West Coast:

Must be something special for your company. Here is the usual list:

8900.206 - Special Pilot-In-Command Qualification Airport List: Addition of Airports - Document Information

Unfortunately such witnesses are notoriously unreliable...

just read the altimeter setting and it was not too far off standard, so I am thinking it wasn't altimetry...29.97 is close enough to 29.92 that it shouldn't have caused the crash...

Question on RNAV RWY 18
 

BASKN is the FAF - this is where 3 deg slope counts and points before are not subject to the "slope" rule. Also 2600 ft is the minimum allowed altitude at BIDPE, so yes, this is your altitude check, but better be not lower than 2600. Yes, this is your typical non-precision approach so there is no glideslope/glidepath. If you flew this approach in some lowly Cessna you would have no information about your vertical performance except the altimeter.

Birmingham used to be on the 121.445 list but dropped off sometime in the early 2000s. The "additional study" tends to be look at a couple pictures of the airport taken on final and read a paragraph about what makes the airport special. Takes about 30 seconds. And it isn't required if the weather is good.

For at least the last 1000 feet, the flight didn't appear to be descending much, but was way low.

The pic below is from google maps and I put an arrow across where the plane took out the tops of a few trees. The impact point is about 500 feet or so after the arrow or from the house in the pic. (The street pics on google are a little old since some of the trees on the left are not there anymore).

http://i39.tinypic.com/2a5ye61.jpg

If you go to maps on google (here's the location )

and zoom to street level, where you can see the berm that the front is resting on, you can see how low they where

Let's be careful about building fanciful theories or extrapolating the flight data based on FlightAware info. I've looked at several of my approaches that were normal and stable, but Flightaware showed a spike in the data that wasn't factual.

The finite data will be in the boxes. It won't take long before they release some preliminary data from the recorders just to appease the media. Once we get some of that, then we can build our scenarios on facts and not wild speculation.

Prior. The last three went into effect last week.

!BHM 07/054 (KBHM A0316/13) BHM RWY 24 PAPI OTS WEF 1308022100-1310042100

!BHM 07/053 (KBHM A0315/13) BHM NAV ILS RWY 24 GP OTS WEF 1308022100-1310042100

!BHM 07/052 (KBHM A0314/13) BHM RWY 24 ALS OTS WEF 1308022100-1310042100

Guess what?
 

There's a fascinating - and IMO highly important dynamic in this thread: the notion of the "what ifs" staying within the context in which they were offered, versus the "waiters" who scorn or reject or look askance at speculation on an Internet message board - one with certain membership parameters to be sure and thus far from the free-for-all left to the hoi polloi, but a mere techno-water-cooler sans geography through which the talk is plentiful and cheap, or cheap and plentiful, depending on your point of view. Regarding those who speculate, maybe it is worth recalling that OF COURSE they know to wait for NTSB's Probable Cause findings analysis & recommendations - they're readin' & postin' here, so this is a given, already. By like measure regarding those who would prefer nothing be said here about possible causality factors, it is worth recalling that OF COURSE this Community wants to share information, in a form and format inconceivable not so long ago, and something good comes of it, even if it just teaches a lawyer or barrister that approach flying is highly complex and causality analysis depends on many many factors and there's isn't a Big Teacher with an answer key to check the NTSB's work. IOW, even if the guesses are uncivilized backside (wild-arse in non-legalese), isn't the quest to lessen and reduce the holes in the Swiss cheese aided by having as many smart and informed fliers in the conversation as possible? That'll be two cents, Canadian of course, svp.

Yellow arrow shows where aircraft hit the pine trees.

http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/...ps94666a0a.jpg

We were discussing the same thing in our office. QNE in SDF was about 3009 and about 2996 in BHM at the time of the accident. Could lead to lower than indicated, and possible instrument error too.

Just theory if the altimeters were not reset to local station pressure during descent.

Apologies for asking what may be an obvious question to some. What does OTS actually stand for? I can understand OOS, U/S etc but OTS I'm not familiar with. I was going to ask in the Asian/SFO thread.

Information is good. Idle, uninformed speculation just takes up space. I don't post here to educate lawyers.

+1

Isn't it a habit to get the altimeter from ATIS at your destination before you begin the approach? :confused: Regardless of the runway and approach active, the altimeter setting applies to the whole airport.

I think you mean QNH, not QNE in SDF and BHM.

If it was never reset to QNE (STD in the 'bus) after takeoff in SDF, they would inevitably get a call from ATC when leveling off in RVSM airspace enroute.

But, as you conjecture, if it was switched back out of standard and then never reset from the SDF QNH, the path guidance on an RNAV (GPS) approach would indeed lead to a point short of the runway.

Previous CFIT accidents have involved severe engine damage both while shredding through trees as well as a bounced impact with the ground where the engines take multiple impact damage before being tossed ahead of the aircraft.

This might be present where one engine is severely damaged while another engine shows little signs of rotating in the fan.

best not to jump to conclusions upon viewing the first couple of days photos.

This seems surprisingly low.

This screengrab is from the following web site:

2 killed in explosive UPS cargo plane crash in Birmingham, Alabama - NY Daily News

It looks like the fan was turning very slowly if turning at all on impact.....

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopo...pe_635/ups.jpg