Asiana flight crash at San Francisco

[sandos]

The low speed warning on the Eicas would still work, even if in FLCH, but probably came at about 150 feet when with the low speed and rate of descent and with the drag of flap 30 and gear down it would have been too late to be of any use.

I was wondering if there wasn't any system that would extrapolate the current acceleration, maybe even jerk, and flightpath to warn before ending up in any sort of low-energy event like this. I only have experience from a military simulator as a developer, and that thing only has one "black-hole" in which it does not always manage to warn the pilot in time: if the engines are giving too much acceleration in a more or less vertical dive into the ground (and that should honestly be fixable too. I think the look-ahead is just too short). In any other scenario it will tell you to add thrust, or pull up. This should be fairly trivial to add to heavy jets as well? I know audio is the first thing to go when under stress, but combined with a HUD that just SPLASHES the warning in your face, there is (almost) no way any pilot would ignore the warning. It also displays the warnings on basically every display simultaneously, so that it doesnt matter if you are heads-down or what you are looking at. This of course means the system need to be almost 100% reliable so that pilots always takes the warnings seriously, but EGPWS seems to enjoy that privilege already as far I know.

Fraom Aileron Drag
And that's exactly the same kind of "Command Gradient" that many have been describing as a potential cause of the issues in this incident - arrogant in the extreme - "You don't have my qualifications, therefore you cannot possibly have anything valuable to add" :ugh:

@Greenlights
Apart from the relief F/O, who apparently called for the entire last minute "sink rate" from the jump seat. But then I guess you didn't bother reading the whole thread did you? Guess it was "below" you!

The F/O called sinkrate, but not EGPWS or any other system? This is what I find a bit lacking.

If anything commercial pilots should enjoy more reliable and more numerous warning systems for these things, imo, compared to a pilot that never has any passengers in the back.

Why cant a modern airliner with thousands of sensors and millions upon millions lines of code know if its about to hit the ground, and not the runway!

[airjet]

no no no, you are a "training capt" and you ASSUMED the autothrottle was maintaining the speed (137 kts) ON FINAL APPROACH DURING A VISUAL:ooh:
oh no straight to jail do not pass go or collect 200.

[deefer dog]

Post 1517: "As ATC in USA is non standard." Quite true in my opinion.

Most recently into NY and MIA twice vectored to the localiser well above the glide, and asked to keep the speed. Into MIA for two most recent visual approaches left hanging above the PAPIs before being cleared for the approach.

It's too early to say at this stage, but I'll bet that ATC was one of the holes in the Swiss cheese. Never in London TMA have I ever been vectored and expected to join any approach too fast or too high.

On another point, it is most certainly my opinion that no initial type rating course ever teaches any more than a rudimentary introduction to the operation of currently installed avionics suites. If I had a dollar for every time I have heard the expression "you will learn more about it on the line" I would be a wealthier man than I now am. It is an inescapable fact,as evidenced by the contributions thus far posted that many of those who fly the 777, that the foibles of the systems are not fully understood, or in many cases not even known.

It's my humble opinion that if we are to be expected to operate aircraft in automated modes, we should have a full and complete knowledge of the systems, precisely how the logic is programmed, what it will do at what stage of flight, and under what circumstances it might deviate from programmed norms. Regrettably in this day and age a $300 (net receipt to the airline) ticket to cross half the globe, will never fund a course of training to meet the requirements needed. And self study, if that's what the airlines expect of their post course rated pilots, will never fill the knowledge gap.

Who here who is qualified on the 777 can put their hand on their heart and honestly claim that they FULLY understand the avionics and flight command logic in every mode of automation?

[Al Symers]

"Why cant a modern airliner with thousands of sensors and millions upon millions lines of code know if its about to hit the ground, and not the runway!"

Because the modern (and the not so modern, like me) pilots that fly them are supposed to use their own well developed sensors to know that if you run out of airspeed and altitude at the same time, it's not going to end well.

Stop blaming the airplane, it makes you sound like a lawyer. A 777 is a machine, inanimate, and only does what it is manipulated into doing.

[deefer dog]

If you are taught how to "manipulate" when using the automatic modes, and if you understand these modes. Because if you are of the magenta age, you don't have the fallback of disconnecting the autopilot!

[BBK]

You are completely wrong about Aileron Drag. His point, I believe, is that there are some very ignorant postings on this thread.

Not differences of opinion between peers but from people who clearly have little or no idea about the subject matter eg the challenges of landing a large jet at 4am (body clock time) whilst under training having, possibly, been kept high on the infamous slam dunk onto the 28s at SFO. Being kept high and having to sort it all out and make the stabilised approach criteria is no mean feat. Whether you think pilots are over paid prima donnas we sure as hell earn our flight pay in those last few minutes.

Anyway, here's BBK's top tip: watch the NTSB press conferences and for a real treat watch Captain Sullenberger's interview that was linked a few pages back. He gives an EXCELLENT insight into human factors and makes the point, with great eloquence, why it is wrong to pass judgement on the crew when the facts are not fully known and analysed.

[Mic Dundee]

To my understanding and interpretation of the NTSB today the pilots refused a drug and acohol test. :confused:

Does anyone know if the pilots can legally refuse a drug and alcohol test after a crash? Can't the Feds do a bench warrant to have compelled them? Too late now. If this was asked and answered already, my apologies.

[joema]

"At 200 feet [...] he recognized that the auto-throttles were not maintaining speed and he established a GO-AROUND Attitude."

Actually the NTSB said at that point the PNF "pushed the throttles forward, but the PF already had". She didn't say how far forward.

How many seconds before impact was this? There's conflicting information about the throttle sequence and timing. One statement said TOGA was not applied until 1.4 sec. pre-impact. Another said throttle was increased 7-8 sec before.

An aerospace consultant interviewed here said had they immediately selected full throttle upon stick shaker activation (about 4 sec pre-impact), they might have made it: Pilots union criticizes Asiana crash investigation | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/09/us-usa-crash-asiana-pilots-idUSBRE9680YK20130709)

Of course this depends on many factors, including engine spool-up performance, gross weight, temp, density altitude, descent rate, etc.

When the pilots finally noticed the slow speed (presumably at 7-8 sec pre-crash), did they just nudge up the power a bit?

[clayne]

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?

Your logic is just so incredibly flawed. You're connecting a separate outcome with an indirect relationship and falling into the classic correlation is not causation trap while doing it.

Pretend the plane and airport lost all automation. That's the point of continually having pilots fly visuals without automation! To keep their skills up in real world situations when it's safe to do so. The fact that lack of all automation resulted in a crash here is because of automation dependency and lack of raw data skills not because it's required for a safe landing!

[skytrax]

@1a-sound-asleep

Interesting perspective. It brings a lot of light about the cultural component in korean aviation industry.
My friend who works with many koreans shares the point about the way koreans just memorize everything by heart when they have to study something. Understanding the content becomes somehow less important. Its more important to know everything and get a high passing mark.

An analogy
I have met once a korean and while talking about previous jobs I found out she was an English teacher some years before. I was kind of shocked because she struggled getting her pronunciation right very often. She probably knew the grammar and lots of vocabulary very well but when it came to speak the language she couldnt get it right after so many years.

Coming back to this accident, I must say that the reaction of the cabin crew post crashing was amazing. They really excelled getting everybody out despite the obvious challenges. Well done.

PS: on the news now, the korean civil aviation authority will look at the training procedures and start an investigation at all the airlines in the country.

[olasek]

Can any of the resident 777 pilots confirm the information that is in the media - that A/T won't engage if Flight Directors disagree (one is ON another OFF).

[neilki]

I recall a Turkish 737 with 3 crew burying itself in a field short of AMS.. Autothrust took some of the blame, even with a clear error indicated on the PFD. -They were behind the aircraft.
A 777 crew who clearly recognized and safely landed an aircraft from a Low Energy situation. -They were ahead of the Aircraft
And now a 777; in all likelihood behaving exactly as designed (though the design may now be improved -FLC behavior et al) spread all over SFO and CNN.
The crew appear to have been several seconds behind the jet
ULH is challenging, and both B&A have made huge inroads into reducing that stress and increasing safety, however, the notion proposed here by several; that a visual landing in a Wide Body jet in VMC on a 2+mile runway is approaching the limits of their skill set..
I fear releasing the 12 hour student to do same at another Californian Airport was a grave mistake..
Thousands of crews have operated hundreds of Aircraft into SFO, and very few of them clipped the sea wall and killed people. it's unfortunate our profession is being brought into disrepute; especially having to explain the trainer/student scenario on this trip, clearly it's a shock to the general public, though i suggest the situation for surgeons may not be dissimilar.
Coward & Burkhill always looked good after 038. They look even better today..

[finfly1]

My respect for the authorities investigating this crash would likely have improved somewhat if they had only said "at this point we are not ruling out ANY cause...except for the weather. Any damfool can see it is a lovely clear day, with all the other airplanes landing without a problem".

[nippysweetie]

Moving start of runway 300ft 'saved lives' ... (Wall St Journal, paywall alert)
Well, if you ignore the nav aid shutdown at the same time, possibly.

Runway Shift at SFO Might Have Helped Avert Greater Disaster - WSJ.com (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324694904578597850932673598.html)

[deagles007]

@olasek:
from p. 27 of the Boeing Automatic Flight manual B777 Systems Summary [Automatic Flight]
The autothrottle can be operated without using the flight director or the autopilot. In this condition, the autothrottle operates in either the THR REF, SPD, HOLD, or IDLE modes.

[clayne]

I think this is perfectly appropriate as I think the function of auto-throttle will be a major, if not THE major contributing factor in this accident

Surely monitoring airspeed while *verifying* A/T is doing the right thing would have resulted in the throttles being pushed forward and a go around issued at the first sign of strangeness? Sitting there and waiting for A/T to react and then doing *nothing* until the last few seconds isn't going to help matters. More accurately, lack of airspeed monitoring and appropriate reaction to it is THE major contributing factor.

Korean newspapers running stories on "mechanical failure" etc. is just typical face-saving nonsense.

[Ian W]

Felixthecat
SalNichols…..When we are overloaded the brain cannot do anymore it is overloaded so it starts to filter. One of the first seances it filters is the sense of hearing. It can be seen in the simulator when everything is going to hell and the alarms are not cancelled even though they are blaring away in the background, the other pilot will give you an instruction and you may not even register it. It was taught to me in Human Factors during my ATPLs way back when and also demonstrated in CRM classes. I don't know the reference but Im sure someone here will….I'm not making it up…and I am far from a great pilot.

Felix you are right, the effect is called 'cognitive tunneling' and it can also affect vision as well as the mind concentrates on a particular item of concern/interest. This is often called colloquially 'tunnel vision' but hearing and comprehension of what is being said tends to go first. The one sense that breaks through this tunneling is 'haptics' the sense of touch. This explains the extraordinary efficacy of the large manual applied with force to the back of the head. :ok:

[dba7]

#15351 by 'a sound asleep'

For the sake of balance in the discussion.

Looks like the piece originated at
Op-Ed: "My Flight Training Experience In Korea" — Civil Aviation Forum | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5813304/)


You should see the response #3 in the thread. Basically trainees posting their experiences on website happens everywhere. Airline dictating what to train happens everywhere.




#1542
I commented earlier but S Koreans adopted rote memorization based education because it's cheapest. Why? Because S Korea was the Poorest nation on the planet in 1953. And of course inertia has carried on since then.

About former Korean English teacher who can't really speak well, you can try to blame rote memorization but rather the real cuase is lack of chance for them to practice English with native English speakers. Until about 1980s, there weren't that many chances for S Koreans to practice English. Not enough traffic going in or out.

The situation has changed with increased traffic and more native English speakers teaching in S Korea (a whole cottage industry in itself) but basically Koreans who started schooling before 1990's had limited chance of real practice in speaking English.

So I should warn you not to blame 'rote' memorization.

[West Coast]

Finfly

Windshear can occur on CAVU days. Minus the facts, it's wise to not rule out anything. My belief is it had nothing to do with this accident, but I'm sure as heck not going to rule it out till the facts are gathered and analyzed if I was charged with investigating this.

[Not Nightowl]

Probably been mentioned but......yes, the ILS GP is not operational as has been notamed for some time now for 28L SFO.
Why didn't they do the RNAV(GPS)28L approach (as we did a couple of weeks ago in a b772), disengage the A/P at DA then hand fly the darn thing to the r/way like they do at every CAT 1 ILS they probably do everywhere else in nice wx, and still have A/T back up.

Even if cleared for a "visual approach" by the approach controller they can still hook onto the RNAV and not get into the murky areas of a real hand flown visual approach and the funny things that can happen with FLCH, hand flying and thrust HOLD.
Or did they let themselves get suckered into a visual approach with no instrument approach back up because the controller cleared them for a visual approach the instant he head those magic words "we have the r/way (or the aircraft in front) in sight".
The controllers in the US love those words 'cos then they can get rid of you.

This is assuming of course that nothing else was wrong and perhaps these dudes don't even know how to spell RNAV! :rolleyes:

[dba7]

Korean newspapers running stories on "mechanical failure" etc. is just typical face-saving nonsense.

Not much different from CNN's headline
"Pilot had only 43 hours of experience"...

[Lonewolf_50]

Why didn't they do the RNAV(GPS)28L approach (as we did a couple of weeks ago in a b772), disengage the A/P at DA then hand fly the darn thing to the r/way like they do at every CAT 1 ILS they probably do everywhere else in nice wx, and still have A/T back up.
Perhaps the chief pilot at the airline is going to ask them that when they get home.

[twochai]

Why didn't they do the RNAV(GPS)28L approach (as we did a couple of weeks ago in a b772), disengage the A/P at DA then hand fly the darn thing to the r/way?

Elementary, my dear nightowl: this bunch never, ever stabilised the approach!

[archae86]

The briefing just started. It is available at CNN stream of NTSB July 10 afternoon briefing (http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/cvplive/cvpstream3.html)
It seems to have started a little over 25 minutes late.

[BBK]

Well we don't know why they weren't stabilised but given SFO ATC's penchant for keeping jets high that may be grossly unfair. I've very rarely been given a gentle feed in UNDER the glideslope. Its normally gear down and full flap attacking the glide from above. I've tried it without the ILS so PAPIs only would be a challenge. Not sure which RNAV approaches are in the FMC.

Also, from an earlier post it looked as if this flight was flown level at 11,000 feet which is more typical, in my experience, with a 28R approach. Did they get a late runway switch?

[nigegilb]

My last landing into SFO in June involved a right turn on to south for 28R pointing directly at another aircraft being positioned for 28L. We were kept at 6000' for noise abatement reasons on the north side of the bay. When we called visual with the opposing aircraft we were turned on to a heading of 260 deg where we called visual the field. The controller then cleared us for a visual approach and gave us speed control 180kts to 5nm. We were so far above the glide path the only option was to dirty up, full flap and gear, ignore the speed restriction, close the throttles to idle and turn the flight director off.. All done at 5000 ft no ILS G/P no PAPIs available. We stabilised at company minimum and only after my colleagues on the Flight Deck gave their assent to continue did I make the decision to land. It was certainly challenging, made that bit trickier by the absence of PAPIs.

I do hope the whole SFO ATC environment thing is reviewed as a result of this crash. Both published visual approach procedures are designed around noise abatement and often result in high feed ins. The requirement to have two aircraft closely spaced, (the runways are 750 ft apart) is driven by the need to launch aircraft off 01R/01L, oftentimes after you have already been cleared to land. So at short finals you are watching traffic beside you and watching traffic on the other two runways crossing directly ahead, all the time keeping on top of your own instrument scan. The use of RNAV is moot.

Maybe it is time to have a little think again...

[gtseraf]

Nigegilb, you make a valid point here, the only US destination I fly to is HNL and they do similar things there. However, it is ALWAYS the PIC's responsibility to assess and, if necessary, turn down such speed requirements.

[keesje]

What other warning signals does the 777 give, apart from the stick shaker, when an aircraft is this low, slow and high AOA?

[Ian W]

NeilKI
I recall a Turkish 737 with 3 crew burying itself in a field short of AMS.. Autothrust took some of the blame, even with a clear error indicated on the PFD. -They were behind the aircraft.
A 777 crew who clearly recognized and safely landed an aircraft from a Low Energy situation. -They were ahead of the Aircraft
And now a 777; in all likelihood behaving exactly as designed (though the design may now be improved -FLC behavior et al) spread all over SFO and CNN.
The crew appear to have been several seconds behind the jet
ULH is challenging, and both B&A have made huge inroads into reducing that stress and increasing safety, however, the notion proposed here by several; that a visual landing in a Wide Body jet in VMC on a 2+mile runway is approaching the limits of their skill set..
I fear releasing the 12 hour student to do same at another Californian Airport was a grave mistake..
Thousands of crews have operated hundreds of Aircraft into SFO, and very few of them clipped the sea wall and killed people. it's unfortunate our profession is being brought into disrepute; especially having to explain the trainer/student scenario on this trip, clearly it's a shock to the general public, though i suggest the situation for surgeons may not be dissimilar.
Coward & Burkhill always looked good after 038. They look even better today..

Flight safety is a matter of probabilities. Most of the systems that you fly are 10^-7 reliable. That does not mean they will always work it means that they have a low probability of failure. Pilots are some of the least reliable parts of the system - read NASA ASRS for a few hours and you will realize that. It is essential to realize that you may screw up and that is the reason the system is 10^-7 and not 10^-8 it is also why the PM should be watching like a hawk. The more approaches that are made the more likely the one in 1000.000 error will occur. It is a straight numbers issue.

Inadequate flight crew monitoring has been cited by a number of sources as a problem for aviation safety. In a review of 24 Controlled Flight Towards Terrain (CFIT) accidents, the International Civil Aviation
Organization found that in half, the “crew did not monitor properly” (ICAO, 1994). The National Transportation Safety Board determined in a special study of crew-caused air carrier accidents that 84 percent of the 37 reviewed accidents involved inadequate crew monitoring or challenging (NTSB, 1994).
Following a 1995 accident involving an air carrier collision with trees on final approach to Hartford, Connecticut, the NTSB stated, “If the First Officer had monitored the approach on the instruments...he would have been better able to notice and immediately call the Captain’s attention to the altitude deviation below the minimum descent altitude” (NTSB, 1996). In addition to NTSB data, prior reviews of ASRS reports related to problems associated with poor intra-cockpit relations reveal that many of these reports also involve inadequate monitoring.
http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/docs/rs/56_What_ASRS_Data_Tell_About_Inadequate.pdf

ASRS report volume: Averaging 5,962 reports / mo, 285 per working day
http://tinyurl.com/n2lufj2


You WILL make an error just hope that your PM identifies it before it is too late.

