NTSB Animation of Asiana Flight 214 accident sequence

What a crock to blame Boeing or manuals!

Find a lowly student pilot who has not learned the concept of being on speed, on power with a stable descent rate on glide path even in severe clear and I'll point you to an instructor who needs to lose his tickets. It does not matter whether it's a 152 or a 777. The same rule applies. The airplane doesn't care if you're a non-solo student or have 30,000 hours in heavy iron.

These guys were unstable at least seven miles out and they continued, not acting until a half-mile from the threshold. They failed to make it do what they needed to do. They should have been hand-flying and were overdependent upon automation. They over-corrected for excessive error, made several large changes in succession and made themselves even more unstable. In the end, that bird did exactly what it was designed to do... no power, no speed... no fly!

Chhhhhht....uh...ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Obvious, I would like to welcome you to this investigation...

In defense of everybody and softening up just a tad, it is not right to penalize and blame a whole industry, including Asiana, for the actions of a couple of dummies that crashed a perfectly good airplane on a clear day. Personal Status overrode CRM and should not have, yet while very aware of it, you'll find no reference to it in the NTSB report. PC? Why the PM did not monitor airspeed/altitude, especially since he was in the instructor role, we'll never know. My personal opinion is that he was intimidated because he was younger in age and less total time and deferred/gave into, the PF, who was senior status wise. But again, why did he not monitor the approach?

One has to understand how the airplane and its systems function before you take off with a load of passengers and crew. The airline will try to blame Boeing, but I cannot accept that.

Any half wit knows, at least they should know, that when you get behind an airplane on final approach the last thing you should ever rely on is pushing buttons, twisting knobs and flipping switches (turning yourself into a systems monitor) as if a heavy jet behemoth flying machine is to be treated like a video game. All that *&$% gets shoved aside and ignored in such a situation while getting a firm grip with one hand on the primary flight control and the throttles in the other hand, look out the window if visual while crosschecking back inside the instrumentation (needles, speed, Altitude, ROD), requesting assistance from the NFP if necessary and drive the airplane to the desired approach path with positive control inputs while correcting as necessary and keeping the airplane at or near the desired approach speed. Of immense help is to quickly compute the desired altitude (DME x 300) if unsure of where the airplane should be in altitude until the optical landing aid (if available) is acquired.

The absolute last thing any driver should ever do is let the airplane get low and slow. That's drummed into ab initio pilots from day one. If unable to get the airplane to the desired flight path and at or near the desired approach speed by the time the airplane reaches short final, inside a half mile, there's only one viable alternative, i.e. push the throttles forward and TAKE IT AROUND. I don't care what nationality, race, color or creed the pilots happen to be, that has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Their full and undivided attention to detail during an approach to land all the way to touchdown and roll out is all that matters, period!

If the pilot is not fully trained and knowledgeable on all the systems available in the airplane he is operating, then he should be taken off the line and put in remedial training until he is current and thoroughly familiar with those systems and can demonstrate a satisfactory level of knowledge in simulation as well as the judgement needed to shuck all the bells and whistles aside and fly the airplane by hand when the bells and whistles are too slow to catch up as was almost certainly the case in this accident. Asian culture being what it is, some will argue that CRM is not always compatible to which my response is: BS, culture should never take precedence over safety (CRM) in the cockpit of a modern heavy jet transport.

For what it's worth, here's the link to the full NTSB report:
http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2014/asiana214/abstract.html

The was an example of amateurish piloting. Just about everything they could've messed up, they did mess up.

PF was clearly incompetent. PM did not do anything about it until it was way too late to save the plane and the lives and bodies of the passengers aboard.

Shameful really.

If the 777 auto-throttle is too complicated and the documentation inadequate, why aren't 777s falling out of the sky regularly?

The simple fact is that, despite the apologist Zumwalt, these guys *were* incompetent. Auto-throttle in final approach is not a set-it-and-forget it proposition. If you set your car's cruise control to 60 and inadvertently touch the brake and the speed dropped to 50, would you intervene? Of course you would (I'm speaking of the 30% of drivers who aren't on the phone or texting).

As Cox said, when you fly a visual approach, you have to look out the window. Plus all the indications of the results of the unskilled flying that took place were on the panel. But they had to look at it. What this guy was looking at -- clearly not the runway or the panel -- is a mystery to me.

LOL... How much more could the crew be blamed. They say all crashes have more than one cause. I do agree.. My list below of the 3 reasons.

1.) Pilot Flying
2.) Pilot Not Flying
3.) Observer

It seems pretty obvious that the PIC was flying the computer rather than the airplane.

What's frightening is that they couldn't accomplish a fundamental VFR approach and landing! Hands on...Fly airplane.

More diplomatic political correctness from Washington DC.

I agree with Ken. As a student, the basics of landing were taught over and over. Why blame Boeing. Those features are there to HELP the pilot fly, not fly for the pilot.

Not enough actual flying happening here...elementary flying skills not apparent. PAPI, throttles, stick n'rudder...what else was required? Dependant on automation, but they didn't even know how that worked. How common is this? I figure not very, but I wonder sometimes. No shame in hand-flying, folks...good practice.

From the report, the link to which Preacher1 thankfully provided:
"Reduced design complexity and enhanced training on the airplane’s autoflight system. The PF had an inaccurate understanding of how the Boeing 777 A/P and A/T systems interact to control airspeed in FLCH SPD mode,...."

