SFO accident

[GusMcRae]

Only having 330 total hours or so SE piston fixed wing and having a PP license for less than 2 years, I certainly would not feel worthy to critique or analyze what a 777 pilot  and crew did wrong.
However, I know most of the hardest landings I have ever made were under full flap configuration.  I've landed with no flaps at all, shallow approach angle with a little more speed than normal without a problem. 
At new airports I visit, I seem to always have a tendency to be afraid of getting too low in the pattern, I have to make myself get on down lower than I feel like I should be, and find myself too high too often, and wind up putting in full flaps or do a slip maneuver.  It just goes much better for me with a shallow angle as opposed to steep and a little more speed doesn't bother me either.  If it's a short runway, I am just more cognizant of hitting the numbers and not waste any runway behind me.   

In regard to FlyingRzrbkAF's comments on egress, I echo that.  I read an article about a fire in the cockpit and the guys boots were on fire by the time he got the plane on the ground and out of it, and I commented on it on this board.  I had never really thought about it before reading that article.  After reading it, I try not to wear shorts and light shoes unless it is a flight in the summertime when I know we are going be cooking during taxi and takeoff, and even then I know I'm taking a risk dressing like that.  I try to wear boots and jeans when I fly, and carry a jacket unless it's in the heat of summer. 

[RNC]

You can have my basketball shorts and sandals when you pry them off of my cold dead ass/feet

[Flying Razorback]

It's definitely a choice, but I am just like Gus, I wear blue jeans and boots in the winter and jeans and running shoes in the summer.  Unless it's unbearably hot then I'll take the risk and switch to shorts. 

The worst part though, without sounding sexist, is how women dress on airplanes.  You see many of them wearing pantyhose (nylons?), high heels, flip flops, tiny shorts, small cotton tank tops with skirts, and so on.  Maybe I've just seen/read too many accident reports and videos and aftermath pictures, but it's just not worth it to me.  I've gotten used to wearing a fire retardant suit and gloves, full cotton under clothes, and heavy boots while flying and I don't like the idea of basketball shorts and flip flops.

[gotyacovered]

I'm somewhere in between... Not wearing flip flops, not wearing jeans in mid summer.

[RNC]

I don't doubt that there's increased safety from wearing something more rugged.

But it's safer still to not fly at all, or not fly at night or in IMC in a single, or not fly into untowered fields where there could be a radio-less old coot puttering around in a J3, etc.

We all take some risk, I'll keep the shorts and sandals .

[GoHogs1091]

Apparently, a focus of the investigation pertains to the automatic speed control that the Asiana Pilots have stated to the NTSB that they were utilizing.  The Asiana Pilots at too late of a point realized that the autothrottle was not controlling the speed of the plane.

First of all, when I flew the 777 on the Microsoft Sim (and I spent a considerable amount of time flying the 777 on the Microsoft Sim), I never utilized the autothrottle on approaches.   

Second, using the autothrottle on the 777 is a 2 step process.  The autothrottle has to be armed, and then it also has to be engaged.  The Asiana Pilots may have just had it armed, and not engaged. 

Third, it is my understanding that the autothrottle on the 777 automatically shuts off at the 500 ft. altitude mark.  I don't know that for sure because I never used the autothrottle on approaches.

Automation/technology can be a good thing, but automation/technology can also cause problems.  There can be too much of a reliance on automation/technology.

[Flying Razorback]

I'm somewhere in between... Not wearing flip flops, not wearing jeans in mid summer.

Very true.  Most of the time on an airline flight in the summer I'll be in shorts and running shoes because I've been living in Florida, Oklahoma, and Arkansas the past 7 years.  And it has been hot.  The shoes are the biggest thing to me.  You have to have solid shoes and not heels or flip flops.  Look at the pictures from the inside of that 777.  I just don't want to survive something but lose a foot or impeded people getting out.

[Flying Razorback]

I don't doubt that there's increased safety from wearing something more rugged.

But it's safer still to not fly at all, or not fly at night or in IMC in a single, or not fly into untowered fields where there could be a radio-less old coot puttering around in a J3, etc.

We all take some risk, I'll keep the shorts and sandals .

Ha, I'm not saying we don't take risks.  We take plenty.  But mitigating things you can control is just preparing because of the risk.  I also keep a blanket in my car during the winter and jumper cables when it gets real cold and snowy.  That's mainly from my years spent living in Chicago and Oklahoma and seeing cars stuck in snowstorms. 

I've seen a lot of people at Chicago O'Hare/Midway or Cleveland Hopkins wearing summer clothes with 20 degree F temps and snow outside boarding planes to go to Florida.  I have also seen planes shut down and people de-plane outside.  I just don't want to be the person in shorts standing at the end of the runway waiting for a ride back to the terminal.  And I want to preserve as much flesh as I can if I'm getting out of a burning aircraft.  I think wearing cotton close to the skin is the most important thing, I would really tell the women in your lives not to wear nylon stuff unless they want to risk having it permanently grafted to their skin.

[RNC]

Actually my stepdaughter would be the one to save the day.  She goes literally nowhere without a cotton blanket.

[fdx flyer]

Haven't been on Hogville since the mishap, but I'll give y'all my thoughts as an international flying 777 pilot. 

Here are some factors to think about.  First of all, flying internationally, the legs are much longer, often requiring extra crew for relief.  What that means, is that I often fly without getting to operate the airplane in the approach environment.  I get way less approaches and landings than I used to flying domestically.  Second of all, in two years of flying into large international airports I have never - not once - not had ILS glideslope indications in the cockpit (not counting simulator training every 6 months).  Third of all, I can't recall ever being cleared for a visual approach anywhere outside of the states.

What I'm getting at is that this was absolutely not a normal approach for your average Korean pilot.  I've got military experience and small airplane experience that tells my seat of the pants and eyeballs what's going on.  And even then, I can still be a little rusty because I don't get to actually "fly" the airplane that much - especially visual approaches.   I'm just trying to give y'all some background, not making excuses for the Asiana crew.  It appears to be a case of really poor airmanship.  As mentioned previously in this thread, the 777 is an amazing airplane.  It's hands down the easiest airplane to operate and fly that I've flown in my professional career.  The problem is, these guys learn how to operate the automation, not how to fly.  Big difference.  The following is an excerpt from one of the flying websites I frequent.  It gives some great insight.



"From a former UAL check captain.

After I retired from UAL as a Standards Captain on the –400, I got a job as a simulator instructor working for Alteon (a Boeing subsidiary) at Asiana. When I first got there, I was shocked and surprised by the lack of basic piloting skills shown by most of the pilots. It is not a normal situation with normal progression from new hire, right seat, left seat taking a decade or two. One big difference is that ex-Military pilots are given super-seniority and progress to the left seat much faster. Compared to the US, they also upgrade fairly rapidly because of the phenomenal growth by all Asian air carriers. By the way, after about six months at Asiana, I was moved over to KAL and found them to be identical. The only difference was the color of the uniforms and airplanes. I worked in Korea for 5 long years and although I found most of the people to be very pleasant, it's a minefield of a work environment ... for them and for us expats.

One of the first things I learned was that the pilots kept a web-site and reported on every training session. I don't think this was officially sanctioned by the company, but after one or two simulator periods, a database was building on me (and everyone else) that told them exactly how I ran the sessions, what to expect on checks, and what to look out for. For example; I used to open an aft cargo door at 100 knots to get them to initiate an RTO and I would brief them on it during the briefing. This was on the B-737 NG and many of the captains were coming off the 777 or B744 and they were used to the Master Caution System being inhibited at 80 kts. Well, for the first few days after I started that, EVERYONE rejected the takeoff. Then, all of a sudden they all "got it" and continued the takeoff (in accordance with their manuals). The word had gotten out. I figured it was an overall PLUS for the training program.

We expat instructors were forced upon them after the amount of fatal accidents (most of the them totally avoidable) over a decade began to be noticed by the outside world. They were basically given an ultimatum by the FAA, Transport Canada, and the EU to totally rebuild and rethink their training program or face being banned from the skies all over the world. They hired Boeing and Airbus to staff the training centers. KAL has one center and Asiana has another. When I was there (2003-2008) we had about 60 expats conducting training KAL and about 40 at Asiana. Most instructors were from the USA, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand with a few stuffed in from Europe and Asia. Boeing also operated training centers in Singapore and China so they did hire some instructors from there.

This solution has only been partially successful but still faces ingrained resistance from the Koreans. I lost track of the number of highly qualified instructors I worked with who were fired because they tried to enforce "normal" standards of performance. By normal standards, I would include being able to master basic tasks like successfully shoot a visual approach with 10 kt crosswind and the weather CAVOK. I am not kidding when I tell you that requiring them to shoot a visual approach struck fear in their hearts ... with good reason. Like this Asiana crew, it didnt' compute that you needed to be a 1000' AGL at 3 miles and your sink rate should be 600-800 Ft/Min. But, after 5 years, they finally nailed me. I still had to sign my name to their training and sometimes if I just couldn't pass someone on a check, I had no choice but to fail them. I usually busted about 3-5 crews a year and the resistance against me built. I finally failed an extremely incompetent crew and it turned out he was the a high-ranking captain who was the Chief Line Check pilot on the fleet I was teaching on. I found out on my next monthly trip home that KAL was not going to renew my Visa. The crew I failed was given another check and continued a fly while talking about how unfair Captain Brown was.

Any of you Boeing glass-cockpit guys will know what I mean when I describe these events. I gave them a VOR approach with an 15 mile arc from the IAF. By the way, KAL dictated the profiles for all sessions and we just administered them. He requested two turns in holding at the IAF to get set up for the approach. When he finally got his nerve up, he requested "Radar Vectors" to final. He could have just said he was ready for the approach and I would have cleared him to the IAF and then "Cleared for the approach" and he could have selected "Exit Hold" and been on his way. He was already in LNAV/VNAV PATH. So, I gave him vectors to final with a 30 degree intercept. Of course, he failed to "Extend the FAF" and he couldn't understand why it would not intercept the LNAV magenta line when he punched LNAV and VNAV. He made three approaches and missed approaches before he figured out that his active waypoint was "Hold at XYZ." Every time he punched LNAV, it would try to go back to the IAF ... just like it was supposed to do. Since it was a check, I was not allowed (by their own rules) to offer him any help. That was just one of about half dozen major errors I documented in his UNSAT paperwork. He also failed to put in ANY aileron on takeoff with a 30-knot direct crosswind (again, the weather was dictated by KAL).

This Asiana SFO accident makes me sick and while I am surprised there are not more, I expect that there will be many more of the same type accidents in the future unless some drastic steps are taken. They are already required to hire a certain percentage of expats to try to ingrain more flying expertise in them, but more likely, they will eventually be fired too. One of the best trainees I ever had was a Korean/American (he grew up and went to school in the USA) who flew C-141's in the USAF. When he got out, he moved back to Korea and got hired by KAL. I met him when I gave him some training and a check on the B-737 and of course, he breezed through the training. I give him annual PCs for a few years and he was always a good pilot. Then, he got involved with trying to start a pilots union and when they tired to enforce some sort of duty rigs on international flights, he was fired after being arrested and JAILED!

The Koreans are very very bright and smart so I was puzzled by their inability to fly an airplane well. They would show up on Day 1 of training (an hour before the scheduled briefing time, in a 3-piece suit, and shined shoes) with the entire contents of the FCOM and Flight Manual totally memorized. But, putting that information to actual use was many times impossible. Crosswind landings are also an unsolvable puzzle for most of them. I never did figure it out completely, but I think I did uncover a few clues. Here is my best guess. First off, their educational system emphasizes ROTE memorization from the first day of school as little kids. As you know, that is the lowest form of learning and they act like robots. They are also taught to NEVER challenge authority and in spite of the flight training heavily emphasizing CRM/CLR, it still exists either on the surface or very subtly. You just can't change 3000 years of culture.

The other thing that I think plays an important role is the fact that there is virtually NO civil aircraft flying in Korea. It's actually illegal to own a Cessna-152 and just go learn to fly. Ultra-lights and Powered Hang Gliders are Ok. I guess they don't trust the people to not start WW III by flying 35 miles north of Inchon into North Korea. But, they don't get the kids who grew up flying (and thinking for themselves) and hanging around airports. They do recruit some kids from college and send then to the US or Australia and get them their tickets. Generally, I had better experience with them than with the ex-Military pilots. This was a surprise to me as I spent years as a Naval Aviator flying fighters after getting my private in light airplanes. I would get experienced F-4, F-5, F-15, and F-16 pilots who were actually terrible pilots if they had to hand fly the airplane. What a shock!
Finally, I'll get off my box and talk about the total flight hours they claim. I do accept that there are a few talented and free-thinking pilots that I met and trained in Korea. Some are still in contact and I consider them friends. They were a joy! But, they were few and far between and certainly not the norm.

Actually, this is a worldwide problem involving automation and the auto-flight concept. Take one of these new first officers that got his ratings in the US or Australia and came to KAL or Asiana with 225 flight hours. After takeoff, in accordance with their SOP, he calls for the autopilot to be engaged at 250' after takeoff. How much actual flight time is that? Hardly one minute. Then he might fly for hours on the autopilot and finally disengage it (MAYBE?) below 800' after the gear was down, flaps extended and on airspeed (autothrottle). Then he might bring it in to land. Again, how much real "flight time" or real experience did he get. Minutes! Of course, on the 777 or 747, it's the same only they get more inflated logbooks.

So, when I hear that a 10,000 hour Korean captain was vectored in for a 17-mile final and cleared for a visual approach in CAVOK weather, it raises the hair on the back of my neck.
Tom"

[Scrambled Hog]

Soo... don't fly Korean airlines. 
Check

Flying into SFO Friday morning on an EMB 120, then out again on UAL cross-country... it's my main hub.

[Flying Razorback]

Soo... don't fly Korean airlines. 
Check

Flying into SFO Friday morning on an EMB 120, then out again on UAL cross-country... it's my main hub.

I heard a lot of discussion about that after the Air France incident.  Airbus especially has built on the automation model in order to help sales in the international market where the pilots need to be more systems managers and have less aviation ability and sense.

I still think that no matter what the best thing to do is build off a foundation and increase automation and SA tools as you increase experience so that you can augment your SA and airmanship instead of relying on them.

[fdx flyer]

I still think that no matter what the best thing to do is build off a foundation and increase automation and SA tools as you increase experience so that you can augment your SA and airmanship instead of relying on them.

I agree.  Unfortunately, that's not usually how Part 121 training programs operate. 

btw...   I just flew on Asiana 11 days ago from Inchon to Shanghai.  FedEx uses them to position us all the time.  They're one of the cheapest carriers in Asia. 

[Flying Razorback]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/10/asiana-flight-214-ntsb-pilot-blinded/2507059/


Well this is going to make it interesting.  It'll be very difficult to prove that he "wasn't" blinded by a flash at around 500' AGL.  But he wouldn't have lost all that airspeed instantaneously, he was already slow there.  I wouldn't believe it unless I heard on the CVR "Oh sh**!  I just got blinded by a flash of light!  You have the aircraft!"  I mean seriously, who wouldn't immediately pass controls or at least remark about it?

[SouthSide Johnny]

Honest question, just curious from actual pilots do you think someone that is a expert on Simulator flight games and with all the electronics, computer and auto flight that they could actually land a plane in a emergency with help from a pilot in the control tower?

Very possible
Maybe
No
Have you lost your mind

[PEtrader]

Honest question, just curious from actual pilots do you think someone that is a expert on Simulator flight games and with all the electronics, computer and auto flight that they could actually land a plane in a emergency with help from a pilot in the control tower?

Very possible
Maybe
No
Have you lost your mind

honestly maybe.  There is a lot more to it, but it a bind possibly.   It would be better than someone who has never done it before.

[SouthSide Johnny]

Years ago I used to play a B17 game and one called Janes USAF and some hardware but I know now they have 3D simulator games  and advanced hardware and software that basically you can build a cock pit with rudder pedals, yoke systems and throttle systems .etc really advanced stuff I realize a game is just that and actually being put in a life and death situation it night and day.

Really a serious curious question and would to know what others think, Thanks

My father flew F-4's but mostly B-52's over Nam from Okinawa he retired in 72 or 73 at Malstrom last days of SAC but he didn't talk about the flying or planes other than he was glad to get out of the F-4's.

[Flying Razorback]

Honest question, just curious from actual pilots do you think someone that is a expert on Simulator flight games and with all the electronics, computer and auto flight that they could actually land a plane in a emergency with help from a pilot in the control tower?

Very possible
Maybe
No
Have you lost your mind

I agree with PETrader.  I think if you understand how to go step by step through the process then you can make it happen.  We used to tell our students "You cant teach a monkey to fly an airplane..." but the other half of that was it took a lot of brainpower and experience to properly execute a mission.

So descending on an arrival, slowing and configuring, executing the approach, slowing to final approach speed, descending to the runway, flaring, landing, and slowing to a stop could be chair flown on a simulator and executed as long as it goes exactly as planned.

The inherent problem is nothing ever goes as planned.  This accident highlights some of that.  Aircraft are kept high on the arrival creating a steeper than normal descent.  If you were to add crosswinds to the equation (none present during the accident) and fatigue from an 11 hour trans-oceanic flight, that's where the experience and actually hand on the yoke experience is going to help.  You don't deal a lot with P-I-Os and get the feel for small, controlled inputs in the sim.  Even younger fully qualified pilots don't have the 'feel' required in certain situations to make everything smooth.  I sat jump the other day after completing some approach work that went really smooth and watched the new copilot take it after our experienced instructor also had a smooth series and really get himself in some situations late.  He had trouble smoothly reducing his crosswind controls as the crosswind died off from about 20 knots at 1000' to less than 5 at touchdown.

Then there's just the feel.  We are taught to rely on instruments and known pitch/power settings and procedures and not rely on the 'seat of your pants' flying skills.  But those still play a part.  Any time my hair starts to prickle on the back of my neck I immediately revert and make corrections to slow whatever phase of flight I'm in and find the discrepancy and fix it.  The less hours you have the less you'll get the pricklies.

[SouthSide Johnny]

So basically with the right person and in near perfect weather and the right airport maybe doable but other than that........

Done a lot of flying mostly commercial some private and charter only one time was I really concerned flying into Sea Tac heading west over the sound and making that hard left turn very suddenly we dropped like a rock thought we where hitting the water but all was well, the whole plane applauded even the stewards had a relived look.

One time out of DFW when we hit the runway instead of slowing or waiting once he turned and got straight they hit full throttle never experienced that before 

[RNC]

The thing with those PC based SIMs (which are legal for a certain number of hours toward a license BTW, flight schools use them to teach procedures) is that they're very 'twitchy'.  A real airplane is not nearly as much so, changes are much more gradual.  You can ham fist an airplane around a lot more than you can that SIM without getting in too much trouble.

I know personally I never landed anything successfully in Amercian Flyers' SIM based school in DFW, and they didn't care, it was for practicing procedures and when you got lined up on final the instructor would say "land it or crash it, whichever".

[gotyacovered]

Honest question, just curious from actual pilots do you think someone that is a expert on Simulator flight games and with all the electronics, computer and auto flight that they could actually land a plane in a emergency with help from a pilot in the control tower?

Very possible
Maybe
No
Have you lost your mind

I agree with maybe... And at that degree I think it would be more of a survivable controlled crash than a landing. Something's def going to get bent.

[Brownstreak]

This is a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle that one of our very senior captains wrote.  He's one of the smartest people I've ever met.


Asiana 214

Although it will be months before the final report is issued by the NTSB,
the information that has already been released is pretty damning. In just
the first day or two after the crash, they have now eliminated nearly all
possible factors. It wasn't the visibility, or the wind, or the fact that SFO
is designated as a 'special' airport. Contrary to the media hype over
the inoperative glide slope (the ground-based navigational aid that provides
vertical path guidance), any pilot will tell you that's simply a non-event,
not only because of the weather that existed at the time, but also because
there are countless airports that don't even have precision approaches
(glide slope information), not to mention the fact that in addition to the PAPI
(lights next to the runway which provide vertical path guidance), the
B-777 has onboard equipment which allows the crew to 'build an approach' if
they want it, giving the pilot the same kind of vertical guidance on a clear
daytime approach that the glideslope would have, except for the aural
warning of excessive deviations. We also know from the recovered recorders that
there was nothing mechanically wrong with the aircraft, with the possible
but highly unlikely exception of an autothrottle malfunction. And although
the press and the lawyers are going to make an issue of the 43 hours in
type that the Captain had, or that it was his first landing at SFO in the
B-777, those factors, by themselves, also mean nothing, despite the inevitable
change in the regulations in the near future to show that some kind of
action has been taken. The reason those two points are meaningless is that
every airline pilot you or anyone else has ever flown with had 43 hours 'in type' at
one time, and was doing I.O.E. at one time, and had a first landing at any
given airport at one time. It sounds like a big deal to the public, and the
media will have their frenzy, but it's nothing.

So what is left is that whatever went wrong happened during the last minute
or two of a ten-hour flight. When they were a mile out from the runway (a
half-minute from touchdown), they should have been 300 feet above the
ground with an airspeed of 137 knots (157.5 miles per hour). They weren't.
There will be talk about whether the autothrottle malfunctioned or was
disengaged without the other pilot knowing, and so on, but that's just another
sideshow. The I.O.E. Instructor told the NTSB that "the autothrottle hadn't
maintained the necessary speed" (which is the equivalent of a driver
telling the police after an accident that the cruise control had failed to hold
the desired speed). It isn't the autothrottle's responsibility to maintain
the necessary speed - it's the pilots'. His hands are supposed to be on
the throttles and his eyes are supposed to be on the airspeed indicator and
altimeter (among other things) with the kind of vigilance a cat pays to a
cornered mouse. Any 20-hour student pilot in a Cessna knows those are the
two things that will get you killed. Regardless of why the airspeed was
allowed to bleed off as much as 39 miles per hour (137 knots down to 103
knots), plus lose so much altitude, the single issue here is how in the world it
was possible for not even one of three experienced pilots to be zeroed in
on these critical parameters, for them not to notice or take action until
seconds before impact. It is utterly incomprehensible. The cockpit has
multiple airspeed indicators and altimeters, plus radar altimeters and inertial
and GPS-based readouts for both, all visible to every one of the pilots who
were sitting there. The scenario we're left with after NTSB Chairwoman
Deborah Hersman released the information known so far is simply impossible to
fathom.

Stilly Sprague
Monterey, CA

(Aviation credentials: M.S. Degree in Aerospace Engineering. Over 24,000
hours flying for multiple airlines, four military services, and NASA. Viet
Nam and Desert Storm veteran. Experience operating transports, fighter
jets, helicopters, and bombers, including type ratings in the following
aircraft: A-310; B-727; B-737; B-747;-B-747-4; B-757; B-767; B-777; BA-111; DC-3;
DC-8; DC-9; L-300; L-382; LR-Jet; MD-11.)