I'm not sure about the aircraft Bob, but the pilot's training/testing/qualifications are not covered by the US FAA, so all bets are off as to the criteria required for their certification.

In the US, all pilots of any level or rating at a Private Pilot or higher are required to demonstrate proficiency of a prescribed and detailed list of standards. It is called the Practical Test Standards (PTS.) These are prescribed in detail, in an effort to see that all examiners test the same criteria to the same level of proficiency. It's not a perfect system, but it does ensure a certain level of proficiency and experience for each level of certification.

These standards might be lower or higher in other countries.

As far as the aircraft goes, there has been no evidence whatsoever regarding any aircraft malfunctions or shortcomings of any kind in this accident thus far. It doesn't appear that there will be any. Back in the eighties, a fellow went to work for me after Braniff Airways had shut down. He had been an A&P mechanic for Braniff. He had been involved with some contract maintenance for a Mexican airline. We had to do some work in Mexico and he refused to fly whatever airline that was, saying that he had seen how they would not spend money for proper maintenance, and he would not fly on their aircraft. Those aircraft did indeed fly in and out of the US. From that, I ASSUME that aircraft maintained in other countries to different levels are allowed to land in US airports.

Hope this helps.

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Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

part of the reason I asked was the question about glide slope indicator being inop. Not that this was the problem, but that other issues may have been overlooked as well. Still seems to point to pilot error but we are probably a ways from knowing. Another part of issue is: Who's plane do you want to fly on? My gut feeling is that the US is pretty strict about its pilots and maintenance..even though mistakes or worse does somnetimes slip through

AFAIC the fact that the airports glideslope was non op is a non factor. This was a visual approach. Anyone at ANY level of piloting that needs a glideslope or any other instrument beyond an airspeed and vertical speed indicator for this landing should not be at the controls of an airplane.

The glideslope and localizer are not widely used these days anyway. GPS instrumentation is now widely used for instrument approaches. For it to be legal, it requires a certified, in panel GPS system such as the Garmin 430W and it's predecessors. It costs about $10K to install one. This is cost prohibitive for many General Aviation planes, but pennies and nickles for an airliner. If the old instrument ground equipment were to disappear tomorrow, I doubt that many airliners would even knew that it happened.

For me, it does not SEEM to point to pilot error. For me it is 99.9% certain that it was pilot error, although no one wants to use the words.

I haven't flown commercial in several years, but about ten years ago was Advantage Gold for several years including lots of flying around Europe on various local airlines. It was a little unnerving, but I never got the idea that they were poorly maintained. Some of the airlines in third world countries would be a different story. I would not THINK that a Korean airliner would be poorly maintained, but I have no idea. There is certainly no evidence of that in this case.

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Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

The US is strict about paperwork. The prescribed procedures for maintenance of an aircraft are detailed and precise. Certain things must be done at certain times. All must be documented meticulously.

The problem with maintenance begins where documents are signed by people when the work was not performed. The FAA can never find such anomalies until an aircraft component fails during flight. At that point, a detailed investigation is commenced.

The proficiency of pilots varies widely depending on the airline and the size of the aircraft. You can have a young fellow with less than 2500 hours fling a turboprop commuter aircraft.

In this accident, apparently, the pilot flying the aircraft had less than 100 hours in the type. No surprise that he screwed up the approach.............the surprise is the fact that the pilot not flying (the Captain) didn't take it away from him way before the airspeed dropped below 130 kts. Once they are 10kt. below target airspeed, it's about time for a go around............can't get it back to target speed and stabilized in time for a proper landing.

NTSB is saying that the plane speed was 106 knots at the time of impact.

Jeez, what a nightmare for the pilot, his maiden 777 flight and then this. Not necessarily trying to cut him any slack although it does seem likely that the senior pilot screwed up.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Being a private pilot with many hours I will say that your depth perception is skewed coming in over water.

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Jim

Lets review shall we.

You said that we should reserve judgement until more facts are presented. Then in the next sentence you went on to state two things that you knew did not happen. You said the tail did not fall off and that it was not the fault of maintenance.

Are either of these to conclusions supported by any NTSB finding and if so can you please link them here.

You made two statements of fact without any supporting facts while telling other to wait for the facts before drawing any conclusions. This equals IRONY.

Your conclusions seem quite reasonable (as do other theories presented) but they are still theories that are unsupported by any facts on your part.

You cannot cry about being a victim (and get any sympathy) when you constantly shoot your self in the foot.

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2014 C250 21,XXX my new DD ** 2013 GLK 350 18,000 Wife's new DD**

- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

As I recall the US can dictate aircraft requirements such as certain equipment and maintenance such as Brian outlined. Not sure about staff requirements.

Something I saw on the new this morning and I was wondering before hand as well is that they should have had 4 cockpit crew members on board ( I think that is a FAA requirement for flying into the US). This was a 10 hour flt from Seoul and they would have needed a relief crew. Normally, all four are in the cock pit for take off and landing. Assuming that is the case here, why the hell did three other pilots just sit their and let the pilot landing the aircraft stuff the plane into the ground (assuming that is what happened?) I wonder if the cockpit culture will come into play? Asian culture tends to be quite hierarchical so I wonder if the less senior pilots did not want to question the more senior one.

What has come out so far make s this seem like a really bizarre accident.

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Sent from an agnostic abacus

2014 C250 21,XXX my new DD ** 2013 GLK 350 18,000 Wife's new DD**

- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Too many people in the cockpit were too busy burying their noses in checklists to look out the windshield...

I don't think so. My experience when I road Jump seat (in a 777 by the way) was that there are only two people flying the plane. The Cpt and the FO. There is not FE and the jump seat positions do not have access to any flight controls. The two back up pilots were sitting in the back of the cockpit. They may or may not have had head sets on to listen to radio chatter but they were not doing anything flight related. The plane is designed to be flown by two people and only two people.

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Sent from an agnostic abacus

2014 C250 21,XXX my new DD ** 2013 GLK 350 18,000 Wife's new DD**

- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

I'm actually much more open-minded and will not deign to ascribe a cause to this. I do *not* like the fact that the airline PR jockey came out less than a day after the crash and said that it wasn't mechanical failure (effectively throwing the pilots under the bus). Wait and see.

The 777 is almost completely fly-by-wire, and there's always a computer in the loop. I believe there's a way to switch to "direct law", where the control surfaces are still run "by wire" but they follow yoke and pedal inputs directly rather than having the flight computers adding their inputs as well. But (correct me if I'm wrong) - direct law is seldom if ever used.

i.e. - is a 777 ever really "hand flown" on a normal flight, or are the pilots just experiencing an approximate simulation of hand flight?

SOP. The airlines throw the pilots under the bus to avoid liability and the pilots like to blame the manufactures for malfunctions/design flaws or the airlines for training or being over worked.

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Sent from an agnostic abacus

2014 C250 21,XXX my new DD ** 2013 GLK 350 18,000 Wife's new DD**

- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

I can't remember the accident, but there was a big one that was traced back to exactly what Brian describes above. I'm sure that there have been many over the years but the one I'm thinking about was a blatant example.

In the case of the accident under discussion here, I will be shocked if it turns out to be maintenance related.

__________________
2001 SLK 320 six speed manual
2014 Porsche Cayenne six speed manual

Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution