One Eight...clear to land..1354

[Grey Ghost]

They posted the audio yesterday.

:sadangel::sadangel:

Sad to hear this stuff sometimes. You know it is their last spoken words and the what ifs..what if the main runway had been open?

The main was closed and they were offered one eight. The audio is between the tower, aircraft, and ground crew on the field. This was the UPS heavy crash at Birmingham.

http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/2013-08-14/media/UPS1354_CD_8-14-13.mp3

[RED-85-Z51]

So 24 was the main strip, and it was closed..so they lined up for 18, and came in too low?

http://flightlineaviationmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/bhmmap.jpg

http://imgick.al.com/home/bama-media/pgmain/img/birmingham-news/photo/2013/08/-b6d10abfa6f64281.JPG

[wwomanC6]

Got anymore info on this or should I Google?

Not much communication between tower and aircraft. But they were clear to land on a closed runway?

[RED-85-Z51]

As best I can tell, Runway 24 was the main strip and it was closed...they were trying to get it open but UPS 1354Heavy opted to land on alternate runway 18..not as wide or long, but enough.

The sink rate alarms went off 13 seconds before impact..the pilot commented the runway was in sight...then it hit some trees, bounced off the ground..broke into 2 sections and then came to rest short of the airport. Auto Pilot was engaged. Both pilots died, they were the only people on board.

[Grey Ghost]

So 24 was the main strip, and it was closed..so they lined up for 18, and came in too low?


:yesnod:

Pretty much...impact with terrain is the way it is usually worded. One experienced pilot said to never try and land there in full auto mode. You have to manually fly the plane all the way. You can also hear a Fedx pilot in the audio that landed a few minutes later on 18. Sometimes you get away with mistakes other times you don't.

[Grey Ghost]

Got anymore info on this or should I Google?

Not much communication between tower and aircraft. But they were clear to land on a closed runway?

Main was closed to repair lights. You can hear the tower talking with the work crew about getting it opened. 18 was open and capable for the landing, but didn't have the same landing aides as the main runway. Similar to the crash in Calif. some say pilots rely too much on electronics vs. manual flying these days.

[onedef92]

:yesnod:

Pretty much...impact with terrain is the way it is usually worded. One experienced pilot said to never try and land there in full auto mode. You have to manually fly the plane all the way. You can also hear a Fedx pilot in the audio that landed a few minutes later on 18. Sometimes you get away with mistakes other times you don't.

Where they apparently relying on the electronics to automatically compensate for the new runway trajectory? :confused5:

Did the VWS sound, "Terrain! Terrain! Pull Up! Pull Up!" before impact on the recording?

PULL UP and LOW TERRAIN cockpit alarm sounds. - YouTube

[Grey Ghost]

Where they apparently relying on the electronics to automatically compensate for the new runway trajectory? :confused5:

Did the VWS sound, "Terrain! Terrain! Pull Up! Pull Up!" before impact on the recording?


This clip is from the tower, ground maintenance., and aircraft. Maybe the cockpit voice recorder had more? I didn't hear any warnings...nothing from the tower either....pilot is always in control, but there have been crashes in the past were people thought the tower should have warned the incident aircraft about altitude, etc...looks like just an example of controlled flight into terrain. I THINK? The localizer (which they were on) is basically a electronic beam that directs them to the runway? But, does not tell you what altitude you should be stepping down at any given point along the flight path.

Transcript:

http://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/2013-08-14/media/UPS1354_2014_01_09_10_47_29_319.pdf

[Mike Mercury]

may be old news though...

The pilots of a United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) freighter killed when the plane crashed in Alabama got a warning they were descending too quickly seconds before impact, according to investigators.

A cockpit alert announced “sink rate, sink rate” 7 seconds before the first sounds of impact are heard on the plane’s recorders, Robert Sumwalt, a member of U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, said yesterday at a briefing in Birmingham.

Sumwalt provided the first information from the plane’s voice and data recorders, which were reviewed at the safety board’s Washington headquarters after being recovered in the plane’s wreckage.

