Flight track for Turkish flight 1951

[Mart61]

If you are interested you can view the flight track for the Turkish Airlines aircraft that crashed near AMS:

[FONT=&quot][URL]http://www.openatc.com/THY1951/[/URL][/FONT]

[andylinney]

They're speculating that it ran out of fuel but from the trace the problem happened on the other side of the river at 400 ft and he's tried to stretch the glide by the looks of it. I guess there's no way you'd turn a deadstick 737 around from 400' without screwing it into the floor.

Scary the number of air-accidents in the last few weeks.

[Mart61]

It would appear to have captured the glideslope ok from what I can see. The rate of descent was reasonably constant and the aircraft appeared to be flaring to land. However, the last ADS-B broadcast shows the rate of descent in excess of 4000 ft/min.

Something caused that sudden loss of altitude. Not even sure that no fuel would have caused that, but I'm not certain. Most aircraft are designed to at least a 15:1 glidepath, i.e. for every 15 feet you travel forward, you descend 1 foot.

Windshear perhaps?

[andylinney]

[quote=Mart61;234986]

Windshear perhaps?[/quote]

Could be, but it's generally widely reported by previous crews coming through it - the deviation seems most apparent in airspeed - that 117kts seems slow, unless someone can confirm that it's a normal approach speed.

He lost 30kts over the motorway - so perhaps it was windshear, a real nasty one if so. Or the loss of propulsion maybe in the same manner as the 777 at heathrow?

I'm always suitably impressed that whatever did happen it came down in a realtively intact state and people actually survived.

[Mart61]

Just goes to show how safe the aviation industry is. If you ever want to look at the global stats on fatal accidents, the CAA publish a great document, CAP776, and you can read it [URL="http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP776.pdf"]here[/URL].

[pchristy]

The last two airspeed figures say it all! Under 90 knots? It clearly stalled! This also ties in with the passengers reporting "vibration" just before impact.

But why?

--
Pete

[andylinney]

[quote=pchristy;235004]The last two airspeed figures say it all! Under 90 knots? It clearly stalled! This also ties in with the passengers reporting "vibration" just before impact.

But why?

--
Pete[/quote]

Pete, he was stretching the glide. Look at what he's got to clear just to get it into the field. He was contending with a too low, too slow config with probably a full drag flap deployment and gear down.

He's obviously just dragged the nose as high as it'd go before impact and I'd bet the subsequent 'slap' of the fuse from the tail to the nose onto the ground was what broke the fuse and ultimately killed the two crew.

[pchristy]

[quote=andylinney;235013]Pete, he was stretching the glide. Look at what he's got to clear just to get it into the field. He was contending with a too low, too slow config with probably a full drag flap deployment and gear down.
[/quote]

Yes, I appeciate that. What I don't understand is WHY he was too low and too slow. It sounds like total loss of power, something that's meant to be impossible in a modern airliner! Oh, wait! Didn't something similar happen at Heathrow not too long ago????

Or did he just run out of fuel? Bit suspicious that there was no fire.......!

--
Pete

[andylinney]

[quote]He lost 30kts over the motorway - so perhaps it was windshear, a real nasty one if so. Or the loss of propulsion maybe in the same manner as the 777 at heathrow?[/quote]

That's exactly what I thought.

Having been in the arse-end of a nasty windshear in a Piper Archer coming out of Sleap airfield a few years back on one of my solo circuits consolidation trips I can clearly remember me gripping the seat with my backside as the plane fell and I was at full power, flaps up in a 80kt climb. So it could have been a really nasty shear but you're right, 90kts in a 737 says dual engine failiure...

[BobJ]

Hi

I did look at the synoptic chart a few hours after and although couldn't find the one for the actual time of the crash going from just a few hours later the winds would have been very light and so unlikely to had a big wind shear, think the weather overal at the time was fairly stable so shouldn't have played a part.

Cheers
Bob

[quote=andylinney;236469]That's exactly what I thought.

Having been in the arse-end of a nasty windshear in a Piper Archer coming out of Sleap airfield a few years back on one of my solo circuits consolidation trips I can clearly remember me gripping the seat with my backside as the plane fell and I was at full power, flaps up in a 80kt climb. So it could have been a really nasty shear but you're right, 90kts in a 737 says dual engine failiure...[/quote]

[Mart61]

Synopsis from Dutch Safety Board briefing that took place at 1300Z:

[COLOR=Indigo][LIST][*]Capt in LH seat, (fully qualified) FO in RH seat doing a training flight, observer FO on jumpseat[*]Normal approach, no changes, to 18R[*]Descent on AP, normal procedure for TK[*]At 1950 ft LH RadAlt indicated -8 ft and passed this info to the A/T[*]From CVR: crew get aural landing-gear warning but not consider this a problem[*]A/T pulled throttles closed[*]Aircraft started to behave as if it were a few meters above the runway and about to land[*]stick shaker and other warnings went off at 450 ft[*]From FDR: full power was then applied[*]Because of the full power on the engines and the sudden contact with the ground, both engines broke off and continued another 200 meters forward[*]FDR stores 25 hours, in this case 8 flights, same problem had occured twice previously before previous landings.[/LIST][/COLOR]

[pchristy]

Soooo.... the aircraft thought it was 400 ft lower than it was! Auto-pilots, dontcha just love 'em!

"Nothing can go wrong <click> go wrong <click> go wrong <click> go wrong <click> go wrong.........."

--
Pete