Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Landing into a storm

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Landing into a storm

    I'd like to know what our resident airline pilots think of this landing.

    On one hand, I see the airport under the red radar return, there are lightings striking right next to the airport, and the tower reports that there the airport is under thunderstorm cell right now.

    On the other hand, the reported wind is light, there is no report of gusting wind, let alone windshears, the plane that has just landed before you reported low visibility but nothing else, and you have the runway in sight from several miles out on final. And, you can't fly just in nice weather.

    That said, I was thinking Delta 191 all along the video, especially when the heavy reain started pouring in short final when flying over the approach lights, I thought "a good windshear this low would be unrecoverable". So my vote is "no landing into this", but I want to hear what the pros think.

    What seems to be the F/O handling a handycam during this critical phase of the flight is a whole other subject worth mentioning.

    Fokker 100 landing at la Havana on a heavy thunderstorm and reduced visibility. many other aircraft landed with the same weather conditions before and after ...



    --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
    --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

  • #2
    ...if only Flyboy were here as a parlour-talking ass-hat chimes in ahead of the professionals about something of which he really doesn't know about from a professional standpoint.

    The landing looked extremely OK to me- I did not see evidence of crazy altitude/attitude excursions, the bumps appeared "normal" and the visibility seemed fairly decent for a couple of instrument-current professionals to me.

    The reported winds were reasonable too.

    To me the question is what do we really know about thunderstorms when they are around an airport. They aren't all alike- some can have torrential rainfall and mild winds. Some shoot lightning all over creation and some are much less lightning rich. Some produce straight line winds, some produce tornadic stuff, some produce a random down burst. They can be linear or cellular. The can be random- lonely airmass thunderstorms or they can be huge MCS complexes, or they can be densely-packed little popcorn zits, and there's even a "derecho" variety. They can be high-based or low based, "wet", "dry", they can be all alone and spectacular as they are surrounded by clear dry air, or they can hide in the haze. Also, some can be embedded within huge areas of gentle rain. They can rotate or not...

    My foffie side would definately pucker up to know that my pilots were aiming at a "red area" and that the FO was dicking around videoing it. I also pucker a little when professional pilots say- Yeah, we do sometimes charge into and land during storms- Atlanta, OHare, Dallas and Denver would melt down if we didn't...but again, it looked like a good, fun landing in an honest rainshower- with a very specatular view of a sharp rain column, right at the edge of the field.

    I guess the question to me is if "reasonable surface winds" and "everyone else ahead of me got in ok" is ALL the pilots have to go on- or are there other data and some other things they could use to evaluate the risk. And after years of parlour talking- I'm not sure there is much more- other than the lame, ground-based multiple anemometer reconciling windshear-aleart system fancy new dopper wind-shear detectors on-board the planes. I guess the weather guys also can take a look at doppler stuff...

    Ok, we have new stuff that we know, but I'm thinking the decision is still a human instinct/experience/Macho-ITS-Boeing-Bobby-Snyder-VNav-MCM-Flyboy-Screaming Emo-Jet Captain looking at the surface winds, and the guy who got in ahead of them and that either they love an honest challenge, OR OTTO CAN HANDLE IT.

    The thing about Delta 191 is that it was not downed by a huge, tornadic, rotating super-cell. It was downed by an afternoon heated-airmass pop up thundershower...yeah, communication could have been a bit better, and the swiss cheese timing was a factor as it rapidly transitioned from a tall cloud to a heavy-jet-busting downburster - but it was a crazy average summer afternoon. (Ok, I acknowledge- a TEXAS afternoon thundershower is just like Texas Wine, Texas pilots, Texas High School Football, Texas everything...BIGGER and BOLDER.)
    Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

    Comment


    • #3
      Well, yes, the approach and landing were uneventfull, no excursions in speed, pitch, altitude, heading, flight path. The little bups were, well, little.

      I guess my question is... the above is easy to tell by looking at the video of what HAPPENED, it's like reading yesterday's newspaper. But did the pilots know it would be this way beforehand? The answer to this question must be a "no", since nobody can tell the future with absolute certainty. So the answer could be re-phrased as: Was the risk they accepted a reasonable one?

