Air Crash Investigations - JAL 123

[zmak 331]

one episode comes to mind being an Arab airline where they have an on board fire. The plane lands safely and the captain doesn't evacuate the plane. Insanity!

 

 

"The captain declared an emergency and returned to Riyadh International Airport and landed safely. After touchdown, contrary to the captain's declaration of an emergency landing, the airplane continued to a taxiway at the end of the runway and exited the runway, stopping on the taxiway 2 minutes 40 seconds after touchdown. The airport fire rescue equipment were stationed at the landing section of the runway expecting an emergency stop and evacuation. Why the captain did not immediately order an emergency evacuation of the aircraft is unknown. Because the fire rescue equipment was farther down the runway it took extra time to arrive at the aircraft, which had used the entire length of a 4,000-metre (13,000 ft) runway to slow and exit onto a taxiway. The aircraft stopped on the taxiway facing the opposite direction from landing. On arrival at the aircraft the rescue personnel did not immediately attempt to open any of the aircraft doors as the engines on the wings were still running. These two engines were shut down three minutes and 15 seconds after the aircraft came to a stop. There was no external fire visible at this time, but flames were observed through the windows at the rear of the aircraft. 23 minutes after engine shut down, the R2 door (second door on the right side) was opened by ground personnel. Three minutes later, the aircraft burst into flames, and was consumed by fire.^[6] Autopsies were conducted on some of the non-Saudi nationals including the American flight engineer. All perished from smoke inhalation and not burns, which indicated that they had died long before the R2 door was opened."

[hopskip 253]

Yes.  I have not seen an uninteresting episode yet.    Some episodes have made me shake my head at the end when pilot error in involved, especially if it's a noob mistake like turning on a reverse in flight or forgetting to check the throttle settings.     I would like to say the show is unbiased but I noticed there are more episodes with Airbuses going crazy than any other plane.  @_@   Is it because... well...  Airbuses like to be Air Lawn Darts more often than other plane types?    

 

A Boeing 757 isn't an Airbus, and most of the "blocked pitot/static and/or IRS errors causes instruments to go crazy" issues have been Boeings. Aeroperu 603? a Boeing 757 with taped-over Static vents

Birgenair 301? another 757, blocked pitot, probably insect nest.

Adam Air 574? Boeing 737 with broken IRS, making the heading and attitude system indicate incorrectly (and eventually after some pilot mismanagement, go black/blank).

 

There actually havn't been many Air Crash investigations regarding Airbus aircraft, and of the few that were, one was Air transat running out of fuel and gliding to the Azores Islands (no injuries apart from evacuation slide issues) and another was the DHL A300 that got hit by a surface to air missile over Iraq, and, using nothing but differential thrust and management of phugoid oscillations, landed at Baghdad, rolled off the runway (no hydraulics for brakes, steering or spoilers) into the dirt. No injuries again, although there was a "walking through a minefield after the evacuation" issue.

 

The obvious one where the A330 hit the Atlantic Ocean (Air France 447) was a blocked pitot (see Birgenair 301 for how Boeing aircraft react to this)

 

As a result of the blocked pitot, the speed indications were wrong, and the fancy Fly By Wire stuff... turned off.

It then appears that the pilots didn't know how to fly the aircraft with the fly by wire turned off, even though they should be trained, and tested (in a sim), on how to do exactly that on a regular basis. That big warning that sounds off going, literally, "STALL, STALL" (sounds like Stawell Stawell) for nearly 4 minutes might be a hint that the aircraft might be stalling. How to recover from a stall is covered in flight school, roughly day 2 (right after the "effects of Controls" flight in the Cessna 152).

 

Unfortunatley, after nearly 4 minutes, the pilot flying still says that they don't know what's happening. "I'v been pulling up hard this whole time!"

 

Maybe they were "Airbus marketing hype" trained instead of actually "pilot" trained on the A330. You know the kind of thing. We'v all seen it in silly 3 minute marketing ads from airbus. "The Airbus Has Fly by Wire, which means it can't stall".

