The Next Chinese Hull Loss

[Transformer_Man]

I am convinced it is going to happen before long. A Chinese airline will destroy a jetliner, crew, passengers, and cargo.

How will it happen?



Poor crew training - too much rote memorization of little facts; not enough emphasis on aeronautical decision making and judgement. Too much emphasis on speed and show; not enough on depth of knowledge. When people are made into machines, bad things happen.



A neanderthal scheduling system based solely on the needs of the airlines that disregards all knowledge of fatigue.



Inflexible and mis-prioritised ATC. Chinese ATC is there to rigidly restrict traffic and enforce protection of military airspace. Controllers are completely unhelpful to pilots and promote unsafe flying. They insist on expedited taxi, climbs, descents, no wx deviations, flight at low / inefficient altitudes, and other nonsense that creates hazardous situations.



Mismanaged airports / unsafe construction. Where else but in China can you find non-standard airport markings, closed and unmarked taxiways, wild marshaling / follow-me cars, and mysterious notams in Chinglish?



A "Just Culture" in airlines and the CAAC? No, the culture is about control, punishment, and fixing of blame (not prevention). At best, they will whip everyone before implementing a solution. At worst, they will make silly rules and enforce new checks or tests that do nothing but satisfy political dogs high in the food chain.



Pilots, watch out and be careful there. When it happens, there will be collective hell to pay. Passengers, fly a foreign company and pray. Consider the "yellow light driving rule" as an insight to how these people function.


I ask for comments and debate to develop, refute, or validate what I say here.

[atila_101]

Amen brother...

[The Dominican]

Passengers, fly a foreign company and pray

It would be nice if you don't wrap all companies outside of the US on the same package.:rolleyes:

[hamil]

I thought you're talking about flight ops in India.
With minor adjustments, it's the same s....!

[de facto]

Transformer,

You just got sacked did you?:E

[USMCProbe]

Transformer-Man;
I could, and would like to, post the most horrific post about working in China that few have ever read. It has been written many times, only to be deleted by the moderators.

But aviation in China? I just worked there. Is it perfect? No. Is anywhere perfect? Same answer.

Their safety record in the last 10+ years is outstanding.

I used to say that I only recommend flying in China to pilots that have a guaranteed job to return to. I now view that as a mistake.

After all the pilot carnage I saw the last 2 years, I would not recommend any job in China to anyone. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't do it again.

The money was great, but not worth it.

[Transformer_Man]

You have a point about India. Pilots who have worked there say China is a step up. The Chinese are more rigorously trained and have more self discipline. Yes, but they also tend to make prefabricated responses to situations. When the threat is complex, the Chinese run out of answers.

Smoking holes result.

Then the authorities clean up the wreckage, bury it, and say nothing.

[USMCProbe]

Most airlines in China don't allow their FO's to be PF when flying with a foreign captain. The expat will always be PF. (Mine was different).

Chinese ATC is not the best in the world, but it is far from the worst. Very far. New York ATC is worse.

[MachDaddy]

NY is worse? Why? Because they yell at you? Sure, they might be unprofessional at times, but calling them worse than the Chinese is bananas, yo!
Maybe we should see how well the Chinese controllers do at pushing tin through the northeast corridor with 3 of the nations busiest airport within 20 miles of each other. Just saying.

[USMCProbe]

Alright you got me on that one. But Chinese ATC is far from the worst.

But I do hate New York ATC. And yes they have yelled at me, for their mistakes.

Wait a minute maybe they are Chinese after all? hahahaha

Here is a bad Chinese story. Do you know what you, the FO, and the jumpseater are all looking at when you taxi-in after a flight? Other traffic? Checklists? No.

You are all three staring at the Ground Speed readout on your NAV display. If you go over 15 it is a "soft" QAR. 18 costs you money. But the three IRS's are drifting 1-5 knots, in different directions. When you turn, depending on which way you are turning, they are individually drifting, one IRS might go up, one do down, the other who knows. If any of them hit 18 knots, it costs you money.

