Runway Incursion-Near Miss In Florida

[Hawkeye[_2_]]

This story I saw on yesterdays news has be a bit perplexed. Why is it
that the crew of the landing aircraft never saw the encroaching
aircraft before the controller spotted the near disaster and warned
them to execute a missed approach. With two heads in the cockpit, I
assume the pilot was flying the approach, wouldn't to copilot be
constantly scanning the instruments and double checking the runway for
objects on or near the runway that might pose a problem?

I had a commercial airliner pull onto the active runway as I was on
short final...the controllers quickly advised the errant pilot to hold
in place, they just pulled in front of a landing aircraft. I quickly
adjusted my approach to land well down the runway.

Fortunately I was sitting beside a flight examiner who acted as my
second set of eyes. He was surprised at my calm and decisive reaction.
This wasn't a check ride, but we worked as a team during the whole
flight. Constant situational awareness is a MUST as is teamwork in the
cockpit. Poor crew coordination was the blame for the recent C-5B
crash...both heads down, no one looking out the window to really see
how low and short they were.

Oh, the examiner quickly got on the second radio and had a very
personal chat with the crew of that airliner. Needless to say if the
passenger could have been privy to the conversation they would have
exited the aircraft.

[B A R R Y[_2_]]

Hawkeye wrote:
>
> I had a commercial airliner pull onto the active runway as I was on
> short final...the controllers quickly advised the errant pilot to hold
> in place, they just pulled in front of a landing aircraft. I quickly
> adjusted my approach to land well down the runway.

FWIW... Just another POV, please don't take it as personal critism of
what you did on the spot. <G>

I would NEVER land over another aircraft. I would side step and go
around. I wouldn't trust anyone who just committed an incursion into my
space to not run me over from behind.

[Dave S]

Hawkeye wrote:
Poor crew coordination was the blame for the recent C-5B
> crash...both heads down, no one looking out the window to really see
> how low and short they were.

I thought "retracting full flaps while below the partial-flaps stall
speed" was a more appropriate description of what happened. The answer
was all over the CAP backchannels within a week.

Dave

[[email protected]]

On 13-Jul-2007, Dave S > wrote:

> Hawkeye wrote:
> Poor crew coordination was the blame for the recent C-5B
> > crash...both heads down, no one looking out the window to really see
> > how low and short they were.
>
> I thought "retracting full flaps while below the partial-flaps stall
> speed" was a more appropriate description of what happened. The answer
> was all over the CAP backchannels within a week.
>
> Dave

Actually the main cause was shutting down one inboard engine that had a
thrust reverser unstowed light, then when they pulled all the throttles back
to idle to begin their descent, whoever was manipulating the throttles mixed
up which engine was shut down and left the good inboard engine throttle at
idle the whole way down, advancing the throttle to the shut-down engine when
they needed power. The heavily loaded jet couldn't keep its airspeed up on
the thrust of only two engines.
Here's a computer recreation of the accident, which the Air Force had
removed from YouTube claiming copyright infringement, so I don't know how
long it'll be available here:
http://airlinepilotcentral.com/web_video/military_aircraft/c5_accident_at_dover_20061008142.html
Scott Wilson
Appleton, WI

[[email protected]]

My bad... the Air Force removed the video from this site too, though a
summary of the accident board's findings is still there. If anyone is
interested, let me know and I'll email the video to you. It is as I said a
computer recreation of the crash using the flight data recorder data, and
has the cockpit voice recorder audio too. It's very interesting, but it's a
6.97mb file.
Scott Wilson


On 14-Jul-2007, wrote:

> Actually the main cause was shutting down one inboard engine that had a
> thrust reverser unstowed light, then when they pulled all the throttles
> back
> to idle to begin their descent, whoever was manipulating the throttles
> mixed
> up which engine was shut down and left the good inboard engine throttle at
> idle the whole way down, advancing the throttle to the shut-down engine
> when
> they needed power. The heavily loaded jet couldn't keep its airspeed up on
> the thrust of only two engines.
> Here's a computer recreation of the accident, which the Air Force had
> removed from YouTube claiming copyright infringement, so I don't know how
> long it'll be available here:
> http://airlinepilotcentral.com/web_video/military_aircraft/c5_accident_at_dover_20061008142.html
> Scott Wilson
> Appleton, WI

