Post #391:This pilot is easy to identify. The enquiry MUST ask why an 'incorrect' landing technique was applied by this crew ('they touched down at the 500ft mark'). Why? What did they know or anticipate? Had they not, they would probably have over-run by 500' and we would be looking at a different accident.

Can we please stop all this discussion of '1390m' runways etc? None of it is relevant unless runway condition and LDM's are known. Boeing quote an 'at best' LDR of around 1000m for the 737NG. What IS relevant is what happened to this a/c both on 15 July and 17 July.

armchairpilot - a quick skim through a long report there - is there anything relevant in it? I could not see any 'conclusions' on a quick look.

There's probably a FAQ somewhere that points out that "Wait for the Report" is a ridiculous thing to write here.
As with the Legacy/Gol crash, this accident is the beginning of a long soap opera. The report will be the season finale (but not always the end of the show).
The problem is that most people only tune in for the premiere.
From what I've seen, all of the sources of information also have a strong, vested interest in the outcome of the investigation. But the "accident report" does not determine that outcome; popular opinion, legislation and executive action will serve as the measure.
The sources then release what they can, but with a specific interpretation in mind. Don't just release the video of the crash -- release a comparison with a normal plane at the end of the landing roll, so that news sources such as CNN will state:
The president wants a new airport, presumably because it's so expensive and time-consuming that it can be dropped when the horror of the current accident fades. The mayor wants a runway extension. The airport wants it not to be their fault, and has anyone heard from the judge who ruled the place safe for operations? All these groups want something, and they'll all get media time with their explanations for the accident, using every dirty trick they know. And it will be their voices that shape aviation in Brasil. They might even shape the vaunted "accident report".
Journalists are trolling here, and they're here for two reasons: to gather information (which, without verifying sources, even journos consider sleazy), and to gather context for the information they already have. Would you rather they get that context from the other groups with an interest in the outcome?

Heck, I'm annoyed by the "flash" discussion too, but I'd rather hear a journo stating that the "flash shows the accident already in progress", rather than "the video shows they landed too fast and too far down the runway".

The real problem is the mentality involved, though. When the airport head says the place is safe, because, in those conditions, they've had thousands of landings (and only one accident and a few incidents), someone needs to point out that those odds are not acceptable.

TAM 3054, spoilers NOT deployed it seems
 

Here is what can be seen from the video cameras (approximate time) :

TAM 3054 appears to be landing uneventully, on or near the landing markings.

18:51:34:640
TAM 3054 appears to be in full? reverse as per water spray pattern around the IAE engine number 1, which is different from the main gear spray.

The wing appears to be clean, spoilers possibly armed but seem definitely NOT deployed.

18:51:36:048
TAM 3054 still in reverse

18:51:38:453
Flash on the left side of TAM 3054, big enough almost to engulf the rear end of the aircraft.

There is no known obstacle at that point of runway 35L.

18:51:46:046 TAM 3054 hits TAM Express building

There seem to be no hint of a Go Around attempt at this point. Retracted spoilers could mean that, but at the same time we still have the reverse active, so it does not match the logic for either side of the coin.

Nor there seem to be any hint of a directional control loss on the roll out.

On the other hand, spoilers deployment could have been inhibited (along with the autobrake?) but to tell the reason why that might have happened is premature at the moment.

What any of you are thinking of the above events?

Did anyone had such an event with the spoilers and/or braking system on a wet/contaminated rwy?

@Config Full
 

Reminds me a bit of the DLH 320 overrun at EPWA. Spoilers extended but very late due to bad design of air/grd logic.

The quality of that video would appear to preclude a definitive answer as to whether the spoilers were or were not extended. Very little doubt about the No1 engine in reverse thrust mode.

Just because you can't make out the spoilers doesn't mean that they weren't extended. Too much extrapolation. Why not base suppositions based on what we CAN see.

Config Full - are we looking at different 'videos'? There is no point in 'reading' something in that you cannot verify. Where are the 'landing markings' please? Did it land 500' short as on the 15th, on target or maybe 500'ft long?

