Boeing 777 Crashes At San Francisco Airport

Asiana Flight 214 from Seoul crashed while landing at San Francisco Airport today. Early reports suggest the plane was unstable as it touched down, which led to the tail of the plane breaking off. There are no official casualty reports yet, but passengers were seen walking off the plane. Preliminary estimates say one or two dead and 75 being transported to area hospitals. (Others are reporting two dead and several dozen injured.) Eyewitness report: "You heard a pop and you immediately saw a large, brief fireball that came out from underneath the aircraft," Anthony Castorani said on CNN. "At that moment, you could see that that aircraft was again starting to lift and it began to cartwheel [Ed: he likely means spinning horizontally, like a top]. The wing broke off on the left hand side. You could see the tail immediately fly off of the aircraft. As the aircraft cartwheeled, it then landed down and the other wing had broken." The media has estimated about 290 people were on board the plane. The top of the cabin was aflame at one point, but it's not known yet whether that affected the passengers. "Federal sources told NBC News that there was no indication of terrorism." Some images from the news make it look like the plane may have tried to touch down too early, hitting the seawall just before the runway.

Comments

Wrong week . . .

[cashman73]

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking!

Re:Wrong week . . .

[binarylarry]

Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue!

Re:Wrong week . . .

[Grog6]

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines

.

Re:Wrong week . . .

[swalve]

I'm not. And don't call me Maebe.

Open airplanes

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the problem with non-free airplanes. If the blueprints had been free under a freedom preserving license I'm sure the problem that caused the hiccup had been found.

Re:Open airplanes

[PolygamousRanchKid]

This is the problem with non-free airplanes. If the blueprints had been free under a freedom preserving license I'm sure the problem that caused the hiccup had been found.

. . . and the plane could have been printed on an off the shelf 3D printer . . .

Re:Open airplanes

[Trepidity]

Wouldn't even have had to print the plane; just print the passengers at the destination.

Re:Open airplanes

[tibit]

Unfortunately, most airplane accidents and incidents are due to pilot error, ATC error and maintenance mechanic error (I think in this order). Problems with hardware or firmware that are unrecoverable in spite of following proper procedures are pretty damn rare. For example, AF447 was not directly caused by any hardware failing - it was due to the pilots not following procedures and good practice.

Re:Open airplanes

[Jodka]

This is the problem with non-free airplanes. If the blueprints had been free under a freedom preserving license I'm sure the problem that caused the hiccup had been found.

. . . and the plane could have been printed on an off the shelf 3D printer . . .

. . .and from the MakerPlane website:
"MakerPlane is an open source aviation organization which will enable people to build and fly their own safe, high quality, reasonable cost plane using advanced personal manufacturing equipment such as...3D printers."

Re:Open airplanes

[evilviper]

Unfortunately, most airplane accidents and incidents are due to pilot error

Repeat after me: "human factors"

Almost any accident can be prevent by a prescient pilot always making PERFECT decisions.

Passing accidents off as pilot error in all but the most egregious cases, is massively disingenuous, and something airlines and manufacturers like to do to shield themselves from all liability that they deserve.

Airlines trained pilots to do something stupid? Pilot error.
Airlines failed to train pilots on the new systems? Pilot error.
Counter-intuitive controls resulted in a pilot throttling down instead of up, and crashing? Pilot error.
Stall warning systems were non-functional, and the pilot wasn't fastidiously checking sensors? Pilot error.
Airline was juggling pilot schedules around, making them work with little sleep? Pilot error.

Re:Open airplanes

[AK Marc]

This will be pilot error. My guess is improper flap position. Even if the flaps failed, he should have made a safe landing. But trusting the flap indicator over the airspeed and altimeter will be called an error. Is it an error to trust one instrument over another? It is when you made them both. He *obviously* should have paid attention to the correct one. Or possibly, he was too tired after a long flight and royally screwed up. He should have been adding throttle at the end, not pulling up and letting off. But he was trying to land with no flaps on a flaps approach, rather than executing a missed approach and getting away from that ground to figure out why. If he had scrubbed 50 mph with the "flare" at the end and didn't touch tail, we likely would never have known.

The pilot will be fired, and the crew rotation will be reviewed, yet again. We'll be no safer, but we'll be told we are.

Re:Open airplanes

[Colonel Korn]

Unfortunately, most airplane accidents and incidents are due to pilot error, ATC error and maintenance mechanic error (I think in this order). Problems with hardware or firmware that are unrecoverable in spite of following proper procedures are pretty damn rare. For example, AF447 was not directly caused by any hardware failing - it was due to the pilots not following procedures and good practice.

If you read the black box transcript from AF447 the most notable single problem was that two of the three qualified pilots in the cockpit believed that the stick was being pushed forward, when in fact it was being pulled back.

