UPS A300 down

ntsb-birmingham-plane-crash2.jpg
 
What I can't figure out is why they were coming in for 18. The big jets always come in 6/24. They are doing construction on the east end of 24 and have a portion of the runway closed and that may be why.
 
Looks like they hit the tops of the tall pine trees.... Killed the horizontal stabilizer and lumbered along till they hit.......... Sad deal for sure and the longest 11 seconds of their lives..:sad::sad::sad:
 
N801BH said:
Yeah but................ I have seen Indy cars virtually disintegrate and the driver crawls out alive...
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Part of that is the disintegration takes the force with it... But yeah, I was thinking similarly.

Can't see inside (and probably don't want to) but stuff may have intruded on their personal space, so to speak.

:(
 
teethdoc said:
What I can't figure out is why they were coming in for 18. The big jets always come in 6/24. They are doing construction on the east end of 24 and have a portion of the runway closed and that may be why.
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6/24 was NOTAM'd closed at the time.
 
N801BH said:
Yeah but................ I have seen Indy cars virtually disintegrate and the driver crawls out alive...
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Yeah, well they are designed to dissipate the crash loads that might be imposed. Airliners? Not so much,.
 
denverpilot said:
Part of that is the disintegration takes the force with it... But yeah, I was thinking similarly.

Can't see inside (and probably don't want to) but stuff may have intruded on their personal space, so to speak.

:(
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Bolded by me.

I think that is exactly what happened. While Indy cars and power boats have a pretty good capsule around the drivers. Planes do not. From the outside pics it looks like a lot of stuff was forced up into the living space of the cockpit.
 
ScottM said:
Bolded by me.

I think that is exactly what happened. While Indy cars and power boats have a pretty good capsule around the drivers. Planes do not. From the outside pics it looks like a lot of stuff was forced up into the living space of the cockpit.
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Yeah.

The cockpit door is probably still intact from invaders though. :(
 
 
Is it normal for a fan to show so little rotational damage after a crash like this? I would've thought the blades would exhibit far more damage than what I'm seeing in this picture. I also noticed the escape rope was hanging from the cockpit ceiling. I wonder if it deployed from the impact forces or if there might have been an attempt by the crew to extricate themselves. What a sad sight, either way. :(
7urajuza.jpg
 
I had that same discussion with Ted yesterday. To me, it looks like that engine was not running when in hit the mud. The blades that are bent strait in are def suspect to me. IF you see the pic of the other engine, completely different looking.
I did see an article today claiming they were running.....
 
Captain said:
negative G's?

Slamming into the ground would be positive G's.
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Not necessarily, depends on the angle, even though the are both the same in many regards. In restraints in an intact cabin, the forces would have been deceleration trying to force the organs out the front of the body which would generally be considered negative Gs. The real 'tell tale' of which to call it would be burst blood vessels in the eyes, that makes it 'negative' G. Either way though, typically what kills you is the aorta starts tearing loose above 50G with 100% fatality at 100G.
 
N801BH said:
Yeah but................ I have seen Indy cars virtually disintegrate and the driver crawls out alive...
Click to expand...

The disintegration is exactly why, that explosive force displaces the energy into dust.
 
Henning said:
Sounded to me like he ruptured a fuel tank on the trees then crashed.
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I think it was more likely the trees getting ingested into the engines that the folks on the ground saw.

I don't think the fuel tanks ruptured until the left wing hit the ground.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Flight Aware sometimes shows funny stuff. I'm not sure how accurate that is. If you see the wreckage, it was not straight in. Most definitely had alot of forward motion. Looks alot like they hit the trees and then either cartwheeled or otherwise hit the left wing first and then the aircraft broke up.
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I was speaking with an acquaintance who was a TWA 747 pilot along with a friend who flies the Airbus for USAirways and both said there was a descent rate of 7000 per minute and felt there very well could have been a smoke/fire problem in the cargo that invaded the cockpit. I guess we shall see.

Sad events for sure.
 
No Joy said:
UPS jet was on autopilot until seconds before crash
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ups-jet-crash-20130817,0,5306167.story

Nodded off?
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I don't think it was nodding off. Getting behind the airplane maybe, but I don't think they were asleep.

From what I understand, they were coming in high and trying to get down on a non-precision approach/visual which for that runway is a black hole approach at night. I think more likely is that they may have had some extreme inputs in the A/P and they may have gotten behind the airplane, perhaps trying to rush/force the approach.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I don't think it was nodding off. Getting behind the airplane maybe, but I don't think they were asleep.

