Caribbean B738 at Georgetown on Jul 30, 2011, overran runway
 

From: AvHerald

Time for the Airbus ROW-ROP system to be made mandatory?

http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/im...7/DSC_0253.jpg

http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/im...7/DSC_0252.jpg

Reversers deployed , but NO flaps or slats deployed.

Well spotted.
Compare to Kingston AA:
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...bY0mc6vGAZiBHB

Obviously i dont know details, but would suspect its the same age old story of an iffy landing on a short runway in the dark in wet weather and apparently in the wrong config. Wont be the last.

Sorry to see this - I flew into GEO for about two years in the 757. 7500' for Rw 06, the ILS never worked the entire time I flew in there, and was never notamed as out. The VOR approach can be interesting since the DME didn't work either. I had more map shifts there than I've ever seen before or since. Add to that the closest realistic alternate is POS, so you tanker a bunch of fuel in addition to (usually) max payload. Add the occasion tropical downpour and it can get interesting!

Good catch on flap position - I bet that was a big jump from the overwing exits. Can't imagine an -800 even trying it with less than full flaps. One wonders how they managed to be "up" when the reversers are still deployed?

I always thought my career had hit rock-bottom when I did an overnight there. Haven't seen too much worse, but Khartoum comes to mind!

Why land without flaps???
They must have some kind of problem prior landing then!
Otherwise?

Pretty impressed that no deaths for a crash like this one.

Do people applaud landings frequently? Or was there some sort of sense of impending disaster that the touchdown alleviated?

Cannot explain why the pic shows the flaps/slats retracted. I have thirty plus years experience into GEO with the predecessor airline to Caribbean and we always landed with max flaps for the type due to the challenging approach, normally bad weather and short and slippery runway. If I remember the 737 if you did not get full weight on wheels you can only get partial spoilers and idle reverse. Maybe when the over run was inevitable they retracted them.

Isn't the clean speed af a 737 with 150 pax something in the region of 190-200kts? Unlikely that they would have conducted an approach and landing at that speed thats like 50kts more than with full flaps! Not to mention all the red lines that would appear on PFD speed tape...

Flaps/slats retracted
 

Possible explanation may be that during the evacuation checklist, which calls for F40 selection, if not already selected, the flaps were inadvertently retracted. Seems unlikely that the crew would have attempted a landing without flaps/slats set. Imagine the landing distance requirement.
Praise the Lord for no loss of life.

In some cultures, notably the Caribbean/South America and parts of Asia, this is not uncommon. Those are the places where I've seen it happen, though I won't say it necessarily happens on every landing in those places.

Timehri (now Cheddi Jagan) is well known for night fog. As someone else said, the ILS is there in name only most of the time. Those who know it treat it with great respect.
BWIA had 2 over-run incidents in the distant past, none of them as serious as this.
A Viscount overrun that was due to reverted rubber hydroplaning, and an MD-83 that was hit by lightning on the T/O roll and aborted (below V1) and overran. The runway was noted for slipperiness
Too early to speculate what happened, or why it happened, but when BWIA was closed, many of the more experienced pilots were picked up by sandpit operators. The pilots union was squeezed out, and a new philosophy was put in place. Let us say it was slanted to "productivity".
They say that a safety culture dies slowly unless nurtured carefully.
It has been 5 years since the old regime was broken up, I hope the replacement will stand scrutiny in the investigation.

As to the lack of flaps/slats.....perhaps that particular Captain retracted them at touchdown on short runways to dump the lift and, supposedly help with the stopping. Just a thought. I never did that but it WILL work.

Soft touchdown on wet runway.......not good.
Policy in Georgetown used to be "no greasers", put it down firmly and get spoilers and reverse fully engaged asap. Braking unpredictable. Not so, NG?
I doubt that has changed.

http://i337.photobucket.com/albums/n...idog/BW001.jpg


http://i337.photobucket.com/albums/n...idog/BW002.jpg


http://i337.photobucket.com/albums/n...idog/BW003.jpg

Sorry, but I don´t believe the flaps were out. If you land with full flaps, it takes actually quirt some time to retract the flaps. And I do not believe it was done deliberately after the crash – I don´t think there is any connection to the flaps nor any functional hydraulic system – they must have broke. I just wonder!

RE: Retracted Slats
 

A FA friend mentioned, on B738s, once the emergency evacuation is activated,the flaps will retract to allow pax to use the overwing exits as an evacuation area...
There is no way, this plane would have landed with 0 flap settings...

The speed between 0 flaps and vref 40 is like 60kts.

The evacuation checklist on the 737NG:

Parking brake …SET
Speedbrake lever … DOWN
FLAP lever ….40
Pressurization mode selector… MAN
Outflow valve switch… OPEN
Hold until the outflow valve is fully open.
If time allows, verify that the flaps are 40 before the engine start levers are moved to CUTOFF.
Engine start levers (both) … CUTOFF
To be continued….

The reason for the flaps is set to 40 is to assist the evacuation from the overwing exit. The passengers can slide on the flaps.

Walder:p

By the damage inflicted to it, would it be safe to assume a runway excursion on a rather low forward speed? Lets say, below 100kt?