When a plane stalls, a common panicked reaction is to pull back on the stick in an attempt to point the plane back into the sky. A lot of training goes into eliminating this instinct, because the solution is actually the opposite - point the noise toward the ground to regain speed. IIRC, the copilot was pulling back on the stick for the last several minutes even as the pilot and the alternate pilot (or a flight engineer or something, I forget) were saying things like, "we're pushing on the stick, why aren't we gaining airspeed?"

The communication problem was largely caused by an major Airbus design flaw: the sticks between the left and right seats aren't linked. In other planes, the pilot would have known the copilot had the stick pulled back because the action would make his own stick move back as well. On AF447, the pilot saw nothing other than the copilot's hand on the stick and assumed he was doing the right thing, and in the understandable confusion as they struggled to gain control of the plane the copilot never verbally corrected the misconception.

Certainly pilot error in response to some external factors that aren't that uncommon (like a pitot tube freezing) was the direct cause of the crash of AF447, but a more sensible flight control design would have likely prevented the pilot error.

Re:Open airplanes

[Kell Bengal]

The always-pilot error belief is a mild form of conspiracy theory. People familiar with aircraft systems can tell you that aircraft are frightingly well-engineered precisely because the aircraft manufacturers, airlines and associated industries know fully well that their livelihoods live and die by the public perception of safety. There is a very strong motivation to getting the engineering right. That's why it literally takes almost a decade to bring a new aircraft to market.

It also turns out that an aircraft in flight is one of the most predictable engineering systems - it's a single self-contained structure where there are only two unknowns: weather and human factors. Outside of those, manufacturers develop good working models of their systems and then test them extensively until they find failure points. Considering the uncertain factors, weather was a major cause of accidents early in aviation before weather radar was a standard safety feature, and aviation forecasts were fine-tuned. Now that weather is largely an avoidable risk factor (excepting extremes such as flying into thunderstorms or freak clear air turbulence cells), it should hardly be surprising that the leading cause of accident is the one thing that is most difficult to design around. If you can find a way to make any complex system (aircraft, car, nuclear reactor, etc) idiot-proof without taking away control from the idiot then I have a prize for you.

But this is a conspiracy theory, so let's see if we can falsify it by testing specific consequences we might expect, if it were true. We would predict that there should not be events admitted to design fault that could not be pilot rectified, because then the manufacturers would be liable - the FAA/EASA/CASA/etc should bury any such case. These regulators would never stop aircraft from flying, since obviously no fault could be admitted to. Rather, a quick search shows a long history of documented design flaws: de Haviland Comet square windows, DC-10 cargo door, 787 battery fires, 747 cargo door electrical fault (AL182, PA103, UAL811, TWA800), 747 aft galley electrical bus being under refridgerator drip pan (QF2), many many engine failures (Delta 1288, QF32, CA786 to name a few). Not all of these flaws were fatal, but they are officially acknowledged as design and manufacturing flaws nonetheless. If the conspiracy were real, they should never have been owned up to. Instead, we see well-documented explanations of what the flaws are, and FAA directives on how they must be fixed. In fact, there have been many cases where the FAA has forbidden whole classes of aircraft from flying until design flaws are rectified - most recently with the 787 battery problem.

When you consider that there are 10s of thousands of aircraft in the air at any one time and the failure rate is so low, it's obviously that engineers have gone to great lengths to make the design-build-maintenance-operation process for modern aircraft very reliable. Obligatory car analogy: ask yourself how often cars crash because the driver messes up, and how often cars crash because of a design flaw. Again, you'll find human error completely dominates.

Like most conspiracy theories, a little research and a bit of common sense goes a long way to shooting down bogus claims.

Re:Open airplanes

[jbwolfe]

Not sure what information you have that leads to this conclusion. Improper landing configuration (flaps not set, gear not down) sounds a warning that cannot be silenced. The cause will be determined in due time. There may well have been pilot error, but there are parallels between this and BA38 in LHR that was attributed to fuel freezing in the fuel control.

Re:Open airplanes

[jbwolfe]

The communication problem was largely caused by an major Airbus design flaw: the sticks between the left and right seats aren't linked. In other planes, the pilot would have known the copilot had the stick pulled back because the action would make his own stick move back as well. On AF447, the pilot saw nothing other than the copilot's hand on the stick and assumed he was doing the right thing, and in the understandable confusion as they struggled to gain control of the plane the copilot never verbally corrected the misconception.

Incorrect, there is no design flaw. As designed, if both pilots make a flight control input simultaneously, they will receive an aural warning: "Dual Input". They will know about it and either pilot can take priority over the other by pushing a button on the stick which will lock out the other.

Re:Open airplanes

[DieByWire]

This will be pilot error.

Possible. Statistically speaking, you could say that about any crash without any evidence and you'd be right more often than wrong. But it's by no means guaranteed, and the evidence isn't in yet.

Remember BA at Heathrow?

