Rough Landing

[Edwin]

In the Philippines there was a flight from Manila to Davao, Mindanao, Cebu Airlines on one of their airbuses that had a crash landing at the Davao Airport. I learned to pilot airplanes many years ago, and the hardest landing, the hardest I ever hit the ground was when I was taking my check flight with the examiner. He was a big guy, tall, and weighed a lot. I had the airplane full of gasoline, so on my approach to the runway strip I got a sink rate going that I could not stop, and we came on the ground unbelievably hard. I turned to the examiner and said, "Do you suppose I damaged this airplane?" He told me, "They will take a lot harder pounding than that!" In trying to have everything turn out perfectly I usually made very smooth landings on the first part of the airstrip, in fact one time I had the airplane's belly scraping weeds, as I didn't quite get to the strip, but it turned out okay! Airplane pilots have a few sayings. One is "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing!" Also another is "there are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are not very many old bold pilots, because they usually die in a crash somewhere along in their career!" I found this article from the "Seattle Times" this morning, and I thought I would share it with you all. I flew on one of these airbuses in 2010 from Manila to Dumaguete, Negros, Oriental, and both the flight and the return flight to Manila were wonderful. Another thing is that everyone is horrified when an airplane crashes, but air flight is still very safe transportation when you consider all the cars, buses, ships/boats, and trains that crash and people are killed in them. With airplane crashes, that makes big news, is sensational news, and it is quick to be made news worthy. As I understand from the article the pilot and crew were landing in a storm, and they overshot the runway, landing the airplane on its nose. It must have been quite an experience for the people on that airplane that was tilted to the ground, and they are a long ways off the ground being so large. The airbuse was damaged beyond repair, but no one was hurt. The Pilot and crew are taking a lot of heat for not acting more quickly, but hey, these airbuses don't crash every day, and I think the pilot and crew were traumatized, probably wondering how it happened, and they needed time to get themselves together while people on the airplane were in a state of panic and screaming! I am happy that no one was hurt, and I hope they don't make it too hard on the pilot and crew, because next time they probably will act more quickly!

Here is the article:

Panicked passengers stuck in plane after Airbus overshoots Philippines runway
Philippine aviation authorities are investigating Cebu Pacific pilots and crew who left passengers waiting some 15 minutes before deploying emergency slides on a plane that overshot the runway and landed on its nose.
By HRVOJE HRANJSKI
Associated Press
MANILA, Philippines —
Philippine aviation authorities said Tuesday they are investigating Cebu Pacific pilots and crew who left passengers waiting some 15 minutes before deploying emergency slides on a plane that overshot the runway and landed on its nose.
None of the 165 passengers was injured, but several complained about the slow response. The rough landing in stormy weather Sunday evening forced the three-day closure of the Davao International Airport in the southern Philippines while the Airbus A320-200 remained stuck on the runway. The aircraft was lifted off the grass and was being towed away Tuesday.
Civil Aviation Authority Deputy Director General John Andrews said pilot error probably caused the accident. He said the aircraft could not be repaired.
"Everyone panicked. Women and children were screaming," Percival Jacones told the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper. He said the cabin crew appeared stunned and it took 15 minutes before the captain came out of the cockpit to address the passengers.
Davao Mayor Sara Duterte said airport management was late in alerting city emergency services about the landing and denied quick access to the passengers. She said an airport security guard phoned Emergency 911 to report the accident. The aviation authority said all angles will be investigated.
Andrews told reporters that the pilots and cabin crew have been grounded pending the investigation. He said the pilots violated the standard operating procedure by not ordering an immediate evacuation of the aircraft.
Cebu Pacific President Lance Gokongwei apologized but also defended the crew's action.
"In this situation we may not have handled all issues perfectly, but we can learn from this experience," Gokongwei told ABS-CBN TV.
The plane had departed from the capital, Manila. Cebu Pacific is the Philippines' largest low-cost carrier. It operates 33 Airbus planes and eight ATRs, and also flies on regional routes.
A similar accident occurred in 2011 when a Cebu Pacific plane overshot the runway in Puerto Princesa in western Palawan province. There were no casualties.
The Ateneo de Davao University, which had members aboard Sunday's flight, published an open letter saying it will boycott the airline to protest "the insensitivity and ineptness" of the crew.
"Your personnel lack training for an emergency situation. They froze. They did not know what do to. They must be able to put the welfare of the passengers before their own," said university President Joel Tabora.
The Philippine civil aviation sector was downgraded by the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority in 2008, and by the European Union two years later, because of safety and oversight lapses. Presidential spokesman Ricky Carandang said the government is hopeful that the latest incident will not impact an ongoing international review of the industry.

