Korean 777 Down in SFO

Greg Bockelman said:
Thing is, I never saw any holes large enough for a person to get "ejected" through.

Still dubious.
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What's the seating configuration look like near the rear bulkhead?

Looks like the lower half of the pressure bulkhead and who knows how much floor was damaged when the tail impacted the seawall.

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Can a plane like the 777 make a power off landing?
 
Stanford Hospital said Sunday that it treated 55 patients from the Asiana crash, 11 of whom were admitted. Two of those patients were listed in critical condition about noon Sunday; the others were either in fair or good condition.

Another seven were taken to Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, officials said, and were listed in good condition Sunday.

Three of the patients at San Francisco General went directly into surgery -- Knudson herself led one of the teams. The most seriously hurt patients had abdominal injuries, spinal fractures causing paralysis, and injuries to the head, she said. Some also suffered sternum fractures from a seat in front collapsing on them.

Knudson said two of the critical patients had "road rash" all over their bodies -- back, face, extremities -- suggesting they may have been dragged along the pavement. She said she was surprised to see those injuries and wasn't sure how the patients ended up with them.

She said most of the patients at the hospital were sitting toward the back of the plane, and two may be stewardesses but hadn't been identified. Knudson, who treated trauma patients in Iraq in 2008 with the Air Force, said she performed two surgeries Saturday -- abdominal and thoracic -- and had many more ahead.
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http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-plane-crash-hospitals-20130707,0,3410271.story
 
redtail said:
Just watched a video of the crash on CNN
WoW!:eek:


I can now see how one could call that a cartwheel,
Holy cow. Looked like a ground loop!
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Yeah, looks like the nose was the only thing on the ground for a good portion if the rotation.
 
Initial NTSB data from CVR and FDR appear to show a low, slow approach, with an attempted go around 1.5 sec before impact. All systems appear to have been working
 
Greg Bockelman said:
I can see it. (Keep in mind, this is just a scenario of what COULD have happened. I am not saying that this is what happened.)

If the plane was a bit high, and a bit fast, I can see the crew pulling the power to flight idle to try to get back on glidepath. Now, keep in mind that it takes X amount of time for the engines to spool up from flight idle. That is engine dependent. The Pratts on the 777 spool up relatively quickly, but it still takes some time.

So now, the plane is coming up on glidepath, but that is happening at about 100 feet or so. The crew pushes up the throttles but due to the spool up time, the plane sinks below the glidepath. The crew pushes up the power more and just as the engines finally do spool up, the plane hits the sea wall.

That could account for what one passenger observed and that is the power coming up as or before they hit the wall.

Again, it is what COULD have happened, not necessarily what DID happen.

At UAL we have a policy that the power must be up preferably by 1500 feet, but no lower than 1000 feet. If the power is not up by 1000 feet, it is a mandatory go around. It is all part of the stabilized approach criteria.
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According to the NTSB briefing just now, I think you've nailed it!
 
I still don't understand why they are dragging it in on a 11,370 foot long runway...:dunno::dunno:....:mad2:
 
SCCutler said:
None of which I am aware.
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astanley said:
AA299 - MIA-LAX on 28 Feb 2008. 777-200ER with Trents. It was 2,000 AGL when the left engine did not respond to autothrottle commands for approximately 15 seconds.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...7-engine-fails-to-respond-to-throttle-221923/

Delta had an incident as well. The BA and DL incident prompted the release of a safety recommendation related to the fuel oil heat exchanger.

http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/recletters/2009/A09_17_18.pdf

Cheers,

-Andrew
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I think we're dabbling in semantics; these are both issues with the fuel heaters on the RR Trent-equipped airframes, essentially powerplant issues, not airframe issues.

But I guess that sounds a lot like, "Besides these, this has never happened."
 
The same flight OZ214 today (a day after the crash) is interesting to compare on Flightaware.

You can just imagine that ATC would have given a lot of thought to how they would choose an approach for this flight today. They put it in a holding pattern before the approach. Then they had it land on a cross-wind runway, 19L or 19R, even though they are much shorter than 28L and 28R.

I wonder if ATC did that because 19L has an ILS approach.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAR214.
 
NoHeat said:
The same flight OZ214 today (a day after the crash) is interesting to compare on Flightaware.

You can just imagine that ATC would have given a lot of thought to how they would choose an approach for this flight today. They put it in a holding pattern before the approach. Then they had it land on a cross-wind runway, 19L or 19R, even though they are much shorter than 28L and 28R.

I wonder if ATC did that because 19L has an ILS approach.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAR214.
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IMHO....

Usually ATC will take incoming flights AWAY from the wreckage of a previous crash for several reasons...

