South Korea Jeju air plane crash

[Blackjack Davy]

Yup, it's the usual thing, but people will claim this has never happened before so we don't need to worry about it - but a google shows aircraft are hitting ILS antenna every now again and planes are making crash landings on runways and then ending up outside the airport perimeter. There's also planes landing short now and again, due to fuel or whatever. Whilst steps should clearly be taken to prevent these from happening in the first place, planes do and can crash. I don't think stating planes shouldn't be there in the first place would fly now, particularly in the UK where the HSE would require that the risk is ALARP. I would expect the regulations to now be updated to say that airports should take reasonable steps to ensure there's nothing in that area beyond the end of the runway that would cause a catastrophic loss of life like that. Conversely if there's a school or something at the other end of the airport perimeter it may actually be appropriate to have a hard boundary!

Seems to be the way that nothing gets done until theres a tragedy then everyone gets in a flap about it blaming everything and everyone instead of just quietly getting on with fixing what is obvious that should have been fixed in the first place whether it be pedestrian crossings outside of schools or putting speed traps in accident black spots etc

In the UK it would be hitting a structure beyond many airport limits. You simply can't regulate for a plane belly rolling 150mph off the end of the runway. No landing gear drag to slow it down either. There is a BP Garage about 650m off the end of Heathrow 09R.

Oh I dunno put a gravel trap or something at the end of it can't be that hard surely aircraft carriers have barrier nets to stop planes overshooting the strip

 

[dlockers]

Oh I dunno put a gravel trap or something at the end of it can't be that hard surely aircraft carriers have barrier nets to stop planes overshooting the strip

It was doing 150mph!!!

 

[200sols]

It was doing 150mph!!!

Bit of pea shingle, job done.

 

[danlightbulb]

In the UK it would be hitting a structure beyond many airport limits. You simply can't regulate for a plane belly rolling 150mph off the end of the runway. No landing gear drag to slow it down either. There is a BP Garage about 650m off the end of Heathrow 09R.

True there is, but if you look at the satelite view the airplane would be hitting a lot of smaller objects crossing that distance which would have course cause damage but would also be slowing the plane down as well as the field of probably muddy grass its going across as well.

We could pick any number of airports and highlight problems of course, but I think the difference here is that the very solid object was within airport limits. Lets find another airport that has only a 250m run off zone before the boundary and puts a solid concrete object right in this zone.

 

[jaybee]

Yeah, if it's a man made object that was installed with deliberate choice as to placement then yeah, don't put it there. There will be a reason it's there though as opposed to somewhere else?

 

[danlightbulb]

Yeah, if it's a man made object that was installed with deliberate choice as to placement then yeah, don't put it there. There will be a reason it's there though as opposed to somewhere else?

Tthe ILS antenna was built on it, but other airports use more lightweight steel poles for this, not a block of solid concrete. If you look at other airports, often the boundary fences are also just steel wire fences, not solid block walls like at this airport.

It is really just a lack of risk consideration in this specific example. And it wasn't a problem until one day it was.

 

[Penfold101]

Id love to see the numbers on ALARP and what the algorithm would spit out for this one! Pilot totally negligent (presumably), not deploying landing gear or thrusters and landing half way down the run way. How likely is that to happen again?

Actually, I think they did operate the reversers. The 737 allows deployment of them either when the Weight on Wheels switches are made or the radar altitude is below 10ft, and the throttles are at idle. I don’t think it’s approved for operational use by the airlines as it limits go-around options but it allows the plane to be slowing down immediately upon touchdown and can reduce the landing distance considerably.

Looking at videos of it the left engine is not in reverse - given that each engine’s reverser is driven by the hydraulic system powered by that same engine, it would stand to reason that the left engine was shut down and the right was still operating (to an extent). If indeed it DID take a bird strike to that same engine, the reports of them shutting down the wrong engine could be credible. This would have left the pilots in virtually a gliding scenario, but they made it back to the runway with enough energy to find themselves going far too fast. Whether they simply forgot to lower the gear is another question - it had manual extension handles but the checklists required in these scenarios, especially with no engines, would take way longer than they had and they may have just decided to concentrate on flying the plane. Sully certainly didn’t run any checklists for dual engine failure at 2,000 feet because none existed - to quote the film: he “eyeballed” it because there was no other choice.

Much of this is speculation and I shall await the official report with interest.

Experience: 24 years in the aircraft maintenance sector, although not 737 type rated.

 

[200sols]

True there is, but if you look at the satelite view the airplane would be hitting a lot of smaller objects crossing that distance which would have course cause damage but would also be slowing the plane down as well as the field of probably muddy grass its going across as well.

We could pick any number of airports and highlight problems of course, but I think the difference here is that the very solid object was within airport limits. Lets find another airport that has only a 250m run off zone before the boundary and puts a solid concrete object right in this zone.