[archae86]

Did they get a late runway switch?
In today's briefing she said that the "first landing clearance" issued at 11:21 was for 28L.

In other news left pending:
She stated that multiple autopilot and autothrust mode transitions are observed in the last 2.5 minutes. This appears to be an FDR observation--in contrast to the mode comment mentioned yesterday, which was an accounting of a flight crew interview.

[portmanteau]

the undershoot area has not helped the situation. it consists mainly of water, not considered to be of much use to non-amphibian aircraft. where it joins the land there is a large immovable obstacle, namely the seawall which took out this aircraft. (does that meet undershoot obstacle criteria?) I would have thought more solid ground is required in the undershoot area, say for the distance taken up by frangible approach lighting if runway shortening is not an option.
( or the obvious alternative of moving the threshold down the runway thus allowing an undershoot area in which an aircraft can actually undershoot in one piece. the present one seems unfit for purpose...)

[ImbracableCrunk]

The flying pilot says that he saw a flash of bright light that temporarily blinded him, at around 400 or 500 feet. Hersman says they're looking into possible causes.

Now he's claiming it was a laser?

Of course, he was so skilled, he didn't say anything on the CVR. . .

[clayne]

Sheesh I can see the media headlines already. What a load of BS.

[suninmyeyes]

"What other warning signals does the 777 give, apart from the stick shaker, when an aircraft is this low, slow and high AOA?"

There is a plethora of clues. We practiced this on the 777 sim with an autothrottle failure after the Turkish accident as well as being shown the FLCH trap.

The following clues are shown on the Primary Flight Display.

Normal pitch is around about level on approach. The pitch gradually increases, up to about 10 degrees when you get very slow.

The airspeed trend vector indicates a decrease in airspeed will happen.

The airspeed decreases.

Yellow bars start to appear on the speed ribbon.

Below those are red bars

Once you enter the yellow bars you are unable to apply any more nose up trim as the aircraft understandably thinks it is not a good idea.

The pitch limit indicators appear. If your pitch reaches them you stall.

On the central Eicas a low speed warning message appears with an aural warning.

The stick shaker goes off.

Any pilot familiar on type gets very uneasy very early on and would take action to recover at the first clue, throw in jetlag and delayed reactions and it should still happen by the second or third clue.

The problem is all this is happening around about 200 feet at a point when one tends to transition to looking forward at the runway with occasional glance at airspeed and rate of descent. Not being aligned may well have been an additional distraction.

[captjns]

to me it's simple It sounds to me like if the G/S was not out of service, this accident would not have happened. Therefore, the airport shouldn't be allowed to operate without it. Period. The proof is in the pudding.

Not an airline professional. Just a passenger killing time following this thread. I'm guessing my fellow passengers would all agree with me. My $0.02.

No G/S.?!?!:{

I'll bet if there were pilots on the jet that were not children of the magenta line, this accident wouldn't have happened.:*. Just my two bazookums

[archae86]

In today's briefing, Hersman specifically said that the jump-seated relief F/O called "sink rate". She did not tie it to a specific time or event in the sequence, nor did she suggest that the Pilot Flying did or did not respond to the call.

[bubbers44]

We can make all transportation safe. No trucks on the highway if raining or icy. No ships on the sea unless seas are below 6 ft swells and visibility at least 3 miles.

When we get done with the other sectors of transportation shutting down everything not operating under ideal conditions we can require all approaches must be ILS's, no speed restrictions on final. All landings must be autoland because some pilots have trouble hand flying and God forbid no crosswind landings over 10 knots because some pilots can't do that either.

Or we can require competent operators that can handle less than ideal conditions safely because they are qualified to do so. If you can't handle it you can't be allowed to operate until you can. I thought we already operated this way however with check rides, line checks, etc.

[joema]

"It sounds to me like if the G/S was not out of service, this accident would not have happened"

I think RNAV(GPS) vertical guidance was available. This was mentioned in this post: http://www.pprune.org/7934022-post1553.html

Also it was published: http://nbaa.org/ops/airspace/regional/western/20130529-blair-presentation-sfo-rnav-gps-prm-approaches.pdf

The inop GS was NOTAM'd so it wasn't a surprise. If they didn't feel good about hand flying a visual approach w/o GS, why not use a synthetic glideslope via RNAV(GPS)? Regardless of the approval status, couldn't it be used in an advisory mode under VFR?

[LongTimeInCX]

It sounds to me like if the G/S was not out of service, this accident would not have happened. Therefore, the airport shouldn't be allowed to operate without it. Period. The proof is in the pudding.
From outside the profession, and it is interesting to hear the view of a layman, it is an easy assumption to make - but wrong!
Unfortunately, even with a GS available, some crews at differing airports, when cleared for a visual, will switch off all the automatics and fly manually. It begs the question if they can't cope with it, why accept it.
It loads up the PF a little more, the PM suddenly has to do a lot more monitoring, and a similar outcome to the Asiana stuff up can easily ensue.
So in the SFO case, whilst possibly a factor for poorly trained or ill disciplined crews, it should not be a cause. The Korean media can crap on all they like about Autothrust problems, but sadly it seems most peoples original suspicions of the cause look likely to be true.
As many have said, if you can't fly a visual approach, even whilst monitoring the parallel traffic 1/4 mile ahead, monitoring X-runway take offs on 01, and getting your own aircraft on a STABILISED approach, you should not be operating that type of aircraft.

[Airbubba]

Something I found interesting on today's NTSB briefing is that according to Chairman Hersman, Asiana 214 had shoulder and lap belts in business class and only lap belts in economy.

I rode OZ in business class a few months ago but it was an A330 and I don't remember a shoulder belt but I was tired, enjoying champagne, and may not have noticed.

Some high points of today's briefing here:

Asiana Flight 214: Updates From The NTSB Investigation : The Two-Way : NPR (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/07/10/200858132/asiana-flight-214-updates-from-the-ntsb-investigation)

[Back at NH]

G/S was working at AMS yet an aircraft ended up in a field after running out of airspeed because no-one was monitoring it!

[sAx_R54]

Asiana now confirms that Trainer was 1st day on the job.. add that to the fact that trainee had only 43 hours on the 777.. what a deadly combination!!

Asiana crash: Airline says pilot trainer new to the job

Interestingly, the image doesn't quiet suggest genuflection before authority as implied by a number of posts, whilst accepting that it is not an organisational hierarchy that has brought them together.

[olasek]

It sounds to me like if the G/S was not out of service, this accident would not have happened. Therefore, the airport shouldn't be allowed to operate without it. Period. The proof is in the pudding. Ehh, sorry but it's utter nonsense.
You mean a 10000 hr professional pilot can't land a 777 without a G/S yet we general aviation pilots with barely 1/100 of the experience can land on runways with no G/S every day? If he can't do it without G/S then he should be in a different line of work, he has no business in a cockpit of a large airliner carrying passengers for hire. BTW, nobody was holding a gun to his head to land there, he could have said - sorry guys but I only land on runways with G/S and go somewhere else.

[LASJayhawk]

Shade Master ILS (localizer and g/s) we systems designed in the vacuum tube era to guide pilots towards the runway when they couldn't see it do to clouds. But they still had to break out of the clouds and see the runways to land. It was never intended as a must have in nice weather.

And some aircraft don't handle coupled ILS approaches that well, the MD-80 comes to mind.

[ImbracableCrunk]

Asiana Flight 214: Both Pilots Were Well-Rested, The NTSB Says : The Two-Way : NPR (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/07/10/200858132/asiana-flight-214-updates-from-the-ntsb-investigation)

The two main pilots on Asiana Airlines Flight 214, the jetliner that crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport Saturday, had each gotten eight hours of sleep the night before their trip to San Francisco, says the National Transportation Safety Board.
The agency's chief, Deborah Hersman, provided that information and other updates to the media and the public on the investigation into the crash that killed two passengers and injured dozens.
Here are details from today's briefing:
The flying pilot had the day off before the flight began. He says he got 8 hours of sleep, and came to the airport six hours before the flight. He was in the cockpit about 30 minutes before the trip began.
The instructor pilot also says he had 8 hours of sleep, and spent some time relaxing with his family. He came to the airport at 2:20 p.m.
In the cockpit, the two main pilots worked about 4 hours and 15 minutes, and then the relief crew of another two pilots took over for the middle of the flight. The original two pilots came back for the final hour and a half of the trip.
The flying pilot says that he saw a flash of bright light that temporarily blinded him, at around 400 or 500 feet. Hersman says they're looking into possible causes.
Update at 5:55 p.m. ET:
Hersman goes over where the 12 flight attendants were sitting. The flight attendant who was leading the crew was at the front. Two attendants were pinned by one or more emergency ramps; both were hospitalized, one with a broken bone in her leg.
In , Hersman said flight attendants had been ejected from the plane. She speaks more about that today; she also clarifies that all passenger seating remained on the aircraft.
The seatbelts in business class had both shoulder and lap belts, Hersman says. Passengers in the rear cabin had lap belts only.
The first emergency response teams arrived at the scene within five minutes.
The flight attendants say they directed passengers to exits that seemed most efficient; they also tried to fight fires, and worked to free those who had been pinned.
Hersman says investigators have not yet spoken to all the flight attendants, especially those who remain in the hospital. They are also hoping to speak to any passengers who wish to talk.
"The NTSB will likely be releasing the runway" in the next 24 hours, and possibly tonight, Hersman says.
Update at 5:40 p.m. ET: On Automation And Plane's Approach
Referring to a slideshow of the plane's approach to the airport over the water, Hersman describes how the plane came in.
At 11:26, Asiana 214 checked in for final approach, and did not get an immediate reply. They soon checked in again, and were given a landing clearance — when the plane "was about a mile-and-a-half from the threshold," Hersman says.
The evidence shows that "in the last two and a half minutes of the flight," there were multiple modes enabled of auto-pilot and auto-throttle, Hersman says.
Our original post continues:
Of airliners' automatic systems, Hersman says "They can be simple, or they can be sophisticated."
In the the Boeing 777's case, they're sophisticated, she says. But she adds that pilots can fly by hand, taking off, traveling, and landing without any automation if they choose.
On the other hand, "You can have limited visibility — you can not be able to approach the airport in visible conditions — and the airplane can land itself."
She says that automation "can help maintain a level of safety and efficiency in the cockpit," noting that the systems can conserve fuel.
"Pilots are trained to monitor," Hersman says. And they designate between two pilots, with one flying and one monitoring.

[justawanab]

Shademaster: "I'm guessing my fellow passengers would all agree with me."

Erm, no. As a "fellow passenger" I'd prefer to know that the pilots could actually fly the plane. One day, for one reason or other they may be forced to land it somewhere that doesn't have a G/S or pretty lights or other fancy stuff. You know, like they used to. :ugh:

[Tscottme]

From earlier in the thread, I believe someone stated that certification standards mandate that Go Around thrust is effective within 8 seconds of throttle application. However, it is usually effective in less time, such as 5 seconds.

[course_profile]

olasek,

I want to take issue with some of the things you've said. I am guessing from 'we GA pilots' that you are indeed a GA pilot who flies around in a C172 or the like?

I am an ex military pilot. I am used to flying VFR at low level in bad weather, maybe at night. I didn't practice much IFR flying, so when it did come about I had to work hard to keep up even though it was less technical. That was because it wasn't well practiced.

We can assume the 777 guys on this aircraft were very very proficient at IFR flying, decent profile, avionics manipulation, managing the automatics ect ect - but they probably weren't that well practiced with a visual approach.

My point is, if you do something day in day out you get good at it and no matter how easy the thing you rarely do is (or perceived to be) there is a good chance you'll screw it up because you don't practice it.

To summarize, you're rant about how these guys should have picked a different career ect ect ect is total f**king horses**t. You don't have a clue what you are talking about - I do. I have done demanding, technical, multi discipline flying.

I think there is some truth in what an earlier poster said. Someone has to make a choice - if people aren't practicing visual approaches enough then the industry should either a) give them more practice b) make IFR approach mandatory - a diversion with out a instrument system to get you on the ground. It doesn't seem to me that you can have it both ways or just say 'You're a pilot - you should be able to do it'. You can't un-crash after someone has screwed up out of bravado or what ever it is.

[StormyKnight]

I don't think the glide slope itself was the issue....but what appears to have happened is the pilot instinctively tried to keep the plane on the glide scope by increasing the angle of attack to the point the he could no longer see the runway out of the window. What didn't happen early enough was to realize why this was happening...i.e. why is the nose so high?

Because he assumed the speed was controlled by the aircraft, it was dismissed as a possible cause.

[ramius315]

The A/T and G/S issues are almost red herrings. The A/T was doing exactly what it had been commanded to do. (if it was in FLCH.)

Can the same be said for the crew?

I fly the 777. Let me say that again - I fly the 777. It doesn't fly me.

On approach when the flaps are out of 'UP' my hands are on the thrust levers. They only leave there to make MCP changes. As most pilots would know, many times you have to override the T'Ls (eg in gusty conditions - although bugging up can fix that) to ensure they provide the commanded speed. More often for a decaying speed than for an increasing speed.

The 'issues' of automatics are not issues for anyone who does the job they have been employed to do - fly the jet. Yes they can catch you out by commanding an undesired outcome - which is really due to lack of knowledge or understanding of the system, not because the automatics did something they weren't designed to do.

On approach a pilot is controlling configuration, attitude and speed to provide or ensure the correct flightpath. And among a million other things that means guarding and watching the thrust levers and commanded thrust. If the thrust and speed isn't being controlled then a pilot isn't flying the jet. The jet is flying them. The 'trap' of FLCH (and yes it is, although one must question why it was even being used at that stage of the approach) should not happen to somebody who is doing their job of flying the jet - ie ensuring the T/Ls are giving the correct thrust setting for the desired speed.

If a pilot can't fly a close to 3 degree approach in CAVOK conditions with light winds without a G/S then they shouldn't be flying a jet. That doesn't mean hand-flying (although they should be able to do it) but simply using the automatics to do it. There are enough ways to utilise the FMC to provide vertical path guidance that even a pilot with a poor external judgement of flightpath can use the system to show them where they are.

And, more importantly, if a pilot can't recognise and acknowledge that on a particular occasion due to whatever reasons (ATC, late configuring etc) they aren't on the correct profile and need to give it away for another try (it's happened to everyone) then they shouldn't be flying a jet.

So, if what has been reported so far is accurate, were these guys doing what they have been paid to do - fly the jet?

[Wizofoz]

"What other warning signals does the 777 give, apart from the stick shaker, when an aircraft is this low, slow and high AOA?"


There is a lower than planned value shown on the speed-tape and altimeter and a higher one on the PFD- which any decent pilot should be scanning!!

[220mph]

From earlier in the thread, I believe someone stated that certification standards mandate that Go Around thrust is effective within 8 seconds of throttle application. However, it is usually effective in less time, such as 5 seconds.

I believe it was also noted that was from a stable approach with engines powered up - not flight idle, at a very slow speed - way behind the inertia curve. I think I recall someone said it would likely have taken 10+ seconds to spool AND overcome the existing sink rate.

[Tscottme]

To the journalist answering about seniority and racism. As an earlier comment described there are various measures of seniority. For example, age is one measure of seniority and so is class-level in school (freshman, sophmor, junior, senior). Membership in the Korean Air Force seems to bestow seniority above equally suited civilian pilots. I believe earlier info indicated the Pilot Flying was ahead of Pilot Monitoring (Training Captain) at aviation academy. The hours of flying experience which is the usual measure of seniority in US aviation may not be how pilots in Korean culture measure seniority, or it may only supersede some other measures of seniority. That is what the I-See-Racism-Everywhere posters are missing.

This is well documented in Malcolm Gladwell's book. It has been noted in a previous accident, I think KAL at Guam. You and other American flying pilots who measure exerience only in flight hours may stop looking for seniority issues at flight hours, but there is comment from other pilots in various Asian countries, airlines, and jobs reporting what they see, as it differs from what they have seen in America and EU. Aren't different cultures allowed to have their own views on things or are modern leftist politics now mandating all cultures are identical in all situations?

[220mph]

Three air crew in the cockpit ALL failed to perform the most basic task of fling an aircraft - monitoring and managing speed. Perhaps the most critical task on short final. The speed was already well below designated at 20-25 seconds out ... and yet none of the 3 flight crew by all appearances noticed until just 7 seconds from impact.

The Captain claims he believed the auto thrust was managing power/speed, which is an incredible admission - at least to me. Just because you THINK the aircraft systems are managing does NOT absolve any pilot from monitoring and taking action if the automated systems are wrong.

I simply cannot wrap my mind around the fact that high time air transport pilots, operating "heavy's" can fail such a base level key task as proper power management/speed control.

One question I do have ... is it possible that the Captain, who in his training role occupies the right seat and assumes the FO role and responsibilities, was simply rusty on the FO tasks? Doesn't IMO absolve the pilot flying - as he too should have been doing a primary scan of the key flight parameters - incl power and speed.

[mangere1957]

course_proile

From your post(I also have no "quote" facility) you state, inter alia,

"We can assume the 777 guys on this aircraft were very very proficient at IFR flying, decent profile, avionics manipulation, managing the automatics ect ect - but they probably weren't that well practiced with a visual approach.

My point is, if you do something day in day out you get good at it and no matter how easy the thing you rarely do is (or perceived to be) there is a good chance you'll screw it up because you don't practice it.

To summarize, you're rant..."

You also claim to be an ex military pilot. This claim seems most unlikely as you can not spell descent and don't know the difference between "you're", contraction or you are, and "your", possessive pronoun. Normally one overlooks such errors but when a poster is very rude and comes over all superior then he should be held to account don't you think?

[tdracer]

From earlier in the thread, I believe someone stated that certification
standards mandate that Go Around thrust is effective within 8 seconds of
throttle application. However, it is usually effective in less time, such as 5
seconds.


That was me - by regulation 95% of go-around thrust must be available 8 seconds after a throttle push from idle. From minimum idle it can take significantly longer, so the engine control incorporates an "approach" idle schedule that is automatically selected when landing flaps are selected. Healthy engines normally do better than 8 seconds from approach idle - typically in the 5 to 6 second range.

There was a infamous story making the rounds back during my graduate study days about a biz jet that landed gear up. The flight crew insisted that the config warning never sounded - until the CVR was played back to them, with the config warning horn blaring during most of final :rolleyes:.

