A Boeing 777 Has Crash-Landed At San Francisco International

[CpnCrunch]

Siddley Hawker wrote:

Are we sure about this? While a lack of situational awareness/monitoring seems obvious, was there also an auto throttle system failure? Or something else?

My money would be on the pilot just not setting the auto-throttle correctly.

[Doc]

Indanao, yes. They should also be able to fly a stabilized approach and not let it get away on them to the extent they would need to side-slip.

Next you'll tell me that airline pilots should be trained to do barrel rolls and loops.

Barrel rolls and loops might be a bit much, but I would hope Air France has a stall recognition/avoidance/recovery course for some of their pilots......

[Beefitarian]

In the event of a complete power loss one can still fly a stabilized approach and safely land any airplane assuming the pilot/'s are competent.

Yah but if I happened to be strapped to a 767 that ran out of fuel, I may think about adding a little speed and altitude on the approach "budget" and forward slip it in a bit to adjust before touchdown like they did on the Gimli glider.

IF, you could do that from the passenger's cabin....

Some guys can't do it hanging on to the left Yoke. I might even be one depending on the plane.

Cat and the Colonel are in denial but they are pretty rare. Most guys can't fly, those that can most likely fly the same plane all the time or possibly two to three different ones. Even if they have a bunch of money.

Some pilots just ride along with everyone else while "Auto" flys until they have to flare and touch down.

[Strega]

CID

What would you say when an avionics tech cannot solder? or perhaps assemble a radio shack crystal radio set?


If you are given the responsibility of command of a large "wide body" (like it makes a difference) aircraft, you better have the skills required to fly it.

There is NO excuse to have pilots flying commercially in any operation, that have substandard flying skills.

Pilots are hired to fly, and the public is expecting this fact, period...

[GRK]

Actually, you don't really "set" the auto throttle in this case...it's active almost 90 percent of the time, and will be your best friend if you understand the modes it operates in. In this case it was working (according to reports so far) but the mode it was in was overlooked and most likely misunderstood. Mode awareness is paramount to safely operating todays jets, but too much dependency is put on using the automation built in, with not enough "awareness training". I saw an argument (here or on a different site) that compared the Captain's Airbus experience with the 40 something hours he had on the 777, and it argued that the differences between the two types were part of the cause of the crash...I call BS...mode awareness philosophy is the same on both types..(I've flown both manufacturers) It's the lack of awareness and dependency that will kill you before the difference in type. I believe that it was reported that a Vertical Speed (VS) mode was selected while descending close to the ground, and without knowing how much of a trap that is, it can and will bite a crew or pilot who is unaware of the modes needed to manage VS while in a descent close to the ground...what a shame that such simple practices led to such a rotten ending. The fallout will be more changes that will not improve the overall problem, it will just add more automation dependency...no one will learn much from this... (I really hope I'm wrong)

[flyinthebug]

Very interesting video (animation) of this crash (with actual cockpit voice recording between 214 and ATC beginning 7 mile final.)

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-bu ... 14606.html

Just scroll down the page and its the 1st video in the story.

[alpha1]

I must be very tired on a Friday afternoon, because this made me laugh....

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/ho-lee-fuk-s ... na-pilots/

[FICU]

My money would be on the pilot just not setting the auto-throttle correctly.

It may come down to the pilot not understanding what was set via the MCP. If he had 137 set and LVL CHG the flight director would command a descent with auto-throttles at idle thrust maintaining 137. If this was the case and he pulled the nose up once called low on the PAPIs the speed would decay as the engines took their time to spool up to maintain the MCP speed. Throw in the stated lateral deviation and the blinding light and the position of Saturn in relation to Mars and you have a recipe for...

[white_knuckle_flyer]

I know it's not the real issue here, but in watching that animation it looks like that landing actually could have been saved in the last few seconds if they only hadn't nosed up so much. With that seawall staring you in the face, I know the last thing you want to do is ram straight into that but it does look like they could have cleared it by mere inches had they been closer to level.

