Asiana flight crash at San Francisco

[Aileron Drag]

Lonewolf_50

Just curious: how many times had you seen the sight picture of a landing when not at the controls in the aircraft, versus the sim? From what you shared there, it sounds like "zero" but I may be assuming too much.

If I understand your question, then 'zero'. I completed the final 'base training' detail on the sim. The Base Training Captain told me when to flare, and by how much (hardly anything), which resulted in a minor crash! I was horrified. However, he assured me that was how to do it on the real aircraft. He was spot on, but the sim really put my confidence back.

My very first approach and landing in the actual aeroplane was my first sector (at night). The trainer I was with dropped me in to the deep end, alas.

I have long thought that the 'authorities' and the airline had a cozy relationship. I cannot understand how that simulator was certificated for zero-hour training. But it sure saved the airline a shed-load of money.

[kbrockman]

Just a brainfart but maybe more (certainly the bigger ones) airlines should rethink how to make best use of its pilot pool.
With today's level of automation and therefore the possibility to set up the cockpit of different sized aircraft from 1 supplier in a similar matter, aka cockpit commonality, it might not be a bad idea to make better use of these characteristics.

Long-haul pilots could be used to operate in the short-haul fleet on a regular base (eg 25% of their time) giving them ample opportunities to do a lot more T/O's and Landings and also operate into the smaller airports with more demanding conditions lower CAT runways, more basic navigation, etc... .

Today this commonality feature is not used to its full potential, FO's with too few hours land to quick in the RHS of a Long-haul wide-body, experienced long-haul pilots have to spend too much time in a perpetual state of jet lag, with too few extended breaks to be able to recuperate.

It's not going to solve every single issue because many companies operate a mixed fleet making it virtually impossible to hop from short-haul to long-haul but for many companies this could actually work.
I realize that for some pilots this sounds a lot like swearing in church (pay-rates and privileges) but if you think of it , it might not be a bad idea to be home more sometimes, and long haul careers could be started up more gradually for the youngest and least experienced FO's.

Not saying that this is the reason the 777 crashed, we won't really know what happened and why it happened until the final rapport comes out, I was just expanding on some of the comments in this thread.

[nitpicker330]

BOAC---- you can have VS mode without SPD mode if you disconnect the A/T.
Will the A/T wake up if the speed falls into the "red" army hashed area whilst in this state??? I don't remember it that well!!

[Lost in Saigon]

Originally Posted by md80fanatic

"The hot-shots posting here about flying with 'stick, rudder, and eyeball' can opt for the visual. Me, at the end of a 14 hour day? I'll take the ILS, please."

I, as a fare paying passenger, will take the hot-shots then. Not a pilot here but can't really understand why your 14-hour day, (10 days a month perhaps?) filled with exciting AP monitoring and if-you're-lucky 10 minutes of actual flying time, can leave you a ragged wreck unable to safely perform the most basic of flight maneuvers in a modern FBW flight deck?

Believe it or not, operating as a crew member on a long flight is VERY fatiguing. At the end of a long flight you are not as alert as you are on a short flight.

Opting for an easier to fly ILS instead of a visual approach is simply the prudent thing to do.

[BOAC]

Originally Posted by wasthatit

Wondering why you said "although it did not affect this flight"?

- based on the 180 to 5 being just about do-able if you allow a 500' g/a decision and decide to 're-assess' at 1000' but you are right - I now recall seeing them well over the +3-400' at 5 on one graph here, so this was destined to be a throttles closed approach all the way down. Even more reason really for the TC to call the g/a early?

[weatherdude]

DLH policy

Friend driving DLH long haul saying it's mandatory with them to do approaches manual thrust/manual throttle.

[3rd Floor]

3rd Floor
Is that how you fly an ILS?

If you maintain constant airspeed, your power will be what varies your glide path.
Granted, each time you adjust power you'll tend to adjust pitch to stay on speed.
Correction, counter correction.
It was my impression that the aim is to fly the final stretch of an approach at a chosen approach speed. (in the case under consideration, 137 kts).
If you mess about with using your pitch to find the aim point, you'll change your speed, won't you?

So I have to ask: do you fly with one hand or two?

Why my approach to this "scares you" mystifies me. The principles in question have been successfully putting high performance jets on carrier decks for about sixty years. They work.

They also work very well for flying an ILS or a GCA to touchdown in crap weather.