The quality of the video is not sufficiently high to confirm spoiler position.

... previous removed (the data is not new :hmm:)
.
... the vid that includes the touchdown .... To me, it does not 'look' overly fast (at touchdown) given the weight profered in here ... one thing I did pick up from the link in post #201 (the close up section) .... the thrust induced water plume from a V2500 at TOGA (with that much water present) would most certainly be visible .... no 2 is benign in this regard .... I doubt they went for TOGA!
.
The 'close up' might give further cause to suspect the spoilers .... still inconclusive though!

My post was not affirmative, I just said that it appears, which is very different.

As for the spoilers you can look at a picture of TAM 3054 rolling out and compare with even more blurred pictures of other A320s from the same perspective.

But as always, it "appears..." and I agree with you, it's too early to tell, I am not here to extrapolate.

Talk about speculation - that video is almost too fuzzy to give an estimate of the speed, let alone anything specific about thrust-reversers, spoilers and the like. :ugh:

In which video? Answer the question. Your time reference is irrelevant to us, if you don't specify the exact video they are related to. There are several edits of the security camera videos released showing the end of the landing roll. If you're referring to an unreleased video, you should still state that so we understand your evaluations are unverifiable by others at the moment.

There also was a rumor of videos showing the JJ3054 touch down, but nobody has provided a link to that as of yet.

EFHF,

The Infraero video, the one they have released.
There are camera 16, then 13, 6, 10, and 6 again chronologically.
Time and camera numbers are on top of the video.

The recording starts approximately 18:51:15:640 and ends at 18:51:55, I personally saw it on youtube.

Infraero said that the aircraft landed on or near the markings, I am just repeating that assumption as is, but I have not seen any video of that.

EFHF, try the link in post #201

YouTube quality is certainly insufficient to make any kind of determinations about the configuration of the aircraft. While the original security camera footage probably also lacks sufficient resolution, it doesn't help at all that it's overcompressed for Flash-videoplayers.
I'm yet to see a properly encoded version of the video (at the very least 1 Mbit/s).

Right away, I'll say that I don't have much factual to add about the overrun. The left-veering track and the INOP #2 reverser have been noted. Much else will have to wait for the FDR and CVR. I hope the details will be made public. [Edit on 13 August: as indeed they now have been].

However, I was interviewed by email for Folhas de Sao Paolo at the weekend, through a reporter of theirs at Harvard who had attempted to read a scientific paper I published a decade ago about the A320 braking logic. It is not clear to me that the people in Sao Paolo actually understood all of what I said, so I would be grateful for feedback as to what actually appeared in Folhas.

As far as I know, spoilers and thrust reverse on landing on the A320 are controlled by the same state logic (they certainly were on the machine in the 1993 Lufthansa Warsaw overrun, but the logic has changed since then). So either one has spoilers *and* reverse, or neither. So if Danny thinks that port reverse is apparent, he must also conclude either that spoilers are activated or that there is an apparent technical fault [Edit on 13 August: this is faulty logic on my part. As we now know, TL#2 was not brought to idle.]

Aviation Safety Network, which one may regard as an authoritative source, lists 17 hull loss accidents to the A320 since service intro. Of these, five are flight-unrelated (three burnt in a hangar fire in Brussels, one a refueling accident when the truck drove away without disconnecting the hose, one with famous photos where maintenance people taxied the aircraft into the terminal at La Guardia), and one, at Tainan to a Transasia aircraft [Edit on 13 August: the report recently referenced here concerned the Transasi Taipei overrun, which was not a hull loss], concerned hitting a ground vehicle on the runway on landing (so obviously type-unrelated). This leaves 11 hull loss occurrences which are flight-related. Of these, four are runway-overrun accidents (I include going off the side as overrun): 1993 Lufthansa Warsaw, 1998 Philippine Airlines Bacolod, 2002 America West Phoenix, and 2007 TAM Sao Paolo Congonhas. However, they don't list 1998 Air UK Leisure at Ibiza [Edit to reflect the correct airline to which this occurred] which report is to be found on the compendium on my WWW site.

