Another Korean Airlines Classic

[Keylime]

On August 28,2012 a Korean Airlines A330 enroute from Brisbane to Incheon makes a 2.3G landing?? in ICN. Winds were appproximately 60 degrees off the runway @ 27 gusting to 37 knots. Yes, a challenging approach, but within the operational limits of the aircraft(obviously not within the capabilities of the Korean Line Instructor Pilot who made the so-called landing). At the time ICN was receiving the effects of a typhoon in the region. Damage to the aircraft has been reported to be $4 million dollars. Unless Korean CASA has a different method of determining an accident, any damage over $1 million is considered to be an accident. However, not this one. It seems that the Korean Airlines powers that be have determined the aircraft encountered "a microburst" on landing. The Korean Captain is still an LIP and another incident/accident has been swept under the rug.

Some of the details that have not surfaced: The foreign relief captain who observed the Korean Captain's discomfort with the weather conditions(anyone who has ever flown in Korea knows that the Koreans almost sh@t themselves when confronted with a 10-15 knot crosswind let alone a 20-30 knot crosswind component) offered to make the landing for the Captain. Of course, the Korean declined in order to save face(save face but don't save your life or the life of the passengers). During the ensuing investigation by the Safety?? department at Korean Airlines(by the way the company's slogan is "Safety is the Way") the foreign captain was never interviewed. The foreign captain was on the jumpseat and observed the debacle. The only microburst was in the Korean captain's pants. But then, you know how those foreign devils lie and besides that they nothing about aviation.

And yet, foreigners continue to line up in droves to fly here. YGBSM!

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THEY FLY IN THE SAME AIRSPACE!!

[Keylime]

Any record of any such mishap?? Press story??

Not at this time....I will guarantee you there is plenty of paperwork internally in Korean Airlines.

[Hotel Tango]

Korean Airlines has been on my NO FLY list for a long time. There's no room for a "save face" culture in aviation.

[Durban]

I'd be very surprised if this was happening only at Korean, or in the "save face" culture airlines. It could be fairly claimed that some western airlines might be inclined to cover up such incidents too.

[Keylime]

It could be fairly claimed that some western airlines might be inclined to cover up such incidents too.

Sure there are other airlines that have covered up incidents/accidents. These guys have a long history. And, it gets longer every month. The problem with this airline is it is systemic. From the top down. This will continue until they plant another airplane in the ground. They won't fix it themselves even though they know they have a problem. It is cultural. Recent ATC violations in San Francisco and Australia. A continuing problem. In the past they have blamed it on the ATC controllers. Have listened to the tapes, standard ATC terminology used by controllers. Always the other person's fault. Blame. Blame. Blame. I am surprised they didn't figure out how to blame the foreign captain who was sitting on the jumpseat and observed the entire incident. About one year ago a foreign 747 captain was on break when the two Korean first officers went to sleep on the flight deck and lost contact with ATC. They gave the captain a letter of reprimand. Do you get the picture Durban???

[DaveReidUK]

All KAL's A330 were reportedly flying in September, so if they did $4m worth of damage to one at the end of August, they carried out the repairs very promptly.

[Zoyberg]

This Eastern save face approach is going to be one of the biggest threats to aviation as traffic in this area expands at an unprecedented rate. Its a cultural issue rather than a Korean Airlines issue. No easy answers.

[hetfield]

This Eastern save face Eastern...?

What about Spain, Italy, South America etc.?

Check this...

http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/500684-landing-ts.html

[haejangkuk]

Some of the details that have not surfaced: The foreign relief captain who observed the Korean Captain's discomfort with the weather conditions(anyone who has ever flown in Korea knows that the Koreans almost sh@t themselves when confronted with a 10-15 knot crosswind let alone a 20-30 knot crosswind component) offered to make the landing for the Captain. Of course, the Korean declined in order to save face(save face but don't save your life or the life of the passengers

Wow, why didn't he relieve the Korean Captain of his command? This foreign relief captain's nose has grown so much longer that I guess he has to stuff it in where the sun doesn't shine. We all have heard of " foreign captain " fairy tales at bars and crew lounges. Come on, the world has changed...you cannot flick up a lighter amongst natives and spin your yarns of codswallops no more. The things people to get their 15 minutes of fame! Remember what the Indian chief meant by w**** gi****o speaks with forked tongue!!!

[Gangnamstyle]

I seriously doubt this kind of self serving, self aggrandizing yarn by the foreign relief captain. There are consequences.

