In the media the 'emergency landing' theme seems to persist despite the updated headlines:

Emirates pilots tried to abort landing when they crashed into Dubai runway | Daily Mail Online

Had the previous aircraft vacated at the go around request? The atc tape seems like a standard go around from atc.

'Asked for a crash landing' annnnnd the Tower controller just gave him a normal clearance and a vacate point?

Doesn't sound like he asked for anything out of the ordinary to me! :D

Lets not the truth get in the way of a Superhero potential
 

So I've read it all now... bit of the odd knob polishing drivel going on here!!! Looooong (means very long) landing/lo go around/ over pitch due to thrust/ tail STRIKE (means struck very hard) leading to superhero status for l*cal Cap, and blame on FO and a round of more beatings for the rest of us, Two UAE ac down in 4 months....things go in three's lets hope it stops there, But I doubt it

It is only when you know about a subject that you realise how absolutely crap the reporting is.


I would like to bet the following were all false reports:


1) The plane was on fire before it landed.
2) The passengers were briefed for an emergency landing
3)The crew forgot to put the gear down
4)The tower told the crew to check the gear was down

Always possible the PM grabbed the gear leaver instead of flap lever in fright of wake/heavy bounce, and unexpected go around call........

No, you don't have to be an expert on the subject to realize how bad most reporting is, but it does make it more obvious :rolleyes:
One part that makes zero sense is the idea that they knew they had a gear problem - had they known they were landing gear up they would have told ATC, declared an emergency, and requested that the runway be foamed. Remember the LOT 767 that did a gear up several years back? They didn't even scratch up the aircraft much.

I think the botched go-around theory is the most likely.

He seemed pretty calm reading back the instruction to climb to 4000 ft. Which brings me to when was that issued, before or after they bounced? In the audio/animation posted by too_much it seems to be before touchdown, but who knows?

Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for that rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. ~Erwin Knoll

As on this board there seems to be a rush from many quarters to be first to 'guess' the sequence before basic facts have been established. Newspapers of course want a 'scoop' to sell. I'm not sure of the motives of the erudite posters here. :ugh:

Listen to the tape again.

ATC told EK565 (the following flight) to go around, not EK521.

suninmyeyes said:

And I would completely agree.

This will not be an overwrought investigation. You can be sure that investigators with access to the relevant recorders have reached their conclusion already in terms of what happened (*why* it happened might take a little longer).

After listening again, certainly the tower instructs EK565 to go around, but prior to that there is a transmission "521 continue straight ahead......"

That suggests the tower is reacting to a (perceived) go around initiated by 521, and was giving the missed approach instructions (albeit a tad early into the manoeuvre)

too much; from ATC tape it seems clear that 521 did not state he was going around nor did he ask to climb to 4000ft. ATC cleared him to land and 20 seconds later told him to " continue straight climb to 4000 feet". 521 acknowledged. I wonder what prompted ATC to give that instruction and where was the aircraft when he gave it?

ex-egll, surely it is more likely that ATC instructed 565 to go around after it was clear that 521 was not going to get airborne again otherwise he would have had two aircraft climbing to the same altitude on same heading and in close proximity.

Well assuming we're not talking about a timely GA necessitated by a blocked runway or a late clearing lander ahead, presumably EK521 was fully occupied aviating and navigating at the time ...

Agreed, and that's what the tape indicates. In listening to the recording my initial thought was the controller saw EK521 perform a manoeuvre that appeared to be the start of a (pilot initiated) missed approach. The controller then gave EK521 the missed approach routing (NOT an instruction to commence the missed approach). At this stage EK565 was still on approach awaiting landing clearance. When the controller noticed that 521 had hit the ground, among many other things that had to be done, missed approach instructions were then issued to EK565.

As for having two aircraft on the missed approach it shouldn't be too much of an issue, they were separated coming down the approach, they should remain separated going on the missed approach, but a quick turn (when safe) or an altitude restriction should keep it all good.

My guess:

The call, "Go around, Flaps 20" made by a crewmember
"Set thrust" or "Check thrust" call is not made because it is not required when autothrottle engaged
Autothrottle disconnect switches are pushed rather than the TO/GA switches
No one notices thrust is still at idle
No one notices nor calls the FMA modes, which are not "THRUST" "TO/GA" "TO/GA"
Someone calls "gear up" without having verified a positive rate of climb and/or
Someone raises the gear without having verified a positive rate of climb
Pitch is increased, airspeed decreases and plane settles onto the runway

Just my guess...

DR, well yes 521 was fully occupied in the normal business of landing, runway in sight, cleared to land etc. What the tape shows is that ops were proceeding normally; 521 cleared to land, 565 next in line cleared to continue approach. Then ATC sees something which leads to him instructing 521 to climb to 4000 feet. If that had happened 565 would have been given landing clearance but it didnt so 565 is obviously sent round again while 521 is sliding all the way down 12L.

For the ATC recording on You Tube in post#355 seems to come from a cheap VHF receiver that did not record all transmissions . This is obvious at end of tape where calls are answered by the TWR but the initial call is not recorded. (Possibly due to using different transmitters relays )
The whole thing would make much more sense if EK521 would have declared " EK521 going around" then the ATC transmission : "continue straight ahead climb to 4000" would make sense, the 4000 restriction also make sense especially if you had inbounds descending to 5000 opposite. The investigation will clear this up., plus not really a factor at all in this accident.

How does it "seem clear" from an ATC tape that isn't clear to listen to at all? There are so many incomplete dialogues or indecipherable transmissions on that recording - it's entirely possible tower was responding to a GA call 521 made but the LiveATC receiver didn't pick up due to 521s low altitude and/or obstructions at the time.

