Asiana Airways plane crashes while landing at SFO

[Diego in Seattle]

Don't forget the Colgan Air crash in '09.

[Left Seater]

So one of the pilots called for more speed 7 seconds prior to impact. First problem with that is he should have said power instead of speed. You can drop the nose to increase speed.

Stick shaker activates 6 seconds prior to impact, ie it was about to stall.

1.5 seconds prior to impact they call for a go around.

Way to little way to late.


Freaking huge props to Boeing for the construction on that bird. looking at the video that plane took a huge amount of punishment and only 2 dead out of 307.

[Atomic Punk]

I'm guessing they were too far behind the aircraft and chopped the throttles so they didn't have to waive off.

And here is why idiots like you thankfully are NOT in the left seat today. Would you care to expound on your idea that they got behind it and just said "fuck it" and chopped it off and hoped for the best ??

Versus fire walling it (albeit too late probably) and going around....

Do you remember anything from your flight training...like worry about where you are and what you are doing 15 seconds from now ?

Ummm, no. You are a very stupid person. What I said was right. You have no idea what I mentioned because you are fucking moron. You should read my signature and then throw anything that allows you internet access in the Clackinyourass River.

[Dr_Phibes]

He hit paydirt. Of all the thousands of people who stand around filming planes landing and trains coming into stations, something actually happened while he was doing it.

[Atomic Punk]

This thread can quickly turn into a "gook" and lesbian fire chief had a fall out thing if you want Dr. Phibes. The applause meter would be pegged out to green if they crashed into M2 and LTS sharing their anal wind chimes while backing into each other. Who here hasn't thought of that sick thought?

[Left Seater]

So one of the girls killed in the crash may have been run over by the first responders on their way to the plane.

Local news is reporting that one of the pilots only had 43 hours on the type. Also that it was the first landing at SFO for both of the crew on duty at the time of the crash. If true this is a huge development and Asiana will be paying out huge piles of cash in the years to come.

[Cueball]

Not something you see everyday, airline executives bow and apologize for the crash.

They are looking for the black box

[smackaholic]

Lefty, is SFO a tricky approach? Seems like every time I have landed there I came in over the bay from the south. I would expect that is pretty easy. If you come in from the west or north, there are a few decent hills, but, I think they are far enough away that it shouldn't be bad.

I agree that having both drivers being new to SFO is probably not that smart, especially when one is brand new to the aircraft.

[Atomic Punk]

It's a very long straight in approach to 28L and 28R at SFO. There is no excuse for them not to be prepared coming off an international flight. You're sequenced as far south as Santa Cruz. It was the same for us P-3 guys going to NAS Moffett after chasing submarines with screen doors only we were at a much lower altitude due to it being in the South Bay in Mountain View. For whatever reason, these guys were not prepared and tried to get away with what they did.

[Left Seater]

Smacky,

I guess it depends. Most landings at SFO are to the North or to the west. This allows the traffic to be over the bay for the majority of the approach. I have never landed to the east or south in the few times I have been up front, nor the many times as a passenger. What makes SFO tricky is the runways are close together, intersecting runways, other major airports in the area, high terrain, winds, frequent fog, and pilots with poor English skills. That isn't to say it is extremely difficult though either.

It certainly doesn't make the top 10 for difficult approaches in the US. But it is far more difficult than Houston for example.

[Cuda]

So one of the pilots called for more speed 7 seconds prior to impact. First problem with that is he should have said power instead of speed. You can drop the nose to increase speed.

Stick shaker activates 6 seconds prior to impact, ie it was about to stall.

1.5 seconds prior to impact they call for a go around.

Way to little way to late.


Freaking huge props to Boeing for the construction on that bird. looking at the video that plane took a huge amount of punishment and only 2 dead out of 307.

PF obviously wasn't F-ing very fucking well. PM obviously wasn't fucking M-ing at all.

[M2]

So one of the girls killed in the crash may have been run over by the first responders on their way to the plane.

Sad.

It is almost worse when you realize that virtually everyone except your kid survived. Chinese parents are amazingly devoted and pour their lives into their children. They see their child's future and theirs as one. I can not imagine their grief.


Has anyone else here read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers ? In it there is a segment about why the other major Korean airline, Korean Air, kept having plane crashes.

Here's a NYT article discussing Gladwell's views on how culture can contribute to pilot error: http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2008/12 ... e-crashes/

[Jay in Phoenix]

"Well Jay, I guess you can say they were off glide"slope."

[Derron]

Wonder he has any gear left after that smash on. Not a lot of time to float it down though that is for sure.

