AdelaideJohn1967 wrote:
Cultural BS? What do you mean?

keep up. nine posts back (from yours).

GK photo wrote:

keep up. nine posts back (from yours).

Ah........... I C

Click Hamilton wrote:
An ideal landing is touching the wheels to the ground at stall speed with the final rotation to exhaust the last of the energy and stall the plane at the end of the descent as the wheels touch the ground and take over. Faster than that and you are still flying.

I am not sure that is true in a heavy jet.  I am not the "heavy" pilot from this thread, but I actually have time in the DC-10 simulator over at Flight Safety.  We were taught to set the angle of attack and glide to aim for the target point on the runway.  Upon arrival we'd arrest the decent then retard power to let it settle.  We never made full stall landings as we did with light and medium singles.  I trained in the 421 simulater there when I got the plane (which is how I flew the DC-10).  Even with the Golden Eagle we were taught to fly it down, rather than a full stall landing. The difference was that we held the flare longer.  They put a huge emphasis there on flying by the numbers and being methodic.  I can't imagine bleeding speed early, as I'd do with an Arrow or Seminole, for example, to try to settle on the numbers. 

I suppose in theory, the ideal landing is full stall but that was never what I was taught to do on heavier planes.  I am not disagreeing with you.  From a practical standpoint though, I was never taught to fly a heavier plane that way.

I do, very much agree with you though.  A ground speed chart really is of very little use.

Click Hamilton wrote:
Thanks for the clarification. I'm talking about aerodynamics in general, and don't know anything about procedures for larger aircraft.

I'm still waiting for the heavy pilot to come back

NOTE:  I just added a comment that we weren't in disagreement.  I do agree with you on the aerodynamics.

I was always a bit of a cowboy in lighter planes.  I'd aim for the chevrons, flare while pulling the power to bleed the speed to hit the numbers.  In my youth I had more than one tower caution me "the numbers or beyond."

figurativearts wrote:
saw an analyst on the news the day it happened bring up that a similar incident had occurred in London, same type of aircraft, it seemed he was implying that at some late stage in the landing that craft also was unable to get enough power to make it to the beginning of the runway... so maybe early to assume the pilot made a mistake just yet.

cruise control malfunction?

"The pilots involved in the Asiana Airlines flight 214 crash in San Francisco told federal investigators that they set the automatic throttle controls on the plane for a proper landing speed and then discovered to their surprise that at the last moment, the plane had slowed far beyond that setting."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-575 … ing-in-sf/

.."In the interviews, the pilots said that they had set the auto throttle at 137 knots. That's the typical landing speed for the 777. What the NTSB has to confirm now is whether or not those controls were working."..

GPS Studio Services wrote:
I was always a bit of a cowboy in lighter planes.  I'd aim for the chevrons, flare while pulling the power to bleed the speed to hit the numbers.  In my youth I had more than one tower caution me "the numbers or beyond."

After the dust settles, maybe that will be the advice for the Asiana pilot?

To figurativearts: I think the 137 is the desired speed crossing the runway threshhold. This approximate speed is reported by your graph at 500 feet, which is not very high or far from where they were hoping to touch down. This is probably less than a minute from when the wheels are supposed to touch.

Click Hamilton wrote:
I wonder if there are cultural or political implications that should be examined and taken into account?

Hard to imagine that culture wouldnt have some sort of impact. Both the Korean social structure/culture and the cockpit culture.

This crash brought up the Korean Air Lines crash in Guam in 1997. The command pilot chose to disregard the input of a junior flight officer regarding an ILS signal issue. The junior officer was correct, the command pilot was wrong, and the error cost over two hundred people their lives.

The investigation after that crash sparked a lot of discussion about 2 issues: Appropriate use of ALL the resources available to the pilot--to include input from all flight crew-- and the tendencies in some cultures to defer to the senior person automatically. There was evidently some flight crew training that was mandated regarding resource use, but changing an entire culture takes time...

Considering what could have happened, I am amazed there were not many more fatalities, many more serious injuries. To have hit the ground on the bay side of the seawall, and to have remained as structurally intact as the aircraft did says a lot about the engineering of modern aircraft.