[cargojet]

On August 28,2012 a Korean Airlines A330 enroute from Brisbane to Incheon makes a 2.3G landing?

Blame. Blame. Blame. I am surprised they didn't figure out how to blame the foreign captain who was sitting on the jumpseat and observed the entire incident. About one year ago a foreign 747 captain was on break when the two Korean first officers went to sleep on the flight deck and lost contact with ATC. They gave the captain a letter of reprimand. Do you get the picture Durban???


keylime:

How do you know so much about Korean Ailines ?

I am an expat flying for Korean Airlines and yes, I have reserched to find
out who was on Airbus 330 on Aug 28, 2012

And you know what ?
There was no expat flew to Incheon on that day ?

Keylime,

Please don't write a novel because you make me and other expats of
Korean Airlines look bad. We are trying to get along with Korean pilots
but your nonsense article make us difficult.

I don't mind if anyone post the fact so we can learn from it but false info
like keylime's post should not be allowed.

Thanks.

[Wizofoz]

A 2.3 G landing causing $4M worth of damage?

That's a fair old whack, but not one that should require anything more than an inspection- on the 777 the telemetry doesn't even record it as a hard landing unless it exceeds 2 G.

[Luke SkyToddler]

Wiz it's not just the total G pulled it's how fast the G came on ... they plot G vs time in 0.1 second increments and there's a huge chart they have to refer to to calculate the severity from that.

QR pulled a mid-2's landing on an A330 in Jeddah about 3 years ago and I heard the repair bill was more like $20 million ... two main landing gears, some wing spar and fuselage work as well

[stilton]

It does seem that the Airbus is more fragile than Boeing in general.

[Clandestino]

...and we call this thing here Professional Pilots Rumour Network.

[Durban]

I fully get your frustration. I'm just saying that everything you've posted about Korean (whose reputation is well-deserved) can easily be posted about many western styled airlines. I know this first hand too.

[Wizofoz]

Thanks for the info Luke.

[Cool Guys]

I have worked in Eastern countries for a number of years and I really have not witnessed face saving any more than in the West. The thing that I suggest is more likely to cause an airline or country to experience more incidents/accidents is corruption ie there is a willingness to compromise safety for financial gain. Look at the “Corruption Index” in Wikipedia and do a quick analysis. How do the “more corrupt countries” and the accident rate compare?

[Agaricus bisporus]

Luke, I've never heard of the rate of change of G having any significance - G itself is a rate of change (acceleration) and that is what affects the structure. I may not be up to speed on the physics of this but I cant see how the rate of change of a rate of change signifies anything in terms of physical effects on the system.
Totalising G over time is used to calculate fatigue life, sure, and that may be the case here but that's a simple matter of integrating the signal from the G meter...and is surely only useful as a long-term measure of things like spar life, not short sharp shocks?

Can you - or anyone else - explain whether this is the case? And also what that graph is for?

[repulo]

So you are blaming the poor chap for slaming the A/C into the ground with 2.3G? I have done a landing myself with an innocent 738 with 2,15 G on a ****ty day into Southend, but probably I am the only lousy pilot on God´s great planet. Shame on me.

Don´t be too hard on the guy, better think about your own screw ups!

Repulo

PS: I do however agree with the fact that this should not be covered up. Everybody can learn a lesson from the story.

[Keylime]

How do you know so much about Korean Ailines ?

I am an expat flying for Korean Airlines and yes, I have reserched to find
out who was on Airbus 330 on Aug 28, 2012

And you know what ?
There was no expat flew to Incheon on that day ?

Keylime,

Please don't write a novel because you make me and other expats of
Korean Airlines look bad. We are trying to get along with Korean pilots
but your nonsense article make us difficult.

I don't mind if anyone post the fact so we can learn from it but false info
like keylime's post should not be allowed.


First of all, I was not about to put the correct date of the flight, for obvious reasons. If you would like to make a wager as to whether the incident is valid, let me know. My wallet is safe. And, as for the comment about getting along with the Korean pilots; if you had been the pilot who made that landing, I can guarantee your skin would be hanging out to dry. If you think they like you, you are more naive than one can imagine. They tolerate you, they don't like you. YOU are a necessary evil. And, by the way, grovelling is not getting along.

[Durban]

Is there a chance you could get a job elsewhere? Like you, I was very angry with the corporate culture of my previous airline, so I left. Believe me, it's important that you fly for an outfit that you can, at least, tolerate.

