Plane crash at SFO (San Francisco: how much, taxi driver, safer)

[dalparadise]

Originally Posted by Scott456

Obviously you did not watch the clip on CNN.com, this passenger was talking about the ambulance in general, not specifically for himself.
And Channel 4 has a aviation expert to interpret that recording of tower communication this evening. That communication was after the crash landing. There is nothing indicating the emergency crew was dispatched at the time the tower gave 214 clear to land.

Right, that's why I suspect the recording played on the news was edited together. There is nothing to indicate it was done at that time, but there was nothing to indicate it wasn't, either. There was no explanation given for the context of the recording or its contents, which clearly include a "clear to land" given to 214. At what point this occurred is not clear.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by Chimérique

Many SFO flights had been diverted to Sacramento Int'l. I was waiting to pick-up my nephew from SoCal and was chatting with a Berkeley family who find out their child's Paris flight was diverted to SAC so they drove up to SAC to pick her up. Apparently, there were 14 fights diverted up here from Paris, Singapore, Copenhagen, Tokyo, and several domestic flights.

Her flight was worse. Diverted to Reno, then flew to LAX after a 3 hour wait. From there they had buses to make the drive. She just got home back about an hour ago. Sacto would have been a pleasant detour.


On an autocorrecting iDevice.

[Joelle_SF]

You're right, I didn't watch CNN (no TV) - was just responding to one post here - so I didn't have the background info. Glad to hear there were so many able to safely get off a burning plane.

[BigRooter]

A couple of things

1. Pictures showing passengers dragging their cabin luggage away from the wreck makes me SMH. Unbelievably foolish and selfish.

2. There are cultural aspects to this that make me think this is right, because in Korea and other places:

Only the rich and influential become pilots, because the profession is expensive and has glamour.
But rich and influential sons do not always want to become pilots.
So some rich and influential sons scrape through the course doing the absolute bare minimum.
And some of these rich and influential sons should not have been given command of bicycle, let alone a wide-body.
But they are pushed through the course anyway.
Because his father is rich and powerful, and the instructor want to keep his job.
So the instructor holds his breath, and awards him his wings.
And these same rich and influential sons then spend the whole flight chatting up the prettiest hostess and posing for photos (with open neck and shades), rather than taking the job seriously.
And you fly behind these guys sometimes.

And similar aspects of this very culture explains why passengers actually take their luggage with them down the slide, potentially causing fatalities and blocking other people who want to exit.

[dalparadise]

The more I read about this, the worse it looks for the pilot. I do hope some extenuating circumstances come to light that explain how someone with tens of thousands of hours of flight time can land an aircraft capable of automatically capturing the glide slope short like that. Especially considering there were ideal weather conditions.

I would hate to think (and seriously still doubt) that this pilot was careless with hundreds of passengers' lives.

[Scott456]

again, if you listen to the tower recording. The only English sentence the pilot could say was "we go problem", he then murmured something that nobody can understand. In the meantime, other U.S. based airline pilots were reporting what they saw to the tower (people running on the runway, smoke...etc)
I am under impression that those Asiana pilots simply cannot communicate in English.

[dalparadise]

Originally Posted by Scott456

again, if you listen to the tower recording. The only English sentence the pilot could say was "we go problem", he then murmured something that nobody can understand. In the meantime, other U.S. based airline pilots were reporting what they saw to the tower (people running on the runway, smoke...etc)
I am under impression that those Asiana pilots simply cannot communicate in English.

Here's the full sequence:

http://wandr.me/Audio/AAR214-KSFO-Crash.mp3?cmpid=hpfc

It begins with "214 clear to land."Notice that the United 747 was about to be cleared for takeoff on 28L and asked for more time. There is also another flight cleared to land on 28R. A plane does a go-around and diverts to San Jose. This may be the one cleared to land on 28R, which would give you a sense of the time of impact.

I see what you are saying. This pilot had no warning that anything was wrong until he hit the end of the runway.

That said, all pilots communicate in English. It's not always the best English, but someone piloting a 777 has tens of thousands of hours communicating with towers in English.

[never-more]

Originally Posted by BigRooter

A couple of things

1. Pictures showing passengers dragging their cabin luggage away from the wreck makes me SMH. Unbelievably foolish and selfish.

2. There are cultural aspects to this that make me think this is right, because in Korea and other places:

Only the rich and influential become pilots, because the profession is expensive and has glamour.
But rich and influential sons do not always want to become pilots.
So some rich and influential sons scrape through the course doing the absolute bare minimum.
And some of these rich and influential sons should not have been given command of bicycle, let alone a wide-body.
But they are pushed through the course anyway.
Because his father is rich and powerful, and the instructor want to keep his job.
So the instructor holds his breath, and awards him his wings.
And these same rich and influential sons then spend the whole flight chatting up the prettiest hostess and posing for photos (with open neck and shades), rather than taking the job seriously.
And you fly behind these guys sometimes.

And similar aspects of this very culture explains why passengers actually take their luggage with them down the slide, potentially causing fatalities and blocking other people who want to exit.

Your 2nd theory is very confusing. 1) How is it "right"? Are you connecting it with the 1st thing you said?
2)Pilots with a major airline, much less flying a 777, have thousands of hours flying this plane. If the pilot was as describing them, they should have crashed a plane the first time they flew

3)What is your point?

[NHDave]

Originally Posted by dalparadise

I would hate to think (and seriously still doubt) that this pilot was careless with hundreds of passengers' lives.

Yeah, cause we know people (no matter their profession) never do stupid things

Wouldn't surprise me in the least, but I'm not one for speculation, we know nothing of the pilot and little of the crash circumstances.

[DMenscha]

Originally Posted by dalparadise

Look at the debris. It's well right of the center line and begins right at the end of the displaced threshold. This would indicate both a short landing and perhaps an attempted go-around, where the pilot would have been responding to an unusual circumstance that arose suddenly (a runway incursion, a weather event, a mechanical failure, an onboard issue, etc.).

In a go-around, the pilot must quickly configure the aircraft for flight, as opposed to landing, and veer to the right to climb out parallel to the runway while applying full power, and taking out the flaps as airspeed warrants. Of course, in this instance, there is a parallel, active runway directly to the right, making this a doubly dangerous maneuver. That said, a go around is fairly common, but deceptively difficult. If the flaps are taken out prematurely, the plane can lack the lift to keep flying. If the go-around is initiated too late, the plane may touch and go, meaning that, if the reason for the go-around were gear-related, it would have a problem as it hit the runway. If there isn't enough time to get enough thrust, it's likely, the only alternative is to glide in and ditch.

The relative component here is that, discovering the need for a go-around and thus attempting it very late in the landing sequence often results in the aircraft losing lift and potentially landing short, as the case seems to be here. That's the nature of an aerodynamic stall.

A landing is really just a controlled aerodynamic stall.

1. The missed approach on 28L calls for the pilot to maintain runway heading until the aircraft reaches 4000' altitude. If you can find a Jepp chart that shows otherwise for SFO I'd love to see it.

2. Missed approaches are not common. especially in decent weather. I've experienced one and that was in Mexican airspace where ATC didn't give us enough time and space to descend.

3. I haven't looked at the NOTAMS yet and didn't have access to the ATIS, but I read somewhere the ILS for 28L was not in service. Edit: I did look through the NOTAMS and I don't see any reference to the ILS not being in service.

4. 28L is 11,300 feet long. Short of a bird strike killing power to the engine(s), there no reason for experienced crew to ever even touch the displaced threshold, let alone miss it short.