video of MD-80 crash landing
 

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/68657/...sh_on_landing/

This shows how easily the tail breaks off...

The fact that there are no survivors shows just how strong the impact was. How quickly did the rescue teams get to the crash site? The aircraft was so badly deformed that it would be impossible for anyone to survive.

i'm not sure it's a good idea to put such explicit pics on here - on one of the pics I could see a passenger still strapped to seat

Glob99 wonders:

Not as far as I see yet. Let us go through some of the most significant factors.

First, the AA crew were given a change of approach, with which they were unfamiliar, and they were confused about ATC instructions (with the help of ATC saying "affirmative" to an incorrect readback).

Comparison: there is only one approach to Isparta, they would have had that plate out, and according to the tapes ATC was not involved in guiding the flight. According to what I take to be regs, I imagine the crew would have briefed that approach in pre-flight planning.

Second, the AA crew were trying to fly to an NDB which had an identical frequency and ID with another one within reception range, but at about a right angle to their intended route of flight, which is down a narrow valley in which the Cali airport is located, amongst 12,000 ft peaks. They put FREQ and ID into the FMS and the aircraft turned out of the valley.

Comparison: 1. The inquiry found a number of places in the world where this atrocious radio nav situation exists, and Isparta is not one of them. 2. The peaks aren't at multiple thousands of feet above the airport. The highest is about 3,000 ft above and is 7 nm off the final approach course.

Third, the Cali crew were rushed, and behind the airplane and nav.

Comparison: if that 18 minute gap is to be believed, the Isparta crew were not at all rushed.

Fourth, the court determined that the nav kit suppliers, Honeywell and Jeppesen, knew about the ambiguous-navaid situation and had not taken appropriate steps to mitigate it. They were held coresponsible for the event.

Comparison: as I said above, this is not one of those situations.

Fifth, the airplane impacted a peak while flying direct to the navaid (then called ROZO).

Comparison: the photos with both accident site and runway clearly show the aircraft dynamics aligned somewhat with the runway. The site has been identified as about 7 nm off the final approach course. The crew were not flying direct IPT.

Now obviously some other characteristics are similar. The aircraft was flying at night in good weather in a sparsely-lit region of what aviators designate as "mountainous terrain" and attempted an NPA; collided with terrain off-course. They also descended below MSA well away from the protected airspace of the final approach course. But in those respects it is similar to dozens of other accidents.

PBL

Visual Approaches at night in mountanous terrain is not good airmanship. Saving a few minutes of time does not warrant shortcuts.

Every charter company, that was worth a s**t I've flown for, strictly forbids night visual approaches in areas of terrain or areas the crew is unfamiliar with. Part of OM Part A is where the rule usually "lives".

Real simple, instrument approaches, if flown correctly, are foolproof. Enhances safety and takes the "guess work" out of visual approach profiles....in the dark.

Isparta Jeppesen Charts
 

For those of you who haven't already seen the charts for Isparta, here is a link to them. http://turkce.acuwings.com/LTFC_SULEYMAN_DEMIREL.pdf

to jetjackel
 

for which company do you work for now?

Jetjackel-
The 135 operator I was with ALSO had strict no visual approach rules with night mountain flying. I personally learned this lesson as trained by my primary/instrument instructor...all for the reasons already posted here. I was flying in/around California, and there are many mountain/hillsides there with wreckage strewn all over them (Porterville in particular).
Be safe!

At night, IFR or VFR, given that terrain, wouldn't you just do anyway what the VOR DME approach plate says, whether you had it or not?

The electronic misdirection is an intriguing possibility, but I don't think we would ever find out about that unless it happens there again. And the likelihood of in-aircraft interference depends on how you assess the likelihood of a dozen people clattering away on their old laptops and chattering away on their old cell phones all at the same time. Pretty unlikely, I would guess.

PBL

Electronic misdirection does not necessarily mean faulty ground equipment (VOR, DME, ILS), bad receivers or electromagnetic interference. Some years ago a Crossair Metroliner crashed after takeoff, and at the beginning of the chain of events there was a wrong entry of a new waypoint into the FMS by the PNF which led to utter confusion of the PF. Many other crashes were results of wrong autopilot mode settings.
So if the approach was not flown manually, some troubles with the flight automation equipment (whatever was installed and used in this MD-83)might also be a factor.

ctc

Md80forum,
a very close friend of mine was working that airplane as a departure controller. She mentioned that the aircraft was cleared direct Afyon VOR. She also listened to the transcripts of Ankara Control (the next controler) and the airplane was cleared direct Isparta VOR. So the airplane was not doing the STAR.

Wow.

One can suppose then that you dismiss with equal black-and-white derision, Jim Reason, Earl Weiner, Robert Helmreich, Dan Maurino, Diane Vaughan, William Starbuck, Tony Kern, Don Bateman and the Australian film crew who credits PPRuNe for the exposure work they did on the Phuket accident?

