It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
This one is going to be very interesting. In my opinion there is no way that a bird-strike can disable the landing gear on a large commercial airliner. Actually, at this point we are not even certain that a bird-strike actually occurred.SEOUL, South Korea — A jetliner skidded off a runway, slammed into a concrete fence and burst into flames Sunday in South Korea after its landing gear apparently failed to deploy. All but two of the 181 people on board were killed in one of the country's worst aviation disasters, officials said.
The 737-800 operated by Jeju Air plane arrived from Bangkok and crashed while attempting to land in the town of Muan, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Seoul.
Footage of the crash aired by South Korean television channels showed the plane skidding across the airstrip at high speed, evidently with its landing gear still closed, and slamming into a concrete wall, triggering an explosion. Other TV stations aired footage showing thick, black smoke billowing from the plane, which was engulfed in flames.
The control tower issued a warning about birds to the plane shortly before it intended to land and gave the crew permission to land in a different area, ministry officials said. The crew sent out a distress signal shortly before the crash, officials said.
Workers retrieved the jet's flight data and cockpit voice recorders, [but] it may take months for investigators to complete their probe.
© 2015 Mutual Fund Observer. All rights reserved.
© 2015 Mutual Fund Observer. All rights reserved. Powered by Vanilla
Comments
Excerpt: ”The investigation would paint a picture of a cockpit crew so focused on a burnt-out lightbulb that they forgot to fly the airplane, letting their massive jet slowly descend from 2,000 feet until it struck the ground.”
At the time of the strike Sully had the altitude to give him the time needed to configure the plane and find a spot to land. Yes, excellent piloting, but also a strong element of luck. What if there had been a ferryboat directly in front when he made his landing?
I'm fairly confident that the "black boxes" will five us a much better picture when decoded.
I’m wondering if a tower crew would have routinely checked for gear down? Especially since the flight was known to be having problems?
Yes, all of that is true as far as I'm aware. But there's a whole lot more to the context of why those things happened.
PS - Of course the nose gear didn’t come down. Very obvious in the videos. But not a reason to overshoot & crash the plane!
(edited / updated 10:15 PM)
https://milled.com/the-new-yorker/the-aftermath-of-a-catastrophic-plane-crash-lDv23hILReknv5em
My own favorite writer on air disasters is William Langewische, a former pilot and fantastic writer whose narratives will put you right in the cockpit of a doomed plane. Many of his pieces have appeared in Vanity Fair, but a search on his name will lead one to his articles.
Despite the safety record of almost all iterations of the 737, the plane has not been without flaws. One disturbing finding of Harr’s article is that the vast majority of 737 accidents prior to flight 427 took place outside the US under the control of pilots not trained in this country. I don’t know if this disparity still exists.
Still hard for me to fathom how Boeing could have gone so wrong in its development of the 737 Max, given how much institutional memory they had to fall back on. I wouldn’t be surprised at the publication of a book-length autopsy of how an American icon fell so far so fast.
@hank- More than the nose gear. Much more. No landing gear at all- therefore no brakes. No flaps- therefore no help there. No engines to reverse thrust- no help there. Forced to land the "wrong way" because not enough altitude to completely go around- therefore a tailwind instead of a head wind down the runway- no help there. Highly likely not enough altitude (therefore time) to hand-crank down the landing gear. No way to slow the plane down while still airborne. On that particular runway landing in that direction the "beginning" of the runway is somewhat higher than the rest, therefore with no landing gear had to land just past that area.
Every card they were dealt was a bad one.
"Unlikely both engines were lost."- It happened to "Sully" Sullenberger in New York- why so unlikely here? That particular airport is known for very large flocks of birds posing a danger to aircraft.
Reports say they did a go-around. Helps explain everything. I’ll tell you right now the crew simply forgot to lower the landing gear on that second landing attempt. I’ll wager 5 ounces of wine on that. (As we know, the wine may turn rancid before the official report comes out.)
Good points on lack of braking. If the plane successfully accomplished a go-around (steep climb out and turn) at least one engine had to be operating. Interesting on the airport being bird-prone. I wasn’t aware they impact landings nearly as frequently as takeoffs at higher thrust. But, yes, you’d not welcome the critters outbound or inbound.
"Unlikely both engines were lost."- It happened to "Sully" Sullenberger in New York- why so unlikely here? That particular airport is known for very large flocks of birds posing a danger to aircraft.
Yes, but that was an extremely rare occurrence. 1-out is rare (on a percentage basis). 2-out is exceedingly rare. Yes, it’s possible. That’s the reason Sully is such a hero. He saved the aircraft from a “no fly” configuration (with some help from the Hudson).
Do the math. What % of fatal crashes are due to engine outages compared to human error?
”More than the nose gear. Much more. No landing gear at all- therefore no brakes. No flaps- therefore no help there. No engines to reverse thrust- no help there. Forced to land the "wrong way" because not enough altitude to completely go around- therefore a tailwind instead of a head wind down the runway- no help there. Highly likely not enough altitude (therefore time) to hand-crank down the landing gear. No way to slow the plane down while still airborne. On that particular runway landing in that direction the "beginning" of the runway is somewhat higher than the rest, therefore with no landing gear had to land just past that area.”
Thanks. Worse than I had assumed.
Wonder why “no flaps”? That’s curious. APU?
If the in-flight passenger video displayed on one of the networks is authentic, they were not told to “brace” before touchdown. I’m skeptical of early reports. Normally they are unreliable. In this case you’re dealing with a government that declared Marshal Law just two weeks ago and which has been in constant upheaval since. Imagine how “up-front” an appointee of Trump might be with the press in the event of some future U.S. disaster.
The pilot did request a "go-around". A go-around is exactly that: climbing back to a prescribed altitude, and rejoining other air traffic in the landing pattern (if any is present). In an emergency like this one the tower would have done everything possible to get any other local traffic safely out of the way.
This plane evidently did NOT make a standard go-around: it flew over the runway, made a tight circle, and attempted to land on the same runway in the "wrong" direction.
No professional pilot with 7000 hours would dream of such a departure from the standard procedures without a VERY good reason. Those pilots were desperate to get that plane down as quickly as they could, any way that they could, and I'll bet that there was no way that they could lower the landing gear or control the engines before they ran out of altitude.
The Washington Post further reports that:
Obviously we don't know the critical details at this time. I would venture that among the possibilities are that bird ingestion may have caused fracture and separation of one or more rotor blades, which then caused other major damage to an engine and possibly nearby hydraulic systems. Such rotor blade failures have indeed caused this type of damage to other aircraft.
At this time I am simply giving the pilots the benefit of the doubt. That perspective is certainly subject to investigation and revision.
Following is an abbreviated excerpt from Wickipedia regarding ADS-B data:
There has been speculation that this incident involved pilot error in presumably failing to lower the landing gear. It's worth noting that an automatic data reporting system that did not involve pilot operation simultaneously stopped functioning. This would seem to suggest that whatever happened after the bird strike was serious enough to cripple multiple independent operating systems.
It's also worth noting that while the incident reports use the term "birds", there are a number of avian sanctuaries adjacent to the airport that are frequently populated by ducks and geese. I would venture that the result of a goose being ingested into an aircraft engine might just be a lot more serious than if it had been a small marshbird.