Jackson Hole incident today...

[ArcticFlier]

Im pretty sure the airport is NOT in a national park... its close, but not IN...

JACKSON, WY — The National Park Service (NPS) announced its decision today to grant a 20-year lease extension to the Jackson Hole Airport, allowing it to continue its operations on land within Grand Teton National Park. This is the only commercial airport that is permitted to operate within a national park.

http://www.npca.org/media_center/press_releases/2010/jackson-hole-airport-decision.html

 

[NoJoy]

I have the privelage to fly into JAC many times, and it def was one where you have to have your "A" game on when it's snowing and your landing with a tailwind on 19. Even for a turbo prop that rwy is short with any ice on it. I felt more comfortable going to ASE in bad weather than JAC. Also I don't recall a turbo prop going off the runway yet at JAC. Most people think props are for boats-unless your landing on a shorter runway with wind and snow!

 

[bubbers44]

Who let that moron, instructordude back? He says AA landed long and the video out the window shows they landed short of the threshold being on the ground when shortly later the markers showed up out the window on the video. Why reversers were'nt deploying and coming up to reverse power for 20 seconds after touchdown is the question. No AA pilot would forget to select reverse thrust. Nor any other pilot. Something happened to not allow it to happen. On the 757 at AA ground spoilers are always manually deployed on touchdown if they don't automatically deploy. In my experience never has the autospoiler on touchdown failed. Once a reverser failed. It was a non event at a very critical hit airport, TGU. Only the black boxes will explain what happened. Be patient.
'

 

[Captzaahlie]

JACKSON, WY — The National Park Service (NPS) announced its decision today to grant a 20-year lease extension to the Jackson Hole Airport, allowing it to continue its operations on land within Grand Teton National Park. This is the only commercial airport that is permitted to operate within a national park.

http://www.npca.org/media_center/press_releases/2010/jackson-hole-airport-decision.html

Well there you go.....
(can't argue with that kind of research, maybe you really will say,"Holy crap! Look at the size of the tentacles on that thing!!" but let's not hope you have the opportunity, OK?)

 

[Captzaahlie]

I have the privelage to fly into JAC many times, and it def was one where you have to have your "A" game on when it's snowing and your landing with a tailwind on 19. Even for a turbo prop that rwy is short with any ice on it. I felt more comfortable going to ASE in bad weather than JAC. Also I don't recall a turbo prop going off the runway yet at JAC. Most people think props are for boats-unless your landing on a shorter runway with wind and snow!

The DHC 8 was one of my favorite airplanes.
Sure they say props are just for boats, but owning a sailboat I quickly reminded them any monkey can drive a power boat..... lets see a monkey hoist a mainsail.

 

[boxjockey]

Who let that moron, instructordude back? He says AA landed long and the video out the window shows they landed short of the threshold being on the ground when shortly later the markers showed up out the window on the video. Why reversers were'nt deploying and coming up to reverse power for 20 seconds after touchdown is the question. No AA pilot would forget to select reverse thrust. Nor any other pilot. Something happened to not allow it to happen. On the 757 at AA ground spoilers are always manually deployed on touchdown if they don't automatically deploy. In my experience never has the autospoiler on touchdown failed. Once a reverser failed. It was a non event at a very critical hit airport, TGU. Only the black boxes will explain what happened. Be patient.
'

Bigger issue than the reversers is the lack of spoiler deployment. I would imagine that the 757 has the same auto-speedbrake system that the 777 and 744 has. Arming is on our landing checklist, and it is also the PM's duty to call on touchdown if the speedbrakes don't deploy. Also, it looks as the sleeve tried to transit, but stopped and then closed again momentarily. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

box

 

[waveflyer]

Doesn't sound like the issue- but what kind of training does American get in mountain flying?
Aka- to be fair to our regional bros who are much more experienced and proficient in the mountains than 80%+ of major pilots I know-

 

[bubbers44]

Doesn't sound like the issue- but what kind of training does American get in mountain flying?
Aka- to be fair to our regional bros who are much more experienced and proficient in the mountains than 80%+ of major pilots I know-

Once you are on short final mountains around you are not relevant. Now you only care about speed and touchdown on the thousand foot mark. Hopefully we all can do that. Looks like from the video they were on the ground before the thousand foot mark but had problems with reverse. According to the FAA reverse is not calculated in landing performance but neither is braking action nil.

