Quote:
Originally Posted by NLovis
He said it best;
Quote:
Originally Posted by hiss srq
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NLovis
He said it best;
Quote:
Originally Posted by hiss srq
thats another fact but now what will fly the recent routes? bad rep just to not fly the route cause of a crashQuote:
Originally Posted by mmedford
They probably have some spares, worst case they could reduce a frequency or two on a couple of routes.Quote:
Originally Posted by NLovis
true true. But then again the 738 seats more then the MD-80's they have so that would be the reduction. After that its way down cause they dont have anything that seats less then the MD-80 unless you fly AE. Any other plane they fly would be an increase. Also note for every 738 they are getting they are dropping 2-3 MD-80's. The spare count is pretty low if any at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by GothamSpotter
I'd like a source for the 738 = 2-3 MD80 thing.
Read it on wikipedia over the summer. It also said they were dropping their A300's and not replacing them with anything. That happened exact to the last word. Those planes are stored somewhere currently. It also said every 2-3 MD-80. This is AA's way of scalling back. Quite clever if you ask me. They announce the replacement but dont say they are replacing every single plane. Its beena ccurate as well cause i've been watching the number on planes they have get smaller and smaller. Increasing seat capacity and decreasing the number of flights. Thats smart money sense to me. If you want to look go to wikipedia and type in American Airlines.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil D.
The original 738s, like the one that wrecked in Kingston, are closer in seating capacity to the MD-80s, only 8 more seats than the 140 seat-arrangement mad dogs. However, they are jamming 12 extra seats into the new deliveries, which is 20-24 more than the MDs.
AA JAMAICA CRASH: Although I am aware that it is irresponsible to speculate on a cause before all the facts are know, I do however feel that, at least on forums like this one, it is ok to speculate based on known facts. Here is what's known. 1) 15Kt. winds out of NNE. 2) Heavy rain at night on a non-grooved runway. 3) Pilots near the end of their 12-hour max. on-duty time. 4) Plane fully loaded with passengers and probably heavier on fuel than domestic flights. 5) Pilots had not flown much in previous weeks. 6) Plane touched down very far down runway 12. 7) Plane landed hard. Based on what’s known I think you can make the following deductions. I believe the tail winds played a very significant role in this crash. Ground speeds would have been 20-30Kts fast than pilots are used to. This along with a nighttime wet runway would have made it easy to misjudge the point of touchdown. Glide slope would have been kept in check on approach but near the ground pilots take over and visually fly the plane. Things would look much different than they normally do especially taking night, rain and fatigue issues into consideration. A go around would have been resisted because of a desire to get the plane on the ground due to bad conditions and current preferred patterns at that airport. As a pilot who has made down wind landings I can tell you that it is very difficult to hit your spot maintaining glide slope without stalling the plane. You have to descend at a quicker rate to maintain glide slope and touch down speeds to hit your spot. This is not a comfortable normal feeling to the pilots. Things happen so much quicker down wind and pilots are not used to this type of approach. Extra weight, rain, night, and fatigue and stress of bad conditions add to the level of difficulty of this down wind landing. I would not be surprised if the black boxes show the plane did or almost did “stall” just before touch down. That would explain the heavy landing reported. Higher ground speeds and weights with reduced runway length due to mid runway touch down point along with wet non-grooved runway made this crash, at this point, inevitable. At the end of the day there will be several factors pinpointed at fault (as there always is), however the primary cause will be pilot error for the following reasons: a) not going to an alternate airport given conditions at primary b) having proceeded to primary not asking to land from the east. c) having proceeded downwind failing to abort the approach and or landing prior to touchdown d) having proceeded downwind having misjudged the point of landing and not maintaining proper glide slope, approach speeds and touchdown point. To all the pilots I ask for your comments
Informative post, daneyd. The more I read about the crash, the more I agree on the significance on the tailwinds.
As for the forums, though later learned to be erroneous, information is passed along that might contribute to the conversation, the same way a news report modifies information that trickles in.