A controller at the airport tower told NTSB investigators he watched the Airbus SAS A300-600F shortly before dawn Aug. 14 as it neared the airport and “saw what appeared to be a bright spark flash, which he equated to what it would look like if a power line broke,” Sumwalt said.

The controller then lost sight of the plane’s landing lights, Sumwalt said. “That was followed by a bright orange flash, according to the controller, and then a red glow,” Sumwalt said. “Then he immediately activated the crash phone.”

The wide-body plane struck trees and a utility line before slamming into a hillside, according to the NTSB. It broke apart and burst into flames in a field north of the airport.


The first impact sounds came 9 seconds before the recording stopped, Sumwalt said.

Fatigue Factor
Captain Cerea Beal, 58, of Matthews, North Carolina, and First Officer Shanda Fanning, 37, of Lynchburg, Tennessee, died, the company said in a release.

Preliminary information indicated they began their work day at 9:30 p.m. in Rockford, Illinois, the night before the crash, Sumwalt said. They were completing their third flight of the night when they crashed shortly before 5 a.m. local time.

Whether the pilots were fatigued will examined in the crash probe.

Sumwalt didn’t say whether the plane’s ground-collision warning system issued a more urgent warning telling the pilots to “pull up” to avoid hitting the ground. He also declined to characterize whether the pilots had enough time to climb before the first impact.

Another warning system built into air-traffic computers didn’t issue any alerts to controllers that the plane was too low, Sumwalt said.

Flight 1354 was en route to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport from Louisville, Kentucky, the Atlanta-based company’s air hub. UPS is the world’s largest package-delivery company.

Shorter Runway
The plane approached before dawn to land on Runway 18, which at 7,100 feet was shorter than the 12,000-foot alternate landing strip. The longer runway was closed for maintenance on its lights at the time of the accident, Sumwalt said.

Runway 18 also lacks an instrument-landing system to provide planes with a glide slope guiding them to the runway and ensuring that they descend clear of higher terrain, according to pilot-information website AirNav.com.

Beal, who was flying the plane on the approach, was hired by UPS in 1990 and had 8,600 hours of flight experience, Sumwalt said.

Fanning had 6,500 hours of flight time. She was hired in 2006, he said.

The NTSB didn’t release any information from the plane’s flight-data recorder. It contains more than 400 data tracks documenting the plane’s last 70 hours, according to Sumwalt.

“Our investigative staff in Washington has to go through and validate and verify those parameters to make sure they are valid,” he said. “That process does take time.”

[Grey Ghost]

Sounds like they didn't maintain airspeed and certainly not altitude. I wonder if they were familiar with that runway or had ever used it before...maybe slowing down too quickly due to it's length.

First Officer Shanda Fanning, 37, of Lynchburg, Tennessee. I think she had connections with the Jack Daniels Dist.

[onedef92]

Sounds like they didn't maintain airspeed and certainly not altitude. I wonder if they were familiar with that runway or had ever used it before...maybe slowing down too quickly due to it's length.

First Officer Shanda Fanning, 37, of Lynchburg, Tennessee. I think she had connections with the Jack Daniels Dist.

So they may have stalled short of the runway. Too low altitude to regain controlled flight.

[Mike Mercury]

So they may have stalled short of the runway. Too low altitude to regain controlled flight.

it's an Airbus, what did you expect?

France - Mulhouse - Airbus A320 Crash during auto landing - YouTube

[Grey Ghost]

So they may have stalled short of the runway. Too low altitude to regain controlled flight.

Too low and too slow. Like the old saying, "Keep up thine airspeed, lest the earth rise up and smite thee'.

[Knooger]

Damn, this can't be real?

747 Mid Air Collision - Averted - YouTube

[Grey Ghost]

Pilots reported fatigue, erred in UPS jet crash (http://news.yahoo.com/pilots-reported-fatigue-erred-ups-jet-crash-173057295--finance.html)

[Craig]

Pilots reported fatigue, erred in UPS jet crash (http://news.yahoo.com/pilots-reported-fatigue-erred-ups-jet-crash-173057295--finance.html)

I heard that today on the news. I'm sure competition for thier jobs is high, so they're not going to risk the boat...sad.