Afriqiyah Airbus 330 Crash
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Originally Posted by leather trousers
I also do not understand why they flew a non precision approach in light winds to land on 09 rather than an ILS on 27
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Does anyone know for sure if the report will be made public?
I think it will come out in the end as I think the Dutch are going to be very keen to get this into court should this be anything other than an "accident"
But in the past have accident reports from Libya been public information?
Or else all those saying wait for the report... well that day may never come!
PT6A
I think it will come out in the end as I think the Dutch are going to be very keen to get this into court should this be anything other than an "accident"
But in the past have accident reports from Libya been public information?
Or else all those saying wait for the report... well that day may never come!
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Maybe someone mentioned this before, but having been in a similar situation (albeit with a bit more altitude) - approaching into the sun without a contrasting background can be very misleading to your senses. You can't really see the horizon. With TOGA thrust suddenly selected, your body will interpret the acceleration as being thrust upwards and tumbling over backwards.
If the crew didn't get their eyes inside quickly to verify the climb (as opposed to just feeling it), the whole thing would have been almost over before they realized their mistake. They may have pulled back, but not enough. With a non-fly-by-wire aircraft, it pitches up automatically - but FBW stays where you left it...
The aircraft appears to have been relatively light - only 100 pax, fuel burned off. Selecting TOGA thrust must have had a significant feeling of acceleration. Combined with home-base complacency, get-there-itis, inexperience, fatigue, ... recipe for disaster. Just my 2c worth
If the crew didn't get their eyes inside quickly to verify the climb (as opposed to just feeling it), the whole thing would have been almost over before they realized their mistake. They may have pulled back, but not enough. With a non-fly-by-wire aircraft, it pitches up automatically - but FBW stays where you left it...
The aircraft appears to have been relatively light - only 100 pax, fuel burned off. Selecting TOGA thrust must have had a significant feeling of acceleration. Combined with home-base complacency, get-there-itis, inexperience, fatigue, ... recipe for disaster. Just my 2c worth
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I don't go with any of this. I think the crew were perfectly competent professional pilots who were wide awake and landing at an airport they knew well, warts and all. I think there was a software or hardware error that caused the plane to fly itself into the ground while the crew did all they could to disengage and take over control.
To think thus is to hope that the cause will be found and remedied, making future flights safer. To blame the crew for being fatigued, complacent or whatever is to say this is an event that is probably going to recur over and over again and is real scary to the any prospective customer reading this thread.
To think thus is to hope that the cause will be found and remedied, making future flights safer. To blame the crew for being fatigued, complacent or whatever is to say this is an event that is probably going to recur over and over again and is real scary to the any prospective customer reading this thread.
quidquid excusatio prandium pro
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Yep, he's not just another troll from Trondheim.
Danny has had to take him to the woodshed a couple of times over the years for lack of political correctness though...
Danny has had to take him to the woodshed a couple of times over the years for lack of political correctness though...
bearfoil:
Totally agree with your point regarding energy dissipation and I suspect another aspect not so obvious is the sand/rock nature of the contact. That would seriously exacerbate the result of the structure hitting the ground.
As for Sunvalley I was confused (and still am) how you draw a similarity between the incidents, aside perhaps from loosing situational awareness perhaps. Anyway, no biggie, cheers indeed.
- GY
Totally agree with your point regarding energy dissipation and I suspect another aspect not so obvious is the sand/rock nature of the contact. That would seriously exacerbate the result of the structure hitting the ground.
As for Sunvalley I was confused (and still am) how you draw a similarity between the incidents, aside perhaps from loosing situational awareness perhaps. Anyway, no biggie, cheers indeed.
- GY
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re: recorders on a slow boat to France
I have been told that diplomatic maneuvering is the real cause for the delay and it relates (not surprisingly) to no small amount of historical distrust that exists between the two countries.
No doubt if this is ever questioned by mass media, some benign explanation will be proffered for public consumption.
