News Asiana 777-200 Crash on landing at SFO

[MattBaker]

It seems that they are distancing themselves from the accident.

Which is always a good thing from the technical point of view. Just agree after a few hours it was a pilot's error and never talk about it again, if there was a problem it'll fix itself.

 

[Urwumpe]

Which is always a good thing from the technical point of view. Just agree after a few hours it was a pilot's error and never talk about it again, if there was a problem it'll fix itself.

Well, even if it was caused by the malfunction of the ILS, that was mentioned here in the thread, it would remain pilot error, if the pilot did not correctly do a visual approach.

 

[Screamer7]

This is good news as well as bad news.
Good in the sense that it is not a reoccurring BA038 incident.
Bad, because people had died.

 

[N_Molson]

It would be interesting to have the vertical velocity when the wheels hit the runway.

 

[garyw]

Well, even if it was caused by the malfunction of the ILS, that was mentioned here in the thread, it would remain pilot error, if the pilot did not correctly do a visual approach.

I'm hearing that the approach wasn't an ILS approach but a visual approach. As you say though, it'll still be pilot error due to the speeds. Someone should have been monitoring those.

It would be interesting to have the vertical velocity when the wheels hit the runway.

Quite. hopefully the FDR read out will be telling. We are already seeing this sort of thing from places like flightaware:

 

[n122vu]

This looks like the flight paths of some mistakes I've made during landings in FS and Orbiter. Full flaps deployed, coming in too high - I'd better reduce power even more for the descent, rather than push the nose down a bit. Don't want to be going too fast and overshoot. Still too high, better add a little speed brake/spoiler. Then, uh oh, I've descended too far too fast, better increase power. But the engines take a bit to spin back up - seconds I don't have this close to the ground - and the speed brake is still deployed. Only thing I can do now is pull the nose up....

Classic mistakes on my part. Forgetting the basic safety rule - always better to have too much energy on approach than not enough. Let the wheel brakes and the thrust reversers do their job.

Speculation on my part of course, but that's how it appears to me.

 

[Screamer7]

My tendency in FSX is too overshoot the runway.

 

[Urwumpe]

Possibly the higher approach angle was also caused by visual phenomena. SFO is known to be pretty foggy and even on a clear day, you have low visibility near the surface. Approaching from a steeper angle means you can see the landing aids sooner.

 

[garyw]

Which would then also be pilot error, the radio altitude announcements should have been a good cue.... I'm also wondering if the crew did a proper approach briefing.

 

[Urwumpe]

Which would then also be pilot error, the radio altitude announcements should have been a good cue.... I'm also wondering if the crew did a proper approach briefing.

Radio altitude annoucements combined with GPS position are not accurate enough for landing. When things went wrong, the RA did only tell the pilots, what they already knew: They drop too fast and are dropping too low.

 

[garyw]

Radio altitude announcements combined with GPS position are not accurate enough for landing.

Radio Altitude announcements are fine for the final stage of approach. They help to give situational awareness to the pilots, if they were inaccurate then they wouldn't be used on the flight deck because they'd be misleading.

It's FAA requirements that RA be accurate to within 10 feet.

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/24197/

 

[garyw]

Survivours photo from the crash - lots of criticism about the stopping to grab hand luggage....

 

[Fabri91]

Video of the impact: Video on the CNN Website

:blink:

It's frightening to see how, after the crash landing, the aircraft leaps into the air at least a dozen meters.

 

[N_Molson]

It's frightening to see how, after the crash landing, the aircraft leaps into the air at least a dozen meters.

It is very consistent with the flight profile that garyw posted above.

 

[Spacethingy]

Video of the impact: Video on the CNN Website

:blink:

It's frightening to see how, after the crash landing, the aircraft leaps into the air at least a dozen meters.

How the hell were there "only" two deaths from that?! Seeing it thrown up, it looks like a toy... Two deaths are tragic indeed, but that's an incredible demonstration of modern airframe strength and safety.

 

[astrosammy]

Scary how it moves backwards with the tail in the air...


NTSB is quick, looks like the recorders were in a good condition.

The Aviation Herald: Accident: Asiana B772 at San Francisco on Jul 6th 2013, touched down short of the runway, broke up and burst into flames

7 seconds prior to impact a crew member called for speed, 4 seconds prior to impact the stick shaker activated, a call to go-around happened 1.5 seconds prior to impact. [...] According to flight data recorder the throttles were at idle, the speed decayed below target of 137 knots, the thrust levers were advanced and the engines appeared to respond normally.

 

[garyw]

Good grief... the crew really did stall it on approach. Now the question is one of 'how the hell did a trained crew stall a plane on approach'.

I have a feeling that this crash is going to become a study in CRM and communication.

 

[Urwumpe]

Maybe they simply used the autopilot too often in actual flights so that the visual approach procedures had been not been that well in their reflexes.

 

[Fabri91]

It would appear that the crew were possibly unaware of the engines being at idle during the final approach, like they expected the autothrottle to be active while it wasn't.

 

[RisingFury]

Good grief... the crew really did stall it on approach. Now the question is one of 'how the hell did a trained crew stall a plane on approach'.

I have a feeling that this crash is going to become a study in CRM and communication.

A situation can turn very bad very quickly in a plane. You can't just plan 10 seconds ahead, you have to plan minutes ahead. I imagine that they didn't see it coming and didn't discover the bad situation until 10 seconds before the crash. Too late. Way too late...

I often found myself in trouble in FSX because I didn't plan far ahead enough ended up flying a very tight canyon turn at stalling speed and high bank. I had quite a few close calls with my RC planes as well, when I was saved by luck and could have caused damage to property or even severe injury. Worst one was when I nearly flew a plane into my cameraman's face on landing. The dedicated cameraman that he was, he continued recording...