We know that the glide slope for the ILS was out of service for both runways 28L and 28R:
!SFO 06/005 SFO NAV ILS RWY 28L GP OTS WEF 1306011400-1308222359From the videos taken by onlookers, it was a VFR day. The weather was FEW 016, visibility was ten miles, winds from the southwest at 7 knots. The visual glideslope (PAPI) was operational. A student pilot on a first solo would not have been challenged by those conditions.
!SFO 06/004 SFO NAV ILS RWY 28R GP OTS WEF 1306011400-1308222359
I'm going to guess at two things: First off, an over-reliance on the automation, coupled with a degradation of stick-and-rudder skills. Modern airliners are getting pretty close to the "pilot and dog" crew.* With a full ILS operating, most newer airliners will land themselves. Without a glideslope input, the pilots would likely have to hand-fly the final approach. They may not have been comfortable with that, especially if they'd been using the autoland all of the time.
Second is cultural: Asiana Airlines might have been more hierarchical than an American carrier. This is a tough issue, for it took a long time for our own carriers to understand that the culture of "the captain is always right" was getting people killed. Even so, it takes a pretty good first officer to say "hey, Boss, I think you're screwing this approach up."
Without meaning to sound like an airline apologist, it probably is worth mentioning that one of the reasons for the wall-to-wall coverage of a crash that killed so few people is that airline crashes are damned rare. The 777 has been in service for 18 years and this is only the second time that one has crashed (the first crash with fatalities). By comparison, after the 727 entered service in 1964, there were three crashes in 1965, with only one of the crashes having more than a few survivors. You can compare the coverage of the crash to the derailment in Quebec or the air-taxi crash in Alaska to gauge the rarity of a large airliner crashing these days.
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* The pilot is there in case of emergencies, the dog's job is to bite the pilot if he touches anything.
I didn't have any time to read about the crash, but saw the video on a screen in bar yesterday. My first thoughts were, "Holy crap, how did he get that low on the approach?" and "Did they suddenly lose power? Run out of gas? Can a 777 get behind the power curve?"
ReplyDeleteThen I saw words on the screen that said the pilot called a go-around 1.5 seconds before impact. 1.5 seconds!? Was it a typo? Did they mean 150 seconds?
ReplyDeleteWAAS for Guided Visual Approaches. Visual Approaches without avionics guided backups are dangerous.
Visual Approaches without avionics guided backups are dangerous.
ReplyDeleteSubstantiation, please.
I was outside hiking that day on the ridge overlooking SFO. I can verify that, after the fog burned off around 10am, the day was gorgeous. Not much wind, which made it a bit of a hot hike, but plenty of sunshine and few clouds.
ReplyDeleteThis may have been the first time that this pilot attempted to land a 777 by stick, since this was only his 9th flight. Usually on the big jets they do stick landing training with the ILS glide slope operational so that if they get off slope, they have guidance. Coming in over the water is especially interesting because it's very hard to judge distance over water, water lacks any features to help you there, though SFO has some pontoon piers sticking out to give visual reference. Add in the fact that water is around 10-15 feet lower than the airport itself, and if you're using the water as your reference, it may be easy to get too low. This wasn't the airport or time to do stick training... he should have handed over the jet to his mentor. As you say, culture may have played a part, he would have viewed that as losing face...
The PAPI was operational (not now, the crash took it out).
ReplyDeleteThe reporting seems to be that the pilot got low and slow. In essence, he was out of altitude, airspeed and ideas at the same time. I kind of discount the "first time landing at SFO" part, everybody has got to land somewhere for the first time. But getting slow and low and not recognizing it until just before the tail hit the water on a runway with a working visual glideslope?
I don't6 see how both the pilot flying and the pilot not flying aren't going to take their lumps over this one.
I remember that phrase as a very young (and long, long ago) student pilot. Though I never "ran" out of altitude, I approached the point of airspeed and especially ideas.
ReplyDeleteMy IP never let me forget it - and I blessed him for it many times.
Bear
No question he got behind the bird and was not flying it. The video I've seen was clear he was too stinking low more than a mule before the runway and with an approach speed of 150kts he had more than minutes to get to that
ReplyDeletespot and by then he was obviously in trouble. Those big engines need
some time to spool up and generate serious thrust.
There is no reason why any aircraft can't be landed at SFO BOS or with
simple visual aids.
FYI the heaviest glider in the world (space shuttle) used to be landed using visual approach. The pilots loved that brick.
As a student pilot I had to lean to land with my eyes and a altimeter
and airspeed on grass. It wasn't hard or even dangerous. Later I learned to do it precisely without an engine (gliders).
It should be damn embarrassing to all involved in flying that bird with GPS(with WAAS), radar altimeter, a standard altimeter, auto throttles,airspeed indicator, Internersal nav, PAPI, a copilot, and a functional set of mark 1 eyes.
Same error killed Thurmon Munson, got slow, low and behind the power curve and landed short (aka crash with ground).
Eck!
thanks for share........
ReplyDeleteOne thing that really impressed me was the press conference held by NTSB Chairman, Deborah Hersman. She was the most competent, erudite and clear presenter I can remember at any press conference.
ReplyDelete