Air France Jet Crashes In Toronto

[Mr. P]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050806.plane06/BNStory/National/

I stand by Pilot error...

 

[Merlin1047]

The association of the american pilots said that the Toronto's airport was unsafe and not according to the safety and security norms. Particularly, at the end of the taxiway, this hole, where the Air France's airbus crashed.


So, awful weather, and unsafe airport. It can be the fault of the pilots, but all was made for an accident that day.

You continue to embarrass yourself with your baseless, cheesy, whining attempt to cover up for the incompetence of these two airport bums who took a perfectly good airplane and converted it to scrap metal.

Toronto's airport unsafe? What a load. So what if there was a small ravine on the airport property? Aircraft are supposed to land on the RUNWAY - not in the woods. Perhaps the Air France crew didn't study this requirement prior to their departure. But isn't it strange that tens of thousands of landings are accomplished at Toronto without incident? Here, if you care to do some tedious research, are safety details going back to the 1940's. See if these bear out your assertion that Toronto is unsafe. Frankly, I don't see it. http://aviation-safety.net/database/

Reports coming from Toronto state that the Air France jet landed too far down the runway to enable it to stop safely. Reports also indicate that the landing was extremely rough, resulting in at least three "skips" where the aircraft contacted the ground and bounced back into the air. Additionally, there was a thunderstorm on or in the immediate vicinity of the airport.

So here is what happened - I can detail this without waiting for the "official" account. Not because I'm some sort of aeronautical guru, but simply because this set of events is commonplace and so far, a sufficient number of details has been released to bear this out. You may read this, then you may resume ignoring the facts in favor of your xenophobic denial that these two so-called "pilots" simply screwed up and damn near killed 300 people in the process.

A thunderstorm, in its mature phase ALWAYS creates a strong downdraft at its center. The downdraft occasionally develops into a violent outflow of air which is referred to as a microburst. The downdraft descends out of the storm and spreads out horizontally after striking the ground. The presence of a downdraft in a mature storm is evidenced by rain. Here is a detailed explanation of microbursts, complete with diagrams: http://www.math.unl.edu/~jfisher/NSF_96/windshear.html

It appears that this storm was positioned in relation to the runway so that approaching aircraft encountered the downdraft initially as a headwind on final. The headwind would cause the aircraft to climb above the instrument approach glideslope and the two lazy asses in the cockpit apparently simply let the autopilot compensate. Instead of initiating a missed approach, they allowed the autopilot to continue flying the approach. The autopilot would compensate for the above glide path condition by lowering the nose. This would result in an increase in airspeed above that desired for the approach.

Now the aircraft was on short final, with airspeed well above the maximum desired for the landing configuration. There was still time and opportunity to abort the approach and execute a go-around. Instead of aborting (which some of these egomaniacs view as "embarrassing"), the crew decided to attempt to try to force the aircraft onto the ground. The first consequence was that they ate up nearly one half of the available runway in a vain attempt to bleed off sufficient airspeed to get the aircraft to land. The second consequence was the multiple rough landing. The aircraft first contacted the ground with too much speed to stay on the ground. So, after the main gear impacted the first time, the aircraft bounced back into the air. This happened at least two more times. Each time, more runway was lost.

When the crew finally managed to slow the aircraft sufficiently so that it remained on the ground, too much runway had been used, there was still too much speed remaining to stop on the length of runway now available and there was not enough speed or distance remaining to take off again. Hence the excursion through the woods off the end of the runway.

That's it. Deny it to your heart's content, you only serve to reveal your ignorance and your puzzling inability to accept fact and reality.

On a personal note - I must say that if your attitude is typical of the French these days, it is little wonder that your society is in a state of decline and malaise. You seem to be far more interested in lame attempts to avoid assigning blame for their poor judgement to these two idiots than you are in proctecting future passengers and avoiding recurrence of similar acts of stupidity. Pilots are paid to be the intelligent link in the decision making process of flying an aircraft. When they fail to exercise that intelligence for the safety of their passengers and crew, then there is no point in having them on board. This accident could have happened in exactly the same way even if there had been no crew in the cockpit.

