Asiana flight crash at San Francisco

[thcrozier]

@Crazy: Unless you understand the nature of their culture, and the difficulty of interpreting meaning from one language to another, you are in no positition to evaluate the meaning of the Asiana statement. It may well be that they feel far worse about it than you can imagine, but it doesn't come through in the translation. On the other hand, you could be underestimating a lack of regard for human life. I don't know which is correct, but I do know how hard it is to convey meaning between 2 culturally different languages.

[de facto]

sobering ............. 777 FLCH in climb and a/t going into HOLD, no low speed prot

Not really,whats scary is that people in front cant do without an AT..

[CrazySwiss]

@TheCrozier - yes agreed, this is exactly why I used the word "interesting" and not more. I lived and worked in Asia for many years, so I understand something of just how complex it is to interpret across cultures.

[philipat]

Lion Air Bali

Just came home and too busy to read the complete thread. But did anyone note the similarities between Asiana SFO and Lion AIr DPS? DPS 09 had a VOR but no ILS or PAPI?

[LNIDA]

Unstable approach,it stops, starts and ends there, as to the why? most who know, know.

let the NTSB do its work.

[monarols]

Yes I noticed the similarities between Lion Air DPS and this latest incident....It would be nice if airlines INSTILL in their pilots thats its OK to go around, in all cases. If the PF or PNF has ANY doubts about the stability of the approach, say 3 nm from touchdown, just go around! Pax and Aircraft saved.

I would have thought that airlines have an SOP in determining a go around. Why are these not being followed?

[thcrozier]

@Crazy: Our little exchange above is a perfect example of just how hard it is. It's apparent to me now that we were both saying the same thing.

[Capt Kremin]

Those pointing the finger at Jakob Van Zanten miss the point.

After Tenerife, KLM went deeply into the circumstances of the accident, realised there was a problem with the martinet attitude of some of its Captains and came up with the prototype of today's CRM, the KHUFAC course.

So how many hull losses has KLM suffered since 1977? Zero.

That course and its successors in no small way account for the continuing improvement in world accident statistics and could be said to have saved many thousands of lives.

Every airline is one flight away from an accident. The only difference between KLM culture now and the Korean airlines seems to be the willingness to admit to the holes in their particular slice of Swiss cheese and fix them.

[jackharr]

1542 Korean Time (0642 UTC) 8 July

Asiana Airlines feels deeply responsible for this accident and is dedicating great efforts to facilitate and support a swift and thorough investigation.

[Non Zero]

Is ICN-SFO a training route for Asiana? Has the PF 43 hours on type?

[aston7]

Agree! All you said is right, however no flight mode, no SOP would help when a 40hrs-experienced pilot decides to make a visual with 777 disconnecting AP and the AT?!? and fly manual at SFO??? (note NTSB reads very low speed and ....stick shaker before the impact). Koreans list SFO as a special airport due to terrain and traffic...

[NigelOnDraft]

....It would be nice if airlines INSTILL in their pilots thats its OK to go around, in all cases. If the PF or PNF has ANY doubts about the stability of the approach, say 3 nm from touchdown, just go around! Pax and Aircraft saved.

I would have thought that airlines have an SOP in determining a go around. Why are these not being followed?

Operator I work for would dearly like to see more GAs for unstable or even marginal approaches.

Re the second point, the SOPs are there, but on occasion not followed. The reasons might vary, but I think a signifcant factor is on a "high workload" approach, the criteria / triggers / time needed to "evaluate" the situation are missed. Swiss Cheese again - little point in calling/checkng "Stable" or whatever on 95% of Approaches since these are the unimportant ones. It needs some system of an absolute trigger the crew cannot ignore / fail to notice - not easy.

[BOAC]

While Barit1s ' link does seem to be a good guess at the sequence, this is gobbledly-gook! Treat with caution?

but because a 777 is a large aircraft with a large cockpit to wheel height, it would be typical to fly the approach a tad steeper than the standard glideslope.

Not sure what sort of 'Flying Professors' we have here?

[10002level]

It is reported on the BBC website that the PF only had 43 hours on type and that the a/c was slow on the approach. I wonder if he was used to flying an Airbus with the autothrust left on during handflying?

[framer]

but because a 777 is a large aircraft with a large cockpit to wheel height, it would be typical to fly the approach a tad steeper than the standard glideslope.

What a load of rubbish.

[probes]

from the comments:

Just one technical detail to share: "because a 777 is a large aircraft with a large cockpit to wheel height, it would be typical to fly the approach a tad steeper than the standard glideslope." I think what you meant to say is that it APPEARS to be high on glideslope when you're looking out of the cockpit windshield of a jumbo jet; the actual glidepath is (or should be, anyway) the same for any aircraft using that runway's glideslope or papi.

[JAARule]

Yes, and here's another load of complete bollocks:

1. Find the runway
2. Find a bug on your windshield
3. Put the bug where you want to touch down on the runway.
4. If the bug ends up short of your touchdown point pull up a little (or use trim).
5. If the bug goes past your desired touch down point push a little. (or use trim).
6. Add or remove power as required to maintain whatever speed you have decided to use.

On the subject of evacuations:

To the idiotic suggestion of locking the overhead bins with the seatbelt signs, we're going to start evacuating aircraft with the seatbelt signs ON now are we??

I think you'll find the SEATBELT SIGNS switch is not included in the evacuation checklist on the B777 and others.

[BOAC]

Do we know yet who was Captain and in which seat?

Originally Posted by probes' quote

Just one technical detail to share:

- Hmm! Bordering on g-g too.

[1a sound asleep]

At the point of impact the 777 was close to stall speed and ironically this is the sole reason the plane didn't flip over completely . If they had have been going 30 knots faster its unlikely there would have been any survivors.

Too slow, too low and failure to initiate a go round when the sink rate and loss of airspeed became first evident.

I am sorry but this is private pilot stuff and is inexcusable in a multi pilot jet with ample fuel in VMC. Very sad reflection on the state of professional pilots in some companies.

[nitpicker330]

Ummmm......no, if they had been going 30kts faster they wouldn't have stalled and mushed in to the sea wall in the first place.

Also the BA 777 in LHR was way way slow ( I think almost stalled ) and it didn't flip over or lose its tail because it struck smooth level grass.

If these Asiana dopes had done the same as BA in LHR and missed the sea wall it would have ended up in the same condition as BA with 2 extra survivors.