Boeing 777 Crashes At San Francisco Airport 506
Asiana Flight 214 from Seoul crashed while landing at San Francisco Airport today. Early reports suggest the plane was unstable as it touched down, which led to the tail of the plane breaking off. There are no official casualty reports yet, but passengers were seen walking off the plane. Preliminary estimates say one or two dead and 75 being transported to area hospitals. (Others are reporting two dead and several dozen injured.) Eyewitness report: "You heard a pop and you immediately saw a large, brief fireball that came out from underneath the aircraft," Anthony Castorani said on CNN. "At that moment, you could see that that aircraft was again starting to lift and it began to cartwheel [Ed: he likely means spinning horizontally, like a top]. The wing broke off on the left hand side. You could see the tail immediately fly off of the aircraft. As the aircraft cartwheeled, it then landed down and the other wing had broken." The media has estimated about 290 people were on board the plane. The top of the cabin was aflame at one point, but it's not known yet whether that affected the passengers. "Federal sources told NBC News that there was no indication of terrorism." Some images from the news make it look like the plane may have tried to touch down too early, hitting the seawall just before the runway.
I figured it out (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm going to go on record saying that hitting the sea-wall first instead of the runway had something to do with it. You know, physics, and all that shit.
Re:No Cartwheeling (Score:2, Insightful)
At least 2 dead, which is quite amazing: http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/boeing-777-crashes-while-landing-sfo/nYfcx/
Re:No Cartwheeling (Score:5, Insightful)
Pictures show the aircraft sat on the ground with the tail missing and the forward roof burnt out but it certainly did NOT cartwheel...
I happened to check news just as this story was breaking. The word "cartwheel" came from the first eyewitness report. The next two eyewitnesses said it "spun". So I'm guessing that the guy who said "cartwheel" doesn't really know what the word means, and that instead it spun on its belly.
Re:No Cartwheeling (Score:5, Insightful)
certainly did NOT cartwheel or bits would be scattered down the runway. It seems that all passengers and crew have been accounted for with no fatalities.
The term "cartwheel" has different meanings to different people. Unfortunately, just like with the Boston Bombing, CNN rushed a story out without getting its facts straight, though at least this time it was somewhat more substantial than pure speculation.
At this time, it appears the plane's air speed was too low on final approach, and the pilot may have over-corrected by throttling up and then (mistakenly) putting the nose further up as a panic measure; This resulted in a severe tail strike on the sea wall, and the plane would have become aerodynamically unstable immediately after.
Typically in these scenarios, the plane (appears) to shoot upwards briefly due to the sudden change in weight distribution, and comes down on angled heavily to one side (having lost any ability to control lateral movement). The wing will typically sheer off, as they're actually designed to break away from the fuselage in such an event, and the plane will roll onto its roof then (if speed is high enough) or the nose will take a digger, break off, and the whole thing will flip in the air and then promptly "face plant" in the dirt in one piece.
Either way, the plane did exactly what it was designed to do -- separate the flammables from the fuselage where the passengers were, and maintain integrity until all motion stops. The emergency crew's prompt response is what saved everyone's lives -- most people don't die due to the impact or fire, but rather smoke inhalation.
This is a text-book crash landing, and the investigation will now focus on whether a mechanical fault caused the plane to lose speed at the last moment (bird strike on engine is common), or whether the pilot neglected to flare correctly. Judging by the debris, it looks like it would have been a steep descent with flare at the end -- which results in a faster landing and is preferred at high-volume airports, over a shallower approach, with less flare. If the pilot is inexperienced, distracted, or any number of a dozen other things go wrong (one plane crash I know of was due to a circuit breaker trip-out which meant the captain did not have 'stick shake' or stall alarm warnings in this exact scenario) -- there's very little time to react, and even going to full power take off speed will not prevent disaster due to the steep descent angle, lack of altitude, and lack of speed.
Any airplane pilot knows the key to a successful crash landing is speed and altitude -- they add precious seconds to react to an emergency. This plane had neither.
Cabin Baggage? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not terrorism... (Score:4, Insightful)
No shit, how the hell have we gotten to the point where every accident report is accompanied with that phrase.
Because, in the hours between when a thing happens and when something is actually known about what happened, the talking head in the news room has to keep talking. Even if what they say is completely inane.
Casualties doesn't mean fatalities (Score:5, Insightful)
It means serious injuries or deaths. In military speak, which is where it comes from, it means a soldier hurt to the point they can't go back and fight. So someone who's dead: casualty. Someone who has a compound fracture in both legs: casualty. Someone who has a surface cut on their arm: not a casualty.
There's not as hard and fast a civilian definition, but it is just if the injury is serious. It is a useful number for determining how bad something is. Number of injuries period is irrelevant, number of fatalities while relevant doesn't tell the whole store. Number of fatalities and casualties gives a good idea of the human damage that happened in an incident.
Why always mention "terrorism?" (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA: ...there was no indication of terrorism..."
Why is this still included in any US media article about any aviation accident, or similar event, in the news?
As an ordinary citizen, the question of terrorism is not anywhere near the top of my list of questions regarding "how" or "why" an accident may have occurred. Not at all. Now, the question of "who screwed up? Maintenance, pilot, management, etc.?" is the kind of question that springs to mind.
Or, perhaps, maybe the problem is with me? Should I learn to be more afraid?
Re:Open airplanes (Score:5, Insightful)
Repeat after me: "human factors"
Almost any accident can be prevent by a prescient pilot always making PERFECT decisions.
