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!!

[Skybird]

Boeing 737s and other airplanes of that size are prophibited to land there. Airliners alltogether were prohibited to land there, but economical pressure made the court partially lifting the ban. I think here the major responsibility needs to be searched for. The runway received new tarmac, but is way too short for safe operation of airplanes of that size, and the grooves (?) still were not added, so it was smooth tarmac - and it was set under water by heavy rain. Other airplanes who landed before just had warned everybody over radio that the surface was slippery like grease. On TV they said, one plane just shortly before just escaped an accident by a hair's breadth.

Due to the short length and location (city centre, trees and plenty of higher building nearby), the airport has a very bad reputation amongst pilots of being a high risk approach. The carrier and the A320 both stand beyond doubt: the carrier has a solid reputation, and the A320 had no technical problems whatsoever, the company says. It is possible though, that the pilot touched the runway a bit too late, due to the weather conditions, they said: strong winds and heavy rain.

[Linton]

The gooves are cut to allow water to drain.

[Skybird]

I did not question you - I was not sure if I had picked the right word!

[Linton]

Wording was spot on.Did you look at the youtube clips?That airport is right in the middle of a very urban area.The radar altimeter call outs on the 320 clip can be heard going down and the back up due to the uneven terrain.

[Chock]

Re: Las Palmas, that was me making a mistake/typo, of course I meant Los Rodeos, which is dodgy for obvious reasons, notably the fog which caused the big Pan Am/KLM collision there (well that and the KLM P1 being an asshat).

Chock

Originally Posted by Chock

Re: Las Palmas, that was me making a mistake/typo, of course I meant Los Rodeos, which is dodgy for obvious reasons, notably the fog which caused the big Pan Am/KLM collision there (well that and the KLM P1 being an asshat).

Chock

Los Rodeos, Tenerife collision had nothing to do with the RWY and everything to do with an impatient captain who wouldn't listen to the SIC. Since then, and as a result of that tragedy, CRM is in place.

[Chock]

Los Rodeos, Tenerife collision had nothing to do with the RWY and everything to do with an impatient captain who wouldn't listen to the SIC. Since then, and as a result of that tragedy, CRM is in place.

I know that, KLM Captain Van Zanten's impatience was the main cause of the accident, which I pointed out in my original post if you read it.

I was merely pointing out that Los Rodeos is an airfield which is noted for being dodgy because of its propensity to become suddenly shrouded in clouds. This being a contributing factor to the Los Rodeos collision, because its altitude makes it subject to clouds rolling over the field from the surrounding hills, a phenomenon which occurred at the time of the crash. Consequently this made the Pan Am crew unaware that the KLM aircraft had throttled up for a take off run despite not having clearance to do so, because they were not clear of the runway, nor had they announced this either.

I often fly from airfields where this weather phenomenon occurs, and you can trust me on this, it is a contributing factor to safety, if one is not careful.

In the Los Rodeos collision, the problem was exacerbated by the fact that the airport was overloaded with dense traffic, owing to a terrorist threat from ETA forcing many aircraft to divert there, which in turn forced the airport staff to use the runway to backtrack taxi aircraft into position because the number of aircraft meant that there wasn't adequate wingtip clearance for 747s to get past all the parked up aircraft, which the airport was not designed to handle. This is what the Pan Am jet was doing when the KLM aircraft set off toward it.

Chock

[geetrue]

Have you ever taken off from the airport in the Azores?

I use to fly back and forth in the US Navy when we changed blue crew for the gold crew on a FBM submarine. We were stationed out of Rota, Spain.

We would fly from Spain to Rhode Island, but if the DC super 8 didn't have enough fuel we would land in Goose Bay Harbor, Newfoundland on the way for more fuel.

This particular trip they landed in the Azores first to keep from having to land in Newfoundland.

Nice little airport the people all looked at us funny in our dress blues, but we boarded the plane again to take off. I was on the window side just looking down at the run way as we took off. I didn't feel any lift of the plane or anything and all of a sudden I'm looking at the clifts and the Atlantic Ocean.

It's just the top of a mountain and we were air born ... Scared me for sure.

[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: