Asiana Crash Landing San Francisco

[NigelC]

I'd be happy with just one of those widescreens for my sim.

But I don't need no stinking instruments.

Ok , well maybe a speed indicators..

[Dev One]

How many times a manual landing though as opposed to an auto one? Reliant too much on automation - both of them though? Bad crew co-operation syndrome?
Also tired after a long flight?
Otherwise the very difficult to prove fuel icing situation?
Does the ASI recording match the radar speed I wonder?
Keith

[airboatr]

I'd be happy with just one of those widescreens for my sim.

But I don't need no stinking instruments.

Ok , well maybe a speed indicators..

No really~ I only fly VFR..

[dodger]

On Airliners.net forum they say that there four Pilots on board the flight and the PIC had over 9000 hrs on 747-400's but the real question they are asking is why the 777 was flying so slow on approach,

Really terrible accident but considering the state of the aircraft on the ground i'm surprised that there was not a lot more people killed,

They are also saying that the two girls killed were hit by a response vehicle on the ground!

We will find out more hopefully,

Roger.

[VC10]

I don't the nationalities of both both pilots but I wonder if they were both Asian whether the Asian trait of loss of face comes into the accident. If the P1 was senior to P2 was the P2 reluctant to call airspeed low? It wouldn't be the first time that has featured in a Far Eastern operator's accident.

Paul

[Garry Russell]

I'm in no position to judge, but according to post by people who, or have flown with airlines in Asia on such places as PPrune, this is of no surprise.


Many have cited just the sort of happenings in the cockpit that seem to be getting supported by fact and many of these comments were made before much was said apart from there having been no mechanical malfunction at the airport or on the aeroplane that could have contributed.

Without actually saying so at that point it did scream crew error and the hieracy with just the general way things are done there coming to the fore.

Difficult to make any comment without seeming to be prejudice or in any way racist, but the fact remains that in different parts of the world due to culture and other factors, people do things differently.

Not always for the worse and not always for the better, but the fact remains, things do get done differently.

Aviation is no exception and we have no idea how much this affected this incident if indeed at all.

But, there does seem to me a number of similar incidents in Asia and the parallel with this is being drawn with the Lion Air 737-800 earlier this year rather than the BA 777 at LHR...that is nothing to do with the Boeing 777

[nigelb]

Mnay aviation commentators here have mentioned the cultural differences that may have contributed to the accident, so Paul makes a good point.

Nigel²

[aeroart]

The head of the NTSB was on tv with a thorough briefing of what was known as of a day or so ago. She talked about what had been heard on the cockpit voice recorder, but there was no mention of either of the pilots calling off altitude, speed, and sink rate during the approach.

Art

[Dev One]

Interesting programme on UK TV Channel 4 last night ' Terror in the skies' - showed problems with modern 'puter systems & for me the telling thing was the very bad presentation of airspeed on the MFD! (Turkish crash at Amsterdam 1 mile short of runway). I'm used to analogue dials of reasonable size ( I dont fly modern stuff on my puter either) where as far as I'm concerned one doesn't need to read the value of airspeed one just knows it from the angle of the needle, so change of focus between outside & inside is not so critical & having to read the numbers & its trend is more obvious - am I making sense? Maybe a superimposed fwd camera view on the MFD would help?
Keith

[Chris Trott]

There is no problem with the display of airspeed in the 737 or any other "glass cockpit" airliner. The Turkish crew tried to use it as an excuse for their mistakes and nothing more. The Midlands crew did the same thing in the 737 crash at East Mids. Instead of admitting they mistakenly shutdown the good engine because they didn't follow proper cross-check procedures before shutting down the engine, they tried to blame the engine gauge display which was semi-digital.

Having flown glass-cockpit planes in the real world (albeit all small airplanes), I find the airspeed display is very well done and is much easier to read accurately as it shows not only the speed, but it shows a clear arrow with the speed trend (am I accelerating or decelerating?) and the speed itself is in a large enough font to be visible clearly even when the plane is vibrating (as small planes tend to do at times and much more significantly than any airliner does).

The Lion Air crash, the Turkish crash, and the Asiana crash all have one common element - the crew relied on the automation to do the work, were high and fast on the glidepath and attempted to make a "slam-dunk" approach, and no one payed attention to the airspeed and/or glidepath. The PNF (pilot not flying) is supposed to have his head INSIDE the cockpit at all times during the approach doing exactly that - watching the airspeed, altitude, glidepath (if on a visual approach) and engines to make sure everything is okay. The pilot is supposed to keep his eyes outside the cockpit flying the plane. If on an ILS approach, both Pilot Flying and PNF watch the glidepath, but the PNF is responsible for looking for the runway and the PF watches the speed and altitude.

When you don't do that - problems happen.