Flt 214 Landing Accident at SF Airport

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The AP report appears far more accurate and professional than the early stuff from CNN.
The aircraft involved was a 777 ER with Pratt engines.
It is one of twelve in Asiana's fleet.
The fire damage to the fuselage happened after evacuation.
It appears that there may have been two deaths, which doesn't seem bad considering the severity of the event.
All that's known for sure is that the aircraft was low enough on approach that parts of it struck the seawall prior to reaching land, where one of the engines might have been sheared off.
Weather was not a factor, since conditions were about as good for flying as anyone could ask.
The tail appears to have broken off around that time at the aft pressure bulkhead.
There are active threads on the accident on pprune and airliners.net right now.
It's been a rainy, dreary day here, so I've been alternating between reading on the back porch and surfing, which is the reason I'm aware of the accident and the two site threads.
If ony two people lost their lives in this event, then that is a good outcome.
Kudos to the cabin crew for having facilitated a sucessful evacuation and kudos to Boeing for having designed the aircraft to sustain this kind of punishment without either ending up on its back or breaking up on the ground.
 
Originally Posted By: 190E26FTW
Tail hit the beginning of the runway before the tires touched down. Pilot Error...


Way too early to make that ascertion.
We know what happened.
We don't know why.
 
Originally Posted By: 190E26FTW
Pilot Error...

They were signalling the control tower that they were having problems before they came down, so I'm not sure you can just say "pilot error". Let's wait for more details.
 
Originally Posted By: crinkles
Any chance of windshear?


I heard that the cross wind was going at 7 mph. So pretty much no.
 
Weather conditions were perfect at SFO for the approach and landing of this flight.
What is commonly called "windshear" involves either a rapid decrease in headwind or a rapid increase in tailwind.
Either results in a sudden loss of airspeed, which is never a good thing when close to the ground.
I would think that Asiana's crews can fly a visual approach in perfect weather with no problems.
Then again, I'd also think that an Air France crew could recognize and recover from a stall when they had plenty of altitude to work with, even without reliable airspeed indication.
Maybe not.
 
Looks like a non stabilized approach. Landed a bit short...

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAR214/history/20130706/0730Z/RKSI/KSFO/tracklog

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AAR214/history/20130705/0730Z/RKSI/KSFO/tracklog

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Very interesting descent profile on the crash, I wonder if they ran out or very low on fuel. Aircraft broke in half, wing and engines detached, yet a very small fire.
 
At the last aerospace company I was with I helped develop a Windshear and Vertical Weather profiling radar.

In this case, it appeared there was no dangerous weather to profile.
 
Weather was not a factor today (I was scheduled to land in SFO shortly after this happened...we diverted). The airplane was low and slow when it hit the sea wall.

How it got there will not be known until an investigation has been completed. There are many potential reasons, but I prefer not to go into them at this point...it's just too early to know.

That said, I would get on a 777 tomorrow. In its 18 years of service, it has been one of the safest airplanes ever made, this is its first accident resulting in fatality....an exceptional safety record for what is a great airplane.
 
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Very very easy to be unstabilized in SFO. Bay Approach often keeps you high and fast when in VMC and then clears you for the visual to the 28s. Been cleared for the visual to 28 R at 10,000' over the San Mateo bridge 6 miles from the approach end of 28R.. While on a vector of 100 degrees, clean, and 280 knots (assigned)... Pilots will know the "slam dunk" I just described....

You need to be close to approach speed, at 1,800 feet over the San Mateo bridge to be stable...
 
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Originally Posted By: Astro14
That said, I would get on a 777 tomorrow. In its 18 years of service, it has been one of the safest airplanes ever made, this is its first accident resulting in fatality....an exceptional safety record for what is a great airplane.

Yup. And interestingly the previous accident was somewhat similar in that it touched down just short of the runway. The possible cause was restricted fuel flow to the engines as a result of ice formation.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20080117-0


Of course we shouldn't speculate that the same factors were at play in the SFO incident.
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: Astro14
That said, I would get on a 777 tomorrow. In its 18 years of service, it has been one of the safest airplanes ever made, this is its first accident resulting in fatality....an exceptional safety record for what is a great airplane.

Yup. And interestingly the previous accident was somewhat similar in that it touched down just short of the runway. The possible cause was restricted fuel flow to the engines as a result of ice formation.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20080117-0


Of course we shouldn't speculate that the same factors were at play in the SFO incident.
I noticed last yr getting off a Bombadier 400 and hear a dripping sound and water striking the pavement. Looked up at the ice melting off the wings. It was almost 90 degrees out!
 
Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette
ALL pilots make mistakes.

Even the best of the very best.



Indeed. And there is no such thing as the perfect flight. The key to aviation safety is the identification and correction of those mistakes. Error management, the optimization of human performance, has yielded the greatest improvements in aviation safety.

Different airlines, and their societies, have different cultures that make the identification of those errors easier...or harder...in some cases, airliners have crashed because of the mistakes made by the Captain flying, mistakes that were evident to the other cockpit crew, and that those other crew were unwilling to point out. Serious, uncorrected errors (like an unstable approach) can lead to aircraft crashes. Examples include Korean Air flight 801 that flew into the ground during a night approach. The Captain had selected the wrong altitude for the airplane's position on the procedure, the FO and FE knew it, said it, but did not demand a correction of that error...it was a cultural thing... And there have been many instances of uncorrected errors due to cockpit/crew culture that resulted in crashes

And it's not just Korean airlines, SWA 1455 in Burbank in 2000 was a grossly unstable approach that led to a non-fatal crash. Both pilots knew they were well outside established parameters for a safe approach long before landing, but for some reason, perhaps pressure to "make it happen" they continued...and touched down too far down the short runway, at 44 knots above target speed and were unable to stop. The only explanation in that case had to do with the psychology of error management.

It is my suspicion that there was nothing wrong with this airplane, I suspect that a common SFO practice of being placed high and fast on final by approach control was not managed correctly by the crew, and that instead of correcting the situation by going around, they continued on a unstable approach and got the airplane well behind the power curve at touchdown ...but I emphasize that I reserve judgement until the mishap investigation is complete....if the engines or autoflight systems (autothrust) did not respond, as in the case of BA, this investigation might yield a very different conclusion.
 
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