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I'm going to speculate that there was a late runway change involved.
Briefed the approach to one runway, saw the lights, said, "Hey, why don't we just do the straight in. Gear down, before landing check....." This has resulted in two hull losses at my employer. |
Airbubba:
As long as the CVR doesn't have them talking about fatigue and commuting I think they will be OK. If the company doesn't take significant disciplinary action the FAA surely will. Perhaps not quite termination but serious action. SWA is fully equipped for RNP AR. They have the equipment for excellent SA. They obviously didn't use the tools they had at hand. |
rice.and.peas:
The radar is a fair distance away at KSGF. Targets around Branson probably drop off at 1,000 to 1,500 agl. |
Regarding the Cockpit Voice Recorder. I don't think it can be used against the crew or even reviewed if there wasn't an accident.
This is certainly an incident of the higher orders, but it is not an accident without injuries, death or serious property damage. Early on in the post someone spoke about hand flying. Hand flying is fine and should be done, but using all available navigational equipment goes hand in hand with hand flying. (could I use hand more often in a sentence?) |
As KPLK is an uncontrolled airport and it was night, the airport lights would have to be turn on by keying the mic using the CTAF. As they obviously didn't have that frequency in the box one can only imagine that there were other aircraft in the traffic pattern. There could have easily been a midair here as well. I think all were fortunately very lucky.
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40' from a cliff?
Review the tape at 0:19 mark and the nose gear is approx. 8' past the end of the threshold paint. 0:39 shows a bus that appears to be on the runway in front of the a/c. Southwest jet bound for Branson lands at wrong airport | Local - Home Maps.google shows approx. 200-300' displaced thresholds with no paint markings. Based on that I estimate the distance to the end of the pavement to be greater than 40' and more likely 200-300'. Close call. |
You really think so? If they skate by this one SWA is really in a world of hurt. If the company doesn't take significant disciplinary action the FAA surely will. Perhaps not quite termination but serious action. I don't go into ATL much and I remember earlier thinking that a late sidestep landing on 27R at night with the approach lights turned up for 27L was spring loaded for disaster. I did it but was not at all comfortable and kept checking to make sure the more dimly lit runway was the right one to land on. Anyway, in the Delta incident there were indeed some mitigating circumstances, IOE line check, check airman medical emergency, etc. And the NTSB decided that fatigue was a factor: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the probable cause of this incident was the flight crew’s failure to identify the correct landing surface due to fatigue. If the SWA crew weren't shucking and jiving and talking about women, used cars and politics like the EAL crew at CLT four decades ago, they may get remedial training in airport navaid setup, CRM and expectation bias and be given line checks to return to duty. Even if they were fired, history has shown that the union will usually get their jobs back. And often the feds will work a deal to accept the remedial training in lieu of further discipline in cases I've seen. But, obviously a lot depends on what is on the CVR and whether most procedures, callouts and paperwork were correct. I assume the Atlas pilots from the Wichita Dreamlifter incident are back on the line by now, anybody know? finally, the egpws would issue a warning if you were more that a few miles from the programmed destination airport and below a minimum altitude agl, like 500 feet or so. I heard this warning going into San Juan PR once when a couple of VOR's were notamed out and we had some map shift over water. |
Based on that I estimate the distance to the end of the pavement to be greater than 40' and more likely 200-300' My guess is by evening news the aircraft will be at the bottom of the cliff. Heavens the last flight VFD was on the plane came to a stop inches away from the terminal building. Just one step from the plane to the building. The F/A must of been in on the conspiracy told me to have a good evening as I stepping off the aircraft like nothing happened. |
3500 is the length in the TCF database in the Collins FMS I use as well.
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automaitism aversion
Quoting "aluminium shuffler" :
automation aversion is every bit as dangerous as automation dependency Yesterday and Jabara adventure illustrations : Runway in sight, you do not really understand what your FD is saying , forget FMS distance, forget VNAV deviation or glide slope indications you do not really understand , forget DME fixes and the rule of thumb , aheight = distance x 3 , back to basic ... Same rule of thumb should be known by ATC , radar helps.. Next episode will be a landing on a shorter runway ...:= |
One of our hotshot pilots decided to make the midfield turn off at SNA one day and did. SNA runway is 5700 ft. The tower asked them whose job it was to wipe the passengers off the fwd bulk head. They were flying an MD80. They would have done quite well on a 3500 ft runway.