Is it just me, or does that imply that the PF did not know how to fly the 777 at the time?

I'm not a pilot, yet the animation made total sense to me. The critical control items were clear and understandable. As with any mechanical item, if you don't learn and follow the instructions, you end up with bad results. Killing people is the ultimate bad result.

Anyone know what happened to those pilots? Maybe they're flying for Ryanair now.

It's not that complicated. They crashed because the crew was not qualified to fly the airplane. Regardless of how many hours they had on it. The airline is responsible for putting an unqualified crew in charge of the airplane and passengers.

If any of this were Boeing's fault, why aren't airplanes falling out of the sky every day? SFO has one landing or take-off every minute, on average. The 777 is a very common visitor to SFO. i.e., many other 777s landed at the same place in the very same conditions (good weather, no ILS). But *somehow*, this was the only flight that crashed.

I'm a mere passenger and all I've ever flown is MS Flight Simulator on my PC but even I know that thrust equals altitude (all else being equal). That animation was weird to watch with the throttle indicator staying down at idle while all the dithering was happening.

I want to add one more thought to my previous comments. It is pretty shocking to me that the PF and perhaps the PM didn't understand the 777 auto-flight system. I am trained in physics and have an advanced degree in mathematics. To get that degree, I had to demonstrate that I understood concepts far more complex than those required to operate a 777 auto-pilot. I demonstrated that in written examinations. How did these guys get certified to take responsibility for the lives of hundreds of innocents without having conclusively demonstrated that they knew what they were doing? Which they demonstrated they did not by crashing a perfectly good airplane in daylight in good weather. Either the written exams were not well crafted, or the requirements for passing were too lenient. There's clearly a major hole here in the training and pilot certification process used by Asiana and the South Korean aviation authorities. And there's a problem with the FAA, too, since they allowed these people to fly into our airspace and use our airports.

Culture can play a very crucial rule in the cockpit !
Lets not kid ourselves....even in our Western culture
its not always simple as a copilot to question the captain.
In Eastern cultures like the Korean, the captain is the
absolute boss !

During the NTSB Hearings, the pilot had been "very concerned" about attempting a visual approach without instrument landing aids, which were not in operation. The Cockpit Equipment was designed to offer pilots choices so that they could fly the plane, with warnings when conditions warrant. "Pilot Automation" is to aid the pilot NOT to replace the pilot.
By the way the 2/3 passengers were expelled from the aircraft. They weren't wearing a simple safety item called a seatbelt.

While I do not believe the ATC has any burden to bear in this case, one has to wonder that the ATCs that watch the radar and see these guys coming in continually day in and day out, they get used to seeing the planes approaching certain fixes/points at certain altitudes and certain speeds. I would've thought something would've flagged somebody upstairs on final.

Just wondering if pressing the "FLCH SPD" would have been appropriate during an approach on other Boeing airliners or if this works differently on the B-777? And, does dis-engaging the A/P and A/T during a visual approach procedure differ among other airline policies? If yes, why is this so?

"The magenta people" strike again. Basic airmanship - know your aeroplane, airspeed...

NASA introduced the crew loop and CRM in 1979 so there is absolutely no excuse for a crew and especially training captain to ignore basic principles and procedures. Thousands of rotations and hours completed by pilots of the 777 knowing their aeroplane and flying it.

Then four front seat passengers ruin it. Every aeroplane has its intricacies and that is why we have training inclusive of CRM and human factors, which they obviously lacked.

This appeared to be a total breakdown in approach protocol.

There are old pilots....there are bold pilots but there
are no Old and Bold pilots.

Just fly the plane…..its that simple.

There weren't any pilots on board, only incompetent systems operators.

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NTSB Finds Pilot Error Caused Asiana Crash in 2013

The National Transportation Safety Board said that the flight crew that crashed a Boeing 777 aircraft against the sea wall at San Francisco International Airport was to blame for the accident that killed three people and left more than 180 injured. The Asiana pilots, according to the NTSB, missed multiple cues that they had done something wrong in the seconds before the crash that occurred the morning of July 6, 2013.

http://www.frequentbusinesstraveler.com/2014/06/ntsb-finds-pilot-error-caused-asiana-crash-in-2013/

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Animation of Asiana Flight 214 accident sequence

The National Transportation Safety Board will meet to determine the probable cause of the July 2013 crash of Asiana Airlines flight 214 in California.

On July 6, at about 11:28 a.m. (PDT), the Boeing 777, was on approach to runway 28L at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California when it struck the seawall at the end of the runway. Three of the 291 passengers on board flight 214 died and over 180 other passengers and crewmembers were injured. The airplane was destroyed by impact forces and a postcrash fire.

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http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2014/asiana214/presentations.html

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Pilots blamed for Asiana crash

(CNN) -
Pilots botched the approach and landing of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 in San Francisco nearly a year ago, causing a crash that killed three people and injured 187 others, U.S. safety investigators concluded on Tuesday.

But the National Transportation Safety Board also found that crew training and the complexities of a key flight system on the Boeing 777 and how it was described in operating manuals contributed to the July 6 disaster.



http://m.click2houston.com/news/Pilots-blamed-for-Asiana-crash/26638700