I hope the survivors and their families can heal, and my heart goes out to the friends and families of the two young girls who perished, they will have a much harder path.

figurativearts wrote:
cruise control malfunction?

"The pilots involved in the Asiana Airlines flight 214 crash in San Francisco told federal investigators that they set the automatic throttle controls on the plane for a proper landing speed and then discovered to their surprise that at the last moment, the plane had slowed far beyond that setting."
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-575 … ing-in-sf/

.."In the interviews, the pilots said that they had set the auto throttle at 137 knots. That's the typical landing speed for the 777. What the NTSB has to confirm now is whether or not those controls were working."..

My problem with that is that "auto-throttles" are there to reduce your workload.  That doesn't relieve the pilot or co-pilot from the responsibility of scanning the instruments.  If they had been paying attention, they would have quickly seen that the airspeed was dropping simply by looking at the airspeed indicator.

That having been said, I still have a hard time believing that the pilots just flew it into the ground.  Of course, that is exactly what the L-1011 pilots did some years back in the Florida Everglades.  I am sincerely hoping that they find something more than old fashioned pilot error.

GK photo wrote:
on a pure anecdotal level, my gf's brother is a pilot. he flies the single aisle sized jets, not jumbo jets (yet). i have known him for decades, and wouldn't trust him to drive me to the corner store, let alone fly me cross country.

he didn't come up through the military. he got certified going to samoa. personally, if i walked onto a plane and saw he was going to pilot it, i'd turn around and get off. i'm serious. and he's a nice guy, too. i just wouldn't trust him with my life. 

there is a heavy sense of responsibility associated with flying people around commercially. if this crash turns out to have been caused by some retarded cultural bs, then eff it. the faa should be aware of any such nonsense, and should eradicate it.

all of this is putting the cart before the horse, but i certainly hope the reason for the accident would be more mechanical failure than brain failure.

At most cultural "BS" contributed to the crash and wasn't the cause.

I can't help but wonder if this crash was so survivable simply because the plane was going so slow.

Snyder Studios wrote:
Even the NTSB information officer seemed a little confused....  straight in approach from Sacramento?  Hard to do that and land on 28L.  Think she meant San Jose...
Bay Tracon is at Oakland Airport, not Sacramento... (...and Oakland Center is in Fremont)

A "Straight In" approach simply means that they were not flying the "pattern."  Most approaches to major airports are "straight in."

When you fly the pattern, you start by flying in the opposite direction to the runway  off to the side (a large airplane, flying the pattern might be from 1-3 miles out).  You fly past the end of the runway and then turn towards the runway perpendicular to it.  As you approach the centerline, you turn again, line-up and land.

That is a common procedure at smaller, non-controlled airports.  I've had them put me into the pattern at large airports when I am approaching VFR and they ar fitting me into the inbound IFR stream.  They will sometimes bring in the jets that way if they are approaching on a day with good visibility and they are coming from the opposite direction to the runway.  It puts them into an area where landing traffic wouldn't be flying in the opposite direction.

So all that "straight in" means is that he wasn't flying the pattern.  Air Traffic Control had vectored him wide of the airport and lined him up with the runway so he could just fly "straight in" without flying the "pattern."

Raoul Isidro Images wrote:
The aborted landing could have looked like this: if it were successful...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWDOkmiJdHI

.

That is a good example and also a good example of impressive flying.  That is what an aborted landing should look like.  The pilot detects that he is having trouble because of the weather, applies power and as the engines spool up, flies it off for another try.

When you are in a jet, when you advance the thrust levers, there is a "spool up" time that it takes for the engines to increase in power.   A pilot has to stay in front of the plane and anticipate the conditions and the possibility of a "go-around."

In a prop plane, you can typically advance the throttles and the effects of the added power will be instant.  If you have to go-around, you advance the throttles to climb power and you can almost immediately start to rotate to establish a positive climb rate.

In a jet, if you advance the thrust levers and rotate with inadequate speed, before they spin up, you can actually increase, rather than decrease your rate of decent.  Raising the nose, without adequate power adds drag and if you lack sufficient lift, you actually can have the opposite effect.