So have fun - continue your denials and continue to ignore the obvious. Given the quality of this crew, Air France could have saved themselves a lot of money and simply launched the aircraft with no one in the cockpit save the autopilot - the outcome of the "landing" would have been no different. Wonder if you would be happy to trust your life to the autopilot if it meant you could save another ten percent on the price of a ticket???

And those are all the keystrokes I intend to waste on someone who insists on burying his head in the sand while making irrational assertions that everyone and everything was at fault except two lazy fools who failed to take action when they should have.

 

[Said1]

You continue to embarrass yourself with your baseless, cheesy, whining attempt to cover up for the incompetence of these two airport bums who took a perfectly good airplane and converted it to scrap metal.

Toronto's airport unsafe? What a load. So what if there was a small ravine on the airport property? Aircraft are supposed to land on the RUNWAY - not in the woods. Perhaps the Air France crew didn't study this requirement prior to their departure. But isn't it strange that tens of thousands of landings are accomplished at Toronto without incident? Here, if you care to do some tedious research, are safety details going back to the 1940's. See if these bear out your assertion that Toronto is unsafe. Frankly, I don't see it. http://aviation-safety.net/database/

Reports coming from Toronto state that the Air France jet landed too far down the runway to enable it to stop safely. Reports also indicate that the landing was extremely rough, resulting in at least three "skips" where the aircraft contacted the ground and bounced back into the air. Additionally, there was a thunderstorm on or in the immediate vicinity of the airport.

So here is what happened - I can detail this without waiting for the "official" account. Not because I'm some sort of aeronautical guru, but simply because this set of events is commonplace and so far, a sufficient number of details has been released to bear this out. You may read this, then you may resume ignoring the facts in favor of your xenophobic denial that these two so-called "pilots" simply screwed up and damn near killed 300 people in the process.

A thunderstorm, in its mature phase ALWAYS creates a strong downdraft at its center. The downdraft occasionally develops into a violent outflow of air which is referred to as a microburst. The downdraft descends out of the storm and spreads out horizontally after striking the ground. The presence of a downdraft in a mature storm is evidenced by rain. Here is a detailed explanation of microbursts, complete with diagrams: http://www.math.unl.edu/~jfisher/NSF_96/windshear.html

It appears that this storm was positioned in relation to the runway so that approaching aircraft encountered the downdraft initially as a headwind on final. The headwind would cause the aircraft to climb above the instrument approach glideslope and the two lazy asses in the cockpit apparently simply let the autopilot compensate. Instead of initiating a missed approach, they allowed the autopilot to continue flying the approach. The autopilot would compensate for the above glide path condition by lowering the nose. This would result in an increase in airspeed above that desired for the approach.

Now the aircraft was on short final, with airspeed well above the maximum desired for the landing configuration. There was still time and opportunity to abort the approach and execute a go-around. Instead of aborting (which some of these egomaniacs view as "embarrassing"), the crew decided to attempt to try to force the aircraft onto the ground. The first consequence was that they ate up nearly one half of the available runway in a vain attempt to bleed off sufficient airspeed to get the aircraft to land. The second consequence was the multiple rough landing. The aircraft first contacted the ground with too much speed to stay on the ground. So, after the main gear impacted the first time, the aircraft bounced back into the air. This happened at least two more times. Each time, more runway was lost.

When the crew finally managed to slow the aircraft sufficiently so that it remained on the ground, too much runway had been used, there was still too much speed remaining to stop on the length of runway now available and there was not enough speed or distance remaining to take off again. Hence the excursion through the woods off the end of the runway.

That's it. Deny it to your heart's content, you only serve to reveal your ignorance and your puzzling inability to accept fact and reality.

