Airliner. Aisiana 777 crashed at SFO at 11:30 today.

[Bennett]

Preliminary reports suggest that most passengers escaped major injuries. Eyewitnesses say aircraft struck approach end of runway, breaking off tail, then bounced, hit a wing that partially broke off, and bounced again, perhaps rolling. Missed a United Airlines 747 on the parallel runway waiting to take off. All this is preliminary. Looks like the aircraft landed well short of the approach end of the runway. It caught on fire, but the slides were successfully deployed. Photos now showing up on CNN.

[FloridaMan]

Pilots bicycle to the airport and then fly 777s. It happens more than you hear about in asia. 

[Bennett]

Just heard that ILS was not working because of construction. Good visual weather conditions, but vertical guidance was lacking. News reports 2 dead, and forty "critically" injured. Many others were injured to some degree. There is very little distance between the rock seawall and the start of the runway. There is a FAA mandate to increase the "safety" zone between the sea wall and the runway - most likely by increasing the length of the runway and increasing the existent displaced threshold for 29 R & L

[tony]

I have no idea how the commercial guys operate, but I have flown a lot with the air force as a crew member.  Normally we would cancel once the field was in sight and hand fly it.  Would the commercial guys couple up to the ILS even though it was VFR?

[Bennett]

For anyone, including us GA folk, would lose the vertical needle for staying on the "proper" glide path, hand flying or on autopilot. KSFO glide slope is 3 degrees.

[aviatoreb]

Pilots bicycle to the airport and then fly 777s. It happens more than you hear about in asia. 

 

I don't understand - what do bicycles have to do with the discussion?

[DonMuncy]

I sure don't want to judge without facts, but it looks like he just got too low on the glideslope and hit the end of the pavement, tearing the tail off.

[Piloto]

This looks like an autopilot pitching up to get on the glide slope with lack of power on the engines for climbing. Either there was an engine control failure or the pilot failed to spool up the engines on time or bird ingestion in the engines. What puzzle me is what started the fire on the fuselage top part since it was not impacted. It could have been that the fuselage fire was the cause and not the result. Engines control wiring run along the fuselage burned section. I do not think this was a pilot error since this was a straight VFR approach which the pilots have done before multiple times.

 

José 

[Super Dave]

What puzzle me is what started the fire on the fuselage top part since it was not impacted. It could have been that the fuselage fire was the cause and not the result.

I agree, the burn patterns don't look like the result of that crash. I'm guessing they had smoke/fire prior to the crash. Maybe similar to Swissair 111, but with much better results.

[fantom]

After an 11 hour flight over water, that over water approach to 28L is tricky. If they were hand flying at the time, the transition from water to runway can fool you into thinking you're higher than you really are.

The facts will certainly be determined for this accident.

[NotarPilot]

After an 11 hour flight over water, that over water approach to 28L is tricky. If they were hand flying at the time, the transition from water to runway can fool you into thinking you're higher than you really are.

The facts will certainly be determined for this accident.

 

I agree I wouldn't want to judge but wouldn't the radar altimeter start calling out altitude at 500 feet?

[jetdriven]

You have a minimum TCH, or, threshold crossing height. In the 747 is a minimum of 42 feet, which gives 20 feet for the main landing gear.  777 will be similar.  The ILS 28L has a TCH of 64 feet. Stay on the glideslope for that, but it was OTS, although the VASI gives you that, but it is 2.84 degrees which is slightly less.  You can tell from the evidence they didnt have that much.

[201er]

But how do you get into a nose high enough attitude to hit tail first?

[Piloto]

Even though the ILS was out of service they could very well had the autopilot couple for a GPS/LPV approach. If you do a coupled LPV or ILS approach on your Mooney and cut back on the power it will pitch up on final just like the Aisiana flight. If there was no mechanical failure and neither pilot fault then there is high possibility that this was due to bird ingestion on final. There is a lot of birds at SFO bay and the plane was at low altitude. On occasions I have seen birds on the shore that get scared by incoming planes and start flying. It is a good idea to perform a coupled approach even on VFR days to verify proper operation of the function so there will be no surprises when it is really needed.

 

José  

[Bennett]

Jose. I live in the hills to the west of KSFO, about 5-6 miles away, and I fly out of KSQL which is about 7 miles to the south, and borders the bay via a slough. I have seen very little, if any, bird activity at either airport in the last several days. I often walk the Bay Trail which is just that, a very popular paved trail/walkway that (this leg) starts just south of KSFO. One can clearly see the approach ends of R29 R&L. Great fun to see the lumbering jets taxi out to the end and take off. 29 R&L are normally only used by the "Heavy" jets, 777, 747, 380 Etc. for takeoff. Under normal (northerly) winds, just about everyone lands on the 29s. Smaller jets use the two cross runways for takeoffs, and it is a great display of ATC/Tower choreography to watch the process of planes taking off on the cross runways as aircraft are landing on 29 R&L. I taken my Mooneys into SFO on rare occasions, and I have landed(at Tower request) well down one of the 29s as taxi takes forever to get to the GA (read jet) terminal. Several witnesses on this Bay Trail, and in the adjacent hotels, observed the crash 777 as being low on the approach, and an erratic flight path. You don't have to be a pilot to see deviations from the norm, as aircraft are always landing, often parallel, and taking off. Two minutes apart seems to be the normal separation, and from the Bay Trail I tend to count (for fun) how many aircraft I can see at the same time, and 10 or12 are not unusual, and this only counts KSFO, and not KOAK, directly across the bay for jets. I expect that someone will soon show up with a video of the actual crash. On this trail I often see tourists videotaping landings on the 29s. I hate typing on iPhones with my big fingers.

[dcrogers11]

The folks on this forum, especially with a lot of high time pilots, certainly are a lot better at discussing this than the talking heads on TV.  I wish the media could just move on as they've beat this horse to death.  They just love to sensationalize any aircraft accident. Had there been a train derailment or a bus crash with two fatalities, I doubt there would have barely a mention in the local paper.  To give an idea how clueless some of these people are, I heard one explain that the "black box" would be able to tell them what the "altitude" was when they crashed.  I'm fairly certain that it might tell them it was almost zero when their tail hit the sea wall at the end of the runway, but I'm just speculating.

 

Don

[dcrogers11]

Oh yeah, as tragic as this was, I'm just waiting for the first liberal media reporter, promoting their agenda will, bring up that the GOP forced Sequester was a possible reason the ILS was inoperative. 

 

Don

[Bennett]

Don. A congressman interviewed on a local TV station blamed sequestration for the diversion of funds from airport construction projects to fund the tower controllers. Just wait until next week. Not a political statement, just a comment about how congresspersons and senators of both parties like to get in front of the media cameras and babble away about topics they do not know about. At least the congressman on local TV was a member of a transportation committee, and seemingly knew a good deal about aviation, and airport improvement funding.

[MARZ]

Not to make light of the tragedy, but I'm reading all about the airport glide slope being turned off being a possible cause - pretty sure the professionals knew that prior to taking off...  I hate the if it bleeds it leads mentality of the press nowadays.

[flyboy0681]

Guess I'm the only one here who is not speculating. I'm reminded of the initial speculation that surrounded the British Airways 777 which crashed eerily in the same way at Heathrow in 2008. Many theories were thrown out except the one which actually caused the incident: frozen fuel lines.

 

I'll say this however, this is a testament to Boeing as it's just the third 777 hull loss since it first entered service 20 years ago, for a total of two fatalities.

[Piloto]

Here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgsdDL2k_Fw is a good cockpit video of an A380 landing at KSFO 28R. After looking at it I don't see how a pilot can screw up landing at KSFO. Even with the engines runing at 50% the plane would have climbed. Keep in mind that this plane was low on fuel so it was lightweight. Whatever was the cause there was not enough thrust to keep it on the proper glide slope. As a last effort the pilot or autopilot pitch up the plane to arrest the sinking rate.

 

José 

[jetdriven]

Even though the ILS was out of service they could very well had the autopilot couple for a GPS/LPV approach. If you do a coupled LPV or ILS approach on your Mooney and cut back on the power it will pitch up on final just like the Aisiana flight. If there was no mechanical failure and neither pilot fault then there is high possibility that this was due to bird ingestion on final. There is a lot of birds at SFO bay and the plane was at low altitude. On occasions I have seen birds on the shore that get scared by incoming planes and start flying. It is a good idea to perform a coupled approach even on VFR days to verify proper operation of the function so there will be no surprises when it is really needed.

 

José  

 

Jose, you never disconnect the auto-throttles unless you are hand flying it. You might hand fly it with auto-throttles on, but most turn them off with the autopilot.

 

201er, the pitch attitude depends on final approach speed. If you are right on speed the airplane has a 3-5 degree nose up attitude. Get 10 knots slow, and the pitch comes up to 10-12 degrees, and that's tail strike territory. Get slower then go below glidepath and you see what we got here.

[jetdriven]

New video shows the plane dragging through the water for about 1000 feet, the striking the seawall so hard it throws the plane into the air. http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2013/07/07/vo-plane-sf-plane-crash-on-cam.courtesy-fred-hayes

[DaV8or]

I expect that someone will soon show up with a video of the actual crash. On this trail I often see tourists videotaping landings on the 29s. I hate typing on iPhones with my big fingers.

 

And here it is-

 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/07/us/plane-crash-main/index.html

[flyboy0681]

New video shows the plane dragging through the water for about 1000 feet, the striking the seawall so hard it throws the plane into the air. http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2013/07/07/vo-plane-sf-plane-crash-on-cam.courtesy-fred-hayes

 Watching it on TV on a large screen shows it just making it to the seawall. In my judgement it was never in the water.

 

Interesting new facts coming out from the voice/data recorders.