So every Chinese airplane is flying around with 3 pilots in cockpit, none looking outside the cockpit for fear of a QAR and fine. True story.

[POWDERFINGER]

Most of this thread implies that China's next fatal jetliner crash will be due to human factors. Is there room for plain old bad luck? Or natural phenomena?

No, wait...we're talking about China, where human factors is the ten ton gorilla dwarfing everything else. Maybe on takeoff, the crew will be too busy trying to avoid a QAR event that they'll miss the presence of a real threat. Maybe ATC will be pushing an inexperienced crew and they'll make a deadly mistake. Maybe the copilot will be so busy spewing extra callouts for normal things that he'll miss the non-normal that steers events toward a wreck.

Yep, forget about thunderstorms, icing, birds, and bad luck.

[gerago]

Wow, very nice people! Forever wishing ill unto others. Real nice:ugh::ugh::ugh:. What has the world come to!

[Dan Winterland]

''Chinese ATC is not the best in the world, but it is far from the worst. Very far. New York ATC is worse.''

At least in China, ATC use what is a close approximation to standard ICAO terminology. Anyone remember the audio clip of the Air China crew getting grief from the JFK ground controller because they couldn't understand him? The crew couldn't understand the "colloquial'' terminolgy.

I don't find ATC in China too bad. It's no the best, but the civillian controllers do a good job under the circumstances - which are usually a military controller standing over them overirding their decisions.

[USMCProbe]

I wonder what Air India or Air China's crew would do when New York Approach says "Call the lady, follow the river". Then yells at them in upstate NY redneck for not knowing what the "lady" is.

Or maybe this one: "Do you have the Verazzano in sight?"

I never heard a Chinese controller ask me to identify a ground feature by its local slang term.

[doubleu-anker]

I knew they were a pack of imbeciles ordering these stupid medicals and when 50 years old is too old.

[Methersgate]

The OP rings true. Espescially this bit:



A "Just Culture" in airlines and the CAAC? No, the culture is about control, punishment, and fixing of blame (not prevention). At best, they will whip everyone before implementing a solution. At worst, they will make silly rules and enforce new checks or tests that do nothing but satisfy political dogs high in the food chain.

I'm not a pilot; my career has been spent in two dimensions, after many happy years with Cathay Pacific's lower profile "sister" shipping companies in the Swire Group I have spent the last few years with China's premier shipping line.

I have finally suceeded, after years of "We already have that" and after a bad fatal accident, in introducing international standard CRM training, which they most certainly didn't have - they had a facsimile of it. Still a lot of resistance.

Yes, there are very big problems with human factors in China.

[Methersgate]

"The Chinese are more rigorously trained and have more self discipline. Yes, but they also tend to make prefabricated responses to situations. When the threat is complex, the Chinese run out of answers.

Smoking holes result.

Then the authorities clean up the wreckage, bury it, and say nothing."

Also very true; this is a function of a society where giving bad news to a superior is a Bad Plan.

[Transformer_Man]

It is not in the government controlled newspapers, but on February 25, a China Southern jet hit an NDB antenna during an approach to Wuhan, China. The plane was below MDA, in hard IMC, and tracking to the beacon perfectly. It flew between two masts and narrowly escaped clipping off a wing.

The crew got a GPWS alert, felt an impact, flew a missed approach, and diverted. Later inspection discovered damage due to impact with terrain / something affixed to the ground.

Whoop there it is. It was almost the hull loss this thread predicted. Sadly, one cannot say it is exclusively a Chinese problem. A good round of debate has shown this could have happened in a number of places with similar ways of doing aviation business.

