Asiana Airlines B777 Crashes at San Francisco International Airport

[ILovePAP]

Apparently, there were evacuating pax that grab their duty-free purchase, ipad and carry-on as they exit the aircraft.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/09/travel/asiana-passenger-safety

Ah Tiong will always be Ah Tiong. Selfish.

There should build overhead Cabin Compartment with an auto lock during takeoff and landing. This will discourage such selfish acts that will kill people.

 

[winnipegjets]

I can vow to that. Your chance of survival in an emergency reduce by a great percentage when most of your fellow pax are Ah Tiongs.

A Chinese netizen named "Happy Beyond the Cloud," who identifies himself as a commercial airline pilot, posted his own summary.
"A crew member from American Airlines complained to me that a lot of Chinese people refuse to put on safety belts, adjust their seats or close the glare shield while the plane is landing, and they put over-weighted bags overhead.
"Some planes have to broadcast in Chinese over and over again that if passengers refuse to cooperate with the crew, they will face a fine as much as $1,500. Don't these passengers know their bad behavior would kill them in emergency landing?"

 

[THE_CHANSTER]

Apparently, there were evacuating pax that grab their duty-free purchase, ipad and carry-on as they exit the aircraft.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/09/travel/asiana-passenger-safety

This comment sums up the Chinese mentality perfectly.

"Foreigners (especially Americans) don't understand that in China, human lives are cheaper than money," posted another, called "Victory of Xiangzi." "And this belief is deeply ingrained in the mentality of the Chinese government and its people."

 

[LauCheeBye]

This comment sums up the Chinese mentality perfectly.

"Foreigners (especially Americans) don't understand that in China, human lives are cheaper than money," posted another, called "Victory of Xiangzi." "And this belief is deeply ingrained in the mentality of the Chinese government and its people."

Mainland Chinese should be banned from all flights.:oIo:

 

[eatshitndie]

Apparently, there were evacuating pax that grab their duty-free purchase, ipad and carry-on as they exit the aircraft.

don't they learn to keep passports, wallets and smartphones in their shirts and pants or small carry-on bag? these 3 items are best kept on your body than in a luggage near you.

 

[watchman8]

Ah Tiong will always be Ah Tiong. Selfish.

There should build overhead Cabin Compartment with an auto lock during takeoff and landing. This will discourage such selfish acts that will kill people.

Some are just plain ignorant and they don't trust authorities, a trait learnt over the decades back in china.

 

[winnipegjets]

Ah Tiong will always be Ah Tiong. Selfish.

But you support the PAP policy of having more Ah Tiongs in sinkapore.

 

[ILovePAP]

But you support the PAP policy of having more Ah Tiongs in sinkapore.

That doesnt mean I accept the anti social behavior of these people.

 

[winnipegjets]

Majority of SIA pilots are ex-military men. The airline is also run by lots of military men ...could a similar accident happen in SIA? Of course.

Korean Culture May Offer Clues in Asiana Crash

Investigators combing through the debris and data recordings from the Asiana Airlines jet that crashed in San Francisco Saturday may learn more about what happened inside the cockpit of the Boeing 777 aircraft by studying an unlikely clue: Korean culture.

South Korea's aviation industry has faced skepticism about its safety and pilot habits since a few deadly crashes beginning in the 1980s. But despite changes, including improved safety records, Korea's aviation sector remains rooted in a national character that's largely about preserving hierarchy—and asking few questions.

"The Korean culture has two features—respect for seniority and age, and quite an authoritarian style," said Thomas Kochan, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "You put those two together, and you may get more one-way communication—and not a lot of it upward," Kochan said.

The Asiana pilots on Flight 214 apparently did not discuss their predicament, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing cockpit voice recordings.

As a general point of reference about the Korean language, you speak to superiors and elders in an honorific form that requires more words and can be more oblique. Less, "Yo! You want water?"; and more, "It's a warm day for a nice refreshment, no?" This may sound trivial. But put this in the context of a cockpit, where seconds and decision-making are crucial and you get an idea of how communication and culture matter.

Of course, the investigation of the flight from Seoul, South Korea, on Saturday is ongoing. It will be months before it will be known what exactly happened inside that cockpit, and what was communicated.

But as the details unravel, expect Korea's cockpit culture and training to be scrutinized further. With two Chinese teenagers dead and 180 injured out of 303 passengers, the crash offers an abrupt reflection on South Korea's tarnished aviation legacy, which officials there had hoped was behind them.

On Tuesday, Asiana Airlines Chief Executive Yoon Young-doo said the carrier has plans to improve training for its pilots. He said the pilot and co-pilot on the aircraft were qualified. The two pilots on the plane have enough qualifications, having flown to San Francisco 33 times and 29 times respectively,'' he said.

It was pilot Lee Gang-guk's first time landing a Boeing 777 at San Francisco International Airport. Lee Jung-min, the senior co-pilot in the cockpit with the younger Lee, had more experience flying 777s into San Francisco.

Investigators Interviewing Crew

Investigators have started interviewing the Asiana crew, and hope to wrap up interviews Tuesday, Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, told CNBC Tuesday. The 46-year-old pilot behind the controls will be interviewed later Tuesday, said Hersman.

A long-standing flying adage is: aviate, navigate, communicate. "You have to have great communication among people in a team, especially in high-risk environments," said Kochan, also co-director of the MIT Sloan Institute for Work and Employment Research.

South Korea, meanwhile, is considering tightening regulations for pilots, seeking certification to convert to flying new aircraft after the Asiana crash, a government source said Tuesday.

Military Trend

Asiana was founded in 1988, in part to address increased travel for the Summer Olympic Games in Seoul that year. It was a key moment of pride—the country's second carrier along with its larger, older rival Korean Air.

"It was such a prestigious thing to have two national carriers," said John S. Park, an expert on the Koreas. "Then you had a number of crashes. So you didn't see the culture change all that much," said Park, a Stanton Nuclear Security junior faculty fellow at the MIT.

The crash Saturday was Asiana's third accident involving fatalities since its founding. As data recordings were collected on those crashes, a trend emerged. "What came up was the military culture in which the South Korean pilots grew up in," Park said.

Young men in South Korea must serve mandatory military service, so some air force veterans transition to civilian aviation careers. (Some American veterans, who have served after Sept. 11, are also transitioning into aviation jobs.)

But sometimes that transition into the private sector comes with military baggage.

Korea's authoritarian structure, not surprisingly, is reflected in its industries including aviation, where co-pilots traditionally have not been encouraged to challenge senior pilots. Military training only adds to constant self-awareness about where you are in an organization's pecking order—and not speaking out of turn.

"No one can really point out anything related to errors," said Park of the country's military legacy. While workplace trends are modernizing, many Korean companies still promote and reward seniority—over merit and achievements. And it's this constant reminder of a pecking order that can grip a military unit, an aviation cockpit—even a national soccer system.

In 2002, South Korea became the only Asian nation to make the World Cup tournament's semifinal round of four after a foreigner—Guus Hiddink, a Dutch coach—squashed cronyism and rewarded players on talent. "They couldn't have made a successful team under the old Korean leadership, said Choe Yong Ho, a University of Hawaii emeritus history professor, at the time.

South Korea's aviation industry has brought in new blood, too. After the crashes during the '80s, Western pilots were hired to bring in fresh blood and ideas. But a culture shift did not come for a fatal 1997 Korean Air flight.

The most recent crash involving a South Korean carrier was in 1997, when a Korean Air 747 slammed into a hill while approaching the airport in Guam, killing 225 people and later prompting a downgrade of South Korea's aviation rating by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to category 2.

The rating was restored to Category 1 in December 2001, enabling Korean carriers to open new routes, which they were not allowed to do under the lower category.

In a chapter titled "The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes," author Malcolm Gladwell in "Outliers" dissects the flight recorder transcript of the final minutes of KAL Flight 801 between the captain and first officer. As the weather worsened among other factors, Gladwell argues culture influenced the way in which they communicated. The first officer politely referred to "weather radar"—instead of using a more direct, Western-style of communication, i.e., "there's trouble ahead, captain."

In 2000, a Delta Air Lines executive was brought in to run KAL's flight operations. The Delta executive made aviation English a priority, Gladwell notes. He also brought in Alteon, a subsidiary of Boeing, to take over company training and instruction programs. A Boeing spokesman declined to comment on that KAL training given the ongoing nature of the current Asiana investigation.

As Korean pilots broadly have worked to improve operations, Korean flight attendants undergo rigorous training with constant evaluation. The Asiana crew on Flight 214 are being praised for their timely response. Clad in high-heeled pumps and pencil skirts, the women coolly carried out rescue tasks, NBC News reported. "It's remarkable that on one plane you can have two different cultures," said Park, an MIT fellow.