Michael Bots wrote:
:snip:

This is an intriguing claim, if accurate.
http://amresolution.com/2013/07/06/remo … francisco/
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-507389.html

Let it be known that I too predict an airline crash in the near or not so near future. It will be caused by an airline hitting the ground or body of water and there will be wreckage and casualties.  Mark. My. Words.

Michael Bots wrote:
This is an intriguing claim, if accurate.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-507389.html

Calabese says Wall Street uses her services to forecast economic trends. She says she has helped police investigate murder cases. And, most astonishing of all, she says that four years ago, one of her remote viewers predicted the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

Story published February 11, 2009.  Which would mean they predicted September 11, 2001 4 years after it happened.  That's pretty awesome.

GPS Studio Services wrote:
A "Straight In" approach simply means that they were not flying the "pattern."  Most approaches to major airports are "straight in."

When you fly the pattern, you start by flying in the opposite direction to the runway  off to the side (a large airplane, flying the pattern might be from 1-3 miles out).  You fly past the end of the runway and then turn towards the runway perpendicular to it.  As you approach the centerline, you turn again, line-up and land.

That is a common procedure at smaller, non-controlled airports.  I've had them put me into the pattern at large airports when I am approaching VFR and they ar fitting me into the inbound IFR stream.  They will sometimes bring in the jets that way if they are approaching on a day with good visibility and they are coming from the opposite direction to the runway.  It puts them into an area where landing traffic wouldn't be flying in the opposite direction.

So all that "straight in" means is that he wasn't flying the pattern.  Air Traffic Control had vectored him wide of the airport and lined him up with the runway so he could just fly "straight in" without flying the "pattern."

I understand this... did not sound like then NTSB person did.  Trained in the Bay Area and have flown into most of the airports in the area except SFO as PIC.    Have flown commercial into SFO 50+ times...  Always curious I have visited both Bay Tracon and Oakland Center and watched them vector aircraft.

Raoul Isidro Images wrote:
The aborted landing could have looked like this: if it were successful...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWDOkmiJdHI

.

That is how it is supposed to work...  Was on a commercial flight landing on the same runway at SFO (San Francisco).   A plane that was supposed to be "holding short" of the runway decided to roll onto the active runway as we approached the runway threshold.  Pilot went full power and made a successful go around.  Much clapping and cheering on board.  I could see the co-pilots face on the other plane on the ground as we crossed overhead.  Thought we were going to leave skid marks on the top of their fuselage for sure.   Our pilot was on his game so no harm, no foul.

figurativearts wrote:
"The pilots involved in the Asiana Airlines flight 214 crash in San Francisco told federal investigators that they set the automatic throttle controls on the plane for a proper landing speed and then discovered to their surprise that at the last moment, the plane had slowed far beyond that setting."

The article I read this morning said the auto throttle was set, but not engaged. A two stop process that never had the second step performed...

I'm not a pilot, don't play one on tv, and didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so...

Is this plausible guys???

GPS Studio Services wrote:
A "Straight In" approach simply means that they were not flying the "pattern."  Most approaches to major airports are "straight in."

When you fly the pattern, you start by flying in the opposite direction to the runway  off to the side (a large airplane, flying the pattern might be from 1-3 miles out).  You fly past the end of the runway and then turn towards the runway perpendicular to it.  As you approach the centerline, you turn again, line-up and land.

That is a common procedure at smaller, non-controlled airports.  I've had them put me into the pattern at large airports when I am approaching VFR and they ar fitting me into the inbound IFR stream.  They will sometimes bring in the jets that way if they are approaching on a day with good visibility and they are coming from the opposite direction to the runway.  It puts them into an area where landing traffic wouldn't be flying in the opposite direction.

So all that "straight in" means is that he wasn't flying the pattern.  Air Traffic Control had vectored him wide of the airport and lined him up with the runway so he could just fly "straight in" without flying the "pattern."

Snyder Studios wrote:
I understand this... did not sound like then NTSB person did.  Trained in the Bay Area and have flown into most of the airports in the area except SFO as PIC.    Have flown commercial into SFO 50+ times...  Always curious I have visited both Bay Tracon and Oakland Center and watched them vector aircraft.