My guess is improper flap position.

You will be shown to be wrong. Guaranteed.

But he was trying to land with no flaps on a flaps approach.

Really. Thank you for informing us of this fact. Amazing how the leading edge magically deployed itself after the crash.

The only other thing I guarantee right now is that this thread will spout uninformed, infuriating drivel like the AF447 articles did.

Single engine is AK is very different from airline and transpac flying. Please spare us your conclusions based on zero evidence or relevant experience. It's painful enough as it is without hearing such drivel.

Re:Open airplanes

[ttucker]

Incorrect, there is no design flaw. As designed, if both pilots make a flight control input simultaneously, they will receive an aural warning: "Dual Input". They will know about it and either pilot can take priority over the other by pushing a button on the stick which will lock out the other.

Certainly this would have been the only alarm they were hearing or blinking light they were seeing, you know in a stalling aircraft.... A "Dual Input" light is just the kind of tired, stupid, shit, that an engineer would say is good enough, but really just is not.

Re:Open airplanes

[rwa2]

You're not thinking like a lawyer. Manufacturers have pretty deep pockets. Just think about what would happen if people could sue them for bad decisions made by the software.

Hence, human operators. So the manufacturers have someone to blame. They still get sued every once in a while, sure. But they get to limit their liability and have a chance to offer some corrective actions.

Re:Open airplanes

[Rich0]

Clearly this is a major problem with the current system - we'll only ever see automated cars/planes/etc if it is regulated and compliant companies are shielded from liability.

The car design flaw of having a steering wheel is a result of the legal design flaw of making a company that manufacturers cars that kill 10k people per year less liable than one that kills 10 people per year if the latter's cars lacked steering wheels. The simple legal solution is to create a regulatory framework where we set a maximum acceptable fatality/accident rate and require manufacturers to stay below it. Start it out at the status quo (not a very high bar), and reduce the limit annually until we get into the noise. Companies that violate the regs would be heavily fined, and companies that do not would have blanket immunity from suits from accident victims. The result of such a policy would be a lot fewer dead people.

Re:Open airplanes

[jbwolfe]

All the alarms and blinking lights are listed in the actual accident investigation report here:http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601.en/pdf/f-cp090601.en.pdf To sum up, they unwisely flew into an area of weather that they were painting on radar. Lost air data systems (not attitude or inertial info) that provided airspeed, vertical speed and altitude, the autopilot which relies on this info disconnected leaving the aircraft to be flown by the only entity capable- the pilots, who then allowed the aircraft to stall from which they never recovered.

Aircraft design is a collaborative effort that includes pilots among many others, not just engineers. Not sure what your point is. If you're suggesting that they were overwhelmed by warnings and such, I would concur. That is the point of training and systems knowledge. All ECAMs are prioritized to allow the pilots to deal with the most pressing emergency (as a user, I think it fails from being needlessly complicated and unintuitive). This notwithstanding the fact that one must "fly the airplane first" at all times. The parent's point that Airbus have design flaws because the sticks are independent, is as I said, incorrect. He could say he he has issues with design philosophy, but its not a flaw to have independent sticks, and no machine yet can make judgments on what info the pilots need about systems failures. Perhaps you are advocating aircraft have a neural connection to the pilot's brain- sadly that is only science fiction as yet.

Certainly this would have been the only alarm they were hearing or blinking light they were seeing, you know in a stalling aircraft

Yes I do know. I think I'm qualified to make the argument that this is not a "flaw", or make observations on the AF mishap. I have over 7700 hours on Airbus and over 14000 total flight time as a commercial pilot, including training in stall recovery in large swept wing aircraft, and I've heard this argument made many times.

Re:Open airplanes

[drinkypoo]

It also turns out that an aircraft in flight is one of the most predictable engineering systems - it's a single self-contained structure where there are only two unknowns: weather and human factors.

I presume you are counting avians as weather.

But this is a conspiracy theory, so let's see if we can falsify it by testing specific consequences we might expect, if it were true. We would predict that there should not be events admitted to design fault that could not be pilot rectified, because then the manufacturers would be liable - the FAA/EASA/CASA/etc should bury any such case.

So, you're assuming an incompetent conspiracy of idiots. Now, I'm not asserting that this conspiracy exists, I've never even thought about it and I'm still not, but obviously you'd have trouble covering up some flaws, so you'd admit to them, and you might admit to some minor flaws that won't get you in very much trouble as well, just to hide the fact that you're also hiding facts.

Obligatory car analogy: ask yourself how often cars crash because the driver messes up, and how often cars crash because of a design flaw.

Most cars really suck. They don't fail well; even low-speed collisions can impair their operation. And they don't handle idiots well, either, because they don't handle. Last-second maneuvers are ill-advised. So while the direct cause of most car accidents is some form of driver failure, perhaps more of them could be avoided if more care went into the design of more cars. Or at least, if the care were applied to making a better car, rather than a more profitable one.