Welcome to the site! :)
The airport at Jamaica has a relatively short runway. However, generally speaking airports nearer sea level will have shorter runways. Case in point, Denver's International has a runway at 16,000 ft. What effects landing distances are weight, air temp., elevation, runway conditions, brake settings and most importantly, wind direction and speed. This particular 737 could have required over 6,000 ft. to safely stop that night, given the info that I know. Maybe more if winds were gusting from the tail. I'm very surprised that given the airport they were flying into that these pilots did not insist on coming in from the east. That would have reduced the landing distance by as much as 3,000 ft. Plus it would have taken the stress and strangeness of a downwind landing out of the equation. With an 8,900 ft. runway, that doesn't leave much room for error when you need over 6,000 ft. to safely land. You hit 1/4 of the way down, which sounds like what happened, and that only leaves approx. 6,500 ft. Add in some hydroplaning and he probably would have only need about 1,000 more ft. and he would have made it. All in all, I'm convinced that at the end of the day the pilots used very poor judgement here.
KIN's runway is 8,900 feet....that's almost 2,000 more than LGA, which gets many midsize and large narrowbody aircraft. I don't consider that short at all.
Denver's runway is only that long because of their more extreme altitude, and I don't think it's relevant in comparison. Airports all up and down the east coast get by on shorter runways, all at sea level.
Does both sides of that runway have an approach lighting system?
Taking a look at expired Jeppesen charts here:Quote:
Originally Posted by mmedford
http://kingston.vatcar.org/mkjpcharts.html
It appears that both the approach to 12 and 30 have approach lighting systems, although the only approach to 30 is a GPS approach, and 12 has a precision and 2 non-precision approaches.
While crosswind limits are different for almost every aircraft, almost all aircraft are limited to 10 knot tailwinds. The highest tailwind I've landed with was 7 knots, during the day on a dry runway, and it was squirrelly and uncomfortable, with a more abrupt flare and firmer touchdown. Granted these guys had something like 30+ years of flying experience between them and I believe 5000+ hours between them in the 737. I'm sure they both had done their share of tailwind landings.
Aircraft land everyday with tailwinds. Instead of having that headwind component to decrease your groundspeed, you have to add the tailwind component to your approach true airspeed, which ultimately increases your descent rate to the runway. If you start to flare too early, you're going to float, and flare too late and you're going to have a firmer landing.
Sounds like a bad situation all around. The combination of a heavier aircraft landing at night in +RA, with a wet ungrooved runway which probably had standing water, with a tailwind approaching limits with a crew pushing their duty day makes things sticky. While I'd venture to say hundreds of aircraft worldwide make successful landings in conditions like these everyday (they may not be the prettiest landings, but they don't end up on the news). It only takes one to show how all of these conditions combined can end up disastrous if just one thing goes wrong. I don't know what happened in this case, but it sounds like they floated and landed long and tried to salvage a bad landing rather than go around. It's tough to second guess or fault somebody for doing something every pilot has been guilty of at one time or another. I'm just glad everyone got out with minimal injuries.
Most certainly the ungrooved surface along with the choice to execute a landing with a tailwind approaching limits is going to play a role in this accident. I have been out of the loop the last two days flying xmas eve alot of the day and avoiding anything related to airplanes yesterday. So I dont have the newest most up to date on the accident but I will be very anxious to see where they actually touched down and a few other things. I cannot speak for the 737 NG models but the 300/400 family has very grabby brakes. They also tend to provide a very spoungy touchdown unless you really kick the milk crate out from under it. Obviously they are going to pin it on the pilots and that is what everyones going to see and all the newspapers are going to plaster all over the place. That is inevitable. I would like to know what the actuals were as far as conditions were though at time of landing. Just because the TAF said somthing and METAR is reporting somthing doesnt mean it is fact more times than not. They were shooting the approach they were for ILS capibility from what I have heard. Tailwind landings are defineately a challenging experince. You have a higher ground speed and a harder touchdown generally as stated above I beleive. The 737 is also known for its "dancing tail" but that is not relevant here. What peaks my interest is the fact that the airplane had enough groundspeed to hop that ravine though. I would imagine the ground speed was closer to 100 than 20 knots coming up on the end of the runway otherwise that bird would have taken a good bite out of the "cliff" on the beach side of the road I would imagine. Time will tell.