I dunno, it is just a briefing.  Being cleared for a "straight-in" approach though, doesn't sound unusual at all.  Perhaps it was just the inflection in her voice.  It seems to me that if she is capable of reconstructing a crash, she would know the difference between "the pattern" and 'straight in."

figurativearts wrote:
"The pilots involved in the Asiana Airlines flight 214 crash in San Francisco told federal investigators that they set the automatic throttle controls on the plane for a proper landing speed and then discovered to their surprise that at the last moment, the plane had slowed far beyond that setting."

joeyk wrote:
The article I read this morning said the auto throttle was set, but not engaged. A two stop process that never had the second step performed...

I'm not a pilot, don't play one on tv, and didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so...

Is this plausible guys???

It is possible that they were not set properly, it is possible that they disengaged for some reason, it is also possible that there was some kind of failure.  None of that explains why nobody on the flight deck noticed the drop in airspeed.

GPS Studio Services wrote:
It seems to me that if she is capable of reconstructing a crash, she would know the difference between "the pattern" and 'straight in."

\

She had the aircraft approaching from the Sacramento direction....  only happens a few times a year during very bad weather.  i am sure she is competent but my original point was that everyone was a little confused even the NTSB.

GPS Studio Services wrote:
It is possible that they were not set properly, it is possible that they disengaged for some reason, it is also possible that there was some kind of failure.  None of that explains why nobody on the flight deck noticed the drop in airspeed.

It seems like Chairman Hersman agrees with GPS Studio. After responding to multiple questions about the auto throttle and its various states. I won't put quotes around it because I didn't double check, but this what I heard:

HERSMAN Let me be very clear. The crew is required to maintain a safe aircraft. That means that they need to monitor. We have a flying pilot and we have two other pilots in the cockpit and they have a monitoring function. One of the very critical things that needs to be monitored on an approach to landing is speed. And so we need to understand what was going on in the cockpit and also what was going on with the aircraft.

GPS Studio Services wrote:
It seems to me that if she is capable of reconstructing a crash, she would know the difference between "the pattern" and 'straight in."

Snyder Studios wrote:
She had the aircraft approaching from the Sacramento direction....  only happens a few times a year during very bad weather.  i am sure she is competent but my original point was that everyone was a little confused even the NTSB.

That actually isn't that unusual.  I've had that happen to me on airline flights a couple of times going into SFO.  We'd be coming north up the coast, they'd fly us past the airport, send us east and then line us up to the west.  In some circumstances they seem to do it to keep traffic clear of San Jose' and Oakland. 

I wasn't there and I have no idea what his flight path was, but it is possible.

GPS Studio Services wrote:

You can't fly a coupled approach with an inoperative glideslope.  The way the approach works is that you fly straight and level until you intercept the glide slope (normally miles from the runway) and then upon interception, the auto-pilot commands a decent.  If there is no glideslope, there is nothing to couple.

What they could have done was to fly a GPS approach with vertical guidance.  That, however, would have had much higher minimums.  It is not a precision approach.  Disconnecting the autopilot 82 seconds before touchdown would be consistent with a hand flown, visual approach.  There would be nothing unusual about that.

I just think that the pilot got behind the airplane, nothing more, nothing less.  An approach speed of 103 knots is just unimaginable.  That is just a total lack of basic airspeed control.

I'd say you are right and you are wrong. They would couple the AP on the localizer and the AP would be looking to pick up the GS when it intercepted from below. No interception and the aircraft would maintain altitude and end up high.

What happened on this approach? They ended up high. It has also come out that they had the VVI bug set at 1500fpm rate of descent - which is pretty much what you would do, if you realized you had no GS. At 137 knots, the desired rate of descent for a 3 degree GS would be something under 1500 fpm, but if they were high, they might have set it that way to get down.

It is also known that the autothrottle was engaged. If you have the VVI bug set rather than an airspeed bug, what would happen if the aircraft was descending too fast -- the throttle would retard.

I agree that we can't know exactly what haqppened, but I think this is a likely scenario.

GPS Studio Services wrote:
You can't fly a coupled approach with an inoperative glideslope.  The way the approach works is that you fly straight and level until you intercept the glide slope (normally miles from the runway) and then upon interception, the auto-pilot commands a decent.  If there is no glideslope, there is nothing to couple.

