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Shouldn't an alternate have been used for this 777?

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Is the decision to attempt to land entirely the Captian's?  I thought there were operational parameters that need to be checked and if outside those parameters then route to an alternate?

 

 

Cheers, Rob.

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Is the decision to attempt to land entirely the Captian's?  I thought there were operational parameters that need to be checked and if outside those parameters then route to an alternate?

 

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

Is the decision to attempt to land entirely the Captian's?  I thought there were operational parameters that need to be checked and if outside those parameters then route to an alternate?

 

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

Hi, Rob,

 

Thanks for a very interesting video!  I am under the impression it's up to the pilot whether to land, but I really don't know.

 

It looks to me like the PF got into a cycle of overcorrecting alternately left and right.  Without this the plane wouldn't have been rocking back and forth, and the landing would have been less precarious (no right wing nearly touching the ground).    But could such a cycle of overcorrection really happen to an experienced KLM pilot?  Or is there some wind phenomenon causing the rocking back and forth?

 

Mike


 

                    bUmq4nJ.jpg?2

 

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To be fair, without substantially more data about the day it's not really possible to judge  whether they were outside any operational limits.  In fact, until the last moment it looks like a fairly routing landing in a  crosswind, and even then the pilot caught the wing drop very quickly (and without it getting particularly close to the ground).

 

Mike - The rocking prior to flare seems fairly normal given the weather conditions (and actually quite minor in the grand scheme of things) and even in the flare it doesn't look like over controlling.  If you look at the left aileron from about 0:24 onwards, you can see that he corrects a right roll, centres it, then the aircraft suddently rolls right again.  It's actually common near the ground to have more "aggressive" turbulance than on approach as the effect of trees/building upwind of the runway can often be to create curl-over, the most obvious effect of which is usually to suddenly drop the into wind wing, which is exactly what appears to happen here.

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Agree, without more data it's hard to determine if conditions were beyond safe operational limits (not necessarily aircraft operational limits).  My initial take was the pilot didn't pay attention to gust numbers and just looked at steady-state wind numbers and/or wasn't advised by ATC off gust values.

 

I was reading this old article (primarily for GA) http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/1998/March/1/Too-windy on landing speed calc based on gust variance ... adding 1/2 the gust factor to approach speeds.  

 

I've been a passenger at many landings at Las Vegas with high crosswinds (i.e. I look out the window and I see all the way down the runway) but these were primarily steady-state crosswinds.  It's the gusts that cause most of the drama ... I recall reading an article about KDEN some years ago, apparently KDEN only has (or maybe had) one center-field wind meter that was capable of reporting wind gust readings and ATC isn't required to provide that information to pilots (hopefully that's changed).

 

Cheers, Rob.

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But even with the gust values, he can only react to what he sees/feels, so I'm not sure he could have done much more than what he did.  The aileron moves to correct almost the instant the wing starts to drop, he clearly had sufficient speed as he had the control authority to recover it, whether that accords with specific versions of good practice, we are guessing without a cockpit video.

 

All I see when I look at this is a low level turbulence induced brown-trowser moment that, quite honestly, sometimes "just happens" in rubbish conditions (and close to the ground, this can happen even in steady state winds when physical obstacles such as trees/building are involved).  Visually quite teeth-suck inducing (in part helped by the camera position), but not something that seems to suggest there was some greater form of incompetence going on.

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Wasn't suggesting incompetence, perhaps error in judgement BUT as pointed out, without more than just this visual it's impossible to determine ... just wondering if ATC provided gust information ... on-board with ATC feed would have been great to see/listen.  Based on the angle of the aircraft I don't think crosswinds were that high, just the gust factor.  

 

Given the conditions I think the pilot did the best he could and "got lucky" ... but was it a case of "push the landing" to save KLM money? -- it was certainly a brown-trowser moment for everyone on board but I still question why an alternate wasn't selected and avoid the entire brown-trowser moment.

 

I'll post this video over on Airline Pilot Guy channel (two real world 777 active pilots there) and see if I get a response regarding gust factors.

 

Cheers, Rob.

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What made me think of crosswind are the initial views + the wing drop just before touchdown, which is one of the crosswind landing techniques. Certainly looked very turbulent.

 

As far as going to your alternate, first you have to try and give your destination a go, above all if the weather is within limits. You can't just divert because the approach looks challenging. As you pointed out, a diversion costs money, above all for a company that relies on hub connectivity.

However, if you can't make it, then get out of there. Depends I guess on how bad it was on the first attempt and how much fuel you have.


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Any one want to bet that was a navy aviator. Looks like a carrier landing.

 

 

Rob to me that looks like a controlled move. He was crabing in the wind last second he used right rudder to straiten the plane which brought the wing down and he corrected as he should have.

You doint want to land a plane that big sideways just my thoughts.

Regards ted kiser

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I found two likely METARS for this flight, using the historical function in Active Sky Next.

 

12:00-2 = 10:00ZZ
EHAM 251025Z 27031G47KT 5000 RA BKN008 OVC012 15/14 Q0995 BECMG 30032G45KT

12:00 -1 = 11:00Z
EHAM 251125Z 29032G43KT 250V320 4500 RA BKN008 OVC020 OVC018 15/14 Q0996 RERA TEMPO 30032G48KT 7000
 

KLM 706 lands around noon local  time.  In the summer that is two hours ahead of Zulu, in the winter one hour ahead.  So the first one is probably closer to the landing situation.

 

The video was posted on July 25, 2015.  On that day conditions were as above.  For the preceding three days @ that time the conditions were pretty light, nothing like this.

 

Mike


 

                    bUmq4nJ.jpg?2

 

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31 to 47 ... that's a good sized variance but I don't think METARS reports on ground gust conditions at airports - I think that's ATC only?  But that certainly does look like the day.

 

Might need to test that day out ... 

 

Cheers, Rob.

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Here's a link to the description for Alex Farmer's repaint of this aircraft (PH-BVB) for the PMDG 777-300W:

http://library.avsim.net/zipdiver.php?DLID=190619

 

Here's the download link:

http://library.avsim.net/download.php?DLID=190619

 

Will try this later -- may report back depending on how it goes!

 

Mike


 

                    bUmq4nJ.jpg?2

 

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