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Asiana flight crash at San Francisco

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Asiana flight crash at San Francisco

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Old 7th Jul 2013, 15:37
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From a story in the WSJ eyewitness Pax making his 173rd flight inti SFO:
Mr. Rah saw a flight attendant carrying injured passengers down the aisle. "She was a hero," he said. "This tiny, little girl was carrying people piggyback, running everywhere, with tears running down her face. She was crying, but she was still so calm and helping people."
Mr. Rah said the flight attendants got everyone off the plane as the smoke billowed inside.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 15:39
  #462 (permalink)  
 
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asiana sfo

so why is no-one talking about similarities with british Airways crash of their 777 when there was no power increase final? iced up fuel lines thought to be probable cause. Not a hint on any network that that might explain it all. and the missing engine? Torn off by the sea wall. everyone is ignoring its loss. if the same reason would have high seriosness for Boeing 777 fleet!
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 15:44
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Red face Basic piloting!

(Irrespective as to whether it contributed to this accident in any way, it's outrageous that an airport the size of KSFO has no electronic or visual G/S.

Temporary VASIS or PAPIS can't have been that expensive until R/W works were complete.)
Last edited by skol; 7th Jul 2013 at 01:23.


Let's see, wind, 5kts, slight cross, temp comfortable, vis., you can see Napa,
clouds, no shade today. Student pilots make vis. app at 1hrs. So you need outside support for a BASIC aviation function? Another play station pilot?
Just follow the magenta line!

Last edited by Ct.Yankee; 7th Jul 2013 at 15:49.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 15:45
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Errrr, not so fast sir...

Eclan, I was the bright spark you mention but if you understand the context of what I said by reading the next paragraph of my post, you will realize that we are basically making the same point. Here it is below for a refresher:

"SFO 28L/R G/S have been Notamed out for the last 3 weeks and despite that, pilots from all different airlines and countries have done hundreds of visual approaches without incident.

So sure, the average airline crew is supposed to be able to do a visual approach to landing without an issue. However if Accident and Incident reports tell us one thing, its that they happen when we least expect them to and the reasons for their occurrence ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous."
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 15:46
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Originally Posted by doughnworry
so why is no-one talking about similarities with british Airways crash of their 777 when there was no power increase final? iced up fuel lines thought to be probable cause. Not a hint on any network that that might explain it all. and the missing engine? Torn off by the sea wall. everyone is ignoring its loss. if the same reason would have high seriosness for Boeing 777 fleet!
Why? Because there are no similarities. Witnesses report an engine power increase prior to impact.

What missing engine? Both engines are visible in the photos. One beside the right fuselage and one farther ahead and to the right of the aircraft.


Last edited by Lost in Saigon; 7th Jul 2013 at 15:52.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 15:46
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Mainly because this aircraft had different engines to the BA one, the issue with the BA engines were due to the fuel/oil heat exchanger, which has now ben modified anyway. Also procedures were brought in to clear any ice during the descent.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 15:53
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WingsofGlass
I apologize for posting here. I’m just an ignorant bug-smasher flying general aviation private pilot. I have no idea what it’s like to fly real planes for a living so my question may be totally ridiculous. But if I was flying into SFO and there was no ILS or PAPIs and I was assigned the 28L visual, I would load the RNAV 28L approach which has LPV precision guidance and use it as a check to make sure I was doing the right thing on the right runway. Is there some reason why you wouldn’t do the same in a 777? Frankly if given the choice, I'd rather have LPV guidance than PAPI/VASIs.
There have been many commenting in a similar way. However, the same beancounters that want to 'save the cost of training' by not allowing manual flight at high level and training in visual approaches also save money by not training crews in use of the RNP capabilities of the aircraft. This is true of many European carriers as well so crews may not (officially) know how to use the capabilities of their avionics. This is the reason for RNP-Authorization Required, the aircraft AND the crew need to be authorized as capable.

For me I just cannot understand SFO not putting out some temporary PAPIs its not like we are talking about Little Podunk International - this is a major international airport with a runway over water which gives pilots very poor altitude perception. I agree that is no problem to people who fly in and out VFR every day, and the probability is only 1 in 1000 that someone less experienced would undershoot. Well congratulations you bet it all on red and red came up. Remember USA is one of the very few countries in the world whereVFR approaches by commercial passenger carrying aircraft are legal.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 15:54
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Mainly because this aircraft had different engines to the BA one, the issue with the BA engines were due to the fuel/oil heat exchanger, which has now ben modified anyway. Also procedures were brought in to clear any ice during the descent.
The testing NEVER reproduced the accident conditions properly. They only managed to have engine failures using totally unrepresentative amounts of water in the test fuel system.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 15:59
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so why is no-one talking about similarities with british Airways crash of their 777 ............Not a hint on any network that that might explain it all
It was actually the first thing that some networks discussed but the comparison was dropped when it was realised

a) this aircraft had different engines to BA038

b) the high altitude temperature profile of this flight was completely different to BA038

c) a number of witnesses, including passengers on the actual flight itself, report the engines spooling up just prior to 'touchdown'.