I do understand that you can lead with your nose and catch up with power. So long as one works power and attitude together, one should get to where one is aiming to land. See Squawk7700's post for a better way of putting that.

What scares me is what's being taught. I was referring to visual approaches in my original post.

You state... "If you mess about with using your pitch to find the aim point, you'll change your speed, won't you?"

Of course, however if you keep your aim point constant in the windscreen and have the correct power setting everything will be stable. What's more important? Landing on your aim point or undershooting/overshooting while maintaining the correct speed?

Of course I fly an approach with one hand on the yoke (Boeing) and the other hand on the thrust levers.

Your final statement is correct. Both work together but the basics are...
Attitude for aim point
Power for speed

Happy landings

[nitpicker330]

Wasthatit---- the NTSB reported they indeed were asked by SFO ATC to maintain 180 to 5 miles.....

[falcon900]

Please do try and keep "up to speed"

Turning off the navigation aids created the possibilty for the failure which seems to have occurred here, and surely cannot be justified other than on cost grounds.
The 28L Localiser was radiating normally, the 28L Glideslope was OFF as the landing threshold is in the process of being moved to the west. PAPIs for the new threshold were working normally and providing the glideslope guidance in severe VMC.

I am sorry Zimmerfly that you feel I am not up to speed. Glideslope seems to be pretty central to the train of events here, with the requirement to fly it manually appearing to have been beyond the crew for some reason.
Let me repeat my question: Do you believe this accident would have happenned had the navigation aids been functioning normally?

[Lonewolf_50]

md80fanatic:

part of the problem of long haul flying is the disruption of the circadian rhythm.

It's an issue well known, understood and documented in the aviation community, and in the aviation safety arena.

[funfly]

737QPR, would agree an excellent post. I am a GA pilot but do understand what goes on and still have a healthy interest in heavy aviation.

I would like to put a question to you, I appreciate your comments about not wishing to 'practice' after a long flight not only because of the fatigue aspect but because the result using autosystems will be safer and more comfortable for the passengers.

However, seeing the flight profile in this particular case, as a passenger should I not assume that whoever is in control of the aircraft could cope with a situation when the flight envelope is wrong, either by correction or by aborting the procedure? This seems to me not to be the case of dealing with a dramatic emergency but of being unable to fly a very straightforward landing scenario.

This may not be the stuff when you are in the simm and the controller throws all sorts of things at you, this is a simple 'normal' landing and I would expect any professional pilot flying the aircraft I am in to be able to carry this out - am I wrong?

If the pilot was 'under instruction' and was an ignoramus like me, then the instructor surely would have hit him over the head with a spanner way before the aircraft got to this level of trouble.

[CDRW]

You know md80... really does have a point - and what he failed to mention is that on a 14hr flight, with a departure at midnight, 6 plus hours is spent lying on ones back or at worse sitting in a pax seat resting.

[BOAC]

nitpicker- as I said memories fade (and it was 737) but I'm pretty sure that with A/T 'connected' but 'armed' (SPD deselected), yes it would.

Out of interest, looking at the plots in #1418, the 4 and 6 of July well missed the 1000' 'stable' gate, and the only ones who seem to have hit it were at 1900 over the bridge and below 180.

[737OPR]

MD80fanatic,

Sorry if you can't understand the feeling! Can't blame you if you haven't been there!

It's not about the off time! It's not about how little we fly! It's simply about human psychology! Whether you fly 10 or 5 or 3 times a month, it doesn't matter! Any human being, flying throgh the night, where your clock say you should be sleeping will be fatiqued!!

But thanks for your contribution!!

[Aileron Drag]

md80fanatic

I, as a fare paying passenger, will take the hot-shots then. Not a pilot here but can't really understand why your 14-hour day, (10 days a month perhaps?) filled with exciting AP monitoring and if-you're-lucky 10 minutes of actual flying time, can leave you a ragged wreck unable to safely perform the most basic of flight maneuvers in a modern FBW flight deck?

You are showing your ignorance, and should not comment on matters you know nothing about.

We all like to think we are 'hot-shots', and as a Training Captain I prided myself on my hand-flying ability. Every chance I got, whilst on shorthaul, I hand-flew. We all did. We were rested, and had been in bed at the right time - when it's dark.

When I moved to long-haul, the training philosophy was very different, because Chuck Yeager himself would make mistakes if he's been up for twenty hours.

