Pilot Lands "blind" after hailstorm

[craig1912]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pilot-landed-bl...

[jontysafe]

Wow, respect

[Eric Mc]

Impressive a feat as it may be, airliners and pilots should be fully capable of landing with no forward visibility. One only has to remember the case of the BA 747-200 over Indonesia back in 1982.

[hairyben]

Eric Mc said:

Impressive a feat as it may be, airliners and pilots should be fully capable of landing with no forward visibility. One only has to remember the case of the BA 747-200 over Indonesia back in 1982.

I guess it depends how much of his instrumentation was out.

Allways awesome to see a jet take damage like that and land safely though, without denigrating the professionalism of the crew it gives you a lot of faith in modern aircraft construction and systems.

[55palfers]

I wonder if the passengers knew the situation up front.

[Eric Mc]

The main danger from hailstones is engine flame out - as happened back in the 1970s to a Southern Airways Douglas DC-9.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Airways_Fli...

[IforB]

Eric Mc said:

Impressive a feat as it may be, airliners and pilots should be fully capable of landing with no forward visibility. One only has to remember the case of the BA 747-200 over Indonesia back in 1982.

Balls.

Landing with no forward viz and a knocked out autoflight system is always going to be a serious challenge. From the looks of the pictures the side visibility was pretty hooky too and that would have been very disorientating as well as the normal visual cues you use wouldn't be available.

Personally, I think they did very, very well and I am not keen on anyone (especially a non-pilot) denigrating what they did.

[Testaburger]

Eric Mc said:

Impressive a feat as it may be, airliners and pilots should be fully capable of landing with no forward visibility. One only has to remember the case of the BA 747-200 over Indonesia back in 1982.

Well, yes and no. Pilots are humans, so manually landing with no forward visibility is not something you are expected to do. Low visibility, of course, but not zero. The aircraft in airline service are able to land in zero vis, the problem being that the systems required for autoland can also be lost due to hail damage, as was the case in the OP.

I'd say that was a superb job. Not least because the chances are that the autoland system was likely rendered inoperative by damaged flight controls and/or radio altimeters, making flightpath control more difficult.

For your interest, one problem with hail is that it can be very difficult to spot on a weather radar, as it is not very reflective - and the radars are merely displaying reflective returns from moisture. Consequently, a pilot needs to learn the characteristics of such weather which may form hail storms, and techniques to evaluate such weather as its painted on your weather radar display. In the dark, and in the tropics (where I earn my crust), it certainly keeps you on your toes to see huge bands of large storm clouds on your radar, and having to evaluate your best route through the weather, knowing that the most clear path as depicted on the radar may actually be through or under the 'anvil' of a CB cloud, from which hail precipitates. Hence the rules of thumb regarding desirable minimum distances with which to avoid such clouds.

[Eric Mc]

IforB said:

Balls.

Landing with no forward viz and a knocked out autoflight system is always going to be a serious challenge. From the looks of the pictures the side visibility was pretty hooky too and that would have been very disorientating as well as the normal visual cues you use wouldn't be available.

Personally, I think they did very, very well and I am not keen on anyone (especially a non-pilot) denigrating what they did.

I didn't realise the automatic controls had ceased to function. If that was the case, well done that man.

[MarkwG]

IforB said:

Balls.

Landing with no forward viz and a knocked out autoflight system is always going to be a serious challenge. From the looks of the pictures the side visibility was pretty hooky too and that would have been very disorientating as well as the normal visual cues you use wouldn't be available.

Personally, I think they did very, very well and I am not keen on anyone (especially a non-pilot) denigrating what they did.

I agree - the airport systems also have to be of the required standard for what the press calls "blind landing", & Istanbul doesn't have this, as it's not routinely required.

[Eric Mc]

Surely they have ILS at Ataturk Airport?

Granted, ILS is pretty old technology now.

Are there any newer technology landing aids installed at airports these days?

[So]

Our pilot into St Hellier last month landed our twin prop with no visibility, altimeter or undercarriage.

That's how it felt anyway.

[eldar]

So said:

Our pilot into St Hellier last month landed our twin prop with no visibility, altimeter or undercarriage.

That's how it felt anyway.

I've experienced similar. Having walked quite happily away, The pilots seem to know what they are doing

[Testaburger]

Eric Mc said:

Surely they have ILS at Ataturk Airport?

Granted, ILS is pretty old technology now.

Are there any newer technology landing aids installed at airports these days?

They do have ILS a there, which would have aided their descent to the runway, but wouldn't have been much use for the flare and touchdown.

Yes, there are newer approach technologies, based around GPS infrastructure, but the CAT3B ILS continues to be the only option in really low visibility and ceilings (autoland conditions).

[Testaburger]

MarkwG said:

I agree - the airport systems also have to be of the required standard for what the press calls "blind landing", & Istanbul doesn't have this, as it's not routinely required.

FWIW, Ataturk does have CAT3B. Not that it was any use to these guys.

[Eric Mc]

Testaburger said:

They do have ILS a there, which would have aided their descent to the runway, but wouldn't have been much use for the flare and touchdown.

Yes, there are newer approach technologies, based around GPS infrastructure, but the CAT3B ILS continues to be the only option in really low visibility and ceilings (autoland conditions).

I kind of assumed that was the case. Even though ILS tecnhology is old, it's well tried and trusted and has been in use for decades Newer methods of assisting aircraft to land have been around for at least 40 years (Microwave Landing System - for example). The difficulty is getting the new systems standardised and certified across the whole system - all over the world.

Did these guys lose their ILS receiving capability?

[Trif]

I took "Its autopilot mechanism was also knocked out" to also mean ILS as well.

[Eric Mc]

It's a bit vague, to be honest.

Autopilot and ILS are not the same thing - although the autopilot will fly the plane using radio information coming from the ILS system. The pilot can (and often does) fly the aircraft to a landing manually using the ILS data which he can read from the relevant instrument displays.

[MarkwG]

Testaburger said:

FWIW, Ataturk does have CAT3B. Not that it was any use to these guys.

Cheers, I could only find info giving Cat 2. Either way, still pretty challenging.

[ecs]

Trif said:

I took "Its autopilot mechanism was also knocked out" to also mean ILS as well.

The ILS tells you you're pointing at the runway and on the glideslope; autoland, well, lands the aircraft automatically. The autopilot can keep the aircraft pointing at the runway and on the glidslope (as can the pilot by looking at the HSI or whatever equivalent they have in an Airbus) but without autoland the pilot will need to do the flare and put it down on the ground (possibly a bit tricky if you can't see where you're going).

Edited by ecs on Tuesday 1st August 16:07