A Boeing 777 Has Crash-Landed At San Francisco International

[Flying Nutcracker]

But he also had 9000 total. 43 hours on type could mean line-in-doc... Happens everywhere in North America.

[Strega]

There is a rumor the Altimeter may not have been reset from 29.92 at cruise. The field Altimeter Setting was 29.81. An altimeter error of -.1 would put them 100ft low, and 1000ft short. ( If they were flying an electronic generated glide slope, it would take them to the Sea Wall. ) ?? A VFR approach shouldn't have that problem.

Are you for real?

The approach was/is a "visual"

[bizjets101]

Extra sad;

San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said senior San Francisco Fire Department officials notified him and his staff at the crash site on Saturday that one of the 16-year-olds may have been struck on the runaway.

Foucrault said an autopsy he expects to be completed by Monday will involve determining whether the girl's death was caused by injuries suffered in the crash or "a secondary incident. (Rescue vehicles)

[SheriffPatGarrett]

There was something extremely wrong with the crew...they almost dropped the plane in the water...it stopped only a few hundred feet from the water edge...asleep at the wheel?

Ohhh, yes, it happen all the time!

Remember Connie Kalitta jet Cargo crew falling asleep at Guantanamo bay?
Landing inland out toward the sea required a steep turn to avoid getting shot by Castroland's socialists.

While banked 90 degrees, the DC-8 crew fell asleep...ALL THREE OF THEM...the Engineer woke up and shook up the two pilot and they crashed just short of the runway...Captain died...at the time, it was common to spend way past 40 hours sitting non stop in this sweltering 120 degrees cockpit...
After this, you were only allowed to land from over the ocean...not that make any difference, what about a go-around?

Wiki:
Korean Air had many fatal accidents between 1970 and 1999, during which time it wrote off 16 aircraft in serious incidents and accidents with the loss of 700 lives. The last fatal accident, Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509 in December 1999 led to a review of how Korean cultural attitudes had contributed to its poor crash history. Following the review, Korean Airlines began hiring predominantly Western pilots and since that time safety has greatly improved,

19 November 1980 – Flight 015 (Boeing 747) departed from Anchorage for Seoul when the aircraft struck a retaining embankment on the edge of the airport. The plane bounced back on to runway 14, broke apart, and caught fire and was incinerated. Damage– total air frame break up, Injuries- multiple, Deaths- 15 (one on the ground, six of 14 crew, eight of 198 passengers, Airframe– written off[9]

One of our crew, as contractor, went and sawed this plane apart for the pieces...apparently, the tower challenged the Korean crew to land on the closed airport due to fog...the crew jokingly answered they were coming in to beat his ass...well, too low, it appear...having thus lost face, the crew refused to leave the slowly burning plane even when begged to by the firemen, so all three died of smoke inhalation way up there. Suicide by smoke...a new method.

[Nark]

There is a rumor the Altimeter may not have been reset from 29.92 at cruise. The field Altimeter Setting was 29.81. An altimeter error of -.1 would put them 100ft low, and 1000ft short. ( If they were flying an electronic generated glide slope, it would take them to the Sea Wall. ) ?? A VFR approach shouldn't have that problem.

You know that's not what predicates a VISUAL approach right?

I'm going to jump on the bandwagon of Asian CRM, or lack there of.

Short side story: my current Chief, was a Korean sim check airmen. He gave (evaluated) a Korean pilot "less than perfect" checkride. The kid passed, but had a "needs improvement" in such-in-such area. The kid killed himself because he disgraced the family name.

[Indanao]

Yuh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_approach Why make the distinction, if it's 1000 & 3 ?

[SheriffPatGarrett]

I would not sell life insurance to the captain...the sole pilot on board...a 50 hours co-pilot is not too real...innit?

[Nark]

Yuh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_approach Why make the distinction, if it's 1000 & 3 ?

Don't get me wrong, incorrect altimeter setting is being dumb, and lazy. However in a visual approach your altimeter is a point of reference, secondary to your eyeballs either:
1) looking at the runway.
2) following preceding traffic.

[Indanao]

I don't get your point. Of course your eyeballs are your primary source for Visual landing. It is when, you, mix up Visual and IFR which is what your doing, that the problem occurs in this scenario. If they were watching the runway, altimeter wouldn't be critical. But, on an electronically created glide slope it is. The altimeter setting will determine where you land.

[Flying Nutcracker]

No it doesn't

[x15]

This video is a little dated. However its truths remain today.

