Yemeni Airliner Down in Comoros (Indian Ocean)

[Evan]

Let me explain the basic elements of IFR knowledge, approaching airfield to land we always aim for highest possible available NAV aids....depends on Wx it will be either ILS CATIII/CATII/CATI, if any component of ILS capabilities is not present (not operational) we have to go for NPA approach...

In case of Comores, present Wx required crew to go for RWY20, initially using either ILS RWY02 or VORDME RWY02 (I have not noticed anywhere that G/S was u/s, in that case crew will opt for VORDME RWY02 chart) to get to the point of HA LOM, where he must initiate circle to land procedure as it is published in chart MVI RWY20

I hope this answers your Q...rgds, bob

One question: Would IY626 use the RWY 02 glideslope down to LOM? That would put them around 1000ft when they vectored off for the RWY 20 approach. What do you consider a safe altitude to execute a descending 180° roll maneuver in those conditions, into high winds and into terrain? I'm probably repeating my concern...

[bobdxb]

Isn't it true that many of the world's major airlines do not conduct timed DME approaches at night on revenue flights because they are inherently more dangerous?

I use to work for major airline and did not have any restrictions as you suggest....however we do have SOP's and RM (route manuals) and before airline start to fly to a new place regardless of level of facilities/capabilities at the apt itself, member of safety/flt training department (TC or TCE) will fly to destination as a crew observer with present operator (prior approval requiered from operator).......he will take photos of daytime and night time arrivals and departures.....he will inspect apt facilities and, more and more important since 911, security issues at the airport. Finally he will conduct research for crew transport and accomodation in case of crew layover.

Based on his report Company will publish new destination in the RM and all of us, operating crews will simply "read and do"....from time to time in his report PIC will observe changes to what it was written in the RM to be implemented in next issue of RM.

I hope this satisfies your concern, I give detailed info to answer your question, coz it might be of interest to other readers how most of scheduled/flag carriers operate, in order to take you from A to B safe and sound.

rgds, bob

[bobdxb]

One question: Would IY626 use the RWY 02 glideslope down to LOM? That would put them around 1000ft when they vectored off for the RWY 20 approach. What do you consider a safe altitude to execute a descending 180° roll maneuver in those conditions, into high winds and into terrain? I'm probably repeating my concern...

Well, you have to stick to numbers given in the chart, whatever you think is better or easier, will not be good enough, if by miracle you survive and appear in the court.....

However, to come back to your question, using G/S to get to HA LOM is the easiest and safest way (you are clear of obstacles at certain distance/height until HA LOM), if no G/S use DME from HAH VOR. In both cases make sure you level off at your MDA, in this case is 1230ft.

Once over the sea in downwind leg and base leg and finals, no problem for obstacles as long as you fly on prescribed track (I would say, it would be wise to have your ND in NAV to have your FMS picture displayed, by the way "I loved RNAV" and cross check with VOR/DME (radial/distance) info to make sure your FMS is telling the truth. Regardless that we fly VFR circle to land, PNF can also assist with crosscheck of ND's, VOR's at any stage you started turning base leg.....

Once you commit yourself to base leg turn, look for visual light beacons, still over the sea-no obstacles, shallow descent not so scary even at night, aim at final track 196, imaginary 3 deg slope height crosscheck, at 3 NM 978ft, 2 NM 678ft, no PAPI lights on this side if u have lost visual contact at any stage turning base leg onwards, announce GA, continue turning right (away from terrain), start climbing to GA altitude, navigate to GA radial from HAH, call for check list....your PNF will advise ATC

rgds, bob

[WhiteKnuckles]

Watching TV news this morning on a cable channel, saw a marquee scroll across saying Yemenia will no longer fly the route that led to this crash. Can't solve every safety situation this way, but from what I've heard so far, I'd applaud this decision. Must be some safer alternatives.

[bobdxb]

.....Now, there were several initial reports stating that IY626 had 'attempted to land' and was making a second attempt when it disappeared. These reports cited official sources. I've been assuming they are accurate.

The two mysteries I see are:

1) Radio silence for five minutes prior to the crash. Like AF447, it suggests whatever happened either happened very quickly or was all consuming. If there was a go-around, why no communication?

2) The location of the crash. It is nowhere near the prescribed track. What is unclear is whether the location is where the wreckage was first spotted or where the aircraft is calculated to have gone down. I tend to think the former. With high winds. I wonder how far north it could travel in the two hours between the crash and the rescue.

I don't think speculation will get us far on this one. The black boxes will probably be found but retrieving them is another story. In the meantime, I think most of us assume the weather and the nature of the approach are more causal than any latent weakness in the A310. Therefore I don't feel the same urgency to get to the truth as I do on AF447, or as I did on Turkish 1951, where it truly was urgent to get an MOM out there regarding the A/T restriction. In my mind, the quick safety fix is 'don't fly into Comoros on nocturnal arrivals until the boxes tell the whole story'.

