TWA 800 STILL AN EXPLODING FUEL TANK ACCIDENT

(06/26/2013) Seventeen years after the crash of TWA 800, some of the crash investigators have disavowed the findings of the NTSB that an explosion of the center fuel tank caused this tragedy. They claim that a missile, not the same kind of explosion that blew the sister ship to this one out of the sky in Spain years earlier, was the cause.

One serial number away, that 747, originally also a TWA airplane but sold to the Iranian Air Force, blew up on approach to Madrid. Eighteen other Boeing airplanes have suffered similar center fuel tank explosions.

These investigators contend that TWA 800, an airplane that was on its last revenue flight because it was used up, did not blow up after sitting on the ramp for three hours with its air conditioning packs running under the center fuel tank with very little fuel in it. Temperatures inside the tank above the remaining fuel exceeded 125 degrees F, above the explosive limit for that fuel vapor, and a fuel scavenge pump at the bottom of that tank was turned on with too little fuel left to cool it. These investigators most of whom worked for TWA or its pilots’ say today it was a missile and not a repeat of the exploding center fuel tank problem. What is troubling is a soon to be released documentary will redirect the public and authorities’ attention to what didn’t happen which impacts the chances of getting the problem fixed once and for all. Inerting the air above the fuel in fuel tanks with nitrogenhas proved to be an effective means to prevent fuel tank explosions in aircraft. We have waited seventeen years for this fix and it still hasn’t happened. With this unsupported claim, the fix for existing aircraft will likely never happen.

No claim by any terrorist group was ever made following this accident. Moreover if a missile, a MANPAD, was in fact used by a terrorist, it would have been at the limit of its effective altitude, some 13,000 feet and invisible to radar. Since all the MANPADS at that time used heat seekers for terminal guidance, it is fatal to this missile theory that no missile damage was ever found on the engines, the only source of heat for the purported missile’s heat seekers to lock onto and no missile fragments were ever found among the wreckage.

The cause of the explosion is portrayed in an animation The Wolk Law Firm prepared after the crash. It illustrates just what happened and why. Open it and you will understand why this tragedy occurred and how easily it could have been prevented. These investigators although wrong may be well intended but these erroneous revelations will stymie the already stymied process to fix the exploding fuel tank problem and increase the risk for everyone.

-Arthur Alan Wolk

What excuse will the FAA and industry give us the next time hundreds of families suffer the needless loss of their loved ones?

(2006) Ten years after TWA Flight 800 exploded over Long Island killing all aboard and thirty two years after its sister ship exploded over Madrid killing all aboard, the FAA still has no rule in place to require inerting of transport aircraft fuel tanks. The FAA claims only four aircraft will explode from this cause in the next fifty years. That’s an interesting statistic given that no less than 18 and probably more have exploded in the 35 years since jet transports have taken over the skies.

(Update 06/26/2013) TWA Flight 800 Crash: Missle Theory Bogus
Seventeen years after the crash of TWA 800, some of the crash investigators have disavowed the findings of the NTSB that an explosion of the center fuel tank caused this tragedy. They claim that a missile, not the same kind of explosion that blew the sister ship to this one out of the sky in Spain years earlier, was the cause. [more]

While some manufacturers like Boeing whose airplanes have done the exploding say they will inert tanks of all new airplanes, Airbus says it will only do so if required because its airplanes haven’t exploded yet.

The original fuel tank engineering philosophy was to prevent explosions by keeping sparks away from inside partially filled tanks. That was honored more in the breach since fuel quantity sending units, electrical wires and fuel pumps were inside the tanks. How the manufacturers intended to meet the requirement to avoid sparks is inexplicable.

When the sister ship to TWA 800, then in the Iranian Air Force, blew up on approach to Madrid in 1974, the cause was assigned to a lightning strike on the near empty fuel tanks.

Then when the inquiry was over for that crash an industry task force was assembled to discuss the ways fuel tank explosions could be avoided in large aircraft fuel tanks. Nothing ever came of it but the military by that time was already providing fuel tank inerting in aircraft that could be hit by incendiary rounds to prevent explosions. In fact a military DC-9 was equipped with a nitrogen inerting system even before the Madrid crash and it worked well and was cheap and uncomplicated to install. Other military aircraft such as the C-17 actually manufacture nitrogen in flight and it is then used to inert its fuel tanks as the fuel is consumed.

Since TWA 800 a number of FAA Airworthiness Directives have been issued to tidy up the electrical issues in the tanks but they by design still remain dangerous. A cartoon published soon after TWA 800 showed a caricature of Grandma Moses rocking in her chair with the balloon saying: “Why would anyone route wires through the middle of a fuel tank anyway?” Common sense would have dictated that no wiring of any kind be allowed in the tank even if the regulations didn’t already imply that.

