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Pilot Loses Control of 777 Just 1,500 Feet Above the Tarmac

Panino 5y ago
Also, just yesterday, a Boeing 757-200 split in half in Costa Rica: https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/04/08/dhl-cargo-jet-breaks-in-half-on-runway-during-emergency-landing-in-costa-rica https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/04/08/dhl-cargo-jet-bre... And in March, a Boeing 737-800 crashed spectacularly in China: https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/21/business/boeing-jet-crash/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/21/business/boeing-jet-crash/ind... I'm starting to wonder if Boeing has problems much bigger and deeper than the 737 MAX. Does Airbus have the same recent number of crashes and failures as Boeing, relative to deployment and usage?
traceroute66 5y ago
I HATE sloppy mainstream media coverage of aviation. "suddenly abort its landing at 1,500 feet" says the article. 1,500 feet ? That's luxury headroom territory, absolutely nothing to panic about. To give you some context: If you do a CAT II approach in thick fog, you're allowed to go down to a Decision Height of 200ft (IIRC technically can down to 100ft but most company ops manuals will err on the side of caution at 200ft). And if you're in a cat IIIb equipped aircraft landing on an equally equipped runway, once lined-up and set-up the aircraft can land itself (weather parameters and company procedures permitting). So, panic about 1,500ft ? Give me a break with the sloppy journalism !
- mikem170 5y ago
  Are you sure this was comparable to a normal abort? From the article: > From flight path data it looks like flight AF011 made a sharp left as it approached Charles De Gaulle airport. I assumed the hard left was due to the loss of control the article mentions. I'm not sure if that happened at 1500 feet, the altitude also mentioned. An unexpected sharp left during approach at 1500 feet of altitude in a 777 sounds panic-worthy. I agree that the coverage is sloppy. Details are missing. Maybe the facts aren't out there yet. I assume something happened, that this wasn't a normal abort. EDIT: Here's another article [0] which mentioned that the controls stopped responding at 1200 feet. I gather they made the sharp left after regaining control? [0] https://www.infobae.com/en/2022/04/06/the-moment-when-the-controls-of-a-plane-about-to-land-in-paris-fail-and-what-the-pilots-did-to-prevent-a-tragedy/ https://www.infobae.com/en/2022/04/06/the-moment-when-the-co...
  - traceroute66 5y ago
    > Are you sure this was comparable to a normal abort? Within 25-30 seconds they had solved the problems, initiated go-around procedures, climbed back up and holding at 4,000ft. If its not comparable to a normal abort, its not too far off. As I said though, think we need to wait for the official report at this point, there are too many unknowns.
gruturo 5y ago
The style of reporting is debatable, but the embedded audio clip really conveys how distressed the crew was. That, and the audible huffing and puffing while they were probably wrestling with the controls. I hope they get good data and successfully get to the root cause.
- traceroute66 5y ago
  > the audible huffing and puffing while they were probably wrestling with the controls The 777 is fly-by-wire. Therefore most likely the huffing and puffing is from all the rapid movements around the cockpit to reach various knobs, dials and circuit-breakers. Also I should point out, you should pay ZERO attention to the radio coverage in these instances. If you train to be a pilot, from day one a certain order is knocked into your thick skull: AVIATE - NAVIGATE - COMMUNICATE ..... ALWAYS IN THAT ORDER (i.e. saftey and navigation of the aircraft comes before you even think about coherent communications to the outside world). Don't get me wrong, I'm not dismissing the potential nature of the incident, far from it. But given the swiftness of the recovery, its obvious they were proceeding through the appropriate steps as per training, so I think we can safely avoid all the un-necessary adjectives and hype beyond acknowledging the well-trained crew doing the job they trained and regularly refresh for. N.B. I'm 100% giving the crew the benefit of the doubt here. For those who like an "alternative", I have heard little birdies in various places that given the background alarm audio, there MIGHT be an alternative story of the crew having setup the approach wrong (i.e human rather than aircraft error). But its a long-shot guess from what I hear and therefore we should really just wait for the official report to be published.
  - gruturo 5y ago
    I know about the pilot priorities, I took flight lessons. Only a few so far, but, as you point out, that's really a day 1 thing :) Either way, my point stands. That sounded like one distressed crew. They didn't panic and lose it, hats off to them, and likely the good training and experience helped there, but the edge in their voices gives you a distinct feeling of how serious things must have been.

Also, just yesterday, a Boeing 757-200 split in half in Costa Rica: https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/04/08/dhl-cargo-jet-breaks-in-half-on-runway-during-emergency-landing-in-costa-rica https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/04/08/dhl-cargo-jet-bre... And in March, a Boeing 737-800 crashed spectacularly in China: https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/21/business/boeing-jet-crash/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/21/business/boeing-jet-crash/ind... I'm starting to wonder if Boeing has problems much bigger and deeper than the 737 MAX. Does Airbus have the same recent number of crashes and failures as Boeing, relative to deployment and usage?

traceroute66 5y ago

I HATE sloppy mainstream media coverage of aviation. "suddenly abort its landing at 1,500 feet" says the article. 1,500 feet ? That's luxury headroom territory, absolutely nothing to panic about. To give you some context: If you do a CAT II approach in thick fog, you're allowed to go down to a Decision Height of 200ft (IIRC technically can down to 100ft but most company ops manuals will err on the side of caution at 200ft). And if you're in a cat IIIb equipped aircraft landing on an equally equipped runway, once lined-up and set-up the aircraft can land itself (weather parameters and company procedures permitting). So, panic about 1,500ft ? Give me a break with the sloppy journalism !

mikem170 5y ago
Are you sure this was comparable to a normal abort? From the article: > From flight path data it looks like flight AF011 made a sharp left as it approached Charles De Gaulle airport. I assumed the hard left was due to the loss of control the article mentions. I'm not sure if that happened at 1500 feet, the altitude also mentioned. An unexpected sharp left during approach at 1500 feet of altitude in a 777 sounds panic-worthy. I agree that the coverage is sloppy. Details are missing. Maybe the facts aren't out there yet. I assume something happened, that this wasn't a normal abort. EDIT: Here's another article [0] which mentioned that the controls stopped responding at 1200 feet. I gather they made the sharp left after regaining control? [0] https://www.infobae.com/en/2022/04/06/the-moment-when-the-controls-of-a-plane-about-to-land-in-paris-fail-and-what-the-pilots-did-to-prevent-a-tragedy/ https://www.infobae.com/en/2022/04/06/the-moment-when-the-co...
- traceroute66 5y ago
  > Are you sure this was comparable to a normal abort? Within 25-30 seconds they had solved the problems, initiated go-around procedures, climbed back up and holding at 4,000ft. If its not comparable to a normal abort, its not too far off. As I said though, think we need to wait for the official report at this point, there are too many unknowns.

gruturo 5y ago

The style of reporting is debatable, but the embedded audio clip really conveys how distressed the crew was. That, and the audible huffing and puffing while they were probably wrestling with the controls. I hope they get good data and successfully get to the root cause.

traceroute66 5y ago
> the audible huffing and puffing while they were probably wrestling with the controls The 777 is fly-by-wire. Therefore most likely the huffing and puffing is from all the rapid movements around the cockpit to reach various knobs, dials and circuit-breakers. Also I should point out, you should pay ZERO attention to the radio coverage in these instances. If you train to be a pilot, from day one a certain order is knocked into your thick skull: AVIATE - NAVIGATE - COMMUNICATE ..... ALWAYS IN THAT ORDER (i.e. saftey and navigation of the aircraft comes before you even think about coherent communications to the outside world). Don't get me wrong, I'm not dismissing the potential nature of the incident, far from it. But given the swiftness of the recovery, its obvious they were proceeding through the appropriate steps as per training, so I think we can safely avoid all the un-necessary adjectives and hype beyond acknowledging the well-trained crew doing the job they trained and regularly refresh for. N.B. I'm 100% giving the crew the benefit of the doubt here. For those who like an "alternative", I have heard little birdies in various places that given the background alarm audio, there MIGHT be an alternative story of the crew having setup the approach wrong (i.e human rather than aircraft error). But its a long-shot guess from what I hear and therefore we should really just wait for the official report to be published.
- gruturo 5y ago
  I know about the pilot priorities, I took flight lessons. Only a few so far, but, as you point out, that's really a day 1 thing :) Either way, my point stands. That sounded like one distressed crew. They didn't panic and lose it, hats off to them, and likely the good training and experience helped there, but the edge in their voices gives you a distinct feeling of how serious things must have been.