'Transition Training'

The larger question for investigators is how on a good weather day, an experienced Asiana crew—including a senior pilot with experience landing advanced 777s on the flight from Seoul to San Francisco—was flying too slow, and clipped the end of the runway before crashing. Early information from data recordings suggests no mechanical problems, NTSB's Hersman said.

"We really do need to understand, 'Who was the pilot in command?' 'Who was the pilot flying at the time?' 'What kind of conversations were they having?' " Hersman told CNBC Monday. "There is an expectation that anyone whose putting themselves out there to provide passenger service meets minimum safety standards," she said in an additional CNBC interview Tuesday.

The key pilot in question, Lee, had logged 43 hours flying the 777 over nine flights. It was his first landing of a 777 at SFO. It takes 60 hours and 10 flights to be considered fully qualified, the airline told NBC News. When a pilot learns a new type of aircraft, the status before full qualification is known as transition training.

Lee had a long, otherwise untarnished career, including nearly 9,700 hours clocked flying the Airbus A320 and the Boeing 737 and 747, NBC News reported. The senior co-pilot had more than 3,000 hours on the 777.

—NBC News, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

—By CNBC's Heesun Wee; Follow her on Twitter

@heesunwee

.

 

[sadshishamo]

captain sadshishamo,

did you normally approach kai tak by turning right on checkered board sign at side of hills and land facing sea or approach directly onto runway and land facing the hills and buildings? i know for take off, it was normally facing sea.
thanks!

Yes you had to turn right . The IGS brought you to a certain point on the approach which was very much offset from the runway centreline. After you broke off from the approach you had to visually align yourself up with the runway. Visual approaches can be assisted by certain cues, either natural or man made.

The checkered board was a man made visual cue to help in the at times difficult approach.

 

[sadshishamo]

I dont think this statement is correct .

Majority of SIA pilots are ex-military men. The airline is also run by lots of military men ...could a similar accident happen in SIA? Of course.



.

 

[THE_CHANSTER]

This tragedy just gets from bad to worse...NTSB are now saying the flight crew delayed evacuation by up to 90 seconds. WTF!

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...8152/?cmpid=SOC|FGFG|twitterfeed|Flightglobal

 

[watchman8]

This tragedy just gets from bad to worse...NTSB are now saying the flight crew delayed evacuation by up to 90 seconds. WTF!

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar...8152/?cmpid=SOC|FGFG|twitterfeed|Flightglobal

Simply incompetent pilots. Right after a crash landing, you ought to evacuate immediately. How is it safer to stay inside the aircraft after a crash landing?

 

[sadshishamo]

Simply incompetent pilots. Right after a crash landing, you ought to evacuate immediately. How is it safer to stay inside the aircraft after a crash landing?

There are procedures to be done before initiating an evacuation. The pilots would have to positively depressurise the aircraft by ensuring the outflow valves are fully open otherwise there may be difficulties in opening the enrty/exit doors because they are plug type doors.

The pilots would also have to shutdown the engines so that the evacuation exercise would not cause further tragedy if people get injured or killed by the live engines.

Thus the pilots would have to do their checklists before commanding the evacuation, and that would take a little time, but 90 secs is way too long i must say.

 

[eatshitndie]

There are procedures to be done before initiating an evacuation. The pilots would have to positively depressurise the aircraft by ensuring the outflow valves are fully open otherwise there may be difficulties in opening the enrty/exit doors because they are plug type doors.

The pilots would also have to shutdown the engines so that the evacuation exercise would not cause further tragedy if people get injured or killed by the live engines.

Thus the pilots would have to do their checklists before commanding the evacuation, and that would take a little time, but 90 secs is way too long i must say.

captain sullenberger was on radio a while ago and mentioned exactly what you posted. the pilot in charge cannot just initiate evacuation right away when the wreckage comes to a standstill, even though the broken plane has already been depressurized by punctures or breakage to the fusilage. other parts of the plane may still be moving and pose a danger to exiting passengers. pilot has to assess the situation quickly and decide when it's safe or clear to evacuate. obviously a fire or smoke will cause certain procedures to be abandoned or shortened for life and death reasons. he defers to the ntsb in getting more info on the pre-evac procedure before making any judgment on the korean pilots.

