777 crash at SFO

Yep, As a kid growing up around airplanes in the 60's all of the airline pilots of knew didn't just fly for a living they lived to fly. If they weren't piloting a heavy they were flying something else in their off time. Those pilots knew as much about the mechanics of the aircraft as anybody. Now what do we get, College kids who think it looks like a cool thing to do for a living but don't really appreciate the art of flying. Other than a job flying means nothing to them.

 

You have NO IDEA what you're talking about. "he was sitting in 1st class because of rules regarding flight fatigue" Go to some other thread please your posts only underscore what you don't know.

Bob

 

They (airlines) don't ever practice or train with the auto throttles off.

 

As far as systems knowledge goes there has been a complete reversal in the philosophy in the airlines. All of the training has been cut to the bare minimum. Usually there is a self study CD done at home and then 4 or 5 days classroom then a test.

As far as flying things in your off time, most airline pilots don't make enough money to really pursue extra flying, sure the wide body captains can afford to do this but at an airline with 10,000 pilots that works out to at the most 1500 pilots. Compounding this is the huge pay cuts and loss of pensions that happened in the last round of bankruptcies. Along with that there is the career stagnation caused by the age 65 rule and shrinkage of the major airlines. If you were hired by a major in the mid to late 90s you are going to be an F/O for 20 plus years.

As far as the art of flying, it has by a large part been replaced by automation. Not only is the automation there the companies "highly recommend" its use as much as possible. There are some old school pilots left but there are fewer and fewer left. Also even if you were the best stick in the world after decades of automation those skills deteriorate.

I really don't think most intelligent people think being an airline pilot is cool. Most are aware of the fundamental change in the industry.

 

This is from 1997, old but still applicable.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZDjkIjuHGE]Children of the Magenta - YouTube[/ame]

 

In the news now is information from NTSB that the pilot held up evac of the aircraft for 90 seconds while he checked with the tower.


That man is terminally stupid.


How did he ever get that job?

 

Brian - it's not important that Lee Gang-kuk crashed the plane, or that he held up evac, or that when he finally ordered an evac he pushed old ladies and children out of his way so he could be the first one off what we should be discussing is what caused these unfortunate events that were totally not his fault nor the fault of his most excellent training.

As The Mayor made clear Lee Gang-kuk was not stupid. The systems failed to prevent any and all of his actions or inaction. Yes, he made mistakes (That's why they put erasers on pencils!)... but other factors helped cause those mistakes.

 

Yup. Situational awareness is of PARAMOUNT importance, especially at TO and Landing.

 

I totally understand and partially agree with Bob. This whole f'ing place is typically a mob looking for someone to lynch. In that sense he is 100% correct and I'll never condemn anyone who likes to wait for the whole story. I am not getting on the beat up Bob bus. That is a big reason why I no longer give advice or participate in almost any way in the automotive section. Too many spoiled, know it all, POS people with no reading and comprehension skills. Your attitude is better suited to one of those conversations.

In the case of NTSB investigations I strongly suspect that even though they can be a year or more for the final report I strongly suspect in most cases they have a pretty good idea what happened within a couple of days. This seems to be one of those cases.

I also agree with several who know a bunch more about this than me in the sense that that AC had wings and 2 good motors. A pilot with the responsibility for it and the lives on board should have done a better job. If someone , or a bunch of someone's like Art don't spank that airline and spank it hard there is no motive to fix the problem. In fact it wouldn't be a bad object lesson if they got sued out of business and a few individuals went to the gray bar hotel.

If I drove a car like that and killed 2 people that is exactly what would happen to me.

 

While I don't disagree with the mayor about waiting for the full report, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, chances are its at least a water bird of some type.

Bottom line, weather they had power or not (all evidence I've heard is that the engines where producing power), auto throttles working correctly or not, they allowed an otherwise perfectly controllable aircraft to get off the glide slope and they should have noticed it long, long before they did and made the required corrections.

No way around that fact. What got them into that situation is still what is not clear to us here at this point.

Big planes can glide and land without power, if the crew is on top off there game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

Air Transat Flight 236 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Two examples of crews, with excellent training and flying skills and using great CRM to full effect. Not to point to fine a point on it but I don't think either of these crews would have crashed Asiana 214

 

These pilots will be haunted for the rest of their lives in how their inattention caused so much suffering with the injured and the two deaths.

It reminds me of Captain McBroom that ran his DC8 out of fuel diagnosing a possible landing gear issue. This accident created CRM which Asiana, apparently, did not implement properly.

United Airlines Flight 173 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

McBroom became a depressed man living out his years after the accident. Although he saved many lives with his piloting the plane into as ideal a place as you could to crash, 10 people died. Those souls made it difficult to live out a happy life.

