JayBrian

Rainman says Qantas is the safest.

tonywestsider

You've lost me on this one, Larry J. Regardless if the plane was speeding up or already in excessive speed and then unstabilized approach, speed did have something to do with this accident.

Wally Bird

LarryJ

You said that SWA pilot's routinely speed up at touchdown to reach the gate quicker. That's ridiculous as doing so would produce the opposite of the intended result.

WillTravel4Food

agree here. I think there are a couple misunderstandings being propagated here.

There is no speed up just before landing. They may more likely maintain more speed on the roll out. This is to have a high speed taxi down the runway instead of a slow roll on an adjoining taxiway. Ok to do so long as you don't disrupt the next operation on the runway. They're just trying to reduce the time from touchdown to gate. All part of the SW goal to minimize ground time. Other times you might feel they're slamming on the brakes to make the first reasonable exit so they minimize backtracking to the gate.

Second, every airline has company guidelines for go/no-go on the landing. I've always heard it as an altitude AGL (above ground level) therefore being commonly being called the "Decision Altitude". This means the approach has to be stabilized at the decision altitude. I don't know the specifics on what constitutes stabilization. Not a pilot. In general, I believe, for the layman you can assume it means a controlled descent and energy is stable. Speeding up right before landing does not fit into this concept and I'm pretty sure a certain regulator would not approve this as a standard procedure. Aircraft carrier pilots make see things differently.

LarryJ

You are confusing terms. Decision altitude (DA) is part of a precision instrument approach such as an ILS. What you are talking about is stabilized approach criteria.

The crew on the Burkbank flight violated stabilized approach criteria due to poor handling from the approach controller. When they violated stabilized approach criteria they were required to initiate a go-around, which they did not.

MrHalliday

Might have to do with the engine falling off the A380 last year ??

Wally Bird

Or the 744 on the 18th fairway.

WillTravel4Food

Thanks for the clarification and corrections. I was trying to convey what you state succinctly. That being they continued an approach that should have been aborted.

Sheikh Yerbooty

Stabilised Approach criteria are as follows with the lot I used to fly a 757 for, but generally speaking they're more or less the same for most airlines.

Aircraft must be stable at 1000ft AGL. This means:

Speed within 5 knots of Vref (landing speed)
Gear Down
Landing flaps set
Engine power set and stabilised
On Glideslope and Localiser (or on glidepath for a visual approach)

At most busy airports we'd usually be instructed by ATC to maintain "160 (kts) to 5 (miles final)". That would mean you'd be going down the ILS with engines in flight idle, Flaps 20 set, until you reach an altitude of around 1500ft AGL. This leaves you with roughly 500ft of altitude and 1.5 milesof distance to configure the aircraft for landing. To achieve that you'd have to be very much on the ball. Still, works like a charm in the vast majority of cases.

Once you've met stabilised approach criteria you can continue below 1000ft towards Decision Altitude, which is as low as 50ft for a Cat IIIb (autoland) approach.

pinniped

WN has had at least one fatality - the one at Midway (which is I assume the 2nd photo in this thread)

LarryJ

They were setup by ATC. The controller really threw them under the bus--but they failed to scramble out from under it before it ran them over.

While the child did tragically die as a result of that accident, he wasn't a passenger or crewmember on the flight so it doesn't count in this context. Same as the far too frequent accident when a ramp worker has been killed by walking into a spinning propeller.

pinniped

I don't see why you wouldn't count people killed on the ground as a result of a crash in this context.

To me that's different from an on-the-job accident...

Ancien Maestro

I think on ground deaths are counted.. and in news context

I remember some articals specifically stating X number of civilian deaths on ground..

tonywestsider

Not to go back and forth on these posts but my comment was stated in general and is the perception by the industry in transportation modeling. I apologize for the confusion. What actually caused the accident is something different which you are bringing up but admittedly, excessive speed of the plane is a contributing factor in the accident.