Flying in Brazil can be dangerous to your health

[geetrue]

Another air crash in Brazil ... this is the second major crash in less than a year.

http://www.topix.net/content/ap/2007/07/195-feared-dead-in-brazil-plane-crash

Remember the other one last September when the small business jet colided with the 737 killing all on board the commerical passenger plane. Here's an article about that crash.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/23/america/LA-GEN-South-America-Scary-Air.php

Did you know what happened to the two pilots on the business jet?
They finally got to come home, but they are refusing to go back for the trial. Can you blame them?

http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/879-full.html

[Officerpuppy]

Dangerous to drive too lest you want to get sticked up inside your car by gangs :p
If you watch the movie City of God, there is a small documentry about the police and gangs out there, the cops out there carry MG's as standard equipment, and I'm not even talking about like SWAT or ESU, but regular cops.

[The Avon Lady]

Everything I'm reading points to short runways at this airport.

Terrible tragedy.

Every airline captain has the option to refuse landing, and for that matter any, instruction issued by ATC while the aircraft is airborne.

I'd be interested in the reports, if any, from other airplanes that landed on that RWY. I understand that at the time of the accident it was raining (heavily).

[Chock]

The two most useless things in aviation as they say: Runway that's behind you, and fuel that you didn't put in the tanks.

Sounds like a classic case of a wet runway of marginal length, and possibly the runway surface unable to cope with and sufficiently drain water. The runway in question is one that is well known in the world of commercial flying as being slightly dodgy, along with a few others around the world such as Las Palmas and Mexico City, to name but a couple.

When a runway at a regional airport in the UK was resurfaced last year and a couple of pilots complained about the surface being bad, it was redone the following week, but I guess in countries where civil aviation is notoriously underfunded, that's not an option.

Although it is true that the pilot has the option to divert and should legally have an alternate designated on his flight plan plus 45 minutes worth of fuel, in practice there is tremendous pressure from a pilot's employees for him not to do this kind of thing. Budget carriers being the worst afflicted in this respect, since their margins are small and their bosses want to get maximum hours out of their airframes without what they deem to be 'unecessary' positioning flights.

Chock

[Linton]

The runway had recently been resurfaced and was awaiting grooving.Runway is short,relatively high elevation and aircraft was near max landing weight.
An approach and landing on 17R can be seen here:
The crash occurred on landing in other direction.
This is an approach and landing in a 737 in the 35 direction:
Chock what is wrong with Las Palmas?I have been going there for years and never had a problem.
Subman will be along in a minute to say it wouldn't have happened if it was a Boeing!!

[Heibges]

Originally Posted by Chock

The two most useless things in aviation as they say: Runway that's behind you, and fuel that you didn't put in the tanks. Chock

Great! Great! Great!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Chock

The two most useless things in aviation as they say: Runway that's behind you, and fuel that you didn't put in the tanks.
Chock

That is not what they say, but it works for me in this case. The real saying - Replace what you said about fuel in the tanks and change it with altitude above you.

-S

[TteFAboB]

The length of the runway would be sufficient if it were properly maintained. If you think this one's short, check Santos Dumont in Rio de Janeiro, no such record of accidents there (http://www.brasilazul.com.br/imagens...ntosdumont.jpg). When the main runway was closed for resurfacing the traffic diverted to the auxiliary runway, thinner and about 2,000ft shorter, as is the case now as the runway has been closed again for the investigations.

Yes, it was raining severely, and yes the grooving had not been made.

The day before (!) an ATR42 slid off the runway quite dramatically while landing, notice the skid marks: http://oglobo.globo.com/sp/mat/2007/07/16/296802845.asp

On March 22nd, 2006 a 737 stopped just in time, sliding off while landing aswell: http://www.picarelli.com.br/novas_imagens/1021719.jpg.

In June 2006 a 737 bumped an A320/1 gently causing light damage while taxiing in heavy rain.

On October 6th, 2006 another 737 slid off the runway when landing: http://oglobo.globo.com/sp/mat/2006/10/06/286006094.asp

On January 2007 a 737 had to smash the brakes to stop but didn't slide.

