A lot of Asian airlines initial training consists of this: New pilot applicant passes airline entrance exam. (No flight experience at this point) Applicant is sent to the USA for pilot training. Pilot gets USA Commercial/Instrument Multi-engine and leaves the USA with approx 250 hrs. Applicant goes through the airlines training and ends up in the right seat of anything. 747 and 777 are not uncommon. Could you imagine being in the right seat of a 777 with 250hrs. You've never been above 10,000 ft. Never faster than 200 kts. You've never seen a thunderstorm....at least from the cockpit. Seems hard to believe, but it's true. I'm not saying that this is the case here. But something to think about.
...but of course, observations after the fact always come up perfect, still there is no room for anything except good judgement...
I'm not a pilot but that just sounds crazy. Sorry if I missed it, but do we know why there wasn't any guidance systems at least telling them they were far off the proper glide slope? Coming in 1000' short of where you want to touch down then jamming the throttles 1.5 seconds before impact wouldn't make much difference in any plane let alone a big jet. Graphic text from NYTimes article: " About a minute and a half before the crash, preliminary data shows, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 sank 600 feet in nine seconds. During a normal approach, the plane should have descended only 150 feet in that time." Image Unavailable, Please Login
Exactly. Most of the foreign operators use this system. It sucks, but they do use it. That's one reason their accident rate is higher than ours. Their pilots haven't gotten the training experience gives them. Art
So much for ref+5 That's what I call a destablized approach! Hard to believe several ATP Mark-1 eyeballs didn't notice the airspeed... NTSB: Briefing Prelim Data 82 secs before impact - AP off - 1600 ft alt 73 secs - 173kts 54 secs - 149kts 34 secs - 134kts - 500 ft 16 secs - 118kts - 200 ft 8 secs - 112kts - 125 ft 3 secs - 103kts Impact - 106kts
I read, a couple places, that 2 of the inflatable slides inflated backwards INTO the cabin. They injured several flight attendants. How can that happen? Maintenence/installation issue? I (fortunately) have not seen them being deployed, so excuse any ignorance.
Breaking the subject a bit, I was talking to my two sons this morning the 214 incident. One of them works on the 777 line as a final assembly inspector and the other one is very astute in mechanical matters. Both of them had thoughts about the structural integrity of the airplane that took a fearful beating and still remained intact. I agree after seeing that all the entry doors were operable after the fuselage had the belly ripped out after impacting the seawall. All the doors forward were useable after the forward fuselage was slammed onto the runway. The vertical fin took the upper half of the 48 section with it when it departed and that emphasizes just how firmly the fin is attached. It appears to me that the no.2 engine started the fuselage fire after seeing the scorching marks on the lower right fuselage. There had to have been a fair amount of fuel under the wreckage to support the ensuing fire. The fact that the wing tanks didn't rupture has to be a life saver, too. Incredibly tough airplane but, then, it is a Boeing and I helped a little bit to get it configured.
Hypothetical question: do we know what the vertical descent rate was? If they had been 200 feet further down the runway, would this have been a very hard landing? Just curious.
