Crew tried to abort landing before San Francisco air crash

Reuters ^ | July 7, 2013 | by Hyunjoo Jin, Alistain Barr

[TruthWillWin]

When I am on final approach just prior to landing (I’m a new pilot, about 100 hours) my eyes are scanning three things. Air speed, VASI or PAPI lights, and runway centering. When those are correct the landing goes well.

One thought. When doing a go around and applying full throttle with the full flaps extended, the nose will pitch up and require considerable forward force on the yoke to prevent a stall. Sounds like that is what happened, the nose pitched up and the tail hit the ground.

[SkyDancer]

From what I’m reading - the sink rate was too fast plus they added power, pulled back and did a departure stall - same as that 757 out of Porto Rica years back ....

[UCANSEE2]

AND, all you really need is a 70 MPH unexpected tail wind gust

Except there was none reported or recorded.

[Hulka]

Sleep flying?

[BatGuano]

Whatever happened in the last 100’ or so, was caused by excess altitude and speed when they started the approach. I believe they were at least 500’ high and 40-50 kts fast. The 777 is very difficult to slow down once you start to descend on the glide path. If you are high and trying to converge or catch up to the profile/visual glide path, you accelerate and then exceed flap speeds. It was an unstabilized approach and should have been abandoned long before reaching the runway environment.

It (777)is just too clean and those 90,000lb thrust engines are still producing some thrust in idle or residual thrust if they are reduced too late.

[Don Corleone]

It could be that the crew thought that they were coupled to a glide path that was in fact out of service OR that they had not selected correctly on the auto throttle/auto land or that they were just really damn tired and unable to function. It is more than likely that they had been awake for possibly 24 straight hours when you count the time from when they left home/hotel until the time of the accident. They had flown all night, in the dark or twilight on the northern great circle and found themselves having to perform the most difficult part of their job just when their bodies were telling them it was bedtime back home. I have flown many a Red Eye and I guarantee you that you are not at your best after a 12 or 13 hour all niter. Think about that the next time you jump on that 14 hour non stop from LAX to Sidney or even worse the non-stop from Singapore to JFK.

[Hulka]

Catch that, Nifster?

[jonrick46]

There may be a problem with the location of the air strip so close to the bay. Unpredictable wind direction and speeds presents a safety problem in the landings.

[Moonman62]

NewsBreaker ‏@NewsBreaker 23s NEW: Pilot of Asiana jet ,that crashed at SFO, was in training; it was his first flight to the airport with the jet

I was telling someone today that airlines in the US are very good about familiarizing pilots with new airports before letting them fly there alone or in command of a bigger aircraft.

[BatGuano]

It is very possible that the throttles were in idle below 500’ and the pilot realized that he wasn't going to make it too late. It takes an eternity for those big PW 4090’s to spool up and produce thrust required to initiate a go around.
(Eternity)= 7 or 8 seconds. But with speed decaying and no thrust to speak of, his late rotation (raising the nose) only changed the attitude that he was going to contact water, rocks, runway etc. He was cooked from the start.
My guess is that all of the pilots were in the cockpit and the primary crew was at the controls. It will be very interesting to hear what is said on the Cockpit Voice Recorder. May have to have it translated..

[Sarah Barracuda]

From what I understand flying into San Francisco airport isnt exactly the easiest airport to fly into..you feel like your literally landing on water..you have to know what your doing..from the video of the crash it looks like the pilot for whatever reason believed the ground was lower than what it actually was thats why he tried to abort the landing 1.5 seconds before the crash, he realized he was too low

[randita]

These will make your skin crawl:

‪10 Most Extreme Airports [HD]‬

[cll]

In a piston engine propeller airplane, full power is almost inmediate. In a turbine engine, especially a turbo jet, you need to allow for turbine spool up, which takes a precious few seconds. These guys applied full power less than two seconds before impact. Way too late. Again, IMHO.

Also, as far as visual cues, one more thing you need to do is to look at the far end of the runway to judge your sink rate.

[BatGuano]

Granted fatigue could have been a factor but I think they had 2 crews which should have given them adequate rest. The auto pilot will not couple to an inoperative ILS. Red flags, all that stuff. Now that could be what delayed their speed reduction with confusion over ILS out of service. What ever it was you can bet there was a lot of scrambling in that cockpit. Another reason to ask for vectors or a holding pattern to sort things out. Not to go barging into the approach unbriefed. The rookie pilot would have had a check pilot “shotgunning” him.

[PhiloBedo]

Gimme a break...really?

[cornfedcowboy]

Even a trainee on a 777 would have thousands of hours of flight time in a commercial jet airliner.

[ops33]

RNAV (GPS) with LPV or LNAV/VNAV minimums, and RNAV (RNP) are vertically guided approaches. They can have a Height above Threshold as low as 200 feet although 250 feet is more common.

[kik5150]

Maintain Thy Airspeed, Lest The Ground Rise Up And Smite Thee.

[central_va]

Like my primary flight instructor always told me, “never fall in love with a landing”. Meaning sometimes you just have to abort and there is no saving the landing. Pride kills.

[kik5150]

They managed to get the plane in a position of reverse command. The harder you pull back the faster it sinks.