I'm amazed how many people here are assuming that this crackly recording from a volunteer's home setup, no doubt several kilometres away through concrete and metal, serves as a whole and complete timeline of events.

Forgive my probably ignorant comment. Does instrument lag enter the equation or are the aircrew relying on external observations, looking out of the window?

So that is the question - what did ATC see??

At my airline (not EK) I routinely fly with people who call "positive rate" without so much as a look at the baro altitude tape/rad alt. These are mainly light twin guys who have not been taught properly and think getting the gear up is the end-all-be-all. Poorly trained, and not really 'switched on' types it seems.

If you look at an IVSI during rotation it can indicate a slight, momentary descent before settling up into the positive region. Simply a VSI pointing above zero is not an indication of a positive climb. For all one knows the mains haven't come off the ground yet. Gear-lock solenoids makes a nice click when the weight is off wheels, but again does not mean you won't settle back onto the earth with a windshear or engine failure.

bottom line; use all cues available including looking out the window. Airmanship.

At night over the water, the call "three rates of climb" meant altimeter, rad alt, and VSI all indicating increasing altitude. In a 777 cockpit (I have never flown one) what does the call out for "positive rate" mean that you have checked:
VSI?
Altitude Increase?
Rad Alt?
All three?

Thank you for that post

We seem to be wasting our posting time here with presuming to believe some of the ignorant news reports prior to confirmation by investigators.

I'm sure one can pare the theories down quite a bit by confirming or denying the facts in the post quoted.

Until then lets try to get some confirmation with better sources, We know what can go wrong but don't know yet what went wrong.

..but this is, after all, a rumour forum. Wasting time is pretty well what this is all about, don'tcha think?

According to our 777 FCOM:
'Verify a positive rate of climb on the altimeter and call “POSITIVE RATE.”'

According to our 777 FCTM:
'Retract the landing gear after a positive rate of climb is indicated on the altimeter.'

Our Airbus manuals are worded differently:
'Announce positive climb, when the vertical speed indication is positive and radio height has increased.'

This is all correct when u fly in normal conditions, when things go wrong PIC will callout what he want, therefore we need to wait until investigators listen to CVR and make judgment who to blame....

After all I might say regardless who's fault it is I am happy all survived.

IanW - let's concentrate on the similarities with SQ and EK and any one of a number of situations where hard lessons have been learned: a fire in an airframe containing tonnes of flammable liquid, and the value of precious seconds.

Give me the EK crew's response any time.

There is obviously some processing lag in the instruments, but for the important stuff (e.g. altitude) it's small - on the order of a tenth of a second.

In this article linked earlier (Australian co-pilot Jeremy Webb escaped Emirates plane crash in Dubai) is a picture of the aircraft from behind showing clear damage at the tail indicating contact with the ground only possible I assume at higher pitch? I am not a commercial pilot but could that indicate that they were increasing pitch for a GA without enough thrust and then settled down tail first on the runway...?

http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/0...d56bee56bcab59

Cap Doug, "aircraft didn't respond" I am guessing due to spool up and wind shear? Engines did respond, however, correct? The reason I ask is the TLA resolvers (self-powered) and FADEC systems on this aircraft are isolated and self-contained, and self-monitoring with dual redundancy on all of the above per engine as I am sure you know. Just looking for clarification, thank you.

Different grip and movement, one would think muscle memory would have prevented this from happening if the PM's mental intention was flaps first.

I chalk that one up to a line training SNAFU. It is a known human factors issue.

A couple of people have already made reference to it, Wirbelstrum being one of them. I have since trawled my manuals and can only find one reference in the BFCTM. I thought the info I was looking for was in the FCOM Automatics! I am sure there is some logic along the lines of.......if you are less than 5' for more or less than 2 seconds one condition will not give you FD guidance and the other will not give you thrust, requiring manual input.....buggered if I can find the reference!

Regards

GBD

Crickey there are a lot of duplicate replies in here.

Can I please suggest you all read the thread before simply saying the same things over and over again.

Does anyone have anything NEW?

One of the things in all of my career as an Mil ATCO was this ingrained mantra of AVIATE-NAVIGATE-COMMUNICATE (mentioned earlier by DaveReid I believe).

Bouncing down the runway then there will be a great deal of "aviating" going on, but zero need for any navigation and perhaps a great need to communicate.

Perhaps it is time to consider changing this to AVIATE-COMMUNICATE-NAVIGATE. After all, there are folk on the end of the radio who can help with the latter part. Sadly we couldn't be of much help in the aviating bit but certainly bailed a few out of grief with the navigation part, but only after they had wasted time trying to sort it themselves when they were at their busiest.

I often discussed this with FJ pilots and it was always a very interesting debate. The worrying part was that the most common response for doing it the A-N-C way was "well...that's how it has always been done".

I fully understand that there will be times when A-N-C is appropriate but I would suggest there are more occasions when A-C-N would be the sensible option.

Tha ATC recording is probably from ATC Live. From listening to other airports on the website it doesn't stay on 1 frequency but jumps around to a couple frequencies in use at the airport. You don't get a complete picture of all transmissions, so careful making any conclusions through this median.

I think the widely reported, but erroneous, media item about the tower gear check came from an early posting on the Aviation Herald which Simon has now corrected.

From the comment thread on the AV Herald EK521 article:

The Western Australian has used the videos from this incident to create a video on leaving your OH baggage behind and properly evacuating an ac.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa...baggage/#page1

Dubai ATC don't make a ''check gear' call. What they will do is tell you where they wish you to vacate the runway.
Inadvertant AT disconnect is unlikely in a 777.
Aviate Navigate Communicate always for me.

I see that evacuating passengers were burning their feet on the 49C tarmac.


Not a good idea to be in bare feet on take off or landing, always leave your shoes on.
You never know.