[Hogger60]

More details on the incident quoted from Plane Talking:

A China Southern Boeing 737-800, registration B-5192 performing flight CZ-3367 from Guangzhou to Wuhan (China), was on a NDB/DME approach (minimum 1200 meters visibily required, MDA 430 feet) to Wuhan’s runway 04 in visibility of 1500 meters occasionally reduced to 1200 meters in light rain and light fog and cloud ceiling 690 feet. The aircraft had been configured for landing before reaching the final approach fix and was maintaining 1800 feet when the aircraft reached the final approach fix at the outer marker 5.1nm before the runway threshold. The aircraft descended with the captain being pilot flying, when descending through 1000 feet the captain disengaged the autopilot. When the aircraft reached 430 feet there was no visual contact with the runway, the first officer called for level flight, reset the flight director and selected the go-around altitude into the master control panel. Still no approach lights were seen, the aircraft appeared low. A ground proximity warning “too low” activated, the first officer called for a go-around without response from the captain, another GPWS “too low” sounded, this time the captain called “go-around” and initiated the go-around, unusual sounds however occurred while the aircraft was still rotating up and it became obvious the aircraft had hit obstacles, but the aircraft climbed out to safety. The crew subsequently decided to divert to Hefei for a landing without further incident.
The event became known through rumours that surfaced on China’s Weibo service (similiar to Twitter) in February and got confirmed by a preliminary report by China’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAAC) on Mar 5th 2013.
The CAAC reported that the aircraft sustained damage (penetrations and dents) to the left main gear door and left main gear gear proximity cover actuator, the left main gear outboard tyre received cuts. The antennas of the southern NDB “D” and inner marker were damaged, two other antenna pillars were damaged as well. The CAAC annotated that the approach was continued below MDA without necesssary visual reference putting the aircraft below the approach profile, in addition the crew did not initiate the go-around after the first ground proximity alert.

[POPAVIATOR]

I heard about this. Seriously WTF!

[de facto]

According to the CAAC,if the crew continues below MDA without visual references,they will be banned from flying commercialy for the rest of their life.
I guess we wont be hearing the captain for ever,good riddance.

[woodja51]

You might have had vis @MDA and then lost it... Slim ...but always possible...?
Still, bit of flack flying around over this and de icing incident...

[de facto]

If you had vis at the minima and continued on a correct path,you wouldnt be so low in the first place.:ugh:
If you lost vis at the proper height versus distance and immediately gone around,rather than playing the dead while hoping to see the 'ground' as they are a god damn helicopter,they wouldnt have touched any ground obstacle.
The captain f:mad: up and good riddance,he will never fly again.

[captjns]

According to the CAAC,if the crew continues below MDA without visual references,they will be banned from flying commercialy for the rest of their life.

Heck... Lion Air will hire him if he's typed on the 737:}

[USMCProbe]

Sounds like a good reason to make everyone do another CAAC check ride.

Again..........

[Transformer_Man]

There was another incident during the late winter involving involving an Airbus landing well below ILS minimums. Pilots on the ground heard the plane land in RVR 300M, and thought (in Chinese) OMG - someone got in! Captain found himself in deep trouble with the CAAC. For that matter, the F/O was in trouble for just sitting there - though it is the F/O has no right to call for a go-around.

EDIT: Apologies for the really bad Chinglish news, but it is machine translated and not handled by proficient English speakers.

http://www.newshome.us/news-5225398-Xiamen-Airlines-flight-landing-after-engine-fire-officials-said-evacuation-of-the-whole-machine-is-false.html

Xiamen Airlines flight landing after engine fire officials said evacuation of the whole machine is false

BEIJING, Aug. 21 Fuzhou Power (Wang Yung Chun) 21, the reporter learned from the Fujian Provincial Public Security Department, on the same day 15:38 arrived in Fuzhou Changle International Airport, Xiamen Airlines MF8542 flights (Shanghai - Fuzhou) taxiing after landing to B7 taxiway, the burst of fire, the whole crew evacuated. After investigation, the fire of an aircraft system false positives.

At 15:45 on August 21, Fujian Provincial Public Security Bureau Command Intelligence Center received the airport Fuzhou Changle International Airport Operations Command Tel reported: MF8542 flights (Shanghai - Fuzhou) on the same day 15:38 arrived in Fuzhou Changle International airports, aircraft taxiing after landing to B7 taxiway, cargo aircraft crew reported a fire.

