When Full Thrust Isn't Enough - A Sobering Look at Delta Flight 191

That odd combination of numbers is bad news, AA191, DL 191, comair 191.

i wonder what it is with the numbers 191

Naturally, when you read the armchair Quarterback reports, they blame it on the Pilots. Bullcrap!!!!!!!! Seniors, both of them. I saw the remains of that Aircraft, and it is unfortunate that some died but some lived. You have to remember that this was the very early 80's and not near as much was known then about wind shear and microbursts as is now. As a matter of fact, if memory serves correct, this crash really speeded up the research and got it on the front burner. These pilots did all that they or anybody else knew at the time, shoot the juice and pitch up, but as the story says, they just didn't have enough juice to overcome a 40kt downdraft.Best I remember from the tapes, there was TOGA,TOGA,TOGA(take off go around) from either one of the warning devices or one of the pilots themselves. What they were seeing ahead of them, yeah maybe they could have went around before they got there, but again, we weren't looking out of their windshield. They probably didn't see anything they hadn't seen before.

I was driving near the approach area at that time. I can remember the 1000's of emergency vehicles sirens from every direction. Chilling to listen to the radio transmission from the flight crew. Thanks for posting.

What really gets me, and it's confirmed in the story lest anybody forget, when you are at 800' on final for DFW, at 150-200kth, whatever the approach speed of an L-1011 is, that ain't a lot of time to do anything anyway. Blame it on the pilots. shoulda,coulda,woulda. I guess they felt like dying too. Damn Monday morning quarterbacks. Can't help it I guess; just like that United Deal in New Orleans a few weeks back. Cockpit full of smoke and couldn't see squat, but they got it back on the ground and no injuries, yet the pilots got tagged because they missed some of the checklist. I'm gonna hush before I say anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

look at swissair 911 at peggy's cove a few years ago

Having spent 4.0 hours on the crashsite of flt 191 AA - it reminds me that these big birds are getting bigger, closer on take off and landing, then add air space redesign along with poor maint practices out of country.
The jet jockeys over us today violate the FAA rules in not staying in the airlanes while on inbound/glide path - as documented. With over 60 "Errors"
alone over the O'Hare air space, the 2001-2006 GAO report classifying ORD ans the 2nd worst airport in the country, then Forbes investigative report also stating that ORD is the 8th worst airport in the country - all due to the near misses - ground collisions and lack of ramp safety. Flyers have rights - what about those land locked in the glide paths? Andolion is on her way out at O'Hare. The airlines can't take her anymore. Good luck at the Daley family store! The money tree continues to grow......

Well, Gene, I don't know all your qualifications other than by your ID here, that you hold no certificate.It's kinda hard to figure where you are putting blame here, except that you see to be saying that there is enough to go around. As long as there are human beings flying the planes, in the ARTC's and towers, there will coninue to be mistakes, and there probably is enough to go around. What is hard to determine these days on any statistic, whether an error log or some highway stat, is that there is no comparison from today to 10 years ago. 10 years ago a report went off into never never land and floated around for a couple of years before it ever got into a log anywhere, if it did at all. Now, those reports are instaneous from the field into a mainframe, so as in so many cases, we really don't know if something is actually worse, or just finally being tracked/reported, having always been there. I wish you would refrain from commenting on "jet jockeys" until you are one. When you go to relying on gov't statistics instead of looking out the windshield, you may find yourself on a limb.

Well said, Wayne. There are many shoes waiting to be walked in.

I've heard that the spin up time for turbines is a factor in accidents such as this. I remember the controversy that erupted following this accident regarding the decision whether to continue the approach or not.

Fact is that wind shear caused by what ever reason, deteriorating airspeed by 25 percent or more on short final, is at least hard to predict and hard to handle. When that one approach in 5000 goes to hell in 5 seconds due to a sudden unpredictable 40 knot loss of airspeed and it takes time for the thrust to come up.....this is what happens.

It would appear operators have gotten a handle on this as there haven't been any more like it lately, and wind shear and t-storms aren't any less common. Probably has been repeated thousands of times in simulators.

There were a whole lot of things that got looked at and brought to the front burner after this crash that had just been talked about before. If I remember right, Doppler/Wind shear detection was either already in the plans for DFW or put in shortly thereafter and is pretty much standard across the country now.. I don't remember anything about the spin up times, and I never flew the L-1011 but there is always a momentary lag of some kind on any type equipment power up. At 800' on what was then a very short final, I doubt it would have made that much difference. When you lose that much airspeed that quick and the ground that close, you can't do much other than hope you are ready to meet your maker.

If the pilots crashed at full power! They did what they could.
If ATC had just one PIREP about heavy downdrafts and did not pass it on to everyone. then I will blame ATC!

Billy, we are talking right at 30 years ago and I have slept since then but I believe the post mortem did show full power.There was a lot of shoulda, could, woulda afterwards but if memory serves correct, there was very little known about wind shear at the time so we can't get too hard on ATC and I think that ATC did advise of a Tstorm and the pilots could see it visually and on their radar but without Doppler, they nor anyone else had no idea what was in it.If there had been a PIREP it wouldn't have been anymore than a Tstorm or whatever. If someone else had hit the same thing, they would have hit the ground rather than 191. It comes up that fast and also goes that fast.You have to remember that this was a time that Doppler was just in it's infancy stages, as far as installation and recognition of it's true worth at the time. As I said, it was either in the planning stages to be installed at DFW or was installed as a result of this crash. Sad as it may be, a lot of our technological advances in any field have come as a result of a learning experience frome something like this.

