I don't really have the time to read 39 pages...

can anyone sum up what the current likely cause/speculation of the crash is?

Likely cause CFIT, reason lack of monitoring of the vertical profile by the crew and failure to take corrective action to two EGPWS warnings.

tubby

I would just add to that: visual miscues leading pilots to believe they were OK to descend to the runway.

I've flown to BHM quite a bit and always found it an ODD sort of airport...a bit in a bowl. Always thought the VOR (VULCAN) was a bit spooky and the wx was prone to t storms.

On the other hand, Birmingham had the best biscuits I've ever had in my life (US Biscuits, not british).

Hang on. Why on earth would you fly a LOC approach in anything other than LOC? Plain old LNAV isn't going to be as accurate. If you've got a VNAV to follow well and good, but if not, follow the charted profile. Oh wait, there isn't one...

I don't think that's what he was suggesting.

So, if you're in a non-GPS augmented aeroplane, how would one be expected/allowed to fly a LOC approach? Surely not in LNAV?? If that is the case, the FAA has got rocks in it's head.

Lessons Learnedhttp://lessonslearned.faa.gov/ChinaA...pit_labels.pdf
(Scroll halfway down the page until you get to A300 auto flight system.)Standard A306 cockpit fit. The button marked V/L on the FCU allows selection of LOC mode.

By tuning the localiazer and following the indications? Just a guess. I don't see anything in GlobalNav's posts which indicate to me that he was suggesting that a LOC approach be flown by RNAV. I believe you misunderstood his comment.

Questions for the moderator.
 

Sir, I need to know how to find my way around this site. I made a note of 3 thread #s, (240, 700, 709 )and now that I have tried to find them again (to answer them) they are different. Also how may I quickly find a posting I made (a reply) some days ago??????
Thanks for any help you can forward.
Thermostat.

Authority gone to the head. Bet if he didn't have a gun at his side his attitude would have been much different. (more pleasant).

At some point someone is going to say 'The pilots screwed up'.

But gosh the force is strong with this crowd, has to be a problem with the gear, can't be the pilot's, can't be in their training, can't be in their SOPs manual, no way, does not compute, does not compute, danger danger Will Robinson..

LNAV LOC
 

My manuals are FAA approved and they approved LOC approaches in LNAV/VNAV. If its good enough to wind through fjords in SE Alaska, it should be good enough wherever there's WGS-84. In China, I'd have second thoughts.

But, of course this is in a B73NG, not an A306.

Most likely after more detail from the NTSB is released, such a judgment could be made.

Let us suppose that your point is true, and "the pilots screwed up" is a finding. You still need to know why. The root causes of human error, understanding it, and mitigating it is how aviation safety gets improved.

Where do you think CRM came from? Necessity, and finding out "why" an error was made.

I suspect teldor is drawing a comparison on forum reaction to another recent undershoot event?

Interesting news footage of trees and power pole damage:

Two Pilots Killed in UPS Cargo Plane Crash

From my Flight Handbook, I'm only required to use APP on ILS or LDA w/ G/S. We still are required to monitor raw data. APP as mentioned above or LNAV/VNAV. LOC G/S OTS requires V/S, not VNAV. I'm looking through the Ops Specs for it. Ops Specs C300 give us LNAV for VOR, ADF, etc., but I haven't found the specific Spec for LOC, etc.

How do you accomplish a B/C approach? Without IAN, you'd need to use HDG SEL.

Sorry for the drift.

I am fully aware of his trolling style, from other threads, hance the form of my reply.

I don't think Teldor is trolling at all. He is quite right that there is a different slant on this thread compared to the "other".

Even if it is proved that the crew were at fault the question must be asked what failed to get them to that fatal point. We have discussed a lot of holes in the swiss cheese but as yet we have not been shown how they routed through them and ended up on an Alabama hillside.

Correct. None of these crews deliberately broke the rules and crashed their aeroplanes (I hope). So the trick is to work out how and why and hopefully fix it.

You can't imagine that there is any meaningful difference between hitting rising terrain terrain on final on a non-precision approach when visibility is limited by it being night and possibly by other meteorological conditions, and stalling into the (flat sea-level) ground, in broad daylight, on a beautiful clear day when there's not a cloud for 100 miles and nothing but a light breeze?

In your mind these accidents are essentially equivalent?

Maybe not equivalent (and entirely different operational scenarios and operating philosophies), but commonalities might include be failure to adequately monitor altitude (at relevant distances from airfield/landing RWY) and/or descent rate, which if done would appropriately should have then triggered other appropriate action?
That in itself seems to be enough of a potential root cause in terms of training, following FCTMs and SOPs, etc these days of increasing reliance on automation and reduced emphasis (generally speaking, don't know about UPS) on having/maintaining fundamental skills & airmanship.

Time will tell, and hopefully the investigation results will illuminate us all.

Come on A squared. The allegation is that the Koreans were sledged almost immediately for stacking their aircraft because they were incompetent where there has been no such hint of that about the Birmingham prang.