      --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
      --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

      Comment


      • #4
        Reminds me of a line from Forest Gump. "Stupid is as stupid does" WHY do it?
        Just as easy to go hold for a half hour. As you have both noted, never know what might be waiting for you on short final with a cell that close to the field.

        Personally, I would have gone somewhere and waited it out.

        B.B.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by BoeingBobby View Post
          ...Personally, I would have gone somewhere and waited it out...
          Apologies, because I'm not going to let this go...

          ...as a current resident of Flyover USA and a former resident of Useless, TX on the day of Delta 191 I have had the pleasure of observing operations during a lot of stormy weather.

          The things that I observe (and other's have also mentioned over the years) are:

          1) You keep landing right up until the bitter end. I've listened to the "police scanner" and watched the NWS radar and seen the red touch the edge of the field...very often the planes keep landing UNTIL the tower reports the "typical gust front". (And who wants to mention AA at Little Rock, AND remind everyone that it wasn't the gusty thunderstorm that got them...it was the human error of forgetting to arm the spoilers!)

          2) Herd mentality...as long as planes keep landing, planes keep landing. Until Boeing Bobby is trundling down the approach and declares he's not going to do it...THEN, no one lands.

          So, I respect BB's reply- but it does not address how the industry handles approaches in/into thunderstorms. I guess it is surface winds, the guy ahead and the fancy new doppler windshear detection system.

          As to the particular Youtube- what do you have?: Reasonable surface winds, and an Airbus ahead that made an exceptional landing (everyone lived, aircraft resuable without repair). (And maybe they had windshear detection on board).

          However, all that being said, there's probaby a good argument for the Evan Safety Corporation, or the Jetphotos Safety Think Tank Charitable Foundation to develop some new systems, check lists and decision trees to help Bobby with his stormy approaches.
          Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

          Comment


          • #6
            Don't remember the flight number, could look it up but who cares. Delta in Dallas L1011. After that one, SOP NO take-offs or landings during an active thunderstorm.

            Is it still done? That video was shot in Brazil I am pretty sure. You have heard the old saying about old pilots and bold pilots?

            Hey Mindy, I really do miss you!

            Comment


            • #7
              The chances of such a convective cell with that much activity producing no appriciable winds much less shear or changes in direction is about 100,000 to 1.
              Live, from a grassy knoll somewhere near you.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by 3WE View Post
                1) You keep landing right up until the bitter end. I've listened to the "police scanner" and watched the NWS radar and seen the red touch the edge of the field...very often the planes keep landing UNTIL the tower reports the "typical gust front". (And who wants to mention AA at Little Rock, AND remind everyone that it wasn't the gusty thunderstorm that got them...it was the human error of forgetting to arm the spoilers!)

                2) Herd mentality...as long as planes keep landing, planes keep landing. Until Boeing Bobby is trundling down the approach and declares he's not going to do it...THEN, no one lands.

                So, I respect BB's reply- but it does not address how the industry handles approaches in/into thunderstorms. I guess it is surface winds, the guy ahead and the fancy new doppler windshear detection system.

                As to the particular Youtube- what do you have?: Reasonable surface winds, and an Airbus ahead that made an exceptional landing (everyone lived, aircraft resuable without repair). (And maybe they had windshear detection on board).
                I guess that's why many airlines has oit as a policy, no, wait, as a procedure (which immediatly becomes a requirement) NOT to land with an active cell on the field and keep at least 5 NM away from any red return.

                In this way, pilots that are not Boingbobbyeans don't have to think and make the tough decision. They are not free to choose. Red return = no land.

                --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Gabriel View Post
                  I guess that's why many airlines has oit as a policy, no, wait, as a procedure (which immediatly becomes a requirement) NOT to land with an active cell on the field and keep at least 5 NM away from any red return...
                  Ok, I will try to watch what I can this summer to see if I can detect anything interesting when we have weather moving in.