Alarm, Airport Public Security Bureau police at 15:47 arrived at the scene to carry out rescue, help evacuate passengers, and conduct on-site guard sealed off.

16:11 aircraft cargo fire lifted.

After preliminary examination confirmed that the fire is a flight systems false positives. Now have all passengers on the safe evacuation of the aircraft at 16:14 was off the scene. (END)

(Original title: Xiamen Airlines flight landing after an engine fire official said the evacuation of the whole machine is false)

[Transformer_Man]

Xiamen Airlines Almost Scores Jackpot 737 Crash - Internal Memo:

TAIL STRIKE OR HARD LANDING OR BOTH??



On 24th Feb, 2014, MF8310 flight from ZGSZ to ZSCN landed with 2.007G and pitch attitude 8.26 degrees due to flight crew improper control of the airplane.

Now here are the brief description of the weather condition and whole landing process, which would lead us to discuss what we should have done better to avoid such errors occur again.


Weather condition:

wind calm, -RA, FG, visibility 1000m, RVR landing part 1500 meters, middle part 1300 meters, ceiling 60 meters, and RWY03 in use

Process:

The airplane landing configuration was completed on final at 6NM and landing clearance was received thereafter. Flight crew decided to use dual channel approach mode for purpose of possible G/A. With Vref 142, flight crew set MCP 148kts.

Captain on left seat was pilot flying and at altitude 306ft RA he had approach lights in sight and decided to disconnect A/P. Before DA, runway was in sight and flight crew decided to continue to land with captain announced “landing”.

During process of manual control, the airplane continuously stayed higher than glide slope and resulted in passing threshold nearly 100ft higher than normal threshold altitude. PM reminded with callouts “altitude too high, too low airspeed”. Captain started correction by retarding throttle without pitch correction to re-catch normal landing profile. At 110ft, N1 was 48.5 and airspeed 144kts. Airplane passed aiming marker at 50ft with N1 41.4, speed 141kts and descent rate 800ft per minute. One second before touchdown, descent rate was 688ft per minute with airspeed 138kts and pitch attitude 3.34. Captain corrected with abrupt flaring nose up to attitude of 8 degrees and airplane touched down with G force 1.808 at first time, speed 136kts. Followed by airplane airborne again and touched down with G force 2.007 and pitch up attitude 8.26 degrees. We should notice that the tail strike attitude for that condition was 8.8 degrees, which almost lead to an incident of tail strike.

It’s quite a typical case of flight crew improper control of airplane which leads to a serious error. Please discuss with your colleague about what kind of correct action should be taken to avoid such error happen again, and the importance of maintaining stable approach. We hope that this case could give us a chance to think about what better callouts is, CRM or decision making, of course, good understanding of the airplane and procedures.

[WYOMINGPILOT]

This is a good example of how bad the Chinglish translations are we are required to read. The short story was there was a false wheel well fire warning for the Xiamen flight into Fuzhou. It was over 1 hour after takeoff and on approach into Fuzhou when it occured. The Captain was unsure so he decided to evacuate. Not the best decision but it was a conservative one. The hard landing incident was a young Captain with low PIC hours who did a planter landing in very low visibility. His punishment is demotion to FO for several months.

[The_Loner]

Move the doomsday clock up a minute or two.

There was a Spring Air flight that had a tailstrike and rolled a main gear in the mud at Xiamen, June 6th. Then China Eastern landed on a Nanning taxiway on June 17th. If that wasn't enough, another China Eastern flight overran a runway at Changzhi on June 19th.

Hmmm, what else? China Eastern and China Southern have blown escape slides over the past several days. It's like a cat using up its 9 lives all at once. Verily, verily, I declare it is like a drunken sailor spending his cash in a Bangkok cathouse.

