Deadly plane crash at Tokyo airport

uk.news.yahoo.com...

^^ a clearer video (

This is the 13th landing accident involving an MD-10/MD-11 since 1992.

www.flightglobal.com...

reply to post by Zaphod58


FedEx lost an MD-11 in EWR, some years ago (Zaphod, will check your link).

I'll tell you, I have a lot of time in the DC-10, and that video made me ill to watch. I honestly cannot fathom it....

Never will I jump to a conclusion, though. Was wondering which Runway it was, anyone know? The winds appeared to be fairly steady at 300 degrees....

[edit on 3/23/0909 by weedwhacker]

Emergency services needed two hours to extinguish the blaze. Although the fire brigades were able to keep the fire away from the cockpit, the crew could not be saved. The impact forces as well as the weight of debris in the cockpit had already killed the crew

avherald.com...


damn good firefighting to keep a blaze like that away from the cockpit in an attempt to save the crew

www.youtube.com...

^^ more footage , this shows the initial heavy landing , the nose coming down then the first `bounce` , according to the crews on pprune who have come from NRT the MD-11 had full spoilers deployed after touchdown (auto setting) so its a mystery why it became airborne again

cache.daylife.com...
^^ as you can see both MLG are still attached (left side is rather bent) and the nose gear is still in place as well.

the talk by the `professionals` is this could be a repeat of previous fedex hull loses at HKG and EWR .


i would be concerned over how the type just flips in gust conditions - even so 32kt gusts are within limits (i think)

edit:

weed its RW 34L at NRT

[edit on 23/3/09 by Harlequin]

Originally posted by Harlequin
i would be concerned over how the type just flips in gust conditions - even so 32kt gusts are within limits (i think)

edit:

weed its RW 34L at NRT

[edit on 23/3/09 by Harlequin]

That would put it right at the edge, or just over limits for the crosswind component. Max crosswinds are 31 knots.

reply to post by Harlequin


Thanks, Harlequin, for the Runway info. A 40 degree left crosswind?

I've not a whizz-wheel handy to alculate the vector, but shoot, I've landed in 90-degree 30 Knot crosswinds....albeit in the DC-10, but the airframes are similar.

And, yes Harlequin...I was assuming the Ground Spoilers deployed at wheel spin-up at the first touchdown...well, this one's going to be interesting....

EDIT.....oh, and Harlequin, I am confused about why it rolled over, as well....especially WHY to the left??? EDIT to clarify, I didn't see them side-slipping in the crosswind....I didn't see the left wing down, into the wind. In a swept-wing jet thre is a tendency for a right-hand roll, when the wind is from the left, and vice/versa.

[edit on 3/23/0909 by weedwhacker]

[edit on 3/23/0909 by weedwhacker]

reply to post by Zaphod58


Zaphod, I went to a crosswind component calculator on the 'google'....40 degrees at the max gust of 32K is 25Knots coimponent.

Besides, we both know that the 'Limitation' in the Flight Manual has a fudge factor built in....and, the other limiting factor is the engine nacelle, in a 'proper' crosswind landing. Can't recall when the nacelle would drag, seems like it was a 12 degrees of bank....

But if you've ever seen the flight testing when they land in a crab in 40Knot crosswinds... not even bothering to align the longitudinal axis, it is hairy looking stuff. (It's on the YouTubes, after a search...)

this is nearly the same thing that happened at EWR

after looking up the details on that crash - its so similar its scary , at EWR the redex MD-11 had a bounce and came down , nose first and the number 3 dug in and rolled it starboard

here we have the number 1 dig in and roll port side.

both from a standard landing yet the nose bounced


edit:

read the Chinese crash at HKG in 25 gusting 33 it reads near identical to the fedex one at EWR ; a hard landing and these things flip

[edit on 23/3/09 by Harlequin]

reply to post by Harlequin


yeah, it sure does (hate to say it) resemble PIO, after the hard bounce.

Remember everyone, you can always reject the landing up until you pull reverse. The TO/GA button is your friend.

www.ntsb.gov...

^^ EWR 1997 hull loss

very interesting reading

[edit on 23/3/09 by Harlequin]

reply to post by weedwhacker


Yeah, I know there's a fudge factor built in. But I've seen aircraft have VERY near misses when they were near the book limit.

The wind was coming from their left, so I would expect the left wing to hit, causing the left roll.

I caught a bit of this story on the radio earlier today (NHK) - they mentioned that around that time, Narita registered gusts of 72kph (about 39 knots).

Several passengers who landed prior to the incident noted that the ride was a lot more bumpy than they'd ever experienced, lots of side to side. Don't know what that translates to for the pros posting on here, but for the rest of us it's something like "really freakin windy".

edit to add:

train service around Tokyo was also disrupted because of high winds this morning.

[edit on 23-3-2009 by vox2442]

at EWR the pilot was slammed for over compensating for an increased sink rate from 17 to 10 feet BUT it seems the LSAS in the MD-11 actually does something regarding the nose wheel and the pitch up from spoilers as well without pilot stick `feel`.

hmm and fedex ar buying more of these things?

from all accounts they can be a real beast in wind , more so without LSAS woking

edit to change `with lsas` to `without lsas` to actually make sense

[edit on 23/3/09 by Harlequin]

reply to post by Harlequin


Harlequin, good points. Maybe they though they were improving on the tried-and-true DC-10, and just put in too much automation, above and beyond that needed to remover the Flight Engineer station.