 

[dicko]

Once you are on short final mountains around you are not relevant. Now you only care about speed and touchdown on the thousand foot mark. Hopefully we all can do that. Looks like from the video they were on the ground before the thousand foot mark but had problems with reverse. According to the FAA reverse is not calculated in landing performance but neither is braking action nil.

Reverse is used in the calculation for a contaminated runway. Two columns on the chart to calculate. One with reverse and one without.

Maybe it's different at American ?

 

[bubbers44]

Reverse is used in the calculation for a contaminated runway. Two columns on the chart to calculate. One with reverse and one without.

Maybe it's different at American ?

No, we all work by the same rules but since they went that far off the end slowed by snowdrifts braking action must have been nil. American won't land with reported braking action being nil. I do not know of another incident involving a Boeing 757 that manual brakes were not available. That is what I loved about the 757. You could manually overide any automation. Autobrakes, autospoilers and autothrottles at any time. The CVR will probably clarify what the problem was for this incident. The video of the reversers barely deploying then stowing and many seconds later deploying to full is interesting. What would cause a reverser to only partially deploy and what has that got to do with braking? They were probably legal to land with reversers inop so why they went off the end either was inop brakes or braking action nil but not reported.

 

[trip]

The A/C probably bounced or at least got light on the mains since spoilers didn't deploy, that in turn triggered the air/ground back to air logic hence no more reverse?

 

[glasspilot1]

Trip, you just beat me to it. I think there might be an air/ground switch problem. BOTH the ground spoilers and the reverse didn't seem to work normally. We'll find out with the NTSB report.

 

[Skyflyin]

Trip, you just beat me to it. I think there might be an air/ground switch problem. BOTH the ground spoilers and the reverse didn't seem to work normally. We'll find out with the NTSB report.

That sounds reasonable. I have had the auto speedbrake fail on landing before (B757), but they still deployed after reverse was initiated. This should be an interesting report when it comes out.

 

[Captzaahlie]

another bad "fetzer valve".....

 

[cheyflyer]

AA Reviews FDR before NTSB

http://www.ainonline.com/news/singl...-party-status-in-overrun-investigation-28141/

 

[ultrarunner]

Yeah, AA made a big no-no on that one. What is interesting though, is the speed in which AA made that decision. By that I mean the incident occurred just after 11:30 am on Wednesday and the NTSB had both boxes in their hands less than 30 hours later.

So there must have been essentially an immediate decision by AA to pull both boxes, get them on the next plane from JAC to OKC, download the FDR data, then get the boxes on another plane to DCA and delivered to NTSB.

Easily done, but a process in place by which to do it that quickly. My meaning being, this didn't happen by accident.....

IMHO, AA purposely wanted to see the FDR data before the NTSB.

Why......???

Hmmmmmm

 

[glasspilot1]

So there must have been essentially an immediate decision by AA to pull both boxes, get them on the next plane from JAC to OKC, download the FDR data, then get the boxes on another plane to DCA and delivered to NTSB................................

IMHO, AA purposely wanted to see the FDR data before the NTSB.

Does the NTSB really allow an airline to handle the boxes before they do? Doesn't sound kosher to me.

 

[ultrarunner]

Does the NTSB really allow an airline to handle the boxes before they do? Doesn't sound kosher to me.

Yes, but only for the purpose to transport DIRECTLY to the NTSB. NOT to download the data. AA decided to play with the FDR first in this case, hence the uproar by the NTSB.

What's odd is that there are been a few other recent AA overuns in the last year or two. I wonder what was special about this one that AA wanted to grab the FDR data first....

 

[ultrarunner]

Update on NTSB...

Looks like not quite everything put together correctly:

"...Examination of the auto speed brake mechanism in the cockpit pedestal found that the linear actuator aft attachment was improperly installed and was missing a bushing. This loose connection allowed the cam to be rotated slightly relative to the switch, which could cause the switch roller and the notch in the cam to not always align. System operation with this condition present is being investigated...

Some other good reading in the NTSB update as well...

http://ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2011/110112.html

 

[LJ45]

so... the crew didn't manually extend the speed brakes after they failed to auto deploy?