News Asiana 777-200 Crash on landing at SFO

[garyw]

The plane on fire at SFO is a Boeing 777 operated by Asiana in from Taipei. No information on what has happened but it looks like the emergency slides were deployed.

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San Mateo Fire Department: People trapped on board Boeing 777 plane that crashed at San Francisco Int'l Airport.

 

[Urwumpe]

Looks like a very hard landing... like the main landing gear didn't latch.

 

[Cras]

so from that 30 second clip of nothing you deduce that it landed hard and that the landing gear didn't lock. That somehow the crew just decided to land anyway without the gear indicators going green.

 

[Urwumpe]

so from that 30 second clip of nothing you deduce that it landed hard and that the landing gear didn't lock. That somehow the crew just decided to land anyway without the gear indicators going green.

I said "Like". That means I am not sure, but it would be one kind of landing that ends like that.

And seriously and for you to write it into your notepad:

Take-off is optional, landing is mandatory.

What do you think, what pilots do, when the landing gear gives no deployed indication, because of a malfunction of either the latch mechanism or the switches that should monitor the deployment? Keep on flying slowly circles over the airport until Supermechanic fixed the problem? Of course they try to land, and they try to land where the chances for the passengers to survive are best: An airport if possible, ideally the destination airport.

 

[garyw]

IWhat do you think, what pilots do, when the landing gear gives no deployed indication? Keep on flying slowly circles over the airport until Supermechanic fixed the problem?

I'd agree with that but there were no reports of this problem and there are now 27 planes in a holding pattern. This crash wasn't expected which means there wasn't an existing problem which means the gear came down as expected.

Lots of passengers of other airlines are tweeting photos and are in shock - no one expected this crash.

 

[Athena]

RT - People trapped in burning plane as Boeing 777 crashes at San Francisco intl airport

Firefighters are at the scene of a plane crash on the runway of San Fransisco International Airport. Thick clouds of black smoke are billowing from the grounded aircraft as people escape on emergency slides.

The plane was a Boeing 777 operated by Asiana Airlines flying in from Taipei. People are reportedly trapped inside the aircraft according to a police scanner.

The fire on board the plane has been registered as third alarm and several ambulances have been dispatched to the scene of the accident.

The airport will be closed for the next couple of hours, according to announcements.

An eyewitness told local station KCBS that the plane looked like it was “at an odd angle” as it was coming in to land.

 

[Urwumpe]

I'd agree with that but there were no reports of this problem and there are now 27 planes in a holding pattern. This crash wasn't expected which means there wasn't an existing problem which means the gear came down as expected.

Lots of passengers of other airlines are tweeting photos and are in shock - no one expected this crash.

Thats an information that is important... but that still means many possible reasons for such a hard landing (hard landing in that sense means: The plane is badly damaged, but at least with the sunny side up. I don't mean a hard impact because of too high vertical velocity. Could also be because of a tire failure, sudden UFO activity or Godzilla.)

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Welp, looks like SMF is about to go into "SFO Diversion" mode. Don't know where the heavies will land, though: Can Oakland or San Jose take 747s and 777s? I doubt they can make it into SMF with only a pair of 8000 foot runways... However, A330s and A340s, MD11s, 767s, etc, are all able to operate at SMF. Heck, even C-17 can. But the BIG boys? :shifty:

 

[garyw]

The tail is missing - reports of the tail coming away during landing.

 

[Cras]

I said "Like". That means I am not sure, but it would be one kind of landing that ends like that.

And seriously and for you to write it into your notepad:

Take-off is optional, landing is mandatory.

What do you think, what pilots do, when the landing gear gives no deployed indication, because of a malfunction of either the latch mechanism or the switches that should monitor the deployment? Keep on flying slowly circles over the airport until Supermechanic fixed the problem? Of course they try to land, and they try to land where the chances for the passengers to survive are best: An airport if possible, ideally the destination airport.

I know exactly what a pilot does when the gear gives no indication.

Circle airfield to get tower visual confirmation of state of gear. Prepare manual override using the alternate crank for the gear deploy. If no go, announce emergency, douse the runway with safety foam, belly land or land on however many gears got down.

But we have no clue what happened. All we know is the stabilizer is gone, the fuel tanks were breached obviously as the thing caught on fire. We don't know the state of the people on board either.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

The tail is missing - reports of the tail coming away during landing.

Oh, !

 

[Zatnikitelman]

What do you think, what pilots do, when the landing gear gives no deployed indication, because of a malfunction of either the latch mechanism or the switches that should monitor the deployment? Keep on flying slowly circles over the airport until Supermechanic fixed the problem? Of course they try to land, and they try to land where the chances for the passengers to survive are best: An airport if possible, ideally the destination airport.

If they deploy the gear, and get a bad indication, they certainly won't make a first attempt at landing. At best, they would make one circle so someone on the ground could literally look up at the status of the gear, then clear the traffic, and make a very gentle landing attempt. Worst case, they'd do all that, but also circle around for a while to burn off fuel to reduce the fire/explosion risk.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

If no go, announce emergency, douse the runway with safety foam, belly land or land on however many gears got down.

Uhhh... They don't foam the runways much anymore. It's a waste of foam that can better be used to smother what flames DO break out, and it makes the skid longer, and can cause the aircraft to lose whad directional control it ha after landing. Believe me, I had the chance to talk with some of the crash response teams at SMF.

 

[garyw]

More news:

Update: 303 SOB. All 303 accounted for. SFFD 3rd Alarm + RED Alert SMCFD 3rd Alarm USCG O/S Asiana Ft 214 from Seoul

Reports of it coming in at an 'odd' angle, NTSB are en-route.

 

[Cras]

Uhhh... They don't foam the runways much anymore. It's a waste of foam that can better be used to smother what flames DO break out, and it makes the skid longer, and can cause the aircraft to lose whad directional control it ha after landing. Believe me, I had the chance to talk with some of the crash response teams at SMF.

Ah ok. Makes sense. Regardless, this was not an emergency landing, there were no support assets sent to the runway in anticipation like they would had an emergency been called in the air.

 

[garyw]

Ah ok. Makes sense. Regardless, this was not an emergency landing, there were no support assets sent to the runway in anticipation like they would had an emergency been called in the air.

I fully agree. With ATC being available on the internet any gear issues would have been known about and published on twitter long before the actual landing. The plane would squawk 7700 which would also be picked up and published. This caught everyone by surprise.

 

[Athena]

Is that a hole on top of the cabin? It looks burnt. :blink:

And what the hell is that white patch on the ground?

 

[garyw]

The hole is from the fire. the white patch is foam from the fire fighters.

 

[Urwumpe]

The tail is missing - reports of the tail coming away during landing.

Strange... did the plane land with too much pitch and have a hard tailstrike?

 

[orb]

did the plane land with too much pitch and have a hard tailstrike?

Such are reports from news stations here.