What they could have done was to fly a GPS approach with vertical guidance.  That, however, would have had much higher minimums.  It is not a precision approach.  Disconnecting the autopilot 82 seconds before touchdown would be consistent with a hand flown, visual approach.  There would be nothing unusual about that.

I just think that the pilot got behind the airplane, nothing more, nothing less.  An approach speed of 103 knots is just unimaginable.  That is just a total lack of basic airspeed control.

MerrillMedia wrote:
I'd say you are right and you are wrong. They would couple the AP on the localizer and the AP would be looking to pick up the GS when it intercepted from below. No interception and the aircraft would maintain altitude and end up high.

What happened on this approach? They ended up high. It has also come out that they had the VVI bug set at 1500fpm rate of descent - which is pretty much what you would do, if you realized you had no GS. At 137 knots, the desired rate of descent for a 3 degree GS would be something under 1500 fpm, but if they were high, they might have set it that way to get down.

It is also known that the autothrottle was engaged. If you have the VVI bug set rather than an airspeed bug, what would happen if the aircraft was descending too fast -- the throttle would retard.

I agree that we can't know exactly what haqppened, but I think this is a likely scenario.

Except that the Glide Slope was unavailable and they were aware of it.  It was down for maintenance.  They were flying a visual approach and had never tried to couple.  They had armed the auto-throttles but were not flying the glide slope.

GPS Studio Services wrote:

GPS Studio Services wrote:
You can't fly a coupled approach with an inoperative glideslope.  The way the approach works is that you fly straight and level until you intercept the glide slope (normally miles from the runway) and then upon interception, the auto-pilot commands a decent.  If there is no glideslope, there is nothing to couple.

What they could have done was to fly a GPS approach with vertical guidance.  That, however, would have had much higher minimums.  It is not a precision approach.  Disconnecting the autopilot 82 seconds before touchdown would be consistent with a hand flown, visual approach.  There would be nothing unusual about that.

I just think that the pilot got behind the airplane, nothing more, nothing less.  An approach speed of 103 knots is just unimaginable.  That is just a total lack of basic airspeed control.

Except that the Glide Slope was unavailable and they were aware of it.  It was down for maintenance.  They were flying a visual approach and had never tried to couple.  They had armed the auto-throttles but were not flying the glide slope.

This is interesting.

GPS Studio Services wrote:
Except that the Glide Slope was unavailable and they were aware of it.  It was down for maintenance.  They were flying a visual approach and had never tried to couple.  They had armed the auto-throttles but were not flying the glide slope.

Do we know that they knew the GS was out of service? I know that there was a NOTAM out on it, but it would be far from the first time that a crew didn't read or get all of the NOTAMS out on a particular airport.

I they coupled for a precision approach, they should have gotten a flag that the receiver wasn't getting the GS signal, but again, aviation accidents are full of examples where pilots didn't perceive something. The autopilot would maintain altitude and fly the localizer inbound and it would keep doing that, because the aircraft would never intercept a functioning GS.

Another possibility is that they knew the GS was out of service and they flew a coupled localizer approach. To me, the term "coupled" simply means that the autopilot is following output from a navigation device. Whether its a precision ILS, a non precision localizer, VOR, GPS, etc., doesn't matter. Without the GS, they would have descended at a rate appropriate to hit the crossing altiudes required at various points along the approach. If this is the case and the autothrottle function kept pulling more and more power off, the only conclusion that I can draw is massive pilot error. Whether on autopilot or not, they should have monitoring the various flight parameters, just as they would if hand flying the aircraft.

Lots of questions, unfortunately, very few answers at this point.

GPS Studio Services wrote:

figurativearts wrote:
"The pilots involved in the Asiana Airlines flight 214 crash in San Francisco told federal investigators that they set the automatic throttle controls on the plane for a proper landing speed and then discovered to their surprise that at the last moment, the plane had slowed far beyond that setting."

It is possible that they were not set properly, it is possible that they disengaged for some reason, it is also possible that there was some kind of failure.  None of that explains why nobody on the flight deck noticed the drop in airspeed.

Exactly.