I recall being a passenger on a turboprop years ago in SE Asia (pre 9/11, the cockpit 'door' was a curtain) where I heard multiple warnings going off during final but they continued on and made a fine landing. I think sometimes the flight crews get so accustomed to some of the warnings going off that they simply tune them out - too many audio warnings can be just as bad as not enough.

I suspect the primary focus of the investigation is going to be the human factors element of:
How did the crew fail to engage the autothrottle (and not know it), and
How did the crew fail to notice the falling airspeed until it was too late.

[jimjim1]

The idea that a major airport such as San Francisco should simply turn off the ILS glide slope for a few months because they wanted to relocate the antenna seems to me to be preposterous. I work in Bank and Hedge Fund IT. What we do in similar circumstances is to install a new one, test it out of operational hours, once satisfied that it is working we wait for a suitable out of use window and make the switch. We then test the hell out of it and if satisfied leave it in use OR revert to the old one.

None of our stuff is life critical.

San Fran airport might have saved a few million dollars by not using a similar procedure - Hopefully the victims of their careless exposure of innocent people to unnecessary risk will ensure that it costs then dearly.

Exactly how much does an antenna cost? It is after all in essence only a few wires.

Ford Pinto anyone?

[autoflight]

I have flown in Korea and am aware of Asiana's different attitude towards CRM and other safety issues. I flew with some really competent and modern first officers and met some great captains. From what I could tell, some of the rest would risk 307 lives in a heartbeat rather than break their nationally entrenched seniority code. Add to that some ridiculous idea that one's reputation is severely damaged with a landing that isn't smooth, reinforced by frequent reading of QARs

[StormyKnight]

Just curious, I found a couple of cockpit images of the 777, some show a separate airspeed indicator in the center & some do not have one.

Without: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3202/3046863641_563cd759c8_o.jpg
With: http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5301/5608750394_a56d2b324a_o.jpg

Does this mean the ones without only show the airspeed on the large screens? Just curious about redundancy.

[olasek]

course_profile ...

I stick with what I said and I am not going to lower myself to your rude language. Whether you are who you claim to be is another matter.

I did not place the blame anywhere, if the "system" is to blame for these guys inadequate training (there were noteworthy problems in the past with Korean's pilots training) then fix the system but I am sticking with my main point that if someone is flying into KSFO with a big cargo and has no clue how to shoot a visual approach with no aid from G/S then he doesn't belong in the cockpit.

[bubbers44]

Any student or private pilot can land easily without a glide slope. Airline pilots are simply flying larger aircraft with the same aerodynamic principles. To say an airline pilot needs to have a glide slope to land but a beginning student doesn't makes no sense.

I have landed so many times at SFO on 28L with no GS flying an airliner with zero problems both from the north and south. All of us considered it a non event. All my pilot friends agree. Pilot standards should be raised to force all airline pilots to be able to do this simple approach or get trained so they can.

The video from the amateur video shot shows how totally incompetent these three were in letting this crash happen. Even the holding flight watching the event couldn't believe what they were doing.

Get qualified to fly your aircraft for any approach or stay out of the cockpit. We can't make aviation work if it is designed to work for the lowest common denominator and let weak pilots fly with the pro's. Get up to speed, we are not interested in lowering standards so you don't have to get up to speed.

[LASJayhawk]

Stormy...both with.

If you look at your without picture the 1 instrument has an airspeed tape on the left side and altimeter tape on the right. It's called a 3 in one and the display more closely matches the efis displays in the aircraft.

the 2nd picture has 3 standby instruments. Same information, but spread out on 3 displays.

[CDRW]

bubbers44 - well bloody said!!! Unfortunately I think we are going towards the lowest common denominator and this balls up will accelerate this.

[Tscottme]

jimjim1 while relocating IT gear at work do you have to wait for someone from IEEE or FCC to come on-site, review your paperwork, you credentials, your work, and then test all of it?

The fact of how easy it is do some other thing in some other industry does not always translate to doing a complicated thing in aviation. In this case it might seem proper do devote all the resources to one runway, but this runway had other available approach alternatives and the weather was perfect. It would be like someone demand ALL cars be equipped with automated parallel parking gear because one driver drove his car into a wall. He could have picked another parking space, parked manually, tried again.

[StormyKnight]

Stormy...both with.

If you look at your without picture the 1 instrument has an airspeed tape on the left side and altimeter tape on the right. It's called a 3 in one and the display more closely matches the efis displays in the aircraft.

the 2nd picture has 3 standby instruments. Same information, but spread out on 3 displays.

Cheers...so if you can't notice the speed on the EFIS you probably won't notice the same thing on the three-in-one?

[tdracer]

From earlier in
the thread, I believe someone stated that certification standards mandate that
Go Around thrust is effective within 8 seconds of throttle application. However,
it is usually effective in less time, such as 5 seconds.

I believe it was also noted that was from a stable approach with engines
powered up - not flight idle, at a very slow speed - way behind the inertia
curve. I think I recall someone said it would likely have taken 10+ seconds to spool AND overcome the existing sink rate.


The 8 second requirement is from idle - hence the need for a specific "approach" idle schedule. Normal GA performance is better than that because they're usually initiated from well above approach idle. If Asiana had firewalled the throttles they would have had (at least) 95% of go-around thrust within 8 seconds (assuming they hadn't already hit the ground)(I think for the 777/PW4090 go-around and takeoff are the same - there are some airplane/engine combinations where go-around is a little less than max TO). As to how long it would take to recover from their -30 knot airspeed and rapid sink rate - I'm not qualified to answer - that's not something I've ever seen.

[clayne]

The idea that a major airport such as San Francisco should simply turn off the ILS glide slope for a few months because they wanted to relocate the antenna seems to me to be preposterous.

Nothing preposterous about it. This isn't the only runway there.

None of our stuff is life critical.

Neither is the glide slope. Once again, this isn't the only runway there.

San Fran airport might have saved a few million dollars by not using a similar procedure - Hopefully the victims of their careless exposure of innocent people to unnecessary risk will ensure that it costs then dearly.

:mad: This isn't the airport's problem. Pilots are trained to execute a visual approach without a glide slope weather and conditions permitting. I live 5 miles from the airport and trust me, weather and wind were more than permitting that day - it was perfect.

Ford Pinto anyone?

What is Ford Pinto here is the endless beatdowns of forced automation and punitive damages against pilots who play it safe and go around when needed. Nothing is more Ford Pinto than what the aviation industry is doing to pilot training and safety in the name of $$$.

[givemewings]

For the poster who mentioned shoulder/lap belts...

No expert by any means but on one type I've operated we had them on the exit row seats. They were fitted with airbags and the reason given was because a) they could not brace against the seat in front and b) crew were seated directly in front of those pax.

With biz class seat design getting fancier and more creative, presumably something in the seat layout or design on OZ requires more than just a lap belt (thinking here of sideways seating in biz/private aircraft which often have the same setup)

Will be interesting to hear from the pax that experienced this crash in those seatbelts and compare how they fared to those in back with only lap belts.

I was interested to read that 7(!) of the crew were knocked unconscious. I guess interviews will tell us whether all or some were in correct brace position. I've wondered for some time whether the grooming requirements of some of the Asian and ME airlines may compromise the brace position of the female CC (Large, high bun hairstyle comes to mind) not to mention lots of metal hairpins close to the scalp.... ouch.. :/

Back to the main topic... !

[galaxy flyer]

Jimjim

This has been addressed several times here--the lack of a G/S did NOT cause the accident. Pilots should, without difficulty or assistance of the ILS, land in the conditions that prevailed that day.

[slacktide]

@JimJim -

You cannot put anything new inside the ILS critical area of the airport, nor can you change the position of existing objects, without causing the existing ILS to become uncertified. You cannot even have equipment, vehicles, personnel, or other aircraft in the critical area. About the WORST thing you could possibly place in the critical area would be a non-transmitting antenna tuned to the same frequency as the existing transmitting antenna. This can set up multipath distortion leading a false glideslope indication.

Prior to the use of the new glideslope for navigation, it needs to flight-checked and certified by the FAA.

FAA updating flight inspection fleet for a NextGen world - Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2012/July/19/FAA-updating-flight-inspection-fleet-for-a-NextGen-world)

[ramius315]

jimjim1

A glideslope antenna is not life critical.

Pilots without flying skills is life critical.

By bolding and underlining such a statement you are merely displaying your ignorance of aviation related matters.

[CaptainEmad]

Regardless of the 'bright lights' (perhaps the sun?), Autoflight mismanagement, fatigue, unstable approach, no glide path, low time on type, woeful support, whatever...To allow airspeed to reduce to
Vref minus 31kts is very hard to comprehend.

Just to put that in perspective, in my organisation, below 1000ft, a sustained Vref minus 3 knots would be an automatic fail in the sim.

As Ramius315 emphasises, Fly the aircraft, don't let the aircraft fly YOU

[Airbubba]

Just curious, I found a couple of cockpit images of the 777, some show a separate airspeed indicator in the center & some do not have one.

Without: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3202/3...3cd759c8_o.jpg
With: http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5301/5...6d2b324a_o.jpg

Does this mean the ones without only show the airspeed on the large screens? Just curious about redundancy.

Those are standby instruments which can come from different manufacturers and can vary in configuration as the United and Eva Air planes in your photos show. After mergers and equipment upgrades it is not uncommon from what I've seen to have several configurations of standby instruments at the same carrier.

The airspeed is indicated on a separate legacy style round dial on the United panel standby instruments, it is indicated by a tape on the left side of Eva Air standby IFD (integrated flight display). Both panels pictured also have an airspeed tape on the left side of the large PFD (primary flight display).

[Tscottme]

One question I do have ... is it possible that the Captain, who in his training role occupies the right seat and assumes the FO role and responsibilities, was simply rusty on the FO tasks?

Whether he was a Captain or FO he was likely alternating flying trip legs as Pilot Flying and Pilot Monitoring. Its not like Captains are always the ones manipulating the controls and FO are always the ones monitoring, or vice versa.

[dba7]

I was interested to read that 7(!) of the crew were knocked unconscious. I guess interviews will tell us whether all or some were in correct brace position. I've wondered for some time whether the grooming requirements of some of the Asian and ME airlines may compromise the brace position of the female CC (Large, high bun hairstyle comes to mind) not to mention lots of metal hairpins close to the scalp.... ouch.. :/


None of the cabin crew had been warned of crash so no need for bracing...

The cabin crew sit in smaller seats with smaller headrests? no? Maybe that's why 7 were knocked out?

[nonsense]

I was interested to read that 7(!) of the crew were knocked unconscious. I guess interviews will tell us whether all or some were in correct brace position.

Why would any of the cabin crew be in the brace position? If the guys with a panoramic view of the ground rushing up at them didn't recognise they had a problem until 8 seconds before impact, what chance would the cabin crew have to recognise it in time to brace?

[DutchRoll]

Let me add some perspective here.

OK, so the ILS was unserviceable, but the PAPI apparently was working according to the pilots. Flying conditions were near perfect VMC. Even in a big jet, you are running out of excuses for this accident.

In my airline, as stated above by Capt Emad, a sustained speed excursion below Vref would be a fail in the simulator for the flying pilot.

A sustained speed excursion below Vref and not called by the non-flying pilot would be a fail for the non-flying pilot. Neglecting to call a go-around if the speed is not immediately corrected would also be a fail for the non-flying pilot.

Likewise for sustained deviations above or below the PAPI, unusual rates of descent, etc etc.

The flying pilot would be failed for sustaining these errors, and the non-flying pilot would be failed for either not noticing/calling them, or not demanding a go-around if the errors weren't immediately corrected after they were called.

That's how it works. Well, in some airlines at least. The importance is placed on noticing the error, and applying an immediate correction, or if that doesn't work, go-around. If you do this, you won't fail. In fact, in our airline you can screw up your approach but so long as you go-around either of your own accord or when told to, and get it right next time, you generally cannot be failed in the simulator.

[Capn Bloggs]

If Hi and slow, then you'd probably want to lead with pitch, so you can trade alt for a/s and your correction may work. If low and fast, likewise not a bad idea to lead with pitch.

It just doesn't work like that if slow. If you are high and slow and lower the nose in one of these pax jets, you'll end up on slope and still slow. Unless you stuff the nose down a lot, the speed will not increase. They have so much drag that any slight changes in pitch (those needed to correct back to the GS or PAPI) won't generate any meaningful speed change. That must be done with the throttles.

Conversely though, if low and fast, "speed to height" works really well, once again because of all the drag.

I say again. Watch the AP in a big jet fly an ILS. If it gets low, it pulls the stick back. It doesn't apply power and wait for the secondary effect to occur (granted, some underslung types may give a nose-up pitch to help). Same with speed: if it gets fast, it pulls the power off: primary effect of controls. Obviously if it is already on slope it cannot/won't pull the nose up. Likewise if it is slow: it doesn't lower the nose, it jams on a bunch of power. That's what pilots should do too.

Power and pitch do work together; the first one is used to correct the error (pitch for glidepath or power for speed) and then the other adjusts as required to maintain it's parameter.

These guys looked, from the video, to be doing the right thing with the stick: pulling back in an attempt to get back up onto the PAPI (or at least make it to the runway. Unfortunately, the system wasn't providing the power to compensate for the inevitable loss of speed.

[givemewings]

Actually, cabin crew (should) adopt a semi brace position for every takeoff and landing, which can be changed into full brace within a second. Most are rearward facing. So to me, I am curious as to how they were braced (and if) let's face it, anyone can become complacent. I see crew on a daily basis in incorrect position for to and landing. I usually get laughed at for doing it properly but hopefully I'll be the one left standing if anything goes wrong.

Not suggesting that the OZ cc did anything wrong, but wonder whether there are factors on their side that may also need to change.

[givemewings]

I think you'll find most cc jumpseats have a larger headrest than a cockpit jumpseat. Have some of you guys seriously never watched the cc at all?

[Dynasty Trash Hauler]

"The trap in the US seems to be......."

.......the assumption made by ATC that ALL pilots are of the same standard and that ALL pilots have local knowledge and that NO pilot is tired beyond belief.

Guess what!!!!!

[bubbers44]

Capn Bloggs I don't see why some people make it so difficult to fly a glide slope. You and I know power can climb or increase speed, attitude change can change climb or descent or change speed.

The AP uses power for speed and attitude for glide slope. They work together. To me the AP way works easiest so you don't have to do as much. If these three guys had done either we wouldn't have this discussion now. Power to go up works best before pitch in their case but not 1.5 seconds before the rocks especially in stick shaker and how did they get 30 knots slow? I thought 5 knots slow was a mandatory call out. A clear day on a simple visual and 3 pilots couldn't do it including a check airman. It would never happen on my airline, why them?

[the heavy heavy]

With the greatest respect, we've spent 20 years trying to get pilots to not say 'it would never happen in my airline'!

I believe WE are all capable of having that disastrous day at the office given enough rope and bad luck. The question we should be asking is not why then but how did we make sure it's not us!

I can 100% understand how the combination of SFO approach control, a lack of GS, and a pilot converting from an Airbus to a Boeing could lead to a slow speed event. I'd hope the training regime and cockpit gradients in my airline would mean that even working at the mitigate level would avoid a crash but I think it's a dangerous mindset to think it 'couldn't happen.

[galaxy flyer]

What I find curious is the willingness to let ATC "fly" the plane. Admittedly, I grew up around and flew with guys that began in the DC-4 era and retired on DC-10s and B747s; but what I learned and still carry is the attitude, and it is an attitude, "I fly the plane, they figure out the traffic". If given a hard to comply with clearance, they'd refuse it or just ignore it. As one said to me in my formative years, "they have radar, they know what you are doing and why your're doin' it". The best lesson the old guys passed on was, " don't let it happen to you".

Yes, it's a different time, we have loads of aids, loads of rules and loads of "monitoring", but flying the plane hasn't changed.

[the heavy heavy]

Galaxy flyer,

Spot on!! Just say no, I brief it every time.

[bubbers44]

THH, think about 3 pilots letting this happen, would it ever happen on your airline. I don't think so. Clear skies and a simple let down with no GS. Out of the thousands of visuals you have done have you ever been low? I didn't think so.

[Pucka]

THH..good one and it says one hell of a lot for the US strips. JFK is still a 1960's airfield desperately trying the game of catch up. SFO, we know is the same and lets not even start with Chicago. Its time that the FAA and ICAO got their aviation heads back on again and injected a shed load of "fit for purpose" into ATC and airfield systems. You can almost expect this in places like Jakarta..another fine mess, (07L, no ILS and NO PAPI offered up at NIGHT!!)..I digress..but the yanks need to get their fingers out and smell the odours from the coal face..irrespective of Asiana's stick n rudder skills,...the smell aint good!!

[220mph]

Here's a nice simple overview of the 777 panel

777 Flight Deck Forward Instrument Panel (http://www.meriweather.com/flightdeck/777/fwd-777.html)

[SierraFoxtrotOscar]

Tscottme (http://www.pprune.org/members/355730-tscottme)

To the journalist answering about seniority and racism. As an earlier comment described there are various measures of seniority. For example, age is one measure of seniority and so is class-level in school (freshman, sophmor, junior, senior). Membership in the Korean Air Force seems to bestow seniority above equally suited civilian pilots. I believe earlier info indicated the Pilot Flying was ahead of Pilot Monitoring (Training Captain) at aviation academy. The hours of flying experience which is the usual measure of seniority in US aviation may not be how pilots in Korean culture measure seniority, or it may only supersede some other measures of seniority. That is what the I-See-Racism-Everywhere posters are missing.

This is well documented in Malcolm Gladwell's book. It has been noted in a previous accident, I think KAL at Guam. You and other American flying pilots who measure exerience only in flight hours may stop looking for seniority issues at flight hours, but there is comment from other pilots in various Asian countries, airlines, and jobs reporting what they see, as it differs from what they have seen in America and EU. Aren't different cultures allowed to have their own views on things or are modern leftist politics now mandating all cultures are identical in all situations?

I am familiar with Gladwell's chapter on KAL. I'm also familiar with Korea. I was a foreign correspondent in the country for 17 years and based on all that I've read, it is premature to talk about how seniority affected the decision-making process in that cockpit.

In Korea, age is the most basic factor to determine seniority. For this age-based hierarchy to be neutralized, there has to be a confluence of some very unusual circumstances.
Re the information about the flying pilot being ahead of the trainer at flight academy. I'm not sure how reliable that is but had that been the case, it certainly would not have stopped the older guy from speaking up. Please keep in mind, at least for the flight, he is the "teacher" and in Asian countries, teachers are respected in ways that American educators can only dream of.

