We often remember to mention tragedies in our home countries--always sorry to hear about an aviation disaster wherever in the world it may be. This came out on the wires several hours ago and it appears to be quite a tragedy. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070718/ap_on_...zil_plane_crash-John

>We often remember to mention tragedies in our home>countries--always sorry to hear about an aviation disaster>wherever in the world it may be. This came out on the wires>several hours ago and it appears to be quite a tragedy. >>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070718/ap_on_...zil_plane_crash>>-JohnMy heart and prayers goes out to the families of those involved. This however was an accident, that should have been avoided. As the story says court had ruled this airport too dangerous for commercial jets, but was overruled on appeal! Also just Monday 2 planes skidded off the runway in the rain. Part of the problem I heard was the runway lacked grooves that would let the water drain from the surface, like we have here in the US. They always say hindsight is 20/20, but in this case it appears to be more foresight that was ignored! All the red flags were there!!

I'm afraid recriminations now are pointless and serve no purpose, our thoughts are and should be with the families of the victims, who still have to pick up the pieces of their now shattered lives. May whatever gods they believe in go with them, now and always.

>I'm afraid recriminations now are pointless and serve no>purposeI have to disagree.Just months ago 154 people died in Brazil after ATC put two jets beak-to-beak at the same flight level on the same airway. There has been a great deal of turmoil surrounding problems with flight safety there, and the dialogue and safety history surrounding Sao Paolo's airport before this disaster in particular (which was declared unsuitable for use by several aircraft types six months ago and then quickly overruled by an appeals court citing economic interests), and which saw not one, but two aircraft depart the prepared surface in suspected hydroplaning incidents the day before this fatal accident, is particularly damning. If there are no recriminations, then this latest disaster (and it looks so bad at first blush that one has to hesitate calling it an accident) is just going to be a preview of more preventable disasters yet to come. Somebody git a rope.RegardsBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VSantiago de Chile

When one puts greed ahead of safety,eventually someone will always get hurt.John M

>This however was an accident, that should have been>avoided. As the story says court had ruled this airport too>dangerous for commercial jets, but was overruled on appeal!>Also just Monday 2 planes skidded off the runway in the rain.>Part of the problem I heard was the runway lacked grooves that>would let the water drain from the surface, like we have here>in the US. They always say hindsight is 20/20, but in this>case it appears to be more foresight that was ignored! All the>red flags were there!You're correct about the lack of grooved surface, but the ruling you mention that was overturned didn't include aircraft the size of the A320 family or 737s. Those would still have been allowed.

From the looks of it now they are saying he may have tried to take off again, for what reason we'll never know but knowing how the Airline industry is you can bet your last teeth the ruling will be 'Pilot Error' as he can't argue his case, the poor man is dead.Too often in all industries the cost of preventing an accident is weighed against the cost of having the accident, and whichever is cheaper wins, so if it's cheaper to kill 350 people on an airliner than it is to prevent it happening, they'll kill the 350 people. Look at the 747 fuel tank issue, it wasn't until it came to light that the 747 over Long Island wasn't the first plane to have this happen to it that anything was done, and they still didn't re-design modern planes to take the wiring loom away from the fuel sensors. All they did was create a situation to bleed the air out of the fuel tanks so they wouldn't combust.

>From the looks of it now they are saying he may have tried to>take off again, for what reason we'll never know but knowing>how the Airline industry is you can bet your last teeth the>ruling will be 'Pilot Error' as he can't argue his case, the>poor man is dead.>Probably because he realized they weren't going to get her stopped and tried to get her back into the air. Probably ended up just making the enevitable worse by going off the runway at a higher speed.

I just watched the " leaked " airport security video tape that shows the ill fated flight moving down the runway. It appears from watching the tape that he had more than enough airspeed to at least attempt to rotate the aircraft for a go-around (touch and go). It's hard to see, but it appears the pilot(s) never attempt this. As with most accidents, our first impressions of what may have happened are usually wrong. Best to let the investigation play itself out.