Would be hitting a few brick buildings a car parks, roads yes, not exactly smooth objects. Plane was gear up and its smooth, not that easy to slow down on grass.

Check out London City Airport, no run off at all.

 

[jaybee]

I stayed in a Hotel near London City airport and noticed the planes seem to do a very steep take off to get as much altitude as possible quite quickly. Pretty cool to watch. I don't know if this is an actual thing, it just seemed like they did to me.

 

[200sols]

I stayed in a Hotel near London City airport and noticed the planes seem to do a very steep take off to get as much altitude as possible quite quickly. Pretty cool to watch. I don't know if this is an actual thing, it just seemed like they did to me.

The approach is steep too. Pilots have to be specially rated to fly into city airport.

 

[Penfold101]

I stayed in a Hotel near London City airport and noticed the planes seem to do a very steep take off to get as much altitude as possible quite quickly. Pretty cool to watch. I don't know if this is an actual thing, it just seemed like they did to me.

The approach is steep too. Pilots have to be specially rated to fly into city airport.

As are the aircraft - BA used to fly the A318 out of there twice a day to New York in homage to Concorde, and aircraft had specially written software to allow the steeper than normal approach angle without the flight software sh*tting itself…

 

[danlightbulb]

Would be hitting a few brick buildings a car parks, roads yes, not exactly smooth objects. Plane was gear up and its smooth, not that easy to slow down on grass.

Check out London City Airport, no run off at all.

London city appears to have this structure at one end (the other end has a runoff that ends in water). There's a definite curve to this wall, I wonder if it's designed to take at least some sort of impact?

 

[Mad_Jay]

Or more likely to deflect Jet Blast/Prop Wash upwards from departing aircraft to protect what's on the other side.

Which is what the wall at the Korean Airport may have also been doing at a guess.

 

[200sols]

London city appears to have this structure at one end (the other end has a runoff that ends in water). There's a definite curve to this wall, I wonder if it's designed to take at least some sort of impact?

Hardly a run off, there is a bridge between the runway and water as well.

 

[danlightbulb]

Or more likely to deflect Jet Blast/Prop Wash upwards from departing aircraft to protect what's on the other side.

Which is what the wall at the Korean Airport may have also been doing at a guess.

Yeah I think that wall isn't quite in the right spot to stop a plane going off the end of the runway.

The Korean wall was a foundation block for the ILS antenna. Then beyond that was a simple block perimeter wall.

 

[Penfold101]

London city appears to have this structure at one end (the other end has a runoff that ends in water). There's a definite curve to this wall, I wonder if it's designed to take at least some sort of impact?

It’s a jet blast deflector - you can see them all round the airport but the ones at the far west are more than likely on an engine running pan for maintenance ground runs.

 

[Diddums]

Seeing as we've moved on from the original tragedy and descended in to DL's obsession with runway furniture and placement, how about Princess Juliana international:

How about this for "close call":

 

[Werewolf]

It was doing 150mph!!!

IIRC that's why some airports now have arresting materials at the end of the runway, they can slow down an aircraft that has gone off the end of the runway very quickly but fairly safely by basically having something that breaks up as it absorbs the aircraft's kinetic energy.


Re London city airport, trying to claim it's like a larger airport is a bit odd, as IIRC London City airport is quite restricted in the types of aircraft that can use it. Not all airports are rated for all aicraft and a lot of airports with immovable objects or special circumstances (IE maintains or the sea at the end of the runway) require additional training and special approaches.

 

[ubersonic]

*Journalist.

That's a bit like calling David Coulthard a commentator or Lennox Lewis a boxing enthusiast. Yes he does often work as an editor in aviation media these days but that doesn't mean no know longer knows anything about or has involvement in aviation safety. This isn't the opinion of some random YouTuber it's the assessment of a highly regarded expert with decades of experience in piloting, aviation safety and crash investigation.

 

[dlockers]

Re London city airport, trying to claim it's like a larger airport is a bit odd, as IIRC London City airport is quite restricted in the types of aircraft that can use it. Not all airports are rated for all aicraft and a lot of airports with immovable objects or special circumstances (IE maintains or the sea at the end of the runway) require additional training and special approaches.

And to be fair this aircraft required basic training too. Like landing with gear down, thrusters in reverse, and not halfway down the tarmac. The pilot broke protocol the second he aborted landing. He then did a j-turn and landed the wrong way down the runway (there is no concrete block at the end of the runway when you face it properly).

That's a bit like calling David Coulthard a commentator or Lennox Lewis a boxing enthusiast. Yes he does often work as an editor in aviation media these days but that doesn't mean no know longer knows anything about or has involvement in aviation safety. This isn't the opinion of some random YouTuber it's the assessment of a highly regarded expert with decades of experience in piloting, aviation safety and crash investigation.

He isn't highly regarded by any of the aviation forums where his name is mentioned. He is referred to as a journalist. Most of his bio is about his granddads heritage, lol.