Incidente 777 Asiana a SFO


Due piloti di quel volo torneranno a lavorare come ground staff

Pilots on Asiana’s Crashed Plane to Work as Ground Staff

Two pilots on the Asiana Airlines Inc. (020560) plane that crash-landed at a San Franciscoairport in July will return to work as ground staff, the company said.
The pilots, Lee Kang Kuk and Lee Jung Min, will return to work as early as this week, Lee Hyo Min, a spokeswoman for the Seoul-based airline, said today. Their specific roles haven’t been determined, she said.

Manual flying skills and cockpit teamwork are part of the U.S. probe into the crash of Asiana Flight 214, which struck a seawall short of the San Francisco airport on July 6, killing three people. Lee Kang Kuk was in control of the Boeing Co. 777 plane and was being trained by Lee Jung Min on the flight. More than 300 people survived the crash, the first fatal airline accident in the U.S. since 2009.

Spokeswoman Lee declined to comment on whether the two pilots will resume flying in the future.

Asiana fell 0.8 percent to 5,000 won in Seoul trading. The stock has fallen 19 percent this year, compared with a 0.1 percent climb in South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index.

Lee Kang Kuk, 46, logged 9,793 flight hours before the accident. Only 43 were on the 777, after he moved up from the narrow-body Boeing 737, and he was making his first trip to San Francisco on the wide-body aircraft.


Lee Jung Min, 49, a Korea Aerospace University graduate who joined Asiana in 1996, had flown 12,387 hours, including 3,220 on the 777.

Two other pilots on Flight 214 returned to flying last month, spokeswoman Lee said.

Safety Standards


Asiana, South Korea’s second-biggest airline, plans to expand instruction for air crew and begin an outside review of safety standards, it said last month. Pilots will get more hours in flight simulators to prepare for approaches to airports without landing guidance systems.

The carrier said it will also hire another company to evaluate its procedures, add safety specialists and boost maintenance.


Lee Kang Kuk was using a visual approach the day of the accident because the instrument landing system’s glide slope, which helps line up the correct path to the runway, was closed for construction. Former Asiana pilots and trainers have said in interviews that the company’s pilots were well trained on automatic systems, yet rarely flew manually.


It was Asiana’s first fatal accident since a Boeing 747 cargo plane went down at sea in the southern part of South Korea in July 2011.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...hed-plane-return-to-work-as-ground-staff.html
 
http://www.siliconvalley.com/latest...der-federal-investigation-post-crash-handling

[h=1]Asiana Airlines under federal investigation for post-crash handling of victims, families[/h]
Federal transportation officials confirmed Wednesday they are investigating Asiana Airline's treatment of victims and their families following the July 6 crash of Flight 214 at San Francisco International Airport, which killed three teenage girls and injured dozens of others.
The probe by the U.S. Department of Transportation follows a series of well-publicized missteps by Asiana that included frustratingly slow information updates immediately after the crash, missed opportunities by company executives to communicate and display leadership, and a widely ridiculed threat to sue a Bay Area TV station for an insensitive report on the crash.
The investigation also could affect the growing number of lawsuits facing the South Korean airline in U.S. courts.
A determination by the Transportation Department that Asiana failed to comply with the so-called "family assistance act" could increase the size of potential damages, according to some of the attorneys who represent victims and their families.
"It may have some bearing on the damages under the broad parameters of pain and suffering and emotional distress," said Anthony Tarricone, whose law firm represents the families of all three girls who died. "The anguish, anxiety and emotional aspects following the crash could be impacted."
With minor exceptions, all airlines that fly in the United States are required to have up-to-date family assistance plans in the event of a crash, said Transportation Department spokesman Bill Mosely.


The department has never imposed penalties on an airline for failing to comply with the family assistance act, Mosely said. But the maximum penalties could be as much as $27,500 "per incident," he said, without elaborating on what would be considered a single incident.
Mosely declined to speculate on when the department's investigation will be completed, but said Asiana is cooperating.
Asiana officials did not respond to requests for comment, but when previously asked about its actions after the accident it has said it wanted to focus on assisting the victims and their families.
As first reported by The Associated Press, Asiana was required to provide a wide-range of services to victims and family members in the event of a crash, including the prompt posting of a toll-free number for people to get information, along with transportation and lodging for family members.
Asiana had not updated its family assistance plan since 2004, and first circulated a public phone number three hours after the crash that was for an automated Asiana reservations line. The next day, Asiana posted a different number that it also changed several days later, according to the AP.
"We had some concerns," said Keith Holloway, spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, which continues to investigate the cause -- or causes -- of the crash. "After the accident occurred, we noticed that information was not given to the families as quickly as we thought they should following an accident. We gave our concerns to the Department of Transportation."
Three days after the crash, Asiana Chief Executive Yoon Young-doo landed at SFO and was criticized for failing to speak to the South Korean, Chinese and U.S. journalists who mobbed him at the airport, and no one spoke on his behalf.