[Left Seater]

M2, we had the same issues here just a few decades earlier. Plenty of guys that learned to fly in WWII then went on to fly for the airlines, were exactly the same way. Plenty of stories about silver haired guys sitting in the left seat threatening the younger guy in the right seat with a poor review if he so much as touched anything. The left seat flew, handled radios, navigated, etc. The right seat got paid to ride along.

That might have been ok when approach speeds were in double digits and ATC wasn't giving a constant stream of instructions. Not so much today. The Koreans and other Asian nations were just slower to embrace CRM.

If I were flying into that place in Nepal, I would want them to slam it on as well. Get cute there and you die as going around means death in a fire ball with that mountain.

SFO might be a little uncomfortable for a pax looking out the window, but plenty of airports are built the same way. Hell, San Diego is more of a challenge with that damn parking garage just off the end.

[trev]

Does it make you a little nervous shutyomouth?

[Atomic Punk]

They displaced the threshold after that parking garage was built. A buddy that flies for American Airlines said it's rumored the owners are mafioso. I've seen one of those big ass Russian An-124 cargo aircraft land there and later takeoff the next day. That approach is also famous for the PSA aircraft that had a mid-air with a civilian plane. The FAA created the former TCA airspace after that accident.

[Diego in Seattle]

So one of the girls killed in the crash may have been run over by the first responders on their way to the plane.

I guess the Border Patrol is now working SFO...

SAN has always been a tougher landing for me than SFO (although pax would need to already have knowledge of the Cortez Travel building to know the danger). The joke in SD goes that the only reason there hasn't been a crash at that building is that it's where all the pilots park their vehicles.

SFO's winds can definitely make landings there tricky (anyone who watched a Giants game at Candlestick would know that).

[Cuda]

Don't forget the Colgan Air crash in '09.

aside from the size of the aircraft, the only meaningful difference was the altitude. The Colgan plane brought their power to idle to descend, and then forgot to add power when they leveled off to start the approach. Airspeed decayed and the wing stalled and they were unable to recover. The 777 crew didn't see what was happening until way too late, but the same level of inattention was there as it was in the Colgan crash. Also the same level of not knowing what the fuck they were talking about on the part of the news media too

[Left Seater]

SXM is on my list of places to go and soon. Smacky will enjoy that trip as well since he will get to see a few shots of the Mrs at the beach. There is a bar right on the beach damn close to where that video was shot and they write the arrival times of the big jets for the current and following day on a surfboard.

I will not be "riding the fence" though as one of those big guys takes off.

[Left Seater]

Sure, sit up front long enough and you get your share of them.

One airport that always has my attention long before arrival or departing is Vail Eagle. High in the mountains, plenty of nasty "rocks" around there. Frequent winds and low visability combined with the degraded performance has my "game face" on early. Another is ANC. As you turn final to land from west to east you often have float plane traffic just off your left wing on their final to their lake. Plus the tower handles both the airport and the lake so you get plenty of garbled radio traffic and requests for repeats. Throw in the military traffic just north of ANC and it can get busy quick.

ORD in Chicago sucks balls as well as does the NYC area airports. Tons of traffic, plenty of English as second languages, intersecting runways, and sequencing that starts way early in the approach. I like to save myself a few "tricks" in case the right seat and I need to correct something we did. For example deploying the rubber speed brakes (landing gear) if we are a little high or fast, but often in these airports we are given commands to slow to something damn close to stall speed and they force us to use those tricks.

I am also not a fan of "cleared to land on XX and hold short of XX.". This happens sometimes in ORD and LGA where you are cleared to land but are not allowed to cross the intersecting runway because of another arrival or departure.

One landing really stands out. One was into my old home airport of Sugar Land. About 200 feet from the numbers the right seat calls for a go around. He saw something on the runway, he thought. Thankfully he didn't hesitate. Something caught his eye however small or out of place and his call was immediate and emphatic. I pushed up the power and away we went. Then I spoke to the tower and told them the reason we went around and had them send an ops vehicle to investigate. Turns out there was a 9-10 foot gator sunning himself on the runway. He was lying on the skid marks so he kinda blended in.

Plenty of other weird things have happened like being in the air on 9/11 and being ordered to land at the nearest suitable field.

[smackaholic]

Sure, sit up front long enough and you get your share of them.

One airport that always has my attention long before arrival or departing is Vail Eagle. High in the mountains, plenty of nasty "rocks" around there. Frequent winds and low visability combined with the degraded performance has my "game face" on early. Another is ANC. As you turn final to land from west to east you often have float plane traffic just off your left wing on their final to their lake. Plus the tower handles both the airport and the lake so you get plenty of garbled radio traffic and requests for repeats. Throw in the military traffic just north of ANC and it can get busy quick.

