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UPS cargo crash near Birmingham AL

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UPS cargo crash near Birmingham AL

Old 20th Sep 2013, 19:12
  #921 (permalink)  
 
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749 connie...did you happen to know the crew lost in the libyan raid? I went to college with the weapons systems officer.
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Old 21st Sep 2013, 03:19
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749 connie, I doubt if they even had the radar on going into Cali that night. I landed at Panama City with no moon that night and skies were clear. Bogota had the same R designator as Cali and they changed their landing to land south. Neither pilot was paying attention when the 757 went from a south to east heading.

I landed at Cali dozens of times after the crash and they offered me the same short cut to land south and declined out of respect to them accepting it and crashing into the ridge. Yes, they made a big mistake but the computer chose the nearest R and it happened to be Bogota. Unfortunately Botota was on the other side of a mountain range. Cali is a very safe easy airport with a full ILS. They were late and trying to make up time.
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Old 21st Sep 2013, 04:02
  #923 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by bubbers44
Yes, they made a big mistake but the computer chose the nearest R and it happened to be Bogota.
With respect, I heard it a little differently. The computer can't "choose" a waypoint of its own volition - their charts didn't match up with the FMS database, and the waypoint they wanted should have been marked "ROZO". When they punched "R", the FMS gave them a list - I don't know in which order, but it wasn't nearest-first, because if it were, then Rozo would have headed the list rather than the Romeo beacon at Bogota.

For reasons I won't (and can't) speculate on, they selected the first on the list - Romeo. This also had the knock-on effect of erasing the original flight plan from the FMS in its entirety, including the TULUA waypoint that they were waiting to pass - undoubtedly leading to more confusion.
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Old 21st Sep 2013, 04:51
  #924 (permalink)  
 
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749CONNIE

You are absolutely correct, any radar can paint terrain.

The description of the radar on civilian aircraft is "Weather Radar".
The little MAP button changes the sensitivity and the color of the display.
You don't have to be in MAP mode to show terrain, "WX" does the same thing. MAP is pretty good at displaying larger bodies of water, shorelines, large rivers, etc.
Over fairly level terrain you can also detect larger towns and cities. I have literally spent hundreds of hours in the cockpit of aircraft, drinking coffee, and watching the PF (pilot flying) deviating around such large thunderstorms named St. Louis, Des Moines, Minneapolis, and on and on.

In today's sophisticated avionics environment, EGPWS, Synthetic Vision, and Enhanced Vision the need for attempting to use weather radar as a ground avoidance tool would seem to be minimal.

If AA965 had been equipped with EGPWS I am certain no one would now be talking about that unfortunate incident, almost twenty years ago.
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Old 21st Sep 2013, 06:03
  #925 (permalink)  
 
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Dozy, you heard it wrong. From Wiki:

By the time they found Tuluá's coordinates, they had already passed over it. In response to this, they attempted to program the navigation computer for the next approach waypoint, Rozo. However, the Rozo NDB was identified as R on their charts. Colombia had duplicated the identifier for the Romeo NDB near Bogotá, and the computer's list of stored waypoints did not include the Rozo NDB as "R", but only under its full name "ROZO". In cases where a country allowed duplicate identifiers, it often listed them with the largest city first. By picking the first "R" from the list, the captain caused the autopilot to start flying a course to Bogotá, resulting in the airplane turning east in a wide semicircle.
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Old 21st Sep 2013, 07:22
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Flarepilot - Yes, They are among many old friends and squadron mates of mine lost over the years in the 111. I've now added four more to that rather lengthy list here at UPS.

Last edited by 749CONNIE; 21st Sep 2013 at 07:23.
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Old 21st Sep 2013, 15:29
  #927 (permalink)  
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Full NTSB Report on Cali here, thanks to PBL (also linked at Wiki).
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Old 22nd Sep 2013, 06:37
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I take issue with some of the aspects of the Cali crash expressed here.

Way I read the CVR is that Nick realized they were turning the wrong way and they turned back toward the south/southwest. Unfortunately, they continued their descent. And I have to re-read the report to know if they were still using some AP mode for the descent. TNKS for the link, PJ.

