[BunnySlippers]

This is supposedly not unusual. It was off for the summer. Apparently common.

Couldn’t the pilots land w/o it?

[calex59]

So, what does this have to do with anything? If it was clear weather the pilot didn’t need the system or was he totally incompetent?

[a fool in paradise]

San Francisco International has turned off the system for nearly the entire summer

Repairs?

Electricity usage "brownout" to conserve energy for air conditioning around the region?

[oh8eleven]

A navigation system that helps pilots make safe descents was turned off at San Francisco airport
C'mon, real men don't need navigation safety systems.

[Vendome]

ILS doesn’t matter on a bright clear day with light winds.

These planes are equipped with their own various radars. In particular to squaker that goes off and calling your feet from the ground.

I am curious what happened here though.

[wastedyears]

Why the hell would the ILS be off?

[Stosh]

Has anybody blamed this on the sequester yet?

[dalereed]

“The system, called Glide Path”

No it’s not!!!

It’s called ILS, Instrument Landing System.

Totally unnecessary in clear weather.

[justlurking]

At SFO, runway 29L has a 4-light PAPI system on the left side of the runway.

When the aircraft is on the glide path, 2 lights are red, and 2 lights are white. If the aircraft is significantly below the glide path, all 4 lights are red.

[HangnJudge]

Clear weather
Daylight

No excuse

[RicocheT]

So what? The pilots were responsible for establishing and maintaining a proper landing glide path. They obviously blew it, unless the black box shows some equipment malfunction. It was a long runway, they should have figured the landing point some hundreds of feet down the runway, not the seawall.

[Bernard]

If this is the runway that comes in over the water, the pavement starts soon after land starts. I heard some news show this morning that the landing zone is about 1,000 feet into the runway, and the seawall is another 300 feet back from there, which means that the seawall is about 1,300 from the desired landing area.

So how far is a 1/4 mile when you are at landing speed? At 30 MPH, my GPS starts "turn here", and my GPS is in my car, which is on the ground on pavement, not in an airplane holding 100's of people.

This most likely is pilot error, but that approach should provide as much support as possible. It's not like you come in short and bounce in a corn-field and knock down a traffic sign; here you hit a wall. Big difference.

[TangoLimaSierra]

San Francisco International has turned off the system for nearly the entire summer...

What with the sequester and all.

[Logical me]

No peripheral vision due to the surrounding water at threshold. Aircraft too low. Attempted gaining about 100 feet by raising nose and maybe increasing power. Power would not increasing since jet engines take moments to build thrust. Tail hit the space before threshold and broke off, Nose came down and the aircraft slammed the area prior to the threshold. Gear broke off. Plane slid on belly to where it rested and looks like the left engine tore off and rested next to fuselage. Evacuation must have occurred before fire from the resting engine. All this could have been corrected if the ILS was working. Even so if the pilot had visual on the yellow light he could have made correction on glide path seconds before being committed.

I'm damn old and ancient pilot, forgot some of the terminology. Just my thoughts. Used to come in a little high and use cross control to drop altitude at threshold and flare for fun.

[SkyDancer]

Not sure, haven’t checked but SFO should have a VASI system as a backup.

[bunkerhill7]

In 1980`s(?) another pass. plane pilot just ditched in the bay next to the airport runway coz it`s very shallow there.
But it got stuck in the mud and they had to crane it out.
Water landings there and next to OAK are nice shallow cushions if you can get`em.

[IFly4Him]

At large airports it’s common for ILS systems to be offline for maintenance or upgrades. SFO has three of them. IMO this fact is irrelevant to this particular incident.

[deport]

Question is what were the devices on the plane that help with approach, elevation, etc showing? Were they malfunctioning, etc. and what does the pilot voice recorder show?

[Real Cynic No More]

Sequester? Using too much carbon-based electricity? Is this what we have to look forward to when the coal power plants are forced to shut down due to new EPA rules?

[noinfringers2]

My first thoughts were that an entire aft section which makes me think of how a plane structures sections are put together was torn off. Something happened to make such an apparent ‘clean’ separation. From what I hear data recorders should be able to go back all kinds of possibilities. No matter the cause we can be thankful for lives saved but still mourn the dead and injured.