As some of you have already noted, Korea is a comparatively rigid society. There is a three-year gap between the two pilots. For the younger pilot to be a senior to the older man at a previous institution, he either had to be exceptionally brilliant a la Sheldon Cooper and skipped a few grades to enter the academy ahead of the older gentleman. Or the other bloke is so hopefully stupid that he wasted three years doing something useless and ended up being subordinate to people younger than him which doesn't happen very often over there.

To whit, the only scenario where the younger Lee might be in a superior position where the other guy felt intimidated enough not to speak up about a potentially disastrous decision is if the younger pilot was married to Asiana chairman's daughter or is related to the Minister of Transportation. Assuming that he isn't, speculating about potential cultural dynamics in the cockpit at this juncture is not very constructive.

[the heavy heavy]

Bubbers,

I would hope it could never happen given the training regime I operate in but given the incidents that do happen I'd never rule out anything!

3 pilot ops should have prevented this, single pilot ops should have coped, but if we refuse to consider the environment that this accident happened in then we've learned nothing from the past!

I doubt very much that this looked like a simple let down at 3000' feet. I've flown a few Stuka1 arrivals into Sfo and but I made my gates and was stable at the appropriate time. They where all the result of accepting atc instructions that at times defied the laws of physics. Lesson now learned.

Nope, I've never been that low, but I've been where i shouldn't have been and hesitated to say GA due to the pressure to get in. Again lesson learned, picture stored away for the next time, the learning never stops, right?

As an old flight instructor said to me when I was a lad, the day you start thinking your to good to f&£k this all up, that's they day you just stop!

[the heavy heavy]

Pucka,

I forgot about ORD!

Basically when you can't win an argument that it's not a brilliant idea to have a landing aircraft stop short on a runway that crosses the runway another aircraft is departing on you know things are bad.

Fly to JFK long enough and you realise Pushing Tin wasn't a movie, it's a documentary.

HH.

[galaxy flyer]

Pucka,

As a Yank, absolutely agree. I fly world-wide, in a Global, not a Boeing/Airbii, but US airports, for the uninitiated, are a disaster. You MUST know arcane procedures, local landmarks and patterns and, if you're not, there's he11 to pay. My favorite example is KTEB, where the tower refers to the "Holland tunnel" as a VFR landmark. First time, I said, "it's a tunnel, I'm in a plane". Thirty years ago, BA crews were commenting on why the Ynks put the Cat III ILS in the shortest runway. Hasn't changed, either.

[Keylime]

THH:

3 pilot ops should have prevented this, single pilot ops should have coped, but if we refuse to consider the environment that this accident happened in then we've learned nothing from the past!


In most airlines your comment is correct. Not in this environment. The F/O sitting on the jumpseat was not about to open his mouth with two captains sitting up front. Read the accident reports for KAL (Guam and Stansted). In both cases the F/O and F/E knew things were not right and sat there and let the captain kill them. That is the culture you are dealing with. Nothing has changed. As we used to say, "Lose your life but don't lose face". Korean F/O's don't correct Korean Captains. I will bet the F/O's voice is not on the Cockpit Voice Recorder.

[the heavy heavy]

Keylime,
It's been reported here in the uk that the heavy is shouting sink rate at -54 secs to impact.
The cultural issues here may be central to the cause here, but assuming its pilot error the actuality of the handling and the reason for the profile will provide valuable insight for us all. Even of it just reinforces the need to continue to operate as we do.
The lessons that had to be learned to enable the delivery of CRM training, as we now know it, came at to heavy a cost for us to ever become complacent.

[LASJayhawk]

The FAA, with impeccable timing, has come out with their new rules from the Colgan Air accident.

Link : UPDATE 1-U.S. airline pilots to need more flight time to qualify | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/10/faa-pilots-idUSL1N0FG13320130710?type=companyNews&feedType=RSS&feedName=companyNews&rpc=43)

and a fair use quote:
"The NTSB notes that human factors concerns associated with low airspeed do not require more than 6 years of study for a solution to be implemented," the NTSB said in a 2010 report on the Colgan accident.

Kinda makes one wonder if the NTSB may have an agenda here as well.

[Shutterbug]

@givemewings

Why would anyone have been bracing for anything? It was a "normal landing" as far as everyone in the back knew until the moment the plane struck the sea wall. There had been no PA, no warning, nothing. I thought this at least had been thoroughly established. And we now also know that 2 of the FA's had been pinned by slides deploying inside the cabin and 2, possibly 3 thrown out of the aircraft. They could have been bracing in full body armor with crash helmet and Nomex gear and all the above events would have still happened.

Sorry guys... but after 80 plus pages... the comments are getting goofy.

[West Coast]

Maynard
Very common for pax to get off plane saying they thought we were low because you appear to be descending into the water. You don't see land from a pax window till the last 20 seconds or so.

[skynalist]

From the comments posted in this thread it seems generally accepted that some international airlines have dramatically lower standards than US airlines regarding pilot proficiency in what used to be considered basic flying skills.

I doubt that the American flying public is aware of this.

I'm wondering what suggestions others have for ways that situation might be improved, as it doesn't look like something that will go away on its own.

Present case aside, let's say that a number of pilots currently flying into the USA are not actually prepared to land without benefit of an ILS.

What might get done about that?

Can the US unilaterally prohibit any international commercial pilot who hasn't demonstrated proficiency in landing without an ILS in the last X days from attempting such a landing in the USA if carrying passengers?

Or, if trade laws and international politics make that kind of move impractical, could there be a voluntary standard of testing airline pilots that is uniform around the globe that airline companies can put some or all of their pilots through, as they choose, but the percentage of pilots tested and their scores is made public and visible to passengers selecting which airline to book with?

[dba7]

From the comments posted in this thread it seems generally accepted that some international airlines have dramatically lower standards than US airlines regarding pilot proficiency in what used to be considered basic flying skills.

I doubt that the American flying public is aware of this.

I'm wondering what suggestions others have for ways that situation might be improved, as it doesn't look like something that will go away on its own.

Present case aside, let's say that a number of pilots currently flying into the USA are not actually prepared to land without benefit of an ILS.

What might get done about that?

Can the US unilaterally prohibit any international commercial pilot who hasn't demonstrated proficiency in landing without an ILS in the last X days from attempting such a landing in the USA if carrying passengers?

Or, if trade laws and international politics make that kind of move impractical, could there be a voluntary standard of testing airline pilots that is uniform around the globe that airline companies can put some or all of their pilots through, as they choose, but the percentage of pilots tested and their scores is made public and visible to passengers selecting which airline to book with?


Not gonna happen.

[dba7]

EXCEPT keylime is wrong. The FO (ex F5 and F16 driver in S Korean airforce) in the jumpseat DID speak up, about 53 seconds before impact, saying/yelling 'sink rate, sink rate'.

[AtoBsafely]

Skynalist,

That is a topic worthy of a separate thread.

There are some frameworks in place. First of all, before an airline operates in the USA (or any other country) it must have regulatory approval - an "Air Operator Certificate (AOC)". The airline must demonstrate to the FAA that it has the systems and training to operate safely. Restrictions are routinely placed on the international operators for things like land and hold short, and there may be other restrictions on a case by case basis. After this accident it would not be unusual for the FAA to add restrictions to the AOC of an airline or group of airlines.

Additionally, there is a system of inspections and audits that can be done through IATA, such as the IATA Operational Safety Audit. IATA is an industry group, and while there are many positives about the audit process, the results are not public and the rectifications are not mandatory.

[Bob Zuruncle]

Since this was clearly NOT a stabilized approach, can anyone here quote from the Asiana Ops Manual as to what their Stabilized Approach Criteria actually are?

[Machrihanish]

... But if autoland is needed to stay safe in perfect weather, what margin of safety is available from the pilots if something goes wrong?

Excuse me, Sir, who said Autoland? Why all that making ILS into Autoland?

[Shademaster]

(again: from a pure layman)

From my understanding, the reason why VNAV wouldn't have been as useful as an ILS approach, is that it seems (again, from naive outsider perspective) like these guys were *used* to ILS approaches.

Why make them do something they're not used to if it's not necessary? I've read a lot on this thread about "a 16 year old kid with a pilot's license should be able to perform a visual approach". It's more subtle than that.

The main issue is that they were asked to PARTIALLY interact with complex automated systems. This requires tremendous amounts of brain power. That load prevented them from looking at the airspeed (as egregious as that may be). The statements in this thread about whether or not autothrust was/should have been engaged read like legal documents. If they were 100% hand flying (NO AUTOTHRUST) this probably wouldn't have happened. The root cause is that they were doing something which i) wasn't completely routine for them and ii) involved interacting with complex (partial) automation. It's NOT that they weren't good enough at "stick and rudder"... it's that they weren't good enough at the video game (the complex automation).

Should pilots train to do non-routine things that they're not used to? Sure: in the sim. Should they have been able to handle a visual approach? Of course. Was a visual approach "routine" for them? (Seems no). Should it have been routine for them (on that precise type)? (I don't know since I'm not in the industry). Did the fact that they were required to do something that was not "routine" cause the accident? Yes.

[kaokao]

Yesterday one of media in Korea reportedly claimed that the pilots at OZ214 tried to full back throttle lever when they saw PAPI, which was 3 red and 1 white around 300 feet altitude, 30 seconds before crash but the throttle did not responded.

The statement was deliverately made from the governer of Korea Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation after they interviewed the pilots who were likely responsible for the crash of OZ214 at SFO.

According to pilots, they set the autothrottle ON after approaching angle is at their way to landing and recoginzed them lower than course from the view of PAPI. It says that immediately the captain manually full back the lever to increase engine power for moments but in vain.

There is big discrepencies between media and NTSB reports that Debora Hersman says the pilots in Asiana are premature at action and too late to accelerated the plane since they did not make on time.

By the way there are a couple of occasions that the thrust goes to idle when the autothrottle mode is engaged.

Autothrottle problems suspected in Heathrow 777 crash ? The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/24/777_autothrottle/)
American Airlines Boeing 777 suffers autothrottle problem : Heathrow Airport News Stories (http://www.uk-airport-news.info/heathrow-airport-news-030308a.htm)

What is the turth? Hidding and covering?

[ross_M]

This bit is a bit concerning, if true:

"Earlier, federal safety officials said one of the pilots on the flight initially told the crew not to evacuate passengers after it crashed.

The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday that people did not begin fleeing the aircraft until 90 seconds later when a fire erupted. At that point, the doors were opened and escape slides were inflated.

Officials say the delay occurred as the pilot checked with the tower at the airport."

90 secs is eternity when faced with a potential airplane fire. Is this sort of delay typical?
Looking at the footage, the flight deck shouldn't have had much doubt as to how much damage was likely.

[500N]

I read the CC contacted the pilots re evac and were told wait
as the pilots were talking to ATC. A few minutes later one of
the CC contacted the Pilots to say they had fire on ?? side
and were then told to evacuate.

Have seen it in 2 reports but can't vouch for the accuracy.

[Wellington Bomber]

Maybe something lost in translation

But Captain Pulled back power, may be this is where they went wrong, it should firewall the power up!

[sabenaboy]

Just a side note:
This report (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/07/10/200858132/asiana-flight-214-updates-from-the-ntsb-investigation) says: "The flying pilot had the day off before the flight began. He says he got eight hours of sleep, and came to the airport six hours before the flight."

What was he doing at the airport six hours before the flight? :ugh: When I'm scheduled for such a long flight, I'm not going to show up that early!

[skytrax]

Someone said something about shoulder belts for pax in business class???! Is there such a thing in comercial planes? I have never come across an airliner that has this feature for pax. Only CC have a harness, four point one. While flight decks come with 5 point harnesses.

I wont comment on pilots performance but as far as CC is concerned their performance was excellent from I could gather. Unplanned crash landing, emergency evacuation, they managed to get everybody out despite some of them being incapacitated or trapped, structural damage of aircraft, smoke.... Cant think of a worse enviroment to evacuate a full plane. Excellent job guys!

LE: just on the news now, 3 cabin crew have been ejected from the plane on crash landing. That means they were down 5 crew for the evacuation, as we already know 2 were trapped by the slides. So, really good job ladies. Quite remarkable in fact getting everybody out before the flames and smoke would have definately killed lots of pax.

[Ripper3785]

I read the CC contacted the pilots re evac and were told wait
as the pilots were talking to ATC. A few minutes later one of
the CC contacted the Pilots to say they had fire on ?? side
and were then told to evacuate.

Have seen it in 2 reports but can't vouch for the accuracy.

It was in the briefing today. She stated that evac didn't begin until 90 secs after the plane stopped because the pilots said wait.

Other bit from todays breifing that I found surprising was that some of the slides deployed inside the cabin upon the second impact, when the aircraft 'finished' it's pirouette. I think it was discussed here that we figured it happened when they attempted to open doors that wouldn't open all the way, thus inside deployment.

[dba7]

skytrax
Someone said something about shoulder belts for pax in business class???! Is there such a thing in comercial planes? I have never come across an airliner that has this feature for pax. Only CC have a harness, four point one. While flight decks come with 5 point harnesses.

I wont comment on pilots performance but as far as CC is concerned their performance was excellent from I could gather. Unplanned crash landing, emergency evacuation, they managed to get everybody out despite some of them being incapacitated or trapped, structural damage of aircraft, smoke.... Cant think of a worse enviroment to evacuate a full plane. Excellent job guys!

You mean girls...

Photo of one of the flight attendants piggybacking a passenger away from the jet.
http://photo.hankooki.com/newsphoto/2013/07/09/coming201307091823300.jpg

Hankooki.com is site of one of major daily paper in S Korea.

[India Four Two]

Someone said something about shoulder belts for pax in business class???! Is there such a thing in comercial planes?

skytrax,

In business class cabins, where the lie-flat seats are not facing fore and aft, but at an angle of about 30 degrees, there are various seat-belt arrangements to cope with restraining passengers.

On Cathay Pacific, the seat belt has a padded section over the passenger's forward-facing hip and a modifed buckle assembly.

On a flight last year, on Thai or Singapore (I cannot remember which), there was a separate diagonal shoulder strap, which had to be fastened for take-off and landing.

[mary meagher]

After reading through 82 pages, a couple of thoughts.

The amazing real time video shows the 777 scooting along the surface of the bay for some time before impacting the sea wall. Because conditions were CAVOK, it is possible that glassy water near that sea wall in the lee of the prevailing wind could have made it more difficult to assess how low they were getting.

Also, Pipeliner in comment number 1483 quotes studies that show 3 to 5% of approaches made by transport aircraft are unstable, and of these, only 5% actually go around!

And another thought. Listening to ATC in the US both as pax and as IR pilot,I feel that one who is not a native speaker would have to be bold indeed to say those useful words "Say again slowly!" and if asked to fly too fast for comfort, "Unable!"

[skytrax]

@india four 2

I see. Thanks, wasnt aware of that as I havent been in any of those seats when travelled with Cathay or Singapore. I have seen the padded belts but not a harness for pax.
I understand that Asiana had some seats in J class with some sort of harness! Is that right?

Added on my previous post as well this info.
LE: just on the news now, 3 cabin crew have been ejected from the plane on crash landing. That means they were down 5 crew for the evacuation, as we already know 2 were trapped by the slides. So, really good job ladies. Quite remarkable in fact getting everybody out before the flames and smoke would have definately killed lots of pax.

[oicur12.again]

"What was he doing at the airport six hours before the flight?"

My previous airline was Chinese, not Korean but I suspect many of the practices are similar.

It is not uncommon to see crew in "the office" 5-6 hours before departing on a long haul flight, lurking around "building relationships". I once saw a captain in the admin office in uniform one morning "speaking to captain xxx" with a late evening departure for Europe that same day.

Oh, and its not uncommon to do a 4 hour simulator session, then have 2 hours off then PIC a long haul flight.

[lbalad]

Don't think it was an all female cabin crew,I thought on one of the photos there was a male flight attendant bending down,tending to the injured.Stand to be corrected though!.

[skytrax]

5-6 hrs before STD at the crew facilities is extreme to me. Especially for a long haul flight. I accept maybe 3 hrs as it was a training flight and needed extra time for briefing but anything above that does not make any sense to me.

[fox niner]

Just a side note:
This report says: "The flying pilot had the day off before the flight began. He says he got eight hours of sleep, and came to the airport six hours before the flight."

What was he doing at the airport six hours before the flight? When I'm scheduled for such a long flight, I'm not going to show up that early!

Must be a cultural thing. Psyching up for the flight. Making sure he is at the airport BEFORE his instructor is so he can show his respect/make tribute.

Don't be surprised.

[Wizofoz]

According to pilots, they set the autothrottle ON after approaching angle is at their way to landing and recoginzed them lower than course from the view of PAPI. It says that immediately the captain manually full back the lever to increase engine power for moments but in vain.


The fact that the Thrust Levers were "Full back" was the problem, they needed to be full forward!

Your Politician doesn't know what he is talking about. The trainer said he told the LHS pilot to "Pull back" meaning on the CONTROL COLUM to correct the low flight path, while expecting the Auto-throttle to correct the speed.

There is no evidence that anything to do with aircraft did anything except what it was supposed to do.

[ross_M]

This evacuation as described above was done in accordence with the order of known priorities and sequence of standard operating procedures taught at my airline

The sequence may be right. But was the speed of execution right?

90 secs to complete an emergency evac. checklist? Sounds long.

[dba7]

lbalad
Don't think it was an all female cabin crew,I thought on one of the photos there was a male flight attendant bending down,tending to the injured.Stand to be corrected though!.

The cabin crew included 2 males but one was knocked out upon crash landing.

[India Four Two]

The amazing real time video shows the 777 scooting along the surface of the bay for some time before impacting the sea wall.

Mary,

I think the white cloud is not water, but dust and smoke from the runway.

The aircraft hits the seawall at 00:16 in the video and the white cloud starts immediately. The pirouette starts at 00:26 and the white cloud turns red as the aircraft leaves the runway and ploughs through the dirt.

CNN Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com (http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2013/07/07/vo-plane-sf-plane-crash-on-cam.courtesy-fred-hayes#/video/us/2013/07/07/vo-plane-sf-plane-crash-on-cam.courtesy-fred-hayes)

PS The video looks as though it was taken from Bayfront Park, where I have also taken pictures. Look up Bayfront Park, Millbrae, CA on Google Maps to see the line of sight to the threshold of 28L.

