Quantas never crashed
Posted on 11/03/2009 2:01:58 PM PST by naturalman1975
QANTAS has stood down two pilots after a Boeing 767 landing in Sydney came within 700ft of the ground before the flight crew realised they had not lowered the plane's undercarriage.
The airline and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau have launched investigations into the October 26 incident. The pilots are due to be interviewed by authorities on Friday.
The crew on the Melbourne-Sydney CityFlyer service apparently recognised the problem and had started go-around procedures when they received a "gear too low" aural warning from the aircraft's enhanced ground proximity warning system.
It is understood investigators are looking at possible human error and a communication breakdown between the first officer and captain about who was lowering the landing gear.
According to a former Boeing 767 pilot, a crew on an instrument approach would normally start lowering the undercarriage when the plane was between 2000ft and 1500ft in order to ensure that it met requirements that the aircraft was stable and configured to land at 1000ft.
In visual conditions, the aircraft needed to be stable by 500ft, but lowering the gear at 700ft or even at 1000ft was still far too late, the pilot said.
Landing gear problems or gear-up situations were involved in 15 per cent of airline hull-loss accidents last year, according to an analysis by the International Air Transport Association.
But Qantas said yesterday that a crew failing to lower the undercarriage was extremely rare and it was taking the incident seriously. "The flight crew knew all required procedures but there was a brief communications breakdown," a spokeswoman said.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
Oops. First the pilots who forgot to land, and now pilots who forget to lower the landing gear. It’s a bad month for pilots!
It is said that there are two kinds of pilots: those who have landed with the gear up, and those who will...
A “gear too low” warning? Seems like a “gear not low enough” warning would make more sense.
“Gosh, why is it taking full power to taxi?”
I am sure the passengers were just thrilled about this.
You have to light the afterburner to taxi.
(Sorry. Obligatory F-4 Phantom humor)
My thoughts exactly except I was gonna say “gear too HIGH” warning.
Or a “Hey, sorry to nag you, but you forgot the bloody landing gear” warning.
Aren’t some checklists now electronic?
Best argument against retractable landing gear, ever.
Oi... boofheads...
Passengers would have noticed the go around, but those are not uncommon.
Heh... then there is that measurement of time called the "Ohnosecond": That brief bit of time when you realize that the gear ~should have~ chirped on the ground already... and you know it's too late to do anything about it.
Gee, I hate it when that happens.
QANTAS”, an acronym for “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services”. Nicknamed “The Flying Kangaroo.”
Well what do expect from an arline with a goofy name?
You got me thinking of Otto the pilot taking the plane off at the end of the movie "Airplane." :-)
Words fail...
Isn’t Quantis the only major carrier that has never had a crash?
Australians expect a lot from it and take an inordinate amount of pride in the fact that Qantas has never had a fatal accident in the jet era (not than most of us have anything to do with that record). This leads to real concern when we see anything that makes us think the record might be lost.
Check Lists are your friends!
I hear ya, I was just kidding.
Prior to the jet age, there were eight fatal accidents between 1927 and 1951, as well as one Qantas aircraft shot down by the Japanese during the Second World War.
“Why is that bloomin’ alarm soudin’?”
“Dunno mate. Heeeyyyy, what’s that scraping sound?”
Ppl are treating this like they crash past a red light, when thats not what happened. They just didn’t lower the wheels at the start of the yellow light, but near the end
In this day & age & commanding a state-of-the-art passenger jet, how's this possible?
Granted I'm not a pilot let alone one piloting one of these monsters; but, I was a Controls Designer so I'm compelled to ask: wasn't there at least one or more annunciators going bananas as altitude was clearly a descending function?
Good grief.
Gear too low, means the plane is too low for the pilots to lower the gear. I am sure you figured that out.
Well, OK, one is a little noisier than the other, but then it stops after a little while.
Don’t forget your GUMPS
Thanks for the clarification.
Pretty good record I guess. Prolly better than TAM in South America
"Hold on a sec Cap...Im downloading a F...ing windows security update on my laptop!"
Gas
Undercarriage
Mixture
Propeller
Switches
Seat belts
Quantas never crashed
Not to be confused with the “Obamasecond” - that interval of time between voting and realizing the consequences...
Oh, Wow, Man. We got to put the WHEELS down? Give me ‘nother toke.
Sounds like it could be a sequel to "A Bridge Too Far."
Even with all of the electronics checklist discipline still counts for a lot.
Well, on the bright side...at least they had arrived at the correct destination...
Answer: Nope, but the plane will lower to the pavement.
My instructor Mr. Wright said it's the longest few seconds you'll ever have as a pilot, particularly the *second* time it happens. ;)
This isn't nearly that serious though. These guys are probably descending at 200 feet per minute on approach, so they lowered them like a couple minutes after they should have and still a few to several minutes before actual landing.
Heck, charter pilots wouldn't even want to slow down that far out, your clients are paying for that time. These guys probably used to fly bush in the outback or something. :~D
heh... I was thinking of your Wright stories when I wrote that. :-)
LOL... now, that's funny right there...
So are air controllers ... standard phaseology from Navy tower, or GCA air controllers, 3 miles out on final .... confirm wheels down. There is a reason for that phraseology .... Navy has always recognized it
Pilots responsibility ... air contollers ensure
Heh... then there is that measurement of time called the “Ohnosecond”:
The infamous “OHno”
All Navy pilots know it. “Ohno” Taken straight from the legendary “OHNO” bird with 4” gonads and 2” legs. You could hear them coming in for a landing screaming “ohno” “ohno” “ohno” .....
Also sometimes called a mile or more bird ... you could hear tehm for a mile or more away screaming “ohno” “ohno” “ohno”
Some years back I was killing time in a library browsing though back issues of Aviation Week. One old issue had a rundown of all the military aircraft lost in the preceding year in peacetime accidents.
The described crashes were the normal accidents you’d expect but one that stuck with me was a P-3 destroyed when the pilot forgot to lower the landing gear.
It happens.
It does happen... rarely on schedule carriers, it’s on about 3-4 of the checklists so you’d have to fail to check it more than once, and there’s a pretty good warning system that makes all kinds of noise and flashing lights if you haven’t done it.
It happens most frequently on training flights because there are many flight training maneuvers that are done at altitude that might cause the warning system to start beeping at you even though you aren’t landing... slow flight, stalls, chandelles, etc, and flight instructors get tired of thing beeping and having to talk over it, so they pull the breaker... on that and the stall warning horn. Then they forget to check the breakers and push them back in on the way back, so the warning system doesn’t work. That’s how it happened to my instructor.... twice ;~)
Some of the high performance singles and light twins have an automatic gear down and low and slow power setting... trying to idiot proof the doctor and lawyer killers :)
Yah... and it's probably ingrained standard phraseology to reply to the controller with "Roger, wheels down confirmed." whether or not they've actually done it or not. Habits do that.
The reply was never given out of habit, and NEVER taken and responded by habit. HABITS DO NOT exist in NavalAir. There is no room for habit .. only instruction given. It is why the civilian populace never understands the military and the things the miltary man goe through in training. It is why knife and fork school and boot camp is a gold plated sob focusing in minutiae ....Instructions are never ignored ...(unless on purpose) .......
I guaranDAM tee you.. when coming off base leg onto final, and that controller gave me heading, wind direction/speed and “wheels down and locked” command, not only did my eye go to the light, my fingers touched the switch ... it NEVER becomes habit for a naval aviator.
Yah. Ok.
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