I had thought that separation for simultaneous takeoffs or landings had to be 1 mile regardless of conditions. Typically a close pair like 28L and 28R would be used as one for landing and one for takeoffs. That's the way the pairs at ATL (which are probably a little further apart than those at SFO, since there is a taxiway in between) are utilized.
Anyone know how far apart those runways are? When they were building DIA (Denver) I'm pretty sure that parallel runways had to be one mile apart... There was quite a bit of discussion (and criticism) about that during design.
IIRC it is around 750' between the parallel runways at KSFO. Here are a couple more side by side landings that I have shot at San Francisco. N381UA United Airlines Boeing 737-322 - Planespotters.net Just Aviation N174UA United Airlines Boeing 747-422 - Planespotters.net Just Aviation
(07-30) 17:44 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Foreign airlines landing on one of the main parallel runways at San Francisco International Airport are no longer allowed to touch down while side-by-side with another plane, a change that federal authorities instituted after the deadly crash of an Asiana Airlines jet, officials said Tuesday. In the past, two planes could approach runways 28R and 28L alongside each other if the weather was clear. Domestic carriers can still do so, but air traffic controllers will stagger the arrivals of foreign carriers. The change, ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration, stems from the agency's concern about the manual flying skills of pilots for foreign airlines, which arose after Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashed short of runway 28L on July 6. Three passengers died and about 180 were injured. Since the crash, pilots for the South Korean airline and other foreign carriers have had an uptick in aborted landings at SFO while attempting visual approaches, in which pilots do not rely solely on their cockpit instruments, the aviation agency said. It did not provide a precise numbers of aborted landings. The shift away from side-by-side landings began last week, at the same time air traffic controllers began to advise all foreign airlines to use an automated GPS-based system to guide landings onto the main runways, rather than attempt a visual approach. Barry Schiff, a former pilot for TWA who has written extensively about aviation safety, said he had concerns about the blanket policy. "It sounds to me like what they're saying is that foreign pilots aren't up to the same challenges as U.S. pilots," Schiff said. "Frankly, it sounds like a double standard. I think a lot of the foreign pilots are going to be rather upset, because many of them are doggone good and probably don't enjoy being cast into the same basket as those not deemed to be as competent." The changes are temporary. Foreign carriers typically use an instrument system known as a glide slope indicator to land. But the system has been out of service on the runways since June 1 because of an expansion project and is not scheduled to be available until Aug. 22. In a statement Tuesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said there had been no significant delays at SFO because of the move away from side-by-side approaches. The agency said it had acted not because it was concerned about two planes hitting each other, but because it wanted to keep pilots from being sidetracked by alerts from their collision-avoidance systems. "The FAA enacted this measure to minimize distractions that could result from pilots receiving automated warnings about the proximity of nearby aircraft during a critical phase of flight," the agency said. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the Asiana Airlines crash. It is unclear exactly how the Asiana pilots - who had been cleared for a visual approach - tried to land. Federal investigators said the plane was flying too slowly when it clipped a seawall short of the runway, with the pilots reporting that they believed they had engaged an automatic throttle.
Well it would have been racist to apply this to Asian carriers only, which was likely on the minds of the rule change people at the FAA. So there are now two classes of pilots. Real ones and system admins. British Airways, Virgin, Lufthansa and several other airlines shouldn't be lumped in with the bozos.
Got these today. Photos credited to Ho Lee Fuk. A little better image quality than previously seen. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Would be interesting to see the g-loading data from the FDR. Some of those 16g seats and 9g seat rails appear to have exceeded their limits.
In reading some of the pilot's statements post-crash, it almost sounds like he had a phobia of manually landing a plane. Quite disturbing. If you're afraid of actually taking the controls, then what are you doing in the cockpit?