ORD in Chicago sucks balls as well as does the NYC area airports. Tons of traffic, plenty of English as second languages, intersecting runways, and sequencing that starts way early in the approach. I like to save myself a few "tricks" in case the right seat and I need to correct something we did. For example deploying the rubber speed brakes (landing gear) if we are a little high or fast, but often in these airports we are given commands to slow to something damn close to stall speed and they force us to use those tricks.

I am also not a fan of "cleared to land on XX and hold short of XX.". This happens sometimes in ORD and LGA where you are cleared to land but are not allowed to cross the intersecting runway because of another arrival or departure.

One landing really stands out. One was into my old home airport of Sugar Land. About 200 feet from the numbers the right seat calls for a go around. He saw something on the runway, he thought. Thankfully he didn't hesitate. Something caught his eye however small or out of place and his call was immediate and emphatic. I pushed up the power and away we went. Then I spoke to the tower and told them the reason we went around and had them send an ops vehicle to investigate. Turns out there was a 9-10 foot gator sunning himself on the runway. He was lying on the skid marks so he kinda blended in.

Plenty of other weird things have happened like being in the air on 9/11 and being ordered to land at the nearest suitable field.

Yeah, nearest suitable airport is kind of a judgement thing. What were you flying and where did you put it down? How much of a line was there to land. That must have been one seriously long day for ATCers.

[Carson]

One landing really stands out. One was into my old home airport of Sugar Land. About 200 feet from the numbers the right seat calls for a go around. He saw something on the runway, he thought. Thankfully he didn't hesitate. Something caught his eye however small or out of place and his call was immediate and emphatic. I pushed up the power and away we went. Then I spoke to the tower and told them the reason we went around and had them send an ops vehicle to investigate. Turns out there was a 9-10 foot gator sunning himself on the runway. He was lying on the skid marks so he kinda blended in.

I hope you bought your right seater a beer or forty for that one.

[Left Seater]

I was in a Gulfstream 500. We had a multi leg trip and were north of Phoenix headed east for Houston. When the directive came in our first thought was Phoenix. I had the waitress bring the lead client up and told him we had to go to PHX. He wanted to see if we could make El Paso. So after listening to traffic we kept heading east because PHX was covered up with Southwest and America West trying to get to Phoenix. Both airlines had huge operations there so we didn't want to get in that mix. We also ruled out Denver for the same reason (United).

We requested to head towards El Paso and it was initially approved. However, as we crossed into NM we were told we had to be on the ground in 20 mins. That left us with two real options. Santa Fe and Albuquerque. So we spent 14 days holed up in an airport hotel. Spent every morning hanging out at the FBO and then afternoons in the hotel bar.

Line to land was not that long when we went in as we were one of the last 5% or so of flights still in the air. I gues it was pretty tough on ATC, but they had no departures to worry about and therefore every runway was available for landings. I think it was harder on airport ops and terminal managers.

I have purchased plenty of drinks for the guys in the right seat over the years.

[M2]

I have purchased plenty of drinks for the guys in the right seat over the years.

"Pass the Dutchie" from the left hand side...

[Derron]

I was watching a show about airports (can't remember if it was Discovery or TWC), but it brought up Vail pretty quickly. I can only imagine that one would really suck in bad visibility.

I remembered your "gator" thread. I seriously doubt there are too many pilots that have had to abort due to a gator!

If you have MS Flight Sim, you can set up a canned approach into Vail, or set your own up. Fly the canned one a few times and see how well you do. It can get pretty interesting, especially if you let it set up the current winds and all for you. Select a suitable aircraft, like a heavier turbo or a jet. The small stuff just gets bounced around and has a tendency to climb REAL fucking slow out of there.

Never aborted for a gator, but we had some turkeys cross the runway ahead of us in a friends Maule going into a back country strip on the Rogue river in Southern Oregon a couple years ago. We were already committed, one way in and out, so going around was not an option. He put it down pretty hard and they flushed off. Been kind of messy hitting them.

[Derron]

Pretty much what we all thought.

http://www.nycaviation.com/2013/07/asia ... d2-5m2v-W9

More info...no drug or alcohol testing for zip pilots crashing in the US ?

http://www.nycaviation.com/2013/07/brea ... d3i722v-W9

[Cuda]

pilot now claims he saw a "brinding frash of right" in his eyes at 500ft even though there was no mention of it on the CVR. I guess the right-seater didn't see it either while he was fucking around with the autopilot & auto-throttles.

[Left Seater]

And a bright flash of light is something unique to him? Every pilot sees bright flashes of light a few times a week. The sun has this habit of reflecting off of shinny objects.

One of the first things every pilot learns is not to let a minor thing become a major thing and to never stop flying the plane.

[Cuda]

maybe this is the real explanation

[Derron]

Final daily briefing by NTSB.

http://www.nycaviation.com/2013/07/brea ... d9FPm2v-W8