Aviation Appreciation Station

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by calf

Not an av geek yet, but what are these 'other' horses?

Generally there are two types of horse charters we see here. One is to move the show jumping horses from event to event, generally from a long distance away like Europe. Those were the Qatar charters and I've seen Lufthansa in the past as well.

Then there is the 'other' charter. Those horses unfortunately don't have as bright a future as they are being shipped to Japan for consumption.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by woob

No amateur spotters footage out there of this? Would be interesting to see the go-around.

It was midnight. On anything but very high level pro cameras the video would just be black with a bunch of blinky lights so amateur spotters generally pack it up and head out at sunset.

[Ryan Coke]

I will say that it looks like they did get quite low before executing the go around, so that is definitely unusual.

But the concept of going around due to traffic pulling onto the active runway in the last couple hundred feet is quite routine and trained. As long as the traffic is identified then it is the equivalent of stopping if someone pulls in front of you.

Lining up on a taxiway is not exceptionally uncommon. On a visual approach it is more likely, and as long as the error is recognized and corrected then nothing bad happens.

It will be interesting to find out factually how low and late the go around was initiated. If it truly was less than 100' and if the crew didn't see the other aircraft then it is a more serious incident.

But the idea that, with minimal detailed information, if something happened that didn't, it would be horrific, is sensationalism. It doesn't surprise me at all, but the number of times a statement could be made that if some intervention wasn't made then it could have resulted in something catastrophic....that could be said often.

In fairness, it is when things that shouldn't happen do that horrific catstrophies occur. So if you are going to consider every time an unusual occurance happens a potential catastrophe then those occur quite often.

[Fuzz]

Wouldn't it be pretty obvious which one is the runway and which is the taxiway based on those guide landing lights that stretch from the runway though?

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

But the concept of going around due to traffic pulling onto the active runway in the last couple hundred feet is quite routine and trained.

Except that's not what happened, and what happened is exponentially worse. Agree to disagree on this one. Since you insist on that example, is it routine for a runway to be infringed upon and for that traffic to just sit there on the runway, and for the aircraft on final to continue the approach? Cause that's what happened.

Sure planes line up (and land) on taxiways all the time... but again for me the big thing here is the identification of aircraft being on the surface he lined up with and no verification to confirm they were lined up with what ATC just told them was clear, which should have been a huge red flag. That's the part of it that "doesn't happen all the time".

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Wouldn't it be pretty obvious which one is the runway and which is the taxiway based on those guide landing lights that stretch from the runway though?

In theory, yes... and that is one of many questions.

[Ryan Coke]

Hey Acey, I haven't had the chance to listen to the audio. How long was it from when the crew asked about the possible traffic to when they finally did the missed?

[Zarley]

How can this happen? Don't planes fly themselves nowadays?

[automaton 3]

Sounds like about 20 seconds give or take? 13 sec is the call asking about traffic on the runway, go around called at about 33 sec.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb8XBZvXOpE

[sa226]

This is why its needless sensationalism.

I listened to the audio. The AC pilots queried the "traffic on the runway"... ATC responded that the runway is clear. Taxiing aircraft probably put 2 and 2 together and mention that the aircraft is lined up with the taxiway... tower calls the go around, they execute the go around.

100ft is pretty subjective. 100 can look like 200 which can look like 300. But yes that is getting pretty low. Im not going to comment on what was going on in the cockpit because I wasn't there.

But the important point is that the pilots saw what they thought was an obstructed runway, thats why they asked. Why would they have continued the landing? Why just keep on trucking? It's another thing entirely if was your typical SFO fog day and this happened. But it was a visual approach. There were obviously some gaps in their situational awareness that led to this, but they were not blind.

Tenerife was a lot of things, most importantly it was blind. Tenerife doesn't happen on a VFR day. Comparing the two is kind of pointless.

Im not trying to brush off a pretty significant occurrence, and it sounds like they got pretty low, but they SAW the obstructions. There was obviously some confusion in the cockpit, but to suggest that they would just land on those aircraft is pretty crazy.

A more legitimate discussion would be if due to the altitude of the low energy go around, how close could the tail have been to clipping something? But to add up the numbers of passengers of 4 aircraft and speculate on the loss of life like AC was diving in like a Japanese Zero, is sensationalism.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, as such my opinion is that this is needless and ridiculous sensationalism.

[sa226]

Originally Posted by Acey

Except that's not what happened, and what happened is exponentially worse. Agree to disagree on this one. Since you insist on that example, is it routine for a runway to be infringed upon and for that traffic to just sit there on the runway, and for the aircraft on final to continue the approach? Cause that's what happened.

Sure planes line up (and land) on taxiways all the time... but again for me the big thing here is the identification of aircraft being on the surface he lined up with and no verification to confirm they were lined up with what ATC just told them was clear, which should have been a huge red flag. That's the part of it that "doesn't happen all the time".



In theory, yes... and that is one of many questions.

I have to disagree with most of this as your interpretation of the events. Usually before an aircraft is cleared for a visual approach, the pilots need to have the airport environment in sight. That doesn't really include a nice clear picture of a nice clear runway. That can happen quite a ways away from the airport. You don't generally acquire the necessary visual cues of the landing runway until established on final 5 to 10 miles back. At night this can be exaggerated with all the pretty lights. You can add in fatigue and human factors to the list, but those are different discussions.

Actually, while an aircraft just sitting on the runway is rather odd, continuing the approach is not that odd. It only starts to become odd below 500 ft or so. If you're approaching 500ft and that airplane is just camped out on the active runway, then yeah a go around it is.

