coming in to San Diego. I was looking out the left windows trying to see when we would drop below the clouds and I could see the ground. When I could see the ground we were over the Laurel Travel center and much higher than normal. I then noticed that the plane was pointed over toward the aircraft carriers on North Island. Just at the moment my brain said "Holy Crap this isn't good!" the engines spooled up and we went back up into the clouds. We ended up landing towards the east, one of only two times I have landed in San Diego in that direction.
Here is the deal Honestly, if anyone here were to guess how many people would die in a crash that rips the tail off and makes the plane spin 360 before coming to a rest and then starts burning.... no way we would say only 2. That says a lot for either luck, the crew who got people out, the ground crew for working so well, or the engineering of the plane. It's a wonder that flying in the modern world is geared to respond to something like this to happen with so few fatalities.
I'm going with a combination of luck and engineering of the plane. I'm guessing if you were able to analyze that crash on a micro scale, you could find nano-seconds where a few mm in one direction or another and the plane explodes, or completely comes apart, etc.
One airport officer rushed into the plane without any protection of any kind because he knew people were hurt inside and needed help. He didn't wait. He just risked his life for others. I give that guy 2 thumbs up for bravery.
777 engineering is phenomenal! This one had no fatalities, and it hit so hard- that's the landing gear in the circle punctured up through the wing. This was the ice crystal RR engine stall 777. Image Unavailable, Please Login
A jetliner fuselage is just a stiffened beer can. They can absorb a lot of energy depending on how they crumple. Having cargo in the lower holds probably helped a lot. The landing gear attachment at the rear spar is designed to shear away before ripping a giant hole in the wing box (re fuel tank). Same with engines/pylons. In this type of scenario A is no different than B. The only type of scenario in which this sort loading on the fuselage is considered is ditching. Obviously A passed that test.
I occasionally fly with those who fly big tin birds for a living. Right now there are four of them, one flies a restored Cub, one has built and flies a Mod A Ford powered Pietenpol Air Camper, one flies a Luscombe 8F, and one flies an Aviat Husky. All of these guys fly jet airliners or fighters for a living but on days off they are flying their little airplanes for the joy of flying and they are good at it. I enjoy flying with them because they display a smooth skill and discipline that is fading from the scene now. In the past I flew with an airline pilot who owned at different times , a Cessna 180, and a Monocoupe 90AW. He also was extremely competent in a Bucker Jungeman and anything else that would do aerobatics. He flew DC-3's, DC-4's, DC-6's, DC-7's 727's, DC-8's, Boeing 247, and 747's when he retired. He said that he flew nose draggers for a living and tail draggers for fun but he was A PILOT FIRST AND ALWAYS no matter what he was flying. A pilot/author who was a mutual friend said that he was an example of a passing breed. I believe that his prognostication has come to pass.
I'm a product of stick and rudder day skills. The plane I learned in had five flight instruments, and one of them was a G meter. It would do the ATP population a great service if they backed up and required 25 hours in either a TW/acro plane with limited electric, or a sailplane. Both teach stick and rudder skills, and energy management. Those skills don't go away no matter the size of the tin you control. Obviously, the best example of this recently was Sully who was a long time sailplane pilot and knew the exact way to treat a no power situation where the no power situation was never/rarely practiced in the sim, and surely never in the real world. Same with the Gimli glider pilots. Although their mistake was of their own making, at least they displayed superior pilot skills to get on the ground safely. If a pilot doesn't know he's in trouble until after the stick-shaker activation, he doesn't belong in the seat of a comm plane - period.
+1 AF447 + TK1951 + OZ214 = Pilots that have become "poor" system administrators and forgot how to fly the plane. Although I am being unkind including TK & OZ with AF447. That one belongs on its own. Examples of pilot's that knew how to fly (by far not a complete list): United Airlines Flight 232 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider Northwest Airlines Flight 85 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For a plane to be lost to the Atlantic because 3 pilots had no clue what was going on with a plane that had fully functioning engines and airfoil. For a plane to be lost on a CAVU day and a 11,800' runway when it only needed 7000' at worst case (max landing weight) Flight training needs to include the OLD+NEW to be safe. The accidents we are having now are showing an incompetence of basic flying skills.