From the NTSB docket 24 excerpt regarding the "FLCH" mode I mentioned way back: 6. During the approach to Seattle I referred to above, when Air Traffic Control issued a visual approach clearance to Runway 34, the altitude was 8,000, heading 160 and distance 11DME, meaning that the altitude was too high for a normal landing, so I used FLCH mode to descend, with speed brake up and landing gear down. At 2,000 feet, I realized that the altitude was still too high and turned off both flight directors and switched to manual flight. During the approach to the runway, the airspeed was falling close to target airspeed but the autothrottle was in idle state and did not respond. I let the First Officer know of this situation and when the airspeed was 10 knots below target airspeed, I turned off the autothrottle and manually pushed the throttle and had an uneventful landing. However, I was surprised that the autothrottle did not maintain the selected target airspeed. 7. After the flight, I examined the “Flight Control” section of the Boeing Flight Crew Operations Manual (“Boeing FCOM” and was eventually able to find, with some difficulty, a single sentence “note” item on circumstances in which the autothrottle may not respond. I still felt this note was insufficient to explain what I had just experienced. Therefore, I did a further study of the “Autopilot” section of the Boeing FCOM and realized that in the circumstances I described above the autothrottle can be in a dormant state and the autothrottle will not function even if the target airspeed is reached. In my personal opinion, this is very important information that should be highlighted to pilots as a “warning” item and not merely as a “note” item in the Boeing FCOM. 8. The two instances at SFO I referenced above involved nearly identical circumstances to the one at SEA. The autothrottle switched to HOLD mode, and the autothrottle was not responding. Because I was aware of this anomaly in the autothrottle logic from my previous experience at SEA, I realized what was happening and manually engaged the throttles to recover airspeed. Accident ID DCA13MA120 Mode Aviation occurred on July 06, 2013 in San Francisco, CA United States Last Modified on December 11, 2013 07:12 Public Released on December 11, 2013 08:12 Total 135 document items Just a friendly reminder, I'm a ASEL pilot, and don't fly the big iron, but this sounds like pretty much what I expected when I heard the plane got too slow on visual appr. Basically, the pilot thought the plane would be responsive in autothrottle mode and maintain min flying speed, but the plane thought otherwise. It was 'armed' but not 'engaged'.
Looking at how almost everything on the inside breaks loose is there any point to seat belts other than for turbulence?
You'll be happy with your seatbelts under at least two conditions: severe turbulence, and aircraft rolling inverted. Moderate turbulence and most crash landings will have you flying around the cabin too. I've been in moderate-severe turbulence, and was going weightless against my seatbelt. For every additional G you experience whether positive or negative your effective body weight doubles. If you have a 30lb kid in your lap and experience a momentary negative 3 G's in turbulence, the kid becomes 90lbs that will be impossible to hold onto.
Turbulence is significant-- if you look at the NTSB's summary reports, there is an airline flight attendant with a broken ankle or similar almost every month-- due to turbulence. In fact, people have been killed in aircraft due to turbulence, when they weren't belted. And, most accidents are runway excursions and that sort of thing-- not catastrophic, where seatbelts are potentially useful.
Just check the weather when your flying on a Korean carrier. As long as the weather is bad (IMC) at the origin and destination airports, you SHOULD be ok. North Korean pilots would probably be OK since they're not used to having navaids or autopilots...
Reading some of the news from today it seems that while there may have been other factors involved, this is primary reason the plane crashed. Then there's this: Completely wrong attitude for a pilot IMO. He should have realized people could die if he screwed up. >8^\ ER
"Lee told investigators that as he realized his approach was off, he was worried he might "fail his flight and would be embarrassed." I'm guessing he failed the flight anyway.....never a bad decision to go around...IMHO
I'm not sure exactly, but I'd say less than 50%. We have some temporary FO's from JAL. Think about this. I JAL new hire goes to the US for training. Comes back with say 300 hrs in Cessnas and light twins. He goes straight to the 747. Not really the place for a guy with almost no experience. Not that the 74's hard to fly, but with 10 hr legs, you don't fly it much. I fly with these guys sometimes. Great guys, but no experience. 1500 hrs. 300 light aircraft, 1200 747. That 1200 747 is around 120 flights, of which he probably landed 40 times. And that's probably over 2 years. So 20 landings a year. I could tell you stories...but would rather not.
Yeah keep those to yourself or most of us will stop flying commercial... I was talking to a friend who has been flying for a while and is trying to move up in the corporate flying world and said its hard to get a job as an FO at Clay Lacy or such because the Asian airlines pay to have their FO trainee's build hours in the right seat of the corporate flyers......
I understand all that but looking at that photo it seems like the seats are the weakest link? Is there nothing that can be realistically done to improve this? I'd like a 5 point harness and a roll cage please!
