Facts based on the report
Hello gentlemen, I accidentally started reading this thread lately. I'm posting this for those who have not read the report yet. These are just a bunch of organized facts that I put together from the report which may or maynot be of significance.
- Take-off, climb and cruise were normal. No briefing was heard in the CVR apart from the normal run through checklists, etc.
- The a/c etablished contact with the local ATC at reporting point IGAMA. At about 130 miles from the destination, the f/o contacted ATC requesting descent clearance from FL370, but was initially denied to ensure separation b/w other a/c (higher workload on ATC b/c of radar unfunctionality).
- The f/o reported position once they were on 80 DME, radial 287 MML, and the controller cleared the a/c to descend to 7000'. The descent was promptly initiated at 77 DME. Speedbrakes were deployed while descending through (approx.) FL290. When the f/o reported 25 DME MML, and the approach controller cleared the a/c to 2900', handling them over to the tower.
- At FL184, f/o requested to proceed directly to radial 338 MML, though there wasn't any established procedure to join the same, approaching MML from IGAMA on a radial 287, and the ATC agreed.
- They were later advised to join the VOR 10 DME arc for ILS rwy 24. A few seconds after setting QNH while passing 9500', the PF commands gear down.
- The a/c crossed the locliser, and recaptured it with a 'S' turn, possibly due to a higher speed, staying at flap 1. (SOP's state that localiser capture should be done at flaps 5 and appropriate speed).
- The a/c was fully established on the localiser and passed 5150' with an ROD of 1641 fpm.
- Attempting to capture the glideslope at 9.7 DME, the captain requested flap 10, but they were well above the speed limit for 10. They went for flap 15 at 4630' at 6.7 DME.
- At 3465' 4.3 ILS DME, they selected flap 25 at 167kts, retracting the speedbrakes to 'armed'.
-F/o: "It's too high" at 2.2 DME 2570' and 143 kt and ROD 1438 fpm and in a couple of seconds, the GPWS sounded: "TWENTY FIVE HUNDRED"
- At 2.0 DME 142 kt 2365', ROD was 1671 fpm when the f/o said "runway straight down".
- At 2300', the captain disengaged the a/p and took over controls, chasing the glideslope. In a few seconds, EGPWS aural "sink rate" warnings sound repeatedly.
- The captain had once again fully deployed the speedbrakes (at flaps 40 configuration) and at 1420' 1.0 ILS DME, the a/c was approaching rwy 24 at 155 kts with a ROD 3208 fpm, the pitch attitude being 9 degrees below the horizon. Repeated iterations of "sink rate" "pull up".
- At 550', 0.2 ILS DME, at a speed of 165 kts and ROD 2535 fpm, the speedbrakes were retracted.
- They passed the rwy threshold at 200' and 164 kt(the normal Vref being 144 kt for this configuration). The Flap Load Relief ran the flaps to 30, and then back to 40 when the speed decayed below 158 kt; this extension during the flare, led to a prolonged float on the runway delaying the touchdown.
- The right wheel touched and bounced at 4500', then finally touching down at about 5200' from the beginning of rwy 24 which has a length of 8033' paved surface.
- The autobrake was set 2 and the captain had opened the reversers. Not happy with the gradual braking, the captain applied manual braking, after which the aircraft started decelerating much faster. The reversers remained fully deployed upto about 10 seconds, and N1 on both engines 75.8%.
- After that, the captain stowed the reversers and advanced the thrust levers to take-off position. The engines chased the TL position and raced to take off power, but at this point, only about 800' of the rwy length was remaining. The configuration horn goes off, upto the end of the CVR recording.
- At the end of the paved surface of rwy 24, there is a downward slope which they call a sand arrerstor bed that lies b/w the rwy 06 threshold and the rwy 06 localiser antennae. To balance the height of the antennae to that of the rwy, they are mounted on a concrete structure. Spotting this, the crew tried to maneuver the a/c away from the structure by veering off a bit to the left of the centerine, but the right starboard wing impacted the structure and a part of the wing along with engine no.2 was ripped off the a/c.
- EGPWS sounded repeatedly "sink rate" "pull up".
- The last aural warning was "bank angle".
Conclusion was that had the maximum manual braking pressure inputs commanded along with the reversers fully deployed, the a/c could have been brought to a full stop on the paved surface.