You are one of those people who think we sit, bored, watching the autopilot fly us to our destination. You have no idea what goes on, on the flight-deck. There are a hundred and one things to do, monitor, and think about. Not forgetting the comfort of you lot - down the back.

And that approach was not "the most basic of maneuvers", even for a rested pilot. Any visual approach requires great concentration and judgement, and is arguably the most difficult of all approaches.

As for the ten days per month - God's teeth, I wish I'd worked for that airline. I only ever recovered from jet-lag in week two of my annual leave.

Dream on, buddy, and keep thinking the pilots are wide awake and nothing can go wrong go wronggowronggo.............

[Lord Spandex Masher]

BOAC, you're right regarding the AT. 'Speed Off' is preferred to 'AT Off' at my lot for the very reason you state. 737CL btw.

[givemewings]

CDRW

You know md80... really does have a point - and what he failed to mention is that on a 14hr flight, with a departure at midnight, 6 plus hours is spent lying on ones back or at worse sitting in a pax seat resting.

You must be one of those lucky few who can fall asleep on command and sleep well. Not all are so lucky and it can often occur that you fail to sleep well before the flight, and then get disturbed in the crew rest and get maybe 3 hours of actual, REM sleep (the only restorative sleep) "catnapping" while helpful does not always alleviate the tiredness one feels on ULR ops...

Do you really fly long haul??

[md80fanatic]

To Aileron Drag: I'm a customer bud, and not a dumb one either.

Those landing aids are there not to make your job easier, but to facilitate operations in adverse conditions. You seem like you are admitting to a certain dependence on them and that is worrying to say the least. All of us have jobs to do, and all of us get tired, but we are expected to perform at a bare minimum level regardless. If not we should seek other employment.

Sorry if I appear to be stepping on toes here. My lifelong love has been aviation and I desperately tried to make your job mine, but my stomach couldn't handle being tossed about in a C172, so I elected to stay grounded, yet learn as much as I could about it from down here.

[ThePassenger]

"The hot-shots posting here about flying with 'stick, rudder, and eyeball' can opt for the visual. Me, at the end of a 14 hour day? I'll take the ILS, please."

I, as a fare paying passenger, will take the hot-shots then. Not a pilot here but can't really understand why your 14-hour day, (10 days a month perhaps?) filled with exciting AP monitoring and if-you're-lucky 10 minutes of actual flying time, can leave you a ragged wreck unable to safely perform the most basic of flight maneuvers in a modern FBW flight deck?

Now I'm not here to pick a fight, but honestly, that's a pretty ignorant approach imho.

I'm not a busy long haul traveller, I do only about 4-6 crossing the atlantic each year, still after each time getting back to Europe, I'm dead for at least 4 days, completely smashed. So I can't even imagine how the guys riding me back and forth are having it with a body clock on constant move....

Even if we of course should expect the driver to be able to maneuver the vehicle manually, ILS and other aids can't be a bad thing when needed!

I feel for all those on 214 at SFO, and I sincerely hope that whatever problem caused this crash-landing, lessons will be learned and precautions taken for future safer journeys for all of us sitting there in the back trying to get our body clocks tick straight enough to be able to work efficiently when we get to destination and back...

[737OPR]

Funfly,

Thanks for your remarks!

To answer your question: 99% of the time, things are standard! When things are standard, people tend to relax! People are very good ( according to research ) in doing, however, not so good in monitoring.

So, back to your question, yes, if something obvious happened at the end of a 8 to12hr flight, adrenaline would kick in and people would perform better.

If an engine failure would have occurred on mentioned flight, more than likely, All pilots would have been in an increased state of alertness, and the accident would not have occurred.

I can't speak of every one but my personal experience is that flying east from AMS I start my day between 4 and 8 pm. I have two little kids so usually I'm up at around 7 am. I bring the kids to school, doing some house chores, try to get a little sleep before I go to the airport. Start flying through the night and arrive at destination at about 7 to 12 AMS time. Most flight are with 3 pilots so we divide the flying time to get some sleep. Some times I sleep. Sometimes you are wide awake. In other words, you've flown through the night with max 3 hrs sleep. Having to perform a demanding task early in the morning!!

Once again, in my personal experience,going west is a little easier, since we start early in the morning and arrive late afternoon( body time), flying back you go through the night but at least you go to familiar Airport.

Hope this helps