Re:Open airplanes

[swalve]

It seems like it actually is a design flaw, in that the overall design is flawed. What you are describing as a design flaw is more correctly an implementation flaw or an engineering mistake. If the system works as designed, then any flaws must be design flaws.

If a pilot is panicking to the point that he is flying wrong, he will be hitting the lockout button because he will think he is right. What happens when both pilots hit the lockout button? Do they just fight back and forth? It is almost by definition a problem of lack of communication when two pilots are making competing inputs to the aircraft. So designing a system that requires communication to solve in that situation is a design flaw.

Re:Open airplanes

[Hognoxious]

the pilot just flat out missed the runway

Pretty much all crashes boil down to that.

Re: Open airplanes

[Solandri]

It's both an aural warning and an indicator light. But they ignored about 70 aural stall warnings; they probably ignored the dual input warnings too. Remember, the pilots didn't know they were suffering an instrumentation failure due to iced up pitot tubes. All they knew was that they were getting inconsistent, contradictory, and in some cases impossible readings from their instruments. While trying to figure out what the hell was going on, they got the plane into a high angle of attack, low speed configuration which caused the stall warnings to stop (even though the plane was still in a stall) due to the computer being programed to discount aerodynamic data as unreliable in that state.

When the pilot then gave the plane the correct input (nose down), the plane picked up speed and the stall warnings began again. Completely the opposite of what's actually going on, and probably confused the hell out of the pilots. At that point they probably guessed they were experiencing an electronic/computer problem, and probably began disregarding all the alarms they were hearing.

It's tempting to blame the accident on how easy it is to miss the "dual input" warning during a confusing and dangerous situation where all sorts of warnings are going off, and say that a force-feedback system like Boeing uses is superior. But with Boeing's system, one pilot slumped over or deliberately pushing his control column to crash the plane would hinder the other pilot from controlling the aircraft, possibly causing an accident. With Airbus' system, the conscious pilot just pushes a button and he has complete control. It's not that one method is better than the others, they're just different, and vulnerable to different failure modes. AF447 just happened to hit upon a failure mode of the Airbus system.

It's also worth pointing out that the other two major crashes caused by disorientation following instrument failure were 757s. So while the dual inputs probably added to the confusion, it's still highly likely AF447 would have crashed anyway even without the dual input problem. The overwhelming cause of the accident was spatial disorientation coupled with reluctance to believe the instruments after a systemic failure (the airspeed inputs feed into multiple other systems that update the pilots on the state of the plane).

Photo

[Black Parrot]

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/SFO_crash-e1373139561971.png

Shows it upright, with at least one wing still attached.

Re:Photo

[Trepidity]

My favorite part of the reporting this evening was when CNN had text on-screen quoting the words of a caller who said the plane had lost both wings. In the background behind the text was helicopter footage of the plane, with both wings quite clearly still attached...

Re:Photo

[Hognoxious]

Whatever they are, they ought to be shot. In an emergency evac you don't take your fucking bags, especially ones that are too goddam big for carry-on anyway.

Except

[Anonymous Coward]

It didn't cartwheel, it spun around like a top.

Re:Except

[PNutts]

Or since it's an aircraft how about "rotated around it's yaw axis".

Re:Except

[bill_mcgonigle]

Heck, the majority of them will get "axis" wrong if you ask them to define it in their own words...

"My sister always axis me if she can borrow my car."

Re:Except

[Doh!]

Raw video of the crash: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEDZerwU7uE

I think "began to cartwheel" is not a bad description. It's pretty incredible so many people walked away.

No Cartwheeling

[Ganty]

Pictures show the aircraft sat on the ground with the tail missing and the forward roof burnt out but it certainly did NOT cartwheel or bits would be scattered down the runway. It seems that all passengers and crew have been accounted for with no fatalities.

Ganty

Re:No Cartwheeling

[Anonymous Coward]

At least 2 dead, which is quite amazing: http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/boeing-777-crashes-while-landing-sfo/nYfcx/

Re:No Cartwheeling

[sribe]

Pictures show the aircraft sat on the ground with the tail missing and the forward roof burnt out but it certainly did NOT cartwheel...

I happened to check news just as this story was breaking. The word "cartwheel" came from the first eyewitness report. The next two eyewitnesses said it "spun". So I'm guessing that the guy who said "cartwheel" doesn't really know what the word means, and that instead it spun on its belly.

Re:No Cartwheeling

[girlintraining]

certainly did NOT cartwheel or bits would be scattered down the runway. It seems that all passengers and crew have been accounted for with no fatalities.

The term "cartwheel" has different meanings to different people. Unfortunately, just like with the Boston Bombing, CNN rushed a story out without getting its facts straight, though at least this time it was somewhat more substantial than pure speculation.

