Waaay too soon. Bad things happen, and accident chains take time to discern. It took a lot of circumstances - including a poorly-chosen wall emplacement - to make this what it is.
Save the Boeing bashing for the times it’s deserved.
Unless we find out something unexpected, no. It looks like a bird strike caused some major issues, and *possibly* the crew had difficulty responding to them.
Way more happened here than a bird strike killing a motor. What, exactly, is what the investigation will provide, but I think they got handed a whole bucket of bad, and there were things like the stupid wall that only served to make it worse.
Haven’t had time to watch this https://youtu.be/BzmptA6s-1g. Folks are discussing it in an offline forum and people are just confused. Same with Reddit aviation. The plane appeared to hit a bird on approach from the south and then went around to land from the north but the landing is just strange.
In short it’s confusing why the flaps weren’t deployed, wheels weren’t lowered, why the plane had so much speech, and why the plane came down so far down the runway (touches around 2/3 of the way down).
Offline it’s been mentioned that in a clean configuration (no flaps) it’s might be hard to bring it down. Still doesn’t explain why they didn’t try a go around.
Further it’s confusing why the plane landed so quickly after a potential bird strike. It’s as if the pilots really really wanted to get down even if they were so far down the runway. Why will probably come to light later.
So, like the JFK “second shooter” theory, a “second engine” theory here does hold some possibility, but more plausible.
If the second motor died, their options to go around? Gone. If the core is shredded, windmilling hyd power? Also gone.
Landing a clean jet? Pretty hard. It doesn’t want to.
Not sure I like a comparison to conspiracy. Conspiracy aside, they apparently had hydraulic control (you can see the plane aligning with the runway and flaring). You can also hear at least one engine running.
Bird in the landing gear and the tiny airport they tried to land at was only designated for international flights 3 weeks before this accident. Doesn't seem like the pilots did anything wrong but maybe they could've known the landing gear was broken, not sure.
Hard to say. I suspect a hydraulic issue that may have impacted ability to extend gear and flaps but it looks like possible pilot error in handling whatever happened as well.
Impossible to say without more info. I’m just speculating.
Very hard to say given how little we know for sure. Right now seems likely there is substantial crew error (attempting a belly landing prior to even trying the manual gear release?!) but there may be extenuating circumstances with the plane to justify crew decisions.
I would bet a sizeable chunk of $ crew error is going to be causal, and a somewhat smaller chunk of money it will involve deliberate crew malfeasance, because I'm not quite sure how else to explain multiple aspects of it
There's almost no way I can think of that you wouldn't at least be able to get the mains down and locked
Not only are no high lift devices deployed, but (possibly as a result of that) the speed is waaaaaay too high for any kind of emergency, esp w/the gear, which likely contributed to severity
No, 737 NG is old school straight hydro for all flight controls afaik, including high lift devices...I'm also pretty sure that they're designed that even with an electrical/other failure at an absolute bare minimum you can get them down once (similar to gear), you just may not be able to retract
That said what is more common in causing a no flaps/high speed landing is a flaps disagree, where a failure limited to one side causes a higher speed landing due to less or no deployment to avoid asymmetry
But those definitionally aren't a system wide/both sides failure
There are certainly failures w/lift devices that would necessitate a high speed landing, but not only are those unlikely to cause a complete inability to get the gear down, that's even more reason to take your time on landing, instead of coming screaming in at 300 kts w/no prep on the ground
Let’s just throw out the US1549 scenario. What if the second motor crapped while they were out preparing, and both had sufficient core damage that they didn’t provide windmilling hydraulic power?
That would be a really bad day, and maybe we’re seeing some variant of that…
Yeah, although even then (being cognizant I'm second guessing) I'd expect a) an attempt to get the gear down b) some form of energy management to not be going that fast and c) even failing a&b plunking it down good and hard on the numbers
Landing a clean jet is hard. If you know you’re gonna (like in the sim), you brief the fact it won’t want to touch down, will be lower than expected, etc. When you get this handed to you at T-4 minutes, a lot of the fine points might get missed.
They had that, AND the focus on getting down safe.
Even if talking the case like that, the 737 has an explicit manual gear release system if you somehow lose both your A+B hydraulics systems that can be pulled by the FO; hydraulic diagram is attached (this is per 737.org.uk)
I thinkthere potentially could be an argument on that for having lost your
Alt Extension is not a quick process like the normal gear handle. There’s a checklist for it, and if you’re worried you won’t make it to the runway, you may wait too long for this, and elect not to do it.
engines, and thus keep your flaps+slats+spoilers not exposed to maximize speed to glide, but doesn't explain the gear. There's just... a lot more questions than answers at this point imho that we're going to have to wait and see. Was fatigue a factor (since this was a red-eye flight from Bangkok)?
That said one other thing that stands out to me (that I'm less confident in because I haven't looked at any references re: the field) is whatever they hit (looked like a localizer or something similar) should not have been made out of that solid of a material that close to a runway
The antenna array it hit was beyond the clear zone. The plane touched down without gear, flaps, at high speed, two thirds of the way down the runway. Any airport you choose, if that's your approach you're going to get killed by *something*.
The media obsession with this smells of Boeing PR...
One other other thing, they seemed to touch down awfully long. Even if you posit any number of (unlikely but not impossible) emergency scenarios causing all sorts of failures, if you're gear up and high speed you still want to get it down to as close to the approach end of the runway as possible
Long touchdown. Stuff like that exists but it’s way off the end. They touched down long AND fast. They’re basically not nose down until the departure end of the runway.
Yeah, commercial pilots have chimed in elsewhere so I have a bit more sympathy than I did initially for inability to plant it on the numbers here since they were clean (for whatever reason), but man
737 has backup manual gear and flaps even if total hydraulic failure.
The only thing that should drive a gear up landing is an unsafe configuration (like left main is gone and right main is down, so you bring the gears back up)
Comments
Save the Boeing bashing for the times it’s deserved.
If the second motor died, their options to go around? Gone. If the core is shredded, windmilling hyd power? Also gone.
Landing a clean jet? Pretty hard. It doesn’t want to.
Impossible to say without more info. I’m just speculating.
Perhaps the crew reacted incorrectly to the bird strike and attempted an aborted landing way too late?
I would bet a sizeable chunk of $ crew error is going to be causal, and a somewhat smaller chunk of money it will involve deliberate crew malfeasance, because I'm not quite sure how else to explain multiple aspects of it
Not only are no high lift devices deployed, but (possibly as a result of that) the speed is waaaaaay too high for any kind of emergency, esp w/the gear, which likely contributed to severity
But those definitionally aren't a system wide/both sides failure
That would be a really bad day, and maybe we’re seeing some variant of that…
They had that, AND the focus on getting down safe.
I thinkthere potentially could be an argument on that for having lost your
Maybe.
Stuff in the clear zone is generally supposed to be frangible or at least not so built up a plane hitting it explodes into a million pieces
The media obsession with this smells of Boeing PR...
2000’ off the end of Midway’s 6.5k’ runway is residential area and streets lol, and 737s land there all the time
The only thing that should drive a gear up landing is an unsafe configuration (like left main is gone and right main is down, so you bring the gears back up)