So the design philosophy changed to now require that the space between the fuel and the top of the tank be inerted so it won’t explode. Industry was asked to come up with proposals and they did much like they did thirty years earlier. None have been implemented so the risk remains.

What is even more indefensible is that there were immediate steps that could have been taken and some were and most were not to prevent explosions in the short term. Carrying more than a few gallons of fuel in large fuel tanks was no longer permitted in the hope that dangerous fuel molecule concentrations would not occur. Limiting the use of air conditioning packs on the ground that use the center tank fuel as a heat sink was discouraged to avoid temperatures in tanks getting to the lower explosive limit.

But use of cabin air that is sent overboard and routing it through the tanks instead so as to make the fuel air mixture too lean to explode was not required. That would have been cheap, expedient and worked in the short term before a more effective solution was engineered.

Thus after more than thirty years the risk is just as high that an aircraft the size of a Boeing 747 will explode killing all aboard for the very same reason that TWA 800 and the sister ship did, a bad fuel tank design coupled with inadequate inerting of the vapors in the tank.

What excuse will the FAA and industry give us the next time hundreds of families suffer the needless loss of their loved ones? None will suffice. None did suffice. None should suffice. The victims of TWA Flight 800 should not have died in vain.

TSA REVERSES RULE AGAINST CARRYING KNIVES ABOARD AIRCRAFT

(March 6, 2013) In an inexplicable move, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has reversed its ban on the carrying of penknives aboard commercial aircraft. It is now legal to do so, provided the blades are 2.36 inches or less in length, and less than ½ inch in width. The rationale behind the reversal of the ban was to align our safety rules with international standards – but who cares about international standards when we were the ones attacked on 9/11, not them!

Prior to 9/11, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had authority to promulgate safety rules for security aboard airliners. In the face of oftentimes explicit threats against airliners by terrorists either by hijacking or carrying bombs, the FAA allowed up to 4-inch knife blades to be carried by passengers aboard commercial aircraft. It turns out that the hijackers that were detained for further questioning on 9/11 carried box cutters, but were allowed onboard because the blades were within the acceptable size limits – and the rest, as they say, is history!

Never satisfied with smacking their collective foreheads with the palms of their hands, the brain trust at the TSA has decided that it’s now “ok” to allow passengers to carry penknives aboard. After 13 years of teaching passengers what they can and can’t carry aboard a plane, and the passengers satisfied with the level of safety these minor restrictions have afforded us, now the Government that let us down so miserably in the past, has decided to risk the lives of all airline passenger again by allowing penknives to be carried. Why? What could the logic behind this illogical action possibly be?

After Pearl Harbor we exclaimed, “never again” – and then 9/11 happened. The Government just doesn’t get it, never got it, and never will get it. The collective stupidity among Government bureaucrats is astonishing. Plain and simple, it just isn’t necessary to have passengers carrying knives on a plane! To make matters even worse, the TSA is now also allowing golf clubs to be carried on again as well! The original logic in banning them was that they could be swung like clubs and therefore used as weapons; apparently, a golf club is no longer considered a potential club, as in weapon, but is now just a potential club, as in when it is used to murder a golf ball. Wholly aside from the risk such bludgeons afford potential “do-badders,” think of what the countless golf bags will do to overhead storage for such non-lethal things as carry-on bags, computers and your lunch! So not only do golf clubs get added as a potential weapon in the “arsenal of the evildoers,” they make already inconvenient, cramped and miserable air travel all that more inconvenient, cramped and miserable!

Arthur Alan Wolk

(March 6, 2013) The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has decided that certain non-federal agencies, police departments for example, will soon be able to have their own UAS’s. A UAS is an unmanned aircraft system, essentially a fancy name for a “drone” – like the ones that lob missiles at bad guys overseas on a daily basis – and soon here in the United States if the CIA gets its wish; but, having been pressured by industry, the FAA now intends to open the National Airspace System and below to every Tom, Dick and Harry police department for operation of their own UAS’s, or “drones”.

Drones have a very particular reputation when used by the military; not only do they provide real time surveillance, they are also used to shoot people, to blow up houses, cars, and any other living things that happen to be nearby (women, children, dogs, cats, neighbors, etc.). So, in true Government fashion, they made up a new term, “UAS’s”, which I will translate for you:

“U” stands for Unsupervised, “A” stands for Attack, and “S” stands for Stupid, a Yiddish term used to describe someone that is irresponsible and mindless – like a drone.