Err, yes they are. Without prejudging the causes, both crews were put in, or put themselves in, situations that they messed up big-time. While you try to differentiate between the two, a simple old LOC approach to an MDA then a PAPI should have been a walk in the park for a well-trained, current domestic USA freight crew just like a nice-day visual on to SFO 28L should also have been a walk in the park. Neither ended up that way. Teldor's point is that the sledging has been one-way so far.

Uhhh-huh, and if you recall, almost immediately, (much less than 24 hours) there was a statement from the carrier that there was no equipment failure involved, which 2 months and many NTSB press releases still appears to be accurate. And said lack of equipment failures pretty much removes all mitigating excuses for driving an airplane into the ground on a beautiful VFR day.
You're honestly unable to discern a meaningful difference between between flying an airplane into terrain which you *can't* see and flying an airplane into terrain which you *can* see ? Seriously?
Well, really not a lot more to be said then, other than to note that a person who is unwilling to concede the obvious is probably driven more by ideology than rationality. I've found that discussions which such are usually fruitless.

I'm certainly not trying to deny that there may be some commonalities, but to pretend, as some are, that the two are equivalent occurrences is patently absurd. A little personal anecdote; many moons ago as a fairly new pilot on a very dark night, I broke out early on an ILS approach over completely unlit terrain. With good visibility beneath the overcast and somewhat more than a mile to go I continued visually, following what at the the time I thought was an on-glide indication from a VGSI. Imagine my surprise when closer to the runway, I flipped on my landing lights and saw mostly trees. Obviously, I was able to get things sorted out relatively successfully, but I learned a lot of really important lessons that night. Probably the most important of which was: There really is no comparison between a visual final to a runway in broad daylight VFR conditions and the same at night over unlit terrain.

As regards the difference in the nature of the commentary here surrounding the two incidents; at this point, we really do not know what led to the UPS airplane being at that particular location and altitude. The possibilities range from, at one extreme, some sort of erroneous indication which caused the crew to believe that there were above either MDA or VGSI, to at the other extreme, they just sat there not paying attention to things as they descended thru MDA and the PAPI. At this point, we really don't know where the truth lies along that continuum. By contrast, it appears we do know with a fair amount of certainty that the Asiana crew did in fact just sit there as a normally functioning airspeed indicator displayed a lower and lower airspeed, the PAPI turned progressively redder, and the runway moved further and further up in their windshield until they were darn near looking *up* at it, before anyone thought the take action.

there are known problems in flying...the art , repeat art of flying demands that we know where the traps are.

before I learned to fly, and that was over 38 years ago, ALPA requested that all jet airports have ILS apchs.

The Birmingham crash probably could have been avoided with a better runway and clear area and a full ILS.

The Asiana crash , even if it had the ILS, probably would still happened as the basic requirement of sufficent airspeed was not present.

there...I've said it...any non precision apch in real conditions is more dangerous than a normal ILS apch.

All pilots should learn the traps, memorize them, know the chain of errors (hell with swiss cheese...except on a sandwich)and when they think they are going down the same garden path...get the hell out of there.

flarepilot;
Re, "there...I've said it...any non precision apch in real conditions is more dangerous than a normal ILS apch."

It's a known fact of aviation and the accident statistics have proven it over and over. One can also see this occuring in FOQA data - non-precision approaches are generally less stabilized.

The great value in this thread has been the wide discussion between those who know their stuff, about RNAV/GNSS and LOC(BC) approach requirements, legalities, traps and techniques as well as personal experiences. Such a discussion cannot but help others who will inevitably face similar circumstances at some point in their career. If I'm somewhat confused by the mix of RNAV & LOC approach techniques and requirements then others must be as well.

One trap I can recall on the DC9 (which had only 1 DME and the 1:3 mental calculation to aid non-precision descents), is the use of DME which is not co-located with the threshold. We became very good and very fast at using the whiz-wheel* for timing and descent rates to MDA, (the +50ft. requirement is a relatively recent change, made ostensibly because pilots were being failed on their PPC/IFR rides for descending below the MDA on a go-around...)

I think this was a rushed, straight-in approach by a crew who quite possibly were at their circadian low point, into rolling, monotone terrain dimly lit only by twilight, a very challenging set of circumstances. As indicated on the chart, the ILS DME was 1.3nm beyond the threshold so part of the examination will take a look at this as part of investigating how the distance-vs.-altitude descent was calculated and handled.

*"whiz-wheel" - plastic, round slideruley thingy often found in the breast pocket of a pilot or less often in a "leather" pouch in a "brain bag" - the device was equipped with "analog scales" upon which could be done manual calculations of remarkable variation and accuracy. The "other side" of the device modelled "trignometric functions" for actual (real-time) wind "calculations" so that the pilot might track between points with some accuracy. One could find true airspeed, density altitude, do pressure-pattern flying and even find distance and track between two points of latitude and longituded when flying the Atlantic and Pacific, verifying what the Doppler and/or the Loran were telling the pilot. The device, manufactured by the historical map-maker Jeppesen and known as a "CR2" and for those who's eyes were challenged, the "CR3" were humourously known as "computers" at the time.

