Airliner crash in Toronto

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a) Why a professional crew attempts a landing with a severe thunderstorm in progress, not just in close proximity but on the runway they are landing on? and

b) Why ATC could be well aware of the storm, so concerned that ramp operations had been suspended for frequent lightning, yet not have the authority to close the airport to approaches and departures? And why are they specifically forbidden from closing the airport during severe weather until there is actual burning wreckage on the airport?

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Those were the exact same two questions that I asked myself.

Also, can anyone hazard a guess as to what you think will happen with the captain and first officer? Do you think they will be suspended? Or fired? Something else? Probably only time will tell as the whole picture comes into focus.
 
If the put an approach ban in place when the ramp was closed for lightning, DFW would be shut down almost every other day!
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I'm not trying to be cavalier but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the problem was not getting stopped. That can happen with a CAVU OK day or a driving Oklahoma icestorm.
 
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If the put an approach ban in place when the ramp was closed for lightning, DFW would be shut down almost every other day!
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I'm not trying to be cavalier but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the problem was not getting stopped. That can happen with a CAVU OK day or a driving Oklahoma icestorm.

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If attempting a landing in a severe thunderstorm is seen as a problem of "not getting stopped" by a line pilot, well that kind of makes the point. In other words, attempting such landings is OK, if you make it. If you don't the problem is the impact.

And of course the point about lightning is simple. If you have lightning on the airport you have a thunderstorm on the airport. By definition a thunderstorm contains lightning. Every line pilot has had situations where thunderstorms are within the airport perimeter or in close proximity, but not effecting the runway or approach corridor. These are reasonable judgment calls. In the case of LIT, and now YYZ, the storms were unusually severe and were located on the approach path and runway. In the LIT case people died. In the YYZ case passengers escaped a broken and burning airplane into the driving rain and lightning of a severe thunderstorm and scrambled out of a ravine onto a highway to safety. The airplane was totally consumed by the fire. Which part of this is acceptable is hard to understand.

When you elect to press a landing in these conditions not only are you directly violating company procedures, which in all cases call for staying clear of thunderstorms, you are putting the lives of your passengers in the hands of a weather phenomonon that is impossible to predict and is powerful enough to swat your airplane out of the sky like it's a gnat. Any outcome after that is pure chance.

I've heard the canard many times that "heck, if we closed the airport everytime there's a thunderstorm we wouldn't fly at all". Well the truth is if line pilots don't know enough to take the discussion beyond that level, the decision needs to be taken out of their hands and given to someone else. As I said, the government took action to make it strictly the captain's decision. So that's where we stand right now. Clearly the traveling public is not aware of this. Many line pilots believe that airports are closed for severe weather, which calls into question whether they even know it is 100% their responsibity and no one else's.

These guys in YYZ put that airplane in that ravine when they made the decision to land. After that the storm was in charge. It's no way to fly an airplane and is no more a "stopping" issue than LIT was a "fatigue" issue. But I suspect this one will go quietly away, after all to no credit of the cockpit crew, nobody died. They all ran or crawled away, so, no harm no foul I guess.
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And of course the point about lightning is simple. If you have lightning on the airport you have a thunderstorm on the airport. By definition a thunderstorm contains lightning.

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May as well close MCO then from June-October. Seriously. The ramp there gets closed at least two or three times a day, and sometimes the sun is shining. The ramp closes when there is lightning within five miles of the airport in MCO, but I don't know about other airports. Never had to deal with t-storms while working on the ramp in MEM since it was winter. They tend to be fairly scarce then. There have been more times than I can count that planes have been sitting at the gate waiting to be flagged in, but the ramp was closed. Most of the time, flights will continue to land as long as there is the required visibility. The few times I've seen the airport closed was due to heavy rain that restricted vis and SEVERE t-storms. Keep in mind this is not from a pilot point of view, so I only know what's going on at surface level and operational level. Anything above 1000 ft, I had no idea what was going on. That being said, a go around should always be an option, and I've seen pilots make the decision during some of those t-storm landings at MCO. I've also seen a Virgin 747 attempt to land when all of our SWA guys were either diverting to TPA or holding. He wound up going around.
 
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And of course the point about lightning is simple. If you have lightning on the airport you have a thunderstorm on the airport. By definition a thunderstorm contains lightning.

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May as well close MCO then from June-October. Seriously. The ramp there gets closed at least two or three times a day, and sometimes the sun is shining. The ramp closes when there is lightning within five miles of the airport in MCO, but I don't know about other airports.

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I know what you mean. I wouldn't want to see a system that closed airports for lightning strikes within 5 miles. I was trying to make a couple of points:

1) Lightning verifies thunderstorms. One of the ways you know you are flying into a potentially severe storm is frequent lightning. This was reported by many witnesses in this crash.