While nothing substitutes for the aviation/crew experiences which you capture in your last post such absence of same does not preclude comprehension nor expertise in accident cause/assessment and prevention nor does it diminish the value of carefully thought out contributions which intend to point rather than resolve.

BoeingMEL,

what exactly is your point?

PBL

you need to read beyond the obvious clash of personalities and rather than responding with bitterness and vitriol , simply enter in your own opinions. Some of us do read Pprune for the "right stuff" and if the wide ranging opinions become an inbred clan than where else can we get a scope on the issues?

@BoeingMEL

I totally agree with your very last post. Too bad PPRuNe is losing another pro.

Good Health and a Happy New Year to you also.

Bye

Not only that, PJ and loma, but it is somewat fanciful of BoeingMEL to think that sitting for X number of years in a commercial airplane cockpit confers on him the expertise to judge the quality of an accident investigation.

He might have that ability, of course, but if so then by virtue of his intellect and personal capabilities, not simply his profession. And given the style of his intervention I incline to doubt it.

PBL

And some feel that their large number of technical qualifications gives them the expertise to point out a likely cause of an accident from a picture. He might have that ability, of course, but if so then by virtue of his intellect and personal capabilities, but any professional accident investigator/analyst will not rush to judgement and wait for more facts.

I think you will find that statistically there are way more accidents on non-precision approaches than precision approaches.

Who should contribute to a pprune thread?
 

So some of you do not like sugestions, opinions, rumors, and contributions from non- professionals. They ask for hard facts, and coming from 10'000 hours plus captains. They would rather wait indisturbed for the final accident report which contains the truth and nothing but the truth.

Now please rainboe, hetfield and boeingmel, do not re-load your guns. As one of those guys who do not get payed for flying (nobody would probably) and set out to the skies in jeans rather than smart uniforms and four thick stripes, I would just like to explain why „outsiders“ have a right to be here.


The contributions from the professionals are important, they provide excellent knowledge of procedures, aircraft and ATC systems, SOP's and you name it. But to guess what has gone wrong, you need people outside the „pro“ community. A friend of mine was a chief accident investigator for a European country, charged also to investigate some of the big bangs. He had no ATPL, but he flew everthing from gliders to choppers as instructor. His credentials were a methodical, unbiased approach, and a vast know-how in co-related fields like software, engineering and management. Not being part of the 'pro'-club was an asset to his investigations, not a deficiency. Sadly, he passed away far too early.


My point is that for a guess, you should never ask a pro, because he's not allowed to guess. No cockpit crew gets paid for guesses, they fly the aircraft as they were trained, based on procedures that provide a good safety margin as long as you stick to them. But then an accident „happens“. Excluding the rare occasions were an accident must be regarded as an unforeseeable act of fate (e.g. a volcanic eruption), accidents in the commercial aviation nowadays do not happen, they are made. Please do not confuse errors with blame, I hope nobody acts as a judge here.


If something has gone wrong where the causes are not immediatly and completely obvious, it is often very useful to „brainstorm“ the information with outsiders. They are not bothered by professional pride, and they may have intelligent opinions based on their own experiences. It does not matter if their input is sometimes complete rubbish, so is once in a while a contribution from a pro. I personally have learned to value brainstorming in many other professions like engineering and even more in management, why not in aviation?


This forum has a mixed audience. That's what makes it worthwhile. But we could do without the „bashers“, those that go ranting about cultural issues, aircraft makes and people having different background and different views.

The one thing I keep coming back to is the location of the crash. With all the photos, you would think that google imagery would confirm the site. For the suggested locations so far, I can't seem to do that.

Reports have been made that said it was near Keciborlu, near Cukuroren, west of Kilic, 12km nw of airport, 7mi west of airport. All this doesn't zero in on a single point. All of these probably have some point of validity, if we had the original statement and the context in which it was given.

The slopes and elevations of the photos would be of great help if we had a topo map of the area. If there is such a map, I can't seem to find it.

That said, I have found one site near the halfway point between Keciborlu and Cukurroren that has many surface features like those in the crash photos. It is 7mi nw of the north end of the runway.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a93/pls8xx/map.jpg


As can be seen below the site has a road that matches the photos, a very clear field downslope from the wing section( in white), and a clear spot for the initial strike location( in red), and many other similarities.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a93.../crashsite.jpg

By comparing the above with the runway 50, I find the heading indicated by the strike point to wing section to be about 043 degrees, the offset being almost exactly 9km as seen below.

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a93/pls8xx/offset.jpg

I can't say how this might enlighten us as to a possible cause of the crash.

Fair enough, but do it somewhere else! airliners.net, airdisaster.com, the misc forums here (spectator's corner); places where such contributions are both welcome and solicited. But not in the flight deck forums at pprune!:ugh: