Rescuers describe harrowing scene at plane crash

Looks more and more to be pilot error than anything else.

Looking at that wreckage, it's amazing that nearly everyone was able to walk off that plane.

I feel very sorry for the parents of those 2 girls. so young. terrible

while another two showed “road rash” injuries consistent with being dragged.

youch, that sounds really painful

Jail all the 4 pilots for life now!!!!

Tragic (ironic?) if one of the girls was really killed by a rescue vehicle

I smell a serious law suit. These people will be paid millions and why? Because it was totally avoidable, from what the current reports are showing us so far.

Looking at that wreckage, it's amazing that nearly everyone was able to walk off that plane.

Thanks to Grace of God.

Or coming from Asian countries all thanks to the grace of Buddha?? NMRK?? But yes, all jokes aside, incredible more people did not die in this mess.

Spinal injuries can take decades off a persons life. E.g., Christopher "superman" Reeve.

Asiana passengers likely to get millions

-CNN

Asiana Airlines will likely end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars to passengers of its flight that crashed in San Francisco on Saturday, according to a leading aviation law expert.

I smell a serious law suit. These people will be paid millions and why? Because it was totally avoidable, from what the current reports are showing us so far.

Yes. Very expensive training for at least one pilot who will never fly commercially again.

Investigators said that the weather was unusually fair for foggy San Francisco. The winds were mild, too. During the descent, with their throttles set to idle, the pilots never discussed having any problems with the plane or its positioning until it was too late.

That is insane.

Perhaps it might be beneficial to consider hiring some foreign pilots to diversify the crews on some of these airlines. I seriously doubt an experienced North American pilot would have just sat their silently "until it was too late."

A pilot's worst nightmare: Out of airspeed, out of altitude, and out of options. It's a shame that the suffering of the passengers was 100% preventable. Equipment fails; weather can literally slam a plane into the ground; but the #1 cause of aviation crashes is human error either by the pilot-in-command or by the ground crew. People complain when the NTSB or other investigating authority assigns the probable cause to the pilot. They claim that the investigating authority is trying to cover for the aircraft manufacturers but the fact is that how the crew in the cockpit performs their duties is the biggest modifier on whether an incident becomes a crash or just a scare. If the crew is scrambling to complete required checklists then their attention can be diverted from flying the plane. I'm not saying this was the cause of this crash, but it has been the cause of others. Trying to hurry through an "Approach" checklist can divert attention from the decreasing airspeed or from the fact that when the autopilot was switched off, the throttles had been fully r e t a r d e d by the autopilot. (Newsflash JT: The "R-word" has other meanings besides referring to someone who's mentally handicapped.)

What puzzles me is that there was a check-ride pilot on-board specifically to oversee the pilot's indoctrination to the 777 and that he was the "deputy pilot" (co-pilot?). Were they BOTH oblivious to the trouble the aircraft was getting into?

Perhaps it might be beneficial to consider hiring some foreign pilots to diversify the crews on some of these airlines. I seriously doubt an experienced North American pilot would have just sat their silently "until it was too late."

Excellent! Let's hire international crews so that instructions between crew members can be garbled even more! No, "North American" co-pilots are just as likely to sit and let the pilot in command land the plane than co-pilots from any other continent.

This pilot had been flying Asiana commercial airliners for 15 years without an accident until this past weekend . Most of those 15 years were spent in the cockpit of 747s. He's "experienced". As for the crew sitting "there silently", you don't know WHAT they were doing that didn't get picked up on the CVR.

Excellent! Let's hire international crews so that instructions between crew members can be garbled even more!

English is already required for international ATC operations. Perhaps there is much greater danger in not using English to confirm any command given in some other language. We get into more problems when two people are over-confident that they understand each other.

There was plenty of time to get the aircraft into a safe position for landing in this case.

No, "North American" co-pilots are just as likely to sit and let the pilot in command land the plane than co-pilots from any other continent.

I seriously doubt that any professional pilot would sit by and let the pilot in command take the aircraft into a stall condition. Not unless they are two peas out of the same pod.

English is already required for international ATC operations.

Yes, you are correct. Unfortunately there's no requirement for that "English" to be intelligible. Cases in point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kYtli7HD8c

and perhaps the most famous one (at least on Youtube):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrJbMATMSDE

Can you seriously imagine a "North American" co-pilot trying to safely work with that pilot?

I seriously doubt that any professional pilot would sit by and let the pilot in command take the aircraft into a stall condition. Not unless they are two peas out of the same pod.

"Peas out of the same pod"? Like, say, the Air Transport Pilot's pod? You repeatedly try to imply that Korean air transport pilots are somehow unprofessional when compared to "North American" air transport pilots. Guess what? "North American" air transport pilots have fallen out of the sky due to inattention as well:

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the captain’s inappropriate response to the activation of the stick shaker, which led to an aerodynamic stall from which the airplane did not recover. Contributing to the accident were (1) the flight crew’s failure to monitor airspeed in relation to the rising position of the low-speed cue, (2) the flight crew’s failure to adhere to sterile cockpit procedures, (3) the captain’s failure to effectively manage the flight, and (4) Colgan Air’s inadequate procedures for airspeed selection and management during approaches in icing conditions.

Loss of Control on Approach Colgan Air, Inc. Operating as Continental Connection Flight 3407 Bombardier DHC-8-400, N200WQ Clarence Center, New York February 12, 2009

http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2010/AAR1001.pdf

Asiana Airlines will likely end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars to passengers of its flight that crashed in San Francisco on Saturday, according to a leading aviation law expert. >

. One fatal accident like this will be a death sentence financially for airlines; a BANKRUPTCY.