At this time, it appears the plane's air speed was too low on final approach, and the pilot may have over-corrected by throttling up and then (mistakenly) putting the nose further up as a panic measure; This resulted in a severe tail strike on the sea wall, and the plane would have become aerodynamically unstable immediately after.

Typically in these scenarios, the plane (appears) to shoot upwards briefly due to the sudden change in weight distribution, and comes down on angled heavily to one side (having lost any ability to control lateral movement). The wing will typically sheer off, as they're actually designed to break away from the fuselage in such an event, and the plane will roll onto its roof then (if speed is high enough) or the nose will take a digger, break off, and the whole thing will flip in the air and then promptly "face plant" in the dirt in one piece.

Either way, the plane did exactly what it was designed to do -- separate the flammables from the fuselage where the passengers were, and maintain integrity until all motion stops. The emergency crew's prompt response is what saved everyone's lives -- most people don't die due to the impact or fire, but rather smoke inhalation.

This is a text-book crash landing, and the investigation will now focus on whether a mechanical fault caused the plane to lose speed at the last moment (bird strike on engine is common), or whether the pilot neglected to flare correctly. Judging by the debris, it looks like it would have been a steep descent with flare at the end -- which results in a faster landing and is preferred at high-volume airports, over a shallower approach, with less flare. If the pilot is inexperienced, distracted, or any number of a dozen other things go wrong (one plane crash I know of was due to a circuit breaker trip-out which meant the captain did not have 'stick shake' or stall alarm warnings in this exact scenario) -- there's very little time to react, and even going to full power take off speed will not prevent disaster due to the steep descent angle, lack of altitude, and lack of speed.

Any airplane pilot knows the key to a successful crash landing is speed and altitude -- they add precious seconds to react to an emergency. This plane had neither.

Re:No Cartwheeling

[Solandri]

Pictures show the aircraft sat on the ground with the tail missing and the forward roof burnt out but it certainly did NOT cartwheel or bits would be scattered down the runway.

There are actually bits of debris on the runway starting almost with the rocks separating the runway from the bay. The integrity of the fuselage says it did not cartwheel (objects this big don't move in one piece like the movies - they'll disintegrate with just moderate lateral forces). But the debris trail and missing tail suggest it came down at a high angle of attack hitting tail-first possibly from a stall (in a regular landing you hit landing gear-first), then hit the ground hard enough to collapse its landing gear and skid off the runway. The jagged yellow partial dome you see at the tail end of the fuselage is the plane's aft pressure bulkhead - the end of the pressurized section of the fuselage. So nobody was in the tail portion which broke off.

The high AOA suggests the pilot was pulling up trying to gain altitude (or at least decrease the rate he was losing it). Possible reasons are an engine problem (with inadequate thrust, pilot was trying desperately to glide a little further to make the runway) or some failure of the flaps (if they retract, they increase the plane's stall speed possibly causing the plane to drop out of the air). Or wind shear (sudden tailwind deprives the plane of lift and pilot pulls up to try to maintain altitude - unlikely given the weather). Or pilot error (was coming in too high and tried to bleed altitude too quickly, instead of declaring a missed approach and trying again), though the tail striking short of the runway makes this unlikely unless the pilot accidentally put the plane into a stall.

Re:No Cartwheeling

[jamesh]

Pictures show the aircraft sat on the ground with the tail missing and the forward roof burnt out but it certainly did NOT cartwheel or bits would be scattered down the runway. It seems that all passengers and crew have been accounted for with no fatalities.

Ganty

That's what I would have thought, but it turns out someone had a camera pointed in that direction at the time of the crash, and even if it wasn't strictly a cartwheel, it is completely reasonable for a witness to describe it that way as it does look like it spun on at least a 45 degree angle. Could just be the angle the camera though (An animated version of the events shows no such thing).

It's also possible that the footage is from a completely different crash. Wouldn't be the first time.

I figured it out

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to go on record saying that hitting the sea-wall first instead of the runway had something to do with it. You know, physics, and all that shit.

Re:"Crashes in"?

[sarysa]

Just to elaborate even more (edit function please), anyone who lives around SF and flies knows that the airport is 10 miles south of the city. So an airplane crashing within city limits would be extremely bizarre. Very little air traffic is actually routed through the city...in fact I think most planes that fly overhead are ads for car insurance companies and tires during baseball games.

Survivor Story

[XiaoMing]

Samsun Exec. David Eun survives, posts pic. Then proceeds to teach CNN some manners.

Re:Survivor Story

[XiaoMing]

Then proceeds to teach CNN some manners

They wanted to talk to him about the crash and he said he didn't want to divert attention away from the crash. I'm not even sure what that means.

