A couple of years ago, my city got one that can treat 20 people at once, so they certainly exist–no idea if one is actually stationed at SFO, though, or if it’s just part of a regional coverage area.
I just started a thread called:
Asiana 214 flight crew talking on ATC tape. Anyone know what he’s saying?
I’m curious about one of the Asiana 214 pilots heard speaking on the recording from the SFO tower today. I’d like to know what he is saying. I’m hoping someone on the Dope with better ears than mine can help out.
I’m putting this here so anyone following this thread might be able to help answer my question. In retrospect, maybe I should have just asked the question here in the first place. But at the time I posted the new thread no one had added a new post here for an hour or more.
Thanks!
Anyone who has landed at SFO knows about the approach over the water, then the runway suddenly appears, and you touch down. From the footage and that eyewitness they interviewed who said the landing gear caught on the sea wall (more like a ramp of boulders leading up from the water’s edge to the pavement), it looks initially like the plane came in too low and short of the runway, and the sea wall took out the main landing gear and the tail. The tail fins are laying on the runway - if it fell off before the landing, it would be in the bay.
All the NorCal news stations have been covering this nonstop, but not a lot of new info has emerged in the last couple hours. Officials are not speculating on what happened yet. Pretty awful scene.
At least four planes were diverted to Reno international.
Not the way I want to be vindicated, but damn that approach scares me every time.
Yeah, I always wondered “Hey, what if we’re too low and short?” Now we know.
I would take anything the passengers say with a pinch of salt. For example if it really had been at a 45º angle it would not have been capable of flying.
The tail would have come off due to the impact, if it came off before the impact there would not have been any survivors.
There is nothing intrinsically dangerous about an approach over the water. If you land short on any runway it’s probably not going to go well. Just as well there are several aids the pilots can use to ensure they land in the touchdown zone of the runway.
There are a few immediately obvious possibilities for the cause. In no particular order, mishandling of the aeroplane (pilot error), windshear (you’d expect reports from other aircraft if this was the case), and a mechanical failure such as a simultaneous double engine failure (it has happened before to a B777.)
a passenger interviewed said ‘you’ve landed safety, please remain seated’ recording played after they stopped.
also after they stopped and smoke was noticed, they were told by stewards to return to their seats as they attempted to exit.
As it should be. They need to wait for the evacuation command. The crew need to make sure the engines are shut down and a decision needs to be made as to what exits to use. There will be times when it is appropriate to just get the hell out of there, but if the crew are still alive and in control, it is best if the evacuation proceeds in an orderly manner.
In our company the first thing the captain does after the aircraft stops is make a PA to the passengers telling them to remain seated and await further instructions. In a situation like this the evacuation command would probably come about 30 seconds later, if that.
Yes, but one with different engines. BA38 had Rolls-Royce engines with a design flaw in the fuel oil heat exchanger (which Rolls-Royce immediately fixed). Asiana 777’s have Pratt-Whitney engines. I would be really surprised if that wound up again being the issue 5 years after the first accident.
it seemed to be confusing from the passenger’s point of view. it didn’t seem to convey ‘this is am emergency and this is how we are dealing with it’ which would give a sense of calm and control.
Update - I’ve been watching this on our local news.
The plane was coming in at 109 knots (or mph - I forget what was reported) instead of the recommended 157. It was also too low, and the glide path was all off. The tail wheels hit the jetty and came off, and that cause the plane to flip, nose down, slam into the runway, and roll, which took off both wings. Luckily it landed right side up.
The rear exit was so close to the ground that they didn’t need a slide to get out. The fire and smoke did not begin until a lot of people were out of the plane, which happened very quickly. I haven’t heard anything about the flight crew giving orders to stay in seats - I doubt this happened because people were on the slides almost immediately. The flight crew did cut some people out of their seat belts.
The tail did come off after the landing, and can be found considerably down the runway from the debris field and the fuselage.
The latest report is no one still missing, two dead, and only five still on the critical list.
As for ambulances, they had first responders there almost immediately. There were three waves of passengers going to SF General - the first the worst injured, then the somewhat injured, and finally, quite a bit later, the rest of passengers with injuries, mostly cuts. There were originally ten on the critical list, as I said now down to five. Injuries, beside cuts, were fractures and some burns. I don’t get the impression that any more fatalities are expected. Take a look at that plane. It is not something you’d think over 100 people would walk away from. More people died in a limo fire on a bridge not long ago than in this crash.
In the Bay Area we practice disasters a lot. They were ready for it.
I’ve only seen an interview with one passenger, and it did not seem to be an emergency at all until they hit. One reason for all the cell phone pictures is that people had them out to call given that they were almost down. After they hit, losing the wings and rolling over probably conveyed it was an emergency just fine.
I’ve been on flights into SFO on that approach about a zillion times. It doesn’t startle or scare me because I’m so familiar with it. BUT, the feeling that you’re about to skim down and “land” on water is still palpable every time.
The wind was about five knots, and fairly calm, so it is unlikely that wind shear was an issue. I’ve heard no reports even hinting at it. I don’t know if you were referring to the crash in England - that was due to ice crystals in the fuel line (this was mentioned in the coverage) which I can suppose could happen at high altitudes, but there was no indication that the pilot was trying to apply power at the time of the crash. The weather here today was perfect. And there appeared to be no emergency messages from the flight crew until after the crash. They seem to have survived, so we’ll know for sure later.
I wonder if wake turbulence from the previous jet landing could have been a factor?
I’m not sure where you got that about the wings coming off. Looking at the video and photos of the crash the wings seem to be intact.
I’m curious where you heard that the plane was at 109 knots. I’d like to look that up myself. It seems very slow (maybe close to stall speed??), although I’m not a pilot and I know very little about flying aircraft. If the figure was 109 mph then that would be super-slow ISTM-- 94 knots! :eek:
According to local news, 16 flights were diverted to Sacramento.
Yeah I was really just putting out the obvious causes for this type of accident, without knowing the specifics of the day. I didn’t mean to imply that a double engine failure would be related to the roll back of the B777 in England, only that, although incredibly unlikely, that kind of thing has happened before. Getting a flock of birds in both engines could have the same effect.
I’d also be interested to know where the speed information has come from. It seems very specific. The recommended approach speed is dependant on the weight of the aircraft. For someone to have 157 knots (or mph) as the recommended landing speed they would have to know the weight of that aeroplane for that particular landing. If that really was the correct approach speed then a speed 109 knots instead would have the aeroplane stalled. Generally for jet transport aircraft the target runway threshold speed is 1.3 times the stall speed, and the approach speed is normally another 5 knots above that. A recommended approach speed of 157 knots would have the aeroplane fully stalled at 116 knots.
Once you get more than 5-10 knots below the approach speed, the drag from the wings increases in a big way and you need more and more power to fix it. This is known as getting on the “back of the drag curve”. So yeah, those numbers quoted don’t sound right.
Possible though unlikely. Standard following distances for landing aircraft have pretty much fixed that problem.
it looks like the speed data has come from FlightAware, a website that provides live flight data.
The relevant track log is here with the 109 knots entry being the second to last. The last shows the aircraft at 85 knots. I don’t know where exactly this data comes from and what errors it may contain. One possibility is that they really did get that slow in which case they pretty much stalled on to the runway. Another possibility is that those last data points were just after the crash and that the altitude data is off. Or it could be that none of that data is reliable/accurate enough to be able to draw conclusions from. Or none of the above I guess.
One thing that I’m sure will factor in the accident investigation is that both the ILS glideslope and the PAPIs were out of service for that runway. That means there was no glideslope presentation in the aeroplane to guide the pilots to the touchdown point on the runway and there was no visual approach light system on the runway to do the same thing. That should present no problem to a well trained pilot but some airlines from some countries do not have well trained pilots.
Yesterday afternoon I was driving up to San Francisco anyway. At around 2pm (2½ hours after the crash) I swung over by the airport in Burlingame and Millbrae where you can see that part of the runway. It was from afar, along Airport Blvd and the old Bayshore Highway, and it’s the closest most of the general public can get. By that time all the smoke had cleared, and the (United?) flight waiting to take off after Asiana 214 would have landed normally and without incident had already been moved away, presumably having returned to the terminal.