First off, quoting Wikipedia can be trouble on a good day. Sure they retired the A300 on schedule, but that was publicly known as indicated by the many press releases issued by AA themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by NLovis
How have you been watching the number of planes they have get smaller and smaller? Just curious what your using for a source? IIRC, the 737's were being replaced one for one with S80's with the current fuel prices. If the fuel prices increased to levels seen a year or two ago they would park 80s at a faster rate. Just the opposite if the fuel stays "cheap" they may hang on to more 80's and still take delivery of 737's. AA currently has 603 aircraft in service (accounts for 3DK as a write off) and that number has been hovering around 600-610 as the 737's have been delivered. From what I have seen the S80's have not been replaced on a 3-1 basis with 737s
As far as what has to be done to pick up the slack for 3DK, its really quite simple. If they want to keep up the slack they will just keep a MD80 around a little longer and and use that S80 on a domestic old config 737 route. Right now the new 737s are domestic only, but that will change in a year or so.
The TACA A320 in Tegucigalpa last year comes to mind. Short'ish runway, poor weather, tailwind, overrun.
The KC-135A Performance Manual includes landing performance corrections for tailwinds up to 20 kts (it's a manly airplane!) The manual instructs you to use the full tailwind component, and if the winds are gusting, to add the full gust factor (say the winds are 10kt, with gusts of 15-20, use 20kts).Quote:
Originally Posted by USAF Pilot 07
Taking a typical landing weight for an A-frame, say 140K, (which would mean 30-35K of fuel) at sea level and 20C, a Flaps 50 (max flaps) and Speed Brakes landing means a ground roll of 2,300 feet. Add 15kts of tailwind, and you are up to 3,000 feet. Now throw in a wet runway (RCR 9) and it jumps to 5,700 feet. That's just the ground roll - given those same conditions, you have a 2,500 foot "Flare Distance" - the distance from a 50 foot height to touchdown. That means a total landing distance from 50' AGL of 8,200 feet. As Phil noted, it's an 8,900 foot runway, and it's easy to see how you can run out of runway in these conditions if everything doesn't go exactly as planned.
I imagine they landed the direction they did to use the ILS, I can't image they would land with a tailwind if they had an ILS available in the other direction. I'm not familiar with AA procedures, can they use a GPS approach?
I'm not around my 1-1, but I think we have data for greater than 10 knots of tailwind, but our normal "operating limits" restrict us at 10 knots. Also, I'm not sure the 135s still have 20 knot tailwind limitations. I was talking to a friend of mine a few weeks ago who flies 135s about crosswinds/winds (being that the inboard engines are so close to the ground) and I think I remember him saying they are capped at 15 knots tailwind. During the SAC days and the "we can do whatever we want" Air Force days though I wouldn't have been surprised. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by moose135
Only 140K?!?! A "manly" tanker's zero fuel weight is much more than that! :lol:Quote:
Taking a typical landing weight for an A-frame, say 140K, (which would mean 30-35K of fuel)
Nitpicky, but isn't a RCR of 9 equivalent to an icy runway? I thought we used a RCR of 12 for wet runways...Quote:
Add 15kts of tailwind, and you are up to 3,000 feet. Now throw in a wet runway (RCR 9) and it jumps to 5,700 feet.
That's probably why they decided to use 12 (because of the ILS). In this day in age and in a 737-800 I would imagine they would be able to shoot the GPS (both through company policy and aircraft equipment), even if only to LNAV mins, which were probably still below the reported ceiling and vis. I think there's still apprehension on using GPS for approaches because it's not as familiar to most people as a traditional ILS or LOC are. Not only do you have to load it, sequence it to the FAF for vectors, but you're technically supposed to check the legs/distances in the box, make sure RAIM is available and then TIM it by verifying it goes over to approach mode. Not to mention, if they couldn't fly it to LPV or LNAV/VNAV mins, it would have to be treated as a non-precision approach, and they would have to vert speed the a/c down and fly it like a non-precision approach. With the ILS it's easy just to let the AP fly it all the way down and click it off at the end...Quote:
I imagine they landed the direction they did to use the ILS, I can't image they would land with a tailwind if they had an ILS available in the other direction. I'm not familiar with AA procedures, can they use a GPS approach?