If you've watched any of what passes for "news" at all today, it's full of talking heads speculating on every possible thing, from the myriad of ways people could have died (ranging from blunt trauma to smoke inhalation because gee fucking golly, the plane carries so many people it must have taken forever to get everyone off and who knows what happens to your lungs in that type of environment!) to just who's fault it could have been that it went down in the first place. And that's all from aerial helicopter footage and an interview with an idiot who used to in some way work with traffic control.

Now can you just imagine what would happen if they got even the slightest tidbit of first-hand information? Oh wait you don't have to, there are half a dozen 5-star "informative" threads on here already discussing just why the plane's wing was or wasn't sheared off while doing some kind of barrel roll a-la Starfox64.

So yeah, when this guy posts as much information as he feels confident doing, including a very uplifting and hopeful picture immediately after the crash showing survivors leaving what looks to be a mostly intact plane, and then doesn't feed the media's desperate attempt to capitalize on the situation any more than they already have been, I am kinda grateful.

Re:Survivor Story

[wonkey_monkey]

If you've watched any of what passes for "news" at all in the past fifteen years, it's full of talking heads speculating on every possible thing

FTFY.

No, the wings didn't break off

[Animats]

The tail broke off, not the wings. And the aircraft didn't "cartwheel". There are many good pictures of the wreckage. The wreckage is sitting on the ground alongside the runway, right side up, wings intact, on its belly. The tail assembly is completely detached from the plane. Much fire damage to the top of the fuselage, which is puzzling.

There are pictures of the passengers evacuating, including, inevitably, one of the passengers who just evacuated taking pictures of the plane.

Too early to discuss causes. Reports indicate the plane landed short in an nose-up attitude, but it's too early to say why.

Re:No, the wings didn't break off

[Tailhook]

Are there any major airports in the US that don't have cameras recording the runways?

There is no general requirement or expectation that airports visually record all runway events. Commercial airliners are permitted to autoland with essentially zero visibility (SFO CAT III landing, for instance) and VFR landings take place with as little as one mile visibility. One SFO runway is 2.25 miles long and there are 4 independent runways. I'm guessing you would need at least 32 costly all-weather cameras lining the runways to have a chance at capturing most, but still not all, runway activity, and this is not done; airports have better things to spend those tens of millions on.

Between the flight data recorder, cockpit voice recorder, approach radar and physical evidence there will be absolutely no doubt about precisely what happened to this airliner. The only thing lost for lack of video is the attention of gawkers.

No Casualties

[JavaBear]

http://avherald.com/h?article=464ef64f&opt=0

The aircraft burst into flames and burned out, all occupants were able to evacuate the aircraft in time and are alive. There are reports of a number of injuries, mainly burns, the majority of occupants escaped without injuries.

Emergency services reported all occupants have been accounted for and are alive.

Re:No Casualties

[JavaBear]

The reports are conflicting. According to the link I gave, Emergency services refute the claim of casualties. Confusion is only natural in these cases.

Re:Not geek news...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I can't think of anywhere with a greater concentration of slashdotters.

. . . and how do you know where we all live . . . ? Have you been dipping into our meta-data, or something . . . ?

Interesting Photos & Data on Twitter

[McGruber]

Some interesting photos and data have shown up on twitter today. First, here is (I think) the original source of that photo taken by a passenger: https://twitter.com/Eunner

Second, here is a photo, taken across a small bay, showing the plane crashing: https://twitter.com/stefanielaine/status/353591123958173696/photo/1

And, most interesting, a comparison of flightpath data (from flightaware.com) of yesterday's flight against today's flight: https://twitter.com/sbaker/status/353611787750494208/photo/1

While I am no expert, it looks like it hit the ground short of the runway, like the previous crash of a 777 (BA 34).

Cabin Baggage?

[CohibaVancouver]

If I ever have to do an emergency evacuation and the guy in front of me has his cabin baggage with him (like we see in some of those pictures) I'm gonna throw it into the fire.

Re:Not geek news...

[Will.Woodhull]

It is justified. If only because the underlying tech that brought so many images of the crash so fast from smart phones and whatnot give evidence of the degree that new tech is influencing news.

Also of techie interest is that so many of the passengers survived such a destructive crash. Planes today are a lot more crashworthy than the last generation.

I grant that the babes among us who have never learned to use a sliderule and probably most of them have never even touched one might not recognize the techie aspects of this. But the old geezers among us-- you know, the ancient ones who made the Internet and the digital cameras and cell phones and things like that-- appreciate this story and others like it. It helps us see just what kind of benefits our work has brought to society.

Now get off my damn lawn.

Re:Not geek news...

[hedwards]

The real news here is that this happened today and we're reading about it today. I would have expected to have to wait at least a fortnight for the initial report to show up here. Followed by a week of dupes.

Re:Not terrorism...

[Anonymous Psychopath]

No shit, how the hell have we gotten to the point where every accident report is accompanied with that phrase.

Because, in the hours between when a thing happens and when something is actually known about what happened, the talking head in the news room has to keep talking. Even if what they say is completely inane.

