UPS havariet

I sakens anledning faller det meg lett å si at når utenlandske flygere ikke får fly visual approaches inn til SFO, så bør kanskje amerikanske flygere forbys å fly non precision  approaches i USA? Med dette mener jeg å si at det oppleves pussig at alle utenlandske selskaper skjæres over èn kam. OK, flåsete i en alvorlig sak, men allikevel......

Investigators Focus on Pilot Procedures in UPS Jet Crash


By ANDY PASZTOR

Federal investigators indicated they increasingly were looking into pilot training and landing procedures, rather than airplane malfunctions, to unravel last week's crash of a United Parcel Service Inc. cargo jet.
In the last on-site press briefing from the Birmingham, Ala., accident scene, the National Transportation Safety Board gave its strongest signal yet that experts hadn't discovered problems with the Airbus A300's engines, automated flight-controls or other onboard systems. Airbus is a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co.

In coming weeks, investigators will conduct a flight test to learn more about UPS pilot procedures during landing approaches, safety-board member Robert Sumwalt told reporters Saturday. "This is just the very beginning of the investigation" and no conclusions have been reached yet about the probable cause, he said.

He nevertheless indicated that the focus of the probe was on why the pilots failed to realize that they were descending too quickly in the predawn darkness as they tried to land at the Birmingham airport. The twin-engine jet hit power lines and trees before slamming into a hill and breaking apart in a field less than a mile short of the landing strip.


The two pilots on board, both of whom died in the crash, were the only people on the plane.

Automatic System Warned Pilots Before Alabama Crash By MATTHEW L. WALD       WASHINGTON - Sixteen seconds before a U.P.S. cargo plane crashed on approach to the airport in Birmingham, Ala., on Wednesday morning, an automated system in the cockpit warned that the aircraft, an Airbus A300, was descending too fast, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board said Friday. The warning was captured on the cockpit voice recorder, which was recovered from the wreckage on Thursday. Three seconds after the warning - in the form of a mechanical voice saying, "Sink rate, sink rate" - one of the two pilots told the other that the runway was in sight, according to the safety board member, Robert Sumwalt, who was at the crash site. Then, nine seconds before the end of the recording, there are "sounds that are consistent with impact,'' Mr. Sumwalt said. The plane came down outside the fence at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, hitting the trees and then the ground north of the airfield. Both pilots were killed. Investigators have also recovered the flight data recorder, he said, but he did not discuss its contents. Mr. Sumwalt's remarks were the investigators' first substantive comments on the crash. The captain of the U.P.S. plane had worked for the company since 1990 and had extensive experience - 8,600 hours of flight time, including 3,200 hours in the A300, Mr. Sumwalt said. The first officer had worked for U.P.S. since 2006. She had 6,500 hours of experience, including 400 in the A300, he said. The plane was on a flight from the U.P.S. hub in Louisville, Ky. The crew members had started their shift at 9:30 p.m. the day before, flying to Louisville from Rockford, Ill. The Birmingham control tower is equipped with a minimum safe altitude warning system, but it did not go off, according to the controller in the tower. Investigators are looking into whether it should have. The controller said he saw the plane on approach and saw a spark shortly before the crash. Investigators said the plane appeared to have taken down a power line before the crash. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/17/us/alabama-automatic-system-warned-pilots-before-ups-crash.html?_r=0 Back to Top

Last seconds before UPS crash in Birmingham point to tricky airport approach The UPS flight that crashed in Birmingham had to make a visual approach over hills to the airport's shorter runway because the much longer, more familiar runway was closed for maintenance. Although it will be months before official reports are made, new clues are emerging about the cause of the crash of a UPS cargo plane short of the runway at the airport in Birmingham, Ala., early Wednesday morning. So far, it appears to be a combination of weather (low clouds and raining), time of day (before dawn), and a tricky visual approach over hills to the airport's shorter runway because the much longer, more familiar runway - the one that provided glide slope as well as direction information to approaching pilots - was closed for maintenance. Initial evidence and eye-witness reports indicate that the Airbus A300 clipped power lines and trees, possibly ingesting debris into the engines, before crashing seconds later. Investigators have recovered the flight recorder and cockpit voice recorder from the A300 aircraft flown by two pilots, both of whom were killed in the mishap. So far, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials reported Friday, there is no indication of any mechanical malfunction or systems problem that might have caused the crash. The pilots had not radioed any distress warning. National Transportation Safety Board member Robert Sumwalt told reporters during a briefing Friday that a recorder captured the first of two audible warnings in the cockpit 16 seconds before the sound of an impact, either with trees or the ground. The warnings indicated the twin-engine jet cargo plane was descending at a rate outside normal parameters given its altitude, Mr. Sumwalt said, meaning its sink rate was excessive.