[cargojet]

You wrote : First of all, I was not about to put the correct date of the flight, for obvious reasons


Now this sentence makes you a lier all the way.

If you were worry about the expat relief captain on board, you should't have mentioned the date in the first place.

BUT YOU DID.
And you said it's not the correct date when it happend.

Now let me ask you to all the reader of this post.

Can you now believe Keylime who calaimed it's the true story but now
but he is saying that it's not the correct date.

As I said before we, expats with Korean Airlines, are trying to get along
with Korean Pilots who may not like us being here.
But many of us here and trying to support our family.
Is this something wrong ?

I know there are many foreigners who came to try to join Korean Airlines.
Some of them did not make it but it's not because they are not good
pilots. It's just that they were not lucky enough like me. That's all.
I don't know if Keylime was one of the unlucky one or not.

Keylime.

I cannot understand why are you so upset with Korean Airlines !!!!!!
But as I said before there are many of us trying to supprot our family
and we are pretty happy being here.

I don't mind if you post the true statement we maybe we can learn from it.
But PLEASE DO NOT MAKE UP A FALSE STORY.

[WanganuiLad]

....into the second page and still no facts.
This place is going to pack

[clipstone1]

doesnt take much to do $4m of damage to a modern airliner....the Thomson 767 at BRS cost considerably more than that to repair but was back in service within 9 weeks or so

[Callsign Kilo]

The only microburst was in the Korean captain's pants.

I am a particular fan of this line. Very literal.

[gerago]

Some of the details that have not surfaced: The foreign relief captain who observed the Korean Captain's discomfort with the weather conditions(anyone who has ever flown in Korea knows that the Koreans almost sh@t themselves when confronted with a 10-15 knot crosswind let alone a 20-30 knot crosswind component) offered to make the landing for the Captain. Of course, the Korean declined in order to save face(save face but don't save your life or the life of the passengers). During the ensuing investigation by the Safety?? department at Korean Airlines(by the way the company's slogan is "Safety is the Way") the foreign captain was never interviewed. The foreign captain was on the jumpseat and observed the debacle. The only microburst was in the Korean captain's pants. But then, you know how those foreign devils lie and besides that they nothing about aviation.

I like the part about the foreign relief captain offering to do the landing! Wow! Double wow. Make it a triple wow!

[9.G]

While a childish and naive rave goes on no one seem to realize we're talking about this fella here Typhoon Bolaven (2012) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Bolaven_(2012)#Korean_Peninsula_and_Russia) The only consequence should be: installment of LLWAS and BA measurement equipment to prevent future events. :ok:

[Calvin Hops]

Looks like this is a bad case of loose lips. A lot of information about this episode, which did happened, was dished out in the biannual safety meetings for expat captains. Now that this is now leaked on Pprune, there will be consequences just a gangnamstyle said.

We really have idiot expats who go for cheap shots at their Korean hosts without thinking through the consequences, unless of course it was the intent of the loose lips.

[fdr]

a high g landing on the edge of a typhoon is more a cause for concern about the risk management of a corporation than it is the pilot's skill level as commented on by parties with no data on the event. Airbus v Boeing structure strength, depends what part you are talking about, both have their inherent strengths and areas of lesser margin over CS25/Part25. For every complaint about the metalwork of an Airbus, there is a history of issue with Boeing. They are mechanical devices, they need care and maintenance, and both do not like operational or maintenance related abuse.

The A330 FCS works more or less like a real plane at that time at least WRT commanded output, but the operation tends to end up with the pilot less in the loop with dynamic changes of the flight path from feedback cues. The 330's landing gear is a thing of beauty, brakes are s**t, but the gear is nice. It does however permit high torsional loads to be developed at the trunnion bearings on occasions, much better than the A300 though.

Koreans and crosswinds... maybe so, but there is a pretty good pool of evidence of skill issues with various other groups around the rock, including those blessed with the FAA and JAA oversight of said skills. Incompetency is a norm, whether you are white or blue, male or female, CEO or worker, president or felon. Pax are happy with a race to the bottom, apparently even investors are, and yet we are hung up over a minor operational event in adverse weather that exhibits all the hallmarks of incompetent oversight occasioning minor economic loss, and signifying... not a lot... Can crosswinds be better handled? Sure can. Been a topic of investigation with this operator some years back, with manufacturer concurrence with the recommendations, didn't last long though. Note that the damage was not just an Euro toy at that time, yankee tin gets bent just as readily, in fact, statistically was more prevalent by some metrics.