From what I understand, they were coming in high and trying to get down on a non-precision approach/visual which for that runway is a black hole approach at night. I think more likely is that they may have had some extreme inputs in the A/P and they may have gotten behind the airplane, perhaps trying to rush/force the approach.
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Seems strange.

Sumwalt said the pilots received a warning called a “sink rate alert” about seven seconds before impact
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The autopilot was engaged until the last second of recorded data
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It looks like the plane landed attempting to land on runway 18 when the wind( I'll be it very light) reported from the metar would have favored landing on 36. To me that is kind of odd although I don't know the airport and maybe 36 has a huge displaced threshold or something. If not, that may indicate the pilots had a serious problem on board and were just trying to get it on the ground. If no problem was present, and as one person pointed out the main runway 6/24 was closed is it possible the pilots got too low to because they were concerned with the length of the runway and wanted to plant it on the numbers of 18? If they were landing in a downwind condition or in little wind to help slow the jet down it may be possible these thoughts were in their head.

Either way, I hate reading about the plane crashes. Makes me very sad each time. Clear skies and tailwinds to the pilots.

EDIT: I went and did some research- looks like runway 36 does have a displaced threshold and shortens the landing distance available to 5100 feet. Runway 18 gives them more length to land on- thus seemingly explaining why it looks like they choose runway 18.
 
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No Joy said:
Seems strange.
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Need to revise what I just said.

I was just reading some comments from pilots on another board who had actually watched the briefing. Apparently in the NTSB briefing, they stated that the A/P was on 'until the last second of recorded data'. The article you linked makes it sound like the crew deselected the A/P seconds before the crash, while the actual NTSB wording sounds like it was never turned off, or it was turned off as they were hitting the trees.

I think we really need to know what the descent profile, A/P inputs and what was on the CVR before we really have a clue what was going on.
 
jspilot said:
It looks like the plane landed attempting to land on runway 18 when the wind( I'll be it very light) reported from the metar would have favored landing on 36. To me that is kind of odd although I don't know the airport and maybe 36 has a huge displaced threshold or something.
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It's not uncommon for transport category aircraft to land with a tailwind. Most companies limit that to 10 knots.


jspilot said:
If not, that may indicate the pilots had a serious problem on board and were just trying to get it on the ground. If no problem was present, and as one person pointed out the main runway 6/24 was closed is it possible the pilots got too low to because they were concerned with the length of the runway and wanted to plant it on the numbers of 18?
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You don't "plant on the numbers" with a large jet unless you want to drag the tail through the approach zone. Large aircraft aim for the touchdown zone which still gives adequate stopping distance.
 
RotorAndWing said:
It's not uncommon for transport category aircraft to land with a tailwind. Most companies limit that to 10 knots.




You don't "plant on the numbers" with a large jet unless you want to drag the tail through the approach zone. Large aircraft aim for the touchdown zone which still gives adequate stopping distance.
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Yeah no I understand both your points. My only point was perhaps the available runway being shorter than the one typically available was a factor. After I went and looked at the airport info on foreflight it became clear to me why they choose runway 18. With 7,000 feet of runway to use I am fairly confident they felt like they could land and stop the plane before the end.
 
jspilot said:
Yeah no I understand both your points. My only point was perhaps the available runway being shorter than the one typically available was a factor. After I went and looked at the airport info on foreflight it became clear to me why they choose runway 18. With 7,000 feet of runway to use I am fairly confident they felt like they could land and stop the plane before the end.
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It's not a matter of " they felt they could do it", transport jets must use runway analysis for landing. Unless the data says you can land, you can't. Several factors come into play, runway length, temperature, wind, aircraft weight, runway contamination (wet, snow, ice, etc)
 
Henning said:
The disintegration is exactly why, that explosive force displaces the energy into dust.
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I used to work for a company that made roll cages and the engineering that goes into energy dissipation is impressive. Would be interesting to apply it to aircraft, but unlike a car, I think that so many impact profiles would be difficult to account.
 
You know guys incidents like this are always sad but when you see the pilots up close and personal it just makes it that much worse. :(
 
18 is sort of a difficult runway. You come over a hill and drop right down to it. I'll try to post a picture of it looking back north from the south. You can still see the plane sitting up on the hill way above the runway.
 
Poached from the previous link.....

"
Aircraft performance and energy appeared normal based on initial indications from the flight data recorder (FDR). Sumwalt said control inputs and aircraft flight control surfaces appear to correlate properly and engines indicated normal operations.
The aircraft’s autopilot was engaged until the last second of FDR data and the autothrottle system was engaged through the end of the data, said Sumwalt, with the recorded airspeed tracking the autoflight selected airspeed of about 140 kt., which is consistent with the expected approach speed for A300. Sumwalt noted that the CVR operated for a few seconds after the FDR stopped.

