AAL331 Off Runway in Jamaica - No Fatalities

[subpilot]

Thats true, and I agree with that. But there SURE is (was) a lot of Regional bashing (about hours and experience) going on recently. I also agree that we should find out the facts before pointing the finger. My question is, if this were a regional incident, would everyone have the same attitude? I doubt it personally. Everyone would be up in arms over how much time and experience they had.

I totally agree with what you are saying. I am just implying that I don't think we should discuss that on this thread. Start a new thread or go to an existing thread (plenty to choose from) to discuss regional vs. major experience. I would like to see this thread remain focused on the accident and not turn into 10 pages of debate on whether we need 1500TT or not.

 

[pullup]

I dare not post the photo here, but they also have a picture of what appears to be the captain pushing a passenger in a wheelchair. Poor bastard is about go through hell, no doubt.

I am just proud to see him still acting like a captain and not shirking his duties. His career may very well be over but at least he wasn't sitting there thinking about it he was making sure his passengers were taken care of. Bravo to him for that.

 

[rorypang]

The bashing of others comes form the complex that I am better than you, I have a better job than you, I drive a better car than you, prettier girlfriend/wife than you....Its a way for us to comfort ourselves. Now, the only thing the news media is good for in reporting aviation accidents is to provide pictures, they have no clue. In the process of reporting they need to say something that seems smart to the uninformed, whereby creating hysteria form the public. Linking this to politics (sorry) many of our elected officials by into this bull. We can say they where tired, we can say they shouldnt have landed, the fact is we werent there. The NTSB serves this purpose to get the most accurate information, so lets wait..

 

[Murdoughnut]

I am just proud to see him still acting like a captain and not shirking his duties. His career may very well be over but at least he wasn't sitting there thinking about it he was making sure his passengers were taken care of. Bravo to him for that.

True dat.

 

[N519AT]

Does anyone know what the actual weather conditions were like at the time? Not just "raining."

This is what somebody posted up at A.net. Not sure about the exact time it happened, however.

[FONT=ARIAL,]MKJP 230430Z 34011KT 44000 <acronym title="Royal Nepal Airlines">RA</acronym> BKN014 FEW016CB BKN100 21/13 Q1013 RESHRA
MKJP 230400Z 32014KT 11500 +SH<acronym title="Royal Nepal Airlines">RA</acronym> BKN014 FEW016CB SCT028 BKN090 21/18 Q1013 RE<acronym title="Royal Nepal Airlines">RA</acronym>
MKJP 230300Z 32008KT 33000 +SH<acronym title="Royal Nepal Airlines">RA</acronym> BKN014 FEW016CB SCT030 BKN100 21/20 Q1014 RETSRA
MKJP 230228Z 31009KT 5000 TS<acronym title="Royal Nepal Airlines">RA</acronym> BKN014 FEW016CB SCT030 BKN100 22/19 Q1013
MKJP 230200Z 30012KT 5000 SH<acronym title="Royal Nepal Airlines">RA</acronym> BKN014 SCT030 BKN100 22/20 Q1013 RE<acronym title="Royal Nepal Airlines">RA</acronym>
MKJP 230100Z 040033KT 5000 SH<acronym title="Royal Nepal Airlines">RA</acronym> BKN016 SCT030 BKN100 23/20 Q1013 RE<acronym title="Royal Nepal Airlines">RA</acronym>
MKJP 230000Z 32004KT 9999 FEW016 BKN030 BKN100 24/19 Q1012
MKJP 222300Z 00000KT 9999 VCSH SCT016 SCT030 BKN100 24/20 Q1011[/FONT]

 

[JaceTheAce]

Lawmakers: "That's it, we gotta up the 1500 hour requirement to 40,000 hours. This is just getting rediculous!!!"

 

[A300Capt]

Don't know if the runway is crowned but my understanding is that the runway in Jamaica is not "Grooved" which makes hydroplaning in those conditions a very real possibility.

 

[Qgar]

I am just proud to see him still acting like a captain and not shirking his duties. His career may very well be over but at least he wasn't sitting there thinking about it he was making sure his passengers were taken care of. Bravo to him for that.

AGREED! :clap:

 

[Trip7]

I guess if you lived in a world where it's 24/7 regional versus major, MAYBE, but some of us are just professional pilots concerned about what happened and how not to get into that situation ourselves.

Only 22 post before this came up. I knew someone here would make the "major vs. minor" post eventually but we don't even have any facts on what happened yet. Lets not drag our politics into a pretty major accident before we know what or why ths happened. For all we know, the reversers or brakes could have failed??? I am just thankful that there were no fatalities.

I agree with both of you. The point I was trying to make is that pilots and lawmakers are devoting most their attention to the wrong issues. New duty/rest rules and regulations are desperately needed in this profession but we have pilots arguing it out with no end in sight in multiple 8+page threads on each pilot web board and politicians who have no idea how the life of a 121 pilot is think that a 1500 rule will save the safety of passengers.

Talk about poor allocation of resources. Why fix the brakes on your car when your tire is flat?

Initial rumors have the crew at around 14hrs of duty. Hopefully this wakeup call will actually get thru to people.

 

[deek]

So if you were another AA pilot and were going to take that plane in a few days, does the company notify you that your plane is now scrap metal and that entire trip is canceled and you have the rest of the month off? I'm guess the dispatchers go through hell trying to reschedule crews and planes when one goes down. Unless they have some on reserve sitting in the desert waiting to go??

