Airport landing system off when plane crashed in San Francisco

Reuters ^ | July 07, 2013 | Peter Henderson and Dan Levine

[george76]

A navigation system that helps pilots make safe descents was turned off at San Francisco airport on Saturday when a South Korean airliner crashed and burned after undershooting the runway ...

The system, called Glide Path, is meant to help planes land in bad weather. It was clear and sunny, with light winds, when Asiana

...

San Francisco International has turned off the system for nearly the entire summer on the runway where the Asiana flight crashed, according to a notice from the airport on the Federal Aviation Administration's Web site

[justlurking]

I've done a bit of digging, and I'm not sure the PAPI was off.

In two different places:

• In response to a claim the SFO 29L PAPI and GS were OTS, a poster counters there is no current NOTAM that the PAPI was OTS. The timestamp is just before the current NOTAM went up.

• In a pilot forum, a poster claims he had made an approach to 28L only a few hours before the crash. Another aircraft making a simultaneous approach to 28R wandered off the centerline and caused a TCAS alert. Distracted momentarily, he posts that he looks forward and "sees 4 whites on the PAPI" and had to increase his descent rate.

Of course, I can't corroborate either of these. But, I just wanted to caution you there is conflicting info on the PAPI.

[Sioux-san]

I was noticing the same thing - maybe there was something that didn’t happen when it was supposed to happen. The whole story is strange.

[mikey_hates_everything]

"Besides, if the ILS was off then they wouldn’t be able to make evening and night landings after dark at that airport."

If that's true, then my ghost is writing this post.

[Newbomb Turk]

Actually Mr. A$$hole from one A$$hole to another I found your knowledge and insight into the whole thing very informative and interesting.

I never let someone else's lack of situation knowledge drag me to their level.

[tcrlaf]

This will end up as a Situational Awareness/Pilot Error situation, in the end. They lost track of where they were, until it was too late to do anything about it.

[CapnJack]

“Repairs?

Electricity usage “brownout” to conserve energy for air conditioning around the region?”

Obviously the blame is on the Sequester and the Republicans.

[Vendome]

Beeecawze. They are constantly hugging eucalyptis trees? /s

[noinfringers2]

My first thoughts were that an entire aft section which makes me think of how a plane structures sections are put together was torn off. Something happened to make such an apparent ‘clean’ separation. From what I hear data recorders should be able to go back all kinds of possibilities. No matter the cause we can be thankful for lives saved but still mourn the dead and injured.

[NormsRevenge]

To all the armchair pilots aboard this thread, I’d love to see you land a heavy at SFO any day of the year. calm, stormy, whatever.. ..

I thought technology was a good thing.. except when it’s turned off.

Any pilot can make an error .. any pilot.

[Regulator]

My experience: CFII (that's Instrument Instructor for Mr. Webster, who clearly isn't a pilot); corpjets (Sabreliner type); Aerospace Engineer (that's what it says on the diploma), 35 years in flight/aeronautical/aerospace industry.

I have NEVER heard of a "computerized system" called Glide Path.

There IS an element of the ILS called the GLIDESLOPE and it was OTS as the NOTAM noted - pretty normal for the summertime, so you can do maintenance.

For 28L the usual gig is to get the Quiet Bridge Visual Approach.

No glideslope required. Just your eyes, and like others have noted, the Radar Altimeter callouts that every CAT II/III qualified aircraft has (see CAT II minimum equipment search, click on Subpart D link at FAA.gov) can be helpful. Also, the PAPI is noted as having a different angle (VGSi) then the GS, but that shouldn't matter since the GS is OTS!!!

So maybe in the last few years I missed out on some Momentous Development within the traditional ILS that digitized some of it's old analog functionality, but I can find no evidence of that.

But maybe a couple of non-flying Jorno majors at Al-Reuters understands these things better then I do.

Or the other people here who are skeptical of this little piece of Fiction that the reporters are trying to use to whip up some hype.