 

[sickpuppy]

I got an idea why not make all the pax's seats be jet ejection seats and once the plane confirm going to crash land the captain press a button and all paxs get ejected out hehehe

 

[sadshishamo]

. pilot has to assess the situation quickly and decide when it's safe or clear to evacuate. obviously a fire or smoke will cause certain procedures to be abandoned or shortened for life and death reasons. he defers to the ntsb in getting more info on the pre-evac procedure before making any judgment on the korean pilots.

Yes , for example if an external fire is raging on the aft right hand section of the aircraft due to the event, then an assessment would be made to evacuate passengers from the left hand side of the aircraft and perhaps the right forward side if deemed safe. It would depend on the extent of the fire, the wind direction etc etc.

An evacuation is not a simple matter and can itself cause injuries and sometimes death.

 

[Sinkie]

This tragedy just gets from bad to worse...NTSB are now saying the flight crew delayed evacuation by up to 90 seconds. WTF!

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/asiana-flight-crew-halted-passenger-evacuation-moments-after-777-crash-388152/?cmpid=SOC%7CFGFG%7Ctwitterfeed%7CFlightglobal

The pilots are also on the plane, so they also want to live. Unlike politicians, where policies and decisions can be self-serving and detrimental to the rest. Politicians don't die if they make the wrong decisions for the rest, and may even benefit from them.

 

[yinyang]

Insight from a retired pilot ex Korea



Date: July 8, 2013 9

Note from a retired Check Airman on the Asiana mishap

After I retired from UAL as a Standards Captain on the (747) 400, I got a job as a simulator instructor working for Alteon (a Boeing subsidiary) at Asiana. When I first got there, I was shocked and surprised by the lack of basic piloting skills shown by most of the pilots. It is not a normal situation with normal progression from new hire, right seat, left seat taking a decade or two.

One big difference is that ex-Military pilots are given super-seniority and progress to the left seat much faster. Compared to the US, they also upgrade fairly rapidly because of the phenomenal growth by all Asian air carriers. By the way, after about six months at Asiana, I was moved over to KAL and found them to be identical. The only difference was the color of the uniforms and airplanes. I worked in Korea for 5 long years and although I found most of the people to be very pleasant, its a minefield of a work environment ... for them and for us expats. One of the first things I learned was that the pilots kept a web-site and reported on every training session. I dont think this was officially sanctioned by the company, but after one or two simulator periods, a database was building on me (and everyone else) that told them exactly how I ran the sessions, what to expect on checks, and what to look out for.

For example; I used to open an aft cargo door at 100 knots to get them to initiate an RTO and I would brief them on it during the briefing. This was on the B-737 NG and many of the captains were coming off the 777 or B744 and they were used to the Master Caution System being inhibited at 80 kts. Well, for the first few days after I started that, EVERYONE rejected the takeoff. Then, all of a sudden they all got it and continued the takeoff (in accordance with their manuals). The word had gotten out. I figured it was an overall PLUS for the training program. We expat instructors were forced upon them after the amount of fatal accidents (most of the them totally avoidable) over a decade began to be noticed by the outside world.

They were basically given an ultimatum by the FAA, Transport Canada, and the EU to totally rebuild and rethink their training program or face being banned from the skies all over the world. They hired Boeing and Airbus to staff the training centers. KAL has one center and Asiana has another. When I was there (2003-2008) we had about 60 expats conducting training at KAL and about 40 at Asiana. Most instructors were from the USA, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand with a few stuffed in from Europe and Asia.

Boeing also operated training centers in Singapore and China so they did hire some instructors from there. This solution has only been partially successful but still faces ingrained resistance from the Koreans. I lost track of the number of highly qualified instructors I worked with who were fired because they tried to enforce normal standards of performance. By normal standards, I would include being able to master basic tasks like successfully shoot a visual approach with a 10 kt crosswind and the weather CAVOK.

I am not kidding when I tell you that requiring them to shoot a visual approach struck fear in their hearts ... with good reason. Like this Asiana crew, it didnt compute that you needed to be at 1000 AGL at 3 miles and your sink rate should be 600-800 Ft/Min. But, after 5 years, they finally nailed me. I still had to sign my name to their training and sometimes if I just couldnt pass someone on a check, I had no choice but to fail them. I usually busted about 3-5 crews a year and the resistance against me built. I finally failed an extremely incompetent crew and it turned out he was the high-ranking captain who was the Chief Line Check pilot on the fleet I was teaching on. I found out on my next monthly trip home that KAL was not going to renew my Visa. The crew I failed was given another check and continued to fly while talking about how unfair Captain Brown was.