[Flying Nutcracker]

It may come down to the pilot not understanding what was set via the MCP. If he had 137 set and LVL CHG the flight director would command a descent with auto-throttles at idle thrust maintaining 137. If this was the case and he pulled the nose up once called low on the PAPIs the speed would decay as the engines took their time to spool up to maintain the MCP speed. Throw in the stated lateral deviation and the blinding light and the position of Saturn in relation to Mars and you have a recipe for...

Only problem is that FLCH is a function of pitch and not A/T, therefore no protection of speed unless it captures an altitude or there is a mode change. Unless they physically selected "MCP SPEED" on the MCP there would be no thrust movement in FLCH. The A/T is commanding N1 for either climb thrust or idle for descend, thus in this case (if be) would remain at idle until reaching target altitude. This is a big "gotcha" if you are handflying and get distracted!

Edit to specify that airspeed is protected by pitch control and NOT A/T in LVL CHG/FLCH

[pdw]

I must be very tired on a Friday afternoon ....

The way that an anchor and her backup staff allow themselves to be set up (pranked so deviously about something so serious) sounds almost as tragic as how the deception into the accident itself came about.

It's tragic humour, and apparently there's a place for it. This is over the top mind you .....

First responders, rescuers etc ... have heard they sometimes need to divert their thoughts to other things afterward, to wind down from terrible things they have seen and heard while on duty ... which can have devastating effects.

On that note ...... I'd much rather hear some violin music about "pilots that got blinded by light" rather than later-on hearing somebody committed suicide over this type of thing. The injured pax and the families grieving over two deaths ... they need a lot of healing already.

[Siddley Hawker]

I wonder what the conversation would be if we turned our attention to another accident on a much less automated aircraft. The L1011.
Look up the Eastern 401 accident in the Everglades.

Don't have to look it up, I remember it quite clearly - including the alleged apparitions and the disembodied head in the galley oven. 401 happened at night over a blacked out Everglades while 214 was at high noon on a clear day but the results were the same, a flyable aircraft crashed with fatal consequences. In either case, nobody was minding the store. The Eastern guys were so concerned with troubleshooting a burnt out gear light no one noticed the a/p altitude hold had been disconnected while on the 777, three pilots were unaware of their airspeed trend. FTFA.

[CID]

Strega, that's a bit of a bizarre post. Anyway, your analogy is an odd one. There are skills in any job that are fundamental across the board regardless of type. But here's the thing. There are skills that aerobatic pilots absolutely need but airliner pilots absolutely don't need.

Same goes for maintainers. You don't need to know about cryogenic hydraulic fittings on a King Air. And you don't need to know how to dress a prop if you're maintaining an A320. If you do avionics line maintenance on heavy iron you never need to solder. In fact many of those guys couldn't solder to save their lives but so what. They don't need to know.

So...what's your point exactly?

[Indanao]

Airliners aren't made for Aerobatics, and vice versa. Depends on what your Flying. Duh...
You want to argue semantics to make up for lack of any other rational comment. ( Just my opinion )

[shimmydampner]

There are skills in any job that are fundamental across the board regardless of type. But here's the thing. There are skills that aerobatic pilots absolutely need but airliner pilots absolutely don't need.

How about being able to land your mechanically sound airplane on a suitable runway under very benign conditions?

[sky's the limit]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23296760

Third Asiana flight 214 victim dies of her injuries
Undated photo of Ye Mengyuan, left, and Wang Linjia in a classroom in Jiangshan city in eastern China's Zhejiang province

A San Francisco hospital says a third victim of a plane crash, a Chinese girl, has died from her injuries.

She was among about a dozen injured still in hospital after Asiana flight 214 struck a sea wall as it approached the airport too low last week.

And officials now confirm another victim was hit by a fire truck as she lay on the tarmac, police say.

Ye Mengyuan, 16, was found covered in fire-fighting foam in the tyre tracks of the truck.

It is not clear if she was still alive when it hit her.

Dozens of passengers were also wounded, although most suffered minor injuries.

Critical condition
Ye's cause of death has not yet been established, but county coroners have suggested their findings could be released next week.

