[Hogmann]

Originally Posted by akham ↗

Exactly. For most jet aircraft 3nm is roughly 1 minute before touchdown. A bit late, IMO, to be introducing a whole lot of extra drag into a stabilized approach.





(They might not be smart enough to know what Part 135 means...)

Yeah 3 Mi is the cutoff at which point the plane should be fully configured and stabilized and no later. in most circumstances that's just about a thousand feet above the runway which is the criteria for most operators. it certainly is for my company one flying an instrument approach. Typically our gear down call comes at or just before the Final Approach fix which is 5 MI on a standard ILS.

[wildaxboxer]

Forgive me if this has been answered already, how much free space/clear ground was beyond the wall/grass mound

[Hogmann]

Originally Posted by wildaxboxer ↗

Forgive me if this has been answered already, how much free space/clear ground was beyond the wall/grass mound

Over 1000' I think. Quite alot. And there was an EMAS at the end of the runway.
Engineered Material Arresting System. A soft surface like a runaway ramp for a truck. But that's designed to work that the wheels are down. Probably didn't help much with the gear down.

[franknitti6]

Originally Posted by wildaxboxer ↗

Forgive me if this has been answered already, how much free space/clear ground was beyond the wall/grass mound

More than 1000m

After that the plane would have hit the sea. It's very likely lots people would have survived hadnt the concrete structure been there

Surely a lot of airport runways will be reviewed for similar issues after this

[akham]

A very good analysis from Hoover, a retired military aviator and current airline pilot. Addresses a number of points that have been discussed in this thread.

[spycosis]

Originally Posted by x68000 ↗

BBC news reporting that the 2 survivors are both cabin crew.

probably because the seats they are on usually face backwards and are not crammed between loads of people. It's far safer to sit backwards but people are odd sometimes and prefer seats that face in the direction of travel so they can 'see where they're going'

[wildaxboxer]

Originally Posted by akham ↗

A very good analysis from Hoover, a retired military aviator and current airline pilot. Addresses a number of points that have been discussed in this thread.

Great post....The investigators have their work cut out for them, what a tragedy..

[dwizzy22]

Originally Posted by Gore Whore ↗

Totally would have been ok if it weren't for the structure at the end of the runway, that was a good landing considering they had no landing gear and other system failures. Apparently the pilot mentioned a bird strike in the mayday call and that was their second landing attempt.

How could you possibly know they would have been ok.
All these professors of the internet.
I can’t get over how unrealistic people are on here.

[Hogmann]

Apparently the black boxes, the data recorder and the voice recorder both stopped recording 4 minutes before the crash. While they haven't laid out the exact timeline it sounds like they stopped recording shortly after the bird strike and go around. Something went very wrong in that plane during the go-around. The big question I think is going to be was it pilot-induced or some catastrophic failure of electrical systems or both.
I wouldn't be totally surprised to find out that this plane was operating with some disabled and deferred equipment as part of a minimum equipment list that left it vulnerable to other failures.

[Hogmann]

Originally Posted by wildaxboxer ↗

Forgive me if this has been answered already, how much free space/clear ground was beyond the wall/grass mound

Turns out the localizer antenna and it's foundation mound were less than a thousand feet from the runway just under 900 actually. That's close enough that in the US you could not build an earthen mound like that. And the antenna would have to be built on a breakaway structure whose foundation can be no more than 3" above the ground.

The design of this foundation mound absolutely contributed to the death toll. Yes there's a concrete wall around the airport a couple hundred feet after that but if the plane struck that it would have been nose on like crashing your car into a wall this localizer foundation created a ski jump if you will that sent the plane back up into the air breaking its back and causing it to in essence disintegrate.