Any of you Boeing glass-cockpit guys will know what I mean when I describe these events. I gave them a VOR approach with a 15 mile arc from the IAF. By the way, KAL dictated the profiles for all sessions and we just administered them. He requested two turns in holding at the IAF to get set up for the approach. When he finally got his nerve up, he requested Radar Vectors to final. He could have just said he was ready for the approach and I would have cleared him to the IAF and then cleared for the approach and he could have selected Exit Hold and been on his way. He was already in LNAV/VNAV PATH. So, I gave him vectors to final with a 30 degree intercept. Of course, he failed to Extend the FAF and he couldnt understand why it would not intercept the LNAV magenta line when he punched LNAV and VNAV. He made three approaches and missed approaches before he figured out that his active waypoint was Hold at XYZ. Every time he punched LNAV, it would try to go back to the IAF ... just like it was supposed to do. Since it was a check, I was not allowed (by their own rules) to offer him any help. That was just one of about half dozen major errors I documented in his UNSAT paperwork. He also failed to put in ANY aileron on takeoff with a 30-knot direct crosswind (again, the weather was dictated by KAL).

This Asiana SFO accident makes me sick and while I am surprised there are not more, I expect that there will be many more of the same type accidents in the future unless some drastic steps are taken. They are already required to hire a certain percentage of expats to try to ingrain more flying expertise in them, but more likely, they will eventually be fired too. One of the best trainees I ever had was a Korean/American (he grew up and went to school in the USA) who flew C-141s in the USAF. When he got out, he moved back to Korea and got hired by KAL. I met him when I gave him some training and a check on the B-737 and of course, he breezed through the training. I give him annual PCs for a few years and he was always a good pilot. Then, he got involved with trying to start a pilots union and when they tried to enforce some sort of duty rigs on international flights, he was fired after being arrested and JAILED!

The Koreans are very very bright and smart so I was puzzled by their inability to fly an airplane well. They would show up on Day 1 of training (an hour before the scheduled briefing time, in a 3-piece suit, and shined shoes) with the entire contents of the FCOM and Flight Manual totally memorized. But, putting that information to actual use was many times impossible. Crosswind landings are also an unsolvable puzzle for most of them. I never did figure it out completely, but I think I did uncover a few clues. Here is my best guess. First off, their educational system emphasizes ROTE memorization from the first day of school as little kids. As you know, that is the lowest form of learning and they act like robots. They are also taught to NEVER challenge authority and in spite of the flight training heavily emphasizing CRM/CLR, it still exists either on the surface or very subtly. You just cant change 3000 years of culture.

The other thing that I think plays an important role is the fact that there is virtually NO civil aircraft flying in Korea. It's actually illegal to own a Cessna-152 and just go learn to fly. Ultra-lights and Powered Hang Gliders are Ok. I guess they don't trust the people to not start WW III by flying 35 miles north of Inchon into North Korea. But, they don't get the kids who grew up flying (and thinking for themselves) and hanging around airports. They do recruit some kids from college and send them to the US or Australia and get them their tickets. Generally, I had better experience with them than with the ex-Military pilots. This was a surprise to me as I spent years as a Naval Aviator flying fighters after getting my private in light airplanes. I would get experienced F-4, F-5, F-15, and F-16 pilots who were actually terrible pilots if they had to hand fly the airplane. What a shock! Finally, I'll get off my box and talk about the total flight hours they claim. I do accept that there are a few talented and free-thinking pilots that I met and trained in Korea. Some are still in contact and I consider them friends. They were a joy! But, they were few and far between and certainly not the norm.

Actually, this is a worldwide problem involving automation and the auto-flight concept. Take one of these new first officers that got his ratings in the US or Australia and came to KAL or Asiana with 225 flight hours. After takeoff, in accordance with their SOP, he calls for the autopilot to be engaged at 250' after takeoff. How much actual flight time is that? Hardly one minute. Then he might fly for hours on the autopilot and finally disengage it (MAYBE?) below 800 after the gear was down, flaps extended and on airspeed (autothrottle). Then he might bring it in to land. Again, how much real flight time or real experience did he get. Minutes! Of course, on the 777 or 747, it's the same only they get more inflated logbooks. So, when I hear that a 10,000 hour Korean captain was vectored in for a 17-mile final and cleared for a visual approach in CAVOK weather, it raises the hair on the back of my neck.

Tom B.

 

[Sinkie]

These bloody incompetent Korean gooks.