There’s a fairly reliable maxim that to any news headline that ends in a question mark, the answer is “No”.
There have been a lot of such headlines this weekend over the tragic Jeju Air crash in Muan. “Was it a bird strike that…” “Is it significant that there have been four crashes over the Christmas…” “Was the deteriorating weather…”
No. At least, not simply any of the above as a stand alone cause. Causal, yes, but it’s always much, much more complicated than that. Before I go on I ought to declare an interest. I write under a pseudonym. Not because I’m flying kites I’m ashamed of, but because for several years now I’ve been a media spokesman for a national aviation organisation. Whenever I’m quoted, or whenever I appear on the electric wireless or new-fangled television, it’s not my views I represent but those of the organisation. If I’m anywhere under my own banner, right or wrong, I have to avoid using the same name otherwise people will muddy my views with the organisation’s.
I write here as James Leary. James is real enough, but is in no position to argue. He died in 1896. He is my Great Great (possibly Great) grandfather. His is the earliest photographic record we have of any family member. He watches down on me. I often wonder what he would have thought of a descendant of his writing about aviation on an iPhone. He was a lowly farm worker in rural Lincolnshire in the middle of the 19th Century, and a Methodist in the county of Charles and John Wesley, so I’m guessing I would be the spawn of the devil. There are a few others who think that to this day.
I digress. I’ve had a lot to do in the course of my ‘official’ work with the media handling of aircraft accidents, and incidents. Almost always doom-laden. And quite often over Christmas. It’s that time of year, isn’t it? A sort of mini silly season. Often the ‘B’ team are in charge of reporting, and the constant sweet of saccharine festive stories has to be balanced with a bit of sour, to show they’ve still got a grip on how terrible the world really is. Air crashes fall neatly into that slot. Grâce à Dieu, so did the Far East Tsunami 20 years ago. A friend of mine died in that so I kept a closer eye on the reporting than maybe I would normally. The speculation was spectacular. It was while the climate religion was still in the manger, but I’m absolutely certain some ‘expert’ or other would today have been wheeled before a microphone at the regulation 10 inches from the speaker, and let loose with whatever barmy ‘climate change is to blame’ theory was passing between their ears at the time. And they would have been listened to solemnly. As an ‘expert’.
The thing with reporters is that they all have political views, world views, or whatever masquerades as religious beliefs these days, and you can guarantee that they would find it very difficult not to interject their own views into the discussion. This is much less so if they wheel in a pilot to talk about aviation. They are in your office, rather than the other way around, and they behave more circumspectly. I was once on the show of a prominent BBC lady whom I have seen giving Nigel Farage a very hard time of late. Hardly a word in edgewise. She was interviewing me on the subject of laser interference with aircraft trying to land or take off. I’ve had it happen to me so I was speaking hard facts, and the said lady, let’s call her Victoria, was totally out of her depth, but asked relatively intelligent questions as a good reporter should. They broadcast the interview uncut, so it must have met with their requirements.
On another occasion, I was phoned on a Sunday by a minion from the BBC World Service to record a short interview on the same subject to be aired on the main WS midday news programme. As it happened I was actually in London at the time and at a loose end so offered to come in to New Broadcasting House and do the interview there. This wasn’t what they had expected so they said they’d call me back. Which they did shortly after. Somebody higher up the food chain. After a few minutes it became obvious that I was being interviewed for the interview, before they invited me over. Anyway, they did and I was taken up to the gods where WS live, and met the producer. There then followed a further interview to see if I knew the subject. I did my usual ‘ranging widely’ through my history and knowledge of aviation and after a bit the headmistress (spitting image of one) producer decided I passed muster and became herself quite interested in the subject. I watched as she junked the programme timelines on her computer to the horror of her acolytes who would have to pick up the pieces, and proposed I go on live. I was still talking after seven minute into a two minute interview. Jamie, doing the interview, was also hooked on a world totally foreign to the average reporters’ experience. I have a recording of that interview. It was spoiled by me inadvertently coughing during the intro.
This is all to illustrate that the media can get it right if they want to, but by god, 24 hour news cycles drives some of them to invite on any ‘expert’ in aviation that cares to call himself one.
Was the Korean accident caused by a bird-strike? I was asked this morning. No. A bird strike can be nothing or something. I’ve had several. Mostly they are a nuisance and cause delays whist foul smelling bits of half cooked bird are pulled out of the fan of the engine. They can also be fairly catastrophic – ask Capt Sully, as he rowed away from his machine floating in the Hudson River. Not to speculate (haha) but this 737 kept flying for some time after so it’s unlikely to have been that alone. The landing gear didn’t/wouldn’t come down, likewise the flaps, all hydraulically driven. Everything on a plane derives its energy from the engines as do the hydraulic pumps. On a 747 which I know best there are four different systems and a couple of back-up systems to those, so total hydraulic loss is highly unlikely. We wouldn’t go flying, any of us, if anything like what happened in Korea was even approaching ’likely’.
There’s another analogy in aviation safety (and other risk managements) called ‘the Swiss Cheese’. It’s got holes in it – the cheese not the analogy. Everything we do in aviation is to stop all the holes in the cheese lining up so you can see straight through it. Engineering and crew procedures are designed to stop this ever happening. If just one safeguard out of a dozen works, then we have succeeded.
However if a chain of events can happen, it will happen sometime, somehow.