Re:news for nerds

[ShanghaiBill]

Samsung VP David Eun was on that plane, that makes it our business.

He posted a picture of the crash: https://path.com/p/1lwrZb. His post says "most everyone" is fine, but that is selection bias. For crashes like this, the injured/dead are usually in one section, and those are NOT the people you see walking away.

Re:silly eyewitness

[msauve]

He said "cartwheel" when he meant "spin." I suspect he meant "rudder" when he said "tail," and "elevator" when he said "wing."

Re:silly eyewitness

[Deadstick]

At least one aileron separated. An untrained witness could easily see that as a "wing".

Casualties doesn't mean fatalities

[Sycraft-fu]

It means serious injuries or deaths. In military speak, which is where it comes from, it means a soldier hurt to the point they can't go back and fight. So someone who's dead: casualty. Someone who has a compound fracture in both legs: casualty. Someone who has a surface cut on their arm: not a casualty.

There's not as hard and fast a civilian definition, but it is just if the injury is serious. It is a useful number for determining how bad something is. Number of injuries period is irrelevant, number of fatalities while relevant doesn't tell the whole store. Number of fatalities and casualties gives a good idea of the human damage that happened in an incident.

Re:silly eyewitness

[Deadstick]

Uninformed, not silly.

He said "cartwheel" when he meant "spin."

The formally correct term is "groundloop", although "violent yaw" would be valid too. A spin in an airplane is quite something else, and it doesn't happen on the ground.

Re:Pilot error?

[amorsen]

Most passenger jets can (category 3) auto-land these days. It is frequently used.

Re:Pilot error?

[tibit]

I'm not aware of any passenger aircraft that has such a fly by wire system.

Well, that's your problem, then, since autoland has been around for a while and I have been through a zero visibility autoland landing all the way down to the runway. On exiting the plane, I've asked the first officer if they did it manually or using autoland, she said autoland. It was a by-the-book landing, by the way, as far as I could tell. Very smooth.I could tell it was a bit of a crab landing since the nose swayed right as soon as the main gear touched down. So, it was autoland with side wind, too.

Re:silly eyewitness

[msauve]

It's news for an ordinary audience, not pilots. "Spin" is an entirely appropriate term for laymen in this case - it implies exactly what is meant. If you say the plane groundlooped, they're going to think something more like a cartwheel.

Why always mention "terrorism?"

[Sir Holo]

TFA: ...there was no indication of terrorism..."

Why is this still included in any US media article about any aviation accident, or similar event, in the news?

As an ordinary citizen, the question of terrorism is not anywhere near the top of my list of questions regarding "how" or "why" an accident may have occurred. Not at all. Now, the question of "who screwed up? Maintenance, pilot, management, etc.?" is the kind of question that springs to mind.

Or, perhaps, maybe the problem is with me? Should I learn to be more afraid?

Re:Pilot error?

[TubeSteak]

It is not used during take off or landing, and although either could be handled by computer, I'm not aware of any passenger aircraft that has such a fly by wire system. All of them are on the drawing board.

Autoland systems were developed in the 40s and perfected in the 60s by the Brits.
Developed for military purposes and then perfected for commercial purposes because England had endless problems with zero visibility due to their fog + pollution.

Autoland systems are so accurate that a fudge factor was added in, since multiple aircraft will all land on the exact same patch of runway and destroy the surface.
I can't say why you're "not aware of any passenger aircraft that has such a fly by wire system."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system#Special_CAT_II_and_CAT_III_operations

Re:777...

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw you, the triple-6 is a hell of an aircraft.

Re:"Crashes in"?

[HairyNevus]

"Crash-landed" would have been most specific, I suppose.

CNN reports at least 450 dead

[Anonymous Coward]

and about 700 more shuttled to hospitals around the state. They also found nine other uncrashed planes in the vicinity.

Re:news for nerds

[PPH]

He posted a picture of the crash:

We warned you: Turn off the damned phone!

Re:"Crashes in"?

[osu-neko]

For anyone confused by this comment, the original title of this article (before an editor stepped in and fixed it) read "Boeing 777 Crashes In San Francisco". The current title (at the time I'm posting this comment), "Boeing 777 Crashes At San Francisco Airport", is a much better description of the event without taking the mind in some horrific directions before giving the important details.

Re:news for nerds

[osu-neko]

So, news for nerds is strictly about computers, mathematics and shit ?

Aerospace engineers and aviation geeks are apparently resented by computer geeks because they were never as uncool... :p

Re:Not geek news...

[hawguy]

This doesn't really sound like geek news.

One rumor I heard was that ILS (or some portion of it) wasn't functioning on the runway the plane was landing on (28L) so the pilot was making a manual approach without the automated glidepath alerts he'd normally have. If this is true, then this gives the story a technology/geek tie-in, and touches on issues like whether or not humans (pilots in particular) have become too reliant on machines and when the machines fail, humans don't have enough experience without them to be an adequate back up.

