Airport landing system off when plane crashed in San Francisco

Reuters ^ | July 07, 2013 | Peter Henderson and Dan Levine

[george76]

A navigation system that helps pilots make safe descents was turned off at San Francisco airport on Saturday when a South Korean airliner crashed and burned after undershooting the runway ...

The system, called Glide Path, is meant to help planes land in bad weather. It was clear and sunny, with light winds, when Asiana

...

San Francisco International has turned off the system for nearly the entire summer on the runway where the Asiana flight crashed, according to a notice from the airport on the Federal Aviation Administration's Web site

[Atlas Sneezed]

That pictures says it all.

Also, with our lives now being surveilled by cameras on nearly every streetcorner, don’t they have cameras monitoring such mundane locations as international airport rulanding zones?

[Yosemitest]

Here are the SFO NOTAMs and here is the SFO Airport data.

[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.

[Big Giant Head]

Yay! Common sense post!

I think you nailed it. Look at the descent rates just a minute or two before “touchdown” and he’s really bringing it. Descending 1500’ fpm at one point, far less at another point, etc. is not a stabilized approach. The very last tick on the Flight aware chart shows the airplane trying to climb and slowing to 85 knots, STALLED IT IN. Tail was low, and hit first.

This is pilot error. Non-stabilized approach requires a go-around and he didn’t. You might question whether the controllers didn’t allow him time to descend or reduce speed, but it doesn’t matter. STABILIZED APPROACH, OR GO AROUND.

[SkyDancer]

Good question. Out for maintenance or calibration? It was a CAVU day it appears so - questions remain - we’ll all know in a couple of weeks as soon as the MSM gets through playing the story with falsehoods of all sorts.

[SkyDancer]

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

[Yosemitest]

Don’t you think that because one bad pilot screws up a landing and people get killed and many get hurt, that they have a reason to be angry?

[Yosemitest]

I don't know.
But the RADAR playback, with all the other traffic at the time will tell most of the story.
Voice tapes will tell most of the rest of the story, and the aircraft "Black (Orange) Boxes will finish the story.

[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.

[ops33]

“...Besides, if the ILS was off then they wouldn’t be able to make evening and night landings after dark at that airport....”

This statement is not correct. ILS is not required for night landings, it is only required for poor weather. Also, there are other instrument approaches, based on GPS, to Runway 28L that provide vertical guidance.

[traumer]

Capt. Chesley Sullenberger: SF airport construction possible factor in crash

.... whistleblower

[diogenes ghost]

"I think you are over your limit on use of exclamation points...."

And you, Sir, have exceeded your limit on uninformative posts from uninformed sources.

You have made statements that you thought made you seem informed, but in fact did the opposite.

[ops33]

I am also a retired USAF air traffic controller and I agree with your assessment. It would be interesting to find out what altitude and distance from runway the aircraft was when he was cleared for his approach.
(Scott Tower, Zweibrucken GCA, Cannon Tower, Berlin Center, 3d Mob)

[eyedigress]

Link?

[ops33]

If you go to AirNav you’ll see that there is a LOC/DME approach to this runway, no Glide Slope.

[ops33]

If you look at the aerial pic of the crash the threshold is displaced.

[traumer]

sorry
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57592541/capt-chesley-sullenberger-s.f-airport-construction-possible-factor-in-crash/

[ops33]

It also appears that the threshold has been displaced and the PAPI’s and GS transmitter have not been relocated to the new threshold. That would account for them being Notamed out.

[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.

[justlurking]

Thanks, I was looking at exactly those two pages. :-)

However, I noticed something interesting:

!SFO 07/048 SFO RWY 10L/28R CLSD WEF 1307062310
!SFO 07/047 SFO RWY 10R/28L CLSD WEF 1307062309
!SFO 07/046 SFO RWY 28L PAPI OTS WEF 1307062219

The PAPI was reported OTS and the Runways were closed at the same time. Isn't this a result of the crash? The time is a few hours after the crash.

The glide path on the 28L ILS was reported out of service earlier:

!SFO 06/005 SFO NAV ILS RWY 28L GP OTS WEF 1306011400-1308222359

So, my question is: was the PAPI really OTS earlier, or is this entry really as a result of the crash? Was there an earlier entry that has been superseded?