On a personal note - I must say that if your attitude is typical of the French these days, it is little wonder that your society is in a state of decline and malaise. You seem to be far more interested in lame attempts to avoid assigning blame for their poor judgement to these two idiots than you are in proctecting future passengers and avoiding recurrence of similar acts of stupidity. Pilots are paid to be the intelligent link in the decision making process of flying an aircraft. When they fail to exercise that intelligence for the safety of their passengers and crew, then there is no point in having them on board. This accident could have happened in exactly the same way even if there had been no crew in the cockpit.

So have fun - continue your denials and continue to ignore the obvious. Given the quality of this crew, Air France could have saved themselves a lot of money and simply launched the aircraft with no one in the cockpit save the autopilot - the outcome of the "landing" would have been no different. Wonder if you would be happy to trust your life to the autopilot if it meant you could save another ten percent on the price of a ticket???

And those are all the keystrokes I intend to waste on someone who insists on burying his head in the sand while making irrational assertions that everyone and everything was at fault except two lazy fools who failed to take action when they should have.

Fantastic. What else can I say.

 

[padisha emperor]

You continue to embarrass yourself with your baseless, cheesy, whining attempt to cover up for the incompetence of these two airport bums who took a perfectly good airplane and converted it to scrap metal.

Toronto's airport unsafe? What a load. So what if there was a small ravine on the airport property? Aircraft are supposed to land on the RUNWAY - not in the woods. Perhaps the Air France crew didn't study this requirement prior to their departure. But isn't it strange that tens of thousands of landings are accomplished at Toronto without incident? Here, if you care to do some tedious research, are safety details going back to the 1940's. See if these bear out your assertion that Toronto is unsafe. Frankly, I don't see it. http://aviation-safety.net/database/

Reports coming from Toronto state that the Air France jet landed too far down the runway to enable it to stop safely. Reports also indicate that the landing was extremely rough, resulting in at least three "skips" where the aircraft contacted the ground and bounced back into the air. Additionally, there was a thunderstorm on or in the immediate vicinity of the airport.

So here is what happened - I can detail this without waiting for the "official" account. Not because I'm some sort of aeronautical guru, but simply because this set of events is commonplace and so far, a sufficient number of details has been released to bear this out. You may read this, then you may resume ignoring the facts in favor of your xenophobic denial that these two so-called "pilots" simply screwed up and damn near killed 300 people in the process.

A thunderstorm, in its mature phase ALWAYS creates a strong downdraft at its center. The downdraft occasionally develops into a violent outflow of air which is referred to as a microburst. The downdraft descends out of the storm and spreads out horizontally after striking the ground. The presence of a downdraft in a mature storm is evidenced by rain. Here is a detailed explanation of microbursts, complete with diagrams: http://www.math.unl.edu/~jfisher/NSF_96/windshear.html

It appears that this storm was positioned in relation to the runway so that approaching aircraft encountered the downdraft initially as a headwind on final. The headwind would cause the aircraft to climb above the instrument approach glideslope and the two lazy asses in the cockpit apparently simply let the autopilot compensate. Instead of initiating a missed approach, they allowed the autopilot to continue flying the approach. The autopilot would compensate for the above glide path condition by lowering the nose. This would result in an increase in airspeed above that desired for the approach.

Now the aircraft was on short final, with airspeed well above the maximum desired for the landing configuration. There was still time and opportunity to abort the approach and execute a go-around. Instead of aborting (which some of these egomaniacs view as "embarrassing"), the crew decided to attempt to try to force the aircraft onto the ground. The first consequence was that they ate up nearly one half of the available runway in a vain attempt to bleed off sufficient airspeed to get the aircraft to land. The second consequence was the multiple rough landing. The aircraft first contacted the ground with too much speed to stay on the ground. So, after the main gear impacted the first time, the aircraft bounced back into the air. This happened at least two more times. Each time, more runway was lost.

When the crew finally managed to slow the aircraft sufficiently so that it remained on the ground, too much runway had been used, there was still too much speed remaining to stop on the length of runway now available and there was not enough speed or distance remaining to take off again. Hence the excursion through the woods off the end of the runway.

That's it. Deny it to your heart's content, you only serve to reveal your ignorance and your puzzling inability to accept fact and reality.

On a personal note - I must say that if your attitude is typical of the French these days, it is little wonder that your society is in a state of decline and malaise. You seem to be far more interested in lame attempts to avoid assigning blame for their poor judgement to these two idiots than you are in proctecting future passengers and avoiding recurrence of similar acts of stupidity. Pilots are paid to be the intelligent link in the decision making process of flying an aircraft. When they fail to exercise that intelligence for the safety of their passengers and crew, then there is no point in having them on board. This accident could have happened in exactly the same way even if there had been no crew in the cockpit.

So have fun - continue your denials and continue to ignore the obvious. Given the quality of this crew, Air France could have saved themselves a lot of money and simply launched the aircraft with no one in the cockpit save the autopilot - the outcome of the "landing" would have been no different. Wonder if you would be happy to trust your life to the autopilot if it meant you could save another ten percent on the price of a ticket???

And those are all the keystrokes I intend to waste on someone who insists on burying his head in the sand while making irrational assertions that everyone and everything was at fault except two lazy fools who failed to take action when they should have.

WTF ???

We didn't know before, so I prefer tella bout the things we knew. And we knew the Toronto"s airport was not really perfect.


Now, we know that there is a pilot's error.


the landing was 400 meters to far, then not enough place to stop.



Here you were correct.

but it's a fact that Toronto's airport seems to be not really safe, the pilots said - all the North american pilots - that the hole dug at the end of the way is a problem : crash can't be avoid if pilot do an error.




PLease, Merlin, stop to say "that's typical of the French today etc etc......it's pitiful.

i never said, you can read my messages, that the pilots did a great job and didn't make mistake. I simply spoke about the crew - not pilots - and about their good job for the evacuation.

i only said that I ddidn't know and I spoke about the configuration of Toronto's airport.

So, stop here with your statements about FRance and French today.... there is no link.


A woman has deposit a complaint against Air FRance, yes, but also Toronto's airport, and the society exploiting the Control Tower.
It shows that the Air France's Crew did an error, but also the Toronto's airport.

 

[Said1]

WTF ???

We didn't know before, so I prefer tella bout the things we knew. And we knew the Toronto"s airport was not really perfect.


Now, we know that there is a pilot's error.


the landing was 400 meters to far, then not enough place to stop.



Here you were correct.

but it's a fact that Toronto's airport seems to be not really safe, the pilots said - all the North american pilots - that the hole dug at the end of the way is a problem : crash can't be avoid if pilot do an error.




PLease, Merlin, stop to say "that's typical of the French today etc etc......it's pitiful.

i never said, you can read my messages, that the pilots did a great job and didn't make mistake. I simply spoke about the crew - not pilots - and about their good job for the evacuation.

i only said that I ddidn't know and I spoke about the configuration of Toronto's airport.

So, stop here with your statements about FRance and French today.... there is no link.


A woman has deposit a complaint against Air FRance, yes, but also Toronto's airport, and the society exploiting the Control Tower.
It shows that the Air France's Crew did an error, but also the Toronto's airport.

Check these links out.

A transcript of air traffic controllers speaking with Air France Flight 358 and other pilots trying to land at Toronto's Pearson airport Tuesday shows evidence of worsening weather, but sheds no light on what caused the plane to overshoot its runway.

* INDEPTH: Air France Flight 358

The Air France plane, with 309 passengers and crew on board, was gutted by fire after ending up in a ravine at the west end of the airport. Nobody died in the accident.

Severe thunderstorms in the area are believed to have played some role in the crash landing.

The transcripts do not show any conversation with the cockpit about the weather, although the plane's approach speed is discussed.

"Air France 358, reduce speed now to 160 knots," the plane is told, and the pilot replies: "Reducing to 160, 358 ..."

The tower later says: "Air France 358, slow to your final approach speed."

