American Airlines Crash at Kingston Jamaica

[NIKV69]

They came in a little long, floated a lot longer than normal, maybe caught some gusts, whatever, and ran out of runway

Basically

[cancidas]

- The plane used up half the runway before touching down, leaving only 4,800 feet to stop.
- The plane bounced on touch down, which ate up several hundred more feet.
- The plane was still rolling at 72mph when it went off the end.

that first line alone is more than sufficient cause for a go-around.

[hiss srq]

Maybe they were trying to compete with the guys who fly the Repaitriotation flights.....
:lol: :twisted:

[jerslice]

I wonder if they'll sell off the overhead TV for cheap in the 5th pic down :-D

Weird seeing it like that in two pieces, where's the middle portion?

[AnBok]

Sidebar observation here... They used to paint over the tail designs in the old days to conceal the airline identity after a crash (I mean you and me would know what the airline is but the majority of the public would not tell UA from AA unless it was spelled out on the fuselage)... Surprised they didn't do it in this case

[cancidas]

Weird seeing it like that in two pieces, where's the middle portion?

probably will take more time to move, since the wings are still attached to it. i wonder if anything from the wreck is salvageable avionics, galley equipment etc probably weren't damaged. i doubt the NTSB or FAA would allow the seats or anything on the interior to be reused though.

[NLovis]

there is alot of parts that can be reused on that AC. Eevrything in the cockpit is still useable. The TV's, the APU as well can be salvaged. The engines idk maby one of them. The windows that werent damaged can be. there is alot. just depends of what they will alow to be salvaged.
Edit: Well N977AN has offically been written off. Thats the latest i got.

[daneyd]

AA JAMAICA CRASH: Although I am aware that it is irresponsible to speculate on a cause before all the facts are know, I do however feel that, at least on forums like this one, it is ok to speculate based on known facts. Here is what's known. 1) 15Kt. winds out of NNE. 2) Heavy rain at night on a non-grooved runway. 3) Pilots near the end of their 12-hour max. on-duty time. 4) Plane fully loaded with passengers and probably heavier on fuel than domestic flights. 5) Pilots had not flown much in previous weeks. 6) Plane touched down very far down runway 12. 7) Plane landed hard. Based on what’s known I think you can make the following deductions. I believe the tail winds played a very significant role in this crash. Ground speeds would have been 20-30Kts fast than pilots are used to. This along with a nighttime wet runway would have made it easy to misjudge the point of touchdown. Glide slope would have been kept in check on approach but near the ground pilots take over and visually fly the plane. Things would look much different than they normally do especially taking night, rain and fatigue issues into consideration. A go around would have been resisted because of a desire to get the plane on the ground due to bad conditions and current preferred patterns at that airport. As a pilot who has made down wind landings I can tell you that it is very difficult to hit your spot maintaining glide slope without stalling the plane. You have to descend at a quicker rate to maintain glide slope and touch down speeds to hit your spot. This is not a comfortable normal feeling to the pilots. Things happen so much quicker down wind and pilots are not used to this type of approach. Extra weight, rain, night, and fatigue and stress of bad conditions add to the level of difficulty of this down wind landing. I would not be surprised if the black boxes show the plane did or almost did “stall” just before touch down. That would explain the heavy landing reported. Higher ground speeds and weights with reduced runway length due to mid runway touch down point along with wet non-grooved runway made this crash, at this point, inevitable. At the end of the day there will be several factors pinpointed at fault (as there always is), however the primary cause will be pilot error for the following reasons: a) not going to an alternate airport given conditions at primary b) having proceeded to primary not asking to land from the east. c) having proceeded downwind failing to abort the approach and or landing prior to touchdown d) having proceeded downwind having misjudged the point of landing and not maintaining proper glide slope, approach speeds and touchdown point. To all the pilots I ask for your comments

I posted this on the 26th. Looking more and more like that's about what it was.

[daneyd]

Maybe these factors might have a role if we were talking about a 6,000 foot runway like at DCA but if the conditions as forcasted were that detrimental to safe operation this flight would have been landing performance weight restricted. Somthing else was going on. The touchdown point will be the tell all in my opinion. I am willing to wager big bucks they were both heads up through the last portions of the approach based on the fact both HUD's were down at the time of the crash. Another thing to note is that just because your performance charts say an airplane will or wont do somthing does not mean it is true all the time. There is some "milage may vary" involved based on actual conditions etc etc..... It could be for the better or the worse. I understand your analogy of the headwind/tailwind arguement but they were within the numbers for what should have been a successful full stop based on the conditions known etc. I suspect certain things but I dont want to eat my foot later so I will hold off untill some more peliminary information is available.

Just hard for me to understand, even if you give them a pass on the approach downwind, why they wouldn't have bulked the landing and gone around. My guess is they were long and hot, probably flared couple times and found themselves way down the runway and still not touching the wheels to the runway to activate spoilers. That's when you hit the throttles. I'm wondering if there was a unusually strong desire to get the plane on the ground as a result of the rough flight and

This was posted on Dec 26th. conditions coming in.

[USAF Pilot 07]

What was the purpose of that last post???

[NLovis]

What was the purpose of that last post???

Its called a repost onto a new page so it will get answered.

[hiss srq]

The answer to that question is not readily available. However, once you enter a flare in a big jet it is not smart to push back over and re enter flare. By doing that you increase your sinkrate and it will usually create a much harder touchdown and possibly a bounce depending on how hard you jam the mains into the pavement.

[USAF Pilot 07]

I still don't understand what the question was...

They had a tailwind, landed on a wet runway, and appeared to have landed long and instead of going around, tried to save a bad landing...

The final cause will most likely end up being pilot error citing poor judgment in electing to land with a tailwind in bad weather conditions, and more importantly not initiating a go-around once the aircraft was in an unsafe situation.

Why didn't they go around? Probably a combination of experience and a feeling of "i can make this", some "get their-itis" after a long day, and the fact of not wanting to have to fly around anymore in bad weather.

It happens - it's not an excuse, but I think anyone who flies or has flown has been in situations where they probably should have gone around, or requested a different runway, but didn't. The difference in this case is that the combination of so many poor factors cause this aircraft to go off the end of the runway.

It's something we hope never happens, and for every instance like this, there are probably a hundred instances of pilots who in the same situation elected to go around, try it again and land uneventfully. Pilots are human, and sometimes make mistakes (but not usually haha! :lol: )....

[moose135]

It happens - it's not an excuse, but I think anyone who flies or has flown has been in situations where they probably should have gone around, or requested a different runway, but didn't.

I've told this before, but...

A long time ago (in a tanker far, far away... ) we were 14 hours and two WX diverts into our day, making our second shot at the ILS in the dark through snow, blowing snow and fog. My aircraft commander was in the right seat, trying to upgrade to IP, we had an IP in the left seat, and I'm playing copilot from the jumpseat. As we dropped below decision height, one of the pilots said "There are some lights, I *think* I see the runway". Well, from my seat, all I saw were the strobes (dimly) and lots of blowing snow, but no runway. Since I didn't want to die that night, I got on the intercom, and in my best command voice said "GO AROUND", which they did, and we decided one more WX divert was probably the best move.

Maybe the guys on this flight could have used a scared copilot in the jumpseat telling them to go around.

[USAF Pilot 07]

A long time ago (in a tanker far, far away... )

The puddle jumper known as the 135? :lol:

As we dropped below decision height, one of the pilots said "There are some lights, I *think* I see the runway". Well, from my seat, all I saw were the strobes (dimly) and lots of blowing snow, but no runway. Since I didn't want to die that night, I got on the intercom, and in my best command voice said "GO AROUND", which they did, and we decided one more WX divert was probably the best move.

I thought back in the day you always saw the runway, regardless of what the weather was outside? ;) ;)

But seriously, I bet looking back at it, those guys (although maybe not so at the time especially with a co-pilot in the jumpseat calling a go-around) are now probably glad you went around, wx diverted and lived to fly another day.

A lot of ACs/IPs I've flown with will include in their crew brief before landing something to the likes of "hey I'm just another guy flying airplanes, and I make mistakes and can get too focused on maybe one thing and let something else drop out of my crosscheck, so if anyone feels unsafe or uncomfortable or if we're doing something stupid, call a go-around, we'll go-around, talk about it and decide what to do from there"...

In this case, you got two people in cockpit, making a tough landing, at night, in the weather, their focus was on landing the aircraft; and they probably let certain things drop out of their crosscheck. Like you said, I bet they would have liked to have the "co-pilot in the jumpseat" or the Engineer sitting back watching the whole situation calling a go-around...

There's the saying "go around are free"...