Looking at the four listed by ASN, one notes thrust-reverser issues.

At Bacolod as at Phoenix, the aircraft had reverse thrust on one, and forward thrust on the other, engine at some point in the landing role [Edit on 13 August: the Bacolod report may be found in the Compendium on our WWW site now; the very short Phoenix report on the NTSB WWW site]. At Phoenix, one reverser was known INOP, as at Congonhas. According to ASN and the short NTSB report, the CAP put both throttles into reverse, but then took the #1 out of reverse, and apparently moved it inadvertently to the TOGA position. He lost directional control. At Bacolod, "it appeared" that #1 remained on forward thrust after touchdown, but #2 went into reverse. No ground spoilers because #1 wasn't brought back to idle. PF set #2 to forward thrust to regain directional control and "went through the fence".

At Warsaw, reverse thrust/spoilers did not activate immediately because the squat switches on the main gear were not compressed. There was some evidence also of rubber reversion. There is some similarity to the Air France A340 overrun at Toronto. Both those accidents occurred on runways with a notoriously short overrun area, as at Congonhas.

EMAS is described in US FAA AC 150/5220-22A, dated 30 September, 2005. In response to earlier suggestions on this thread about EMAS, my guess from looking at the photos of the departure end of 35L is that there wouldn't be enough room for one. One has to set them back some way from the threshold, to allow for the possibility of someone landing short - you really don't want to touch down on an EMAS!

PBL

[IMG]http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/7...21tam09sc2.jpg[/IMG]


Got it ! Thanks Ifixplanes, archae86, exsimguy ad UNCTUOUS for the help :ok:
The image shows runway 35L end.

Congonhas skid marks
 

One more, from a different angle. Before someone asks, the other set of MLG tracks in Rippa’s photo are probably from the BRA 737 skid last year.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2.../TAM_Terra.jpg

Interesting news in the Brazilian press today:
http://oglobo.globo.com/sp/mat/2007/07/22/296915827.asp

Apparently a recently constructed hotel has reduced the effective length of the runway when landing from 1940 to 1810 meters since the planes have to come in at a different angle. No time to do a full translation, but here are some highlights:
* Hotel is 50 meters high, located at 600 meters from the runway and not yet in use
* The construction of the hotel was approved by aviation authorities in May 2001 after having refused to approve it initially for 5 months.
* Landing safety was not mentioned in the approval, but the noise that would be caused to hotel guests was.
* The city government will investigate and if any irregularities are found then the demolition of the building will be considered

From the pictures above it really seems that the aircraft was still very much in contact with ground (given the deep marks in the grass), yet traveling at a very significant speed (to "fly" into the TAM building).
So clearly it was not about to take off again (assuming a possible go around attempt) nor to stop. Scary stuff... :ooh:
alex

Thanks for the pics:D

Looks like both gear were on the ground coming off the runway. I can't see the nose wheel though (too light on wheels, or wore off from scrubbing:confused:).

looks like the chatter marks in the tracks of the anti-skid brakes working.

Somewhere on another site I saw some pictures of a significant impact with the concrete wall at the end of the airport. Also showed a picture of an engine with some really beat up fan blades but little casing damage.

Hopefully somebody will leak the DFDR from Brazil, but I wouldn't hold my breath that we'll ever hear about the CVR

PBL,

Monarch did not have an over run at IBZ. That night I was parked on the ramp and it was an Air UK Leisure a/c.

According to the CIAIAC report, the only connection with the Ibiza accident aircraft to Monarch was that the Brake Dual Distribution Valve in the accident aircraft was originally installed in a Monarch Airbus and acquired by Leisure International as a spare (section 1.16.6, page 33).