 

last I checked, the Airbus has wings. Like any aircraft with wings, those wings can stall.

 

Take a look at Colgan Air 3407 to see how a turboprop without any fly by wire handles in a stall... it looks about the same (and the end result is also the same).

 

As far as rudders falling off... A300's and A310's are not Fly by Wire, and don't have sidesticks or a glass cockpit.

[Kuragiman 227]

Well there was also the Airbus that descended into the ocean because the pilots couldn't figure out what was wrong with the aircraft, when in fact, nothing was wrong with the aircraft.    There is the Airbus that crashed on landing while trying to demonstrate the Autoland feature and it decided it didn't want to respond to the Captain's thrust command to abort the landing.   There's the Quantus Airbus who's engine exploded shortly after take off badly damaging the hydraulic system and forcing a return to the airfield (that was a really good episode.  Glad they managed to get the plane stopped at the very end of the runway).   The famous Hudson River Landing was an Airbus.   There are MANY Airbus episodes.    I am not dissing on the Airbus for you AB ######, just noting that ACI's newer episodes really have a love of showing the Airbus crashes in recent history.

[hopskip 253]

Well there was also the Airbus that descended into the ocean because the pilots couldn't figure out what was wrong with the aircraft, when in fact, nothing was wrong with the aircraft.    There is the Airbus that crashed on landing while trying to demonstrate the Autoland feature and it decided it didn't want to respond to the Captain's thrust command to abort the landing.  

 

Which aircraft into the ocean? The Air New Zealand one leased to XL Airways? That was pilots initiating a test of the stall warning system at 4000ft... a test that was only authorized to be commenced above 13,000ft. They thought they would "Demonstrate" that the stall protection system was working and then tick the box off.

 

Unfortunatley the Stall protection system wasn't working properly, because it had been physically damaged by equipment during a repaint, and this damage hadn't been noticed.

 

If the damage hadn't been there, they wouldn't have stalled. If they had commenced the test at 13,000ft, they would have had enough time to recognize/recover from the stall. Unfortunatley... they were about 500ft from recovery (recovered airspeed and starting to reduce decent rate) when they impacted the Mediterranean sea. (4600ft would have been 'brown pants but survived after hearing "100ft" from the EGPWS')

 

Unless you're actually talking about the Lockheed L1011 that had a lightbulb for the landing gear go out, so crashed the plane while all 3 pilots were trying to replace the lightbulb at the same time, and 0 pilots were flying the plane, which descended quietly into the florida swamps (Eastern Airlines 401 Everglades crash).

 

Or the 737 that the captain flew upside-down because he was told to turn right, and felt that pushing the yoke as far left as possible might help him achieve that... all the time every system on board was working fine (Flash 604 Red Sea crash).

....

 

On further consideration, maybe you are talking about the Air inter flight 148 , where they were shooting a VOR/DME approach. They decided to do a 3.3° approach angle (a not-glidepath mode) but instead of selecting FPA 3.3°, they selected VERT SPD -3300

 

And somehow didn't notice that instead of decending at around -800ft/min they were decending at -3300ft/min.

 

Why isn't the plane slowing down? Why do we need to use speedbrake to even stay at 180kts? why is the ground proximity warning telling us to pull up? Maybe the computer is wrong. Maybe those trees out the window are computer generated.

... although that one crashed into French hills near Strasbourg, not the ocean.

 

After that incident, Airbus changed the display of the Vert Speed mode, because it used to have small half-sized 0's, so looked like -33°°, which may have been confused for -3.3° by the incident pilots.

 

Simple "Pressed the wrong button" exacerbated by not actually checking what the aircraft is doing, ie descending like a brick. Then confusion about aerodynamic effects (unable to slow down = might be descending) and then even more confusion about unexpected warnings "Pull up" - Why? we're trying to land! maybe the flaps aren't set? or maybe we're plummeting to the ground like a brick! nah, must be the flaps.