1- An investigation in going on.
2- They don't want to expose the public to the aftermath of a crash.
3- If there is a question of ground based nav aids OTS, they will default to a working system..
4- All of the above...:yes:
 
A friend says that a TSA guard at San Jose (SJC) told him that the baggage handlers in Korea are in trouble because the baggage shifted, and that all airports in the Bay Area are flooded with hundreds of undercover officers until the cause is determined.
 
N801BH said:
IMHO....

Usually ATC will take incoming flights AWAY from the wreckage of a previous crash for several reasons...

1- An investigation in going on.
2- They don't want to expose the public to the aftermath of a crash.
3- If there is a question of ground based nav aids OTS, they will default to a working system..
4- All of the above...:yes:
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I remember flying right over the wreckage of the Northwest crash in Detroit 2 days after it happened.
 
N801BH said:
IMHO....

Usually ATC will take incoming flights AWAY from the wreckage of a previous crash for several reasons...

1- An investigation in going on.
2- They don't want to expose the public to the aftermath of a crash.
3- If there is a question of ground based nav aids OTS, they will default to a working system..
4- All of the above...:yes:
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28 R is back in service. 28 L and 28 R have been without a glide slope since June 1 but have obviously been in use without it.
 
ElPaso Pilot said:
What's the seating configuration look like near the rear bulkhead?
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Can't speak to Asiana, but ours have the aft galley and a row of lavatories before it gets into passenger seating. IOW there is about 10 or 15 feet of cabin aft of the last row of passenger seats.
 
I was just reminded that in Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about how the Korean culture of never challenging authority let the Captain fly another jet well below glideslope while the FO watched in silence. Everyone died.
 
ateamer said:
A friend says that a TSA guard at San Jose (SJC) told him that the baggage handlers in Korea are in trouble because the baggage shifted, and that all airports in the Bay Area are flooded with hundreds of undercover officers until the cause is determined.
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I don't see any reason a TSA source is any more knowledgeable on the topic than, say, an IRS agent or a Capitol tour guide. This event has nothing to do with security.
 
mikea said:
I was just reminded that in Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about how the Korean culture of never challenging authority let the Captain fly another jet well below glideslope while the FO watched in silence. Everyone died.
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That pretty much sums up my understanding.
 
us AAirways said:
Can a plane like the 777 make a power off landing?
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Yes, any plane can make a power off landing. But you have to maintain a different (steeper) glide slope angle, in other words you better plan accordingly.
 
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Greg Bockelman said:
Can't speak to Asiana, but ours have the aft galley and a row of lavatories before it gets into passenger seating. IOW there is about 10 or 15 feet of cabin aft of the last row of passenger seats.
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Yours also have a couple more rows. Flew on one yesterday, row 44 and we had 3 rows behind us before a block of lavs and then the galley.
 
Threefingeredjack said:
I'm still trying to fathom how this could have happened given the benign weather. Back in the Dark Ages when I was learning to fly Orville, or maybe it was Wilbur, told me to pick a spot on the runway and watch it to gauge my glide path. I'm sure we all learned the same thing. I've never flown anything close to a 777 in size, a HC-130 being the largest thing I have been trusted with, but that trick works in them and I suspect it works in 777s as well. It seems to me that this is looking more and more like a lack of basic airmanship a la Air France 330.
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Dragging it in low and slow. Late go-around. Stretching the glide. Three things that every (i hope) student has drilled into them not to do. Or more accurately, drilled on the correct actions to take when you realize they're in the situation.

Unless someone comes up with this being an autopilot landing with something in the power system defective but not detected.

We will see in a few days when the black box is analyzed.
 
bflynn said:
Dragging it in low and slow. Late go-around. Stretching the glide. Three things that every (i hope) student has drilled into them not to do. Or more accurately, drilled on the correct actions to take when you realize they're in the situation.

Unless someone comes up with this being an autopilot landing with something in the power system defective but not detected.

We will see in a few days when the black box is analyzed.
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The one question I have is whether the autothrottles were engaged or not. The a/ts on the 777 are pretty good about maintaining speed. Even a low, slow dragged in approach could be managed by the a/t. The NTSB said they plane was well below ref, so it will be interesting to find out why. Maybe Asiana pilots shut them off. Or it's what Greg said earlier about being high then diving for the glide and not having enough room to get out of it. The engines spooled up too slow. The GEs, which I think is what Asiana flies, do spool up fairly quickly and they have a ton of umph behind them.

If you ask for it early enough. Asking for a GA 1.5sec from impact is pointless.
 
Rex Kramer said:
Asking for a GA 1.5sec from impact is pointless.
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There was a "what if" question somewhere else - what if they asked for GA 6 sec before - first time when they noticed they were too slow. Would that be enough? Is GA possible even if aircraft is bound to touch the runway anyway?
 