The CAAC has responded with a "manage them until they bleed" initiative. Inspections galore, followed by superman jet-jock checkrides. If you can land with no hydraulics, one gear up, standby power, and a cargo fire, then you will surely not make a bad decision and crash.

You can't make this up - not even on acid. There are even pictures on Freeweibo, Wechat, and the Aviation Herald.

I forgot one - a flight landing in Wuhan rolled into the dirt while attempting to expedite off the runway June 25. Not enough guts or brains to fly first and accomodate ATC second...

[Transformer_Man]

How many flights have rolled into the dirt this year? Instead of ab-initio pilots, the need is for self-operating aircraft. Maybe it will save lives, but I see the doomsday clock slowly ticking down...

[Cool banana]

How many flights have rolled into the dirt this year?

Xiamen Air passenger jet overshoots runway in Manila, no casualties

https://ph.yahoo.com/news/xiamen-air-passenger-jet-overshoots-runway-manila-no-222836934--finance.html

MANILA (Reuters) - A Xiamen Air aircraft with 165 people on board veered off an airport runway in the Philippines capital of Manila shortly before midnight (1555 GMT) on Thursday, but there were no casualties.

The Boeing 737-800, landing after a flight from Xiamen "went off the runway during a heavy downpour", said Connie Bungag, the officer in charge of Manila International Airport Authority's (MIAA) public affairs office, said. "We are still determining how it happened."

Xiamen Air is a subsidiary of China Southern Airlines.

"All 157 passengers and eight crew were evacuated without injuries, according to XiamenAir," Boeing said in a statement, adding it was closely monitoring the situation.

Philippine airport authorities said the passengers of Xiamen flight 8667 would be brought to a hotel near Terminal 1 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), which services international flights to the country.

Still images of the aircraft carried by local media on Twitter showed the left wing of the Xiamen Air 737 touching the ground.

Due to the incident, NAIA's international runway will be closed until 12 p.m. local time on Friday, a separate statement from airport authorities said.

[The_Loner]

Are there any statisticians in here eho can confirm or refute that we are about 1/2 standard deviation from botched landings and go arounds to a fatal accident? There was another close call a few days ago at Macau (VMMC).

Capital Airlines flight JD-5759, Beijing to Macau, did multiple hard bounces on runway 34. Contact with the runway was severe enough to damage the landing gear and cause ingestion of nosewheel components into an engine. With one engine out and damaged landing gear they limped to Shenzhen, landed, and evacuated.

How many pilots do you know who have had multiple high G slams on a runway, FUBARred an engine, done a one engine rejected landing, gone to an alternate, landed, evacuated, shutting down runways at two airports in one flight?

We are mow perilously close to a big and deadly accident. Why? The Chinese airlines are no different from other industries, where the mandate is development first / accept casualties. It is a human wave attack on natoonal poverty.

[4runner]

Are there any statisticians in here eho can confirm or refute that we are about 1/2 standard deviation from botched landings and go arounds to a fatal accident? There was another close call a few days ago at Macau (VMMC).

Capital Airlines flight JD-5759, Beijing to Macau, did multiple hard bounces on runway 34. Contact with the runway was severe enough to damage the landing gear and cause ingestion of nosewheel components into an engine. With one engine out and damaged landing gear they limped to Shenzhen, landed, and evacuated.

How many pilots do you know who have had multiple high G slams on a runway, FUBARred an engine, done a one engine rejected landing, gone to an alternate, landed, evacuated, shutting down runways at two airports in one flight?

We are mow perilously close to a big and deadly accident. Why? The Chinese airlines are no different from other industries, where the mandate is development first / accept casualties. It is a human wave attack on natoonal poverty.

if this happened, this isn’t a Captain, it’s a magician. Abra cadabra bitches. Amazing.