 

 

----------

The Airshow A320 crash was a very interesting incident. Authorized to do a flyover at 100ft. Decided to do it at 20ft instead because YOLO. This triggered Landing mode (starts at 50ft), which degrades the FlyByWire to something similar to Direct mode. Decided to "show off" how the A320 will "apply full thrust during Alpha Floor even without touching the throttles".

 

Unfortunatley it actually doesn't do that in Landing/Direct mode.

 

about 2 seconds before impact with trees, the thrust levers were finally moved from Cruise thrust (CLB) to TOGA.

Autothrust had the engines at idle for landing... The point that TOGA was commanded, till the engines spooled up from idle to full thrust was about 1.3 seconds, which was exactly as intended and certified.

 

a second later the aircraft was a fireball in a forest.

 

Lesson: When you fly an Airbus, fly it like an aircraft. If you want full throttle, move the throttle with your hands to full throttle. If it's stalling, recover from the stall. If you pull back on the stick as far as it can travel and hold it there, expect it to stall!

 

If you intend to do that with the throttles at idle at 20ft above the ground? maybe don't take any passengers with you!

[fppilot 4,396]

Well there was also the Airbus that descended into the ocean because the pilots couldn't figure out what was wrong with the aircraft,

 

There are a lot of businesses that have failed for the same reason.  The "new management" with the classic NIHS.  One of the likely causes for the demise of MSFS at MicroSoft.

 

Also true for big government,

[ivo09 23]

I think Kuragiman is referencing AF447 ( the one that descended into the ocean) and another AF296 which crashed into a hill after an airshow low altitude flyover.

 

I have been a fan of the series since the first season and have seen all the episodes. Absolutely the most amazing show ever and I hope it keeps going for many years. There is a new season coming sometime in 2014.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mayday_episodes

[BillCusick 75]

Does anyone else watch/has watched this series?

 

I've probably seen all these episodes - and a few of them always seem to trigger memories where I have wondered, when the accident occurred, how long before we will know the hows and whys.

 

I do wish, though, that they would spend a little more on the cockpit structure. It always appears to me that the cockpits have been thrown together as cheaply as possible. How about using/hiring a few of those superb home cockpits we see on here from time to time ?

 

..and those constantly repeating crash scenarios every few minutes...they do become a little irritating.

 

It is very difficult for me to imagine how a flight crew can become so engrossed in an instrument/light bulb failure that they forget to 'fly the aircraft'. I always think that it was a great pity to remove the flight engineer from the cockpit. That 'Third pair of eyes' could be a possible lifesaver. A 'real' engineer should be in the cockpit, IMO. Just think how many lives could have been saved over the years.

 

An excellent series, though.

 

Regards

Bill

 

 

[Kuragiman 227]

 

Unless you're actually talking about the Lockheed L1011 that had a lightbulb for the landing gear go out, so crashed the plane while all 3 pilots were trying to replace the lightbulb at the same time, and 0 pilots were flying the plane, which descended quietly into the florida swamps (Eastern Airlines 401 Everglades crash).

 

 

Say this isn't so?   This is almost Benny Hill quality humorous if it didn't cost peope their lives.   All three pilots changing a bulb?   That's crazy!

[KevinAu 441]

Say this isn't so? This is almost Benny Hill quality humorous if it didn't cost peope their lives. All three pilots changing a bulb? That's crazy!

The way this incident was described by hopskip was very misleading. They weren't trying to change a light bulb. They were unable to get three green lights when they lowered the gear for landing. Not knowing whether they had three gear down or not, they broke off the approach and held out away from the airport to work the problem. At some point while all three were looking at checklists, talking to maintenance, checking breaker panels, etc, the autopilot's altitude hold got disengaged. Those days, there were no alerts from the autopilot that it had been disengaged. They were holding at only 2000 to begin with and the aircraft drifted slowly down. By the time the audio showed that the copilot noticed they weren't at 2000, it was just a moment before impact. There was nothing 'Benny Hill' about what happened there. The 3 did everything they were supposed to do during that era. The autopilot did everything it was supposed to do. Only after these kind of incidents do peolple get new ideas such as that autopilots should have a sound alert if it is disengaged, or that crm doesn't mean everybody is engaged with the problem, that one person should be solely focused on flying the aircraft. Incidents like these are really the only way humans learn.