We are witnessing a transitional moment- We are moving from real pilots that can fly a plane without any automation and yet also fly a state of the art aircraft with automation to those that can only fly the latter. Right now, two fully qualified pilots have to be in front, well, one can be training with another in the jump seat. There used to be 3 sets of eyeballs in the cockpit, but the engineer was taken away in place of automation. The Quantas A380 engine failure created such a workload for the pilots, that the saving grace was several senior pilots on the flight deck to help them. If an engineer was there, he could have reduced that work load if there wasn't a bunch of extras that normally wouldn't be there. Now there is talk of reducing the number of pilots on long haul relief crews to save money. We are racing to the bottom, for costs sake, and safety is suffering. This is a "Technology exceeds Intelligence" problem... It is a 21st Century problem.
I read somewhere that the capt flying (only 43hrs on type) was senior in rank to the check pilot with him. Is it possible the Asian culture of not questioning your superiors has raised its head again. I believe it was a Korean Airlines crash a few years back that had that very issue As for the go arounds, watch and listen at LAX for any length of time and you will hear and see a least one. Usually for spacing, or someone hasn't cleared the runway in time. Every now and then a pilot reports an "indication" that requires a go around. I was actually surprised there is as many as they have, but then again LAX can get quiet busy a times
Cockpit Resource Management (CRM) is meant to deal with seniority issues on flight decks. There is evidence that Asian crews have cultural issues that make it incompatible with effective CRM. It has been noted on some forums that Korean pilots suffer from these issues. Go arounds are non-events for pilots. I've done a few commanded by ATC and I've done some on my own at uncontrolled airports. Other than wasting Jet-A, there isn't much to say. It's better than wrecking aluminum.... I guess I will have to update this to aluminum or plastic...
The safety people I work with would agree with you Mayor. They tell us all the time that every accident is avoidable.
With the systems we design & manufacture for aircraft, here are some of the conditions that criteria must be met on: Temp, altitude, humidity, shock operational crash safety, vibration, explosion, waterproofness, fluid susceptibility, sand/dust, voltages, interference, lightning. There's more, but in a nutshell it's focused on taking a beating and surviving. With our HALT (highly accelerated life test) /HASS (highly accelerated stress screen) machine, we can work the bejesus out of something to see what it takes to make something fail or evalutaue what it can handle and re-engineer if necessary.
Good question. I think there is still considerable energy absorption capability, but the manner in which it is absorbed will be different. Aluminum yields, buckles, and undergoes plastic deformation. Composites structures can buckle, but at some point they will fail in dramatic fashion since the energy can not dissipate through inelastic deformation. So the end result will likely not look the same, e.g. the SFO and LHR 777's looked relatively intact structure wise whereas I suspect a 787 will exhibit large fractures in various places under similar circumstances. Let's hope we never see the result.
I wonder more about the fire. This plane apparently burned rather slowly. The rescue crew said they got in and there was no smoke but by the time they got everyone out the cabin was filling with black smoke. If the plane were CF, would it have been better or worse?
This morning I heard the instructor in the right seat was new to the job. To compound all the other issues it sounds like he had not yet developed the stones to speak up or override the left seats decisions. I have a long time friend, ex Navy pilot, VN combat veteran etc turned airline pilot. He was flying on a contract in India and was in the same role as this guy in the right seat. He had to take over control on an approach that was so long he said it would have put them on the numbers at the wrong end of the runway. He was severely chastised for it because he did not allow the pilot to come to the go around decision on his own. According to Mike that time had long passed and the aircraft was rapidly reaching a point of real jeopardy. I guess in some cultures it is better to screw an airplane into the ground that to cause someone to lose face.
Just flew from Vegas to LA this morning and heard an announcement that flights to SFO are delayed several hours by ATC. Seems like still a mess up there. I go there tomorrow morning. Yuk.
