Another visual approach mishap
 

Please delete if old news, but..

On 24 May 2010 the crew of a Regional Embraer 145 operating for Air France continued an unstable visual approach at Ljubljana despite breaching mandatory go-around SOPs and ignoring a continuous EGPWS ‘PULL UP’ Warning. The subsequent touchdown was bounced and involved ground contact estimated to have been at 1300fpm with a resultant vertical acceleration of 4g. Substantial damage was caused to the landing gear and adjacent fuselage. It was concluded that the type-experienced crew had mis-judged a visual approach and then continued an unstabilised approach to a touchdown with the aircraft not properly under control.

Among other things, the co-pilot was PF and couldn't see the runway when turning onto final from left base ...

The report points to 'an authority gradient in the cockpit' – over-confident PIC and passive co-pilot – suggesting that this can still be a problem elsewhere than in the Far East (see comments on Asiana 214).

Four years to complete then publish a hard landing report:ugh:

Another example of the need I described for AF447 - a spring-loaded boxing glove in the instrument panel.:ugh:

Yes, but to be fair they are kept rather busy!

two years only for the french version :-)

Indeed.. edited 2012 june 23 rd..

Blabla..

And pretty bad CRM from the Captain. Leading his collegue to only observe his pergormance..

The report is a bit vague when it mentions vertical accelerations of 4G.


Was this a spike of 4G lasting just a few micro-seconds, or a continuous 4G for over 5-10 seconds? There is quite a difference...

Long time since I've landed at Ljubljana but this approach was well known for visual illusion (due to, if I recall correctly, the relative close proximity of high ground "upwind") and indeed our brief highlighted this point.

??? aka Aerobatics? Which do you think? - is that not clear enough?

Firefly,

I'm familiar with LJU and the point they turned base, along with their altitude was never going to work. There's no illusion here - it's a breakdown of SA, poor decision making and stupid bravado to continue with the GPWS going off.

The ages of the crew involved would seem to indicate a high experience level and I simply cannot see how they (the FO for turning in on the Commanders suggestion and the Capt for thinking it "looked right") thought this was ever going to work. Presumably they would have had the ILS 31 DME displayed as they were initially going for the ILS - 1,710ft AGL at 2.8D would not have looked right :ugh:

What sanction against the crew? It may have been a mistake to turn in early but to continue was negligent/reckless.

A4

A4, I agree - I wasn't meaning that it was any illusion that caused the incident.

Age can be misleading in this respect. The commander of AF447 was 58 but surprisingly only had a total of 11,000 hours.

Flight Deck and Cabin Crew Information AF447