[Indarra]

Seems to be not much sensitivity shown to the cabin crew paraded before photographers in SF on Wednesday. Reportedly they are all clutching their passports. Also see NTSB to investigate delayed evacuation of Asiana flight - latimes.com (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sfo-crash-probe-20130711,0,1307277.story)

http://www.trbimg.com/img-51de2083/turbine/la-mct-us-news-asiana-crashlanding-3-ox-jpg-20130710/600

[lowvaeater]

Not all accident/incident requires evacuation.

Before deciding to proceed with evacuation, a number of things must be done first.

How bad was the situation?
Is a controlled disembarkation a better option? (evacuation often causes more injury)
Is the checklist done?
Are the engines still running? If so can it be shutdown from the cockpit control?
Any fire that must be extinguished first?

Remember pilot have no direct view of whats going on behind them both inside and outside.

Remember evacuate with engine running at unknown power is like sending people into shredder.

90 second is short or long to reach a decision is not for us to judge cos we are not in the cockpit and some of commenter don't even flies B777.

[CaptainEmad]

Mary M

it is possible that glassy water near that sea wall in the lee of the prevailing wind could have made it more difficult to assess how low they were getting.
You are mistaken. Your statement is delusional.

Also, Pipeliner in comment number 1483 quotes studies that show 3 to 5% of approaches made by transport aircraft are unstable, and of these, only 5% actually go around!

Even if 5% of approaches are unstable, flying at Vref minus 31kts might happen maybe one in 10 million approaches, nearly always ending in a smoking hole.

And another thought. Listening to ATC in the US both as pax and as IR pilot,I feel that one who is not a native speaker would have to be bold indeed to say those useful words "Say again slowly!" and if asked to fly too fast for comfort, "Unable!"

Flying a transport category aircraft is not for the meek.

[NigelOnDraft]

after "Crashing", and flipping around the runway, the CC contacted the pilots, re-evac, and were told to wait??
Who were these 'Muppets' upfront? Crew following procedures / training / trying to assess situation.

Yes, 90s is a long time, but I doubt these guys were thinking 100% straight. They'd just been thrown about the cockpit, clearly shocked and confused, and the last thing you want to do is evacuate passengers into running engines.

NTSB briefing summed it up well as does post above.

In operator I work for, and I presume most, remember when the situation is clearly catastrophic / dire, the CC can evacuate on their own initiative.

One criteria to be considered is only evacuating for a "confirmed, unextinquished" fire. That often requires external information - when they got that the evac went ahead.

So yes, I am sure whatever happened could be better with 20:20 hindsight. But not sure I'd be calling them "Muppets"...

[kbrockman]

Don't know if this has been mentioned before but it looks like there is
more than 1 party under review , Boeing also doesn't seem to be totally without blame
Boeing May Still Be Blamed In Asiana Airlines Crash: SFist (http://sfist.com/2013/07/10/boeing_may_still_be_blamed_in_asian.php)
Boeing could still end up being on the hook for never having installed an aural warning system of low airspeed on the 777, a system which the NTSB had recommended the FAA look into requiring 10 years ago. Also, the NTSB is requesting data about any other aborted landings of 777s due to similar problems on approach, and data on the SFO runway itself.

[the heavy heavy]

Sweet mercy!

I'm meek, I'm meek, I'm meek..... Quick take my atpl before I object again to not being unable to understand a garbled and unclear transmission, thats vitally important, or to being asked to work at a much higher workload than is necessary!

I'll go further, I'd rather fly with a meek pilot than an arrogant sky god almost any day of the week! If by meek you really mean its somebody who respects the environment we work in isn't for the stupid, the arrogant, or the foolhardy then I hope I'm as meek as you get!

Some of the comments on here really do show why the 'professional' part of this sites name really isn't needed!

[ZimmerFly]

On many Boeing aircraft I believe a synthetic voice will call "Airspeed Low" when the speed is in the yellow band (or it may be the PM reading the EICAS caution message) ...this may be a "Customer Option".

When the CVR is transcribed we will have a better understanding of all the human and synthetic voices in the final few minutes. (Rad Alt, EGPWS etc.)

[Tscottme]

In Korea, age is the most basic factor to determine seniority. For this age-based hierarchy to be neutralized, there has to be a confluence of some very unusual circumstances.
Re the information about the flying pilot being ahead of the trainer at flight academy. I'm not sure how reliable that is but had that been the case, it certainly would not have stopped the older guy from speaking up. Please keep in mind, at least for the flight, he is the "teacher" and in Asian countries, teachers are respected in ways that American educators can only dream of.The Korean airlines have had a terrible record for quite a long time until 1999 when the FAA and EU threatened to block them from their airspace. They have had accidents with fatalities precisely conforming to the cultural issue under discussion. You did say you wer familiar with Gladwell's book.

The CVR supports the crew not communicating for the 2 minutes prior to the crash even as the approach was anything but airline quality and not corrected or commented upon until 7 seconds before crash. 3 pilots in the cockpit, one new to the type, one new to the position, and one very junior to the others. It fits with what other expats have seen recently among Korean crews for KAL and Asiana. It fits with the Japanese/American fellow detailing the numerous interweaving levels of seniority/deference as he has lived it. But if it makes you feel superior and civilized to believe the culture witnessed by the FAA, EU, expat pilots and instructors and consistent with the CVR is just a figment of mine, feel away.

Just because it's taboo to think something in polite society doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

[skytrax]

Are you aware of evac check list? Also, sometimes its safer to be inside rather than outside. In not saying this was the case now, but I guess they were trying to figure that out at least. I dont see any blame here especially until we see all the facts together.
Its easy to comment now and blame, blame, blame

In most airlines, CC have the choice to start evacuation when situation is catastrophic (fire, smoke, str tural damage). Also, contacting the flight deck after such event is an SOP for many. As I said before pilots can have certain indications, communication with ATC etc and can advise the CC not to use certain exists.
During this procedure, CC still have the option to initiate evac should circumstances deterioriate. And from what I gathered this was the situation here. CC followed SOP contacting FD and started evac when it was clear that everybody needs to get out asap and cannot wait for pilots to decide. Nothing wrong here imo.

[Lone_Ranger]

Nigel, after an impact as severe as that, a 90 second delay to authorising evacuation is a very hard thing to explain or justify....I dont think your post did either

[lowvaeater]

AIRSPEED LOW Caution Beeper
Airspeed is below minimum
maneuvering speed.

Straight from FCOM

meaning, "AIRSPEED LOW" displays on EICAS as a Caution message
and a Beeper sounds once.

[The Ancient Geek]

This thread is getting sillier and sillier.

They screwed up the approach - we have all done that.
They knew that the approach was unstable but they failed to go around. STUPID.

Unstable approaches are one of the most common accident causes but pilots still continue into dangerous situations. This happens every day across the industry but most times they get away with it and congratulate themselves on their superiour skills. Time for some serious questions to be asked about human factors. Get-there-itis is a killer.

[NigelOnDraft]

Nigel, after an impact as severe as that, a 90 second delay to authorising evacuation is a very hard thing to explain or justify....I dont think your post did either I think you will find pilots do not "authorise" an evacuation. They "order" one, after assessment of the situation and completion of the checklist/procedure. If/when you start your pilot training they teach you such things :ok:

As stated, it took QF an hour ;)

If it is "urgent" the CC can initiate it without the Flt Crew order.

What were the circumstances you know of now that definitively warranted an earlier evacuation order? PS The NTSB chair gave a good account last night of why the delay may have occurred.

Personally I suspect that the evac probably should have been called earlier, maybe even much earlier, in an ideal world. But I do not have the knowledge/data to criticise a fellow professional from afar, so will await that information.

[ross_M]

Yes, 90s is a long time, but I doubt these guys were thinking 100% straight. They'd just been thrown about the cockpit, clearly shocked and confused, and the last thing you want to do is evacuate passengers into running engines.


Fair enough. Which is why I shouldn't compare these 90 secs. to some idealistic, hypothetical metric of mine.

But, what might make sense is to compare this crew to previous hull losses with evacs. ordered. Does anyone know (anecdotally or in a study) how long pilots have taken to complete the checklist and order an evac.?

Of course, someone's going to say "every crash is different". Sure, but there's some value in benchmarking. If the median evac. order is issued in 9 secs. and they took 90 it's at least a hunch to dig deeper. If the median evac. order takes 2 minutes, let's move on.


In operator I work for, and I presume most, remember when the situation is clearly catastrophic / dire, the CC can evacuate on their own initiative.


I know a lot of CC here were incapacitated. But at least two were not. Wonder what CC training says about the line between initiating an evac. versus waiting for the flight deck's call.


One criteria to be considered is only evacuating for a "confirmed, unextinquished" fire. That often requires external information - when they got that the evac went ahead.

If they hadn't got this confirmation, how long would they have stretched out those 90 secs. What's the next step on the crash response protocol.

[clayne]

Time for some serious questions to be asked about human factors. Get-there-itis is a killer.

Not so simple. FOQA?

[BBK]

"But I do not have the knowledge/data to criticise a fellow professional from afar, so will await that information."

Absolutely Nigel, well said!

From what some of the posters here are saying there really is no need for an investigation. It was just useless incompetent Koreans who mishandled the approach so why waste US taxpayers money when we know the reason.

Some of us and that includes the NTSB want to know WHY this accident occurred. Are there lessons to be learned, could it have been prevented?

Aren't some of you just a bit curious how the pilot flying, with almost 10,000 hours got into this situation whilst being monitored by the PIC (13,000 hours) and the relief FO (almost 5000 hours).

Years ago I got to know a few of the engineers at the UK AAIB (NTSB equivalent). They were all thoughtful chaps, curious, intelligent, pedantic at times in a good way. One was like a terrier. When something didn't add up in a particular investigation he became yet more determined to find the truth and would not give up. I believe that's what motivates these investigators, the desire to establish the what, how and why it happened.

[course_profile]

I saw a post by Jimjim reference replacing part of the electronic machinery in a bank.

I couldn't agree more.

The test is when you explain this to a layman (i.e the people who pay for it all and ride in it).

Member of Public: Hey, why is my wife dead?

Aviation Industry: Oh, because her plane crashed, sorry.

MoP: Man. Why did it crash?

AI: Well because they turned of a piece of equipment that pilots normally use to land and they ended up crashing.

MoP: You mean it just broke?

AI: No, they just switched it off for a bit.

MoP: So if it was left on she'd be alive?

AI: Pretty much

MoP: That seems a bit wreckless.

AI: No it's not, because all of our pilots should be able to fly a visual approach. It shouldn't be a problem. Don't worry, if they screw it up we'll make sure they never get in a cockpit again.

MoP: But wasn't it a problem? I mean with the plane crash and the dead people?

AI: Don't worry - the problem is that you don't understand aviation. Go about your business.

MoP: My wife is still dead.

If a bank wiped out all our pensions because it decided to play fast and loose with technology then heads would roll.

The aviation industry needs to take a looooong hard look at itself. We are not getting it right and we are far far too quick to bury our heads in the sand about why things go wrong.

[Lliane]

"Why are the CC paraded like convicts"

Asian(a) communication, this is a common damage control technique in Korea to get crying people, it's usually CEOs

[testpanel]

Again, a "crew" managed to crash a perfectly good airplane:ugh:

With all the courses, line/sim-checks and not to forget the computer and gadgets, they just "forgot" to FLY the aircraft.

I quess: 1. Aviate, 2.Navigate, 3.Communicate is not known anymore.

Even much, much lower paid Turboprop pilots, flying in worse conditions and dodgy airports, know how to fly on a perfect cavok day with light winds a visual approach WITHOUT even having a authothrottle!!!!:D

[keesje]

Why are the CC paraded like convicts?

Amazes me too.

I guess thought out by very senior PR people to create sympathy. Seems not in the interest of the crew at all.

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/5RjbbrBbHMbwSXqeQ7NP5A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYwMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/gma/us.abcnews.gma.com/ap_asiana_airline_attendants_kb_130710_16x9_992.jpg

They do not seem happy at all and (purposely?) wear no uniforms.

Odd.

[mary meagher]

Perhaps Capt. Emad misunderstood my comment about those who do not have English as the native language. The rapid fire instructions from the New York Controllers or in particular the ATC at Chicago is conveyed at a speed that may even perplex a British pilot.

If the culture of the Korean people is to defer to those in authority, or regret to admit you didn't understand or dare to question the instruction given by ATC, it may be hard to come back with "Say Again ...." or "Unable". Thereby electing to continue on a very uncomfortable descent profile rather than complain.

Thank you, heavy heavy, I think you understood exactly! I would rather fly in your 747 any day.

[A and C]

Technology is not a replacement for basic flying skills, it is an aid to it.

All pilots should be able to fly the aircraft visually and without the aircraft automatic systems.

The Technology is in place to enable the pilots to do the job in worse weather and more efficiently not to replace basic flying skills.

There is more to this accident than just a pilot screwing up because of a lack of flying skill, my guess is that the root cause of this accident lays deep in the cultural dynamic on this particular flight deck.

[Ka6crpe]

Course Profile, Your assetion that having the GS turned off was a cause of this crash is just wrong. It wasn't a primary cause. It wasn't even a contributary cause or else more aircraft would crash every time there was no GS available.

Aircraft land at airports all over the world every day using a visual approach without crashing. The PAPI was working perfectly and that is the main assistance the pilot needs for a visual approach, not a GS.

To go back to Jimjim's reference to a bank, would you expect the bank to use a mortgage calculator when all you are trying to do is withdraw $100 from your checking account? That is the equivilent to what you are suggesting here. Why would an instrument approach tool be needed for a visual approach?

[cuijinbird]

When the pilot just disengage the A/T by pressing the A/T disconn switch on both throttle level, does A/T remain in armed status? A/T should wake up after you select SPEED or VNAV mode on MCP, right? Similarly, it should wake up by alpha floor protection when speed is too low and approaching the stall. Why was not alpha protection activated in Asiana 214 if we assumed they never touch FLCH button? How does the FD affact the status of A/T?

[Romulus]

From what has been provided the cabin crew seem to have remained calm and rational and provided direction when appropriate. The disembarkation occurred in an organised manner, people even got their carry on luggage out with them and there was no panic.

Not sure what more people could want from them.

[givemewings]

Ok, a post or two of mine about this was deleted so let me repeat. Regarding evacuation:

1. As correctly pointed out, there is a procedure to be followed by both FD & CC

2. The CC are required to wait for assessment/instruction by the FD crew EXCEPT in a catastrophic situation

3. CATASTROPHIC for most airline purposes means- A major or multiple breaks in the fuselage, a major, self sustaining fire INSIDE the cabin, or Ditching, any kind of ditching.

Now, from what we have heard so far, I would not be so quick to blast the CC or pilots for taking what you may think is "too long". The figure for a 90 sec evac is generally taken to mean 90sec once it BECOMES APPARENT THAT EVAC IS NECESSARY.

From the CC side, an immediate, CC-initiated evac is generally when there is an IMMEDIATE AND SUSTAINED THREAT TO THE LIFE OF THE CC MEMBER and/or passengers in the vicinity.

Running the checklist is procedure for a reason. We have seen cases where in hindsight, popping the slides and going for gold would have turned out not so good. (Think QF32 as an example- engines were still running)

Now, when we take into account what the purser said, her description of the landing and what we see in the first photos taken by pax. They MAY have felt it was 'only' a hard landing. She describes the plane as "Swaying from side to side" (We know it did much more than that from the video- she obviously did not feel it to be so bad)

She followed procedure and went immediately to the FD (either contact by phone or in person, tick that box, she did it) This rules out for the time being a CC initiated evac- the pilots are still standing and are contactable.

The captain said "wait". Most CC would take this to mean he is running the checklist and deciding if immediate evacuation is needed. If things appeared very dire she would no doubt tell them at this point (it seems from what she said that she did not realize the extent of the damage at first until she went back further into the cabin)

She mentions taking a fire extinguisher- ergo- it was the belief of the crew that the initial cabin fire was controllable. We know that 5 (maybe 7) crew were knocked out. Therefore she has lost them as a source of info and last thing pax will do/know is how to pick up the phone and call her.

Once the information changed, it appears the evacuation was immediately commanded.

The 'line' for the CC to initiate, when it is not a ditching:

1- The flight crew are NOT contactable
2- There is immediate and serious danger to continued life
3- Conditions inside the cabin are untenable

Then the procedure is along the lines of

1. Command evacuation/relay to other crew (verbally or by PA)
2. Evaluate the conditions at your specific door
3. Operate the door if able and expedite the evac

Of course exact procedure varies between airline but would be something along these lines.

As to the FD crew, once the pax are out you go check on them. Hopefully by the time the pax are streaming along down the slides everyone except the Capt are out the cockpit windows helping on the ground or out of the door assisting in the cabin.

Of course this is just an example of some of the factors that may have come into play and may of course vary depending on whether the accounts have changed or become clearer with time. Hope this gives some insight to those who are not on the cabin side of the door.

As always, personal post only and no official comment associated with my employer/s ;)

[course_profile]

A and C.

I agree with you 100%.

I was just wondering how I'd explain it to my non aviation friends. A lot of them work in banks and JimJims point made me think.

To the outside world it looks bl**dy risky to start turning off the technology that will help get them back on to the ground safely. The pilots line (my line) would be that it shouldn't be a problem because we should be able to fly visually, but there is a very real evidence that this just isn't true.

Where do you go with the logic there?

To an outsider looking in I can see why it would be jaw on the floor time to learn that they might get on a plane being flown by a guy under training into an airport where they've switched off the (to a lay man) technology that gets you back on the ground.

I hope that this reinforces to the industry that you cannot allow your pilots to get slack at old fashioned stick and rudder flying. I really don't like phrases such 'doesn't belong in the cockpit' because it seems to play the man not the ball. (I know you didn't use that phrase)

[kwh]

As course_profile said, looking at the pile of smoking twisted metal and saying 'well, they _should_ have been able to land just fine, so no lessons to learn here about a hugely busy major international airport in the richest country in the world turning all its electronic landing aids off and thinking that's not a potential safety issue' is not going to sit well with those of us who pay to ride in the back of planes flown by the steely eyed heroes of the sky in the front.

I'm sure we would all like to think that we have 'Sully' in the driving seat when something goes tits up (like the airbus you are on turning into a glider over a major city with only a river to try to land on), but you don't have to be an 'aviation expert' to know that for every 'Sully' flying passengers around the sky there has to be an equal & opposite 'Anti-Sully' who can't cope at all when something sufficiently out of their comfort zone occurs. And that presumably even the "Sully's" of this world aren't entirely infallible on their worst days.