 

[subpilot]

So if you were another AA pilot and were going to take that plane in a few days, does the company notify you that your plane is now scrap metal and that entire trip is canceled and you have the rest of the month off? I'm guess the dispatchers go through hell trying to reschedule crews and planes when one goes down. Unless they have some on reserve sitting in the desert waiting to go??

Trips are not assigned to an aircraft. They have reserve aircraft and they will just have on one of those take over.

 

[arkavgal]

This eerily reminds me of AA 1420 at LIT. Landed in probably similar conditions, hydroplaned off runway, impacted the runway landing lights and split in two, stopping just short of the Arkansas River. Some of the passengers on that flight were not fortunate to walk away, including the CA.

 

[Vector4Food]

I find it interesting guys are already eluding to this crew losing their jobs.

Why? Aircraft were landing prior to this incident, but is the airline industry that bad in the states, that a crew makes one error in judgment and/or made no real errors and the weather took a drastic turn for the worse and you simply get fired?

I hope that's not true, I doubt they showed any malice or neglect, making a mistake or a bad call is a lot different than being reckless.

 

[TFaudree_ERAU]

Why? Aircraft were landing prior to this incident, but is the airline industry that bad in the states, that a crew makes one error in judgment and/or made no real errors and the weather took a drastic turn for the worse and you simply get fired?

That's a terrible litmus test to try justify a poor decision. Just because an aircraft made it through previously doesn't mean the flight crew shouldn't face disciplinary action. If they landed in a thunderstorm, it can't be chalked up to "poo happens", even if other flights did the same thing.

I can think of a handful of incidents/accidents in which an ill fated flight was preceded by numerous other aircraft which made it through unscathed. Just this past weekend, we were in Teterboro, and aircraft were taking off and landing on a runway with AT LEAST a 15 knot tailwind component. They all made it, but had any one of them, or we, run off the end of the runway, guess where the blame would lie? On the way in, we requested a circle to land so as to have a direct crosswind. On the way out, I was proactive about the situation with clearance delivery, and by the time we taxied out, they had changed to a shorter runway with a direct crosswind. They may or may not have already had intentions to do it, but the important thing is that they did. You can't compromise safety just because everyone else is doing it.

 

[Vector4Food]

Agreed 100% TF, just like AF in Toronto a couple years ago, exact same idea with exact same outcome...

My only point is, is that if every time we fired flight crews for making a judement error, that's not going to improve the system one bit, the system gains more by learning what these guys went through, their experience is something most pilots will never endure, and hopefully by learning from these guys rather than dismissing them, fewer accidents "should" happen.

You also can't write off an aircraft accident as "Another runway overrun" There are always differing factors in plane crashes, no two are identical.

Pictures:

Nothing but luck there was no fire, in the end of it all, it's only some bruised egos and scrap metal, best possible outcome to any crash I guess.

 

[KQ7]

This is what somebody posted up at A.net. Not sure about the exact time it happened, however.

[FONT=ARIAL,]MKJP 230430Z 34011KT 44000 <acronym title="Royal Nepal Airlines">RA</acronym> BKN014 FEW016CB BKN100 21/13 Q1013 RESHRA
[/FONT]

What do the numbers after the winds mean?

 

[ILSstud]

After seeing the above pictures, it's AMAZING they didn't end up in the water! I am sure there would be much more injuries if that had been the case...interesting to (and expected I suppose) that the plane broke open at some major lap splices on the fuselages. I guess AA now has a few hundred 737-800 parts to add to their Parts/Provisioning dept.

 

[zmiller4]

What do the numbers after the winds mean?

Visibility. I think they should be in meters, but 44,000 meters is like 27 miles...and for visibility greater than 10sm, they use the "9999" (see the earlier reports). My guess would be 4400 meters. If they had added an extra "0" on there, then the lowest it got on there would have been 1150, which is a little less than 3/4 sm.

I'll add that I think it's *way* premature to make any kind of judgement on the crew and their career outlook. There's a huge range of causes of something like this, ranging from blatant crew incompetence to mechanical malfunctions totally out of their control. Ill also say that flying into Caribbean airports is not always easy--it can involve a lot of guesswork as to the actual weather and runway conditions.

 

[Gonzo]

This is what I overhear at the schoolhouse today: The weather was bad a lot of rain. The runway in not grooved and is a asphalt runway. There was talk about a flame out in one of the engines on final.

 

[Firebird2XC]

So if you were another AA pilot and were going to take that plane in a few days, does the company notify you that your plane is now scrap metal and that entire trip is canceled and you have the rest of the month off? I'm guess the dispatchers go through hell trying to reschedule crews and planes when one goes down. Unless they have some on reserve sitting in the desert waiting to go??

AA usually has a few spare aircraft in the system somewhere. There has to be leeway for maintenance, mishaps, misconnects, or other SNAFUs in the system.

There's routinely a 757 or 737 parked just waiting at DFW.


The thing that burns in terms of airframe count here is that it IS in fact one of AA's newest 737-800s. The other day I flew home from Chicago on an airframe on its FIRST revenue flight ever.

Most of the -800s have been acquired fairly recently- if not within the last two years.