[red]

Thank you for this news Sir Edwin. I have a bad experienced too with Cebu Pacific the last time we flown from Cagayan de Oro to Manila prior to our flight to here. It was a bad goodbye. I like Cebu Pacific because of it is low fare but of what I have read now I think we won't fly with them again. Flying towards here was not a good experienced except from Detroit to North Carolina. I am scared now of flying on airplane. I am hoping and praying nothing like this news will happen again. It creates a bad reputation on Cebu Pacific.

[Edwin]

Yes, Red, when I flew on Cebu Airlines in 2010 from Manila to Dumaguete and the return, we did some bouncing around and it scared my friends to death, but I figured that the pilot and crew doesn't want to die, so I was relaxed enjoying the ride, but I would not enjoy crashing! Who would! Carol is scared to death of flying and she says that she will never go to the Philippines again as her trip there in 2006 scared her too much! My friends told me that they don't enjoy it either, but they said they have to fly to see their families in the Philippines, so they are willing to suffer it. I actually enjoy it, that is if I don't crash!

[Edwin]

The report I just read was a really rough landing, actually a crash landing with a huge airlines' airplane. The crash was an Asiana Airlines Airplane landing in San Fransico. I belong to the Asiana Airlines Flight Club, and I have about enough points with them to fly to the Philippines, but I lack points to return to the USA. Does that mean when I get to the Philippines I will be stranded there? No, I'm just joking! I would have to make some kind of a deal with them.

I flew from Seattle Washington to Seoul, South Korea, and then to Manila, and made a return trip back to Seoul, South Korea, and the return to Seattle, Washington, USA October 31st, 2010. It was the only time I ever flew over seas, and I enjoyed it immensely. While many people slept on that flight I enjoyed watching the television screen that told altitude, airspeed, ground speed, and other like information. I also enjoyed watching the displayed map with geographical names as we flew above B.C., Canada, Alaska, off the coast of Siberia, and China, and then flying over the Japanese Islands, and Landing in Incheon International Airport, in Seoul, South Korea. The flight attendants were wonderful and friendly, and I enjoyed the snacks, meals, and beverages as we flew. It was a wonderful experience. We did have an interesting landing in Seattle as the airplane was drifting crossways of the runway we were landing on. The airplane was aligned diagnally to the runway, then as the wheels touched on the runway the pilot shifted the airplane to align it with the runway, giving you the feeling that you were in a Van that was almost to tip over. It scared the people I was with, but having piloted airplanes years ago, I knew exactly what was happening.

Anyway it was one of Asiana Airlines' Airplanes like I flew in in 2010 that crashed in San Fransico. I think it just crashed so they don't know yet what the cause of that crash was I don't think. From the news it sounds like there were no fatalities, and maybe not even any injuries!

Here is the article from the "Seattle Times:"

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul, South Korea, crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday, forcing passengers to jump down the emergency inflatable slides to safety. It was not immediately known whether there were any injuries.
The Boeing 777 was supposed to land on runway 28 left at the airport, said Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown. She said the sequence of events was still unclear, but it appeared the plane landed and then crashed.
A video clip posted to YouTube shows smoke coming from a silver-colored jet on the tarmac. Passengers could be seen jumping down the inflatable emergency slides. Television footage showed debris strewn about the tarmac and pieces of the plane lying on the runway.

Fire trucks had sprayed a white fire retardant on the wreckage.
A call to the airline seeking comment wasn't immediately returned.
Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air. It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and joined the oneWorld alliance, anchored by American Airlines and British Airways.

The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is one of the world's most popular long-distance planes, often used for flights of 12 hours or more, from one continent to another. The airline's website says its 777s can carry between 246 to 300 passengers.
The last time a large U.S. airline lost a plane in a fatal crash was an American Airlines Airbus A300 taking off from JFK in 2001.
Smaller airlines have had crashes since then. The last fatal U.S. crash was a Continental Express flight operated by Colgan Air, which crashed into a house near Buffalo, N.Y. on Feb. 12, 2009. The crash killed all 49 people on board and one man in a house.
___
Associated Press writers Joan Lowy in Washington, D.C., and Scott Mayerowitz in New York contributed to this report.