It doesn't matter that 'we know nothing about aviation', the bottom line is that as punters, whether you think we are entitle to or not, we damned well will expect that a) If all the navaids and hi-tech landing aids at an airport do conk out then YES the drivers of a modern highly automated robotic super jet can still get everybody down in one piece with no drama, but that b) NO they should damn well never be asked to prove it absent earthquake or other calamity, and especially not just because one of the worlds busiest airports can't be bothered to find a way to provide the services we expect to be there to make our flights safer.

[AirportsEd]

San Francisco Outlines Plans to Re-Open Runway 28L | Airports International | The Airport Industry online, the latest airport industry news (http://www.airportsinternational.com/2013/07/san-francisco-outlines-plans-to-reopen-runway-28l/14306)

[Ka6crpe]

KWH





It doesn't matter that 'we know nothing about aviation', the bottom line is
that as punters, whether you think we are entitle to or not, we damned well will
expect that a) If all the navaids and hi-tech landing aids at an airport do conk
out then YES the drivers of a modern highly automated robotic super jet can
still get everybody down in one piece with no drama, but that b) NO they should
damn well never be asked to prove it absent earthquake or other calamity, and
especially not just because one of the worlds busiest airports can't be bothered
to find a way to provide the services we expect to be there to make our flights
safer.


KWH, I hope that you never want to fly into any of the airports within 250 NM of where I live, as not one of them has a GS.

[givemewings]

Back at NH,

That will probably be established with time. We do know there were burns, how those were sustained is probably not too clear at the moment. We know (at least one) of the doors was opened by a pax... possible it was opened when it was better to stay closed (I think it was on the side of the cabin where the engine fire was, but have not seen the most recent pics so may be mistaken on that one)

As to the CC being ejected along with the girls...

I saw a Mythbusters episode where they tested the difference between Y, F, fwd and rear facing jumpseats. IIRC the difference between the fwd and rear facing crew seats was something like withstanding 20G's or 80'Gs... might go a way to explaining why the cabin crew seemed to be (relatively) unharmed for having done DB Cooper on the ground....

Also very possible that (sadly) the two youngsters were not wearing seatbelts adequately or at all. (I see it very often with groups of teens) They want to look out the window but cannot see, unbuckle on landing to get a look outside. Game over. If they did wear seatbelts, and tightly enough, it will be interesting to see what the people near them can recall. (May point to a failure of the seatbelts?)

EDIT: Can we please stop posting the "account from an expat trainer"? It's been posted three times already

[course_profile]

Ka6crpe

I've not explained my position here well enough, that is my fault.

I do not think not having the G/S on was the primary cause here, not in a million years.

My point is how do you explain it to a layman, someone who pays the money to get on the jet, or a judge.

There is a piece of technology that would have prevented this crash happening, but it was turned off. It wasn't broken, it was turned off with no contingency being put in place, because it would have been more expensive to put that contingency in place.

To me, it seems a highly difficult position to defend.

[offa]

We have been going on and on about unstable approaches for (at least) twenty years yet we still continue to see them in the headlines .... and many more that didn't make it to the front page. Virtually all airlines have a FDM program so why isn't this alone effective in preventing these extremes? There are some places where you are almost always going to get set up for a slam-dunk .... could safety departments become complacent about data from airports like SFO?

[lowvaeater]

Some news is quite miss leading saying captain ordered not to evacuate.
The reality is captain used 90 seconds to evaluate the situation and decided to proceed with evacuation.

Some evacuation is decided in the air such as partial gear landing, even for that, captain needs to assess the situation on the ground before ordering evacuation.

But for this case, flight crew only knew it was a landing went wrong. Taking time to assess what the situation is like shows professionalism. If the cabin is in immanent danger such as fire or smoke (which has no indication in flight deck) cabin crew can initiate evac with out PICs permission.

There are several steps needs to be done before ordering an evac. For instance, pilot needs to make sure engines are shutdown, with engine separated there is likely to be no engine indication on the instruments, hence can not confirm if it is still running, pilot can not see what is on (or not) the wings and needs to relay on outside reference.

90 seconds to evacuate the aircraft with half doors open is for aircraft certification purpose NOT a time limit for pilot to assess situation to make a decision.

It is sometimes safer to stay in the aircraft than wonder around on the tarmac.

[givemewings]

It is sometimes safer to stay in the aircraft than wonder around on the tarmac.

As we saw with QF32. Lots of initial criticism of that one too but turns out they were right... not ideal to evac your few hundred into a running engine!

[Plectron]

While working as a Captain at another major Asian carrier we (pilots) were required to attend the Sim Evacuation exercises with the Flight Attendants. This is done in a full size cabin mock-up with motion that is next to the pool.

The way the exercise was supposed to go was that we were to have a water ditching. The Flight Crew (pilots) give the inital prep over the PA and the FAs brief the passengers. The briefing portion to the passengers by the FAs was very poorly done and few of the key points were actually accomplished to standard.

After the simulated touchdown in the water it was my task to issue the evac command. However, I took the option of playing dead - that is, I said nothing. And in the cabin, nothing happened. At all. Nobody did anything. Minutes passed. Finally. I gave up and asked: "Does anyone seriously think this aircraft is going to taxi to the gate?" (Remember this was a water "landing" - ditching). Finally, they carried on with the evac and everyone went out the slide into the water. Lots of giggles and wet FAs. Everyone passed of course.

[Back at NH]

Anyone of all you guys working up there in the skies who have any idea about what the "blinded by a bright light @500 feet" could be about?

Only a so-called laser-attack, imho.

ONLY?????

The PF of an aeroplane that will soon crash and kill 2 passengers is temporarily blinded, does not report it to the other crew members if what has been said about the crew not communicating for the last 2 minutes of the flight is correct, and it is ONLY a so-called laser-attack???

It's as much a factor, if correct, as some people are making the lack of an ILS.

As I have said previously, the key to the enigma is on the CVR, both in what is heard or maybe more importantly, what is not heard.

I'm sure we would all like to think that we have 'Sully' in the driving seat when something goes tits up (like the airbus you are on turning into a glider over a major city with only a river to try to land on), but you don't have to be an 'aviation expert' to know that for every 'Sully' flying passengers around the sky there has to be an equal & opposite 'Anti-Sully' who can't cope at all when something sufficiently out of their comfort zone occurs.

ILS availability aside, is the modern concensus that a visual approach and landing is, on a "blue sky" day, little wind, pretty much perfect day, outside the comfort zone of today's long haul aircrew? If it is, it is a sad indictment of the state of this industry.

[BBK]

"There is a piece of technology that would have prevented this crash happening, but it was turned off. It wasn't broken, it was turned off with no contingency being put in place, because it would have been more expensive to put that contingency in place.

To me, it seems a highly difficult position to defend."

I won't speculate as to the precise role the lack of an ILS played in this accident but in a wider context I would say it is good thing if it is addressed. SFO and JFK are major international airports and I can only guess that their use of non precision approaches is to do with capacity issues. International long haul pilots are not used to flying visual approaches regularly because other countries, from what I have seen, use the ILS as intended. If one does have to shoot a non precision approach then it is normally because the airport doesn't have an ILS at all.

As for stabilised approaches then you need to interview ATC as to why they give unworkable constraints like 180 kts to 5 nm. As others have said you learn to ignore it if you want to make the 1000 ft gate all done and dusted.

[BOAC]

Way back in the 'anals' of this thread, and now I think deleted, I asked which of the various quotes from 'FCOM' was the 'real' one. I now have the answer.

The FCOM 'Automatic Flight' section DOES mention the inhibition of stall protection via the A/T with the FLCH pitch mode. The FCOM section on 'Flight Controls' does NOT mention it in coverage of stall protection.

Logic?

Since we have no idea which (if any) mode 214 was in, this is posted purely for the elimination of (my) confusion.

EDIT:
It does appear that confusion over the 'delay' in evacuation is creeping in. My understanding is that it did not commence until 90 seconds after coming to rest, and this has NOTHNG to do with certification evac trials involving a different 90 seconds in which to clear the a/c..

[givemewings]

Plectron, were they ab initio or recurrent crew? I only ask because as trainee crew they tend to actually let you make your mistakes in the sim and rectify it the next day... I also see the most hesitation on the ditching exercise but I suspect this is due to the movement of the sim not being familiar at first. I messed up my first ditch exercise because it felt like we were still moving but we weren't...

If recurrent then I would hope there was a debrief that you didn't see... :/

[NWstu]

@NigelOnDraft
In operator I work for, and I presume most, remember when the situation is clearly catastrophic / dire, the CC can evacuate on their own initiative.
When I worked as CC with Northwest many moons ago, we were to chant "brace for impact" in unison until the plan landed (or worse). Upon the AC's stopping, we checked our watches. If the flight deck didn't get on the PA to say "stay seated" or something similar (I don't recall the exact wording) or to say "Evacuate the airplane", either within 20 seconds (don't recall the exact time period), CC was to evacuate the AC. CC had the right to evacuate on its own if doing so was obvious, but the above was the procedure.

Of course in Asian 214's case, no one had time to prepare to brace for impact.

[nitpicker330]

I haven't flown into SFO as crew but looking the sat photo and TV shots where exactly is this "laser" light supposed to have come from when they were at 500' approx 1 .5 nm from the sea wall over the open water?????

Rubbish ****ty attempt to provide an excuse.......

If there was indeed a laser light why
1/ didn't it effect the PF?
2/ why didn't the PM say something?
3/ why didn't the TC direct the PF to go around if he ( the TC ) couldn't see?

It's bogus....

[ross_M]

Do we get many people trying to shine l@sers into cockpits during a bright July midday sun?


And if someone did shine a l@ser it'd be odd he said nothing to ATC about it nor if no exclamation shows up on CVR.

Besides isn't most of that approach over the sea?

[ross_M]

After the simulated touchdown in the water it was my task to issue the evac command. However, I took the option of playing dead - that is, I said nothing. And in the cabin, nothing happened. At all. Nobody did anything. Minutes passed. Finally. I gave up and asked: "Does anyone seriously think this aircraft is going to taxi to the gate?" (Remember this was a water "landing" - ditching). Finally, they carried on with the evac and everyone went out the slide into the water. Lots of giggles and wet FAs. Everyone passed of course.


Another example of the deference to authority syndrome? Captain's in command and if he doesn't order we sit tight. No matter how odd things seem.

[Super VC-10]

The crew of UA885 saw the aircraft was coming down short of the runway.

Did they communicate with OZ214 by radio to warn them or not? Do regulations prevent them from doing so? Could they have contacted the tower instead?

Maybe they did, or is this another hole in the cheese? None of the above is intended as a criticism of the crew of UA885.

[SgtBundy]

Is the ILS really a factor? If they had glidescope would that have meant any better an approach seeing as they have seemingly missed/ignored several factors in their visual approach (airspeed, appropriate altitude, apparent nose angle, possibly config of the AT, observer call outs). With the ILS would that have been one more thing they were chasing to get right, or would that have been another layer of automation to save their bacon?

I work in IT, so as far as the IT comparisons go its limited by fact that its kind of hard to restore an airliner or a life from backup. I would also believe that the installation of equipment as technical as an ILS array would be performed by engineers capable of identifying if they have options to do it with minimum downtime. I know I hate it when people outside my area of speciality expect my work can just happen with the click of fingers without knowing what is involved.

Certainly there is going to be some very hard questions to answer about what occurred in that cockpit.

[sccutler]

"Blinded" for thirty seconds?

Pathetic - the only word I can think of to apply here.

Whole thing still comes down to an inability to exercise reasonable decision-making discretion. Unstabilized? Go around.

ILS is irrelevant. "Blinded" is irrelevant.

[nitpicker330]

There will be changes after this report comes out.

1/ An RNAV approach to all runways if the GS is not available
2/ ATC not requiring 180 kts to 5nm
3/ focus on training Pilots to monitor better
4/ requiring speed and sink rate calls by the PM below 500' ( our company does them and this small call "may" have prevented this accident )

[testpanel]

Pfffffffffff,
do i feel Another SOP-change coming?

[nitpicker330]

Well don't laugh because whilst trying not to appear a ****** smart ass our company require these calls below 500' when hand flying and visual.

If the PM in Asiana had been required to call these speeds there is a very good chance this whole sorry mess might not have happened.

[Akrapovic]

Checklists have to be run prior to evacuation. Certainly in my experience,

Coupled with the undoubted shock of having piled in and watched your landing gear overtake you, I think 90 seconds is entirely plausible.

In my experience, Boeing evac checklists are shorter than Airbus ones, but unless someone has evidence of Asiana's SOP's regarding evacuation, I see it entirely wrong to start criticising the flight crew for this relatively short delay.

[nitpicker330]

Listen, in normal circumstances you have to wait until the cockpit crew can access the situation, shut down Engines, decide the best doors to use etc etc.

How would you feel if you decided to evacuate 10 pax into a running Engine?

Yes this wasn't the case in Asiana but none the less after they gained their senses back they made their assessment and then their call.

[phil gollin]

I thought that Manchester (?) showed that there MUST be at least a quick check before an ordered evacuation ?

Obviously in a catastrophic situation the CC must take the initiative.

[givemewings]

90sec is a certification guideline not a rule when starting evac. Again, please go read about QF32 to understand why immediate evac may not be a good idea.

Again, the plane may be "broken" but this does not always mean that evacuation should immediately follow.

[nitpicker330]

If the cockpit are alive and you have contact with them ( via phone or face to face ) you wait for THEM to make the call.

If they are not contactable and there is obvious fire or threat to staying on board then the cabin crew will initiate Evac.

There must be a set "chain of command"

Ok? :ok:

[jientho]

Bloggs, I gotta object to this mindset:

"Fly it like the autopilot flies an ILS. You get low on slope, you pull the nose up. Primary effect of controls. If you then get slow or know form experience that you will get slow, put the power up. As you say, pitch and power work together, but the initial reaction is to stay on-slope with the stick, then compensate (if necessary) with the power."

Isn't that EXACTLY the mindset that crashed Asiana, and AF447 as well?? They went with "pitch first for altitude" and got behind the curve. And then got confused because "it always worked before" or "that's what A/P does". When in the Asiana case any goose of engines FIRST, anywhere between say t-120s and t-20s would have made the runway. Instead they're in your "power second" mindset (at 3am circadian time) and don't get to the power until like t-7s, fatally late.

And of course AF did go full power but rode all the way in behind the curve without EVER releasing pitch.

I'd go with a much simpler phrase: Power good, pitch bad. Much safer to attempt G/A with (because of) excess energy than the way Asiana attempted their G/A.

[ross_M]

In my experience, Boeing evac checklists are shorter than Airbus ones, but unless someone has evidence of Asiana's SOP's regarding evacuation, I see it entirely wrong to start criticising the flight crew for this relatively short delay.


"Relatively short" relative to what? If 90 secs is "relatively short" for an evac. order to be issued, what would you say is typical?

[NEWYEAR]

Unbelievably NOBODY from flight deck had situational awareness. Other wise, Evacuation would have been immediately.
It´s very odd that pilots were not aware of the situation.
Unbelievable ¡¡

"Conditions for an evacuation"
When the plane and engines are stopped, ordered by Captain, Call-out: EVACUATE¡¡, EVACUATE¡¡, EVACUATE¡¡

In case of having no communication with flight deck, Cabin Crew must initiate an evacuation in the following cases:
-Fire or smoke inside/outside the plane.
-Severe damages in the fuselage of the plane.
-Bomb on board
-If the evacuation has been iniciated in other place of the plane.
-In an expected/unexpected emergency.
-In a ditching

*What does happen if engines are not stopped yet? Cabin Crew must use the comun sense.

I´m surprised with the fact that the Senior Cabin Crew was the last crew member to abandon the plane...There were 3 Captains, one of them should have been the last to abandon the plane instead of the SCC.

It is said that a vehicle run over a survivor who died shortly after the accident with the vehicule. If a crew member had carried out a good coordination on the ground, this person could be alive.

I think that this fatal accident Asiana 214 is going to be a good scenario for study the differents aspects related to CRM. I think it could be considered an example such as Los Rodeos in Tenerife which happened many years ago.

[givemewings]

As an aside, on my last CRM they had us read, item by item, the evac checklist. And showed a video of two of our pilots performing an exercise in the sim. RTO due cargo fire warning. Watching them run the checklist was interesting for a lot of my group who had no piloting experience. They had no idea the pilots even "did anything" after it became clear something was not right.

We all know there is a checklist of course, but actually see them run it was enlightening for most.

[NEWYEAR]

Evacuation check-list is: READ AND DO¡¡

[Javadreaming]

Please no more "if only the ILS was working":ugh: Many, many thousands of pilots fly visual approaches every day without an ILS. How many pilots managed to land at SFO that day without crashing. To say the ILS outage was a contributory factor is nonsense.

I fly the 777 and have flown numerous visual approach without an ILS with no extra stress involved in doing so....and i'm not alone!!!! this is standard practice across the world. If pilots can't fly to an airport without an ILS then they should not be allowed to fly at all. For the armchair experts out there a visual approach is not challenging.

I get the swiss cheese model, but individual responsibility come into play as well. I think that we just need to accept that we all occasionally F up - and these guys did just that.

I must say that I agree with post 1692... having flown with these guys I know these words to be true - I always laugh when non flying guys say "it can't possibly be that bad".

[Lorimer]

United Flight 885 asks:

The crew of UA885 saw the aircraft was coming down short of the runway.

Did they communicate with OZ214 by radio to warn them or not? Do regulations prevent them from doing so? Could they have contacted the tower instead?

This thought has been in the back of my mind for several days now, and I bet the UA crew are bitterly regretting that they didn't say something – although whether it would have been responded to or not is another matter!

Every air traffic control frequency is under the control of the ATCO who is providing the service on that frequency. A pilot would virtually never speak directly to another pilot, although that is simply a matter of pressing the transmit button. Usually what happens is to speak through the ATCO i.e. "Tower, doesn't the 777 on finals look a little low?" This serves to bring everyone's attention to the situation and the Controller might well respond with a call to the 777 such as "Asiana 214, you look a little low, are you OK?" The ATCOs are reluctant (appropriately) to tell pilots how to fly the aircraft, they just give us the challenges!
I suspect the UA pilots also thought that the aircraft was very slow too; a 30 knot reduction in normal approach speed would be noticeable I would have thought.
In emergency of course (as here), the UA pilot(s) could have transmitted on the Tower frequency "Asiana 214, you are low and slow, pull up, pull up!" or something, as has already been suggested.
As I said, they will be regretting they didn't, but this is water under the bridge now.

