A December 23rd Spin on the American Airlines Crash in Jamaica.

While last night’s American Airlines Boeing crash landing in the Jamaican rain with limited visibility, with significant tailwinds on ungrooved pavement, with patches of residual tire rubber no less, was catastrophic for the plane, it is rather amazing that even though the Boeing was subjected to forces powerful enough to split the plane into at least three pieces, it neither caught fire, hydroplaned 10 more yards to end up in the bay, nor lost even a single one of the passengers.

An achievement in survival. A testament to piloting skill. Or maybe it is just an improvement in plane design.

I hope that someone out there is appreciating how different this crash is from the Tam (Airbus) crash in Brazil, where a bad landing in rainy conditions on an ungrooved surface was exacerbated by a malfunctioning thrust reverser, and the plane ended up crashing a perimeter fence, crossing a thoroughfare and causing a blazing fire that annihilated a warehouse across the street from the runway.

Someone more versed in plane design could explain the difference in dynamics between plane crashes; someone expert in runway physics could explain how the runway surfaces did or did not play a part, but that analysis will come later during the NTSB investigation.

For now, I predict that you’ll be seeing the powers that be blaming the pilots for breaking the airplane, rather than applauding the fact that no one died. There has already been at least one article blaming the crash on the fact that the pilots were in the 12th hour of their (up to )14 hour shift.

This is just a taste of the spin-doctoring to come. I’m sure we’ll see the crash “arm-chair” analyzed a dozen different ways, depending on the writer’s agenda. We will watch the groups lobbying for in-country maintenance flipping this story to blame it on out-of-the-country maintenance; the pilot fatigue people will be using this as a morality tale about long pilot hours; the Norman Manley International Airport improvement people will be talking about fixing runway surfaces or maybe doing other needed airport alterations.

For now, I think we should all spend a few moments taking a good hard look at the mess that used to be a Boeing 737-800. How did anyone live through that? In fact, everyone survived.

Some families in Jamaica will be hugging their loved ones just a little bit harder this season. Anyway you look at it, we had a little bit of a Christmas miracle this time.

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    Pilots Ignore ATC Directions, Hear Audio

    On March 11, 2013, an Air Canada Embraer ERJ-190 en route from Edmonton to Toronto,ON was on approach when ATC informed the pilots to abort the landing. Ground radar indicated something moving on the runway. Pilots continued to make the landing, and ignored ATC.

    Mechanics working on a Sunwing Boeing had left a van running and in gear, which subsequently rolled without a driver across the runway. At some point, the van impacted the Sunwing 737.

    In George’s Point of View


    While we can’t make assumptions, apparently the pilots saw the van safely flew over it and made a secure landing.

    However, there are a lot of errors here that could have been disaster. We are glad no one was injured. Safety first, everyone!

    • The maintenance crew for failing to secure their vehicle.
    • ATC for not using the call sign, even if it was evident to them who they were speaking to.
    • Pilots for ignoring ATC even if they saw the “threat” because there could have been an additional alert

    That said, of course we are glad no one was injured.

    Click Triangle below to hear audio

    [sc_embed_player fileurl=”https://airflightdisaster.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Air-Canada-178-Ignores-Go-Around.mp3″]

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  • Blame Game Aviation-style

    George’s Point of View

    The latest in the Comorian aviation rumor mill is that sweet and gentle albeit elderly and perfectly innocent Yemenia Airbus 310 was shot down with a dastardly missile by the French Navy vessels performing maneuvers in the area of the accident a day before the plane crash. Nevermind that the plane was positively geriatric in plane years. Nevermind that it was already disallowed to fly in Europe. Nevermind that it was flying in weather so bad that rough winds had already fouled up the plane’s first pass at the runway.

    One tends to doubt that the French Navy was performing maneuvers in the area in the kind of weather that doomed the landing of the Yemenia airbus. Maybe the “missile” was suspended in the air for a whole day while waiting for the Airbus. (Does the French Navy normally fire at Mitsamouli, Djomani, Ouemani or Ouela?)