[Edwin]

I found a little more news on that crash, and more up to date information. The only information on the cause was that someone observed an explosion on the under belly of the airplane, and who knows what caused that. Also this article tells that one person was killed in the crash, and 20 to 30 people were injured. Ten of the injured were critical. Most of these people on the flight only spoke Korean. This is very sad, and as I said in my other post, I flew with them in October of 2010, and my experience was very happy, and I was treated very well!

Here is the other article with more updated information:

By Sarah McBride and Alistair Barr
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 with more than 300 people on board crashed on Saturday while landing at San Francisco airport after a flight from Seoul and burst into flames, and a South Korean official said one person was killed and 20-30 injured.
Pictures taken immediately after the crash showed passengers streaming off the plane. TV footage from the air later showed the badly damaged fuselage of the Boeing 777 blackened by fire.
One person was killed and between 20 and 30 were injured, South Korean Deputy Consul General Hong Sungwook in San Francisco told Reuters at the scene.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency in Seoul said the plane had carried 292 passengers and 16 crew members.
Rachael Kagan, a spokeswoman for San Francisco General Hospital, said 10 critically injured people had been taken there, including two children, six women and four men. She said most of them spoke only Korean.
Ying Kong, of Albany, New York, who was waiting at the airport for her brother-in-law, Fawen Yan, 47, from Richmond, California, said he telephoned her after surviving the crash to say it had been "really smoky and scary."
"He feels it difficult to breathe, but he's okay," she said. She added: "He said a lot of people had to run. He said some people got hurt."
Lynn Lunsford, spokesman of the Federal Aviation Administration, said the plane was Flight 214. Air traffic at the airport was halted after the crash, which took place under sunny skies with only a slight breeze.
Images on television station KTVU in San Francisco showed the plane lost its tail in the crash. Fire engines were on the scene, and the fire, which had burned through the cabin's roof, appeared to be out. Debris was along the start of the runway, which is o the San Francisco Bay.
"You heard a pop and you immediately saw a large, brief fireball that came out from underneath the aircraft," Anthony Castorani, who witnessed the crash from a nearby hotel, said on CNN.
The Asiana flight departed from Seoul at 5:04 p.m. Korean time and touched down in San Francisco at 11:28 a.m PDT, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks flights. The flight lasted 10 hours and 23 minutes, it said.
The National Transportation Safety Board said on its Twitter feed that it was sending an investigative team to the scene.
The FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said her agency was also sending investigators. She said the airport was closed but one runway could be opened shortly.
Boeing expressed concern for those on board the flight and added that it will provide technical assistance to the NTSB as it investigates the accident.
(Reporting by Jackie Frank and Toni Clarke in Washington, Kevin Gray in Miami and Ronnie Cohen in San Francisco; Editing by Jackie Frank, David Storey and Philip Barbara)

[Edwin]

I found another article on this crash from Fox News. I don't want to rush to judgement, but it sounds like pilot error, or maybe instruments gave the pilot and crew false information. The flight investigators will no doubt come up with a cause for this crash. But from this article it seems that the airplane lost too much altitude before reaching the runway, then the pilot gave it more throttle, or full throttle, gained a little altitude, the got a second sink rate going that the pilot could not recover from. I know from flying very small airplanes that if you get too close to the ground then you pull back on the stick too much, you will cause the airplane to baloon up, then without enough speed to keep that airplane in the air it will come down hard, which is a crash. So when landing a small airplane you come in level off at a reasonable heighth above the runway, then as the airplane sink you gently pull back on the stick, causing a stall right on the ground, which is ideal. If the airplane begins to climb as you are trying to land, you just wait, and don't keep pulling back on the stick. When the airplane will not climb anymore then you pull back enough to cause the airplane to stall right on the ground. In a good landing the stall warning horn should be sounding as you touch the ground. It seems that this airplane hit the ground hard enough to break it up, losing the tail section, causing the wings to flopp, and I think it did something to one engine. Anyway according to this article 2 people died, about 10 were critically injured, and most of the rest were not hurt. The two dead people were found outside the airplane. Very sad!

All 307 passengers and crew have been accounted for after a Boeing 777 from South Korea crash landed Saturday morning at San Francisco International Airport, killing two and injuring dozens.
It was not immediately clear what happened to the Asiana Airlines plane from Seoul, but eyewitnesses said that it appeared to sway back and forth kicking up dust during the landing. Initial reports indicate that the tail broke off from some impact.