"We know for sure she was at least run over one time, but at the time she was under foam, so nobody could have seen her," San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr told the San Francisco Chronicle.

She and another Chinese 16-year-old who died, Wang Linjia, had been in the rear of the plane, where many of the most seriously injured passengers were seated. Their bodies bodies were found on the tarmac.

The third victim's name and age were not released at the request of her parents.

About a dozen passengers remain in hospital on Friday, including three in critical condition.

The plane came in much too shallow last Saturday before its main landing gear struck a sea wall well short of the end of the runway. The tail of the 777 was ripped off.

The plane went into a 360-degree spin before coming to rest.

Officials have said that pilots only realised the plane was flying too slowly seconds before the crash.

The pilot, who was about half way through his training, pushed the throttles to speed up and then tried to abort the landing, but it was too late.

[Strega]

In fact many of those guys couldn't solder to save their lives but so what

Sometimes, CID, you need to "fly" to save your life...

Enjoy your wires..

[Joe Blow Schmo]

Siddley Hawker wrote:

Are we sure about this? While a lack of situational awareness/monitoring seems obvious, was there also an auto throttle system failure? Or something else?

My money would be on the pilot just not setting the auto-throttle correctly.

Nothing to "set" per se, however....

Actually, you don't really "set" the auto throttle in this case...it's active almost 90 percent of the time, and will be your best friend if you understand the modes it operates in. In this case it was working (according to reports so far) but the mode it was in was overlooked and most likely misunderstood. Mode awareness is paramount to safely operating todays jets, but too much dependency is put on using the automation built in, with not enough "awareness training". I saw an argument (here or on a different site) that compared the Captain's Airbus experience with the 40 something hours he had on the 777, and it argued that the differences between the two types were part of the cause of the crash...I call BS...mode awareness philosophy is the same on both types..(I've flown both manufacturers) It's the lack of awareness and dependency that will kill you before the difference in type. I believe that it was reported that a Vertical Speed (VS) mode was selected while descending close to the ground, and without knowing how much of a trap that is, it can and will bite a crew or pilot who is unaware of the modes needed to manage VS while in a descent close to the ground...what a shame that such simple practices led to such a rotten ending. The fallout will be more changes that will not improve the overall problem, it will just add more automation dependency...no one will learn much from this... (I really hope I'm wrong)

I haven't seen the reports on the active modes, but if that's accurate it doesn't seem very smart. Since he was hand flying, unless GS or VNAV PTH was active (and we already know the GS wasn't working so not that) then the FD should be turned off. In VS mode the autothrottle will wake up to recover from a low speed situation unless you're below RA100' on approach. They were very slow before RA100' so I would think it should have activated. If they were in FLCH however, the AT doesn't wake up. So if (big IF) they were doing a manual thrust, manual landing and for some strange reason were in FLCH while hand flying low to the ground then the AT stall protection wouldn't activate.

[Eric Janson]

Lots of nonsense posted here once again.

Unless you have flown in Asia you have no idea - you really don't.

I can guarantee cultural issues played a role. That's based on personal experience operating in the region.

I've flown in Asia for 8 years and I did the Korean screening in April.

The Korean Sim screening involved a straight in visual approach from 15 miles at 5000', 250 knots and a tailwind (on profile but with excess energy) and a visual circuit with 30 knots of crosswind which is the Korean limit (manufacturers limit is 41 knots). They graded every landing even though landing the Sim is nothing like landing the real aircraft. They also wanted to see less than 5 degrees of crab on landing because that is written in the FCOM somewhere. I have never seen that evaluated anywhere else - ever.

The consensus in our group was we were doing all the things that were issues.

I met a few Expat Pilots while I was in Seoul. I asked one of them about how the Line Training was. He described it as "painful".

As for experience - F/O's are generally not allowed to do anything and most of the hours are cruise hours so there isn't much exposure. This is fairly standard throughout the region. Hours don't tell the whole story.

From my conversations with F/O's at my last Airline most Captains would not let F/O's turn anything off and manual flying was a no-no.