Kind of random, but I was at SJC last Sunday awaiting the ANA 787 and noticed it was coming in a bit too high. Right over highway 880, it started the go-around procedure.... Another F-Chatter joined me awaiting the return of the 787 20 minutes later... Yesterday, made it up to SFO to watch them taking off from the 19's at the Bart parking garage. Pretty interesting to watch and even saw/heard a UAL 747 go back to the gate until 28R was open. This photo eas the 4th or 5th plane that landed on 28r after it opened...Taken from where the video was shot at. (Sorry for the crappy photo, real camera was dead at the point) Image Unavailable, Please Login
that runway's approach assists were under maintainance and out of service... normal operating procedure... SFO has 3 other runways that are useable, which I imagine had full landing assists operating... it would be unusual to have all nav aids inop / out of service closing the airpot to all bit VFR service... it's not a big deal to land any aircraft VFR, it starts in the very beginning of learning to fly, where things went wrong is that the supervising pilot(s) failed to supervise the management of the landing, ref numbers were ignored, corrective procedures not initiated...totally careless management... the pilot landing had total time approaching 10,000 hours, he was experienced, he had minimum time in model, which doesn't relegate him to a rookie pilot just cleared to solo... the real question is why or what was his motivation to ignore all the indications that called for a response from the pilot to make corrections / adjustments to the aircraft / approach to keep the plane flying... to a good landing... the pilot chose to ignor all the things that must be done to keep the plane flying...they all flew the plane into a stall... a guess / explanation ( for not taking any corrective action ) would be that all the flight deck crew made a bet that the "rookie" could not hand fly the plane to a landing from the point the throttles were pulled without adding more power...
Speaking solely as a passenger, on just about every jetliner I've ever flown, of any type, the engines throttle up audibly when full flaps are selected.
While preparing to land one night at ATL a couple of years ago, the pilot abandoned the approach about 20 seconds before touchdown and commenced a go-around. He told us on the P/A that the flight ahead of us took a little too long to clear the runway. ATC put us back in line pretty quickly and we didn't lose much time on the go-around.
That's precisely what it is/was. Poor airmanship. Someone with that many hours on a 747 should have been able to fly any plane properly. Secondary was poor CRM - how could the other three experienced pilots not have caught or reacted to what was unfolding? Really? So let's look at Sioux City, IO (United DC-10 with severed hydraulic lines) - how was that one 'totally avoidable'?
I've been a part of one go-around. It was actually kind of creepy since we were already over the runway and just about to touch down, the pilot throttled up and went back around. There was never any word from the pilot the whole time...is that normal?
I was thinking that when I saw the picture of the vertical stabilizer still intact on the tail section... As opposed to the Airbus A300 that lost the ENTIRE rudder in NY because the rudder pedal was pushed a little too enthusiastically in 2001, I think. AB builds marginal (dangerous) airplanes. IMO.
No not normal. Usually when you hit the runway all sorts of automatic stuff happens (ground spoilers, auto brake, etc.) Flaps and trim set for landing. Unless you plan ahead you're done flying. edit; I thought you said after touch down.
That's a silly thing to say. You'd like to just close this thread with an "Oops! **** happens..." In those cases I'd have to wonder where there really was another plane on the runway or did he just not line it up right.... Anyway if there was a pokie plane in his way that's a totally excusable go-around. I can imagine that if the pilot of the 777 coming into SFO had throttled up 30 seconds earlier and went around for another go he probably would have had a black mark on his record or at least some amount of "dishonor"(?) Thanks for that info. This is exactly why I find it outrageous that ALL airline pilots aren't trained to land their plane without "guidance". That'd be like becoming an F1 driver and never learning how to handle oversteer or understeer because "stability control will work it out". Sure it will, until it doesn't.
Well, yes, obviously they are all avoidable at some point. In some cases, the only way they could have been avoided would be not to take off in the first place, though. There are lots, maybe a majority of US 121 accidents, where the flight crew either could not have done anything to change the outcome, or could only have done so with the benefit of perfect hindsight.
I think my point is that some accidents can happen because the circumstances are so bizarre or a one in a million series of failures -- and others are like "come on, that never should happen" because what caused it is so obvious to anyone and everyone.
All of the doors are "armed" while the A/P is in operation. - Operation of the interior handle to the "open" position will cause two things to happen: A) A "door open assist" will activate that is gas driven from a bottle on the hinge arm. B) The slide will be pulled out of the bottom of the slide bustle on the door by a girt bar on the threshold and inflate. If for any reason the opening of the door is restricted from FULL OPEN position, like from structural damage or external blockage, the slide has no-where to go but in. Not a perfect system because all eventualities cannot be planned. It's engineered about as good as it gets.