I still believe that had there been a PIREP, not just its raining or thunderstorm nearby.
More like, "WE JUST DROPPED 40KTS AND BAD DOWNDRAFT".
I guess that the crash was the only PIREP available.

Why are you rehashing something that happened 30 years ago. We all know the pilots did what they were trained to do and was consistent with the training supplied by their company. Since then training has been improved, more is known about wind shear and wind shear detection has been vastly improved.

Yes it is easy to blame the pilots when they are not around to defend themselves. The NTSB also blamed Delta and the FAA for failures resulting in this accident.

Well, it' not really a rehash. I guess it just hit a nerve or brought back bad memories when the story first came out. Ed Conners was a friend of mine and to listen to the video and hear his voice calling TOGA, and all that happenend in those last few seconds and to realize how fast it happened was a little much. As the story said, that crash shook the industry and there are a whole lot of safety things out there now that we take for granted, that came about as a result of that crash. It is just sad that something like that has to happen to bring them about.

I think that most of us, at least many can recall most crashes, by number or location.
Our job is NOT to repeat what has always happened.
I certainly will look for a nice river if I ever ingest birds in both engines.
Likewise, if ATC frantically says pull up and TCAS says go down, ( as in the case of DHL vs Aeroflot )
the rule is do what the machine says. The safety rule always follows the accident!

I, like a lot of the folks here, believe that the crew did all that was possible to save the bird and all on board. I have flown this situation in a C130 simulator. In every case,(three tries) I pranged. I knew it was coming, and I still could not recover in an aircraft with virtually instant throttle response. I don't believe they had a chance.
Jerry

Jerry, they didn't

I feel for the crew. Too bad it took this many wind shear crashes before the FAA (Monday Morning QB's) to finally get it.

And this is my last comment(and some will be glad)but I am a thinkin' that wind shear detection equip. and Doppler were already on the schedule for installation at DFW and that it was picked because of the nature of Texas super cells and Tstorms. If you ain't never flown in or around one, it's like a whole nuther world down there. I know they are bad in other parts of the country and every place probably has it's own thing, but Texas is a world of it's own when it comes to weather. 191 wasn't the only Lockheed to ever go down out there. Ask the folks about the Electra's.

Wayne:
Electras were doomed from the start. The engine mounts were designed
incorrectly. After Lockheed had them redesigned, there were no more failures.
It was called operation tilt up.
The mounts were built with a downward tilt of some x degrees. (I think it was around 16) This caused a severe buffeting action and eventual engine/ wing separation. Usually after about 10,000 hours.
It caused such a loss of confidence in the airplane that the airlines generally quit using them.
I was at Rohr Aircraft at the time. They were the power pak builders for Lockheed and other manufacturers at the time.
The Power Pak was an easily serviced engine mount that allowed very easy engine removal. A minimum of bolts to remove and off it came.
Before, the motor was enclosed in a complicated and confusing framework that took hours to get the motor out. And a couple of days to complete the change.
Power Pak equipped planes required only about a half day to turnaround.

Sorry all. I didn't mean to babble. Thought you might be interested in a bit of history.
Took FAA several crashes before they figured it out.

Frank, I appreciate the info. I didn't really remember if they ever found a problem or not. I know some of the most publicized crashes did happen around a storm. I never got the opportunity to fly one and I think Tom Braniff wished he'd never have. lol

Early example of metal fatigue. Storms aggravated the problem but the planes were bound to fail sooner or later. Really bad thing.

Just in the for what it's worth dept., think about the word microBURST. BURST as in SUDDEN, as in whoop, dere it is!!!!!!! Then it's gone. All the PIREP's in the world probably wouldn't have picked it up or, as Billy said, they would be the crash. Full power and pitch up, as they did, was all they could do then or now but by then, they were already in it and could not recover. Difference now is the Doppler and being able to look inside of that cloud and see what it had. Listening to the cockpit recording, they started seeing the lightning just before they experienced the airspeed loss and as the story said, even with 166,000lbs of thrust, they couldn't get out of it. As I said earlier, at 800'AGL, that's not very far out at DFW, and the bounce was on Hwy114, killing one, and the final resting place was only a mile or less inside the fence, if that far. Jerry made the comment here that he he ran it 3 different times in a SIM and pranged all 3 times, even knowing it was coming. There is no way, then or now, to get out of something like that if you get caught smack in the middle of the whole thing. You might have play room on the edge if you feel it but basically you are just screwed.. With Doppler today, both in the planes and ATC, the procedure today is either a go around or "go orbit somewhere til this thing passes"but Mother Nature is going to prevail.

I like the conversation between them both at the end. And that atc told them to go around.. Haha

After the crash

Actually after listening to it again, I think ATC was tellin a TWA on final behind them to go around. 191 had already crashed