Not really, the bigger engines are needed to push such a big plane around but mass is mass and overall the "heavy" class planes are particularity unforgiving to approach mistakes, even though they have much more powerful engines those bigger engines still have to overcome the mass, weight, and inertia of the bigger airframe.
SAN FRANCISCO -- One of the pilots on Asiana Airlines Flight 214 told investigators that he knew the ill-fated flight was coming in too low into San Francisco International Airport and tried to correct the path.
At a press conference Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board said it had interviewed three of the four pilots on the plane, which crash-landed Saturday. Two people were killed and scores were hurt.
Deborah A.P. Hersman, chairwoman of the NTSB, said the training pilot, who served as the leader of the cockpit crew, noticed soon before the crash that the plane was going in too low. The pilot said the crew thought the auto throttle was maintaining speed but it was not. They crew tried to abort the landing but it was too late, she said.
Hersman added that the landing gear and the plane's tail hit a sea wall dividing the runway from San Francisco Bay. The plane made a 360-degree spin before it came to a stop.
The flight crew was "very cooperative and forthright" with investigators, she added.
Lee Hang-kook was at the controls of the flight. It was his first time landing a Boeing 777 at the San Francisco airport, and with a key part of the airport's automated landing system not working, he was forced to visually guide the massive jetliner onto the runway.
Officials said Lee and his more-experienced instructor pilot sitting next to him didn't discuss the predicament. Cockpit voice recordings show that the two didn't communicate until less than two seconds before the plane struck the sea wall and then slammed into Runway 28L.
Officials said the Asiana jetliner had fallen more than 30 knots below its target landing speed in the seconds before it crashed, even as the crew desperately tried to apply more engine power.
But even before that, the aircraft had departed from a stable and planned approach to the runway, failing to keep up with its intended speed of 134 to 137 knots at 500 feet over the bay.
Michael L. Barr, an aviation safety expert and former military pilot who teaches at USC, said that at 500 feet the pilots should have had a stable approach in which the aircraft was on its proper glide slope, on course to the center line of the runway and at its proper airspeed. Otherwise, the landing should have been aborted and a "go around" taken for another attempt.
Pilots can be reluctant to abort a landing, even when the approach is unstable, Barr said. Although pilots' willingness to abort a bad approach has improved, it remains a problem in the industry.
The Washington, D.C.-based Flight Safety Foundation, which advocates for airline safety, said in a recent published report that 97% of the time, pilots do not abort a flight from an unstable approach. The reasons they most often cite are their experience and competency to recover.
But Lee had only 43 hours of experience in that type of jet, although he had many thousands of hours in other Boeing aircraft, including the 747. He was being supervised by the more experienced Capt. Lee Jung-min, though he too did not call for a go-around until 1.5 seconds before the crash — far too late to abort. By then, the aircraft's systems were already warning that it was near stall, a condition in which it does not have enough lift to continue flying.
Only seconds earlier, Lee Jung-min had called for more engine power, but that also came too late.
Barr said the powerful engines on big jetliners can take up to 10 seconds to go from idle to full thrust.
"Ten seconds when you are low to the ground is like a lifetime," he said.
At three seconds before impact, the jet's speed dropped to 103 knots and the engines were spooling up but still at only 50% of full power. The jet's aft fuselage clipped the sea wall and the plane slammed into the ground. Two passengers died and dozens were injured.
Investigators were combing through the wreckage Monday. The lower portion of the plane's tail cone is on the rocks at the sea wall, officials said, and a "significant piece" of the tail is in the water. More pieces of the plane are visible in the water when the tide goes out. At the edge of the tarmac, investigators found the horizontal stabilizer, the vertical stabilizer and the upper portion of the tail cone.
Farther down Runway 28L, investigators have documented pieces of the landing gear and fractured pieces of the aft fuselage, as well as sea wall debris several hundred feet away.
The San Francisco airport's glide path instruments were taken out of service in June for construction, though the crew had two other automated systems to help make a smooth landing. But flight crews have become increasingly reliant on the automated systems, and in many cases jetliners execute fully automated landings. In the process, crews are at risk of losing their proficiency to handle the complex jobs with their own skills.
The lack of the automated systems should not have been a problem, said Jared Testa, chief flight instructor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Arizona campus.
I think he has it right more than you do. If you get into stick shaker territory, any airliner is going to be a huge pig. Nimble is not the term I would useI think you are out of your league here. Do you have any experience flying? Even though some of these planes are massive a lot of them are quite nimble. Just because you see large cruise ships that chug along or big trucks on the road that don't move doesnt mean these machines are similar.