Though I haven't seen the ILS issue reported in any official reports, so maybe it's not true.

Re:news for nerds

[nospam007]

"So, news for nerds is strictly about computers, mathematics and shit ? Nerds/Geeks are limited to a point that nothing else interests them ?"

We read that in the 25 normal news sites that we're following.

What we want here, is not the 253th car with a 'stuck gas on the freeway', nor every hard landing by a plane, nor the 7834th new battery type, that's coming Real Soon Now. We also know, that tens of thousands of iPads are stolen by the TSA, no need to report another one. We don't like them either, so don't bother with yet another anecdote how bad/dumb/corrupt they are. We are also aware that you can create bitcoins with your PI-Toaster or washing machine as well.
Also refrain from giving us solar panel power boosts articles or 3d-printed dildos and beerbottle openers or other such stuff.
We 2D print new stuff that's never been printed every single day for decades, an additional dimension doesn't freak us out. We'll survive if somebody 3d prints a halfmoon shaped banana container and we'll never get to know.
Self-driving cars, only if you can buy them at the dealer.
"Facebook sucks" and "Paypal are a bunch of crooks" are not newsworthy items either, now that we have your attention.

Something 'new' would be nice now and then and if it's for nerds, that would be great.

Naturally if a plane crashes because the pilot couldn't start a checklist on his iPad or somebody with a Gorilla Antenna on his phone crashes it, we want to know.:-)

Re:Pilot error?

[AJWM]

I am a pilot.

You're wrong.

Re:Never trust eyewitnesses.

[Trepidity]

Indeed, eyewitness misidentification plays a role in a large number of erroneous convictions.

Re:Pilot error?

[Anaerin]

The pilot HAD to manual land, the ILS system and PAPI glidepath height assistance for runway 28L (and 28R) at SFO is down, as reported in the current NOTAMs(Check for SFO)

!SFO 06/005 (KSFO A1056/13) SFO NAV ILS RWY 28L GP OTS WEF 1306011400-1308222359
!SFO 07/046 (KSFO A1326/13) SFO RWY 28L PAPI OTS WEF 1307062219

That means he was relying on nav beacons and glidepath estimates to come in. Given that SFO's beacons are approx 1.2 miles apart, if he picked the wrong beacon to guild his descent he would have been too high, dropped steeper than usual to get down once he noticed the discrepancy, and didn't have the necessary power to flare and ascend at the end of the runway, so he tailstruck. That makes it pilot error, but confounded and mitigated by most (if not all) the regular guidance and assistance systems they rely on being out of commission.

The Landed Short

[theshowmecanuck]

It is very apparent from pictures of the end of the runway where they landed, that they actually landed short. There is a rock retaining wall coming out of the ocean and you can see significant damage and scrape marks to the retaining wall continuing onto the runway and the beginning of the wreckage trails showing that the landing gear at least, touched down short of the runway. From the way it looked it is easy to see how the tail could have smacked into the runway either at that time or just after and then breaking free.

Re:Pilot error?

[dgatwood]

Except that right now, there's little to no ILS at SFO, as a result of government-mandated construction work to shift the landing zone inland (ironically, to prevent this exact situation), requiring the antennas to be relocated.

Re:Pilot error?

[dgatwood]

Citation: takeoffaviationweather.com. The relevant bits:

KSFO

28 NAVAID Instrument Landing System Runway 28L Glide Path out of service started about 1 month ago ending in about 1 month
28 NAVAID Localizer Type Directional Aid Runway 28R Glide Path out of service started about 1 month ago ending in about 1 month
28 NAVAID Instrument Landing System Runway 28R Glide Path out of service started about 1 month ago ending in about 1 month
23 NAVAID Instrument Landing System Runway 28R Inner Marker out of service until Aug 22 23:59
20 NAVAID Instrument Landing System Runway 28R Category 2/3 Not Authorized started about 1 month ago ending in about 1 month

Emphasis mine.

Re:Pilot error?

[jbwolfe]

Mr Gatwood, I commend you for your insight. I suspect that the lack of glideslope information will become an important factor during the accident investigation. BTW, how did you know this. Navaid outages would normally be disseminated via NOTAMs and are not generally known by non-flying public. I received this information only within the last two weeks from my company and union about the impending construction.

BTW, in addition to inop GS, they also did not have any visual approach path indicators as the PAPI is out of service: ILS RWY 28R LOCALIZER/DME U/S RWY 28L ILS LLZ/DME U/S RWY 10L/28R CLSD RWY 10R/28L CLSD RWY 28L PAPI U/S

Re:"Crashes in"?

[Hognoxious]

Landing: everyone walks away afterwards.
Crash: nobody walks away afterwards.
Crash-landing: anything in between.