Homeland Security’s UAS specifications for its drones say that they “shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not.”Mark my words, there will be unannounced death from the air in our streets. There will be mid-air collisions among these UAS’s, light aircraft, and possibly airliners. There will be a violent reaction from U.S. citizens to this invasion of their privacy, and the unconstitutional deprivation of due process before they are summarily executed.

We are traveling a treacherous path!
Arthur Alan Wolk

Recent fires, short circuits and thermal runaways of Boeing 787 Lithium Ion batteries demonstrate that Boeing’s choice of this technology was misplaced and it is a life threatening hazard that affects all Dreamliners.

The Wolk Law Firm handled a UPS Boeing 747 crash, an almost new airplane, where it is said that a thermal runaway of lithium ion battery cargo caused the aircraft to catch fire, the crew to lose control and crash. It turned out that there was insufficient oxygen for the crew to survive in the smoke and heat, there were no smoke hoods provided as standard equipment to allow the crew to see instruments obscured by acrid smoke, and but for two hand held fire extinguishers nothing was available to put out the blaze. Indeed even had the crew been able to apply the contents of the fire extinguishers directly to the battery fire, it would have been useless.

In fact on all passenger and cargo airliners nothing but the cargo compartments and engines are protected from fires and none of the systems will put out a lithium ion battery fire. Even though the FAA knew that two large Lithium Ion batteries were to be used in the Boeing 787, it chose not to mandate that some extinguishing system be installed in the two bays, one in front and one in back in which they were installed. That was in spite of the fact that one such battery burned down the building of the company that designed the battery controls during certification.

The 787 is designed for more than 8000 mile flights much of that over water where there are no airports for emergency landings. With nothing to suppress the fire and no place to land, one needs no fertile imagination to understand that passengers and crews are at risk. In short if there is a fire over water everyone will likely perish. The Miracle on the Hudson was just that, a miracle, and landing in the mid Atlantic or Pacific in the middle of the night will not likely yield a similar outcome.

This is the same design philosophy that got Boeing in trouble for the errant rudder actuators in the Boeing 737. Instead of responding to the FAA’s concerns that there was only one actuator on such a large rudder, Boeing did a computation that satisfied the FAA that a malfunction might only occur only in one in a billion flights and thus was extremely remote. That computation satisfied the FAA but three fatal crashes later the rudder was required to be made “reliably redundant”. [read more]

The reason this design attitude and regulatory philosophy must end is simple.

First, it is immoral for any company to allow people to die from easily preventable crashes.

Second, Boeing (and now the world) know that Lithium Ion batteries are unsuitable, unreliable, unstable and unpredictable.

Third, Boeing knows (but the world does not) that there are no fire extinguishing systems where the system Lithium Ion batteries are located; thus a battery fire, in the avionics bay for example, is a crash waiting to happen.

Fourth, Boeing knows (but the world does not) that on all Boeing airplanes save the Fedex B-777, there are no effective fire fighting tools at all. Fedex developed its own system to put out fires in the B-777 that is the model for the aviation cargo industry. Only Fedex uses it.

Fifth, if a Dreamliner crashes because of a fire that was uncontained due to a battery fire, the Airbus A-350, a direct competitor, will take the orders and the jobs that go with it out of the country. Airbus’ suffer from the same lack of fire suppression design flaw so a fire aboard one of its aircraft will be just as disastrous.

Sixth, the unspeakable suffering hundreds of passengers and their families will endure is grotesque.

If there is a lesson to be learned from all of this, it is a simple one. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is without doubt a quantum leap in aviation economics. It flies further, cheaper and on less fuel than any comparable airliner. On the other hand, it was for Boeing too much to do at once. The carbon fiber technology for such a large aircraft built by Boeing was cutting edge, the engine technology was cutting edge, the offsets in so many disparate countries was cutting edge, the 8000 lb psi hydraulic system was new, the electric control systems were new, the use of non-bleed air pressurization and air conditioning were new. The wing design was new as were the manufacturing and production techniques.

Finished assemblies of the aircraft made in different countries were assembled and certification testing took place in the United States. Many of the early aircraft needed extensive modifications to meet certification requirements all of which normally is achieved before production ready assemblies and the complete aircraft are built.

All of this resulted in costly delays and the rush to production, certification and commencement of deliveries guaranteed that known but unaddressed issues would rear their ugly heads and cause a risk of disaster not only grounding. The Lithium Ion battery thermal runaway problem is said to have been known to Boeing years ago and recent reports reveal battery replacements on in service Dreamliner aircraft. The thermal runaway problem certainly should have been known since everyone knows that similar batteries used in computers and cell phones have all too frequently caught fire and two cargo-only B-747’s have already been brought down from Lithium Ion battery fires.

Make no mistake about it, as the United States’ largest exporter, Boeing will pass the FAA’s review quickly and with flying colors. The battery problem will be whitewashed and the politically motivated FAA will pronounce the Dreamliner a dream. Then the airplane will crash and everyone will publicly wring their hands and remonstrate that we must do better to make certain that this never happens again… that is until the next time. Every time a Dreamliner makes an emergency landing from fire or smoke from the Lithium Ion batteries it is an accident that just didn’t happen.

No one is talking about the utter absence of any meaningful fire suppression system for anything but the cargo holds and engines in this and other aircraft. The luggage may survive the fire but the passengers won’t.

My prediction, the FAA will do nothing, the NTSB will do nothing, Boeing will do nothing effective to solve the problem. The French are no better as similar whitewashes were and are the product of Airbus and DGAC (the French FAA) collaborations.

It is beyond comprehension that a United States manufacturer, one of the most innovative, technically competent, and possessed of manufacturing genius like Boeing would risk everything again by failing to equip its latest aircraft with a comprehensive fire suppression system. Like most of the world’s plane makers, if the Government doesn’t require it, it won’t get done.

My recommendation for passengers on this and every other commercial flight, carry on your own fire extinguisher.

Arthur Alan Wolk
February 3, 2013

Air France decided to wait and see and now we have seen over 200 dead

Air France 447 was the arch typical confluence of a number of factors that figure in any aircraft accident.

The conditions were night out over the South Atlantic. The Tropical Convergence Zone, that area of our earth’s atmosphere where the Northern Hemispheric direction  of winds collides with the Southern Hemisphere’s opposite direction resulting in violent giant sized thunderstorms.

Other aircraft that night diverted more than 200 miles to avoid the worst of the storms that AF 447’s crew decided to penetrate.

The crew was more than amply experienced in the A-330 with a collective experience of some five thousand hours in that model.

What the crew could not have known is that Air France decided not to urgently replace even one of the pitot tubes with models less likely to ice over.

In short Air France made a choice to expose the crew and passengers to a serious risk of death or injury due to its decision to wait and see.

Air France did the same thing with its Concorde fleet by not installing safety measures to avoid penetrations of fuel tanks from exploding tires. That decision was responsible for the only fatal accident of that aircraft taking 100 people with it.

As the Airbus made its way towards a line of level five and six thunderstorms, the aircraft was manned by an experienced first officer and a less experienced junior FO. The Captain was in the back.

Shortly after entering the weather, airspeed was lost and the autopilot disconnected. This should not have caused loss of the attitude indications but no doubt generated many warnings and messages.

The pitot tubes iced over and then deiced and then iced over wreaking havoc with the aircraft computers and messages.

The aircraft was in cruise at the time so nothing should have changed to result in the loss of the aircraft.

Soon however the aircraft began gyrations that were the stuff that horror films are made of. Sudden pitch ups and downs, engines to idle to takeoff power, altitude changes culminating in as much as a ten thousand foot per minute descent to the ocean below.

Nearly two years after the crash, the flight data and cockpit voice recorders were discovered and recovered.

The vertical stabilizer was found six miles from the main wreckage.

The data which everyone agrees is false because of the pitot tube icing has been pieced together to conclude that the cause of the crash was the flight crew putting the aircraft into a deep stall that resulted in a rapid descent in roughly level aircraft attitude nose up precariously with takeoff power while they watched themselves crash speaking a translated French gibberish that no flight crew would ever speak like under the circumstances.

Let’s see now, an experienced flight crew in cruise with the aircraft all trimmed up for level flight pitched the aircraft nose so high that the aircraft not only stalled but went further into the never never land regime of deep stall.

Then with a working set of attitude instruments the three of them (the Captain returned to the cockpit during the descent) didn’t realize what was going on, couldn’t regain control of what the French say was a perfectly intact aircraft and then died along with their passengers no doubt while humming the Marseillaise.

I would like to suggest that what has been written by French authorities is totally and absolutely wrong and I can think of a few French epithets the crew would be hurtling their way if they had lived.

First, no mention of whether Air France dispatch told the crew to avoid the area of increasingly serious weather or if they had put on enough fuel to divert the necessary hundreds of miles.

Second, no mention of the limitations of the on board radar to provide adequate penetration information or whether the flight should just have been cancelled due to an impenetrable line of weather that no aircraft should enter.

Third, no mention of how fully stalled an A-330 can possible develop a ten thousand foot per minute descent rate which is the rate one sees with an aircraft that has already lost critical parts in flight.

