Yesterday a Turkish airplane crash landing killed three and injured some 179 people. The accident of the Boeing 737-800 seems to have been caused by a pilot mistake. But on a different airplane the outcome might have been better.
The Pegasus Airlines flight 2193 was arriving from Izmir, on Turkey’s west coast. At the time of the landing at the Istanbul-Sabiha Gökçen airport on the Asian side of the city there was a thunderstorm overhead and the wind was shifty. The air traffic controller had cleared the plane to land with wind information given as 270 degrees at 22 knots, gusting to 30 knots. This translated to a 19 knot tailwind. The 3000 meter long runway was wet.
The Boeing 737-800 is one of the Next Generation series not of the 737 MAX series. The maximum allowed tailwind for this type during landing is 15 knots. The pilots should never have attempted to land under the prevailing conditions. They did it anyway but came in too high and too fast. They missed the landing zone by a large margin. The Flightradar24 granular data shows that the plane touched ground nearly 2000 meter behind the landing zone. The runway has only a short safety zone of 65 meters at the end of the runway. The ICAO standard asks for a 300 meter safety zone.
Source – bigger
The plane overrun the end of the runway at 64 knots and went down a 30 20 meter embankment. There the fuselage broke into three parts. Luckily no large fire broke out. Some footage of the landing can be seen here.
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A safe landing under the prevailing conditions was difficult. The pilots attempted to land but clearly missed the landing zone. At that point they should have made a go-around. There is a switch on the autothrottle of the plane for exactly that purpose. It increases the engine thrust to the maximum and allows the pilots to climb out of such a situation. Why the pilots did not do this is yet unknown.
The Turkish budget carrier Pegasus has a rich history of accidents.
Andreas Spaeth @SpaethFlies – 15:47 UTC · Feb 6, 2020
The #737 accident of @flymepegasus yesterday in #Istanbul SAW is the second runway excursion in four weeks and sixth grave incident since 2014 according to @JacdecNew database. Safety culture at the carrier seems to be a serious problem.
Bad weather, bad runway, bad airline, bad pilots are the likely factors in this accident. But the outcome would have been much better if the fuselage of the plane had stayed intact.
In this incident the 737-NG fuselage broke into three parts. The sight is familiar to those who have seen the Al Jazeerah documentary On a wing and a prayer (vid). It is about Boeing whistleblowers who discovered that one supplier delivered defective and misfitting fuselage parts but were told to shut up by Boeing's management. The misfitting parts were installed on 737 NG planes and are suspected to be responsible for several fuselage break ups of 737 NGs involved in landing accidents
Here are screenshots from the documentary of such examples.
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That 737 NG fuselages are prone to break apart is one of the skeletons in Boeing's closet. That the regulators have never intervened on this issue is curious. The reasons are likely the same ones that let the faulty Boeing 737 MAX design slip through the FAA's oversight.
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Previous Moon of Alabama posts on Boeing and 737 MAX issues:
- Boeing, The FAA, And Why Two 737 MAX Planes Crashed – March 12 2019
- Flawed Safety Analysis, Failed Oversight – Why Two 737 MAX Planes Crashed – March 17 2019
- Regulators Knew Of 737 MAX Trim Problems – Certification Demanded Training That Boeing Failed To Deliver – March 29 2019
- Ethiopian Airline Crash – Boeing Advice To 737 MAX Pilots Was Flawed – April 9 2019
- Boeing 737 MAX Crash Reveals Severe Problem With Older Boeing 737 NGs – May 25 2019
- Boeing's Software Fix For The 737 MAX Problem Overwhelms The Plane's Computer – June 27 2019
- EASA Tells Boeing To Fix 5 Major 737 MAX Issues – July 7 2019
- The New Delay Of Boeing's 737 MAX Return Will Not Be The Last One – July 15 2019
- 737 MAX Rudder Control Does Not Meet Safety Guidelines – It Was Still Certified – July 28 2019
- 737 MAX – Boeing Insults International Safety Regulators As New Problems Cause Longer Grounding – September 3 2019
- Boeing Foresees Return Of The 737 MAX In November – But Not Everywhere – September 12 2019
- 14,000 Words Of "Blame The Pilots" That Whitewash Boeing Of 737 MAX Failure – September 18 2019
- Boeing Failed To Consider Pilot Workload When It Designed and Tested The 737 MAX – September 29 2019
- Boeing's New Problems Reach Beyond The 737 MAX – October 12 2019
- 737 MAX Produces More Bad News For Boeing – October 21 2019
- It Is True That Corruption Caused The 737 MAX Accidents. But It Was Not Foreign. – November 25 2019
- Boeing Will Have To Stop Its 737 MAX Production Line. What will Trump Do To Avoid It? – December 13 2019
- Can Boeing Survive Its MAX Problems? – January 22 2019
- New Boeing CEO Insists On Moving The Company Towards Irrelevance – January 24, 2020