[Adam T Lutley 12]

The Airbus 320 family represented a significant departure in design philosophy when it came out. Namely, it attempted to remove the pilot as the ultimate decision maker as to how the aircraft behaves. Pilots complained that the cockpit design and function deprived the pilot of important tactile and visual queues present in more conventional aircraft. This led to numerous "mode confusion" incidents and accidents with the aircraft when it first debuted. Even with the autopilot disengaged, the actions of the pilot can be countermanded by the AFCS if it doesn't agree with his or her actions. It didn't help that the French authorities went into complete denial over the issues raised and finally changed their thinking after Airbus chief pilot Nick Warner was killed on a test flight involving the A330 where mode confusion was cited as a primary cause. The 320 and the later 330/340 have gone on to become fine aircraft in subsequent years. Eastern Airlines 401 stands as the quintessential example of the adage " No matter what happens, fly the damn aircraft"

Regards

[Kuragiman 227]

To me, it is never a good idea to try and remove the pilot from the factor.   Look what happened when we gave SkyNET control!  XD

 

I think the one thing that bugs me about the Airbus is the throttle levers not moving when the Autothrottle is in control.   To me, I would want to SEE it moving like they do on the Boeing so I know it is working (or supposedly working).   I think that was actually a problem on one of the episodes with an Airbus crash.

[Jetstream96 20]

To me, it is never a good idea to try and remove the pilot from the factor. Look what happened when we gave SkyNET control! XD

 

I think the one thing that bugs me about the Airbus is the throttle levers not moving when the Autothrottle is in control. To me, I would want to SEE it moving like they do on the Boeing so I know it is working (or supposedly working). I think that was actually a problem on one of the episodes with an Airbus crash.

I think it's a problem too. In the report of AF447, this thrust lever issue is mentioned. And there were actually a few incidents before that crash involving the same issue.The speed drops without being noticed by pilots (after AT disengagement I think), resulting low airspeed.

[FLEX1978 373]

I think it's a problem too. In the report of AF447, this thrust lever issue is mentioned. And there were actually a few incidents before that crash involving the same issue.The speed drops without being noticed by pilots (after AT disengagement I think), resulting low airspeed.

Thrust lever position had absouletly nothing to do with AF447. You can argue for and against each type of thrust control. Most that are vocal about the A3xx Autothrust have never even flown an aircraft let alone an Airbus

 

Take a look at the report for the Turkish 737 NG that crashed in Schipol, the Asiana 777 that recently crashed, or hundreds of incidents on other aircraft with moving throttles.

 

It doesn't matter what type you fly, know your FMA, understand the machine in normal and non normal situations, stick to SOP, understand the importance of CRM and apply it...

 

Basic stuff, but when you look at many incidents and accidents many of the above goes out of the window, doesn't matter if you are flying Airbus/Boeing/MD

[Oracle427 45]

While it is not the case for the accident referenced in the topic name. A lot of the other accidents have something in common...

 

 

Click click, click click

[ant_1984 20]

 

 

There's the Quantus Airbus who's engine exploded shortly after take off badly damaging the hydraulic system and forcing a return to the airfield (that was a really good episode. Glad they managed to get the plane stopped at the very end of the runway).

 

Showing my national pride here but it's Qantas, NOT Quantas. lol

 

Anyone interested in this should seriously take a look at the book by the pilot of this flight "QF32" By Richard De Crespigny.

 

It was a really good read and fascinating what they had to deal with and just how many systems were actually impacted by the explosion.