Edit: I don't mean to be ungenerous towards ATC. They do a fantastic job, although some places concentrate the mind a little more than others!

[StickFlyer]

Quick question, what exactly are the checklist tasks prior to evacuation and how long to do them? 90 seconds sounds a long time to throw a few switches
But more to the point, the crew up front have no idea what things are like behind why didn't one of them go take a look? (Or indeed take charge of the evac)
It seems a slowness to react to things characterises the mishap, which need not be a finger pointing blaming but like Sully said something to consider as part of the whole investigation
Delaying the evac that long (if that is the case) is not 'ok' or acceptable.. one look out back and they'd see the engines were not there making any worries over 'running engines' of little point, or maybe the whole checklist?

[Lonewolf_50]

Captain Emad (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/518568-asiana-flight-crash-san-francisco-79.html#post7934213): Just to put that in perspective, in my organisation, below 1000ft, a sustained Vref minus 3 knots would be an automatic fail in the sim.
Is this a common standard in the industry?
In my airline, as stated above by Capt Emad, a (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/518568-asiana-flight-crash-san-francisco-80.html#post7934279)
sustained speed excursion below Vref would be a fail in the simulator for the flying pilot.
(http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/518568-asiana-flight-crash-san-francisco-80.html#post7934279)
Dutch Roll
A sustained speed excursion below Vref and not called by the non-flying pilot would be a fail for the non-flying pilot. Neglecting to call a go-around if the speed is not immediately corrected would also be a fail for the non-flying pilot. That's how it works. Well, in some airlines at least. The importance is placed on noticing the error, and applying an immediate correction, or if that doesn't work, go-around.
If you do this, you won't fail. In fact, in our airline you can screw up your approach but so long as you go-around either of your own accord or when told to, and get it right next time, you generally cannot be failed in the simulator.
I would ask our non pilot participants to review this comment by Dutch Roll. More than once if necessary. The matter of ILS up or not is a red herring. What Dutch Roll points to is some minimum performance metrics that professional pilots adhere to, and that companies require of their professional pilots.

Regarding leading with pitch, or leading with power, I want to thank Captain Bloggs (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/518568-asiana-flight-crash-san-francisco-81.html#post7934295)for his reply and the point on handling heavies in the approach environment, in re inertia and drag. Much Appreciated.

They screwed up the approach - we have all done that.
They knew that the approach was unstable but they failed to go around. STUPID.
This relates to the points made by Dutch Roll.
The aAncient Geek. Unstable approaches are one of the most common accident causes but pilots still continue into dangerous situations. This happens every day across the industry but most times they get away with it and congratulate themselves on their superiour skills. Time for some serious questions to be asked about human factors. Get-there-itis is a killer.
Course Profile
Well because they turned of a piece of equipment that pilots normally use to land and they ended up crashing.
I am sorry Course Profile, but you are one of the people who needs to review Dutch Roll's points. Please do so. I realize others have made similar critiques of your assertion.

Mary (http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/518568-asiana-flight-crash-san-francisco-84.html#post7934805), in re NYC ATC and comms thrills. It ain't just foreigners who run into Laguardia Speak enjoyment. :}:cool:

Some years ago, I was administering an annual instrument check to an Army pilot from Tennessee in the NYC area. His radio comms were smooth, slow, and very clear. Quite a contrast to the speed and brevity of the ATC voices on the radio. As he requested sequencing for an approach, in his unhurried manner, the controller cut in, and said this (from memory, a few words may be wrong)
"Army XXXX, I don't need your life's story, I need your request. Turn right, heading 110 and call me when you know what you want." Being a bit more used to that area's ATC myself, I admit I had to hide my face so he couldn't see me laughing. He calmly did as directed, and we eventually got his approaches in. It was a training flight, not a revenue flight for an air passenger or cargo service.

I appreciate the point you make when dealing with the controllers in the Newark/Laguardia/Kennedy madhouse. It's not for the faint of heart.

PS: it looks to me like the CC did very well under very difficult circumstances. From a few pages up, it appears that one of the CC (purser?) was proactive in working with the flight deck to get the evac initiated. She retained enough SA to coordinate it with the flight deck who among other things are in a position to shut down the engins (engine, at this point) before getting the pax out of the aircraft. When considering the ground loop that aircraft did after impact, I'd not be surprised if the gents on the FD were stunned or in a bit of a daze and had to collect themselves. Her call to the FD may have helped the FD stay in the game and keep the procedures rolling so that an evac could be done as close to "by the book" as could be managed, given the abrupt ground impact and injury to some of the CC. (Guessing, of course).

[tilnextime]

There is a piece of technology that would have prevented this crash happening, but it was turned off. It wasn't broken, it was turned off with no contingency being put in place, because it would have been more expensive to put that contingency in place.

The ILS GS equipment was not simply "turned off" in some arbitrary and capricious cost saving act. It was Out of Service whilst being relocated to properly give accurate guidance to a newly displaced threshhold. Airports do not have spare antenna arrays lying around for this type of situation. They NOTAM the GS being O/S, and aircrews, during their pre-flight planning, prepare themselves for a visual approach if the forecast is CAVOK. If you are making a 10 hour flight to an airdrome with an O/S G/S, that means you have more than 10 hours to mentally prepare yourself for that visual approach - if your pre-flight planning was thorough. That is the standard "contingency".

Have you ever set up or moved a precision approach navaid system? Do you have a clue as to what is involved? They are not iPads on casters that you merrily move about as you see fit. There is a reason they are called "precision", and haphazard or rushed installation or movement defeats that "precision".

[ross_M]

Out of curiosity, how many gallons of fuel remaining did they have in their tanks? Anyone know?

[ZimmerFly]

At a very rough guess there would have been at least 5000 kg, 6000 litres, 1500 USG .

[Jazz Hands]

I suspect functioning ILS wouldn't have prevented the accident, just delayed it and moved it somewhere else. :suspect:

[overthewing]

Super VC-10 The crew of UA885 saw the aircraft was coming down short of the runway.

Did they communicate with OZ214 by radio to warn them or not? Do regulations prevent them from doing so? Could they have contacted the tower instead?

Maybe they did, or is this another hole in the cheese? None of the above is intended as a criticism of the crew of UA885.


From what I've read, the crew of the United plane were fairly occupied with checklists, a hazmat issue and some other things. They told the Tower that they'd need a few minutes before they could depart. So I think it's likely that they were heads-down and not watching the Asiana land.

[Javadreaming]

Jazz...Agreed! as I said I have flown with these guys.

"one look out back and they'd see the engines were not there" REALLY. you can't even see the wings from the flight deck how do you think that one can see the engines?

It is too bad that more people/insurance companies/ FAA/ JAA don't have a better understanding of the culture which exists in these countries. We look at this accident through 'Western eyes', go fly in Asia for a while and you will see that that our understanding of CRM is non existent in these parts of the world...to quote a very famous human factors expert "CRM is a child of the West"

[jetdriverbr]

Ross M
I was holding short at KDAL many moons ago doing a runup at 13L. The approaching Hawker was close in and had no landing gear extended! I keyed the mike and announced "Hawker on final, you have no gear!" An immediate go around was performed. He was within 6 ft of runway when he attained positive rate. It was at this time the tower had heard me and commanded a go around, but it was academic at that point. I departed for my mission of the day and never heard anything but the tower controller say thanks.

[James4th]

I worked as an instructor in the Asiana simulator on the A320 and I know how Asiana will fix this problem:- they will forbid landing on ANY runway that does not have some electronic glideslope system and not allow ANY pilot to hand fly an approach, thus perpetuating the total lack of any basic flying skills in 95% of their pilots.

EVERY day in the sim I saw evidence of the following problem:- when the auto pilot is out or the automatics are not behaving as expected, a potential disaster ensues.

That is why I left, I tried my best, but got kicked in the teeth for it. They wont allow you to help them ............. what a shame.

[nitpicker330]

James4th-----that's seems to a recurring theme amongst Pilots who have spent time in Korea.......

It's about time someone listened.:=

[Javadreaming]

Course...I guess it is clear to those that fly the 777 that you don't really have an understanding of the aircraft - not having a go at you but just stating a fact.

The 777 is very capable of constructing a vertical path identical to an ILS using the flight management system. Flight Path Angle anyone??? The crew could also (had they so wished) used the automation to fly the ILS profile using VNAV without having a valid ILS signal which would have resulted in the crew flying an identical profile to the ILS. In fact Boeing actually suggest that doing so is good practice for flying non ILS approaches....My point? the unavailability of the ILS is no more of an issue than what the captain had for breakfast:ugh:

Course...do you work for the insurance company?

[Legacy Driver]

I was the one that wrote that comment. However, you missed my point entirely, for which I apologise if I wasn't clear. I wasn't stating my preference (I'm very much in favour of people that are in control of my life being properly trained, regardless of actual job). I was stating what the likely response from the airlines is going to be. The current environment everywhere is to cut back on training, which is considered to be expensive, and externalise the risk somewhere else. Hence, I predict that the call will go out from the airlines for ILS to be active on every major airport, because that externalises the risk onto the airport operators. It also means that the costs are borne by someone else, and the airlines' profits (and so boards' bonuses) are safe.

I predict this will happen regardless of the outcome of the crash inquiry. The question is, what are you, as professional pilots, going to do about this to ensure that you and I are *properly* safe?

[Dave Gittins]

At Gatwick, EGKK, no minor airport, the main runway (08R/26L) is out of use from 23.00 hours until 05.30 for 4 four weeks, Monday to Friday.

The northern runway 08L/26R (normally a parallel taxiway) 2,565 m x 45 m is in use.

It has no electronic naviads at all, only lights and 3 degree PAPIs.

Everybody seems to manage just fine without a localiser or glideslope. AND it's (mostly) dark.

[single chime]

Even though the GS was off the air, they could had flown it in LOC/VNAV. Same level of safety. Once they disconnected the A/THR, GS or not, they seem to have crossed the line of their capabilities. (Any PPL holder could manage this).
What will management do to prevent re-occurence? (they have to do something, right?): no more visual approach, circling, NPAs, disconnecting AP above minimum, disengaging A/THR at all.
Can expect SFO to change their speed control to 160 kts to 4nm and provide ILS to every non-US long-haul flights.
As for the root cause (inability to hand fly a visual approach), nothing will be done!

[nitpicker330]

There is an RNAV GPS Approach available for R28L
They could have programmed the FMC and followed LNAV VNAV right down to the runway if they had wanted to.

Maybe SFO will have to stop giving visual approaches to foreign carriers AND they will have to stop requiring 180kts to 5 nm.

[DaveReidUK]

To say the ILS outage was a contributory factor is nonsense.In NTSB-speak, the absence of a glideslope, like pretty well any other aspect of the accident, is classed at this stage simply as a "finding" - a fact or conclusion that may or may not have had a bearing on what happened.

By the time the investigation report is published, all findings will have been classified in one of 3 categories:

A. Probable Cause (of which there can, of course, be more than one)
B. Factor (a situation, circumstance or event that contributed to one or more of the causes)
C. Event (anything that isn't a Cause or Factor)

There is no specific sub-category for something that had a bearing on the accident, but really shouldn't have had ...

[Flyer94]

It's been a few years ago when I travelled on the jumpseat with Korean Air. The Captain instructed "his" F/O to demonstrate some avionics, using a pointer to refer to the devices to be explained. Some minutes later the F/O wanted to answer an ATC call, but he was reminded by the Captain's pointer, patting to the F/O's fingers, to first finish explanations before talking to ATC.

Since that day I understood that KAL is light years away from good CRM and that this F/O never would mention any irregularity caused by the captain.

However, I do not understand why the Koreans, after all these years and accidents, are still not able to establish flat hierarchies and a good CRM in order to reduce the number of corresponding accidents.

Regarding the UAL crew: maybe they assumed Asiana struggling with a technical problem and decided not to burden with radio messages. Additionally, everything happens fast, it's hard to capture the unexpected situation, quickly consider a solution and take action - if only a moment of time remains.

[PaperTiger]

Any stories of a bad landing that was salvaged by an alert crew on the ground?I recall one at ORD when a crew at the hold (UA I think) called "Continental's got no gear!" as a CO 727 approached. The CO (sans wheels) banged the tail but managed to go around.

I haven't flown into SFO as crew but looking the sat photo and TV shots where exactly is this "laser" light supposed to have come from when they were at 500' approx 1 .5 nm from the sea wall over the open water?

Do we get many people trying to shine l@sers into cockpits during a bright July midday sun?
...
Besides isn't most of that approach over the sea? I think it more likely to a have been a flash reflection than a laser, maybe from the holding UA 744. However, the SFO 28s approach is over water but parallel to the shore along which is a footpath and some public parks, so it's possible just not likely IMO.

[draglift]

This forum makes painful reading as those who do not fly commercial aircraft make knee jerk reactions and try to tell professional pilots how they should be flying.

Saying you should not fly an approach without an ILS glidepath is a bit like someone who does not drive observing a car skidding off a road in the rain and trying to legislate that cars should not be allowed to drive in the rain on the basis that the accident would not have happened on a dry road.

Saying that pilots should not fly an approach without an ILS glideslope would simply mean pilots becoming overly dependent on ILS and not able to fly visual approaches, ie it would makes the situation worse.

I spent many years flying 747s to Africa and the Caribbean and rarely saw an ILS. The more approaches you do without an ILS the better pilot you will be.

[legomaniac]

Hasn't anyone listened to the ATC tapes? You can clearly hear "go around" called when Asiana is on short final. That "go around" was called by the UAL flight crew holding short.

[legomaniac]

at 15s "go around"

Asiana 214 KSFO Crash Landing ATC - YouTube (http://youtu.be/8kBLM-6dUGs)

[rottenray]

Being allowed to fly a couple of visual approaches early on in the Sim (I accept I have no idea if that's accurate) and being signed off isn't really proper training for doing it after long flight and being given speed constraints several months later.

I could buy that if this were a low-time pilot. But this pilot was not - he had around 10k total hours and was previously a PIC domestically on A320. At some time during those many hours and sim sessions, the PF must have had to do a visual or two.

I can understand a poor performance (hard, slightly long or slightly short landing) but I can't understand what appears to be a complete loss of memory on how to do a visual.

I'm becoming more and more curious about sterile cockpit in this accident.

[joema]

"There is an RNAV GPS Approach available for R28L
They could have programmed the FMC and followed LNAV VNAV right down to the runway if they had wanted to."

Apparently RNAV GPS with WAAS augmentation was available at SFO and provided an artificial glideslope. The out-of-service GS was planned and the RNAV GPS was provided as an alternative precision approach -- including vertical LPV guidance. See FAA bulletin, section 4: http://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Notice/N_8900.216.pdf

"For about three months in mid-year 2013, the FAA will render the LDA for runway 28L and the ILS for runway 28L out of service (OTS) at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) due to runway construction. The loss of these navigation aids will eliminate the ability for SFO to conduct PRM approaches during simultaneous offset instrument approach (SOIA) operations. The FAA plans to publish RNAV (GPS) PRM procedures prior to this navigation aid shutdown."

RNAV GPS background: http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ato/service_units/techops/navservices/gnss/library/factsheets/media/RNAV_QFacts_final_06122012.pdf

So the inop GS need not have affected Asiana. They had equivalent vertical guidance available (ie an artificial glideslope), had they chosen to use it. If they didn't feel comfortable hand-flying, they could have made a fully-automated approach. The equipment was available.

[The Ancient Geek]

Let me make this absolutely clear for the hard of thinking.

ILS is an approach aid intended to allow landings when visibility falls below the minimum standards required for a visual landing.

There is no requirement for any airport to have an ILS, if there is no ILS and the weather falls below minimums then flights will be diverted to an alternate airport. This costs the airport in lost revenue so fitting an expensive ILS system is a commercial decision based purely on financial advantage.

There is no requirement for a crew to use an ILS unless the visibility falls below visible minimums, in which case it is mandatory to use the ILS or an equivalent system.

There are thousands of airports around the world with no ILS and big jets fly into them every day with no problems - this is perfectly normal and what pilots do to earn their living.

In other words - ILS is IRRELEVANT unless the weather is bad.

[Groundbased]

Course_profile

"ILS dependency isn't a problem when everywhere has one"

But it is when he one you want to use suddenly goes u/s.

[Lonewolf_50]

joe, thanks for that fact. :ok:

draglift: thank you. While you may be right, (my gut and experience says that you are) I don't think that a lot of airline company management groups agree with you. That's the nut that has to be cracked, don't you think?

[Keylime]

As they say in the infomercials, "But wait, there's more". Five days before the Asiana accident, a KAL B747-400 on approach to runway 28 in SFO descended to ~70' AGL before pulling up and getting back on a proper descent profile for landing(rather than go-around as per SOP's). The SFO tower has a low altitude alerting system. There should be a record of this deviation. Makes for interesting commentary with reference to some of the posts here concerning visual approach proficiency.

[givemewings]

Spandex, I realise it doesn't always work like it does on paper, however emergency services are more than just firefighters or medics. Response planning will have someone allocated to round up and direct the pax , maybe not right away but definitely once the rescue efforts are underway.

[Lonewolf_50]

Causes and effects aside, and mitigation, the NTSB has been releasing a lot more info a lot faster than I am used to seeing after a fatal accident.

Regarding information release, ALPA's justifiable complaint with the NTSB in this case, and the relationship between FOQA and flight safety, I recommend a look at posts by PJ2 in the thread discussing (http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/511119-af-447-thread-no-11-a-14.html#post7935249) another very controversial wreck (AF 447) which has elements of systemic overreilance on automation as a factor.

The post I linked to is an explanation to a question by a novice. It may be worth going a few posts up to see the conversation start and then digest PJ2's explanation in the linked post.

For all the complaints I have seen in this thread about the FAA, US airports, and ATC in large cities, I'd ask our foreign colleagues to consider how important to safety culture the FAA's approach has been to flight data from accidents, legal protections, and more. (The US military has a similar accident data protection system in place)

[Keylime]

Courseprofile:

How did aviation get here? Over-reliance on automation?

