Plane hits car on approach

[KevinAu 441]

Hi Kevin,

 

I hate to argue with you again but it seems to me that adding power for a go-around without changing pitch first will result in the plane ...continuing on its trajectory and hitting the ground (especially if it's a large one). I thought this was drilled into every airline pilot (which I am not) but apparently I am wrong on this account...

 

Now if approach speed is at least 1,3 x stall speed, you really need to pull hard in order to stall that plane (unless you were already in the flare, of course).

 

Bruno

 

PS : Eh, eh, here we are again in a pitch first vs power fist debate...

 

No, adding power will instantaneously cause a decrease in sink rate. Pulling back on the stick at the speed he was at will cause an instantaneous increase in sink rate. Pure aerodynamics. increasing pitch will increase angle of attack, increasing induced drag and resulting in an increased sink rate while flying along the backside of the power curve. No way around that.

 

You can actually see that the pilot did pull the stick back significantly just before the quick drop in altitude if you look closely at the horizontal stabilizer. You can see the elevator deflect upwards sharply even from that distance and angle just before the plane drops.

 

You are not completely wrong in what gets drilled into 'every airline pilot.' A first officer I was flying with had a discussion with me about this a little while back. He was a CFI at a flight school in California that was training ab-initio pilots for KLM and had a significant disagreement with the KLM captain at the school over this pitch vs power debate. Apparently, he was teaching his students the way he was taught, emphasizing the importance of power for altitude and pitch for speed, when the KLM chief became aware of that and told him in no uncertain terms that planes shall be flown with reference to pitch for altitude alone. So you are not completely wrong that it is drilled into some airline pilots.

 

Pitch for altitude works to a certain extent. As long as the aircraft is flying within the frontside of the power curve, it will work. It works as a side effect of pitching for speed while the aircraft is on the frontside, but once the aircraft transitions to the backside, pitch for altitude no longer works and the thinking must transition to pitch for speed. Pitch for altitude techniques allows one, as long as one only flies within a safe area of the flight envelope, to more easily teach a new student to more precisely control the plane.....as long as that plane stays within the safe area of the flight evelope. But once one strays away from the safe, middle portion of the flight envelope, if that pilot instinctively tries pitch for altitude control techniques while at the wrong part of the envelope, he often meets with heartache and pain.

 

The attitude of that KLM pilot is representative of the problem within airline training industry that has come to light with the crashes of Colgan and Air France. Pilots at airlines, by being drilled into pitching for altitude at a young age, are vulnerable to loss of control accidents. Though they do very well at smoothly flying straight and level flight and following ILS's, these drills have caused them to instinctively do the wrong thing when they find themselves in rare but critical flight situations.

[N6330V 0]

anyone notice the lack of flaps? js IMHO both driver and pilot are the blame.

[n4gix 4,968]

Same airport back in May, 2008 had this rather bizzare landing incident:

Video:

http://www.telegraph...ane-stupid.html

 

Article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/1968195/Plane-lands-on-top-of-another-in-Texas-crash.html

[LHookins 3,117]

anyone notice the lack of flaps?

 

I don't know the current practice, but student pilots were not necessarily taught to use flaps on every landing when I was taking lessons in the early 70s. I flew (illegally) with a relative who hadn't gotten his PPL yet, and he didn't use flaps. One time I asked him about it and he demonstrated a flaps down landing, and he had to concentrate a lot more.

 

The whole pitch vs power, as I understand it, goes back to the navy and air force ways of doing landings.

 

When I was a young and dumb sim pilot I instinctively used pitch for descent rate and power for airspeed and usually came in too fast. Later I learned to adjust my airspeed by trim and descent rate by power and found landings to be much better. If I'd known about that when I had Falcon AT, I might have been able to land the darn plane, the only flight sim where I couldn't land easily.

 

Hook

[NoahBryant 26]

Math time...

 

This is a rough calculation, but serves the point I think.

 

At the frame of the video where the shadow plane's wings cross the fence, the plane is somewhere between the fence, and the road (since it hasn't struck the car yet).

 

There is about 17 feet between the road and white fence.

 

That means the plane is somewhere between 454 and 471 feet from the runway threshold and 46-63 feet from the displaced threshold.

 

Using the known wingspan of the plane and the shadow to approximate the position of the plane I came up with the following:

 

At the point the plane is between the fence and the road the nose gear is only about 5-7 feet off the ground. That is a .61 degree glide slope for the runway threshold and a 4.3 degree angle to the displaced threshold.

 

The one factor I couldn't include was the angle of the sun since I couldn't find what time of day it occurred, but since the runway is N/S and the video is pointing to the north, the angle of the sun won't have a major impact on the calculation, since we know the plane had to be between the road and fence. (being in the northern hemisphere, the shadow had to be to the north of the plane)

 

I am not an engineer or mathematician This is really rough, but I believe serve the purpose of illustrating that the plane appeared to be on a better glide slope to aim for the displaced threshold rather than the actual threshold.

[LHookins 3,117]

At the point the plane is between the fence and the road the nose gear is only about 5-7 feet off the ground. That is a .61 degree glide slope for the runway threshold and a 4.3 degree angle to the displaced threshold.

 

I did the math too and came up with similar numbers, if I remember correctly.

 

What do you think the VASI lights showed? Two red, I'll bet. I didn't try to determine from Google Earth exactly where the VASI lights were, and thus the angle involved. I did see a couple of objects that could have been VASI lights, but am not sure which was the correct one.

 

Hook

[JohnFromCO 15]

anyone notice the lack of flaps? js IMHO both driver and pilot are the blame.

 

There is no requirement to always use flaps and some pilots prefer to do no flap landings whenever possible. In my CFI days every student I had was required to do multiple no flap landings along with landings at all flap settings.

 

In my opinion, the fault completely lies on the driver of the SUV. The road the SUV was traveling on was a perimeter road that takes you to the east side hangars. The driver would have known they are on an airport and passing the approach end of the runway. The driver should have looked and listened for approaching aircraft.

 

The student pilot had enough to contend with on the approach and at the speed the SUV approached it is easy to say the student pilot never saw the SUV.

 

Regardless of what is painted on the ground the SUV driver should have been more cautious when driving on an airport and crossing the approach end of the runway. Completely the drivers fault.

[ZachLW 37]

Go around. Go Around. GO AROUND.

 

Of course, after seeing the video it's easy to assume the pilot never saw the road traffic. Never flying again, though? I've had engine failures, near misses, etc. I can't say quitting has ever crossed my mind! :wub: I'm glad all parties emerged relatively unscathed -- the car passengers are especially lucky.

[fencer 16]

when the KLM chief became aware of that and told him in no uncertain terms that planes shall be flown with reference to pitch for altitude alone. So you are not completely wrong that it is drilled into some airline pilots.

 

Depends on which phase you are in...(climb, approach etc.).

 

Let's say that I agree about the back of the power curve part but not everyone lands like a navy pilot

 

Anyway, all things considered, it seems to me that this accident had more to do with lack of situation awareness, reduced field of view (and maybe some kind of tunnel vision...) than with pilot stick and throttle technique.

 

Go around. Go Around. GO AROUND.

Of course, after seeing the video it's easy to assume the pilot never saw the road traffic.

+1

Bruno

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

let's also remember that the pilot is not licensed, he is a student, and he was returning from his first cross country solo flight, so that means he may be under 25 flight hours. Coming in low and slow like he was is just the sort of thing you may see from a student pilot.

 

Most likely the Pilot didn't see the car because he was looking down the end of the runway and watching out to flare the aircraft. I don't see fault in the pilot or the driver of the car, I see fault in the placement of the road and lack of signs posted to warn drivers of the runway. Painting 'Stop' on a road doesn't mean anything.

 

According to road laws you must come to a complete stop at a stop sign, their was no stop sign or any warning signs of a runway or approaching aircraft, etc.

[jeroen79 0]

Just listen to the audio at the end. The people in the car sound like idiots. Shocked, surprised idiots, but idiots none the less. If you google map it, you can see the word "stop" on the road before crossing the north side of runway 17. Use that to compare what happened in the video, and you can see that the car did not stop.

Hmm, if you want to start calling people idiots then there are more people to be called idiots.

 

-The pilot for flying very low across an active road.

-The airfield's management for not making it clear to pilots that there is a road close to the runway.

-The airfield's tower for not telling the pilot to go around.

-The road's owner for not making it clear that there may be planes flying across the road.

 

I don't know what the local traffic laws say about "STOP" being written on the road but even if drivers are required to obey it then it would, IMO, not be enough in this particular situation.

 

The problem here is not one individual idiot but a dangerous situation that wasn't dealt with properly.

They either need to close the road when aircraft are landing, move the runway threshold away from the road or have someone wave-off pilots if they cannot safely land.

[Great Ozzie 101]

-The airfield's management for not making it clear to pilots that there is a road close to the runway.

 

This is something that would fall to the CFI... the airport owner might say something to someone hangaring a plane... but it is painfully obvious. Not like you use that road to get into a residential area. Looks like (mainly) aircraft owners hangaring there would use that access road.

 

-The airfield's tower for not telling the pilot to go around.

 

No tower on that field (like most small airfields in the U.S.).

 

-The road's owner for not making it clear that there may be planes flying across the road.

 

see above.

 

They either need to close the road when aircraft are landing,

 

How?

 

move the runway threshold away from the road

 

It is... go read the Aircraft Facility / Directory for this runway... displaced 400'. http://aeronav.faa.gov/pdfs/sc_329_20SEP2012.pdf Roanoke (52F)

 

have someone wave-off pilots if they cannot safely land.

 

No one in their right mind would pull a stunt like that... it's not an aircraft carrier w/ an LSO.

 

I did not say this in my original post but... Zach... what do you want to bet the CFI has been contacted by the FAA and asked if he instructed his student on what a displaced threshold is... where to land etc...

 

Edit:

 

Btw... if the car struck... the owner was going to his hangar... he's going to look goofy for not stopping and taking the time to determine if an aircraft on final.

[n4gix 4,968]

 

Btw... if the car struck... the owner was going to his hangar... he's going to look goofy for not stopping and taking the time to determine if an aircraft on final.

 

The couple was going to dinner at the very nice airport restaurant on the east side of the field. If they knew enough to find the restaurant, then they had likely driven this private access road prior to this incident.

[Great Ozzie 101]

Aha... ok thanks Fr. Bill... yes surely they knew... so goofy (and even risking an accident... akin the aforementioned driving across railroad tracks).

 

Will be interesting who pays (insurance). I still think the NTSB will fault the pilot for landing short.

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

The couple was going to dinner at the very nice airport restaurant on the east side of the field. If they knew enough to find the restaurant, then they had likely driven this private access road prior to this incident.

 

Perhaps they had never been to the restaurant before and were meeting friends for dinner, used the GPS navigator in that Volvo to find it.

 

I think if that road is private then it should have been gated off to the public.