What will happen now is that the two flight recorders, the voice recorder of what went on in the cockpit, what was said, how it was said, what language it was said in and even the strain in the voices of the pilots will be examined along the same timeline as the thousands of parameters of aircraft systems and performance are analysed. This will be done by a competent Korean authority backed up by contingents from Boeing, and CFM, the engine manufacturer. These guys are real experts. I barely understand how they operate. There are groups of them all round the world who are on permanent standby, with grab-bags by their front doors. Their Christmases will have been rudely interrupted too.
I will wait for them to do their jobs. It won’t necessarily take long. If they even suspect a fatigued part, or a faulty crew procedure has played a part they will issue an ‘interim bulletin’ which will be in the hands of all operators and interested parties within the week. Or if it’s a labyrinthine aligning of the holes in the Swiss cheese an in-depth report and recommendations will follow in due course.
So the next time you hear an ‘expert’ pontificating a few hours after an accident, hang in there. It’s in hand, he’s guessing. Unless it’s me, of course.
The below is an extract from the statement of the International Federation of Airline Pilots Associations, and it was issued today. It sums it up.
Our thoughts are with the friends and families of the reported 181 passengers and crew
members that were onboard the aircraft.The Federation is working closely with its local Member Association, ALPA-K, who have
recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) of the Republic of Korea, with four IFALPA-accredited
Accident Investigators from ALPA-K appointed as Official Advisors to MOLIT. Through this
MoU, IFALPA will keep its accident investigation resources at the disposal of MOLIT to help
gather facts and any other information which may be pertinent to the investigation.The Federation urges caution against speculation in media and social media surrounding
the accident. IFALPA stresses the need to avoid any conjectures or suppositions as to what
happened in this event. The investigation into the circumstances of the accident should
strictly follow the provisions laid out in ICAO Annex 13 with conclusions and safety
recommendations identified by the appropriate investigative bodies.
James Leary is the pseudonym of a retired passenger jet captain.
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In the real world the spinners will have draft statements ready for any event. They will blame climate change and praise their political bosses for the foresight on introducing additional regulations just yesterday.
Isn’t every downed plane these days caused by Russian anti-aircraft fire?
Only their own, for the most part.
Whatever the cause of the problems, mechanical, bird or human error, one thing’s for sure – if the airport designers hadn’t build a giant wall of earth 400ft from the end of the runway to sit the ILS on, the plane would most probably have come to a messy but complete stop without being obliterated.
Quite. There are already solutions to aircraft overrunning a runway that are similar to the runaway truck ramps on long downhills. This wall certainly protected the buildings behind but what an appalling solution.
There is a further wall beyond the ILS berm, in South Korea all airfields have such walls to keep the North Koreans out. The ILS berm had a reinforced concrete core, that’s what did the most damage.
Yes – I don’t know about the hard centre, but all ILS Localiser aerials are designed to be ‘frangible’. Mounting them on concrete would be missing the point spectacularly.
Most of the solutions would involve snagging the undercarriage of the aircraft such as gravel traps but in this case there was no undercarriage to snag.
Gravel = FOD. Not a good idea.
Agreed and that will be part of the wash up. But there are lots of airfields with water at both ends and consequently more birds. Different but not necessarily better outcome if it was one of them. What caused it to be put back on any runway like that is the initial question.
Watching 2 or 3 videos from current airline pilots and I already have a 95% idea of the what, it’s the why that will take longer.
All I will say at this point is look at the video showing the approach from the left side and ponder on why the left engine shows no exhaust heat plume but the right engine that was filmed surging after the putative bird strike has hot exhaust and draw your own conclusions.
They drew the wrong conclusions initially with the Kegworth 737 crash – even the crew did.
It’s not fully clear yet, but as ever each incident is different and you can’t always apply what happened then to a new crash.
I suspect there’s going to be a lot of effort put into fixing dangerous airfield structures, this might have been much less severe without the ILS berm but of course a belly landing is always going to be a long slide on a clean runway surface due to lack of friction and run off areas may be difficult to clear completely with restricted space.
Interestingly there are no graphs or charts available to pilots on gear up landings stopping distance. Not even projected ones. They’d have to sacrifice a hull to test it for real.
As I recall, the Kegworth crew initially (during flight) assumed that engine 2 had failed when in fact it was engine 1. They lined up for Finals over the M1, demanded power at the last moment from what they thought was the working engine, but none was forthcoming, and they crashed into the motorway embankment, folding the plane into pieces. I’m not sure if I recall why they hadn’t carried out power checks at altitude, but that’s history
Procedures were changed after that to not allow identification of the failing engine on one parameter alone. Leaving a damaged engine running if it’s not on fire on a two engine aircraft can be called airmanship but it’s a decision on the day.
The question really is, there are many examples of passenger aircraft landing safely without their landing gear, so why didn’t this one?
To be fair it did “land” safely, the issue was when it ran out of runway…
As well as not having gear down it also touched down a long way down the runway which won’t have helped…
Lots of questions to be answered
As one commentator on YouTube said, the floating is a result of the ground effect. A balloon of air that gets trapped under the aircraft and prevents it dropping the last few feet, especially when the control surfaces that are supposed to interrupt that effect aren’t working like Spoilers (if fitted) or flaps, etc.
Lot of things going wrong at once. That’s not speculation but I’d like to have another discussion when one of the reports comes out.
Follow Blancoliio on YouTube.
777 pilot, expert and balanced, non-sensational, fact based analysis.
Good recommendation, thanks.