.... looks like 62T rolling at reasonable speed over soaked grass to me ... wheres the anti-skid chatter???? :rolleyes:

This out from Airbus today -

This, to me, is so relevant; happened to me when I was a brand new skipper, first flight after a month's vacation, new FO, dispatch with one reverser inop. First two sectors went without incident but on the third (FO's leg) I reminded him of the inop reverser. Retrospectively he removed his hand compeltely from that thrust lever, it was midnight, dark cockpit. At the flare & "Retard" call he only closed the "operative" TL. The aircraft squawked "Retard" at least five times and then after the two second latch the engine that still had it's TL in the Climb detent went to TOGA. Aircraft yawed significantly and came dangerously close to the edge of the runway (we were at about 5 feet AGL). I took control, whammed the other TL closed and got the aircraft back on the black stuff. Was a long runway, CAVOK & wind calm. Glad it wasn't on a short, wet strip.

I know the "wait until the investigation" but that's it for me.

4HP

Following another morning of confusion due to pilots from TAM and GOL refusing to land at CGH during rain (not for the first time since the accident), the president of TAM has just announced that no aircraft from the company will land when it is raining. This restriction will stay in effect until the grooves are in place on the main runway, and will then be reviewed.

GOL will probably follow suit in the near future, as their pilots also have grave concerns and have also been refusing to land in wet weather.

All this (and the Manaus radar failure) and still the head of INFRAERO insists that Brazil does not need international assistance to evaluate the risks to air transport in this country.

ab

I think the "relevant" part is that it was another A320 overrun in -RA conditions with reverser #2 INOP and that ended up to the left from the runway end. The difference is that no casualties, basically because the runway and stopway were 2765 m long.

The report linked by amrchairpilot was a "Factual Data Report", so no conclusions there. The main causes to the Taipei accident are in the final report as follows:

A320 over run in Taipei
 

The Transasia over run by an A320 was also on a wet runway and they also had one thrust reverser inoperative. The spoilers also did not activate due to pilot error on landing. The charts showed that with one thrust reverser inoperative and spoilers not deployed, the plane couldnt stop even on the 9000 plus foot runway. What chance did our people in Sao Paulo have to stop on a runway that is much much shorter?

TAm's A320 had one reverser inoperative and the spoilers seem not to have been deployed either. IT simply could not have stopped in time then, it would appear.

http://www.asc.gov.tw/acd_files/189-c1contupload.pdf

I havent read the report in its entirety . Perhaps some A320 drivers can gain more insight from the Taipei over run as applicable to the Congonhas accident?

The news continues digging; media today says there were at least six complaints from crew after landings on Mon/Tue. A timeline from those:

Monday 16th
07:30 Gol 1879 “runway’s not all that great – low adherence”
07:31 TAM 3020 “runway somewhat slippery”
12:25 runway inspected
12:42 Pantanal ATR-42 skids off on landing
13:48 Tam 3215, managed to stop at end of runway
??:?? TAM 3461
??:?? Gol 1203

Tuesday 17th
Morning, change of shift briefing at which concern expressed over runway conditions and the complaints from pilots. Meeting to discuss with ATC boss scheduled for 18th
17:05 Gol 1697 reports runway slippery
17:07 Runway inspection ordered, ops suspended for 13 minutes
17:20 Runway reopened
17:50 TAM 3054 leaves runway end

Eyewitnesses
There were five controllers in the tower at CGH at the time of the accident, plus two ANAC employees. Two controllers saw the TAM flight land and crash; one said the aircraft seemed to accelerate.

The runway was closed to operations after the crash, for inspection. It seems that, when the TAM aircraft ran across the grass, it damaged the drainage system. After heavy rain most of today the earthworks beneath the point where it went off have started to collapse.

In my experience, the manufacturer's recommendations after first run DFDR are usually an accurate indication of where at least the relevant operating aspects will be found, and in this respect the reported Airbus statement above seems to have many echoes of the previously reported incidents on this thread. Usual caveat that Airbus has a vested interest in the direction of finger-pointing.

Rippa: In your reply #97 you mentioned that MLW was over 97% of allowable for a wet runway at CGH. Does the "wet runway" parameter distinguish between grooved and ungrooved? Do you know whether this flight ( & TAM procedures in general) included tankering fuel?

