Boeing 777 down...

First off prayers for everyone on board.

Secondly, looking at the live footage...
Marks clearly show it was on its belly, skidding along the ground when it came to a stop.
Since it sounds like no emergency was called first, did they forget to extend the gear?
Or is the gear near the impact site with the tail? :kilroy:
 
The debris starts at the waters edge and beginning of runway. Looks like he landed short collapsing the gear and knocking the tail off.
 
Terry said:
The debris starts at the waters edge and beginning of runway. Looks like he landed short collapsing the gear and knocking the tail off.
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Okay, I didn't get to see that, thanks Terry.
The footage I watched the news chopper only panned to the end of the runway where the tail was.
Sounds right then.

First I read that it flipped upside down according to witnesses.
But clearly it's on its belly with both wings fairly intact.

They obviously had time to deploy the emergency slides on all sides, so I'm hoping they had a good amount of survivors, and the fire was just after the fact.
 
Thank goodness it sounds like most made it out OK. It's way too early to speculate much, but this reminds me a little of that BA(?) 777 that crash landed in the UK in that they both landed just short of the runway. That witness who saw it flip and cartwheel must have quite the active imagination.

edit: I've never witnessed an airliner crash so I don't mean to criticize someone for reporting what they think they saw. It seems obvious to me from the condition of the aircraft that it did not flip or cartwheel.
 
I'd like to hear from the crew of that 747 that was waiting to take off from 28 L. Bet they had a good view of what happened. Looks like the fire in the cabin started from the engine that's currently snuggled up to the right side of the fuselage. No idea where the other engine is yet. Thoughts and prayers to the passengers and crew.
 
Terry said:
The debris starts at the waters edge and beginning of runway. Looks like he landed short collapsing the gear and knocking the tail off.
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That's what it looked like to me as well. One passenger tweeted that they were coming in too low.
 
Incredibly good crew that performed that evacuation and the pilot stayed until everyone was off! WHEW it coulda been worse!
 
News reports here in Australia say that the pilot reported a mechanical failure prior to the crash.
 
AussieMan said:
News reports here in Australia say that the pilot reported a mechanical failure prior to the crash.
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Yes, I dont remember where I came across it, but I did find audio of the pilot declaring an emergency, and you could hear atc telling pretty much every other aircraft to go around, and they also informed the Asiana pilot that emergency crews were rolling. So it sounds like there was definitely something going on before the crash.

EDIT - Now that I listen to it again, atc may be talking to the Asiana pilots after the crash already happened, and they are telling everyone else to go around.
 
Ickie said:
thats a hard airport to land in coming over the sf hills
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What exactly do you mean? There aren't any hills higher than 5000' within a hundred mile radius according to the sectional chart. Certainly nothing that affects a plane the size of a 777.

At first sniff it smells like pilot error. Will be interesting to see what the NTSB comes up with. Thankfully there weren't a whole lot of fatalities.
 
Kiwikat said:
What exactly do you mean? There aren't any hills higher than 5000' within a hundred mile radius according to the sectional chart. Certainly nothing that affects a plane the size of a 777.

At first sniff it smells like pilot error. Will be interesting to see what the NTSB comes up with. Thankfully there weren't a whole lot of fatalities.
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Plus, the approach is mostly over water for 28L and 28R
 
Possibly another case of ice crystals clogging the fuel-oil heat exchangers? I know the Asiana 777-28E(ER) is powered by PW4090's(not Trent 895's) but all three engine variants have similar fuel-oil heat exchangers. In previous incidents where there was a failure of engine response(and flameouts) either during or after FADEC/Manual movement of the throttles due to the amount of ice crystal buildup over the elements/orifices inside of the fuel-oil heat exchangers(which are inline between the fuel tanks and engine). In Boeing's tests, if the ice crystal buildup was enough, it would constrict the fuel flow(on demand by the pumps) and the engines would stay at the same RPM/Thrust level or flame out. What happened here is nearly identical to what happened with BA38 at Heathrow. Engineers have indicated that this problem can occur at any phase of the flight once cruise altitude has been established but in nearly each case of this happening to a 777, it's been in the descent/approach phase after a long range flight when fuel icing can occur. In my time years ago doing airline refueling, I remember more than once a center or wing tank being sumped after a long flight/and our refueling seeing small ice crystals/water in the sumped fuel. And no, none of the airlines I fueled used Prist, the fuel was standard Jet A.

I have a strong feeling this wasn't pilot error but again another system failure.
 
As for the missing left engine, it was once explained to me that wing mounted engines were designed to break off in the event of a crash/belly landing in order to prevent a major fire being started by the hot engines.
 
Kiwikat said:
What exactly do you mean? There aren't any hills higher than 5000' within a hundred mile radius according to the sectional chart. Certainly nothing that affects a plane the size of a 777.

At first sniff it smells like pilot error. Will be interesting to see what the NTSB comes up with. Thankfully there weren't a whole lot of fatalities.[/QUOTE]

Part of me is sad that in this day and age we still say that but I also know it could have been much worst.
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