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Pilot here but not ATP or Jet rated. When you try to land with too much energy the airplane refuses. When you get within a wingspan or two of the ground then g

Pilot here but not ATP or Jet rated. When you try to land with too much energy the airplane refuses. When you get within a wingspan or two of the ground then ground effect starts giving you more and more lift. That plus excess speed means the airplane simply will not come down. To force it down you lower the nose but that can end up castering on the nose wheel, starting a PIO event (pilot-induced oscillation), or as in this case the left wing just refused to stop flying. The "quartering tailwind" is a red herring. The jet was well within its tailwind limits - most of the wind was crosswind at that point and the tailwind contribution wasn't anywhere near enough to explain what happened. When you get above glide slope things get worse as you now need to lose altitude but that increases your speed. Even if you get the speed under control if you come at the runway with a 1700-2500fpm descent rate inertia can slam you into the runway. They were coming in with way too much speed. They leveled off and got above glide slope because they were trying to bleed off enough speed to get within flap speed - flaps give you more drag which they desperately needed. I made the transition this year into a much higher performance airplane and even going from a Cessna 172 to an A36 TN Bonanza the difference is stark. You must be way further ahead of the airplane in the Bonanza or you will find yourself screaming into the airport at 170kts when your landing speed is more like 80kts. And discover you are above flap and gear extension speed with all power taken out - thus without a good way to slow down. Transport category jets are that times 100. You absolutely cannot get behind the aircraft. You plan your descents. You begin them much earlier. You pull power earlier. You add drag before speed runs away. Above all else when you're barreling in 40kts above landing speed you call a go-around and try it again. It is way too late to fix it. This accident started 30 minutes before they touched the tarmac. A complete failure of planning, of execution, and of ADM (to admit the problem and go-around).

psunavy03 15d ago
Did fly jets, although not transport-class ones. Just to hammer home that everything here is correct, and the common thread through all aircraft types is disciplined execution. You fly an approach on airspeed and/or angle of attack, and on glideslope. Period. You're either there or you're correcting to get there, and you're correcting at a point that you don't need huge oh-my-God corrections in close. If you can't do that, sucks to be you, take your waveoff like a real man or woman, and next time suck less.
- dylan604 15d ago
  Do companies punish pilots for go arounds for costing them fuel and delays? If not outright punished, does it cost them in potential promotion/raises? Do they look into a go around enough to determine cause or are all go arounds assumed pilot error by the company?
  - t0mas88 15d ago
    No, a go around is not a pilot error and it's not punished. It's almost the opposite. There is automatic monitoring for stable approach criteria (simplified: you must be at speed X with flaps selected etc by altitude Y). So this example would cause an automatic report from the aircraft to the airline, because they were too fast (not within stable approach criteria) and still continued the approach instead of going around. However even in those cases it's not meant for punishment but for safety improvement. In most professional operations these reports are made anonymous, and only for example someone from a union committee gets to know who the crew were and could have a talk with them if necessary.
    - dylan604 15d ago
      > No, a go around is not a pilot error and it's not punished. But the cause of a need to go around can be pilot error. There could be non-pilot error needs for a go around like when there is a runway incursion so the pilot is waved off. If a pilot makes a bad approach, would that not be pilot error? Not being a pilot, I'm not sure of the procedure. I'm assuming a 767 uses autopilot for the majority of the flight. I just have no insight on whether the pilot or the autopilot is responsible for the approach.
      - t0mas88 11d ago
        That's not really how it works. The industry does not treat a go around like an error. You'll only ever get questions when you don't go around while procedures clearly require it, like what seems to have happened in this case. On autopilot use: The pilot is always responsible for the approach. You can definitely have an unstable approach on autopilot if you configure it wrong or ask it to do things that can't be done within the stable approach criteria. A common example is trying to slow down and descend at the same time, most jets can't really do that. But "responsible" does not necessarily mean to blame in aviation. The industry as a whole follows the Just Culture principles (see: https://www.caa.co.uk/general-aviation/general-aviation-at-the-caa/safety-reporting-and-just-culture/# https://www.caa.co.uk/general-aviation/general-aviation-at-t... ) The purpose of a report is to learn from it and improve safety, not to blame the crew.
stouset 15d ago
The thing I’ve come to appreciate between my first few days in a sim, a lot of sim time, and then actual time behind a yoke is that like a lot of things, landing is peaceful and easy if you’ve done all the prep ahead of time. Which is precisely your point. The further in advance you cut power, descend, and get your airspeed set, you’ll find you have plenty of time to go over your checklists, mentally rehearse, and get configured. By the time you’re touching down, the plane wants to be on the ground. If you’re coming in high and fast, you have significantly abbreviated time. And you’re constantly fighting airspeed and altitude. If both are high, trying to lose one just increases the other. It’s a losing battle and one you’re fighting on an accelerated and accelerating time frame.