The wx conditions at around the misshap time:
SYCJ 300600Z 00000KT 9000 BKN015 24/24 Q1008 NOSIG
SYCJ 300500Z 00000KT 9000 -SHRA FEW014CB BKN015 25/24 Q1009 CB-NE-ENE NOSIG
SYCJ 300423Z 00000KT 9999 TS FEW015CB SCT016 CB-NE-ENE NOSIG

Seems they were trying to stop it until the last moment

I strongly doubt that..

Short runway, gets shorter when wet.
 

Operated in/out of Georgetown for 6+ years in the B-707. As previously mentioned, the ILS was "intermittant", often going OTS in bad weather. Had the runway lights stolen ( copper $$ ) twice. So, security no so secure.
Short runway, often wet, ILS untrustworthy, lighting probably works, in a very black hole in the jungle. Fun times.
I have to say though, I worked with some of the nicest, giving people I ever knew ( Guyanese ).

Shell Management...
 

Yes - you're spot on - it's definitely an identical set of circumstances and clearly no lessons have been learnt... :ugh: Pillock.

Many here are mentioning the ILS, funny enough I am unable to find any chart for the said ILS (neither for 06 or 24) on my jeppview software, properly updated. Gone for good?

There are four IALs available: two RNAV (24 and 06) and two VOR (06 only)

Didn't take long
 

'Maybe it says something about the quality of the pilots / planes in those regions'

Not sure what Ross M meant, but i wondered how long before this kind of insinuation would come out.. funny didn't hear this when AF overran in Montreal, Iberia in Colombia or somewhere down there with the 340, when EK did a great deal of damage in JNB or AA in Kingston recently, etc., etc.

Come on guys.... it may well be human error, but lets not regionalize it.

I do agree from first-hand experience that there seems to be an inordinate amount of credit given for smooth landings as an indicator of good performance in the region, and i agree with other commentators that this certainly would not have been an occasion for such a landing if the weather reports and assumed runway surface condition is correct...

B738 landing distance with all flaps up

Includes 305m air distance from threshold, max reverse and max manual brakes

Dry RWY 1225m / 4020ft

Medium braking action 2340m / 7670ft

Poor braking action 3090m / 10200ft

Problem with flaps, distant/bad weather alternate, checked the books and decided that they can just make it. Got caught between assumed and actual
braking action or by some of the adjustments for speed/weight/slope of the
basic distance, another 100-200m.

How is the that going to happen? You've shut down the engines and pulled the engine fire switches, therefore there's no hydraulic, nor electrical power. The flaps can't just magic themselves up. Maybe some further reading required of your FA friend.

Internal culture.
 

As ZQA commented

I do hope they can stand an audit. Most of the trainers and fleet managers from the old BWIA along with more than half the line pilots plus the same with the ex Air Jamaica pilots who were merged had to find new homes, mainly in the UAE, UK, US and India.

From my NG Cockpit Companion, the horn is activated if flaps up through 10 and thrust levers are set for landing. From my memory the horn is loud enough to wake the dead.

It's a sad day for Aviation in Trinidad. No hull loses from a national carrier in history. A sader day for the crew...
This could happen to anyone so think about that before you hang anyone out to dry.

@Reverse flight.
Plus GPWS yelling "too low, flaps!!"
I doubt the approach was made without flaps, unless pilots were totally deaf.
If memory serves me, policy on flap/slat retraction was "clear of runway, with aircraft under control". I dont think both conditions were met.

But they could have had a problem - we do not know!!

I doubt anything aft of the fuselage fracture would be still controlable from the flightdeck.
It is possible to retract/extent flaps/slats with the electric pumps but when the electrical wires are severed between flightdeck and pump it will not be possible.
This of course goes for all other systems which are controlled in similar fashion.

Caribbean fleet changes
 

Just following up on some comments made about the airline's training, I note that in the days leading up to this incident, the carrier added two more 738s (one brand new, 9Y-SXM, from Boeing, and another, 9Y-JMF, which was delivered from SNN on the 28th), with a third, 9Y-JMC, to be added imminently; I know it's not a large airline and presumably this addition of new aircraft would have put a lot of pressure on the airline's training dept.

Do we know anything about the experience of the crew involved in this incident?

Mere speculation, but could there be any conceivable malfunctions causing inadvertent flap retraction just about touchdown? That'd explain a lot of the inconsistencies.

? What is the " emergency evacuation" this does not exist... evacuation checklist are read and do items on back of QRH, not some magic button that starts the process.

If time allows verify flaps are at 40 etc etc..

If the hydraulics fail the flaps/slats lock out not retract.. that's why we have hydraulic fuses

Flox- you have the estimation for their required landing distance flaps up with poor braking action at well over 3000 metres. A quick look at the reported runway length of 7540 ft makes it something that was never going to happen.

I thinks they already selected flaps up during the landing roll and when finally stopped obviously not able to select flap 40 again. To me more interesting, did they use reverse untill 60 kt, were they braking from the beginning till the end, and what was the AB setting? That's probably something we'll read in the report...

The reversers seems open = have been used intil the crash.
But when they been opend is so far unknown.