Landing Incident @ SFO

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amorris311 said:
I'd tread lightly on that one. When was the last time those guys had a landing? Regional guys can do it up to 20 times a trip. These guys are lucky to get 3 a month. We don't know if they were a reserve crew who got called out to do this trip. I see where you're going with this but remember these guys don't land nearly as often as you and I do.
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I know. I'm speculating, like I said. I'm actually done speculating now :)
 
SeanD said:
This guy knows all

quest.richard.jpg
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Found something smart he said a few years ago....
In 2006 Quest turned down an opportunity to join Al Jazeera English's news channel, the English-language version of al-Jazeera, "on the grounds that being gay and Jewish might not be suitable."

Might have been the last thing though.
 
amorris311 said:
I'd tread lightly on that one. When was the last time those guys had a landing? Regional guys can do it up to 20 times a trip. These guys are lucky to get 3 a month. We don't know if they were a reserve crew who got called out to do this trip. I see where you're going with this but remember these guys don't land nearly as often as you and I do.
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Not to mention one other thing it's easy to neglect in this accident.

Yes, it's perfect weather during this crash and a beautiful day.

The crew, however, was coming up on about 3:00-4:00AM home time after an afternoon departure in ICN. Riiiight as one's circadian rhythm starts to really try to put the brain and body to sleep, top of descent. Regardless of the breaks taken on the flight to SFO, fatigue, in my mind, is almost automatically a factor, whether they had loss of thrust like BA38, or screwed something up themselves somehow.
 
Nick said:
Not to mention one other thing it's easy to neglect in this accident.

Yes, it's perfect weather during this crash and a beautiful day.

The crew, however, was coming up on about 3:00-4:00AM home time after an afternoon departure in ICN. Riiiight as one's circadian rhythm starts to really try to put the brain and body to sleep, top of descent. Regardless of the breaks taken on the flight to SFO, fatigue, in my mind, is almost automatically a factor, whether they had loss of thrust like BA38, or screwed something up themselves somehow.
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Oh yeah.

We'll see. Can't wait to read a report.
 
///AMG said:
I haven't been following this one closely enough to know if it was VMC or not during said "approach", but I am going to guess based off the pictures that it was. If you need an ILS, or a PAPI, or a VASI, or a GPS GS to shoot a basically safe visual approach in VMC where the f'ing back end of the airplane doesn't break off on the runway, you have absolutely.....ABSOLUTELY......no business ever flying an airplane now or ever. That is the most basic example of complete and utter incompetence I can think of. If they actually did put it down thousands of feet into the under run like it appears, I hope they have everything stripped from them and never fly an airplane again. That just boggles the mind more than I can comprehend right now, especially for a crew that could have been flying my family.
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Well, yeah. Like "duh!" yeah. But as usual, there are going to be a lot of factors involved here. Could be training, fatigue, etc.

Let's face it. The accident histories are full of what could be passed of as REALLY stupid accidents that we could easily consider totally beneath us. Military and civilian. That doesn't mean it couldn't happen to you or me. Maybe not this same scenario, but something equally foolish.
 
nc1982 said:
Question for the Boeing guys, cause I think the fms are somewhat similar. If the ILS is out, and you have no other vertical guidance, can you build or put in a visual with vertical guidance as a reference in the fms? In the CRJ FMS, you can put in a visual approach, keep the needles in white, and have a snow flake to follow to help with vertical guidance on runways with no ils or papi/vasi. Just for situational awareness. Overkill, I know. But I am not chuck Yeager, and my motto in the cockpit is use all available resources to help you out.
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Yeah, same here. Pretty common for us if there's no approach to build a 5 mile fix and a 3 degree glidepath to 50' AGL into the box. You'll get the Chinese glideslope up, which is good for SA. Technique only, though. I'm with you on using all available resources, especially if you're tired and rusty (read: typical long-haul crew).

I'm a 767 guy (no 777 time), but there isn't as much kinesthetic "seat of the pants" sense, or direct control feedback as in smaller aircraft. Not to say pure visuals are difficult in larger aircraft (they're not), but the basic sense of being fast or slow, high or low, and your sink rate can be more difficult to discern when simply looking out the window.

Then there's the topic of proficiency. Looking at my logbook, I'm just approaching 1000 hours in the 767/757 series over the last 3 years, and I have 78 landings in the actual jet. You can do the math on how often I actually fly, and that's probably more, on average, than a 777 guy gets. Add in fatigue at the end of a long-haul, and this proficiency problem is magnified.
 
nc1982 said:
Also another thing to consider. Us guys in the states, we do hand flown visuals with no vertical guidance such as an ils or papi/vasi all the time. Why? Because sometimes we fly into Podunk airports that don't have any vertical guidance. But these 777 guys, they fly into big international airports. Kennedy, Sfo, Chicago, etc. Take away an ILS, take away a papi, get slam dunked into SFO on a visual, and add in the culture over there, it can easily get ugly. Pilots fault or not, let's remember as fellow crew members how hard it must be for those pilots and flight attendants. Foreign soil, no family, just crashed a 777, will be grilled by investigators from 2 countries.
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Sorry...but I gotta say I don't give a crap about that. If you can't do a visual approach, on a clear day, to a large international airport... You shouldn't be flying a 777. (Or any airplane). Screw "the culture over there". Land the airplane. If you can't do it VMC how the heck can you do it at 1/2 and 200ft.
 