Not saying this was the case, but I mean technically/legally they were probably still within limits in flying the ILS. I thought I read there were 3 other aircraft before it that had flown the ILS and didn't have any problems... They both probably had landed in tailwinds a number of times... I could see why they chose to take the ILS instead of taking the GPS which would have given them a headwind...
It's possible, but I don't remember if we had anything different from the charts, and I don't have any notes in the margins. On the Max Crosswind chart, although it shows a heavy weight airplane can take 50+kts of cross wind on a dry runway, I have line drawn in showing 25kts as the "SAC X-wind limit". And in strong cross winds, it was the outboard engines that were more of a threat to hit the ground. (Don't ask me how I know that...)Quote:
Originally Posted by USAF Pilot 07
No, that's a "piggy" tanker :wink:Quote:
Only 140K?!?! A "manly" tanker's zero fuel weight is much more than that! :lol:
From the -135 1-1, it says if not otherwise reported, use RCR 23 for Dry, RCR 9 for Wet and RCR 4 for Icy/Snow/Slush, although on the Max Crosswind chart, it uses RCR 16 for wet runways, and RCR 5 (with additional lines at 6 and 8) for snow or ice.Quote:
Nitpicky, but isn't a RCR of 9 equivalent to an icy runway? I thought we used a RCR of 12 for wet runways...
That sounds like fun! We were screwing around in the sim one day and we were trying to get a 50 knot direct x-wind on final to see what that would be like... Our sim dude wouldn't but he gave us our max allowable x-winds (31knots dry), and that was pretty interesting!Quote:
Originally Posted by moose135
From the -135 1-1, it says if not otherwise reported, use RCR 23 for Dry, RCR 9 for Wet and RCR 4 for Icy/Snow/Slush, although on the Max Crosswind chart, it uses RCR 16 for wet runways, and RCR 5 (with additional lines at 6 and 8) for snow or ice.[/quote]Quote:
Nitpicky, but isn't a RCR of 9 equivalent to an icy runway? I thought we used a RCR of 12 for wet runways...
Yea I need to check my 1-1, IIRC (which I should probably know, but hey that's what we have an engineer for!) I thought we used 23 for dry, 12 for wet and 5 for icy. Isn't there something that says RCR values can be factored in differently for takeoff and landing (or maybe I'm thinking about RSC)... I'll have to "brush" up on that...
[quote=AA 777]First off, quoting Wikipedia can be trouble on a good day. Sure they retired the A300 on schedule, but that was publicly known as indicated by the many press releases issued by AA themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by NLovis
How have you been watching the number of planes they have get smaller and smaller? Just curious what your using for a source? IIRC, the 737's were being replaced one for one with S80's with the current fuel prices. If the fuel prices increased to levels seen a year or two ago they would park 80s at a faster rate. Just the opposite if the fuel stays "cheap" they may hang on to more 80's and still take delivery of 737's. AA currently has 603 aircraft in service (accounts for 3DK as a write off) and that number has been hovering around 600-610 as the 737's have been delivered. From what I have seen the S80's have not been replaced on a 3-1 basis with 737s
As far as what has to be done to pick up the slack for 3DK, its really quite simple. If they want to keep up the slack they will just keep a MD80 around a little longer and and use that S80 on a domestic old config 737 route. Right now the new 737s are domestic only, but that will change in a year or so.[/quote:3b99hosm]
while true wiki isnt too accurare. sometimes it is depending on the person who submits the info. Last i checked there were 613 aircraft in AA's fleet. Its been a month so overall they have grounded 10 more aircraft then they have recieved. while true the rate depends on fuel prices I think AA is trying to get rid of them ASAP so they dont have to spend that much on fuel when prices jump again. A 2-1 ratio sounds about right to me
May I ask what you aviation/airline experience is?