Children of the Magenta. A look at how automation levels and when to cut it loose and simply fly the plane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3kREPMzMLk

[squash junky]

On receiving atis the altimeter is pre selected to airport altimeter and will show white (small) below the green STD (large)
When FL180 is passed the green STD will turn orange and both pilots will push a button to switch.
So unless both pilots had set 2992 iso 2981 it is not very likely they started the approach with 2992
the transition level is pre programmed in the FMS

I have been in the left seat of the 777 for 8 yrs now and I think there are many factors to be found out before a sound judgment can be made.
level of automation:
A/p on a/t on
here you have chose a vertical flight mode-vs or flch or fpa or vnav (path or speed)
flch will close thrust lever and try to descent to selected altitude eg 500' above runway or even circling mda, which ever is selected. when close by the minimum usually the g/a altitude is selected
if you are still in flch the airplane will try to strt climb back to the set altitude incl adding power unless you hold the throttles and the throttle indication is HOLD, vs.fpa or vnav will maintain the decent

a/p off a/t on -normal we don't tun ofF at on the 777 unless in the sim
all off and use flch,,,maybe not smart unless you have your hand on the thr lever
or maybe ap on an at off not likely
turning a/p or a/t or both will complicate things with flch especially when you are tired, being trained, etc
depending on your focus like coming in high with high descent rate


A bit of an incoherent story after 2 nightshifts and laying in bed just about to pass out.
hope you can make sense out of it sleep first

basically you can get a pretty good idea when you know if the a/p and a/t were on or not and what the `FMA indications were -hold/flch/vnav path or speed/ vs or fpa

[Diadem]

I would not sell life insurance to the captain...the sole pilot on board...a 50 hours co-pilot is not too real...innit?

I would say having 9000 hours TT would make the co-pilot at least somewhat competent in the handling of an aircraft. 50 hours on type isn't a lot, but how does one go from 0 to 10000 hours without passing through 50? Tens of thousands of pilots move to new types each year without incident, so just because someone has less than 1000 hours on type, or whatever arbitrary number you choose to be the acceptable level of experience, doesn't automatically make that pilot a useless bag of meat that's a detriment to the cockpit. If we're just going to straight-up chalk this one up to the FO having 50 hours on type without any actual analysis of what happened, why don't we make it illegal for anyone with less than 100 hours on type to operate any type of aircraft, ever?

[grimey]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/0 ... 58881.html

Because there's not enough wtf about this accident: Coroner's investigating whether one or both of the dead were killed after being run over by rescue vehicles.

[righthandman]

Crew called for more power 7 seconds prior to impact, at 4 seconds stick shaker is heard, at 1.5 seconds called for go around. NTSB

Oddly enough my guess is from everything I have read about what was just apparently a poorly executed approach and landing, is that it would have been LESS likely to happen in IFR conditions! The crew was likely much more lax in accessing and correcting for an unstabilized approach while visually flying it than had they been flying it on instruments.

I find it weird how the "new(er) generation" flight crews have got the basic flying skills so poorly learned and/or miserably handled at times. Contrast that to...

http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopi ... 79&t=90321

[complexintentions]

I would agree that not much should be made of the FO's 43 hours on type. If anything, if he was that recent from a transition training course, he would have been sharp on the aircraft systems.

It's the manual handling and decision making that is in question, but shouldn't have been, given the large overall hours experience. I just can't fathom how or why they got so slow, so far back, without doing something about it.

Airspeed is life.

[2.5milefinal]

Its very sad but it looks to me like aircraft manufacturers can stop putting windshields in the cockpit ...it would be cheaper and safer. Just follow the pink line...i guess.

[Colonel Sanders]

Coroner's investigating whether one or both of the dead were killed after being run over by rescue vehicles

Wait - what?

A slightly different accident at SFO:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_2

Asoh, when asked by the NTSB about the landing, reportedly replied, "As you Americans say, I fucked up."

[Driving Rain]

My Korean experience is limited having spent only 3 months there last year trying to introduce fixed wing water bombers (CL-215) to the fire fighting armory. They're heavily entrenched in helicopters and have a powerful lobby to keep it so.
We at all times were under a microscope when out doing what we do. The airport we were based at Sacheon (HIN Jinju) is the site of their airforce training command. There are lots of Generals and the like around and they never had a problem of phoning over to tell us our approach to land from the last mission was not on the PAPI and to smarten up if we were to continue to fly from this base or anywhere in the country for that matter. I couldn't help wonder that if one of their Generals had been at the controls and NOT "on the PAPI" if we'd have gotten a call.
The guy who was our aviation minder had 3 crashes under his belt, 2 rotary and one fixed wing. To watch him strut around barking commands was unreal and would have gotten him punched out several times in our Canadian culture. He of course was ex military as they all are because of a draft. They're masters at playing one against the other to get their way or to save face. It would have been comical if the consequences weren't so deadly.

[MartinB]

Apparently the PF's last plane was the 320 so maybe he still wasn't quite used to having to compensate for his viewpoint being higher than on the 320. Could that be a possibility?