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2013-07-10 -Short Attention Span Theater-

Asiana/KAL Flight Standards insights from an expat flight instructor

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Posted by Besoeker 2013-07-10 00:00|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 I remember reading years ago that the "visual" approach to San Francisco was nasty because you were coming in over water and the end of the runaway was right up to the water. When if first opened up inexperienced pilots would misjudge their altitude and speed since they were used to getting altitude and speed references consciously or not, off of land features. The ocean would fool them. The thing is that danger became pretty well known and documented so the pilot shouldn't have been caught by it.

Posted by Shump Ebbinesing8470 2013-07-10 03:13|| 2013-07-10 03:13|| Front Page Top

#2 I've been in an airplane that landed there. I thought we were going in the water.

Posted by Shusoting Anguter1568 2013-07-10 07:22|| 2013-07-10 07:22|| Front Page Top

#3 The previous comment was mine.

Posted by Deacon Blues 2013-07-10 07:23|| 2013-07-10 07:23|| Front Page Top

#4 They'll probably have to put a line of buoys in the ocean to give pilots a better visual aid.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2013-07-10 08:35|| 2013-07-10 08:35|| Front Page Top

#5 I lived along the flight path to SFO most of my life. There are electronic buoys? on the ground all the way down the peninsula. The area before the runway allows for a nice slow decent and the runways are long. As long as you don't drop in early (as a JAL pilot did in the 70s) it should be a very easy landing.

San Diego airport is worse as you come over buildings and the I-5 before landing (another problem in the 70s over that).

But those are cake compared to that nightmare airport they had in Hong Kong. Watching folks hanging their laundry on the roofs and balconies just off the end of the wing and then a hard right around the last building and a quick drop to the tarmac. Even knowing it was coming that was unpleasant.

Posted by rjschwarz 2013-07-10 10:53|| 2013-07-10 10:53|| Front Page Top

#6 Well some further testimony has come out and it seems they were using or at least eyeballing the glide path indicator lights on the end of the runway. If you are on the path you are supposed to see two white and two red. The instructor pilot reported seeing all red, which is too low. Also reported was that the auto correct speed control was not maintaining a high enough speed it would keep dropping the speed setting. The NTSB is starting to give those pilots the hair eyeball. They seem to indicate the pilots had enough time and were aware of the problems but either didn't react or kept their mouths shut. It doesn't look good for them or the airline.
I remember back in the day taking flight lessons on a Cessna 140 tail dragger. I became unemployed and ran out of money before I could complete even 8 hours. I do remember that the instructor introduced me to cross wind landing early. In fact I have a vivid memory about bring in the plane during the late summer morning when you get an updraft off the Texas flat lands and having a cross wind to deal with. You had to compensate for both. If I remember correctly it was use the rudder to compensate for cross wind then drop the leading wing down to increase descent against the updraft then get straight and lift the nose and cut the throttle for landing. As the flight instructor says general aviation in the US gets you to thinking for yourself....or you'll prang it.

Posted by Shump Ebbinesing8470 2013-07-10 11:28|| 2013-07-10 11:28|| Front Page Top

#7 Re the Hong Kong airport landing, rj - so passengers should keep an extra set of underwear handy?

Posted by Barbara 2013-07-10 12:06|| 2013-07-10 12:06|| Front Page Top

#8 The airport shut down but it certainly was worth having a spare back in the day.

Posted by rjschwarz 2013-07-10 12:57|| 2013-07-10 12:57|| Front Page Top

#9 We had a similar situation with a certain Southeast Asian navy and their simulator training. Their sailors and officers essentially did the same thing as the pilots in gaming the scenarios.

Our one pickup team went up against three of their top crews in a simulated battle and cleaned their clocks. Their ANZUS instructors were not happy.

Posted by Pappy 2013-07-10 15:53|| 2013-07-10 15:53|| Front Page Top

#10 "The instructor pilot reported seeing all red, which is too low."

I learned it as "Red over White, fly all night. White over Red, you're dead"

Posted by Rob06 2013-07-10 16:28|| 2013-07-10 16:28|| Front Page Top

#11 We had a similar situation with a certain Southeast Asian navy and their simulator training. Their sailors and officers essentially did the same thing as the pilots in gaming the scenarios.

Singapore?

Posted by Zhang Fei 2013-07-10 22:49|| 2013-07-10 22:49|| Front Page Top

#12 I am sure that SFO had a PAPI approach lighting system. There is information on the system HERE.
Two pairs of red lights next to two pairs of white lights bring you down to the touch down zone on a precision approach. So when you land visual you set yourself up on altitude versus distance. This is basic stick and rudder stuff that applies to a Super Cub or a B-747.

On instrument approaches, you do a series of step down altitude changes, then you fly level where you intercept the glide slope (usually 3 degrees). Then you manually fly down the glide slope, or you couple on to it with your autopilot.

So many heavy pilots are used to this technique and don't practice stick and rudder, so if the ILS winks out, they are SOL. My uneducated guess is that is what happened here.

One of the more interesting landings I did was at Granite Mountain White Alice site east of Nome. That strip was on a mountainside, with a 10% grade, so that the visual illusion of landing there would make you approach low if you were not aware of the grade. Flying a pattern normally could make you be on final approach and be short of the runway, where you would need lots of power to make the threshold and not land short. The answer was to plan your approach and be at specific altitudes so that your touchdown would be in the right place and not short. It is all in the preflight planning, which a pilot is required to do before a flight. Part 91 of the Federal Air Regulations spells it out quite clearly:

§ 91.103 Preflight action.

Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight. This information must include

(a) For a flight under IFR or a flight not in the vicinity of an airport, weather reports and forecasts, fuel requirements, alternatives available if the planned flight cannot be completed, and any known traffic delays of which the pilot in command has been advised by ATC;

(b) For any flight, runway lengths at airports of intended use, and the following takeoff and landing distance information:

(1) For civil aircraft for which an approved Airplane or Rotorcraft Flight Manual containing takeoff and landing distance data is required, the takeoff and landing distance data contained therein; and

(2) For civil aircraft other than those specified in paragraph (b)(1) of this section, other reliable information appropriate to the aircraft, relating to aircraft performance under expected values of airport elevation and runway slope, aircraft gross weight, and wind and temperature.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2013-07-10 23:28|| 2013-07-10 23:28|| Front Page Top

23:28 Alaska Paul
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22:09 Redneck Jim
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