Heck, Tex Johnston barrel rolled the 707 on in its test flight.....in the 50s
latest article = WTF ALL AROUND HOLY SHIT ARE YOU KIDDING ME
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/...in-trouble-ntsb-says-20130709,0,5967736.story
It just hit me....why would these guys be flying so low? Maybe they had their altimeter set incorrectly. In the video the nose was pitched up so they probably didn't have a great view of the horizon. When they cross referenced their Altimeter it may have given them false info thinking their were higher than they actually were. Additionally the audio call out of how high they were would have been off as well.
If it was significantly different they would have noticed the difference between the altimeter and the rad alt pretty quickly..
I think you are out of your league here. Do you have any experience flying? Even though some of these planes are massive a lot of them are quite nimble. Just because you see large cruise ships that chug along or big trucks on the road that don't move doesnt mean these machines are similar.
Heck, Tex Johnston barrel rolled the 707 on in its test flight.....in the 50s
My colleague's wife is in the hospital with spinal injuries. Luckily, she was in the business class section, not the rear, so her injuries are not as bad as those in the back. I have a question, though. So ASIANA Airlines had an amateur trainer training an amateur pilot? I don't care if the trainer had thousands of hours in the same plane, he was still an amateur trainer. WTF put those 2 together? Shouldn't you have a mature trainer training an amateur pilot? Who is senior in this situation, the trainer? And if the trainer had respectable hours in this plane how come he was not alert when the plane was landing? Aren't landings and takeoffs the most important/dangerous part of flying?
My colleague's wife is in the hospital with spinal injuries. Luckily, she was in the business class section, not the rear, so her injuries are not as bad as those in the back. I have a question, though. So ASIANA Airlines had an amateur trainer training an amateur pilot? I don't care if the trainer had thousands of hours in the same plane, he was still an amateur trainer. WTF put those 2 together? Shouldn't you have a mature trainer training an amateur pilot? Who is senior in this situation, the trainer? And if the trainer had respectable hours in this plane how come he was not alert when the plane was landing? Aren't landings and takeoffs the most important/dangerous part of flying?
I think he has it right more than you do. If you get into stick shaker territory, any airliner is going to be a huge pig. Nimble is not the term I would use
When tex rolled the 707, he had something in the bank, airspeed.
I want to thank all of you who responded to the "go around" question. I knew they happen and are rare. It was nice to see some impromptu data.
Not really, the bigger engines are needed to push such a big plane around but mass is mass and overall the "heavy" class planes are particularity unforgiving to approach mistakes, even though they have much more powerful engines those bigger engines still have to overcome the mass, weight, and inertia of the bigger airframe.
It just hit me....why would these guys be flying so low? Maybe they had their altimeter set incorrectly. In the video the nose was pitched up so they probably didn't have a great view of the horizon. When they cross referenced their Altimeter it may have given them false info thinking their were higher than they actually were. Additionally the audio call out of how high they were would have been off as well.
Sounds like they were flying by collaboration rather than one pilot really taking charge of the aircraft. i.e. you worry about this, I'll worry about that, he'll worry about these other things. But poor communication can result in one or more pilots not being 100% sure of what he's supposed to be responsible for. e.g. I wonder if he knows his air speed is too low? I'm sure he knows what he's doing....I probably shouldn't say anything. [10 seconds later] Wait, I'm supposed to be watching air speed? I thought someone else was....WHAT??
The 777 currently has the single most powerful turbofan in the world. I am more familiar with the GE90 series, but the same holds true for turbofans on the 777 from Pratt&Whitney and RollsRoyce.
The GE90-115B used on the longer 777-300ER series for example, can provide up to 115,000 pounds of thrust! Actually, it can provide more thrust at 127,900 pounds, but I am not sure if the GE-90 is certified to fly commercially at that configuration.
One of the coolest experiences I had aviation wise was standing maybe 100 yards from a brand new and empty 777-300ER about to take off on a pre-delivery test flight. The sound of so much air being sucked in while going up to T/O thrust is indescribable. Until you have stood before and touched one of these you cannot appreciate the sheer size of one.
To compare, the original 747-100, had four engines that provide a "mere" 43000 pounds of thrust.
They needed a pilot who can land like this,.....
The Globe and Mail, a Canadian paper is reporting that there could have been a mechanical failure of the autothrottle system. That is far from proven.
Anyway, the pilots have to monitor airspeed, autothrottle on or not, everybodys life depends on it.
According to the NTSB, on the CVR someone said to increase power 7 seconds before impact, but it never happened.
According to the NTSB, on the CVR someone said to increase power 7 seconds before impact, but it never happened.