The day after Yoon arrived, six of the flight's 12 flight attendants then appeared at a puzzling news conference in which none of them spoke and even their Korean interpreter declined to be identified.
Some of the flight attendants even hid their faces.
Then Asiana said it was going to sue Bay Area TV station KTVU after it reported bogus and culturally insensitive names for the four pilots on board, such as "Sum Ting Wong" and "Wi Tu Lo." The station later apologized and Asiana retracted its intention to sue.
"Unfortunately, Asiana Airlines, with the world's eyes set on it, was slow to respond and was far from satisfying the insatiable need for more information in the hours after the crash, " SimpliFlying, an airline consulting firm, wrote in an analysis.
Walnut Creek Attorney Michael P. Verna, who represents the families of three injured passengers, said Asiana's post-crash response "victimized people a second time."
Following the crash, Verna said Hector Machorro was frantic for information on his wife, Younga Jun Machorro, 41, and their 8-year-old son, Benjamin Hyo-Ik Machorro.
"He gets placed in a lounge area where he sits there for hours with no one telling him anything," Verna said. "Nobody from Asiana was helpful."
One of Verna's other clients, Chinese university professor Zhengheng "Henry" Xie, suffered vertebra fractures and was put up in a hotel while he was treated as an outpatient at Stanford University Medical Center -- costs that were picked up by Asiana, Verna said.

"But he didn't have a translator, didn't have car service and didn't have any cash to get to the hospital for treatment," Verna said. "I can't believe there were only two people out of 291 (passengers) who had these experiences. I've been doing this for 30 years and I can't remember a time in any of these major accidents where an airline has conducted itself in a more deplorable way after an accident than Asiana has."
 
Investigative hearing on SFO airline crash will not include pilots

Survivors of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 that crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport last summer, killing three teenage girls and injuring dozens of passengers, will not hear from the pilots who were at the controls of the Boeing 777 when the National Transportation Safety Board convenes an investigative hearing next week.

The four pilots on board -- including a veteran making his first landing at SFO in a Boeing 777 and his supervisor on his inaugural training flight -- spoke privately to NTSB investigators in the days following the crash but have not publicly addressed why the "Triple 7" slammed into the sea wall that abuts Runway 28 Left on July 6 while trying to land after a nearly 11-hour flight from Seoul.

"Everybody is still scratching their heads wondering why a 'Triple 7' with clear weather and no cross winds just missed the airport," said Walnut Creek attorney Michael Verna, who filed the first lawsuit stemming from the crash and represents three injured passengers. "The ultimate question that everybody has is, 'What were the pilots thinking?"

The only two Asiana pilots who are scheduled to speak at the two-day hearing in Washington, D.C. will be the airline's chief pilot and training manager who will appear on the first day, Tuesday, during a discussion of Asiana pilot training in the Boeing 777 and automated systems and visual approach procedures.

Asked about the absence of the pilots flying the plane, NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said, "The NTSB investigative team formed the witness list. That's who the investigative team decided they wanted to speak at the hearing."

Asiana spokesman Ki Won Suh said in an email to this newspaper that, "We hope that the upcoming investigative hearing will assist in determining the cause of this accident and lead to a productive discussion on actions the entire industry can take to improve the safety of air passengers."
 
"Unfortunately, Asiana Airlines, with the world's eyes set on it, was slow to respond and was far from satisfying the insatiable need for more information in the hours after the crash, " SimpliFlying, an airline consulting firm, wrote in an analysis.

Well, if a need is insatiable, it's hard to see how one can avoid to be far from satisfying it.
 
Vi riporto l'articolo che ho letto l'altro giorno sull'edizione cartacea dell'International NYTimes:


WASHINGTON — The pilots of the Asiana jumbo jet that crashed in San Francisco on July 6 were deeply confused about the plane’s automated control systems, and that is a common problem among airline pilots, according to experts who testified Wednesday in a National Transportation Safety Board hearing on the crash.
"We do have an issue in aviation that needs to be dealt with,” the chairwoman of the safety board, Deborah A. P. Hersman, told reporters during a break in the hearing. The board will not produce a report on the accident until next year.

The captain and the supervising pilot in the Asiana crash — in which a Boeing 777 hit a sea wall short of the runway, killing three passengers — said they thought a system that is used to control the plane’s airspeed was running, although it was not. And all three pilots overlooked a prominent display that showed their airspeed was too low.

According to documents released by the board, for 19 seconds leading up to the crash the pilots had a clear view of guidance lights on the field that indicated they were flying too low, but they did not follow company procedure to break off the approach.