No doubt if this is ever questioned by mass media, some benign explanation will be proffered for public consumption.
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GY...
"As for Sunvalley I was confused (and still am) how you draw a similarity between the incidents..."
I believe that Bear Foil was simply drawing a similarity to the possibility of optical illusions caused by low vis, i.e., a narrower than normal runway causing a pilot to believe he is higher than he actually is, or the lights in a parking lot looking like runway approach lighting, etc.
I flew out of Buchanan at the time of this accident and for many years after, and actually lived very near Sunvalley mall at the time of this terrible accident - just about 1 mile away in Pleasant Hill....as you can guess, everyone was talking about it.
Bear...though it's been a while since, I'm truly sorry about your friend.
"As for Sunvalley I was confused (and still am) how you draw a similarity between the incidents..."
I believe that Bear Foil was simply drawing a similarity to the possibility of optical illusions caused by low vis, i.e., a narrower than normal runway causing a pilot to believe he is higher than he actually is, or the lights in a parking lot looking like runway approach lighting, etc.
I flew out of Buchanan at the time of this accident and for many years after, and actually lived very near Sunvalley mall at the time of this terrible accident - just about 1 mile away in Pleasant Hill....as you can guess, everyone was talking about it.
Bear...though it's been a while since, I'm truly sorry about your friend.
One conceivable scenario is that they expected to land on 27 and set the minimum for the ILS. Then something occured which distracted them. A medical emergency has been suggested in earlier posts.
They decide to expedite by landing on 09 but fail to brief properly. It is no big deal they think, with clear skies, homebase, and Fifi flies herself anyway doesn't she? They forget to set the QNH. Bit hot and high so they have trouble stabilising the approach with the tailwind. But it is all in a good cause, getting the sick passenger on the ground asap.
The early morning fog combined with the sun makes it difficult to see anything. They sail through the minimum and very low above ground realise their mistake and attempt a go-around which as jshg has explained can be tricky in this scenario. The plane impacts the ground and breaks up in the fashion Bearfoil so vividly describes.
Be interesting to see how much of this speculation turns out be correct once we get the report.
They decide to expedite by landing on 09 but fail to brief properly. It is no big deal they think, with clear skies, homebase, and Fifi flies herself anyway doesn't she? They forget to set the QNH. Bit hot and high so they have trouble stabilising the approach with the tailwind. But it is all in a good cause, getting the sick passenger on the ground asap.
The early morning fog combined with the sun makes it difficult to see anything. They sail through the minimum and very low above ground realise their mistake and attempt a go-around which as jshg has explained can be tricky in this scenario. The plane impacts the ground and breaks up in the fashion Bearfoil so vividly describes.
Be interesting to see how much of this speculation turns out be correct once we get the report.
Originally Posted by GarageYears
another aspect not so obvious is the sand/rock nature of the contact
I'm intimately familiar with various desert surfaces of the eastern Sahara. The desert surface along the northern coastal regions of both Libya and Egypt are gravely plains with clay consolidated sand mixed with gravel extending to a depth of several metres (several tens of metres in places) before bedrock is reached. While I have not actually been to the accident area, from the photos I'm reasonably certain the ground here is no different.
Such a surface is quite firm against vertical compression (will support a car with hardly any noticeable sinking of wheels, and in some places would probably support even an aircraft - at several airports of the region you may see derelict aircraft simply pulled off to the sand), however it is actually quite loose, a hole can easily be dug even with bare hands. In a relatively flat impact scenario, this surface would act more as a shock absorber, having properties somewhat similar to engineered arresting materials. It would dissipate a lot of energy quite fast, and being soft would not directly cause much structural damage. An aircraft landing on it at a shallow angle would probably remain structurally intact (minus landing gear, which would likely shear off, but greatly cushioning impact at the same time), comparable to what one would expect when making a hard landing on a runway. Correct me if I'm wrong, but AFAIK certification standards involve demonstrating no loss of structural integrity if the aircraft is flown into the runway at normal approach descent rate/speed with no flare whatsoever.