It is true that there is a slight tendency to pitch up when the Ground Spoilers deploy...it becomes second nature to hold the control column slightly forward when you hear the SpeedBrake handle, then lower the nosewheel gently. It is an acquired skill.

(my airline, many many years ago, a Captain let a Second Officer land once...big mistake, this guy didn't know about the pitch-up tendency, and they scraped the tail....OOOPS!)

The Mcdonnell Douglas Md-11 is essentially a warmed over DC-10; an aircraft first flown in the 70's. That's not a bad thing, the 737 and 747 are much older, however, part of the design has been a problem in the past. In a normal aircraft, the centre of gravity is infront of the wing meaning down force must be generated by the tail to keep the aircraft balanced; this is obviously inefficient, as the tail has to push the aircraft down.

The Md-11 was designed to compete with brand new types such as the Airbus A340, and Boeing 777; but since it was an old design, they needed some changes. To keep costs down, what they did was reduce the size of the horizonal stabilizer, while shifting the centre of gravity far back so downforce is not required to balance the plane - similar to the F-16. To keep the plane stable a system called LSAS was introduced; Longitudinal Stability Augmentation System.

However, that didn't cure all the woes, the result is an aircraft that under certain conditions can become squirrely, such as in China Eastern Flight 583, as well as landing incidents such as FedEx Flight 14. Whether this occured here is SPECULATION OBVIOUSLY, however I don't think it should surprise anyone if it was a contributing factor. On hard landings the MD-11 / DC-10 have a propensity for the main wing spar to snap, flipping the aircraft upside down - it's happened in the past.

EDIT.

>>MAX crosswind component takes into an account a 90 degree crosswind... if it's 45 degrees then I THINK you can effectively double it.

>>Apparently the MD-11 used to have pitch up movements caused by spoiler deployment. I believe they cured it by updating LSAS in around 1998 and also making spoilers deploy only partially untill nose wheel compression.

>>Md-11 stopped production in 2001, last delivered to Lufthansa Cargo. It's such a good freighter they apparently wanted more, which is also one of the reasons Md-11's retired up from passenger service have been gobbled up UPS / FEDEX.

[edit on 23/3/2009 by C0bzz]

reply to post by C0bzz


^^ china flight is HKG and fedex is EWR as i mentioned above - the last 3 out of 4 hull loses of the type have been fedex with the china one thrown in.

[edit on 23/3/09 by Harlequin]

Originally posted by Harlequin
from all accounts they can be a real beast in wind , more so with LSAS woking

From reading what other pilots are saying, LSAS works just fine for a smooth pilot, but a mediocre/average pilot is going to have problems with LSAS, especially during conditions like they experienced yesterday in Tokyo.

There have also been some software changes to LSAS in recent years.

[edit on 3/23/2009 by Zaphod58]

Originally posted by C0bzz
>>Apparently the MD-11 used to have pitch up movements caused by spoiler deployment. I believe they cured it by updating LSAS in around 1998 and also making spoilers deploy only partially untill nose wheel compression.

There was no locking mechanism on the spoiler handle. The way the handle was situated on the center console, if the left seat pilot put down his clipboard, or even swung his hand down at the right angle, it would deploy the slats. They put a locking mechanism to where they had to use both hands to deploy the spoilers after a flight attendant was severely injured near Alaska.

reply to post by Zaphod58


my spelling is aweful - i meant to say `without LSAS working`

Originally posted by Zaphod58

Originally posted by C0bzz
>>Apparently the MD-11 used to have pitch up movements caused by spoiler deployment. I believe they cured it by updating LSAS in around 1998 and also making spoilers deploy only partially untill nose wheel compression.

There was no locking mechanism on the spoiler handle. The way the handle was situated on the center console, if the left seat pilot put down his clipboard, or even swung his hand down at the right angle, it would deploy the slats. They put a locking mechanism to where they had to use both hands to deploy the spoilers after a flight attendant was severely injured near Alaska.

To arm the auto - spoiler, you pull the lever UPWARD, till it clicks. Apon main gear compression the spoilers will deploy partially, and then full on nose gear compression. I cannot remember if this was introduced after previous landing problems or it was from the start; maybe I'll check tomorow.

EDIT:
>> MD-11 cockpit rocks. Everything's automatic to a greater extent than 777 / A340.

>> PIO with LSAS seems like a very likely possibility. Kinda similar to these?

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

www.youtube.com...

>> PIO = Pilot Induced Osscillation. Where the pilot for various reasons can battle with the aircraft. Can be caused by stability on ANY aircraft, but particularly early FBW aircraft and unstable ones. In the case of the Gripen, the FBW was relatively slow to react, which caused the pilot to try and do the job of FBW - which ends up in massive overcorrecting and oscillations.

>> Highly doubt pilots froze - they are not trained that way. Furthermore doesn't look like they froze from the video.

[edit on 23/3/2009 by C0bzz]