Good inputs on the 'vark TFR.

My A-7D had TFR and we could use the e-scope if we wanted, but most had the cross scan mode with basic groundmap on the scope and used the HUD flight path marker to maintain terrain clearance.

For the pure commercial folks here, this was all in the late 60's and early 70's.

As I have expressed on the AF447 thread and others, the inertially-based flight path marker and a HUD allows one to monitor the AP modes and other "magenta line" crapola, and really helps on a non-precision approach to a strange field. The discussion re: dive and drive versus a not very precision constant descent angle to MDA/DA is relevant, and that HUD was very useful regardless of which technique you used.
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Old 22nd Sep 2013, 07:46
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Originally Posted by gums
My A-7D had TFR and we could use the e-scope if we wanted, but most had the cross scan mode with basic groundmap on the scope and used the HUD flight path marker to maintain terrain clearance.

For the pure commercial folks here, this was all in the late 60's and early 70's.

As I have expressed on the AF447 thread and others, the inertially-based flight path marker and a HUD allows one to monitor the AP modes and other "magenta line" crapola, and really helps on a non-precision approach to a strange field.The discussion re: dive and drive versus a not very precision constant descent angle to MDA/DA is relevant, and that HUD was very useful regardless of which technique you used.
Thank you gums.
So many lives should have been saved with the right analysis of what piloting is, leading to that 2nd major invention -after the windshield- too long unused .

Last edited by Jetdriver; 23rd Sep 2013 at 00:27.
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Old 22nd Sep 2013, 21:51
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Yes, Nick did turn back and tried to salvage the error but forgot the speed brakes in the deployed position. We changed how we monitored speed brakes after that. The FO flying normally flew to Europe so wasn't familiar with Cali. The gpws warning with speed brakes extended helped causing them to hit the hill about 500 ft from the top. My neighbor went there as an EMT to recover the bodies. This shows how important situational awareness is in the cockpit.
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Old 22nd Sep 2013, 23:04
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Some of the earlier "monochrome" weather radars of the 1950s and '60s could be used for estimating drift, by showing a smearing of the ground returns a few degrees port or starboard.

Radar map reading was simple if you read the ground returns to see if they cast a "shadow" - think of a searchlight on the ground under your aircraft, rotating, leaving the shadow behind a hill or a building. (At Kano it was possible to see both the old and the new terminals, on the 25(?) mile scale.)

PS The weather radar map reading was only done at heights well above the ground.

I have mentioned earlier the inquiry held because the York a/c taking Olympic athletes to Helsinki in 1952, had confused two NDBs with very similar call signs OJJ and OJY where the transposing of the DOT and DASH of the final Morse letter was... just too easy to do, MANUALLY. And it was made even easier by having adjacent frequencies.

Last edited by Jetdriver; 27th Sep 2013 at 01:33.
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Old 22nd Sep 2013, 23:25
  #932 (permalink)  
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The crew bought 6 of the 8 items below:



3.2 Probable Cause


Aeronautica Civil determines that the probable causes of this accident were:

1. The flightcrew's failure to adequately plan and execute the approach to runway 19 at SKCL and their inadequate use of automation.

2. Failure of the flightcrew to discontinue the approach into Cali, despite numerous cues alerting them of the inadvisability of continuing the approach.

3. The lack of situational awareness of the flightcrew regarding vertical navigation, proximity to terrain, and the relative location of critical radio aids.

4. Failure of the flightcrew to revert to basic radio navigation at the time when the FMS-assisted navigation became confusing and demanded an excessive workload in a critieal phase of the flight. 3.3 Contributing Factors


Contributing to the cause of the accident were:

1. The flightcrew's ongoing efforts to expedite their approach and landing in order to avoid potential delays.

2. The flightcrew's execution of the GPWS escape maneuver while the speedbrakes remained deployed.

3. FMS logic that dropped all intermediate fixes from the display(s) in the event of execution of a direct routing.

4. FMS-generated navigational information that used a different naming convention from that published in navigational charts.