[Hilton]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI5xTmmPbsY

[Jim Logajan]

wrote:
> Here's a computer recreation of the accident, which
> the Air Force had removed from YouTube claiming copyright
> infringement,

I thought government-generated works could not, in general, be copyrighted?
At least that is what it says here:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#105

"Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the
United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded
from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment,
bequest, or otherwise."

And here:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#piu

[[email protected]]

Thanks. The You-tube copy I found last night had been deleted.
Scott W.

[Dave S]

wrote:

>>
>>I thought "retracting full flaps while below the partial-flaps stall
>>speed" was a more appropriate description of what happened. The answer
>>was all over the CAP backchannels within a week.
>>
>>Dave
>
>
> Actually the main cause was shutting down one inboard engine that had a
> thrust reverser unstowed light, then when they pulled all the throttles back
> to idle to begin their descent, whoever was manipulating the throttles mixed
> up which engine was shut down and left the good inboard engine throttle at
> idle the whole way down, advancing the throttle to the shut-down engine when
> they needed power. The heavily loaded jet couldn't keep its airspeed up on
> the thrust of only two engines.

So you are saying that they didnt stall when they retracted from full
landing flaps to approach flaps while low slow and only using two
engines? I'm not contesting anything you've said, but it doesn't
discount what I'm repeating:

My source, un-named, is posted below:
<paste>
It was not a bird ingestion but a "reverser unlock" on the #2 engine
that started this. They lost a C-5 with all aboard a few years back in
Germany for the same cause. This crew however shut down the engine
before an actual unstow took place. The airplane was well over 700K
gross weight with FOB of over 300K. The airplane had the newest version
of the C-5 flight deck with big panel glass. Unfortunately, only one of
the three pilots was really comfortable with the new equipment and FMS.

The crew decided because of their weight to fly their approach to the
longest runway, which unfortunately was only being served that day by a
Tacan (fancy VOR for you civilian types) approach. They also decided to
fly a full flap approach to keep the approach speed down. This isn't
prohibited--just highly discouraged. The recommended flap setting for a
three engine approach is Flaps 40. During the approach the crew became
worried about not having enough power to fly a full flap approach and
selected flaps 40--which they were now too slow for. Here's the point
all you glass cockpit guys should sit up and take notice about. The one
guy who was familiar with the new glass and FMS was also the one flying
the aircraft. He became distracted inputting the new approach speed in
the FMS. There was also some confusion about just who was flying the
A/C while he had his head down updating the speed. Long story
short--they got way slow and into the shaker, and actually stuck the
tail into the trees and it departed the aircraft first. The nose
pitched down hard and the nose and left wing impacted next snapping off
the nose. Several cockpit occupants suffered spinal compression
injuries. The guys sitting at the crew table behind the cockpit
actually came to a stop with their legs dangling out over the ground.

The miracle of this was the left outboard fuel tank was broken open and
none of that fuel managed to find something hot enough to ignite it and
the other 300k. Again, a bunch of very lucky people.

So I guess there really is a reason we bitch at guys for hand flying and
making their own MCP and FMS inputs.

<end paste>

[[email protected]]

Watch the video. They finally realized full flaps wasn't working for them,
and retracted the flaps back to flaps 40 about 15 seconds before they
finally hit the ground. They were definitely slow below their target
airspeed, but the stall was caused by them pulling up to avoid an
obstruction at the last second. Had they had the #3 engine in use I suspect
they'd have made it to the runway just fine, full flaps and raising them
back to flaps 40 and all. Your source was pretty accurate, but evidently
wrote what he did before the FDR data had been reviewed and it was found
that the #3 was left at idle by mistake. That's my opinion anyway, from
seeing the video and reading the summary of the accident report that the
USAF released.
Scott Wilson