psunavy03 15d ago

Did fly jets, although not transport-class ones. Just to hammer home that everything here is correct, and the common thread through all aircraft types is disciplined execution. You fly an approach on airspeed and/or angle of attack, and on glideslope. Period. You're either there or you're correcting to get there, and you're correcting at a point that you don't need huge oh-my-God corrections in close. If you can't do that, sucks to be you, take your waveoff like a real man or woman, and next time suck less.

dylan604 15d ago
Do companies punish pilots for go arounds for costing them fuel and delays? If not outright punished, does it cost them in potential promotion/raises? Do they look into a go around enough to determine cause or are all go arounds assumed pilot error by the company?
- t0mas88 15d ago
  No, a go around is not a pilot error and it's not punished. It's almost the opposite. There is automatic monitoring for stable approach criteria (simplified: you must be at speed X with flaps selected etc by altitude Y). So this example would cause an automatic report from the aircraft to the airline, because they were too fast (not within stable approach criteria) and still continued the approach instead of going around. However even in those cases it's not meant for punishment but for safety improvement. In most professional operations these reports are made anonymous, and only for example someone from a union committee gets to know who the crew were and could have a talk with them if necessary.
  - dylan604 15d ago
    > No, a go around is not a pilot error and it's not punished. But the cause of a need to go around can be pilot error. There could be non-pilot error needs for a go around like when there is a runway incursion so the pilot is waved off. If a pilot makes a bad approach, would that not be pilot error? Not being a pilot, I'm not sure of the procedure. I'm assuming a 767 uses autopilot for the majority of the flight. I just have no insight on whether the pilot or the autopilot is responsible for the approach.
    - t0mas88 11d ago
      That's not really how it works. The industry does not treat a go around like an error. You'll only ever get questions when you don't go around while procedures clearly require it, like what seems to have happened in this case. On autopilot use: The pilot is always responsible for the approach. You can definitely have an unstable approach on autopilot if you configure it wrong or ask it to do things that can't be done within the stable approach criteria. A common example is trying to slow down and descend at the same time, most jets can't really do that. But "responsible" does not necessarily mean to blame in aviation. The industry as a whole follows the Just Culture principles (see: https://www.caa.co.uk/general-aviation/general-aviation-at-the-caa/safety-reporting-and-just-culture/# https://www.caa.co.uk/general-aviation/general-aviation-at-t... ) The purpose of a report is to learn from it and improve safety, not to blame the crew.

stouset 15d ago

The thing I’ve come to appreciate between my first few days in a sim, a lot of sim time, and then actual time behind a yoke is that like a lot of things, landing is peaceful and easy if you’ve done all the prep ahead of time. Which is precisely your point. The further in advance you cut power, descend, and get your airspeed set, you’ll find you have plenty of time to go over your checklists, mentally rehearse, and get configured. By the time you’re touching down, the plane wants to be on the ground. If you’re coming in high and fast, you have significantly abbreviated time. And you’re constantly fighting airspeed and altitude. If both are high, trying to lose one just increases the other. It’s a losing battle and one you’re fighting on an accelerated and accelerating time frame.