Still have CR-3's in my two flight bags...most recently used for ETP calculations. Batteries not required. :ok:

Yep, that's right. Only requirement is understanding and practise. (and keeping it outa the sun).

I know what an E-6B is, in fact I have a partial one on my extremely cool Citizen(R) Navihawk(R) Blue Angels Edition ginormous pilot watch, but I've never heard of a CR-2 or a CR-3. They sound scary.

One side of it is pretty much identical to the circular slide rule part of the E6-B. The other side does approximately the same thing as the wind triangle portion of the E6-B, except it does it with circular scales instead of the slide thingy.

You lost me right after "pretty much". Remember, I start to sweat when my auto-throttles are deferred and here you want me to slide rule this and that.

While we're waiting for further from the NTSB...

On any computing machine,"36" (inner scale) against the groundspeed (outer), find distance (eg., FAF to MAP or threshold) on the outer, read number of seconds on the inner. 36:140 = 90:3.5...thirty-six against 140kts is 90 seconds for three-and-half nautical miles.

For rough rate of descent, (point to point, say, FAF altitude to MDA or MAP altitude), put that number of seconds, (here, '90'), against the height to lose, (say, 1100') and read the rate of descent against the "60" index, (760fpm).

Obviously as with every indication and calculation one has to do a reasonableness check!, and some adjustments and accomodations have to be made, (the 50' thing, which FAF alt & MDA to use, etc), but the method can produce the same numbers as on the Jepp charts.

On the trig side of the CR machine, the "TAS" index can be placed against the groundspeed and one can read the rate of descent for a particular descent path...TAS index against "140", read the rate of descent for a "3deg" descent path against '3' on the "SIN" (inner) scale, which is 760fpm, (the black part of the scale reads "COS"). The SIN scale can also be used to read crosswind component...TAS at the windspeed, xwind component at the offset degrees...30kts, 25deg diff between heading and wind direction is 15kt xwind...etc.

This will all be old-hat to many, but not to everyone. It is sufficiently precise to do the job, (and did until microprocessors came along a few years ago...) and can even be part of the non-precision briefing just as a check on things.

. . . and here you want me to slide rule this and that.
 

flyboyike, can you work an iPad? Can you thumb-type on your phone? ;-)

iPad and phone are no problem, anytime.

Interesting discussion on timing on NPAs. Never, in 27 years of jet NPAs have I ever used timing to get to the MDA on-slope. In the brief, we'd agree on a DME distance/Altitude scale (with adjustment for the position of the DME ;)). True stabilised approaches/CDAs in the early 80s.

If there was no DME available, we'd simply comply with the chart altitude limits and steam on in at MDA until either we got Visual (circle if necessary) or got to the aid and did a go-around.

Back in the day, I used a number of tricks to back off an MDA and timing to make a visual descent point.

I would explain how easy it was and how well it worked...plus using 5 times your groundspeed for a descent rate from the visual descent point to make the runway.

Indeed JEPP even published VDPs

But since the world now has every gadget in the world, why should I tell you.

But it worked great...a simple, very simple formula to reduce timing to the MAP to find a VDP...

oh, back then we flew the plane too. and the jets went faster cuz gas was cheaper.

Divide by 2 is easier.

OK465;
In my view the transition isn't maligned in discussions on basic techniques. That, and the bottom line, 'knowing your aircraft', a principle with which I strongly agree, are both reinforced in these discussions.

The A320/A330/A340 have superb LNAV/VNAV modes and performed ADF/VOR/LOC(BC)/LOC Only and RNAV approaches beautifully and reliably when flown with full comprehension of the system and the aircraft. For those without that kind of equipment, anything and any knowledge that contributes to enhanced situational awareness which reduces the risk of NPAs is not maligning technical change but ensuring correct, good use of available technology including 'the basics'.

Those who wish for the good old DC3/DC8/DC9 days and dismiss automation as a 'wrong turn', wishing for the standard 'T' instrument arrangement are the ones doing the maligning because the notion of "just tools in the kit" can't be differentiated from "the magic (and economics) of automation".

When you have airlines putting in their published SOPs that, "It is anticipated that the autopilot will be engaged immediately after takeoff and disconnected on the landing roll", it is the air carrier's management that is misunderstanding and therefore maligning automation's true utility.

It has taken a quarter of a century for this industry to acknowledge what we as pilots said regarding automation when the A320 first came out - that continued ability to hand-fly and remain "in-touch" with the machine is an absolute requirement. That principle has not been served well, as we both know.

Given the changing nature of accidents since the 60's and 70's, my own view is that perhaps others may, but I don't really consider the present sidebar discussion "maligning" the current technical transition.

Well said, PJ2, as usual.

I want to clarify that I have been telling what we did in the past. I am quite happy that my current steed does auto-NPAs as well as the rest, but I also keep current in the old ways in case the box has a fit.

I also believe that timed descents/calculated VS are not the best way to do NPAs if you do not have VNAV, but, horses for courses, there are a few ways to skin a cat.

I doubt it; GS capture would mean speed with thrust, not pitch, which appears to be their undoing.