Passing accidents off as pilot error in all but the most egregious cases, is massively disingenuous, and something airlines and manufacturers like to do to shield themselves from all liability that they deserve.
Airlines trained pilots to do something stupid? Pilot error.
Airlines failed to train pilots on the new systems? Pilot error.
Counter-intuitive controls resulted in a pilot throttling down instead of up, and crashing? Pilot error.
Stall warning systems were non-functional, and the pilot wasn't fastidiously checking sensors? Pilot error.
Airline was juggling pilot schedules around, making them work with little sleep? Pilot error.
Re:news for nerds (Score:4, Insightful)
"So, news for nerds is strictly about computers, mathematics and shit ? Nerds/Geeks are limited to a point that nothing else interests them ?"
We read that in the 25 normal news sites that we're following.
What we want here, is not the 253th car with a 'stuck gas on the freeway', nor every hard landing by a plane, nor the 7834th new battery type, that's coming Real Soon Now. We also know, that tens of thousands of iPads are stolen by the TSA, no need to report another one. We don't like them either, so don't bother with yet another anecdote how bad/dumb/corrupt they are. We are also aware that you can create bitcoins with your PI-Toaster or washing machine as well.
Also refrain from giving us solar panel power boosts articles or 3d-printed dildos and beerbottle openers or other such stuff.
We 2D print new stuff that's never been printed every single day for decades, an additional dimension doesn't freak us out. We'll survive if somebody 3d prints a halfmoon shaped banana container and we'll never get to know.
Self-driving cars, only if you can buy them at the dealer.
"Facebook sucks" and "Paypal are a bunch of crooks" are not newsworthy items either, now that we have your attention.
Something 'new' would be nice now and then and if it's for nerds, that would be great.
Naturally if a plane crashes because the pilot couldn't start a checklist on his iPad or somebody with a Gorilla Antenna on his phone crashes it, we want to know.:-)
Re:Open airplanes (Score:5, Insightful)
It also turns out that an aircraft in flight is one of the most predictable engineering systems - it's a single self-contained structure where there are only two unknowns: weather and human factors. Outside of those, manufacturers develop good working models of their systems and then test them extensively until they find failure points. Considering the uncertain factors, weather was a major cause of accidents early in aviation before weather radar was a standard safety feature, and aviation forecasts were fine-tuned. Now that weather is largely an avoidable risk factor (excepting extremes such as flying into thunderstorms or freak clear air turbulence cells), it should hardly be surprising that the leading cause of accident is the one thing that is most difficult to design around. If you can find a way to make any complex system (aircraft, car, nuclear reactor, etc) idiot-proof without taking away control from the idiot then I have a prize for you.
But this is a conspiracy theory, so let's see if we can falsify it by testing specific consequences we might expect, if it were true. We would predict that there should not be events admitted to design fault that could not be pilot rectified, because then the manufacturers would be liable - the FAA/EASA/CASA/etc should bury any such case. These regulators would never stop aircraft from flying, since obviously no fault could be admitted to. Rather, a quick search shows a long history of documented design flaws: de Haviland Comet square windows, DC-10 cargo door, 787 battery fires, 747 cargo door electrical fault (AL182, PA103, UAL811, TWA800), 747 aft galley electrical bus being under refridgerator drip pan (QF2), many many engine failures (Delta 1288, QF32, CA786 to name a few). Not all of these flaws were fatal, but they are officially acknowledged as design and manufacturing flaws nonetheless. If the conspiracy were real, they should never have been owned up to. Instead, we see well-documented explanations of what the flaws are, and FAA directives on how they must be fixed. In fact, there have been many cases where the FAA has forbidden whole classes of aircraft from flying until design flaws are rectified - most recently with the 787 battery problem.
When you consider that there are 10s of thousands of aircraft in the air at any one time and the failure rate is so low, it's obviously that engineers have gone to great lengths to make the design-build-maintenance-operation process for modern aircraft very reliable. Obligatory car analogy: ask yourself how often cars crash because the driver messes up, and how often cars crash because of a design flaw. Again, you'll find human error completely dominates.
Like most conspiracy theories, a little research and a bit of common sense goes a long way to shooting down bogus claims.
Re:Open airplanes (Score:4, Insightful)
This will be pilot error.
Possible. Statistically speaking, you could say that about any crash without any evidence and you'd be right more often than wrong. But it's by no means guaranteed, and the evidence isn't in yet.
Remember BA at Heathrow?
My guess is improper flap position.
You will be shown to be wrong. Guaranteed.
But he was trying to land with no flaps on a flaps approach.
Really. Thank you for informing us of this fact. Amazing how the leading edge magically deployed itself after the crash.
The only other thing I guarantee right now is that this thread will spout uninformed, infuriating drivel like the AF447 articles did.
Single engine is AK is very different from airline and transpac flying. Please spare us your conclusions based on zero evidence or relevant experience. It's painful enough as it is without hearing such drivel.
Re:Open airplanes (Score:4, Insightful)
Incorrect, there is no design flaw. As designed, if both pilots make a flight control input simultaneously, they will receive an aural warning: "Dual Input". They will know about it and either pilot can take priority over the other by pushing a button on the stick which will lock out the other.
Certainly this would have been the only alarm they were hearing or blinking light they were seeing, you know in a stalling aircraft.... A "Dual Input" light is just the kind of tired, stupid, shit, that an engineer would say is good enough, but really just is not.