                  Not too many years ago, I recall sitting at DFW with a really big, but "gentle" weather system going on- steady moderate rain with a shot of lightning every 10 or so minutes, typical gusty winds...the planes were coming and going. Cleary, that wasn't "red stuff" but I mention it due to Gabe's words "active cell" on the field.

                  By the way- I know that the resolution of www.internet.com radars and time delays may not show some detail that allow pilots to sneak between storms. One other thing- "red stuff" = lots of water, and does not neccesarily indicate wind...the landing Gabe showed seemed well short of a "blinding deluge"...just good old fashioned heavy rain...so who says "red stuff" is really all that bad...

                  By the way #2- I would still bash the aviation industry for being blind to a lot of weather information- a few short years ago, my home airport was hit by a tornado- with lots of passengers sitting in front of big a$$ windows and even folks sitting on planes.

                  The really really bad thing was that there was an official tornado warning and the media had tracked this supercell storm for almost 100 miles and 2+ hours as it maintained warning-worthy rotation as well as dropping a couple actual tornadoes.

                  But the airport, airlines and tower- (and aviation cares about the weather right??) sat there loading planes, keeping passengers in the gate area, facilitating aircraft taxi, etc, while I sat at home watching the storm hit the airport on TV...

                  When I think about that- Gabriel's landing seems kind of mundane.

                  Waiting at the gate for the lightning storm to pass. Things only got worse.


                  I was filming lightning on concourse C-10 when the tornado hit us. Went right over my friend and I .Aircraft behind window was pushed aside . We walked to a...


                  Auf YouTube findest du die angesagtesten Videos und Tracks. Außerdem kannst du eigene Inhalte hochladen und mit Freunden oder gleich der ganzen Welt teilen.
                  Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by BoeingBobby View Post
                    Don't remember the flight number, could look up but who cares. Delta in Dallas L1011...

                    Hey Mindy, I really do miss you!
                    Might try reading the thread where it's mentioned three times, instead of worrying about our girlfriend.
                    Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by 3WE View Post
                      I mention it due to Gabe's words "active cell" on the field.
                      BoingBobby's words.

                      By the way- I know that the resolution of www.internet.com radars and time delays may not show some detail that allow pilots to sneak between storms. One other thing- "red stuff" = lots of water, and does not neccesarily indicate wind...the landing Gabe showed seemed well short of a "blinding deluge"...just good old fashioned heavy rain...so who says "red stuff" is really all that bad...
                      I think that the problem is that red stuff might or might not be that bad.

                      You don't say "I'll position for take-off without looking. Who says that an airplane will be landing right then?".

                      --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                      --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by 3WE View Post
                        Might try reading the thread where it's mentioned three times, instead of worrying about our girlfriend.

                        Sorry you mentioned a Delta flight number, I guess I should have known it was the one in Dallas. My bad or what.

                        And you need to get a little sense of humor, makes life a lot more fun!

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by BoeingBobby
                          And you need to get a little sense of humor, makes life a lot more fun!
                          Did I say something about reading the thread?
                          Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by 3WE View Post
                            However, all that being said, there's probaby a good argument for the Evan Safety Corporation, or the Jetphotos Safety Think Tank Charitable Foundation to develop some new systems, check lists and decision trees to help Bobby with his stormy approaches.
                            I wouldn't argue with BB there, except in the case of pax flights the question is "why gamble with the lives of others?"

                            The issue is that convective activity like this has the POTENTIAL for unrecoverable windshear. So the danger is clear and PRESENT even if the actual windshear isn't. This is why you don't fly through restricted airspace or descend below MSA even though chances are good that nothing bad would come of it. I'm glad to know reputable airlines have a no-go policy for red returns.

                            The problem I think we are seeing in this video is that many pilots are task-oriented beyond the boudaries of safety or sound judgment. Hence we need black-and-white (or red and green) restrictions to protect the flying public from this sort of risk taking.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by BoeingBobby View Post
                              Personally, I would have gone somewhere and waited it out.

                              B.B.
                              This. I'm heavily paranoid about flying in close proximity to thunderstorms.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X