Second SFO Disaster Avoided Seconds Before Crash 248
sabri writes "On July 25th, flight EVA28, a Boeing 777 flying from Taiwan to SFO, was on the final approach for runway 28L when they were alerted by ATC that they were only at 600ft above the ground at less than 4NM from the threshold. SFO's tower directed the flight crew to climb immediately and declare missed approach. Assuming they were flying at 140 knots (typical approach speed of a 777), they were less than 2 minutes from the runway and at a 3 degree angle (approx 500ft/min descent), about a minute from impact. This is the same type of aircraft and runway used by the crashed Asiana flight. Similar weather conditions and awfully similar flight path. Is there a structural problem with computer-aided pilot's ability to fly visual approaches?"
Is there a structural problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
In short, no, there is not. There is a problem with the airline putting inexperienced dumbasses in the left seat to save money.
Pop some popcorn (Score:3, Interesting)
Time for a 500 post thread saying the same 3 things:
1) I am not a pilot but here is why the pilot was wrong
2) There is a problem with Asian pilots since they weren't loved enough by their mothers
3) Hey don't be racist, Asians are just good at different things than Americans
Automatics, lack of skill, two-bit airlines... (Score:1, Interesting)
The problem is that some countries license pilots that cannot fly the plane if all the computer-aided bells and whistles are not available. This alone wouldn't be so bad but there are enough carriers around that hire anyone who has the legally required paperwork and is willing to do the job at the peanut pay offered. Actual skill at operating the plane beyond what is required "by the book" (use automatics) is optional.
Ban such pilots from operating commercial jets in US (and/or EU) airspace and it will fix the issue in a hurry.
Otherwise we can wait until enough expensive jets have been trashed by these "pilots" and enough people killed - at which point operators that do not change their policies and recruitment standards die out.
Some Asian carriers actually outright ban the pilots from flying the plane manually (automatics _have_ to be used at all times, if available). How on earth do they expect the pilots to cope in an emergency when the toys fail? Or when the toys can't be used (SFO does not have serviceable ILS at the moment so visual approaches are needed)
Re:Disagree (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm just an armchair-sim pilot, but IMHO the KSFO approach is SUPER easy compared to some other ones. There aren't really any turns for noise abatement or any other weird things like some approaches have [youtube.com]. All planes are basically put into 2 single files lines south of SFO, turned towards the runway, (28L or R generally depending on if they are arriving from the East or West) and go. Contact SFO tower when they are over the San Mateo bridge, and that's it. Fly straight and on the correct glideslope, nothing out of the ordinary to worry about. Occasionally ATC will ask them to change runways, so they should have the charts for the alternate ready to go, as well as the autopilot ready to re-configure, but that probably only happens 10-20% of the time. (AFAIK it didn't happen for the Asiana flight, not sure about this one.)