Your sequence of events as per the audio is mere seconds. They didn't happily continue to the obstructed runway. They were likely reaching the last 30 seconds or so before touchdown and their perception vs reality was starting to become a blurry mess. Why is there aircraft on the runway when we've been cleared to land? Hence the query. Then the response from ATC and the comments from the other aircraft likely cleaned up that blurry mess pretty quick and away they went. Pure speculation on my part, but I bet the go around was commenced a number of seconds before the AC pilot response came.

As for the "obviousness" of the runway vs taxiway. Right, in theory. But at night a big airport can look like a Christmas tree , even 15 miles back. Then there is confirmation bias when you continue on what you originally thought was the runway. This leads to what was going on in the cockpit, but again I won't comment on that. Until your visual situational awareness is absolute, all of your information needs to agree with each other.

[Acey]

You're speculating just as I am, no? All I'm saying is that this is more than the usual near miss that's unnecessarily hyped in the media. I trained as a controller at YEG and worked live traffic, my interpretation of it is based on what I learned.

The pilot saw planes on the runway and was told that runway is clear. How that is being glossed over is beyond me. It seems pretty clear that I'm not talking about the typical scenario where a plane is cleared into position and the lander continues the approach, which is not anomalous.

Again, I'm not trying to blame anybody or conclude the investigation, I just think this was an extremely serious incident that shouldn't be downplayed.

[Flames in 07]

I have no direct experience so gloss over if you wish but I can't help but think people would be a bit less defensive if it wasn't an airline that had 'Canada' in its name.
The article relied on experts who did not comment on the probability of the plane landing on the taxiway but simply saying 'if It did' then it would be horrific. It's beyond me why thats not obvious to everyone.

Also, am I the only one that thinks that in 2017 there isn't technology to automatically alert everyone when the plane is pointed at a taxiway and not a runway? Surely measuring vectors and adjusting for crosswind can predict where a plane is going to land no? I'm sure a dozen people will tell me why it's not easy but "if they can put a man on the moon"

[Ryan Coke]

I don't really see what's being glossed over. The crew made an error and lined up on the taxiway. They then saw what looked like airplanes where they were going to land. Then they went around.

One perspective is that a likely outcome was that they were going to continue to land on the traffic that they saw, resulting in a horrific tragedy.

Another perspective, from people that do this for a living, is that an aborted approach was the likely outcome.

There is a small chance that once the investigation is done it will be found that the crew was intending to continue to land. I believe that is unlikely, but I don't know what was going on inside the flight deck at the time.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

I don't really see what's being glossed over.

If the reports of 29 feet of lateral clearance and 100 feet of vertical clearance prove to be true, then...

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

They then saw what looked like airplanes where they were going to land. Then they went around.

...becomes a comically gross understatement that sounds like it's describing a typical go around initiated at a mile or more.

So to answer your question, from my perspective what's being glossed over is the reports of 29 feet of lateral clearance and 100 feet of vertical clearance. Even the brilliant "people who do this for a living" might call that a serious incident.

[sa226]

Originally Posted by Acey

......

So to answer your question, from my perspective what's being glossed over is the reports of 29 feet of lateral clearance and 100 feet of vertical clearance. Even the brilliant "people who do this for a living" might call that a serious incident.

Well, if this this is the path we are going down, I will bow out of this. Its not worth it.

My frustration stemmed from the quotes in the article, and I tried to explain why. Nobody is glossing over the seriousness of it. We were just attempting to use our experiences to convey why we feel its sensationalism.

Perhaps more will become clear in the coming weeks.

[stazzy33]

Originally Posted by sa226

Well, if this this is the path we are going down, I will bow out of this. Its not worth it.

My frustration stemmed from the quotes in the article, and I tried to explain why. Nobody is glossing over the seriousness of it. We were just attempting to use our experiences to convey why we feel its sensationalism.

Perhaps more will become clear in the coming weeks.

The problem is the quotes were taken out of context.

The article says:
"If it is true, what happened probably came close to the greatest aviation disaster in history," said retired United Airlines Capt. Ross Aimer, CEO of Aero Consulting Experts.

"If you could imagine an Airbus colliding with four passenger aircraft wide bodies, full of fuel and passengers, then you can imagine how horrific this could have been," he said.

And the definition of sensationalism is:
sen·sa·tion·al·ism
noun
1. (especially in journalism) the use of exciting or shocking stories or language at the expense of accuracy, in order to provoke public interest or excitement.

I have bolded the important part of the definition. None of what the quote says is inaccurate. Had the plane landed on the taxiway and crashed into the other 4 planes, it would have been the greatest aviation disaster in history and would have been horrific. It didn't end up that way, but what could have been is still important to the story. It conveys the seriousness of the error of the AC crew and the potential consequences of their actions. From all accounts this wasn't just a typical go around. This was a very serious mistake with equally serious consequences and should be investigated as such.

[Weitz]

I am sure some of you are familiar with Saint Maarten's Princess Juliana Airport. Well a lady was killed from the jet blast of a 737 taking off. There is video in the link.

A New Zealand woman is dead after being flung through the air by a jet blast near Saint Maarten’s Princess Juliana airport.

It’s believed the 57-year-old tourist was standing along a fence near the runway Wednesday when a Boeing 737 took off.

The jet blast reportedly caused the woman to lose her balance, fall and slam her head on the nearby pavement.

She was pronounced dead in hospital, the New Zealand Herald confirmed.

http://www.calgarysun.com/2017/07/13...tional-airport

[Bigtime]

Aww crap, it was only a matter of time until something like this happened there. Wonder if changes will be coming?

[STeeLy]

Blast Deflectors probably going up.

Sent from my STV100-1 using Tapatalk

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Aww crap, it was only a matter of time until something like this happened there. Wonder if changes will be coming?

Would there be any changes? Aren't there already lots of warnings about the jet blast there?