Anyone happy to throw stones on the operation of a particular nation should have a really close look at their own countries record, there are few out there that shine once the BS has been brushed off the top of the outside of their record.

Is KAL good at crosswinds? not at all, they are barely any worse than average.

She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. Wm Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 5

Hot Springs eternal


PS, @IGh: I concur that "unreviewable discretion" is a disgrace; that board findings are not subject to peer review is poor practice, and the bias and just plain unsupportable garbage that occasionally floats to the surface is unjustifiable if the intent of Annex 13 truly is to improve system safety. This is also not a regional item, for every BEA case that raises concern there are many more from across the channel, or across the pond that are of equal concern. As far as MI185 goes, there was one bright light in that BS, who was estranged from his own country as a consequence for a substantial period of time for placing ethics above politics.

[charliemouse]

Exactly Agaricus. I can do the physics. I got an "O" level...

Luke Sky Toddler: "Wiz it's not just the total G pulled it's how fast the G came on ... they plot G vs time in 0.1 second increments and there's a huge chart they have to refer to to calculate the severity from that."

This makes no sense.

"G" pulled refers to acceleration equal to gravity. This is approx. 9.8 meters per second per second. 2.3G is therefore an acceleration of 22.54 meters per second per second. The force of this can be calculated as newtons per kg of mass of the body accelerating...

Take an average landing weight of a 330 to be 150 tonnes... that will mean the gear was loaded with 3.4 million newtons of force. (the G will have peaked when the bird hit I am presuming... I doubt they damaging the bird with aerobatics). Brand B may be "weak"... but that gives you an idea of the forces involved.

[Luke SkyToddler]

Gents I'm no engineer, I'm just reporting what I saw and was told by the engineers, the one time I was mixed up in one of these investigations (not my landing I hasten to add!)

On taxi in after the suspected hard landing, the cockpit printer spewed out several pages of data which is exactly what I already said ... "G" load vs time in 0.1 second intervals for several seconds before and after the landing.

We then had to take that data to the engineers who dug out a book and plotted that data on a graph. You could clearly see the moment of touchdown as it was the first time the "G" went up from 0.95ish to >1.

Then the numbers went up by tenths of a second from 1.05 to 1.2, 1.4, 1.65, whatever it was, over the course of a few more tenths of a second to the moment of maximum "G".

Because there was a bit over a second between initial contact and peak "G" load, we fell into the area on the graph where visual inspection only and no tech log entry was required.

However, the engineer explained to us, and you could clearly see on the curve of the graph, if we had experienced that same peak "G" within 0.7ish seconds or less from initial contact, it would have fallen into the more serious area on the graph, where the aircraft would have been grounded for mandatory repair work.

That's as much as I can tell you, it was a few years ago and I make no claim to be a specialist on hard landings, but that is exactly as I recall it and it was an A330.

(If anyone's interested - that was in KTM Kathmandu which must surely be the world's greatest sucker trap for hard landings, due to the crazy approach profile, the late stabilization criteria, the short runway, constant light tailwind and most of all the convex curve in the runway which gives a really strong visual illusion of being high crossing the threshold. Like I said not my landing, but I felt really sorry for the skipper that day ...)

[DaveReidUK]

Some useful info from Airbus on post-hard-landing measures, albeit for the A300/A310:

http://www.thai-ab6.com/peegolas/AIRBUS_DEALING%20WITH%20HARD%20LANDING.pdf

[Samba Anaconda]

Now that this is now leaked on PPRuNe, there will be consequences just as gangnamstyle said.

We really have idiot expats who go for cheap shots at their Korean hosts without thinking through the consequences, unless of course it was the intent of the loose lips.

Plain foolhardiness or someone gunning for the avp job? The avp did encounter some belligerent bloke ex-dynasty with a nasty, dismissive attitude.

[DaveReidUK]

So in other words, you are pretty much saying "here's some useless and unnecessary information but I wanted to give off the impression that I am useful in this online society".

Apologies, I hadn't allowed for the fact that it contains lots of complicated charts, diagrams and tables - I keep forgetting how dumbed-down present day university education is.

Come back once you know what a real aeroplane looks like. :ugh:

[Luke SkyToddler]

Actually that chart does look a lot like the one I saw, numbers different obviously but concept exactly the same.

[paparomeodelta]

Girls fight - hooray!

[gulfairs]

The only Microburst was in his pants says it all.

[SRS]

Yes, the legal departments are the bane of free speech!