SFO OMFG

Dad and I discussed this for a bit yesterday. Him being an ATC for going on 35+ years as well as a private pilot. Me mainly flying with him, and spending as much time as I could get on the flightline and in the tower growing up. Now days they don't let people up the cab so much(damn rules and regs). Anyway his thoughts on it, and I tend to agree with him was that the pilot realized to late he was going to be short, applied throttle, and lifted the nose hoping to get it to fly just a bit longer to make the runway. Lifted the nose to high and the tail section struck first.

Aircooled called it, he was behind the curve, and let it get even further behind the curve. Too much, too late. Power up, nose down would have been a rough landing, but who am I to say. I know those big turbines don't spin up like a prop does, but just thinking back to all the lessons and flying I've done with my dad. Rule #1 FLY THE DAMN PLANE! At all times, fly the plane. Lose an/the engine on takeoff, fly the plane, same for landing. Land and have no brakes, execute, a go around but fly the plane. Any situation imaginable except for major structure failure in flight, (even then if it's doable) FLY THE PLANE!

http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/2550-full.html#220020

The above has good details of the crash. Below is an editted e-mail that I recieved today. My opinion is that airlines depend on automated systems more than they should.

Loss Alert

Event Operator: Asiana Airlines Location: San Francisco Event Country: USA Departure Country: South Korea

Loss Date:                 06/07/2013

Destination Country: USA Comments: The aircraft touched down short of the runway striking the edge dividing the runway and airport from San Francisco Bay. The tail, undercarriage and engines separated from the aircraft and a fire broke out in the fuselage. Two fatalities so far are reported as Chinese students whilst many other passengers are injured including ten in critical condition.

Aircraft Manufacturer: Boeing Aircraft: B777-200ER Registration: HL7742 Year Built: 2006 No of passengers: 291 No of crew: 16 Loss Type: Total Passenger fatalities: 2 Crew fatalities: 0 Other Fatalities: 0 Insurance Insured: Asiana Airlines Inception Date: 01/12/2012 Max Hull Value: USD 325,000,000 Aircraft Insured Value: USD 99,509,500 Gross Hull Reserve: USD 99,509,500 Deductible: USD 0 Net Hull Reserve: USD 99,509,500

Knurled wrote:

Duke wrote: So, who is David Eun?

Someone who tweeted and posted a picture on the scene.

Ah. I had just seen it retweeted so many times that I assumed he was somebody somewhat famous, not just a survivor.

In reply to RossD:

This is how I was taught the proper glide slope.

According the reports I have read:

1. Pilots requested a "go around" 1.5 sec before crash.

2. "Stick shaker" was dancing indicating an immenent stall.

3. Engines were at idle speed before throttles pushed forward.

4. Glide slope indiactor at SFO out of service.

Sounds like "Controlled flight into ground".

85 knots IAS is what was reported for one of those points. IIRC the aircraft was actually climbing very slightly at that datapoint. Porpoising?

egad - I read on CNN that the 2 fatalities were caused by rescue crews running them over? Apparently passengers fell out of the back after the tail broke off.

Have you seen the video? With the way the plane was spinning and bouncing around, and a gaping hole at the back, I'm not at all surprised that people would be ejected. Failure to wear a seatbelt? I dunno.

Also, as I understand it, one of the fatalities shows injuries consistent with being run over, but they aren't sure if that was the cause of death or not. The person could have been already dead by the time she got run over, that's what the autopsy is for.

Think about being the guy driving the fire truck up to the crashed plane. There's debris strewn everywhere, no clear path through it, and there are 200+ people inside that plane that could burst into flames at any moment. You need to get close enough to spray it with foam -- how do you pick a path?

Yes, it sucks if the fire truck hits a badly injured person who was ejected from the plane, but it's hard for me to find fault with a driver who had to run over something and couldn't tell what was what...

Knurled wrote:

tuna55 wrote: Every article I saw said it was far below the speed of 157 mph, but nobody has actually said what the airspeed was, anyone have any information?

On the graph I posted, one of the datapoints is 85 knots. Stall speed in that trim is supposed to be around 135... Note that IANAP so this is all regurgitated (yet vetted) info.

One of the other articles said they wanted to be going 137 (and they can be heard on the voice recorder confirming that they were), but were actually going 109 at the time. Lots of wrong information in news articles though so who knows.

In reply to Travis_K:

The final approach speed, V ref, is held until 50 feet above the touch down zone. At 50 feet you pull the power to idle and land. V ref is never less than 1.3 times the stalling speed. If their V ref was 137, the stall speed would be 106. If they were indicating 109 they were far to slow.

Nice job of fact checking there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh7-F6e1wFk&feature=player_embedded https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh7-F6e1wFk&feature=player_embedded

Knurled wrote:

That makes it seem pretty simple.