The missing #2 engine came to rest ahead of the main wreckage probably because it was still providing thrust when it detached from the wing.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 16:00
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What if this was a plastic/ composite aircraft crash? Elephant and room come to mind
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 16:00
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Doughnworry
so why is no-one talking about similarities with british Airways crash of their 777 when there was no power increase final? iced up fuel lines thought to be probable cause. Not a hint on any network that that might explain it all. and the missing engine? Torn off by the sea wall. everyone is ignoring its loss. if the same reason would have high seriosness for Boeing 777 fleet!
The only similarity is that both aircraft landed short and the low number of fatalities.

In the British Airways 38 case the aircraft had been flying in extremely cold minus 70C and lower temperatures for a long time it then carried out a Continuous Descent Approach which at Heathrow is clean from 8000 feet or above with engines at close to idle and then dropping gear and flap and spooling up at 4 miles to be in landing configuration at 2 miles from touchdown. The BA engines both failed to spool up correctly due to ice slush in the fuel filters.

In this case the aircraft had not been flying in extremely cold air and had not carried out a continuous descent approach. From witness statements just before the impact the aircraft engines had spooled up but too late to prevent impact. Which is possibly the reason that the detached engine was quite a long way further up the runway than the aircraft,
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 16:05
  #472 (permalink)  
 
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Kraus

NOTAM 07/046: San Francisco International Airport (KSFO)
!SFO 07/046 SFO RWY 28L PAPI OTS WEF 1307062219
CREATED: 06 Jul 2013 22:19:00
SOURCE: KOAKYFYX
Perhaps Asiana "deleted" the PAPI at 1828Z, about 4 hours before the Notam was issued........
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 16:14
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If it was a composite aircraft the outcome would almost certainly have been better. Metals and composites are completely different animals and the way they work in a crash would be different. Metals are tough in the sense that they are hard to damage but the energy required to part the bits is relatively low. Composites are easy to damage but very difficult to drag the bits apart. Consequently you would not wear a metallic crash helmet (or combat helmet) and right from the off composite race cars where much more survivable than metal ones.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 16:26
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SFO just recently started using simultaneous CSP runway operations.


This aircraft had different engines than the ones from the iced up that were blamed for the incident at Heathrow.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 16:33
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Sheesh

First, commercial airline accidents involving deaths are by definition extremely unusual events. So the precise chain of causation and the specific contributing factors are typically different in each case. Moreover, it is often the case that the accident investigation team is left with choosing between different theories each of which is not likely. This is the reason the accident report reads probable cause and not 100% guaranteed cause. Sometimes it obvious what happened. At other times the facts are such that reasonable minds can differ on the actual cause of the accident. BA38 is one such example. At the end of the day the official cause is the official cause and the burden is on the nay-sayers to prove others, a burden they so far have been unable to carry in regards to BA38.

Second, please stop bashing the passengers with the luggage. While it is obvious to arm-chair analysts that this is not proper behavior in the aftermath of an accident people do not always behave in logical ways. Besides, the luggage could have been something that fell from the overhead bin and the passengers picked it up and took it off the plane because it was blocking the aisle. The cabin crew has enough to do in an accident without fighting with the passengers over carry-on luggage. The fact is that the only two people who died (so far) were ejected so that means the cabin crew did their job well under intense stress.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 16:34
  #476 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by mojobreakfast
Question from a rank amateur and non-pilot. How are comms from the crew to the tower possible with the aircraft in its end state? What are the chances anything on the flight deck are still lit with the plane in this shape? Is it SOP to have portables for backup? Believe the BA flight also had post-crash comms.
Multiple, redundancy, systems in a big machine like a 777.
 
Old 7th Jul 2013, 16:35
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Lock the bins -- Yes!!!

From Captain Calamity
I think there is an easy and affordable answer - lock the overhead bins for takeoff and landing, and tell people that they will only be unlocked after takeoff when the seatbelt light is out, and also when the A/C is chocked at the gate with the engines stopped.
Wire it to the Fasten Seatbelt sign.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 16:36
  #478 (permalink)  
 
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Airframe 9% composites on 777.
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 16:40
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A Question For Pilots

Lets assume for a moment they were hand flying, but initially high on a normal glide slope to the runway and the A/T or SPD was engaged for engine thrust management. If they thought they were descending at too rapid a rate and in the last seconds of flight applied significant thrust (manually), could that account for some of the unusual attitude of the aircraft that was observed by some people? With underslung (under the wing engines) doesn't the aircraft want to pitch up with application of thrust? I suppose the FDR will tell all...
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Old 7th Jul 2013, 16:40
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Interesting photograph.
The shape of the score mark gives credibility to the "cartwheel" report, although it probably spun like a saucer, and spinning off the engine that came to rest some distance away.
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