I still believe that for the kind of disintegration we are seeing here, the aircraft must have impacted at an unusual attitude.
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@ mike-wsm
I don't go with any of this. I think the crew were perfectly competent professional pilots who were wide awake and landing at an airport they knew well, warts and all. I think there was a software or hardware error that caused the plane to fly itself into the ground while the crew did all they could to disengage and take over control.
Do everyone a favour and crawl back under your rock. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about. I will quite confidently say that it is physically impossible for any airliner, let alone a modern, safe type like the A330 to 'fly itself into the ground' as you so succintly put it. Pilots fly aircraft into the ground, not computers. If, by definition they were not paying attention and the aircraft descended into the ground under full control, then they are not 'flying the aircraft' as they should have been.
Computers don't just 'do things wrong', but their human operators bloody do. Trust me, I do IT support.
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Sorry to be offtopic, but computers can do things wrong. Trust me, I am in IT too ...
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Computers never make mistakes...
I will quite confidently say that it is physically impossible for any airliner, let alone a modern, safe type like the A330 to 'fly itself into the ground' as you so succintly put it. [omissis] Trust me, I do IT support.
ASN Aircraft accident Airbus A320-214 EC-HKJ Bilbao Airport (BIO)
This is going a bit OT perhaps, but computers most definitely "do things wrong" occasionally, sometimes because of programming inadequacy (system unable to deal with unforeseen circumstances that the software engineers had not catered for), other times I have seen autopilots/FMCs in "modern, safe types" like the A321 I flew for years (or the B744 I fly now) do absolutely inexplicable things, almost like a computer "brain f@rt". Trust me, I fly them!
Might not have anything to do with this accident though.
MD
Last edited by main_dog; 22nd May 2010 at 13:39.
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Why did the first Ariane V rocket crashes ?
ESA Portal - Press Releases - Ariane 501 - Presentation of Inquiry Board report
Quote:
Although the source of the Operand Error has been identified, this in itself did not cause the mission to fail. The
specification of the exception-handling mechanism also contributed to the failure. In the event of any kind of exception, the
system specification stated that: the failure should be indicated on the databus, the failure context should be stored in an
EEPROM memory (which was recovered and read out for Ariane 501), and finally, the SRI processor should be shut down.
It was the decision to cease the processor operation which finally proved fatal. Restart is not feasible since attitude is too
difficult to re-calculate after a processor shutdown; therefore the Inertial Reference System becomes useless. The reason
behind this drastic action lies in the culture within the Ariane programme of only addressing random hardware failures.
From this point of view exception - or error - handling mechanisms are designed for a random hardware failure which can
quite rationally be handled by a backup system.
Although the failure was due to a systematic software design error, mechanisms can be introduced to mitigate this type of
problem.
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Computers don't just 'do things wrong', but their human operators bloody do. Trust me, I do IT support.
Sounds like a 9-5 desk jockey to me.
Computers don't just 'do things wrong', but their human operators bloody do. Trust me, I do IT support.
And of course it's humans who design and program the things and make all kinds of mistakes -- sometimes with the assistance of users who attempt to do things never imagined by the designer
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Hello computer
First english is my third language, so be fine with me.
On the first fly of the Ariane V they use the software (ADA software) of the old rocket with the parameters of Ariane IV. Since Ariane V capability are upper Ariane IV, this software understand that the rocket was out of direction/line. But it wasn't. So the the computer raise an exception that will send an order to self-destruction. Please to see you !
On the first fly of the Ariane V they use the software (ADA software) of the old rocket with the parameters of Ariane IV. Since Ariane V capability are upper Ariane IV, this software understand that the rocket was out of direction/line. But it wasn't. So the the computer raise an exception that will send an order to self-destruction. Please to see you !