Taking off again is the problem. |
It will be interesting to see the results of this if we even get to see them. It's not an accident in the official sense and I don't know how much of the investigation would be made public. Certainly civil lawsuits are likely and SWA has to be prepared to defend those. |
The solution already exists
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Just your average SLF here, but I'm really curious as to how this happens? Not only extremely dangerous landing on a short runway, but so many signs that something wasn't right. The runways are on different headings, they look different, the length was half, etc, etc.
Shouldn't they have expected a response from the tower? |
Porrohman:
Technology that could significantly reduce the frequency of these incidents / accidents already exists. It just needs to be integrated with the existing systems in commercial aircraft. Should the airline industry / manufacturers / regulators be doing more to address this issue? Last Summer's Asiana Triple @ SFO is ample evidence of this. :ugh: |
Game-change in aviation security - the Runway Overrun Protection System - YouTube |
At the risk of stating the obvious, surely ROPS is only going to protect you against overrunning the runway that the system is expecting you to land on? Now if it could provide a warning that the runway in front is not the one programmed into the FMS [even in the case of a visual approach] that would be the icing on the cake in a situation like this. |
Regarding the Cockpit Voice Recorder. I don't think it can be used against the crew or even reviewed if there wasn't an accident. This is certainly an incident of the higher orders, but it is not an accident without injuries, death or serious property damage. And, landing on the wrong piece of pavement is a reportable incident, see: Sec. 830.5 Immediate notification. The operator of any civil aircraft, or any public aircraft not operated by the Armed Forces or an intelligence agency of the United States, or any foreign aircraft shall immediately, and by the most expeditious means available, notify the nearest National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) office \1\ when: (12) Any event in which an operator, when operating an airplane as an air carrier at a public-use airport on land: (i) Lands or departs on a taxiway, incorrect runway, or other area not designed as a runway; Also, many airlines have added the CVR circuit breaker to the shutdown checklist in response to NTSB complaints that the data was often overwritten in accidents and incidents where there was no loss of electrical power. You pull it if something happens and get hanged for not following the checklist if you don't. The erase button on the CVR cockpit panel may not even be operative on modern solid state units from what I've heard. At one time we were told that the CVR was solely for safety, not discipline and would never be used against you. Kinda like FOQA and ASAP right? And in the military 'Failure to volunteer for this assignment will never be held against you.' And, no one is pressured in any way to enter the HIMS program, it is totally voluntary. Somewhat ominously, the current trend is to harvest from the CVR what would formerly be transcribed as 'non-pertinent conversation'. The NTSB wants the airlines to listen in on a regular basis: Watchdog wants to eavesdrop on cockpit chit-chat February 24, 2010 WASHINGTON (AFP) – US air safety officials want to monitor "black box" voice recorders in a bid to eliminate the kind of cockpit banter blamed for an airliner crash last year in New York that killed 50 people. "It is essential to understand what is going on in the cockpit if we are to achieve further reductions" in the number of accidents involving commercial aircraft, Debbie Hersman, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a statement sent to AFP Wednesday. "The benefits attained from the cockpit voice recorder should not be limited to posthumous investigations," she said. The NTSB recommendation that cockpit black boxes be routinely monitored came in the agency's report, released this month, into the crash in which 49 passengers and crew and one person on the ground died when a Continental Airlines commuter plane slammed into a house outside Buffalo, New York. The black box on that flight showed that the pilot and co-pilot "began a conversation that was unrelated to their flying duties" when the aircraft was below 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) as it approached Buffalo International airport. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and airline policy rules prohibit non-essential discussions when flying below 10,000 feet. In another case of pilot distraction, two Northwest Airlines pilots overshot their destination by 100 miles (160 kilometers) because they were chatting and using their laptops, which is also in violation of aviation safety rules. If the NTSB recommendation is put in place, airlines would themselves monitor cockpit voice recorders from their own aircraft, and they would do so "for safety reasons, not punitive reasons," Ted Lopatkiewicz, director of public affairs for the NTSB, told AFP. The NTSB is also asking the FAA "to seek legislation, if necessary, to ensure the protection of those recordings from public disclosure," Lopatkiewicz said. Only cockpit conversations on US airlines would be monitored, he said. |
Looks like the CRM hot items are going to be no brainers this year.
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That was my initial reaction, but having looked into it, my understanding is it works like an extension of EGPWS, and so provided the runway is in the database ROPS will identify that you're trying to land on it and provide warnings as appropriate. "ROPS automatically detects current landing runway using terrain database" It goes on to say "If the detected landing distance available is assessed too short, ROPS triggers an alert to encourage the crew to apply and keep all available retardation means" I suspect that in this instance, no such encouragement was needed. :O |
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