2) As things stand now airports routinely stop ramp operations for lightning. Paradoxically, weather cannot get severe enough for the tower to be able to suspend landing and takeoff operations. There are basically two times that airports are closed by ATC for severe weather. One is when the controllers feel it's unsafe to be in the tower cab. The other is when there is burning wreckage on the field from an attempt to operate in the severe weather. This is simply insane. I sat in a line of airplanes waiting for takeoff in ATL one day as it was overrun by a line of severe thunderstorms. Airplanes continued making approaches because winds and visibility permitted it. Conditions got so bad you could hear the controllers voice shaking as he issued clearances. In our parked MD-80 we wondered if we were going to weathervane on the taxiway as both the co-pilot and I tried to hold on to the control wheel. Finally I had enough. When I heard another airplane check in at the marker and get landing clearance from the tower I keyed the mike and said, "Everybody on approach needs to go around, we have a severe thunderstorm on the airport". After that other crews chimed in and finally the airport was closed to operations. But only because no more captains would accept approaches.

That was some years ago, but the system is unchanged today. The controllers are required to clear you into conditions that they know are unsafe. And they are very limited in what they can communicate about those conditions. I guarantee that if that controller knew one of his loved ones was on one of those airplanes on approach to ATL that day, he would have figured out a way to stop it. And that stinks.

In a perfect world captains would never attempt what that Air France crew did. The issue is not going around, it's to not even attempt to penetrate a thunderstorm that is on the approach path or runway. Hydroplaning alone is a good enough reason to not land with a thunderstorm on the runway. And it's on a list of about 20 reasons not to do it.

The idea that schedules will suffer if crews don't penetrate thunderstorms is a ridiculous argument. There is simply no excuse to penetrate thunderstorms. Period. And applying this rule would have no measurable effect on schedules.

The cure for accidents like YYZ is simple and should be a golden rule for any professional pilot. Never attempt a landing or takeoff if you even suspect a thunderstorm is on your runway or any part of your flight path. Do that and the crashes at LIT and YYZ and CLT and DFW and MSY and JFK and RDU etc. etc. never happen.

The reason the reports of intense rain were so typical is this: There has never been a fatal commercial windshear accident that didn't have, as a component, the presence of and penetration of intense rain outflows. This crash just joins a long list.
 
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a) Why a professional crew attempts a landing with a severe thunderstorm in progress, not just in close proximity but on the runway they are landing on? and

b) Why ATC could be well aware of the storm, so concerned that ramp operations had been suspended for frequent lightning, yet not have the authority to close the airport to approaches and departures? And why are they specifically forbidden from closing the airport during severe weather until there is actual burning wreckage on the airport?

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Those were the exact same two questions that I asked myself.

Also, can anyone hazard a guess as to what you think will happen with the captain and first officer? Do you think they will be suspended? Or fired? Something else? Probably only time will tell as the whole picture comes into focus.

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These were two experience pilots in the left & right seat, I am sure that both pilots landed in bad weather before, perhaps when they decided to land, the weather had cleared up just enough for a landing???? Basically, I never question the pilots in the front, they are in charge of the airplane and I place my life in their hands

The day when we start to question the judgement of the pilots, will be the day I stop to fly.
 
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The day when we start to question the judgement of the pilots, will be the day I stop to fly.

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The judgment of captains has always been questioned. It's the nature of the job. The biggest advancements in aviation safety have usually come when things are taken out of the realm of a "judgment call". A good example would be ground icing accidents. These used to compete with windshear accidents for most fatallities. Then it was refined to the point where it came down to tables and times, taking much of the judgment or guess work out of it. So far it's been the end of those type of accidents. Things like that get addressed when pilots show by frequent bad outcomes, that for whatever reason, they are making "bad" judgment calls.

While there have been attempts to do this with thunderstorm/windshear accidents there is still a lot of good judgment required. If you have something that requires "judgment" then you must have superior training and guidelines. And for each judgment call you must have all the information. This is lacking in this area. Many professional pilots cannot annunciate a clear, concise strategy that they apply to terminal area thunderstorm decisions. Many do not know how to properly operate and interpret their radar in the terminal area. Also the continued evidence that pilots penetrate thunderstorms during takeoffs and landings shows a definite weakness in this area. There are many reasons that windshear accidents have abated since the 80s. Unfortunately, it's not because pilots no longer try to fly through thunderstorms in the terminal area. And worldwide there is still at least one fatal accident a year from attempting to takeoff or land in a thunderstorm. Too much.

The time to stop flying is when we stop questioning the judgment of pilots. Especially ones that have just flown into a severe thunderstorm and left their airplane burning in a ravine.
 
Here's the thing.

There are two people who were in the cockpit at the time of the crash. Nobody here is one of those two people.

It would be a good idea to let the investigators finish doing their job before we start drawing conclusions about the judgement of these two.
 
Latest info is that they toucheddown too far down the runway. IMO, If they toucheddown safely they probably could have made the landing, provided there wasn't some crazy sideways motions. I would like to see how far down they toucheddown!!!!!
 
Thunderstorms present a very unique situation to pilots. This is due to the fact that every thunderstorm is unique...and getting to know the characteristics of the convective activity near you...many times becomes guesswork.

Every line pilot has flown near convective activity. The majority of the time the flight conditions encountered near the activity is not nearly as severe as what may have been expected. Pilots are "can do" people who want to get the job done. Based on past experiences in similar situations...a crew may be inclined to press because they have been in similar situations time and time again with sucessful outcomes. We all need to monitor this type of behavior within ourselves. We want to become safer pilots with experience....not more dangerous.