Back in 2003 a Citation fell off the taxiway after exiting the runway a bit too fast in heavy rain conditions. I could only find this crappy link so scroll down a bit untill you see the citation: http://www.aerolex.com.br/2003.htm

I found this from 1991 while searching for the others but have no idea what caused it. In dry conditions, scroll down a bunch: http://www.desastresaereos.net/acidentes_tam2.htm

The runway was opened with the claim that since it was winter, the weather should be dry and have no rain, thus grooving was unecessary. So the runway remained open during the day and closed after midnight for the grooving work to be done.

The Tower warned the pilot to land short because the condition was very slippery. 5 minutes before the plane landed the Tower received the results of a water-level measurement it had requested: the result was Ok (!).

Witnesses report they didn't see the engines going into reversion, so the crew must have started aborting very early. The video Oberon posted is of the stage where the Pilot is heard saying "turn! turn! turn!" over the radio. It's unclear why he would say that. Turning intentionally would be best to the other side where there's more room and the terrain slopes down.

Some pilots raised suspicion over the computer system of the plane, wondering if it could've prevented the pilot from maneuvering more aggressively, but only the black box can tell if such a thing happened, if the crew deactivated the restrictions or none of the above.

EDIT: Some more tid bits: the plane touched down before the 1,000ft mark, so the Tower even cleared a plane holding-short for take-off. Rules established after the accidents I posted here require the runway to be closed under such conditions. On that day the request was denied.

[Oberon]

Hmmm, that does make sense Skybird, and the 'smoke' I noted could well have been the wheels locking up and the beginning of the skid, or as AL said, spray from the water, but that is a lot of spray, so the runway would have to have a lot of standing water...

Strange he didn't turn right instead of left, but I guess it was dark and in the moment he must of gone for the left option, which happened to involve a fuel storage depot

[TteFAboB]

The left turn is really odd. The only reason I can imagine for an intentional left turn would be to avoid gliding into these towers: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Im...onhas_ALS2.jpg

You may be able to notice that the terrain goes down from right to left. The right side, from the plane, is definitely the side to turn intentionally. Even if you're going to crash, you'll crash on grass and then roll to the highway. Bad, but better than smashing into a building.

EDIT: I just learned how the pilots call the runway when it's raining: Holiday on Ice.

Also, waste gate mentioned Pilots refusing to land if so they wish. This has happened on the same day of the accident, during the day, with a plane from the same company that aborted the landing just before touching down because he thought the runway was too wet.

[Chock]

Some pilots raised suspicion over the computer system of the plane, wondering if it could've prevented the pilot from maneuvering more aggressively, but only the black box can tell if such a thing happened, if the crew deactivated the restrictions or none of the above.

If the pilots had decided to abort the landing and take off again (and it does look very much like that from the terminal footage of the aircraft speeding along the runway) they would presumably have engaged the TOGA (take off/go around) mode on the throttles. Doing this should automatically throttle up the engines to take off thrust and configure the aircraft for a go around. So, unless they didn't do that, it would seem unlikely that the flight control systems would be limiting the aircraft's manoeuverability. They could have just rammed the throttles forward manually in a panic (which would be understandable) and in theory this would have worked if they had retracted the flaps from the landing configuration to the take off configuration, but there are two problems with doing it that way:

The first is that jet engines spool up slowly. Even if you've never piloted an a multi-engined aircraft, it is likely you've flown on one, in which case you will probably have noticed that the pilots do not simply 'firewall' the throttles all the way forward while at a standstill, they advance them smoothly forward in several stages to prevent the possibility of one engine spooling up to full power faster than the other. This is to avoid the possibility of asymmetric thrust initiating a swing to one side, which would be difficult to correct while there is not much airflow over the rudder. So if the pilots in this tragedy had panicked and rammed the throttle forward and it had initiated a swing, this might explain the turn the aircraft made and the difficulties they got into.

The second, is that in addition to increasing lift, the flaps also increase drag (which slows the aircraft down on its approach descent) but on a take-off roll, this drag would be undesirable, so minimal flap settings are the order of the day on take off, with anywhere between about 5 and 20 degrees of flap usually being the case for a take off, the less the better if you have enough runway length. Flaps do not retract instantaneously , they take time to come in, and while they are deployed, they cause a lot of both aerodynamic and form drag. Both of which would inhibit the aircraft's ability to accelerate to a safe lift off speed.

