Asiana crash at SFO.

[Mick F]

Phil,
Having an ILS out should not be a factor at all. If a pilot can't make a visual approach, then they've got some serious lack of flying ability issues.

Mick

[Mike_S]

What Happened to Asiana Airlines Flight 214?

Only conjecture based upon fairly limited data available, but still an interesting analysis nonetheless

[Deni G]

Asiana Airlines revealed the pilot in charge of landing the Boeing 777 that crash-landed at San Francisco's airport was training for the long-range plane and that it was his first flight to the airport with the jet
The pilot had 43 hours of experience of flying the 777, a spokesperson for the airline revealed. His co-pilot, Lee Jeong-Min had 3,200 hours of flying experience aboard a 777 and was in the cockpit with Kang-Kook when disaster struck.


The crew tried to increase its speed and abort its landing just seconds before it hit the seawall in front of the airport runway
Recordings show crew had no concerns before landing then tried to 'go around' 1.5 seconds before impact

The airport's Glide Path system, which is designed to avoid runway misses in a variety of weather, was switched off

[Grahame Hutchison]

The give a little balance to the "43 hours at the controls of a B777" story.

From Air Transport World ...

According to information provided by Seoul-based Asiana to media, the pilot at the controls was Gang-Guk Lee, a veteran Asiana flight deck crew member who was in the midst of making the transition to flying the 777. Lee had accumulated more than 9,700 hours of total flight time, including on the 747, but had just 43 hours on the 777 and was still going through a formal “familiarization” period in which he was required to be paired with more experienced 777 pilots.

Gang-Guk Lee had landed at SFO before in other aircraft, including the 747, and he had landed the 777 already at, among other airports, London Heathrow and Los Angeles International. Allowing an experienced pilot who has landed a 747 at SFO and a 777 at Heathrow and LAX to land a 777 at SFO does not sound out of line at all.

[Trevor Sinclair]

Here's another interesting read from a First Officer' view: http://www.curacaochronicle.com/avia...77-approached/

[Montague S]

http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/2...asiana214.html

all the updated info from probably the most reliable source.

[Cliff Cook]

Good evening,

Sorry to send my message very late, so look at a picture of stricken Asiana Ailines with other Asiana Airlines B777 landing behind it on page 13 in today's SMH newspaper.

Regards,

Cliff Cook.

[Philip Argy]

With all of the caveats that have to go with sparse information, this extract from the commentary cited by Mike at http://www.yssyforum.net/board/showp...9&postcount=32 seems to me the most plausible primary cause of the crash:

However, when being vectored for an approach and the aircraft is too high, an easy way to recover is to set a lower altitude, select FLCH, speed brake etc. this give a high rate of descent, and as long as the pilot has the G/S armed the aircraft will capture it. The G/S acts as a safety net.

In this case, the aircraft did not level out, and we know the GS was not active

I understand that FLCH (level change) mode is the only one in which auto throttle doesn't 'wake up' to provide emergency thrust when the glideslope is off. That so-called 'FLCH trap' seems to have caught out an inexperienced 777 pilot and his instructor.

[Chris B.]

Phil,

You're close regarding FLCH but more information is needed. Flight Level Change is a function of speed (really has nothing to do with the fact that the glideslope was inoperative). Which means that the pitch of the aircraft is changed to reach that targeted speed. Using FLCH on descent the autothrottle operates in THR (Thrust) to maintain the descent rate required by the pitch mode. Once the thrust setting is achieved the mode changes to HOLD (thrust lever autothrottle servos are inhibited and the pilot can set thrust levers manually) this is why in FLCH or TOGA (which I wont go into now) the autothrottles don't 'wake up' as you put it.

Now to use FLCH for a descent a lower altitude must be set. I'm not sure what the crew set as an altitude but once the selected altitude is reached the autothrottle mode will change from HOLD to SPD (Speed - the autothrottle system is now commanding thrust to achieve the required speed) and normal system protection is restored. If they set an altitude of 0' then HOLD would still have been the current mode as they hadn't reached the selected altitude yet. Unfortunately FLCH and TOGA below 100' RA (Radio Altitude) on approach the autothrottle will not automatically activate the stall protection. For this reason Boeing do not recommend the use of FLCH for approaches past the final approach fix.

Even if the glideslope is inoperative the aircraft is still capable of many of the other non precision approaches available at SFO, and with the appropriate pitch mode (V/S - vertical speed, FPA - Flight Path Angle, or VNAV - Vertical Navigation) the stall protection would have been activated.

So yes the 'FLCH trap' did catch them out but I believe it was more a case of misunderstanding the use of certain autopilot system controls as the aircraft performed exactly as it was meant to.

Of course we will wait for the official report on the accident on what modes the crew were operating in, but I hope I provided a more educated post on the use of FLCH rather than a simplified 'easy way to recover is to set a lower altitude, use speedbrake etc' answer as what was quoted in your post.

[Philip Argy]

The NTSB will give us all the gory detail probably in about a year but I reckon with the talent on this board we have nailed it 99% well enough to be confident in expressing a view about WHAT most likely happened as distinct from WHY that happened or was allowed to happen.