The Wall

[Echo]

Maybe the loss of 179 souls will not be in vain.  Maybe, if terrain does not allow a suitable run off area and a wall or other physical barrier not designed to cushion impact recides at the end of a runway, an emergency netting could be desgned and deployed.  The device could be designed to reduce sudden deceleration and catastrophic disintegration of the aircraft with resultant fire.

[Oscar Avalle]

I am just surprised that a concrete wall was there supporting the localizer antenna… is that normal?

 

oscar 

[Hank]

There is a "soft" material used at some airports, like KCRW, that airplanes will sink into instead of going off thr edge of the ridge that the airport sits atop. Apparently it is not used in Korea . . . No idea how widespread its use us here, but it got a lot of publicity the first time when a jet ran into it and stopped (at least on the Charleston news).

EDIT:  This is called EMAS, Engineered Material Arresting System. 

[DXB]

The decision to mount the localizer antennas on a tall barrier is only one of many utterly baffling elements to this tragedy.

[Aerodon]

24 minutes ago, DXB said:

The decision to mount the localizer antennas on a tall barrier is only one of many utterly baffling elements to this tragedy.

Our local airport has increased the runway length to 5000' and we are starting to see more jet traffic.  In one direction we have a fence and blueberry fields.  In the other, a fence, a road, then a drainage canal and then another field that is still airport property.  A friend had EFATO and his big fear was that he was going to go into the ditch and flip over, so he tried the impossible turn and crashed and burned.  Another pilot drove over to the scene and pulled him out with surprisingly few injuries.

My point is we all know it would be safer to have a bridge across the canal, but that is going to be expensive and there is no-one to pay for it.

Aerodon

 

 

 

 

[DXB]

50 minutes ago, Aerodon said:

Our local airport has increased the runway length to 5000' and we are starting to see more jet traffic.  In one direction we have a fence and blueberry fields.  In the other, a fence, a road, then a drainage canal and then another field that is still airport property.  A friend had EFATO and his big fear was that he was going to go into the ditch and flip over, so he tried the impossible turn and crashed and burned.  Another pilot drove over to the scene and pulled him out with surprisingly few injuries.

My point is we all know it would be safer to have a bridge across the canal, but that is going to be expensive and there is no-one to pay for it.

Aerodon

 

 

 

 

Glad to hear your friend is ok. Hopefully the fence and blueberries have enough give to them so as not to kill anyone.   In this case there was a concrete wall created to mount the antennas on top rather than the collapsible supports standardly used for these installations. South Korea ain't some 3rd world country so they probably could have afforded to do it right.  It may have been just laziness/expediency.  

[Aerodon]

Back to the accident, seems like reverse thrust was open on the bad engine and not on the good engine.  Speculation is good engine was shut down.

Aerodon

 

 

[N201MKTurbo]

Tucson airport has an arrester cable at both ends of 11-29. It is there to catch fighter jets. I was landing there once and just about to flare and the thing popped up in front of me. I had enough energy to glide over it. The people in the tower freaked out. Kept asking if I was OK. I was fine.

[cliffy]

There's way more too this than the airport surface

Birds? Hydraulic issues, need to get on the ground very fast in time, not a stabilized approach.

landing long and very fast 

We won't know much until the CVR and the Flight Recorder are read

Way too m any anomalies on this landing to even guess at this time. 

[GeeBee]

I used to be an LCA on the B737-800. There is no reason for this airplane to end up in the state of gear up/flaps up even with an/or double engine failure. The systems  are stupid simple, it is easier to drop the gear than the Mooney. Pull a cable, the unlocks release and the gear fall with spring assist. Belly landing puts you in a position of sliding down the runway out of control. 

That all said, the mounting of a localizer antenna on a non frangible mount is incredibly irresponsible engineering. 

[Fly Boomer]

10 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

That all said, the mounting of a localizer antenna on a non frangible mount is incredibly irresponsible engineering. 

Seems unlikely to me that they built a wall massive enough to disintegrate a 737 just to hold up an antenna.  My guess is that the wall was built for some other purpose, and the antenna was later installed on top of the wall.

[GeeBee]

17 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

Seems unlikely to me that they built a wall massive enough to disintegrate a 737 just to hold up an antenna.  My guess is that the wall was built for some other purpose, and the antenna was later installed on top of the wall.

The localizer antenna installation should have been a "heads up" that they have a non frangible obstruction in the over run.