Just came across this shot of N977AN from one of my MIA trip in 2008.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4002/...d54612a0_o.jpg
Senga
wow thats a nice shot. phil if ur talking to me not much. I've been around for awhile but job wise not much. I jused to jead to JFK with my father and learn bout the planes from him since hes an Avionics Mech for 30+ years but mostly now i'm working.
I went through my own collection and I, too, have a N977AN shot!
http://www.nycaviation.com/hosting/A...rr1_092405.jpg
Rejected...oversharpened ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil D.
No wonder people hate screeners.
A bit off topic I know but........ April 1987, landed here after a 20 min flight from Montego Bay in an Aer-Lingus 747 leased by Air Jamaica. We were returning from our honeymoon and continued on to JFK after this short stopover.Quote:
KIN's runway is 8,900 feet....that's almost 2,000 more than LGA,
here's a video of a small Citation Business Jet lands in a 15Kt down wind during the day and with just a light rain, grooved I might add. Just to give you an idea of what Flight 331 was up against.
C80grd2C ... re=related
Update on my video link post of the Citation skidding of end of runway. This happened on May of 05 at Bader Field Airport NJ. It's a small municipal airport and doesn't accept jet's. The runway that this jet was trying to land on was runway 11. That runway is barely 3,000 ft. and not grooved although grooving in this scenario was irrelevant. The plane was a Cessna Citation Jet 525A registered to OY-JET. Apparently there was no emergency and the pilot just figured he could land there down wind. If you watch the end of the video you will see how much of a "cowboy" this guy was. He actually try's to power the jet, in the water, to shore. This while there are people in small row boats very nearby trying to help. He could of easily killed one of them. Wow. This guy gives all of us a bad name. Anyway, point being, I think we all underestimate the power of wind direction and the differentiating effects it has aircraft of all sizes.
You know, its amazing how one story quickly gets forgotten when something new pops up (the DL bomb scare).Quote:
Whenever events like this happens the blue site is really frustrating because you have to read thru so much crap to find the vital and interesting updates. But here their where timely updates and great selection of daylight photos. And it did not take me forever to find it.
Ron, I can see your frustration. Phil and Matt do a great job. However, I think what also helps is that there are less users here and thus there is less crap to weed through. Its inevitable that as more users post on NYCA, there is more to weed through to get the facts, especially when its fresh news and the facts are not well known yet.
Since those approach lights were not functional, I am hopeful to see that pilot error is a less likely cause.
I'm still looking for more clarification on the approach light topic... it appears only approach side of the runway has an ILS and ALS... I do see a glideslope...but I can't make out the localizer antennas...Quote:
Originally Posted by mirrodie
Neither could the AA crew. Ouch. kidding.
OK, so can jou 'splain to me what and there the ILS, ALS and etc are?
ILS (instrument landing system)is the approach equipment that provides the aircraft with both localizer and glidescope approach....both vertical and horizontal alignment assitance.
ALS is approach lighting system, meaning simply the lights at the beginning of the runway with vary depending on runway and airport requirements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by daneyd
This video has nothing in common with this situation except for the fact that there was a tailwind present and the runway was wet. The pilot in this video never had anything close to the landing distance required to land at this field (it was not certified for jet use), was I believe was told several times by ATC that it was not certified for jet use. Also, I believe the findings also included his approach speed was way above what it should have been even with the tailwind. The reason this crash was caught on video is because when people found out some dude was going to land a jet at that airport, they all knew he was crazy and that something bad would probably ensue, so they grabbed their video cameras to get it on tape.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mmedford
I'm confused... you can't see an ILS (I mean you can see the equipment, but generally it's a small box). Approach lighting is totally separate/irrelevant from what kind of instrument approaches there are to the runway.
Also, if an approach has a glideslope, it's got a localizer. There is no such thing as a glideslope only approach.
I don't know what having to see the actual antennas has to do with anything. The reason you probably don't see the localizer antennas is because they are located towards the far end (departure end) of the runway. This is so that localizer course guidance doesn't become so sensitive as you approach the threshold that it becomes impossible to stay within course limits (generally one dot). If they were located at the approach end, the approach would be a Localizer Backcourse, and would be a non-precision approach (i.e. no glideslope guidance). A lot of airports have these (although they are starting to be phased out with the advent of advanced GPS approaches). They are totally separate approaches and have to be TERPS a certain way by the FAA. That's another subject though....
