So it nearly stalled on approach, lost too much altitude and smacked into the rocks prior to landing? Sounds like a terrible approach overall.
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Looks like an unstable approach, and the ils being out would have very likely been a significant factor.
Of course some speculation based on the information that is out there.
And most landings are hand flown.
If the auto pilot was on, it would of descended on the ILS landing profile programmed into the flight computer. It would not have had that plane land at that far forward. I would say it definitely was not on and the pilot was flying by visual, and made an error and came in at too shallow of an angle, pulled up last second, and clipped the tail with the runway.
If the auto pilot was on, it would of descended on the ILS landing profile programmed into the flight computer. It would not have had that plane land at that far forward. I would say it definitely was not on and the pilot was flying by visual, and made an error and came in at too shallow of an angle, pulled up last second, and clipped the tail with the runway.
He's a pilot so I'm pretty sure he knows what he's talking about.
It is common at SFO to vectored in high and tight for the approach by air traffic control, so it is more work to get on the proper profile...on speed and altitude. Combined with the ils being out, and they got quite unstable. It appears they started high, had to try to get down fast with low power, then were slow to get enough power on at the bottom end.
Also the Pilot flying appears to be a pilot just transitioning from a smaller airplane (A320) to the bigger 777. So much more mass, and longer time for the engines to spool up. May have caught him off guard, as he had only 43 hours on type, which for long hauls equates to only 4 or 5 landings, with him being in control for half, so he may have had only 2 or 3 landings in the airplane.
Last edited by Ryan Coke; 07-07-2013 at 05:13 PM.
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San Francisco Chronicle is quoting an official as saying one of the Chinese fatalities is being autopsied to see if she was run over by an emergency response vehicle.
Cowperson
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San Francisco Chronicle is quoting an official as saying one of the Chinese fatalities is being autopsied to see if she was run over by an emergency response vehicle.
Cowperson
Oh god...
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CNN has a video of the crash, the plane did a 360 cartwheel after impact.
I just watched it, I still wouldn't call it a cartwheel in the sense of a gymnast doing a cartwheel. More like a top in he latter stages of its spin before it dies out, oscillating back and forth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stampsx2
I didn't think pilots landed planes anymore. I thought the ils system did it for them so how could it be pilot error. When they land in fog they don't see the runway at all.
Nope and nope. You still need to be able to see the runway lights on an ILS approach at the decision height... if you can't see it you abort the approach. Only a cat 3c ILS has no decision and can be used for autoland with zero vis, but I'm not sure that's authorized anywhere yet.
That said... the ILS was down so it's irrelevant. At an airport like SFO, air traffic control use ILS approaches as little as possible because when visibility falls below what's required for visual approaches, the airports arrival rate takes a nose dive because the runways are not far enough apart to do this when it's cloudy:
These airplanes are 750 feet apart. This happens all day every day (in good weather) at SFO. I feel like pilots aren't given enough credit and people (in general) think they are no longer capable of hand flying their airplanes.
Here's an Air Canada 777-200 pilot hand flying and landing at Toronto. Listen at 0:40... "minimums!" to which the pilot not flying says "runway in sight" (obviously because it's a beautiful day) then the pilot flying says "landing". The minimums call is the point at which you must be able to see the runway lights.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan Coke
Also the Pilot flying appears to be a pilot just transitioning from a smaller airplane (A320) to the bigger 777. So much more mass, and longer time for the engines to spool up. May have caught him off guard, as he had only 43 hours on type, which for long hauls equates to only 4 or 5 landings, with him being in control for half, so he may have had only 2 or 3 landings in the airplane.
Kinda hoping that's not true. They're going to get sued into the ground.
Last edited by Acey; 07-07-2013 at 08:18 PM.
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Sounds like the pilot had little experience with this actual plane. Other reports on the news seems to show the plane came in slower and more steeply than previous flights.
South Korean and NTSB investigators will jointly question Lee Kang-####, the pilot who was sitting in the captain's seat of Asiana Flight 214, on Monday, Choi Jeong-ho, the head of South Korean's Aviation Policy Bureau, said.
Lee had 43 hours of experience flying the B777-200, he said.
But many hours in a very accurate simulator, no doubt. I'm sure they will stand by their training policies and insist that he was fully qualified to be landing that airplane. Of course, at any airport besides SFO he just comes up short and suffers gear damage, instead of tumbling across the airfield.
The other thing with Korean pilots, is did the co-pilot speak up on time if he thought something was being done incorrectly. This issue caused Korean Airlines to have the worse safety record going back about 20 years ago.
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But many hours in a very accurate simulator, no doubt. I'm sure they will stand by their training policies and insist that he was fully qualified to be landing that airplane. Of course, at any airport besides SFO he just comes up short and suffers gear damage, instead of tumbling across the airfield.
There are many runways that approach over water or even worst, the 777 only needs 6000 ft of runway to land and SFO is around 12,000 ft. I have personally landed at this airport and besides heavy traffic it's an easy approach.
My take is (from witnesses accounts on board) when he made the turn into the bay he was a too high and then descended fast trying to make up for it, not knowing the aircraft very well he tried to slow it down with nose up(wouldn't be shocked to find out he went past 30 d flaps as well...a no-no) and ran out of room.
The 777 will drop 30% faster than the A320 or 757 which I believe he was experienced in. I will be totally shocked if this isn't 99% pilot error and 1% control error. the 1% is the tower should have recognized the approach error and asked him to go around.
In the right seat was a very experienced training Captain. Technically he was the pilot in command and he was training the new captain.
Definitely still lots of problems generally with many of the Asian airlines with cockpit management and rank, and questioning of people of authority. This is a different dynamic than the conventional captain/FO flight deck, but it still may have played a part.
ATC routinely brings aircraft in above the slope there so it creates challenges getting down and stabilized, especially for a crew that isn't familiar with it.
There are some other possible issues with the way the would have set up the approach without an ils, but they would be speculation on my part at this point.
It is common at SFO to vectored in high and tight for the approach by air traffic control, so it is more work to get on the proper profile...on speed and altitude. Combined with the ils being out, and they got quite unstable. It appears they started high, had to try to get down fast with low power, then were slow to get enough power on at the bottom end.
Also the Pilot flying appears to be a pilot just transitioning from a smaller airplane (A320) to the bigger 777. So much more mass, and longer time for the engines to spool up. May have caught him off guard, as he had only 43 hours on type, which for long hauls equates to only 4 or 5 landings, with him being in control for half, so he may have had only 2 or 3 landings in the airplane.
Curious, whats the reason for that? I fly in/out of SFO a lot and they get a ton of delay/cancellation due to weather when Air Canada can rock themselves out of a rut in the middle of a Canadian winter; I could never understand what made SFO so unique.
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The 777 will drop 30% faster than the A320 or 757 which I believe he was experienced in. I will be totally shocked if this isn't 99% pilot error and 1% control error. the 1% is the tower should have recognized the approach error and asked him to go around.
Not sure about the bolded part (perhaps why you assign only 1% to it). I would think the tower controllers are spending more time visually watching the runway and traffic around it to make sure the runway remains clear for arriving and departing traffic (also checking things like the ASDE screen). Sure the controller that day may have made a cursory glance at the Asiana bird on final, but they were probably also watching the UA 744 that was taxiing to the hold line of that same runway to make sure things stayed on the up and up.