Eventually, however, there will come a time when you misjudge the severity of the situation around you. Even using weather radar it is difficult to assess what's ahead of you. Weather radar has it's limitations and ultimately the crew must assess the surrounding conditions in concert with the radar to judge the threat ahead. For even the most experienced crews...the final assessment becomes nothing more than a guess.

Because of these limations...I have become more inclined to give all convective activity a wide berth. Enroute...I am more likely to fly 100 miles around an area of convective weather...than to shoot the gap between a developing line of weather that I can't see through. Having a jet that flies at .80 Mach and has a range of 6000NM does aid in making this decision however. I do realize that that option becomes more critiical in a Baron or a King Air that does not have the range or speed to make such deviations. Then the decisions may involve a diversion and fuel stop. Tough call to make.

Bottom line....be 100% confident in the outcome of the path ahead of your aircraft. If there is a 95% chance that things will work out okay...that's not good enough. Find a path ahead that gives you 100% confidence in it's outcome.
 
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Bottom line....be 100% confident in the outcome of the path ahead of your aircraft. If there is a 95% chance that things will work out okay...that's not good enough. Find a path ahead that gives you 100% confidence in it's outcome.

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Excellent point. In a convective environment if you can't be sure the approach and runway is free of thunderstorm activity, then by definition it's not safe to make the approach.

To question the judgment of the Air France pilots is not to attack them personally. Pilots aren't squeezed out of the birth canal with flying judgment. Judgment comes from education, training, practice, experience and adequate information. The whole area of thunderstorm/windshear avoidance and radar operation should be an embarrassment to the industry. These are not things to learn by trial and error. I suspect that the Air France pilot's training was inadequate, simply because I don't know of any adequate training being done in the industry right now.

And the area of adequate real time information so pilots can make good calls is wanting too. I'm just hoping that Canadian and French officials use this event to make some changes and that the US gets involved too.
 
Actually investigators are now ruling out the tunderstorm theory. And they say that unlike many people speculate, the aircraft touchdown in the normal landing zone. It had something to do about a sudden tailwind and change of wind direction.
 
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Latest info is that they toucheddown too far down the runway. IMO, If they toucheddown safely they probably could have made the landing, provided there wasn't some crazy sideways motions. I would like to see how far down they toucheddown!!!!!

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Well that's the crazy thing about landing in severe weather. Sometimes you land short, like Delta 191 or Eastern 66, sometimes you make it around, sometimes you land long like American 1420 and Air France, and sometimes you land on the numbers and get to think about it over a cold one or six. You just never know which it's going to be. Kind of like putting one shell in a revolver, spinning the cylinder and pulling the trigger.
 
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The whole area of thunderstorm/windshear avoidance and radar operation should be an embarrassment to the industry. These are not things to learn by trial and error. I suspect that the Air France pilot's training was inadequate, simply because I don't know of any adequate training being done in the industry right now.

And the area of adequate real time information so pilots can make good calls is wanting too. I'm just hoping that Canadian and French officials use this event to make some changes and that the US gets involved too.

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Flyover,

Good posts in this topic.

You've got a lot of good experience to bestow here. I remember being in my early 20's flying single pilot night freight and learning this stuff on my own. I knew absolutely nothing about thunderstorms and sought advice from every experienced pilot I ran into in the crew rooms. I still remember great advice from 20 year night freight veterans. I think the best countermeasure is experienced crews. Pilots have to get out there and learn from experienced ones. Historically, the 15 year upgrade times at the majors allowed this type of experienced to be accrued before a Captain seat was to be had. Not the case anymore...especially at the regionals. Having said that....this AF crew was supposedely very senior and experienced! So complacency can get us too....we all need to be professional and exersize sound judgment.

Experience doesn't mean anything if you don't use it to make good decisions.
 
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Actually investigators are now ruling out the tunderstorm theory. And they say that unlike many people speculate, the aircraft touchdown in the normal landing zone. It had something to do about a sudden tailwind and change of wind direction.

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If they are saying a sudden tailwind and direction shift, I'd say that very much does not rule out the thunderstorm theory..........in fact, validates it even more. Sounds like maybe a microburst/windshear, typical of a severe thunderstorm on the field?
 
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Actually investigators are now ruling out the tunderstorm theory. And they say that unlike many people speculate, the aircraft touchdown in the normal landing zone. It had something to do about a sudden tailwind and change of wind direction.

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If they are saying a sudden tailwind and direction shift, I'd say that very much does not rule out the thunderstorm theory..........in fact, validates it even more. Sounds like maybe a microburst/windshear, typical of a severe thunderstorm on the field?

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Sorry, I meant lightning strike. They ruled out the possibility of lightning having struck the aircraft.
 
Pity he didn't ask for al anding on one of the 11,000 or so feet runways, maybe he wouldn't of overshot then!!
Apparently they were in a holding stack for 15 minutes due to the weather, and this one was a gap in the weather!! Some gap!!
 
Somewhere I read that this occured on the same day and airport as an AC accident in which 109 people died, is that true?
 
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