As far as what approach lighting the airfield has... if you reference my post a few pages ago, I posted a link to outdated Jepp charts (on which I imagine approach lighting hasn't changed) which show the approach lighting for the runway you're shooting the approach to. The charts show both SALS and PAPIs (or VASIs I forget) for both ends of the runway. With ceiling and vis WELL above mins (as in this case), approach lighting would have been a "nice to have" thing for the crew, but definitely not a necessity. PAPIs would be a lot more important because centerline guidance is easy to visually acquire without approach lighting, but vertical guidance is much more difficult without PAPIs/VASIs, especially at night in the rain.
Actually Approach lighting affects the catergory of landing...CAT-IIIs require ALSFs, CAT-II requires a MALSR, etc...Quote:
Approach lighting is totally separate/irrelevant from what kind of instrument approaches there are to the runway
You are correct...can't tune a glideslope without a localizer...Quote:
Also, if an approach has a glideslope, it's got a localizer. There is no such thing as a glideslope only approach.
Well, I'm curious if the runway is a precision or non-precision approach... Antennas can be located behind the runway and be considered a precision, or be off-set 500+ feet from centerline and be a non-precision approach. Did some searching and I believe I can make out the antenna on the far right side of the approach 12, acouple hundred feet off.Quote:
I don't know what having to see the actual antennas has to do with anything.
That is incorrect...displacement on guidance is affected by modulation into free space. Not every localizer has a backcourse either...Quote:
This is so that localizer course guidance doesn't become so sensitive as you approach the threshold that it becomes impossible to stay within course limits (generally one dot).
Well i'm just trying to understand the whole situation, i'm hearing reports of bad visibility and low ceiling...so understanding the capabilities of the equipment does add to the mental image i'm trying to create.Quote:
As far as what approach lighting the airfield has...
Some new details today according to avherald.com.
Sounds like Kingston's ARFF squad was asleep. A public bus with two passengers on board happened to be driving on the road adjacent to the end of the runway when the driver saw the plane go off. The bus driver called 911, and the operator didn't believe what she was saying. By the time the driver had assisted 70 passengers off the plane and onto the bus to drive them over to the terminal (which I'd imagine must have been at least 10 mins) only a single fire truck had made it to the scene.
Also, the wreckage was moved to a hangar today.
What this video has in common with flight 331 is it demonstrates the difference between down wind and head wind landings. Had this pilot approached from the other end, he too would have made it. It's simple mathematics. If an airplane requires (based on all the various calculations) 3,000 ft. in zero wind to land, that same plane would require 3,900 ft with a 15 kt tail wind. Same plane same conditions coming into the 15 Kt wind and the plane with only need 2,200 ft of runway. That's a 1,700 ft differential. That's my point. Not only do you not add to the "zero wind" distance, you subtract from it. It's like when you make a $100 bet at blackjack. If you win versus if you lose. Its a $200 difference. Because had you won instead of losing, its a $200 difference. Not just the $100 you bet. Same as wind. Down wind your adding the component, head wind your subtracting. That's twice the difference. Again, that's why it was so critical for them to get into this wind instead of going down wind of it.
Maybe these factors might have a role if we were talking about a 6,000 foot runway like at DCA but if the conditions as forcasted were that detrimental to safe operation this flight would have been landing performance weight restricted. Somthing else was going on. The touchdown point will be the tell all in my opinion. I am willing to wager big bucks they were both heads up through the last portions of the approach based on the fact both HUD's were down at the time of the crash. Another thing to note is that just because your performance charts say an airplane will or wont do somthing does not mean it is true all the time. There is some "milage may vary" involved based on actual conditions etc etc..... It could be for the better or the worse. I understand your analogy of the headwind/tailwind arguement but they were within the numbers for what should have been a successful full stop based on the conditions known etc. I suspect certain things but I dont want to eat my foot later so I will hold off untill some more peliminary information is available.