As I have mentioned few times here in this forum, I suspect crew error in IY626 and we should not (mix "apples with pears") compare A330 and A310 accident at all. Few reasons to be named, AF447 was no where near sea level, Wx completely different, tech problems-Pitot Tubes, and after all A330 is fly by wire while A310 is not....

I will answer your questions:
1. Radio silence?? Once they are cleared for VFR circle to land RWY20, no further talk is requiered unless crew/atc want to say something like wind check, altitude check in case of another traffic nearby (I believe only a/c at the time being in HAH terminal)....so next logical thing is either from the crew "final 20" or atc "clear to land rwy20, wind from.....). Looking at the pattern it is more or less 5 min (app 12-15 track miles) from HA LOM till touch down

2. Exact location of the wreckage will be announced when they reach black box, the rest is only speculations. Considering winds of 25-30 kts how far oil slick, a/c parts floating, bodies would be after 2 hours?

On other hand I am surprised that Tower did not see or report more about crash location. almost clear skies until 2000ft, good vision, 4NM is not far to spot a/c with all lights on, flashing beacon and would be interesting to listen to ATC tape also....

It was mentioned by someone else here, why ppl on ground reported a/c trying to land twice.....it is night time and good visuals for ppl to spot a/c while the same is performing circle to land.......first they see a/c/lights at HA LOM (5NM away) for RWY02, then suddenly it is turning away from apt (coz it is supose to in circle to land tracking procedure)

or another scenario, crew is trying RWY02 regardless reports of tailwind, tailwind limit is 10kts, since it is gusty it may go down to 10kts.....I would really like to hear the atc tape, I guess it is available....

rgds, bob

[Evan]

Well, you have to stick to numbers given in the chart, whatever you think is better or easier, will not be good enough, if by miracle you survive and appear in the court.....

So, if your MDA is 1230ft, you would have to leave the RWY 02 g/s before the LOM (indicates 1000ft). Maintain MDA to... when is your MAP then, at the 308° radial, base leg turn?

I do want to believe you when you say the circle to land approach is not particularly dangerous in good visibility, but I'm seeing myself as a pax in a heavy 310, looking out my window at whitecaps a few hundred feet off the low wingtip during a 1.5 mile radius turn to base... it would get my heart beating.

I'm also questioning the early reports of a go-around. Reporters might have confused the circle to land approach with a go-around.

[Evan]

I will answer your questions:
1. Radio silence?? Once they are cleared for VFR circle to land RWY20, no further talk is requiered unless crew/atc want to say something like wind check, altitude check in case of another traffic nearby (I believe only a/c at the time being in HAH terminal)....so next logical thing is either from the crew "final 20" or atc "clear to land rwy20, wind from.....). Looking at the pattern it is more or less 5 min (app 12-15 track miles) from HA LOM till touch down

I meant radio silence under the assumption of a go around. The initial reports (CNN, AP) cited a 'failed landing attempt', so I would have expected communication with the tower at that point. Part of the 'mystery' for me lay in the idea that IY626 opted to go around but no radio transmissions were made. Now that scenario is looking to be erroneous, so it's probably a mute point. The other part of the radio silence mystery is, why no distress call? Probably no time. Whatever happened, happened quickly.

LiveATC doesn't cover places like this does it?

[bobdxb]

Watching TV news this morning on a cable channel, saw a marquee scroll across saying Yemenia will no longer fly the route that led to this crash. Can't solve every safety situation this way, but from what I've heard so far, I'd applaud this decision. Must be some safer alternatives.

I agree with you to some point.....they have to stop using circle to land night time arrivals until they have clear picture within the Yemenia Training Dept how operating A310 crews are performing this not so easy approach.

On other hand TV News makers should read carefully what yemenia said,.....they will only stop Marseille-Sanaa flights due to.....you may read full article here

[bobdxb]

I meant radio silence under the assumption of a go around. The initial reports (CNN, AP) cited a 'failed landing attempt', so I would have expected communication with the tower at that point. Part of the 'mystery' for me lay in the idea that IY626 opted to go around but no radio transmissions were made. Now that scenario is looking to be erroneous, so it's probably a mute point. The other part of the radio silence mystery is, why no distress call? Probably no time. Whatever happened, happened quickly.

LiveATC doesn't cover places like this does it?

Let say for a sake of discussion, they did go for RWY02 regardless of tailwind restriction and they did GA, at what point of approach for RWY02 would they disscontinue and perform GA.....If I would be the pilot flying and let's just presume cross the line and not follow my SOP's (SOP's do not allow even planning for approach in your landing briefing if actual tailwind is not close to your limit), I would take my plane down to treshold and let my PNF read out tailwind from ND..........if it is below limit fine.....land the bird.........if not close to my 10kts tailwind limit.....what is my choice then GA and everybody at the airport including ATC would see me almost touching down and going arround. But none reported seeing a/c trying to land, they have seen it far away and performing circle to land RWY20 I guess...therefore rumors of trying to land....