Sumwalt also reported that 3 seconds before a pilot called “runway in sight”, there were two audible “sink rate” alerts issued by the enhanced ground proximity warning system, indicating a descent rate that was outside the bounds of the expected descent rate for the speed, altitude and aircraft configuration at the time.

So. here are two pilots babysitting the Scarebus's computer and neither one figured out the flight profile was way below the normal altitude..:dunno::dunno:
 
N801BH said:
So. here are two pilots babysitting the Scarebus's computer and neither one figured out the flight profile was way below the normal altitude..:dunno::dunno:
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I guess what some people don't understand is on the Airbus or Boeing the airplane will do what the pilot commands it to do. If on a non precision approach if a flight profile is selected the aircraft will do just that, fly it. It's up to the pilot flying and the pilot monitoring to assure the approach is being flown correctly. There are stabilized approach criteria on a non precision just as on a precision approach. Venture outside of those parameters and it's cause for a missed approach. Certainly getting a "sink rate" callout on the GPWS is outside of the stabilized approach criteria.
 
N801BH said:
Poached from the previous link.....

"
Aircraft performance and energy appeared normal based on initial indications from the flight data recorder (FDR). Sumwalt said control inputs and aircraft flight control surfaces appear to correlate properly and engines indicated normal operations.
The aircraft’s autopilot was engaged until the last second of FDR data and the autothrottle system was engaged through the end of the data, said Sumwalt, with the recorded airspeed tracking the autoflight selected airspeed of about 140 kt., which is consistent with the expected approach speed for A300. Sumwalt noted that the CVR operated for a few seconds after the FDR stopped.

Sumwalt also reported that 3 seconds before a pilot called “runway in sight”, there were two audible “sink rate” alerts issued by the enhanced ground proximity warning system, indicating a descent rate that was outside the bounds of the expected descent rate for the speed, altitude and aircraft configuration at the time.

So. here are two pilots babysitting the Scarebus's computer and neither one figured out the flight profile was way below the normal altitude..:dunno::dunno:
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You can skip the "scarebus" bull****.. the A300 is on the same level as the 757/767. It's not the FBW magic that the A320 series is.
 
Rex Kramer said:
You can skip the "scarebus" bull****.. the A300 is on the same level as the 757/767. It's not the FBW magic that the A320 series is.
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Great point. They're workhorses from two decades ago, not fancy at all.

Don't know if anyone has done any big avionics retrofits to them, but they were pretty spartan but workhorses back then, when I shoved 'em off the gates at Stapleton, and got to walk upstairs and see them up close and personal as a ramp rat.

We didn't let any grass grow under them, I know that. They'd schedule two complete ground gate crews to hustle them up and when the weather got snotty and the gate schedule trashed to the point they were just plopping aircraft where ever they would fit, the big girl got priority and got her gate.

Only had three that could hold her anyway, if I remember correctly, but she always got her corner spot. She didn't make any money sitting at the gate, and it was always an all-hands available type of thing to get her turned.

She's of course, containerized baggage, but I remember many a night with four guys slamming bags into containers right there on the ramp as folks drove up with them from connecting flights when she was running late inbound... What a madhouse. No room for that crap at the old Stapleton... Trains of bag carts parked every which way and a little hole for the caterer to get through.

Ha. Insane. Fun but insane.

I remember more than one supervisor yelling things similar to... "Get this big B**** loaded and get her the **** outta here!" LOL.
 
One of the problems identified with early GPWS systems was a habit of crying wolf over sink rate. Although they claimed to fix the problems, I know the Commander had a habit of yelling it at us on slightly steeper than normal approaches, such as what was common going into PHL. You ended up getting used to ignoring it, which made the system useless in the event of a real problem.

I don't know how this applies to A300s, but I'd be curious.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
One of the problems identified with early GPWS systems was a habit of crying wolf over sink rate. Although they claimed to fix the problems, I know the Commander had a habit of yelling it at us on slightly steeper than normal approaches, such as what was common going into PHL. You ended up getting used to ignoring it, which made the system useless in the event of a real problem.

I don't know how this applies to A300s, but I'd be curious.
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The A300's that UPS operate use a EGPWS. It has several additional parameters and you don't get the false alerts as often on it as the old GPWS systems.

Here's a simple article on the difference.
 
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