What WILL be of interest is whether this guy read the NOTAM and understood that the GS element was out - and if not, was he using GS information to fly the approach? (he'd be flying to a symbol that has the little "out of service" barber pole next to it, sort of a dead give away that somethings um, Wrong).

There's a lotta working ATPs on this forum, maybe one of them could jump in here, but I suspect its going to be the same comment: clueless "reporters" misinterpreting FAA reports and trying to fluff it up into something bigger then it is.

It is ALWAYS bad to speculate early in an aircraft accident about what happened. Every accident in a Transport Category environment like this has multiple issues in the chain leading to an actual accident. The accident itself is the result of the confluence of all the issues. There is NEVER any one glaring mistake, not when you have a guy with X thousand hours flying. Even the worst of them don't screw up that bad. If the guy didn't want to fly the Visual approach he had his choice of LOC/DME, RNAV, etc. See this page: LOC DME Y RWY 28L approach. Note ALL the approaches in the list!

Dealing with an OTS GS is no big deal. So the truth will probably lie somewhere else.

And right about now, some of the more experienced NTSB guys already know it. But they won't say for quite some time.

[GladesGuru]

Whaza NOTAM?

[Sequoyah101]

Some stupid, brain dead, libtard reporter thinks he / she has the smoking gun at the roots of a scandal so that the crash can be somebody else’s fault. Typical, find blame somewhere else. It was the pilot who was flying the airplane in clear weather. Maybe turbulence but that is what pilots are supposed to manage.

[ALPAPilot]

ILS has two parts: Glideope and Localizer. Most ILS approaches are set up to use with glide slope out of service. There are just different minimums required to see the field.

Unless there was a serious malfunction of the aircraft systems, this is worse than pilot error. It was gross incompetence.

At UAL we are required to have stabilized approach criteria by 1000 feet: gear down flaps down on glide path, engines spooled up. Without that a missed approach is REQUIRED.

The 777 can calculate and display its own calculated glide path so glides lope out is not a big deal. There had to be all sorts of oral warnings going off prior to landing. EGPWS, GPWS radar altimeter call outs.

No excuse for ut

[justlurking]

More from the same pilots forum:

I went into SFO r28L last week, no glide slope, and no papis visual approach only and the DME doesn't read 0dme at the threshols!

Emphasis is mine. This appears to corroborate the PAPI being OTS.

But, immediately following it:

Conducted LOC approach into SFO last night, glideslope out of service for both 28R & L due construction (until August 22nd) , PAPI was working last night. Departed this morning in relatively calm winds, visual approaches were in use for the 28's.

This is a more recent report, so I'd put more credence in it.

It was followed by:

Confirm no G/S on both 28L and 28R. PAPI only

and:

Departed SFO yesterday, no VASIS, PAPIS or ILS at KSFO. Only G/S available according to NOTAMS is what's in your FMS.

A number of people posted the NOTAM saying the SFO 28L PAPI is OTS, but others followed up and pointed out that it was date/time'd AFTER the crash.

The entire thread is here: http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/518568-asiana-flight-crash-san-francisco-26.html

So, it's looking like there is some confusion about whether the PAPI was actually OTS. If these reports are accurate, its status was changing, right up until the crash.

[justlurking]

I forgot to add to my last posting:

A number of posters to that thread added an interesting claim: PAPI/VASI was required for a visual approach. They had various qualifiers: air carrier, night, over water, etc.

It wasn't clear to me if it was a government regulatory requirement (not the US: UK, Italy, etc.) or a company requirement. There were some challenges to their statements, and I didn't try to sort through all of them.

