Asiana crash at SF Airport: looks like pilot screwed the pooch, yes?

Factual Questions
101

The right way.
The wrong way.
The bosses way.

Longest & strongest habit.

When it is down to a really frightening 1 or 2 seconds to ‘do something’ most people go with their oldest & strongest habit. This include pilots.

That is why we train & train, practice & practice.

In this country, we start from very young, questioning everything, our parents, our teachers, each other, the laws, the leaders, sometimes loudly & rather rudely.

Now place a pilot like that in that crew and as long as things go smooth & he has time to think, all is well.

But then, all of a sudden, the boss is not doing the job, it is going critical fast. Do you think he would be able to sit there & die without reverting to his longest & strongest habits? Not so much huh?

But what about the reverse? Your whole life you practiced to never question authority, parents, friends, never to yell or make a scene. The boss is never criticized, questioned, & absolutely never yelled at. Even when it is obvious that he is wrong, even dead wrong.

Well, when everything else is even, what do you think happens?
That is just human nature.

A bit simplified, of course but even in my own life I notice that my strongest habit or reaction is sometimes not the correct one in a really sudden, frightening situation, ( fear is totally different because fear requires time for though ) and I mess up.

I worked very hard in many things but none harder than I did my flying because my Dad made a believer out of me at a young age.

Flying, driving, riding motorcycles, weapons of all kinds, water skiing, etc…

My favorite is when a person asks if I ever think about crashing.
I think of it right before each takeoff. I make sure I have the plan for when a / or the engines quit right there, if they quit a bit farther over there, and right then, and after that. etc…

“My og, why so much?”

Because when it starts happening, I do not have time for much thinking, I better be able to pull the correct response out of my pocket & do it very quickly. I have to be constantly ready. Not impossible for every take-off. But for ever minute of a 4 hour flight, not so much. So the strongest habit is a good backup for sudden happenings. Those that happen slowly enough, then good training, good thinking, good decision making, knowing when to quit changing my mind, these come into play.

For whatever reason the pilots in that SFO crash did not really pick up on how bad things had gotten. The second pilot was not able to do much because his habit was to not do the unthinkable even if he knew only that they had to do something RIGHT NOW but was unable to overcome his longest & strongest habit.

I think we are lucky here in this country because we grow up with the minds set as stated before,. Also, the problems with cockpit management have been known for a while & more importantly something, several somethings were done to address those ‘do not cross the Captain for he is god’ attitudes that still lingered from the past. The whole world should be aware of the better crew management practices but do not or have not worked on the hard enough or long enough to make them the longest & strongest habit.

But just because I am still alive does not mean I am right.

I have never killed anyone with an airplane yet. :cool:

102

Even allowing for cultural issues this was a bad crash. I’m a low time pilot and I use to wonder what I’d do if another pilot screwed up. Well it happened. And I didn’t hesitate a nano-second. “FLARE!!!, I got it”. No panic, no drama. We did a go around and he landed fine with a bit of verbal follow through.

How 3 people watched a plane descend into the bay and do nothing is just mind boggling.

103

Magiver, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love for you to provide a detailed account of the experience you just alluded to (without naming names, of course). Exactly how you realized something was wrong, exactly what you did to correct it, what probably would have happened had you not corrected it, exactly what the (other) pilot did while you were suddenly running the show.

I think it would make for an appropriate contribution to the themes of this recently-revived thread. Thanks!

104

It was a single engine piston plane on short final to a grass strip. The plane was in a nose down attitude during what should have been a flaring maneuver. I pulled up and added full power for a go-around. If he was at least level to the ground it would have been a rough landing but driving the nose gear into grass would have torn it off.

I’ve been in a similar situation where the approach was not parallel to the runway. I let him land because it was a wide runway and there was time to correct once we touched down. The advantages of a tricycle landing gear is they’re very forgiving.

105

Thanks! I’ll bet his gratitude to you outweighed his embarrassment.

106

I remember on my first (only) parachute jump, as I was approaching the ground on a nice, manicured field, I soon could make out the individual blades of grass, the I realized I had no way to know if I was 55 feet or 25 feet up, there were no familiar markers, no perspective. Fortunately I had a radio, and the instructor on the ground telling me when to flare the parachute. I imagine a newbie pilot staring at a grass strip might have the same disorientation. I’ve heard of float plane pilots carrying a bunch of medium-sized rocks, so they can drop them on glassy lakes to get some texture to the water surface for their approach. (Or in the winter, drop on the ice to see if it’s strong enough to hold a plane)

107

Haven’t heard about the rocks, but I read the operating handbook from a float manufacturer. It agreed that it’s hard (if not impossible) to gauge height over glassy smooth water, but recommended a particular airspeed and rate of descent. Hold those numbers until you touch the surface, and you should be fine.

108

Landing tail wheel first is not to big a deal.
Landing main gear first is the preferred method in most airplanes.
Landing nose wheel first is generally a bad idea.
Tricycle geared airplanes are for the most part are easier to control on the ground.
Cessna Tricycle airplanes usually have spring steel gear on the mains which saves many a hard landing.
Aircraft designed for carrier controlled crash arrivals are for the most part struts. Immense forces but not needing a lot of rebound which would usually be very bad.
Tail wheeled aircraft are very easy to ground loop or put up on their nose with excessive braking.

Tricycle gear is more prone to gusty cross wind tip overs.
Their is no difference in difficulty to fly. For low time pilots that have learned no other kind, yepper, lots better on the ground. ( different from flying IMO )
Off airport, tail wheels are better IMO.

109

Before cars had anti lock brakes, I used to teach (or try to) experienced drivers that the way to stop a sliding car is to ease off the brake and then on again. This is exactly what ABS does, only it can do it a lot faster. It is totally counterintuitive to ease off instead of pushing harder when you are sliding towards a wall, but the maximum effect is the point just before the wheels lock, and just after they start to turn.

110

That’s what we were taught as well in the early-to-mid 90s. “Pumping the brake.” It’s a little odd to break cough out of that habit with ABS, where you’re NOT supposed to pump, as the ABS does it for you.