I don't believe it until I see it and will stick to my story of circle to land RWY20.

To answer your question about radio silence:
Even if they went for circle to land RWY20, there is not much to talk as I mentioned before, also they are very busy flying a/c, monitoring instruments, watching for light beacons, crosschecking height, speed, reading C/L if not finished before

Could be also that they lost R/T with tower, but that would not crash a/c....if you do lose R/T again there is procedure how to handle that

bob

[bobdxb]

So, if your MDA is 1230ft, you would have to leave the RWY 02 g/s before the LOM (indicates 1000ft). Maintain MDA to... when is your MAP then, at the 308° radial, base leg turn?

I do want to believe you when you say the circle to land approach is not particularly dangerous in good visibility, but I'm seeing myself as a pax in a heavy 310, looking out my window at whitecaps a few hundred feet off the low wingtip during a 1.5 mile radius turn to base... it would get my heart beating.

I'm also questioning the early reports of a go-around. Reporters might have confused the circle to land approach with a go-around.

Well, you have nailed this one 100%. You are just using G/S RWY02 to be safe below, nothing prevents you to stay above G/S. In fact you have to level off at MDA regardless of G/S and distance to HA LOM....

Your MAP could be anywhere from turning base leg towards finals 196, the moment you are not VMC, too high or too low, don't see light beacon, it is really PF disscretion unless F/O is PF

I agree with you 100%, since my first flight on DC-3 as 3 yrs old kid till one of my shutle flights between SIN-JKT with max weight A300-600R and 268 pax on board, when we were thrown 2000ft below FL370,......yes I remember how scary turbulence can be.......but nothing more than few light injuries of cabin crew, the rest were seating fastened......a/c are designed to cope with turbulence and gusty winds I can tell you that.

rgds, bob

[bobdxb]

........Do you think pilot skills get allocated according to need or according to where pilots find the most rewards? It'd be great if the easiest landings got the least skilled pilots and the hardest landings were done by the pilots with the greatest experience and skill. But that seems Utopian to me.

Note to self: Ask FAA to assign scores to pilots so I can choose the ones with highest scores for the most scary flights.

It is not that easy, we are not about to pick Miss World (the highest score from the public show).....

However we do have ratings, while doing every 6 months a sim chk, instructor would score each pilot, you may imagine out of 4000 ppl each will show his own talent and skills...........to say who is the best and who is the worst is not really aim of sim chks. What they intend to score is pass or fail. Of course they also know who is best out of passed and they will offer them training jobs, etc....

On the other hand one of my late coleagues (RIP) was considered one of the best on B727 fleet, however he took himself and other 5 crew members + turkish 12 cabin crew to the long list of best but dead....

What really we should aim for is not the best but average pilots, consistent in performance and adherance to SOP's to avoid newspapers front page and be blamed for......we can not avoid tech problems to some extent but continuos training and information share among airlines will improve knowledge and standards around the globe....

[bobdxb]

What do you mean?

Someone mentioned that we should score pilots (grade them) in order to get best pilots (most experianced) flying to more difficult apt's and not so experianced to easy places....

[bobdxb]

My understanding was that the practice of an airline sending more experienced pilots to more challenging airports is not unheard of. However, that's not what I meant. I meant, can you explain what you meant about your late colleague.

He was ex airforce MIG-21 pilot, used to VFR flying more then any commercial pilot would be, joined flag carrier, shown best results during training, always top scored for checks and he ended his and others lives onboard for very same reason he was known as the best - VFR flying, over-confidence that he can do what ever he wanted .....this is what I meant to say......commercial flying is just a job like any other with certain rules to be followed......

[bobdxb]

My prejudice (and that's all it is) would be to say an airline like Yemenia would have less than the best pilots flying into some really difficult situations. That landing situation at Moroni sounds like something I'd rather avoid. I'd find the nearest easy landing and then do the last leg by a boat or something. Speaking as a traveler, not an air crew member. Even a prop-driven plane that has the ability to glide without power would give me more confidence. Some places jet airliners just don't belong. I remember landing in Norfolk Virginia in a 727. At the end of the runway, the plane made a turn that felt like a car in a road race. The airport seemed just barely big enough for that landing.

I have located video showing RWY02 approach daytime, it is not good quality but will give some idea about terrain and rwy itself.....

RWY02 approach - part 1
- part 2

[Evan]

I have located video showing RWY02 approach daytime, it is not good quality but will give some idea about terrain and rwy itself.....

RWY02 approach - part 1
- part 2

RWY 02 is a walk in the park. The runway looks like old Route 66. I'd love to see vid of the circle to land approach.