Benjamin Levy, who told KNTV he was aboard the flight, and recalled approaching the runway "too low, too soon."
"We were maybe 5 meters, 10 meters above the water way still out of the landing area. And so when the pilot realized it, he put some more gas to try to correct and lift up the plane again, but it was too late. So we hit the runway pretty bad, and then we started going back up in the air again and then landed again pretty hard," Levy said.
Kate Belding, who was jogging a few miles away, said she thought: "Oh my God. That plane is crashing."
"I couldn't really tell what happened, but you saw the wings going up and (in) a weird angle."
Moments after the violent landing, some of the 291 passengers, many of whom appeared unhurt, were able to escape via inflatable ramps, while others were taken to area hospitals.
San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said that the two people who died in the crash were found outside the plane, but she could not say whether they were thrown from the aircraft or had been taken from the cabin after being discovered.
The official tally given by officials Saturday night was 181 people immediately taken to the hospital, 132 treated at a triage and 123 were located in the terminal uninjured.

David Eun, a Samsung executive who was aboard the flight, sent out an online message immediately after the landing.
“I just crash landed at SFO," Eun said. "Tail ripped off. Most everyone seems fine. I’m ok.”
President Obama, who was at Camp David in Maryland, was informed of the crash and was being kept up to date by local, state and federal authorities, the White House said.
Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said she, her family and several colleagues had been scheduled for the flight but had switched at the last minute.
"Taking a minute to be thankful and explain what happened," Sandberg wrote in a Facebook post. "My family, colleagues Debbie Frost, Charlton Gholson and Kelly Hoffman and I were originally going to take the Asiana flight that just crash-landed."
One passenger who didn’t want to give his name told The Los Angeles Times that most passengers on the flight were unharmed.
"I just want their families to know," he said. "Most of the people seem OK and we’re just letting the paramedics do their job."
TV news footage showed the top of the fuselage was burned away and the entire tail gone. One engine appeared to have broken away and pieces of the tail were strewn about the runway. Passengers could be seen jumping down the inflatable emergency slides. Fire trucks could be seen spraying white fire retardant on the wreckage.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown says Flight 214 was supposed to land on runway 28 left at San Francisco International Airport at 11:26 local time. Its flight itinerary was from Shanghai to Seoul and San Francisco. She said it appeared the plane landed and then crashed.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team of investigators to San Francisco to probe the crash. Boeing said it was preparing to provide technical assistance to the NTSB.
Numerous flights headed to San Francisco were diverted to other airports. A United Airlines flight bound for San Francisco was sent to Los Angeles airport, and passengers were told the San Francisco airport would be closed for at least three hours Saturday afternoon.
Asiana is a South Korean airline, second in size to national carrier Korean Air. It has recently tried to expand its presence in the United States, and is a member of the Star Alliance, which is anchored in the U.S. by United Airlines.
The 777-200 is a long-range plane from Boeing. The twin-engine aircraft is one of the world's most popular long-distance planes, often used for flights of 12 hours or more, from one continent to another. The airline's website says its 777s can carry between 246 to 300 passengers.
The flight was 10 hours and 23 minutes, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking service. The Boeing 777 is a smaller, wide-body jet that can travel long distances without refueling and is typically used for long flights over water.
A tweet from Boeing said the company's thoughts are with those affected by the crash. “Our thoughts are with everyone affected by today’s incident at SFO,” Boeing said on its Twitter account. “We stand ready to assist the NTSB.”
President Obama was also informed of the crash the White House said in a statement.
"The President has been made aware of the situation and his team will update him as new information becomes available. We will continue to stay in constant contact with our federal, state and local partners as they respond to this event," the statement said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[Edwin]

I read another news article about the airplane crash. They are examining the black box for details. Later information tells that a pilot just learning was piloting the airplane. He only had 43 hours piloting that type aircraft, and that is not very much experience. They are still looking, trying to figure out if mechanical failure had anything to do with that crash. The Airport was under construction, and they are wondering if that had anything to do with it. Some equipment was not functioning that helps pilots land airplanes, but they said conditions were so nice that they should not have needed that equipment. The airplane was coming in far to slow for a nice landing, then within about 15 seconds of the crash, the stall warnings started. They were attempting to make a go around, and one and one half seconds later they crashed. They were too low and too slow, could not recover, hit something just before getting on the runway, and that broke the tail section off the airplane, as well as plunging the nose to the ground. Then fire started burning in the top of the airplane, and immediately trucks started spraying fire retardant on the airplane. They are now thinking that one of the dead people on the ground may have been alive and run over by the emergency truck approaching the crash scene. Two people died, 10 were critical, and most didn't even need hospitilization. Such a sad thing that happened!