Crosswinds were another mystery. People did not know what to do. After watching the same mistakes being made over and over again I started briefing F/Os on what to do.

The policy at the moment is to promote the locals a quickly as possible - that is going to bite them hard one of these days as people are being promoted far above their level of ability.

My own roster changed with the weather patterns - heavily biased towards the areas with the worst weather.

There was a story I'd heard about Captains refusing to fly to Europe "if a single flake of snow falls". I thought this was just a story until I heard someone say it and I was standing right behind them.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There's plenty more I could write including a few things that you wouldn't believe. You know it's bad when even the locals are shocked.

My personal experiences were in one of the better cultures in the region. It was worse to the North and much much worse further East.

The only thing that surprises me is that there aren't more accidents.

[spaner]

Well said,

and I agree, we should be loosing twice as many air frames per month.
So what's opening the gap? You figure that the automation is actually saving a few air frames, where these incompetent bastards would otherwise be screwing the pooch?

[white_knuckle_flyer]

If Mr. Jansen's take on the issue is correct, and it sounds very plausible to me, then it makes complete sense to me that the lion's share of funding would go towards further automation. If the situation regarding piloting skill is as dire as it sounds then I would not be surprised if the powers that be are looking into even more ways to take the pilot out of the equation.

I mean, if you are surprised that there aren't a pantload more accidents or near accidents based on the amount of incompetence out there, then you are pretty much singing the praises of automation. And if automation has so far been fairly successful at mitigating pilot error then it is reasonable that this is where future money flows.

[SheriffPatGarrett]

Thanks for the additional non sense...whoever fly these airline, knowing the level on competence of the crews...


The other civil servant:

Strega, that's a bit of a bizarre post. Anyway, your analogy is an odd one. There are skills in any job that are fundamental across the board regardless of type. But here's the thing. There are skills that aerobatic pilots absolutely need but airliner pilots absolutely don't need.

Same goes for maintainers. You don't need to know about cryogenic hydraulic fittings on a King Air. And you don't need to know how to dress a prop if you're maintaining an A320. If you do avionics line maintenance on heavy iron you never need to solder. In fact many of those guys couldn't solder to save their lives but so what. They don't need to know.

So...what's your point exactly?

His point is that it is the height of folly to be flown by pilots that could not fly a cessna...if they cannot master the basics,
they are also ignorant of the fine points, like systems and procedures...CRM? fuggetaboutit!
I was in these classes, us kuffars and geijins needed to know 100% but the "connected ones" needed to know nothing.
Fact, at the sim, I was told:"Quit doing everything for "him" or I fail you too"!!!

Then five years later, I read the accident report where "he", yes, the same guy spiraled a Metroliner into the ground at high speed
after whining to ATC for twenty minutes he could not control the airplane...the Metro was really "pilotless" with him and they hit at about 300 knots.

That a real pilotless airplane like CID is advocating, the nec plus ultra, captured by these Mullahs...wanna ride?

[lostaviator]

Is the airspeed indicator not one of the most important part of any basic scan? Isn't this what we are taught from the very beginning. A U/S auto throttle is a pretty lame excuse. Did they not have hands to reach the throttles?

The last few years have really got me thinking this industry is becoming incompetent when it comes to actually being pilots.

[pdw]

Is there a surface analysis available for the hour of the accident ? What are the pressures doing on the mesoscale, way out over the ocean ... seeing how an east flow produces a followingwind here on short final, lee of the mountains and across the bay.

Nevermind sunshine, there still can be some windshear (ie the trouble lining up with the runway) ... and everybody knows when the tail sinks out of sight there's a new sun-angle streaming into a cockpit at high noon landing rwy 28. Great weather doesn't mean everything is always rosie ... remember the hockey team accident, great weather there too.

[FICU]

Is there a surface analysis available for the hour of the accident ?

Nevermind sunshine, there still can be some windshear...

Actually, you should be looking into the USGS and shifts in the San Andreas fault. Your windshear theory could have been due to the air being displaced by the subtle but recorded movement of the pacific plate pushing up on the NA plate precisely at the time of this incident.