The pilot's response is inaudible, but the controller says: "Correct, minimum speed Air France 358 ..."

Shortly after, the tower tells other airliners set to land that there is bad weather in the area.

"I'm showing what appears to be now some lightning at your 12:30 over to your 2:30 position at a range of about six miles," an air traffic controller tells one pilot.

Black Box Transcripts Continued


And this:

Lawsuit filed in Pearson airport crash
Last Updated Sat, 06 Aug 2005 11:03:37 EDT
CBC News

A passenger from the Air France flight that crashed in Toronto last Tuesday has filed a $75-million class-action lawsuit.

The lawsuit names Suzanne Deak of Toronto as the lone plaintiff, but the list of claimants is expected to grow.

The suit was filed on behalf of all 297 passengers who escaped the plane that skidded off a Pearson Airport runway before bursting into flames.

* FROM AUG. 5, 2005: Data retrieved from flight recorders

The suit claims Air France, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority and Nav Canada were negligent in the landing of the plane.

Paul Miller, the lawyer for the plaintiff, said his client is struggling to cope with minor back and neck injuries, along with psychological problems.

The crash landing injured 43 of the 309 people on board Flight 358 from Paris, but nobody died in the accident.

Link

And this:

Brian Lackey, vice-president of operations for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, said staff were looking out the window and commenting that the "storm was extremely severe and we hadn't seen one like that."

Lackey also said that the jetliner had enough fuel to divert to Montreal or another airport where the weather was better, but "that's the pilot's decision."

None of the 309 passengers or crew was killed when the plane skidded into a wooded ravine and caught fire, a short distance from the busy Highway 401 in Mississauga.

Tuesday's incident was the most serious accident at Pearson since 1978, when two people were killed when an Air Canada jet crashed during an aborted takeoff.

Continued

And this:

Monday, August 8th, 2005
Investigator: water on runway factor in crash
By: Wire Services
Email Story Printer Friendly Version

TORONTO — An Air France jet landed at a normal speed last week, but a surface slick from pounding rain and a touchdown nearly halfway along the runway likely combined to make it impossible for the pilots to stop in time, a crash investigator said Sunday.

Real Levasseur said the flight data suggests the plane, which skidded off the runway at Pearson International Airport, was travelling at about 148 knots — 274 kilometres an hour — with a tailwind when it landed. That’s not far off the usual approach speed of 140 knots.

The Airbus A-340, he said, was still rumbling along at almost 80 knots, just under 150 kilometres an hour, when it reached the end of the runway.

‘‘I am pretty convinced that there was no way the aircraft was going to stop before the end with the water on the runway and the (poor) braking action,’’ said Levasseur, the lead investigator for the Transportation Safety Board.

Link

I think that covers everything.

 

[padisha emperor]

thanks for these informations Said

 

[sitarro]

You continue to embarrass yourself with your baseless, cheesy, whining attempt to cover up for the incompetence of these two airport bums who took a perfectly good airplane and converted it to scrap metal.

Outstanding Merlin,
As one who is the son of a career United States Air Force pilot(fighter pilot,also known as "seat of the pants" pilot)and brother of 3 airline Captains, your explanation was perfect. All of my brothers benifitted from my Dad's training and spent a lot of time flying corporate aircraft before becoming airline pilots. All complain about the crop of no-it-alls that move up quickly from the Barbie jets and don't have a clue about flying an airplane. None of my brothers depend on autopilot for much, especially take off and landings and aren't intimidated by impatient passengers. They have and always will land at alternate airfields when weather and safety suggest that they do so. They are all "old school" and are considering early retirement because of the new regulations from their company people that require them to do stupid things with their aircraft .They also have a serious problem flying with the new breed of unionized "pilot" that doesn't question orders that were given by people that do not and will never fly.
I know that they were flying an airBUS, but even it should have been able to stop on the runway if it was put down where it was suppose to be.
I'll rep you when I can Merlin. . . you deserve it. Oh and Padish, you might try listening some time , you might accidentally learn something. :cof: