UPS cargo crash near Birmingham AL

[WillowRun 6-3]

Asiana does not equal UPS

I cannot find the right word to express the combination of 'intrigued by' and "troubled by'. I am X word by the notion that the Network here has viewed the SFO 777 crash through a prism of racism, even in part, whilst trying to understand what MIGHT have happened to the UPS A300 in purely technical terms (and plenty of technical terms, and factors, there are).

I wonder whether readers and posters would find it helpful to think about whether there are simply two different kinds of human factors analytic mindsets involved in the two different mishaps. In SFO, the crash seems to have been an act of obliviousness to really obvious flying conditions. Coupled with the fact that hand-flying is an alien art form to the 'children of the magenta line'. Or something like that.

While on the other hand, what happened in Alabama seems more caught up in the very fine points of fairly detailed information on an approach plate; discrepancies between the FAA and the Jepp; speculation about mirages (thankfully no Mysteres) and also about black hole sighting, and many other really interesting - but hard to comprehend let alone intergrate into a non-PIC -- like regulatory -- framework - RNAV VGSI PAPI MDA MAP MAPt you get the idea. Please, I am not trying to add to the talk-amongst-the-aviators - just trying to collect terms and simplify to some reasonable first-order approximation.

May it be said with a fair degree of accuracy and assurance of not being walked-down-plank (wing) that there is a differential yielded by:
(ONE) the fact that the Korean air carrier has some history, at least to some extent, of over reliance on authoritarian hierarchy on flight decks and when coupled with Airbus glass cockpit over-automation (if that's what it is) this is highly susceptible to CFIT runway-threshold style, and

(TWO) flying at night just changes everything, particularly when there are lighting, approach details, and terrain issues? Don't you sometimes notice the depth perception of your vision making a fine adjustment when you get into your motor vehicle at night after being in a lighted establishment for a while? And a sense of having been disoriented for a short moment but only after some light has hit the retina that reestablishes where you're at? I get that the cognoscenti here may well say but of course this is true, Mr. Obvious. But if it is obvious, then it explains (ed.: does it not??) why looking at UPS is like writing a mystery novel. SFO runway debris - Res Ipsa Loquitor (Latin-law for, The Thing Speaks for Itself, named for a legal doctrine which apocryphally arose when a barrel rolled out a warehouse second-floor window).