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olasek said:
There was a "what if" question somewhere else - what if they asked for GA 6 sec before - first time when they noticed they were too slow. Would that be enough? Is GA possible even if aircraft is bound to touch the runway anyway?
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Probably and yes.
 
Dav8or said:
Ummm... They were flung out of an airplane about 30' up and well over 100mph onto hard ground. Save the money on the examination.

Cause of death- airplane crash.
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That's not the reason they do a medical exam. Was it blunt force trauma that occurred prior to ejection? Were they wearing a seatbelt? Were the injuries consistent with striking a part of the airplane, the runway, or something else? Are there injuries that suggest that the seat failed at the point of impact?

These pieces of data tell a story, a very sad and macabre story, and could help improve operational safety or at least tell us about the nature of the conditions at their seat row at the point of impact.

Cheers.
 
I found this post from "suninmyeyes" on Pprune interesting:


"The 777 can catch you out with with what is known as the "FLCH trap."

When you are above the glide slope and need to get down in a hurry Flight Level Change (FLCH) is a useful mode to use. Normally you transfer to another mode like glideslope or vertical speed, or you switch off the flight directors.

However in this situation the glideslope was off the air so the ILS would not have ben selected or armed. If the flight directors were left on and the plane was descending at a high rate in FLCH the autothrottle would have been inhibited and would not have put on power so the thrust levers would have stayed at idle.

If the Asiana was a bit high (quite normal for SFO) then regained the visual glideslope, the rate of descent would have decreased and the speed would have started slowly reducing but with the thrust levers staying at idle the 777 would now be in the same situation as the Turkish 737 at AMS, ie speed decreasing below Vref and not being noticed.

The 777 has autothrottle wake up, ie when the aircraft approaches a stall the power comes on automatically to almost full power. This gives pilots great confidence however autothrottle wake up is inhibited in FLCH.

So 777 pilots will be looking at this scenario and wondering if Asiana were in FLCH with flight directors on, too high, stabilised late and did not notice they were still in FLCH and that the autothrottle was not keeping the speed to Vref plus 5 untl too late.

Just a theory but I think it far more likely than engine failure, radalt failure or autothrottle failure and I suspect when the events are unravelled this will be what has happend."
 
Even on much smaller GA jets the wheels will touch during a rejected "cow on the runway!" emergency drill. The IP doesn't make the call until the plane is ~50' AGL, so the descent reversal is abrupt and impressive.

olasek said:
There was a "what if" question somewhere else - what if they asked for GA 6 sec before - first time when they noticed they were too slow. Would that be enough? Is GA possible even if aircraft is bound to touch the runway anyway?
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PilotAlan said:
That wave-shaped mark is characteristic of rotation. Imagine the aircraft turning around the center, and that nose gear trail as its relative position moves around the center of rotation.

Imagine a spinning car sliding down the road. The center of rotation is the center of the car. As the car spins, the tires are rotating around the center of the car.
As you look at the skids, they leave a mark like a sine wave, but the vehicle was moving is a straight line and rotating.

Another thing, with the landing gear gone (like a car with the wheels locked up or that is on its roof), a rotating body will continue to rotate in the same direction unless it strikes something that changes its rotational moment.

With no rudder and no gear, and on a smooth runway, it is highly unlikely that the aircraft yawed, cancelled the rotational energy and then began rotating in the other direction, then cancelled that energy and began accelerating back the other direction.
An aircraft with a functioning tail and intact landing gear might, possibly, be able to accomplish that. But this aircraft was not.

Edit: Were's a good video of a car spinning out with visible skid marks. If you watch it, try to isolate one wheel, and see what that skid would look like by itself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwlPe2to548
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:yesnod::yesnod::yesnod:

Thanks Alan for explaining this -- this was a huge lesson learned for me!

Cheers.
 
SCCutler said:
I think we're dabbling in semantics; these are both issues with the fuel heaters on the RR Trent-equipped airframes, essentially powerplant issues, not airframe issues.

But I guess that sounds a lot like, "Besides these, this has never happened."
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You and I... dabbling in semantics? Who would have ever contemplated it! :wink2:

Cheers.
 
As things start looking more and more like a botched visual approach, I have a suspicion this is going to have some connection with fatigue and Korean airline culture.

One thing is for certain, in the last 24 hrs, I have learned way more about the culture there than I ever cared to know and it sounds frighteningly on par with aviation in India.

An interesting thing I have heard from more than one pilot with Asian airline experience is that the Koreans have an interesting habit of deliberately getting below glide path in an attempt to make smooth landings. Some described them as obsessed with it. No clue if that was a factor here, but an interesting tidbit.
 
How long for the engines to spool up from flight idle to power for a go around on the 777?
 
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