Has anyone seen the United A320 that landed at DIA with a total hydraulic failure????quite recent.

Wasn't a total hydraulic failure!

Quote:
Didn't think this could happen, at least with a company such as Delta.
Well, lets see.
When DAL first started transAtlantic service, gross navigational errors were common...for awhile.

Then, about a dozen years ago, one of their DC-9's landed in gusty winds, and dragged a wing tip.
The airplane was taxied straight to the hangar, and the incident was not reported to the FAA for three days.
Fact.

Quote:
...radios are unlikely tuned
Big mistake.:ugh:

411A - Delta hasn't operated DC-9s for 17 years...until the NWA merger last year...MD-88s yes...and ATC does not turn on the LOC on the inboard (takeoff) runway...

From a worldwide aviation perspective, this isn't an isolated incident. Not having been in the cockpit at the time, the only thing I'm fairly certain of is that they didn't intend to land on the taxiway.

Looking at the preliminary statement, the "holes in the cheese" are lining up already: long night flight, medical emergency, one crewmember down, landing just before dawn, late change of runway, strange lighting configuration, lack of electronic guidance, taxiway clear of aircraft, etc. There was a lot of pressure, some of it probably self-generated, to get the aircraft on the ground ASAP - this was the result.

I hope the eventual report will have some interesting learning points for the rest of us, so for the moment I would suggest not condemning the crew involved out-of-hand...

NTSB confirms 27R lights and loc. were off
 

AKAAB was right in at least this: NTSB confirms KATL 27R app. lights and loc. were off.

There have been numerous incidents along similar lines. I never managed to do that myself and being retired, wouldn't get the chance to do so now. But, I might not have been so lucky.

Incidents that come to mind:
Dan Air 1-11 wrong runway at Gatwick (but some good extenuating circumstance)
Dan Air 748 wrong airfield at Belfast (Nutts Corner instead of Aldergrove)
Charter on behalf of RyanAir landed Ballykelly instead of Londonderry
RAF Argosy of my Squadron circa 1963, Lasham when meant to land at Odiham. Both airfields snow covered.

Twice when on the jump seat I had to point out that we were not aiming for the correct runway. Once we were making approach to Essen instead of Dusseldorf. But perhaps the funniest of all was on an RAF Argosy going into Aden at night. The hairy old training captain was at pains to point out how it was all to easy to line up on a well-lit dual carriageway instead of the runway at Khormaksar. He then made his approach towards the road and it was with great bravery (a very green co-pilot at the time) I had little choice but to speak up from the jump seat.

Jack

Actually Jack, the 1-11 at Gatwick was BIA and not Dan Air.

I'm sure you are correct. I cannot recall the precise details. DanAir/BIA - they have both disappeared.

Jack

If ATL authorities authorize a visual Parallel runway landing, why would they NOT turn on the ILS and approach lights? Do they not have some blame here?
Sam

Fatigue , or tirednesss (on final approach ending this Long Haul Flight )is ,for me , the main contributing factor.

According NTSB , only 2 pilots were on command ( flight time : 9h55)

I's seems that the check airman is on cockpit for Pilots Check ( + supervising and Safety )...?..

I would certainly think so, and if I were one of the pilots I would hammer this point, totally.
No excuse in my book for not having navaids turned on...and functioning properly, when you have landing aircraft...especially at night.

411A

with respect, would that not be a contributing factor and not a causal factor?

(In other words the crew still should have been able to land on the runway with normal skills.)

It's not all about you, EARL.

I posted a factual recounting of what I was told from someone getting the word from within Delta. It had nothing to do with you and was in no way meant to be funny. Not everything here is meant to be a joke. This was a potential disaster that could wind up being a career-shortening mistake regardless of the outcome. There are going to be a lot of human factors coming into play as the investigation plays out.

Back to the matter at hand.

Absolutely.
Perhaps the ATL airport folks are behind on their electric bill....:}

I remember the Gatwick incident too, but the name of the airline escapes me.

Another incident which I saw, but heard nothing about later was one very busyday at Gatwick an aircraft landed on the runway before the aircraft taking off had left the ground! They were on the same runway for maybe a second or two only. It struck me as "interesting" at the time.

Sorry to intrude.

Dawdler.

It looks like the prize goes to ddive for recognizing what it “sounded like.” As has been said by several here, 27R is typically used for departures – and there hadn’t been any and weren’t any scheduled for quite a while … so the runway lights for 27R were not on. The localizer/GS for 27R were not on either, as they are very rarely used. The flight crew was cleared for the ILS to 27L and, likely, because of the medical emergency on board, asked to side step the approach to land on 27R, to cut down on taxi time because of the medical emergency. After the request was made, the tower cleared them to land on 27R.

Not passing judgment on anyone here – merely stating the facts (along with some suppositions about the reason for requesting the runway change). There is certainly enough blame to go around to almost anyone who was there and working that morning.

Maybe I’m missing something here?

From the NTSB Advisory the incident occurred at 6:05 A:M EDT. From somewhere else in the thread sunrise was at 7:46 A:M. That implies night time dark conditions to me.

Can’t remember any place I’ve flown in and out of where taxiways were lighted with other than blue lights and runways with white lights. In the last mile to touchdown it shouldn’t be too hard to distinguish either on a clear night. So, how could this happen?

What am I missing here?

Hangar Accident
 

There was a Delta DC-9 aircraft that hit the hangar many years ago but not by a pilot. Mechanics were doing a layover check which requires a cross tie relay check. This check requries the ground control cbs pulled to check the system. The mechanic did the check but forgot to reset the cbs. They then taxied the aircraft to the hangar on the other side of the field. With the cbs pulled only brakes available are accumulator pressure. They ran out of pressure at the time they reached the hangar and hit the door, which by the way came off the track. They were fortunate that the doors did not fall down.

True, but the blue lights are generally not very bright and green lights (which are) can be found on both runways and taxiways. Stop bars, RWY end lighting, threshold lighting - all can contrive to look somewhat like the other to someone in a hurry, especially when the approach/runway/taxiway is not lit "normally". Colour vision isn't very good at low intensities and you tend to get white or shades of grey (rods take over from cones), so weak blue can quite easily be interpreted as RWY edge rather than taxiway, especially as that's what you're expecting.
Fatigue, conformation bias, time pressure, external complicity, inaccurate mental models, etc. A large amount of HF at work here...

Dawdler: "Another incident which I saw, but heard nothing about later was one very busy day at Gatwick an aircraft landed on the runway before the aircraft taking off had left the ground!"

I had similar incident at LGW when a BIA Herald captain. I was cleared to “line up and hold” (or whatever the terminology was but definitely not cleared to take off). As I lined up, I heard an aircraft cleared to land (on my runway) and almost immediately saw it break cloud at around 200 feet. I used a lot of power, was prepared to go on to the grass but managed to get on to a bit of concrete at the edge of the runway.

Calm (of a sort) was restored and I flew to Rotterdam and back. It was not a happy flight as I was certain I must have been at fault. There was the inevitable phone call on return. A profusely apologetic controller said it was entirely his fault and did I want to put in a formal report? I suppose I should have done so, but I said to him that there wasn’t much point. “I guess you’ll never do that again”. “No I won’t!” He was a very relieved controller. I was a very relieved pilot.

Jack

Re #49 Protect the Hornet (a beauty)
 

I just started looking through this thread, and when I heard that the check airman was ill, I wondered what the cause was, and whether the PIC and SIC were affected to some extent.

Does anyone know what happened to the check airman?