    Maybe if we focus our eyes on the French navy, no one will notice the state of Comorian aviation, airports, aviation safety measures and rescue procedures.

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    Anniversary of Air France 447-Personal Consequences of Death on the Flying Brick

    Elie Wiesal said “Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.”

    It is not time to despair. It is time to remember. We are remembering Air France 447, and the families whose lives have forever changed. Families left behind have to deal with carrying on.

    Experts say that there are five steps (called the Kubler-Ross model) of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

    After a year, or two, or three one might be able to say that families with tragedies to process have come to acceptance; but the model is not a hard truth. Those suffering grief may hopscotch between stages, or get stuck at any of them. And just as smells tend to refresh memory, so too can dates. And June 1 for Air France 447 families is one of those dates.

    Maybe it is a blessing that everything changes. Maybe it is a blessing that the first moment of finding you have lost a loved one in a plane crash is not frozen in amber, to be felt always at the original intensity. It is inevitable that the depth of grief will fluctuate.

    In the beginning, the deaths of those aboard the plane were shrouded in mystery. A black hole of mystery, in fact, one that swallowed up the craziest theories, from abductions, to terrorism, to aliens. The investigation marched on, to the tune of millions of dollars, and hundreds of investigators and professionals marched to that tune, working to uncover the puzzle pieces and put them together to shed light on what really happened. At least now, with the black boxes recovered, there are facts to deal with rather than crazy speculation.

    But even facts will not change the reality. Those gone are still gone. At whatever stage you are experiencing it, the grief you feel is real. I have no advice for you. Anyway, advice comes across as condescending. But we all have suffered pain and grief and loss, and I can only hope for the families that you remember.

    Remember the good things.

    Remember mornings across your breakfast tables, the rush to begin the day, the slow times after the day is done.

    Remember the moments spent together. Remember the depths as well as the peaks. Remember the places you went together, and when you revisit the places, you will revisit your loved ones.

    The heart is not buried along with the victim. The heart goes on.

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    Is Oxygen Hose Length an Issue?

    We talked about the May 16 cockpit fire on a United Boeing 757 (New York to Los Angeles) that made an emergency diversion to Dulles. That event involved an airborne cockpit fire so extreme that the pilot reached for the fire extinguishers to put out flames coming from his windshield—but he was brought up short by the length of the oxygen hose. In the smokey situation, it must have been a special concern to have the oxygen mask rip away from the pilot’s face. I can only assume there is other essential gear stored and unreachable due to the length of the hose, because I haven’t seen anyone talk about solving the hose length issue by moving the extinguishers closer.

    In fact, on some Boeing 757 and 767s the length of the hose attached to the pilot’s oxygen mask and smoke goggles is under scrutiny now by the FAA for being too short to reach the fire extinguishers. Apparently Boeing has resisted lengthening the hose because of the danger of the pilot getting tangled in the hose.

    Since the FAA is looking into the issue of the possibility of the hoses being too short, one can not help but wonder if this problem were a factor in the May 22 – Air India Express Flight 812 Boeing 737-800 crash at Mangalore International Airport, or the Jan 25 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 Boeing 737-800 that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off from Beirut. How do we know that too-short hoses did not contribute to those tragic events?

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  • Creaky Old News Leak

    George’s Point of View

    An out-of-date (circa May 2008) 93-page Transportation Security Administration federal airport screeners manual that tells U.S. airport screeners how to do their jobs was posted on a government jobs site. The government document had been edited in Adobe, but the edits were removable. Of course, the manual has been updated half a dozen times since that date.

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    Here’s an idea: maybe the Transportation Security Administration should leak some more old manuals to get seriously useless misinformation out there.

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  • FAA and DOT Sued For Not Acting On Recommendations

    It all started 15 years ago, when the NTSB first issued a list of safety recommendations. Fast forward 15 years, and the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) still hasn’t taken those recommendations.

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    Mommy and Daddy are fighting.

    But what they’re really doing is shifting the blame to the other guy so when the Buffalo NY lawsuits come down, it’ll be the other guy’s wallet that gets sacked. D’ya think?”

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