[wingdeagle]

Accident: Capital Beijing A320 at Macau on Aug 28th 2018, dropped nose wheels on hard touchdown
By Simon Hradecky, created Tuesday, Aug 28th 2018 14:31Z, last updated Wednesday, Aug 29th 2018 16:00ZA Capital Airlines Beijing Airbus A320-200, registration B-6952 performing flight JD-5759 from Beijing to Macau (Macau) with 157 passengers and 9 crew, was on final approach to Macau's runway 34 into the flare already when the aircraft encountered wind shear and touched down hard. The crew initiated a go around, received indications of left engine (CFM56) failure and suspecting gear damage declared Mayday. The aircraft diverted to Shenzhen (China) and landed on runway 34 about 40 minutes after the rejected landing. The aircraft became disabled on the runway with both nose wheels missing from the nose gear strut.

Runway 34 was closed for about 3 hours until the aircraft was moved off the runway. Runway 15/33 remained operational.

The missing wheels were recovered from Macau's runway.

China's CAAC reported the aircraft attempted landing at Macau at 11:16L (03:16Z) but was unsuccessful, the crew went around. The crew declared Mayday and requested emergency services on standby in Shenzhen reporting possible landing gear failure. The aircraft landed on Shenzhen's runway 34 at 11:58L (03:58Z), it was subsequently found both nose wheels were missing. The aircraft was evacuated. 5 Passengers were taken to a hospital with minor injuries. Shenzhen's runway 34 was temporarily closed. The CAA Shenzhen have opened an investigation into the occurrence.

The airline reported the aircraft is suspected to have encountered windshear while landing at Macau, the crew immediately initiated a go around, suspected damage to the landing gear and declared emergency. The aircraft diverted to Shenzhen where the 157 passengers and 9 crew were evacuated.

On Aug 29th 2018 The Aviation Herald received information from a multitude of sources stating that the aircraft touched down on Macau's runway 34 at 7.7 degrees nose up, 123 KIAS and 2.4G, bounced, touched down a second time at 15.1 degrees nose up between 133 and 144 KIAS and 3.4G. The aircraft bounced again, touched down a third time at 7.7 degrees nose down (nose gear first), both wheels and part of the nose gear structure separated, debris was ingested by the left hand engine, debris destroyed the VHF1 antenna (causing temporary loss of communication), the damage to the nose gear also prompted the nose gear to permanently indicate being on the ground preventing gear retraction. About 5 seconds after the third bounce the go around was initiated.

[keesje]

Is it correct China saw no hull losses since 2012?

We can't say that on Europe & US.

If true that should make us shut up for at least 120 seconds & review the situation.

Who was the first to (correctly) ground the 737MAX.. Perceptions & reality drift apart.

https://www.mro-network.com/airlines/chinese-focus-safety-reduced-accidents-dramatically

:sad:

[The Dominican]

Is it correct China saw no hull losses since 2012?

We can't say that on Europe & US.

If true that should make us shut up for at least 120 seconds & review the situation.

Who was the first to (correctly) ground the 737MAX.. Perceptions & reality drift apart.

https://www.mro-network.com/airlines/chinese-focus-safety-reduced-accidents-dramatically

:sad:
This is PPrune, shame on you for stating some facts in here! What's wrong with you? LOL

[GBV]

Wasn’t Xiamen Airlines in Manila a hull loss? :rolleyes:

And I believe there was also a Joy Air MA60 in 2015...

[jpn crj driver]

Wasn’t Xiamen Airlines in Manila a hull loss? :rolleyes:

And I believe there was also a Joy Air MA60 in 2015...
MA 60's don't count... They are weed eaters like the old SA226/227 were... Land and off in the grass due to the nose wheel steering leaving lots to be desired.... Ha... No harm no foul, just dirty shoes...

[wizard1]

MA 60's don't count... They are weed eaters like the old SA226/227 were... Land and off in the grass due to the nose wheel steering leaving lots to be desired.... Ha... No harm no foul, just dirty shoes...

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/2000x1504/7d559d72_a44f_4365_8f2e_e92ac8200f26_7d03bb403013cb3cede74de b2a5d2284fd76cb5a.jpeg
Hull not lost. Just a bit sad 😁