Very interesting announcement from AB and has been said above coming so close after analysis of the FDR would make you take notice.

Also notice in the photo showing the wheel marks in the grass, the angle of them does not line up with the actual building it hit, therefore one could assume there was still a lot of thrust on the right hand side pushing the plane further to the left as it left the end of the runway ?

Google Maps shows that the rim of the level area of the airport makes about a 60 degree angle to the accident runway; so, the left main and engine going over the rim could impart a roll which would be algebraically additive to any thrust differential.

The tracks show that there was some weight on both mains.

Further examination of Google Maps shows the impact point is pretty much a straight line from the tracks. The photograph showing the tracks and impact point is taken from a point off the path; so, imparts a distortion to the perspective.

Max tow,

Max landing at CGH 35L / 17R is limited my MLW on both cases (wet and dry), acording to the specific landing analisys. I presume that engeneering uses grooving / no grooving for that (I persoly know TAM's director of engeneering and he is a very serious guy when safety is an issue). About tankering: Yes, TAM uses that policy, but not always (canot recall if POA is used for that). Can tell for sure that SDU, BEL, SLZ, MIA and GIG are used for tankering.

Rippa - thanks for the answer. On reflection, I guess that whether or not the landing weight limit or any tankering policy into CGH had been changed to reflect recent r/way issues is probably irrelevant given the apparent extreme runway excursion speed. The inclusions and omissions of the reported Airbus note would suggest (their view) that a non-mechanical event or series of events occurred sufficient to catastrophically degrade the stopping performance. If so, the gaping wide"cheese holes" of conditions of CGH were already lined up.

Latest news says that the pilots did not try a go-around at any time after touchdown, and that the runway had a significant role in this accident (past news...). But, on the other hand, I was thinking about the latest communication from Airbus (#424)...kind of early to send a report about the accident, so I believe it is of big relevance. :confused:

One of the operational checks after locking the T/R out is to energize hydraulics and select reverse on that side to confirm lock out, why try to change the manipulation of the thrust levers at all (select reverse on both sides), half the time I forgot, doesn't hurt a thing.

The Vice President of Flight Safety at Airbus normally issues an accident information telex to all either type specific (e.g. A318/A319/A320/A321) or all Airbus operators after every significant accident/incident. As far as I can remember back those telexes have always been factual when compared to the official report issued sometimes years later. E.g. they issued one after the Armavia A320 accident, soon after that data was recovered, it was factual, and corresponded to contents of the official report.

The telex normally contains information on the accident/incident, and more importantly manufacturer recommendations (if applicable) to prevent it from happening again.

The telex is not about finger pointing, it is providing the best available information possible to operators from the manufacturer to enhance flight safety to prevent a similar occurrence.

Well, we seem to have a consistency here, sadly. Re 4HP's post, (#424) from AB,
Can any AB pilots explain what it is in the AB operating procedures that makes this warning necessary? Are pilots 'encouraged' to keep their hand off the throttle with the inop reverser?

As someone has said, the 'Swiss Cheese' was perfectly aligned for this one. What a tragedy. Just like the Helios crash.

Zeke: since the Airbus note is the first public pronouncement to apparently benefit from DFDR evidence, I'm sure it is highly significant. The reason for my caveat is simply that in the short term aftermath of an accident and until an objective investigation by an independent party is complete, it is prudent to take notice not only of what is said but who is saying it. So far we have had the airport operator defending the runway condition, the government defending Brasilian safety standards and infrastrucure investment, and the airline defending its maintenance performance. Airbus has in the past been, shall we say, staunch in its defence of its product; one would not expect otherwise. However if there do prove to be similarities with the previous overrun incidents mentioned in this thread, the pilot community will no doubt be equally resolute in exploring the perspective of crews who have been involved in such incidents, including the two individuals who cannot argue their case.

BOAC - I can't think of an Airbus procedure that would require that notice to be issued, but I do know that when working toward the limits of your capacity with the autothrust engaged it is possibile to forget to retard the non-moving thrust levers to idle in the flare, especialy if new to the aircraft.