He would attend the survivors anniversary get together's who considered him a hero.

Eugene Register-Guard - Google News Archive Search

 

At the end of the day, the thrust levers could have been advanced by someone putting their hands on the thrust levers and moving them forward. Oh, that would have required some airmanship which would include basic piloting skills....Also, at this point has it been determine that the stick shakers were activated?
And, for a little clarification, all the Boeing fly by wire AT have a resistance to movement designed to very specific values at the thrust lever. This is only mentioned to dispell the image that those not familiar with these aircraft may have that the thrust lever motion is somehow restricted to movement by the computer systems.

 

My DC8 memories are a bit cloudy. But on most heavy commercial aircraft there are little windows just above each landing gear so you can visually confirm the gear is down and locked. That way if your not getting 3 green lights in the cockpit you can still confirm that the gear is down and locked. It shouldn't have been that big a deal. It was probably more a combination of things. Crew took to much time trying to diagnose the problem and the fuel indicators were slightly out of calibration.

 

Yes that was confirmed by the NTSB on Sunday or Monday, that on the VCR not only could the stick shakers be heard to activate but that all the correct bells and whistles where going off at the correct times

 

I believe that the "Visual approach slope indicator" was operating at SFO at the time of the crash(?).

Is this something that all pilots check, and how often, on an approach?
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Your prerogative, I just spring boarded off your " terminally stupid" post, assuming Bob could take a little ribbing, meant in a light-hearted way.

We all want to know exactly what happened, down to the smallest minutiae.

I read that right after the crash the pilot claimed he was "blinded by a bright light" at 500' up.
That would be ~34 seconds from impact. Good thing he had 2 extra sets of eyes as backup.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/10/asiana-flight-214-ntsb-pilot-blinded/2507059/

 

Assuming he was blinded, a competent pilot would say-

"I have been blinded. Go around. Copilot you have the controls"

 

It's something they should be checking all the time as part of their "scan".

That said, you can be just right all the way up to short final and then drop like a stone to end up staring at "all red, you are dead" at the last second, depending on a variety of factors. That's why you have to stabilize the approach and stay on high alert, so that if things go wrong you can stay ahead of the plane! Aviate, aviate, aviate. Then communicate and navigate.

 

Forget communication until you Aviate and Navigate.

Aviate, Navigate, then Communicate.

 

Now I'm reading they waited 90 seconds prior to giving the order to evacuate the plane. Is there any justification behind that decision? I can't imagine a scenario where it was safer inside the plane, but perhaps there is?

 

What hogwash. I'd say something stronger but you get the idea.

You know, some of you "experts" like to take pot shots at me for your own amusement. Go right ahead.

All I asked for is for people to not blame every pilot with similar backgrounds because of this crew only 2 hours after the accident occurred.

All I ask is that you look for the evidence before attacking and tainting everyone in a cockpit with a broad brush.

All I ask is that before condemning people, we try to find the root cause instead of "oh, a bunch of dummies were in the cockpit". Yah, that tells us a lot about what went wrong.

And for that, I'm a criminal on Fchat.

Brilliant. This the reason people come to this discussion. To see a lack of logic from the posters so they can feel better about themselves arguing for the sake of arguing.

 

You're condemning people for jumping to a conclusion that appears to be correct. Yeah - there will be specifics that shape the story one way or the other and of course we are all interested in that, but in the grand scheme of things it sure seems like it was pilot error and that was very likely something that can be traced back to a training issue and cultural hierarchy BS - that's why your rebuttal looks so foolish.

>8^)
ER

 

No. I'm condemning people who condemn me for wanting to find out what happened here.

I have not said ANYONE here is wrong on what might have happened. I object to people saying "well, all pilots of this type shouldn't be allowed in the air".

I think that's wrong. I think that's unfair given the lack of evidence to this point.

These may be the stupidest pilots to ever enter an aircraft. They may be the poorest trained crew of all time. For all I know they are liars about the "bright light" excuse.

My point: I don't know. No one here knows. We can all suspect.

But to say that everyone "like them" is unsafe in the air is not correct. That much I do know.

 

the media this morning is spinning the automated flight systems ( in an attempt to place responsibility )... regardless, there was a lack of vigilance / management of the aircraft and its' systems... the basics of flight / approach do not change... the flight crew is there to fly / manage the aircraft, not sit on their thumbs... flight data recorders show that flight management / crew intervention was called for well in advance of the situation becoming critical as the numbers were going away, yet there was no initiative by the crew to take any corrective action or over ride balking flight systems to maintain flight to a landing... the inaction is criminal regardless of who or what was at the root of the issues