[justlurking]

Yosemitetest posted a link to the flight track log at FlightAware:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAR214/history/20130706/0730Z/RKSI/KSFO/tracklog

I thought you might find it interesting, especially this part:

02:22PM	37.4333	-122.0800	43°	Northeast	248	285	5,900	-1,620	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4397	-122.0740	37°	Northeast	249	287	5,700	-1,140	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4431	-122.0710	35°	Northeast	249	287	5,700	-900	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4471	-122.0690	22°	Northeast	248	285	5,600	-900	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4513	-122.0680	11°	North	247	284	5,600	-900	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4549	-122.0670	12°	North	246	283	5,500	-900	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4583	-122.0670	360°	North	246	283	5,500	-900	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4628	-122.0670	360°	North	245	282	5,400	-1,500	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4675	-122.0680	350°	North	244	281	5,300	-900	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4709	-122.0700	335°	Northwest	243	280	5,300	-1,020	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4741	-122.0720	334°	Northwest	242	278	5,200	-900	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4774	-122.0740	334°	Northwest	242	278	5,200	-1,020	FlightAware
02:22PM	37.4854	-122.0810	325°	Northwest	243	280	5,000	-1,740	FlightAware
02:23PM	37.4909	-122.0850	330°	Northwest	243	280	4,800	-1,200	FlightAware
02:23PM	37.4941	-122.0880	323°	Northwest	244	281	4,800	-780	FlightAware
02:23PM	37.4973	-122.0920	315°	West	243	280	4,700	-1,740	FlightAware
02:23PM	37.4999	-122.0960	309°	West	242	278	4,600	-900	FlightAware
02:23PM	37.5026	-122.1010	304°	West	240	276	4,600	-540	FlightAware
02:23PM	37.5066	-122.1100	299°	West	237	273	4,500	-840	FlightAware
02:23PM	37.5145	-122.1280	299°	West	228	262	4,300	-540	FlightAware
02:23PM	37.5192	-122.1390	298°	West	221	254	4,300	-240	FlightAware
02:24PM	37.5266	-122.1570	297°	West	212	244	4,200	-720	FlightAware
02:24PM	37.5351	-122.1760	299°	West	208	239	3,900	-960	FlightAware
02:24PM	37.5414	-122.1910	298°	West	204	235	3,700	-1,080	FlightAware
02:24PM	37.5481	-122.2070	298°	West	203	234	3,400	-1,200	FlightAware
02:25PM	37.5548	-122.2230	298°	West	195	224	3,100	-1,140	FlightAware
02:25PM	37.5614	-122.2390	297°	West	190	219	2,800	-1,500	FlightAware
02:25PM	37.5669	-122.2520	298°	West	187	215	2,400	-1,320	FlightAware
02:25PM	37.5730	-122.2660	299°	West	187	215	2,200	-1,080	FlightAware
02:26PM	37.5785	-122.2790	298°	West	186	214	1,900	-1,020	FlightAware
02:26PM	37.5847	-122.2940	298°	West	178	205	1,700	-1,020	FlightAware
02:26PM	37.5900	-122.3070	297°	West	169	194	1,400	-1,380	FlightAware
02:27PM	37.5988	-122.3270	299°	West	145	167	800	-1,380	FlightAware
02:27PM	37.6016	-122.3340	297°	West	141	162	600	-1,320	FlightAware
02:27PM	37.6045	-122.3410	298°	West	134	154	400	-900	FlightAware
02:27PM	37.6073	-122.3480	297°	West	123	142	300	-840	FlightAware
02:27PM	37.6103	-122.3550	298°	West	109	125	100	-120	FlightAware
02:28PM	37.6170	-122.3740	294°	West	85	98	200	120	FlightAware

Does that look like a stabilized descent to you?

[USNBandit]

Don't worry, the news media reports all their other stories accurately. It is only aviation stories they get glaringly wrong.

Another story I read said the 777 was safer because it was built to evacuate it in 90 seconds. Of course that is an FAA and industry requirement.

[webstersII]

“You have made statements that you thought made you seem informed, but in fact did the opposite. “

[Yawn]

[FlingWingFlyer]

Repairs?

Electricity usage "brownout" to conserve energy for air conditioning around the region?

Hmmmmm. Good questions. Just why was it turned off? Isn't it foggy a lot around San Francisco?

[jughandle]

The media learns everything about aviation and guns from movies.