Of course on an approach to an airstrip with such a reputation as this one has, it should be the case that the crew conduct a thorough pre-landing briefing on what exactly they will do in all eventualities, including an abort on the landing roll out. Given the circumstances, and if they did in fact carry out such a briefing, things should have gone better than they did. But...

It is easy to be judgemental about pilots decisions in such events, and if in a panic the crew had differed on what to do, it would certainly not be the first time this had happened. Numerous crashes of this nature have occurred when the pilot and co-pilot were literally arguing about whether to continue braking, or to go around. On some occasions in the past, this has even involved pilots fighting over whether to press the TOGA lever or not, with it being switched on and off by both the pilots as the aircraft careered down the runway!

Having had an emergency on landing in real life whilst piloting an aircraft, I would like to say that I coolly handled it with no panic whatsoever. But the truth is that on that occasion, I was scared, and I actually 'froze up' for about two seconds (seemed a lot longer at the time - almost like one of those slo-mo bits in a movie) before snapping out of it and then doing the right things, which fortunately meant that I was able to land okay. I was lucky in that most aeroplanes will quite happily fly themselves for a few seconds on such occasions! This is what pilots jokingly refer to as 'the Jesus manouever', as in: 'Okay Jesus, you have control!'.

So I am rarely judgemental about decisions from pilots in circumstances such as these, because I know that things like that can happen. But you will notice from the quote above that it is rare for pilots to admit to this kind of fallability in their profession, and so the first thing most pilots would claim is that 'the plane wouldn't let me do this', when what they really mean is 'the plane couldn't do that because I had the systems set up incorrectly'. This is understandable because it is a favourite of air accident investigators and aeroplane manufacturers to blame pilots who die in crashes for the cause, and then quietly fix the real issue a few months later. So naturally pilots get a bit defensive on such matters.

I guess we will find out what happened if and when the flight data recorders remained intact and were working properly.

Chock

[Skybird]

I think it is easier - touch down a bit too late on the already short runway, slippery surface, no grip and thus no braking effect, running out of runway, trying to take off again with the aircraft already in a skid and with not sufficient runway remaining, and so ...

the carrier company seem to have a good reputation, which should reflect in the training level of the pilots, then. that unlucky fellow was in command when him and 200 people died, so I would be hesitent blaming him for having made a mistake before the blackbox shows that he did. that that airport was still operating, was reopened due to economical pressure only, although the technical anaylssis found it bo be a highly unsafe location for airplans of that size, and that it even was not clsoed with a smooth new tarmas although the place was practically flooded - that is the scanal here, I guess. Short before the crashed flight, another plane was escapting accident by hair'S breadth only - then at the latest the facility should haven been closed for heavy traffic. Like even a busy hub like Frankfurt is shutting down for some hours if there is more snow than they can handle, for example.

the fire is reported to have produced temperatures in excess of 1000°C - does a flight recorder survive such a heat?

[TteFAboB]

Originally Posted by Chock

It is easy to be judgemental about pilots decisions in such events...

The pilots are the weakest link. Back in the case with the A-10s in Iraq it all fell down on the pilots. In the other accident 10 months ago, pilots again. Let's bet. I'll give you 1,000 posts if the pilots don't get most of the blame on this one. Of course they may have some blame for not being able to go around succesfully, but they wouldn't have to abort a landing at all in the first place if the runway had been closed and their flight diverted elsewhere.

As far as I'm aware the flight recorders are already on their way to the US, but I'm not sure on what condition.

A possible piece of evidence could corroborate the possibility raised by Chock about throttles being rammed forward. Back to the video:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dSgqCafZfBc

Pay attention to the 11-12 second or to the 30-31 second. There's a flash of light coming out of the left engine. Is it some sort of optical illusion or could it be fire from the excessive fuel suddenly being dumped in the engine? That would change everything. That's a pretty late point to ram the throttle forward.

[The Avon Lady]

I assume that planes do not have anti-locking brake systems (ABS) on them. Is it just good for cars but not for planes? I came up empty googling for this.