You are correct. Another aspect of this is; Training is a necessary evil as far as the bean counters are concerned. It is another cost to the operation they have to endure. Therefore, much effort is spent trying to make the training "footprint" as small as possible. Less time away from the line is less money. We spend time teaching how to type in the box, not how to manage the automation. If we trained as we should an initial/transition course would be 1-2 weeks longer. Imagine the cost. Training managers bonuses are based on how much they are under budget. And so on and so on. Don't expect this to change any time soon. Just another part of this whole puzzle. The question is not necessarily over reliance on automation but maybe misunderstanding of how to use the automation.

[Lonewolf_50]

Also - it wouldn't matter about bad weather if we did use ILS/Autoland everywhere.
Course_profile, consider the KISS principle, :} if you please.

Then consider the implication to both flight safety and traffic flow if every time an ILS or G/S went U/S (or a bit flaky) a runway was shut down in VFR or weather other than " at minimums."

You'd be keeping more airplanes airborne longer in the volume of air around an airfield for no good reason. So doing will decrease safety margins and increase the opportunity for error or mishap.

I don't think you've thought that idea through very well.

EDIT: Ancient Geek, thank you sir, well said.
EDIT 2: Course Profile, point on experience taken, and agreed based on my own experiences as well. Gravity and physics don't give a hoot how many hours you (or I) have. ;)

[737 Elpiloto]

I wonder, both pilots flew Airbus before, if the change in automation level has something to do with the events...?

Also, I am convinced that a pilot should be able to fly visual approaches.
It's the one time we can be complete pilots again and handfly the aircraft as we use to do...

I would think that if you really to much on automation, you get stuff like this when they have to handfly the aircraft..

Just my idea....

[Javadreaming]

Course... Based on your logic... All planes should be operated with 7 pilots on board because that would be safer right? Your obvious lack of understanding of aviation means you should not post - but everyone has an opinion right! It is your logic that actually makes aviation less safe. If we said every approach has to be flown using an ILS ( by the way most approaches don't use an ILS, only larger airports have these...usually) what would that mean if the plane failed to capture the ILS?

Many airline accountants think like you which has lead to a reduction in pilot training (cause we don't ned to fly visual approaches right) so training does not focus on this... Well we reap what we sow right...or something like that

[rottenray]

I always figured that was because he was part of the furniture, how does a second tourist look at a guy with 25 years experience and go 'Mate, what's going on?'.

... which brings us right back to the discussion of "gradient," in particular, those situations where some are bestowed with unconditional respect based upon characteristics which aren't necessarily relevant.

A pool of fuel I'd rather not reignite.

Course, I can at least understand your approach here: Put in all the aids possible so that the least-skilled (and those having bad days) are as safe as the most-skilled.

I would agree, if we were talking about something everyone did - like drive to work or to here or there. Certainly, it's in everyone's interest to make lanes wide, curves gentle, et cetera.

But in the case of this accident, I'd rather see things go the other direction. If it proves that 214 crashed because of too little hand flying / visual approach experience, then the industry needs to work at providing more hand flying and visual approach experience.

Because, in the grand scheme of things, an ILS OTS at a 2-mile-long runway on a beautiful sunny day is rather near the very low end of bad things that can happen during the course of a long haul flight.

[draglift]

Lonewolf 50.

I do agree with you.

The training department of the airlines have the following 2 options.

1) Airline pilots are not very good at manual flying, therefore they should avoid it.

2) Airline pilots are not very good at manual flying, therefore they should practice it.

I prefer option 2 because I regularly hand fly when not jet lagged. But for someone who has always engaged the autopilot at 200 feet after takeoff and disconnected it at 500 feet before landing, a manual practice in the sim every six months is not enough and he/she should use the automatics whenever possible.

How long before someone declares an emergency for an unexpected autopilot disconnect?

[the heavy heavy]

I'm not sure there's a pilot on here advocating that an ILS should be mandatory, in fact I'm in total agreement that the ability to fly a visual circuit should be not only taken as granted but practised when possible. But I fail to see how ignoring SFO's penchant for leaving heavy's hot and high and the FAA's general view that in good weather aids are a bonus does any of us any good!

SFO atc has been the first part of my Threat brief for some time, ive felt there's been an accident waiting to happen there for some time, if there's a cultural problem here it's not all in seoul!

[Greenlights]

When 3 pilots are capable to check and call out "speed" ! on finale approach, for me it's A FAIL. No excuses.
I would not like to be in their situation...

[Lonewolf_50]

But I fail to see how ignoring SFO's penchant for leaving heavy's hot and high
Does the captain not have the option to decline the 180/5 (or other abbreviated entry that rushes the approach) if ATC calls for it?
He is still required to fly a stabilized approach if he's carrying passengers, is he not? (If I misunderstand the regs, please advise).
The FAA's general view that in good weather aids are a bonus does any of us any good!
I don't understand your beef there. So long as you know what NAVAIDS are or are not available, via NOTAM, charts, ATIS ... you can plan the correct approach for your aircraft and mission.

I am willing to bet that you do each and every time you carry pax from one place to the next. :ok:

[Squawk_ident]

NTSB to Hold Final Media Briefing on Asiana Airlines Flight 214 Investigation


July 11, 2013

San Francisco – National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Deborah A. P. Hersman will hold a media briefing on the investigation into the crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214, in San Francisco, that occurred on July 6, 2013.

While the on scene investigative work continues, this will be the last media briefing. Further investigative updates will be provided from NTSB headquarters in Washington D.C.

Event: Press Briefing

Date/Time: Thursday, July 11, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. (PDT)

Location: Holiday Inn
(Peninsula room)
275 South Airport Blvd
South San Francisco, CA 94080

Participants: Chairman Deborah Hersman

[Super VC-10]

My understanding is that at least one of the crew of UA885 did see the aircraft and knew it was too low.

Inside United Flight 885: A pilot's gripping account - Chicago Business Journal (http://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2013/07/09/inside-united-flight-885-a-pilots.html)

[10W]

Hasn't anyone listened to the ATC tapes? You can clearly hear "go around" called when Asiana is on short final. That "go around" was called by the UAL flight crew holding short.

On the clip I heard, it sounds more like

''San Francisco Tower, Skyward (?) 737 (go around), 1,500 feet over San Carlos (?)''

The 'go around', if transmitted by the UAL, appears to be made when someone else is already transmitting, so it may not have been heard anyway. It is of such short duration with no reference to who it refers (callsign or type), that even if it was transmitted with the best of intent, a pilot might not work out it's for him, especially if not a native English speaker. Consider also that the Tower has multiple arrivals to multiple runways, with aircraft being cleared to land with other aircraft ahead, and the simple call of 'go around' with no other information could cause multiple go arounds as well as confusion as to who it was actually referring to.

The other problem with these clips is that they are not necessarily in a proper chronological sequence and the time can be compressed. They also seem to have transmissions from several different frequencies all jumbled in together. None I have heard are very helpful to the armchair investigator.

The NTSB will have the ATC and CVR tapes, which should be much clearer and easier to interpret than some of the internet offerings. No doubt their findings will come out as the investigation progresses.

[AF Eagle]

Boeing's standard operation procedures say that autothrust should be used in all flight phases in B777. That is what I've been told, I haven't flown that type myself.

Is it so that all 777 operators require their 777 pilots to fly manual approaches with A/T on? Or are there some operators that say it's ok to control thrust manually when flying an approach manually?

[legomaniac]

10W wrote:
"The 'go around', if transmitted by the UAL, appears to be made when someone else is already transmitting, so it may not have been heard anyway. It is of such short duration with no reference to who it refers (callsign or type), that even if it was transmitted with the best of intent, a pilot might not work out it's for him, especially if not a native English speaker. Consider also that the Tower has multiple arrivals to multiple runways, with aircraft being cleared to land with other aircraft ahead and the simple call of 'go around' with no other information could cause multiple go arounds as well as confusion as to who it was actually referring to"

Oh, I'm sure it wasn't heard by the Asiana crew, but I just wanted to counter the criticism that the UAL crew sat there and said nothing..

[nigegilb]

Perhaps a bit too much focus on ILS. Please don't forget the PAPIs. Thanks to the PAPIs, this aircraft made it to the runway. It certainly appears as though one of the crew spotted the red lights and made an adjustment. If the PAPIs hadn't been turned on for this approach I wonder how much worse it would have been. Can anyone with more knowledge about SFO than myself, explain why the PAPIs have been routinely turned off for the past several weeks?

I can understand the reasoning behind ILS G/S being turned off but I haven't the foggiest why it has been necessary to switch off the PAPIs to boot..

[the heavy heavy]

Lone wolf,

Absolutely, you can decline to follow atc's instructions and at SFO it can result in a very elongated approach, just as with JFK. However, I always decline 180/5 and I've spent 10 years politely refusing the rope that the controllers at SFO love to offer you. 747 slows down very nicely from 160 kts till 4! There is no excuse to follow a dumb atc request, there's even less excuse to give one in my opinion.

As for 'my beef' with the aids, well I'm a lover of flying the thing like I rented it and wrapping round the corner as much as the next man, but, the passengers pay to be flown from a to b as safely as possible. I've no doubt in my ability to get in from 4 miles downwind at iAD, at night, on a visual but is it easier, therefore safer, to get radar vectors to an 8 mile final? When im as tired as should be expected at the end of a 10 hr flight should we be trying to make it as easy as possible or should I be demonstrating my circuits? If I'm given a choice then they'll be times I have take the visual option, they'll also be times I monitor the jet getting me close to , or on to, the runway. My beef is I like options, the FAA and many of your colleaugues don't think they're necessary.

[Legacy Driver]

"SFO atc has been the first part of my Threat brief for some time, ive felt there's been an accident waiting to happen there for some time, if there's a cultural problem here it's not all in seoul!" (Where is the "Quote" button on this forum?)

I've been waiting to see if this was mentioned, as it was starting to play on my mind. There is an unfortunate aspect to dealing with some officials in the USA, which is that they regard those they are meant to be working for as a nuisance, and anyone asking for more than is offered is made to feel that they are ... well, let's say "unappreciated" ;) This is cultural, and I doubt that SFO ATC are any less prone to it than any other "public servant" in the country. However, it is an attitude that will put people off asking for assistance/clarification/reassurance. I suspect that CRM might be needed in more places than Asiana.

[UAVop]

Is this the approach procedure that joema was talking about?

It shows the gs is not coincident. Would the TCH of 53 show them low on the PAPI at TCH 64? ( I assume the PAPI is set with the VGSI?)

28L RNAV GPS WAAS (http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/SFO/IAP/RNAV+(GPS)+RWY+28L/pdf) 2.85 degree GS.

http://flightaware.com/resources/airport/SFO/IAP/RNAV+(GPS)+RWY+28L/png/1

[10W]

Oh, I'm sure it wasn't heard by the Asiana crew, but I just wanted to counter the criticism that the UAL crew sat there and said nothing..

The UAL Relief FO made no mention of a warning transmission being made in his published account (see post 1008). Of course, that neither proves nor disproves that a call was made by his crew. They certainly noticed that all was not right.

[Super VC-10]

Legomaniac - I made it perfectly clear in my earlier post that I intended no criticism of the crew of UA885 :=

[Speed of Sound]

Oh, I'm sure it wasn't heard by the Asiana crew, but I just wanted to counter the criticism that the UAL crew sat there and said nothing..

There are two parts to the final seconds of Flight 214.

The part where they are low but still have time to do something about it and the part where nothing will prevent the plane hitting the seawall.

There is no point saying anything over the air during the second part and during the first part, the natural assumption is that the flight crew are dealing with it to ensure a successful outcome.

Any member of the UAL flight crew who is agonising over whether they should have spoken up, should spend a minute thinking about how they would feel if the PF Asiana 214 was about to apply thrust and was then distracted by a 'third voice' on the air shouting 'Watch out Asiana, you're too low!" which then may or may not have affected the outcome.

I know that I personally would spend the rest of my days thinking 'if only I'd kept quiet, two people may still be alive'. :(

[Zeffy]

There has been no report as to whether this approach was used or not.

PAPI is just one type of VGSI (http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/ATpubs/AIM/aim0201.html#aim0201.html.1).


http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa92/zeffy_bucket/RNAV28L_zpse1ee9565.png (http://s202.photobucket.com/user/zeffy_bucket/media/RNAV28L_zpse1ee9565.png.html)


However, even if the crew of OZ 214 were flying this approach, the small difference in TCH is not likely to be found significant.

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa92/zeffy_bucket/RNAV28LProfile_zps26bd0143.png (http://s202.photobucket.com/user/zeffy_bucket/media/RNAV28LProfile_zps26bd0143.png.html)

[10W]

DozyWannabe

The town of San Carlos has a small airport (KSQL) nearby, and it's a designated relief airfield for traffic for SFO below a certain size (5,670 kg max gross) - it can't take a 737 - any locals know what the reference may have been?

Listening to it again, it sounds more like Skyhawk 737, which is probably just a Cessna 172 Skyhawk with the tail number 737. The low level reported and the position would make sense from what you've said.

Legomaniac

Yes, it WAS the United flight who called the go-around everyone heard on the tower tapes!

Thanks for that. Would love to hear a cleaned up version of the call to see if there was more to it than a general call of 'Go Around' and to see when it was made with reference to the accident aircraft's profile. It's all after the fact of course and won't change anything, I am just wondering if it would have made any difference if acted on, or if it was too late anyway.

[ross_M]

My understanding is that at least one of the crew of UA885 did see the aircraft and knew it was too low.

Inside United Flight 885: A pilot's gripping account - Chicago Business Journal

That's full circle: An article that's almost entirely an email snippet he mooched off here now gets mentioned at a later point in the same thread.

[rsterrill]

737ZD is a Skyhawk based at Palo Alto and was out on a part 91 personal flight. The pilot properly responded to the urgent "stay away" call from the SFO tower.

[Rananim]

This airline carried 300 passengers across a mighty ocean to one of the world's busiest airports and not one of its flightcrew members were competent enough to land it without ILS/PAPI guidance and automatic throttle.I hope that the NTSB,the world's best accident investigation authority,will have the guts to go a little bit deeper and call it for what it actually is.Pilots are no longer trained to fly the plane.Automation reliance is endemic.Political correctness is out of control.Airmanship replaced by SOP and rote.And this is mandated from top-down.
Passengers have a right to know that the airlines they fly with are not training their pilots to be able to fly and land the plane in case automation fails.
Boeing doesnt build any single crew airliners,yet many airlines in places like India/China/Korea operate this "no takeoff/land" policy where actually only one crew member(if you're lucky) up front is able to fly the plane and land it.We have 9000 hour pilots with 98% of that on LNAV/VNAV.Theres no experience,no backbone in a pilots resume anymore.I spent the last 12 years watching George do it..but Im damn good at paperwork and know my FCOMs inside and out.This has to stop NOW.Perhaps the NTSB will finally take it upon themselves to correct what should have been corrected.

I see the picture of the Asiana crew being paraded and I am saddened.Deeply so.The Koreans are capable and proud people and they know they let their passengers down badly.They in turn were let down by the system.The same system that should have trained them to do the job properly.

[Halfnut]

At 03:10 the NTSB Spokesbabe says the Flight Director switch for the left seat was OFF and for the right seat it was ON.

Chairman Hersman's third media briefing on Asiana flight 214 crash July 9, 2013 - YouTube

So much for an "approach" other then just another day at the office shooting the visual approach with the PAPI.

[DWS]

Given the time of day, no clouds, and a plethora of glass buildings- has anyone considered the momentary blinding **may** have been simply sunlight reflection ???

[Ian W]

Givemewings
90sec is a certification guideline not a rule when starting evac. Again, please go read about QF32 to understand why immediate evac may not be a good idea.


The 90 seconds was figure obtained statistically and has been briefed for many years as: After a crash landing, passengers that exit the aircraft in under 90 seconds are likely to survive; survivability after that time rapidly reduces.

[Airbubba]

Perhaps a bit too much focus on ILS. Please don't forget the PAPIs. Thanks to the PAPIs, this aircraft made it to the runway.

Not sure I would credit the PAPI's with barely getting to the runway after the bottom fell out on short final. But I agree that PAPI's should be available if at all possible, perhaps even more so in CAVOK conditions.

It shows the gs is not coincident. Would the TCH of 53 show them low on the PAPI at TCH 64? ( I assume the PAPI is set with the VGSI?)


The PAPI is the VGSI referenced on the approach chart. We swim in a sea of acronyms and obscure abbreviations in the flying business.

I commented here earlier about transitioning from FMS glide path guidance to a visual glide slope indicator (VGSI) with a different angle in a widebody aircraft but the post was perhaps too technical for non-pilots and was summarily removed. At any rate, vertical path guidance, both visual and computed was available but for apparently some reason not followed on short final in the crash of OZ 214.

The notams mentioned previously in the thread are indeed in some wacky 1930's teleprinter format and it is not uncommon for three of us in a widebody cockpit to be puzzling over what an item really means as we cruise the, uh, NOPAC CRS on the PACOTS.

[eaglewwit]

Being blinded by light is nonsense. Thousands of other pilots have landed at SFO in the same conditions and never complained of being blinded by a light (most likely a sun reflection). It has happened to all of us and we all know that it is no big deal. If the approach was on glide path and stable, a temporary blinding incident would be a non issue.

[PaperTiger]

I think that youtube version has been edited and/or spliced and therefore not a true reflection.

Instead see this (unofficial) transcript:
Asiana 214 Crash at KSFO | LiveATC.net (http://www.liveatc.net/forums/atcaviation-audio-clips/asiana-214-crash-at-ksfo/15/) which suggests the call was from the tower to someone (N737ZD?) and comes after the crash at 46 seconds in the timeline.

AAR214 crew did belatedly call TOGA but did not broadcast it.

[Halfnut]

The ATIS for KSFO has been broadcasting an advisory for a green laser light coming from the shore line west of the extended centerline for 28L/28R.

[BBK]

You wrote:

"Perhaps the NTSB will finally take it upon themselves to correct what should have been corrected."

Perhaps they will do their job according to their terms of reference. I would think that does NOT entail jumping to conclusions along the lines of "if they're Korean it must be their fault."

They will, I am certain, be aware of the reputation that has been generated by western pilots who have worked in this region. However, as professional technical people they will want to establish hard facts using verifiable data. If you have ever written a technical report then you will understand that it needs to stand up to scrutiny. Shooting from the hip as so many do on this forum is not their modus operandi.

Lastly, I believe that in the UK, by way of comparison, the AAIB does not apportion blame as such. I don't know if the same holds true for the NTSB. Happy to stand corrected on this last point.

[ross_M]

The ATIS for KSFO has been broadcasting an advisory for a green l@ser light coming from the shore line west of the extended centerline for 28L/28R.


Since when?