Last edited by aterpster; 22nd Sep 2013 at 23:25.
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Old 26th Sep 2013, 23:22
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Originally Posted by Capn Bloggs
Dozy, you heard it wrong. From Wiki:
It's splitting hairs a bit. The crew neither confirmed between themselves that they had indeed passed Tulua, nor did they tell ATC (who did not have the benefit of radar) that they had passed it. Judging by the report, the first time anyone knew for certain that they'd already passed it was when the FDR data was examined.

That's by-the-by though. The main point I was trying to make was in response to bubbers saying that "the computer chose the nearest R", when the computer could do no such thing.

Reading the report (kindly linked by PJ2), it appears that both the books I read and Wikipedia actually have things slightly wrong.

Originally Posted by Cali NTSB report p.41
The first automation-related error by the flightcrew, the selection of Romeo instead of Rozo, was a simple one, based on the method used to generate a selection of navaids from the FMS data base, using the single letter identifier. All navaids having that identifier are displayed, in descending order of proximity to the airplane. The one closest to the airplane is presented first, the second is further from the position and so on. Selecting R resulted in a display of 12 NDBs, each of which used the "R" as an identifier. Choosing the first beacon presented in this list resulted from a logical assumption by the pilot.

The investigation determined that because of rules governing the structure of the FMS data base, Rozo, despite its prominent display as "R" on the approach chart, was not available for selection as "R" from the FMS, but only by its full name. The evidence indicates that this information was not known by the flightcrew of AA965.
So it would appear that Rozo was not even on the list displayed!

One of the things that was drilled into me in my Air Cadet days was the Navigation Mantra, which is "Check, Cross-check and Re-check".

That this mantra was not followed is in the report:
Originally Posted by Cali NTSB report p.54
9. One of the AA965 pilots selected a direct course to the Romeo NDB believing that it was the Rozo NDB, and upon executing the selection in the FMS permitted a turn of the airplane towards Romeo, without having verified that it was the correct selection and without having first obtained approval of the other pilot, contrary to AA's procedures.
However, given that the whole point of the course change was to expedite the approach quite late in the game - and that doing so increased the workload in the flight deck considerably in other ways too, it is at least understandable.

Apropos of nothing, I'm keeping my comments strictly to the subject of FMS issues because that's the only point I originally tried to raise.
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Old 28th Sep 2013, 01:55
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So a thousand posts later did you guys come up with a new and novel way to absolve the pilots of not being able to shoot a simple instrument approach?

Maybe I can offer some more 'solutions'?

They were possessed by demons.
An inflight abduction by aliens.
They both came off their meds at the same time.
The plane was sabotaged.
The charts were sabotaged.
The GPS sattelites were sabotaged.
The FMS was sabotaged.
The pilots were poisoned with LSD
They were so depressed, because they couldn't be married in their state, so they decided to auger it in or was it being turned down for that medical marijuana card?

or maybe they screwed up. Together, as crews do...no redundancy, both watching the same guages set up the same way, to give them both the same bad information, and they interpret it in the same bad way, flying to the same bad conclusion.

Personally I like the inflight alien abduction angle...carry on.
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Old 5th Oct 2013, 15:27
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As of yesterday Rwy 18 at BHM is day VFR-only at my airline. This is by order of the Director of Operations.
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Old 5th Oct 2013, 15:31
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Technically, it WAS VFR when the accident happened.
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Old 5th Oct 2013, 15:46
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flyboyike:

As of yesterday Rwy 18 at BHM is day VFR-only at my airline. This is by order of the Director of Operations.
To each their own, but there is nothing wrong with that runway at night if the PAPIs are working and are used.
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Old 5th Oct 2013, 16:37
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To err on the side of safety is to still err. Its the norm these days.
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Old 5th Oct 2013, 22:41
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Originally Posted by A2
Technically, it WAS VFR when the accident happened.
Technically, it WASN'T day VFR when the accident happened. There's a big difference...

Last edited by Capn Bloggs; 5th Oct 2013 at 23:56. Reason: bolding and "VFR" added
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Old 5th Oct 2013, 23:45
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Good chance this accident wouldn't have happened had it been daytime with the reported wx.
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