[Edwin]

I read another article in Yahoo news by Reuters about this airplane crash. The powers that be are continuing to piece together what happened, but as of yet, they still don't know why it happened. They are interviewing the pilots to try to figure this out. What we are leaning is that there were 3 skilled pilots, and one pilot who was just learning, and he was the one who was landing the airplane. He only had 43 hours flight experience in that airplane, and it was his first landing with that airplane at the San Francisco Airport. He had flown other aircraft into that airport, and he had lots of flying hours, just not many hours in that airplane. Also the pilot who was instructing him was a first time instructor, never having done that before, but he also had logged many flight hours. The lastest information is that the airplane was flying at 118 miles per hour as it was approaching which was a very dangerous speed for landing, which was right at the stall, when the airplane should have already been landed and taxiing down the runway. The airplane should have been flying at least 158 miles per hour on the approach to landing. This crash was bound to happen as the airplane approached.

[Edwin]

It will be a while before the investigators will come up with a conclusive cause of that crash, because they want to be thorough, not jump to conclusion and lay blame where it does not belong! A few things we know that caused that crash were loss of altitude and wind speed. It doesn't matter how fast the airplane is moving over the ground. What matters is how fast it is moving through the air. When the wind is gusting, it will blow really hard for a minute, then it will drop to almost no wind. That can be very dangerous for a small airplane pilot, because his air speed indicator will tell him he has enough speed to safely stay in the air, and then without warning he can end without enough airspeed to keep him in the air. So doing wind gustings, pilots usually carry a little extra speed while landing. Often times during severe wind storms the recommendation is to drop the air speed as long as you are far enough off the ground for stall recovery, and then the airplane will stall before it will break up. A severe wind storm can break a small airplane apart in the air, but if the air speed is low the airplane will stall before it will break up, and then the pilot just does stall recovery.

Anyway we know that not enough heighth off the ground is what caused the airplane to hit that sea wall, and that happened because the airspeed was far below what it should have been for a safe landing. They are trying to understand why the speed was so low, and why the airplane was so low before reaching the runway. They are now interviewing pilots to try to find out what they know and think. The investigators are wondering if the pilot/pilots were too heavily relying on automatic flying devices that control airspeed and other things. They are wondering if those automatic devices were programmed incorrectly, and if the pilots were relying on them too much rather than using their own good judgement while flying the airplane. Often times pilots and crew members are hesitant to speak up when they sense a problem. Say, a pilot with fewer hours, would be hesitant to tell a more experienced pilot that he thought something was wrong. Or a crew member might hesitate to tell a pilot that he/she thought something was wrong. We had something like this happen where we used to live. A float airplane was comming in for a landing, adn lights and buzzers were trying to warn that the wheels were down as the pilot was landing the airplane. A high school girl was in the back of the airplane and said she saw and heard the warning, but she didn't say anything because she thought the pilot mayvbe knew someting she didn't, and she trusted him too much. Well, you do'nt land a float airplane on a lake with the wheels down, adn two people were killed as a result of that mistake.

The other thing is that entire country of Korea is feeling humiliated over that incident, even thought it is only the fault of a few, and for now who knows why it happened?

[Edwin]

They are still in the process of interviewing the pilots, and they are looking into the association of pilots with each other. On this flight which crashed they had a pilot who had not flown this particular airplane very many hours, and had never landed at this airport. His instructor was working with him for the first time ever, and maybe the first time as an instructor. They seemed to be relying on autothrottle which was supposed to control the speed of the airplane, making sure that it was flying at 156 mph to make a safe landing. They are looking into whether that autothrottle was properly installed, and whether it was activated. It seemed that they were relying on the autothrottle, but it should have been monitored because the pilots are still responsible for safe flight, and to make it happen right not matter what the autocontrols are doing! They are thinking that one of the pilots sitting in the jump seat commented about the airplane being too low and flying too slow. Ultimately the instructor is the one responsibe for making sure that the flight is safe. About 30 seconds before the crash comments were made about the slow speed and the sinking airplane. Then both pilots reached for the throttle, giving the airplane full throttle to attemp a go around, or abort the landing, but it was too late. Also the lesser experienced pilot who was at the controls talked about being blinded by a light just 30 seconds before the crash took place.