SeanD said:
I was talking with the FAA public affairs guy for west coast operations for an article I was doing for my old employer and he said the same thing. He referenced a good book that highlighted a Korean Air crash and how they brought in some US folks to train them in CRM because it didnt exist at the time. I cant recall the name of the book.
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Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. that's only a portion of the book, but overall a very interesting read. Especially that specific section.. too bad CRM is still terrible there.
 
GypsyPilot said:
It's one thing to go to an airport you know for a fact that doesn't have an ILS. It's another to show up to an airport after flying all night, expect to just ride the ILS down, and then discover a few miles out that the GS is OTS. Obviously a review of the NOTAMS would prepare the crew well in advance, but sometimes stuff happens. Maybe they missed it, maybe they didn't bother to read them, who knows. But to all of a sudden have to prepare for no vertical guidance at an unfamiliar airport when you are tired and totally screwed up on your body clock is not a good situation.

I know SFO as well as any airport. Actually, SFO feels like a small airport that happens to be a pretty big international airport. I pretty much ALWAYS know what to expect (at SFO), from arrivals/departures, approaches, and taxi routes. SFO is far more predictable to me than even my home airport (DEN), and I can shoot visuals into there all day long without a GS or VASI. But that's only because I know the place so damn well. This crew did not have that benefit, and that is a HUGE factor for something like a GS being out on both runways.
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Obviously you must have interviewed this crew already. Tell us all the details please?

You do realize Asiana hires expat CAs and FOs on the 777 right? Just as you are speculating, it could also be one pilot in that cockpit was a furloughed United pilot who used to be based at SFO. The point is NO one knows yet and to say anything else (like this crew didn't know SFO well) is pure speculation and unnecessary.
 
Seggy said:
1). Windshear
2). Loss of thrust that has the airplane just sink
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3). Unstabilized approach/ Being too high, pulling power to compensate and not recovering quickly enough.
4). Human factors............

A tired crew, lack of a glide slope, clearance for a visual while still close and high in relation to the field, windshear, distracted by the people kite sailing on about a 4 mile final, another aircraft on 28R flying in VERY close proximity making the TCAS very 'angry' (only in visual conditions). I'm sure the list could go on and on. They all could have played a factor. Who knows?

This was bad, but it could have been so much worse.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Obviously you must have interviewed this crew already. Tell us all the details please?

You do realize Asiana hires expat CAs and FOs on the 777 right? Just as you are speculating, it could also be one pilot in that cockpit was a furloughed United pilot who used to be based at SFO. The point is NO one knows yet and to say anything else (like this crew didn't know SFO well) is pure speculation and unnecessary.
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Well the one on the Radio was not a native English speaker.
 
Lee D said:
3). Unstabilized approach/ Being too high, pulling power to compensate and not recovering quickly enough.
4). Human factors............

A tired crew, lack of a glide slope, clearance for a visual while still close and high in relation to the field, windshear, distracted by the people kite sailing on about a 4 mile final, another aircraft on 28R flying in VERY close proximity making the TCAS very 'angry' (only in visual conditions). I'm sure the list could go on and on. They all could have played a factor. Who knows?

This was bad, but it could have been so much worse.
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No doubt. That UA 747 was only a few yards from being a casualty. I'm surprised there weren't more deaths or injuries considering it doesn't look like the pax were given any sort of warning to brace.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Obviously you must have interviewed this crew already. Tell us all the details please?

You do realize Asiana hires expat CAs and FOs on the 777 right? Just as you are speculating, it could also be one pilot in that cockpit was a furloughed United pilot who used to be based at SFO. The point is NO one knows yet and to say anything else (like this crew didn't know SFO well) is pure speculation and unnecessary.
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I was commenting on another post, so don't get so defensive. Also, did you miss the part where I was defending this crew? Take a chill pill. Better yet, stay out of this thread if you're going to be one of those annoying goofballs complaining about speculation.
 
First off, no one has one damn clue what happened yet so there is no sense getting into arguments over hypotheticals.

As for the approach, they could have and probably had it in LOC/VNAV so they did not need the GS to back up the visual. Most new Boeing aircraft do this very and they most likely had some sort of approach programmed into the FMC. Even if it was a non precision approach such as a LOC/VNAV, they would have been able to use the flight director all the way to the runway as long as there is a runway waypoint in the FMC.

Visual approaches work the same way in all aircraft that I have flown. Pick a spot on the windscreen and a point on the runway. I've got 3,000 hours in the 747-400/-8 and just over 100 now in the 777 for large aircraft experience. The visual approach is the same as it was in a 172, ATR, Lear 24 etc. I would like to give these guys the benefit of the doubt until any information comes out to change my mind.

Besides, my father used to say that speculating on these things is like sleeping with your sister. Sure she's a great piece of tail with a blouse full of goodies....but it's just illegal. Then you get into that whole inbred thing, kids with no teeth who do nothing but play the banjo...eat applesauce through a straw...pork farm animals. ;)
 
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