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Qantas 767 aborts 700 feet above tarmac and wheels up
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Qantas has stood down the pilots at the controls of a Boeing 767-300 Cityflyer service which last Monday aborted a landing at Sydney when its ground proximity warning system indicated that the wheels hadn’t been lowered. The 254-seat jet was descending through 700 feet, or very close to landing, when the electronic voice of the GPWS said “too low gear”. The pilots had seconds earlier realised the undercarriage hadn’t been lowered and initiated a go-around procedure, hitting the throttles hard and cleaning up the wing just before the synthetic voice sounded its warning. The jet, on a flight from Melbourne, continued to sink toward the runway after it had descended below 700 feet, before responding to the thrust and control surface changes and climbing away from the runway for a normal approach and landing. Just how close it came to hitting the runway wheels up will be determined by the ATSB investigation. ATSB has listed the matter as a “serious incident”. A Qantas spokesman said this morning:
In fact a quick search of the accessible data bases found no comparable instance of a modern jet being flown by any airline wheels-up on approach to an airport so low that this specific GPWS warning was triggered. Go-arounds are infrequent but certainly not rare at Sydney Airport because of other aircraft not clearing the intended runways as fast as expected, or because of deteriorating visibility or concerns about wind shear. For airlines and their pilots such rejected landings are routine and trained for. But a wheels-up configuration on an approach like that flown by the Qantas Cityflyer last Monday is another matter. It was rare, alarming and should properly be the subject of a searching inquiry, including an examintaion of what the Qantas spokesman refered to as “a brief communications breakdown”. |
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13 Comments
It is my understanding that the standard cockpit procedures in relation to landing at airports, (or any other location for that matterother than ditching in the water) require wheels to be down. Perhaps the pilots were confused an assumed they were ditching in Botany Bay.
Putting down the wheels is normally one of several essential steps including lowering lowering of flaps, aligning the aircraft with the runway and reducing speed an aircraft is going to land.
To assist pilots in this regard there are mandated checklists and in addition there is generally a pilot and co-pilot as an additional risk management contingency, especially if one is asleep or negligent. One can only assume that the pilots did not have their minds on the job, or possibly had their minds on some other job. I would leave possibilities in that regard to the reader’s imagination.
The reason for putting humans in the cockpit with checklists and procedures is for passenger safety. Otherwise we can use computers for this end and leave the pilot on the ground. It would appear that the only thing that saved everybody in this instance was the final risk management facility, a recorded verbal warning linked to ground proximity radar.
If the ATSB has any enforcement capability left, and by all accounts this capacity is subject to some question, the pilots concerned should be sacked as they are not fit to have responsibilityseveral hundred people’s lives, notwithstanding their own and the rest of the flight crew.
Left to its own devices, Qantas will do little or nothing to punish these pilots because to do so will will reflect badly on internal competency. As with the recent failures to undertake mandated pressure bulkhead maintenance it would appear that the regulators will do nothing, as they appear to be beholden to commercial and political interests, with passenger safety coming a poor second.
An aircraft is on final approach and the cockpit crew realise that something on the checklist has been missed — for whatever reason — so they abort and go around again. Isn’t this what’s meant to happen?
That’s why we practice go-arounds, as for gear up landings…..there are them that have and them that haven’t……….. yet
Seriously, the system worked!
There are only two types of pilot. Those who have attempted to land gear up in the past and those who have not done so yet.
In this case no big deal. Safely detected missed check list item at 700’ and initiated go around even before aural warning sounded. Pilots acted in accordance with their training. No actual danger to aircraft or passengers. Why bag Qantas over this? What is the agenda here?
No Stilgherrian, I would assume they are meant to land with the wheels actually down. I am ignorant to most things aeronautical but agree with Greg - this seems like a pretty fundamental mistake. Is it common Peter - is that what you are suggesting?
Paul seems to have got in before my post and answered my question - thanks.
“No flight safety issue”????
I challenge a pilot from Qantas to say that on record, as opposed to someone from the spin dept who has just had Ground Proximity Warning System explained to them this morning.
While the GPWS did a job and prevented an accident It is a very serious issue when the very last layer of defence catches the crew before an accident. This is the case when GPWS, TCAS or PWS catches an unsafe condition that the crew have missed.
TCAS is Traffic Collision Avoidance System and PWS is Predictive Windshear System, which like GPWS use vocal warning to alert pilots of unsafe situations.
Ben Jaensch. I understand from above article, and also from ATSB extract, that the go around was initiated before the aural GPWS warning sounded. I fail to see a serious safety issue here.
I see a number of either uninformed or apologist contributions here. Haven’t any of you ‘so where’s the problem?’ contributors ever flown in a commercial jet? Wheels are normally down well above 1500 ft if correct procedures are followed. That’s why they have checklists, that’s why they have two pilots. I saw a few wheels up incidents during my RAAF career but civilian RPT aviation is another matter. The pilots should be sacked - there are plenty more looking for a cushy job with Qantas. Alex
Ben
I know enough about planes to know that throttles don’t need virus protection but I have trouble putting the 700 feet bit in context. 700 feet is about 200 meters and I’m in an office building that’s about that tall. There would be, I guess a couple of dozen buildings this tall in each city. As it’s cup week punters will know that the home straight at Flemington is about twice that long. Laid out flat 200 meters doesn’t seem very large.
The east west flight path has to come in long to get over the humps of Hurstville, Rockdale and finally Arncliffe. The North South not so much. We lived at Rockdale and based on the height of my office block, planes were at about the 200 meter mark when they passed over head, maybe a bit lower. Rockdale is about a minute or two flying time from KSA.
For context are you able to tell us how far away from the airport the 767 would have been and how much flight time was left?
Greg and Ben - Wrong.
Read the report again.
The PILOTS recognised the error and initiated a go-around BEFORE the aural warning.
It was due to the ‘sink’ that normally occurs during a go-around that the warning still sounded.
Yes the gear should have normally been down by then and the investigation should establish why it wasn’t.
SBH, a 767 would normally be doing 700 ft per minute descent rate so they were about 60 secs from the runway.
Go-arounds are routinely practised from 200 ft, simulating not being able to land from an instrument approach.
Thanks Andy
The way things are going, their new slogan ought to be: “QANTAS - it’s only a matter of time.”
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