Government studies as far back as 1996 show a heavy reliance on automation that pilots often do not understand, witnesses said. One common problem is what they call “mode error,” in which pilots become confused about what automated cockpit controls will do in a certain situation. The problem is akin to having trouble with the buttons on a remote control unit for a home entertainment system, but with greater consequences.

One expert, Capt. Dave McKenney of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations, said that pilots “were taught to rely on the systems all the time.”

“They’re not taught to question the systems,” he testified. “They expect the systems to work, and when it doesn’t, they’re caught short.”

The plane’s captain, Lee Kang Kuk, told investigators — although he was wrong — that he believed the protection system in the Boeing was similar to the one in the Airbus A320, which he had substantially more experience flying.

In the Boeing, the throttle levers — one for each of the two engines and located on a center pedestal between the captain and the first officer — will move as the automatic system manipulates the engines. In the Airbus they will not move even when the auto-throttle adjusts the engines’ power.

The captain was supposed to keep a hand on the throttle levers to feel them move, and he did so on and off, he told investigators. Lack of movement in the throttle levers did not trouble him, he told investigators, because he thought the auto-throttle would “wake up” and maintain a safe minimum speed with no sign.

Boeing’s design leaves more discretion to the pilot and does not always ensure that the engines will maintain a minimum speed. Asiana ground school instructors warned the crews that the auto-throttle would be disabled when autopilot was being used by the crew to control the plane’s descent to a certain altitude, according to one safety board document, but the lesson evidently did not stick.

Interviews with pilots indicate that Korean culture may have played a role in the crash. (Asiana is based in South Korea.)

Captain Lee told investigators that any of the three pilots on the plane could have decided to break off the approach, but he said it was “very hard” for him to do so because he was a “low-level” person being supervised by an instructor pilot.

He also said that as the plane approached, he was momentarily blinded by a light on the runway, possibly a reflection of the sun, but that he would not wear sunglasses because that was considered impolite among Koreans.

The pilots did know they were descending too fast. One said so about a minute before impact, in English, which the crew was using on approach, according to a transcript of the flight data recorder. The second mention was also in English, but the third, about nine seconds after the first, was in Korean, a clue in the transcript about the urgency in the cockpit.

In the transcript, no one said that the plane was too low until the last 30 seconds of the flight. Three seconds before impact, Captain Lee made a comment rendered in the transcript as “oh # go around,” indicating an attempt to re-engage the engines and abort the approach.

Witnesses at the hearing also discussed the death of a 16-year-old passenger who the San Mateo County coroner said had injuries consistent with having been run over by a fire truck.

Dale Carnes, the assistant deputy fire chief in San Francisco, said that three firefighters saw the girl on the ground, but that with only 23 rescue workers on the scene, they elected to help get trapped passengers out of the fuselage as the fire spread. Ms. Hersman said it was not clear how the teenager ended up outside the plane.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/12/u...h-san-francisco-airport.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=0
 
Asiana è stata multata 500.000 dollari per non avere fornito sufficiente assistenza

Come da titolo, Asiana è stata multata 500.000 dollari per non avere fornito sufficiente assistenza ai passeggeri dopo l'incidente: https://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-asiana-airlines-penalized-over-crash-191152707.html (fonte Yahoo News). E' la prima volta che succede ed è interessante perchè introduce un parametro giuridicamente rilevante di diligenza per le compagnie aeree operanti negli USA -- che poi vuol dire, in tante parti del mondo.
 
bene, adesso aspettiamo le INGENTI multe a SFO e in particolare ai suoi vigili del fuoco per aver gestito in maniera drammatica la presenza di supersiti nelle vicinanze dell'aeromobile
 
bene, adesso aspettiamo le INGENTI multe a SFO e in particolare ai suoi vigili del fuoco per aver gestito in maniera drammatica la presenza di supersiti nelle vicinanze dell'aeromobile

Una l'hanno proprio ammazzata, investendola con uno dei mezzi...

Girano un paio di video veramente terrificanti riguardo l'accaduto.

Sarà il processo a chiarire se la vittima sia morta perché investita dal mezzo di soccorso oppure fosse già morta quando è stata investita: c'erano telecamere su tutti i mezzi di soccorso e sui caschi dei vigili del fuoco, circostanza che dovrebbe consentire di ricostruire l'accaduto.
 
Sarà il processo a chiarire se la vittima sia morta perché investita dal mezzo di soccorso oppure fosse già morta quando è stata investita: c'erano telecamere su tutti i mezzi di soccorso e sui caschi dei vigili del fuoco, circostanza che dovrebbe consentire di ricostruire l'accaduto.

Se non ricordo male, l'autopsia aveva confermato l'investimento.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/...-death-20130719,0,7787032.story#axzz2uLUbIzqC

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/19/travel/asiana-airlines-crash/index.html?hpt=hp_c2