Fourth, no mention of a “G” tracing to see how beat up the aircraft got when it entered that line of thunderstorms.

Fifth, why did the computers not have a remedy for the crew when deeps stall is a flight tested regime?

Sixth, why is this the second A-330 with a composite vertical stabilizer that has crashed with it separated from the main wreckage?

Seventh, when was the vertical stabilizer lost and did the aircraft Split S or knife edge down because it was gone and that maneuver cause the high descent rate?

Eighth, why don’t any French investigators know how to translate French into English expressions that explain what the crew was doing during the descent.

Ninth, why didn’t Air France replace at least one of the pitot tubes with the non-icing type before losing an aircraft and its crew and passengers instead of waiting to see what would happen if they did nothing?

Now at the end of the day this crew will be blamed by the French Government because it would be a sacrilege for the French to blame their home grown aircraft industry or their national airline for anything but unless they get serious the world aircraft industry will become increasingly wary of the legitimacy of the investigators’ conclusions.

The crew should never have tried to penetrate that line of weather.

The airline should never have dispatched the aircraft in that weather.

The radar was no doubt attenuating such that the crew could not see just how bad the weather was.

The pitot tubes should have replaced at once since the aircraft could not fly as certified and thus was not airworthy.

The concept of deep stall should have been annunciated by the computers and a suggested resolution made as it is an easy flight regime to recover from but engine power must be reduced to idle and the nose dropped well below the horizon which is contrary to what is trained for.

The vertical stabilizer must remain on the aircraft for the duration of the flight, period!

This investigation relying on admittedly invalid data is a sick portrayal of why Government aircraft accident investigation aided by manufacturers and airlines worldwide doesn’t work and why “Dead men tell no tales” is still the standard that conclusions of probable cause are improperly measured by.

Arthur Alan Wolk
4/11/11

That of course allows those neat tracking sites like Flight Aware and FlightPlan.com to track each flight and show it graphically over the geography and with weather depicted as well. The flight’s aircraft number, its altitude and ground speed, its expected time of arrival and its destination are portrayed. It is therefore possible for anyone with a computer or a cell phone with an app to know precisely where any airline flight or corporate aircraft is at any time.

If, say, you want your office, or family or transportation provider, FBO or other legitimately interested person to know your airplane’s whereabouts this information is just great.

But there is a downside. If you don’t want to be tracked, then you would have to opt out of the program using a provision called BARR, Block Aircraft Registration Request. That would allow your aircraft number to be kept from inquiring eyes.

Well the Government, never at loss for stupid actions, has decided to eliminate the BARR program except in special instances of real terror or security threats.

This of course means that anyone who flies will be able to be tracked by the bad guys who will know when you are away from home or office, where you are conducting business, maybe with whom you are meeting and where and when you will be home.

So instead of helping people feel and be secure, our Government is helping pilots and their crews and passengers be less secure.

Way to go Government, way to go! This must have been approved by the Department of Homeland Security which in addition to monitoring your flights likely monitors your phone calls, e-mails and lots of other stuff.

Big Brother is watching everything, including your flight. There is hope, lots of aviation trade organizations are suing the Government so maybe some Federal Judge will recognize the privacy implications and order the DOT to leave well enough alone. Arthur Alan Wolk

AS CLOSE AS IT GETS
It’s time for us, the passengers, to take control of aviation security

The recent Northwest Airlines near terrorist disaster brings back into focus just why we are in this horrible security predicament in aviation.

Before 9/11, we as a people were let down by our Government. The Bush 41, Bush 43 and Clinton administrations did not take terrorism seriously and did nothing to curb the growth of organized hatred for the United states, in spite of explicit warnings. Nothing was done after the World Trade Center bombings of 1994 to seriously address the threatened destruction of these structures. The FAA permitted knives of up to a four-inch blade to be carried by passengers on aircraft. The Immigration and Naturalization service did not have a list to prevent known terrorists from flying or from entering our country. The FBI ignored explicit warnings from at least two of its field offices that persons of Middle Eastern descent were learning to fly but not land airliners. The State Department was just too busy throwing cocktail parties to do anything useful. On 9/11 the terrorists were stopped for further interrogation because they all carried box cutters and then allowed to board because it wasn’t illegal in spite of the implications that anyone with a brain could have figured out.

So 3,000 people lost their lives and everyone remonstrated, while in Middle Eastern capitals they celebrated.

Fast forward, some guy is denied boarding on an American Airlines flight from France to the United States because he appears unstable and a day later he is allowed on. He tries to blow the airliner up unsuccessfully with a shoe bomb and now we all must take off our shoes before going through security.

Fast forward, a man is identified to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria by his father as radicalized and likely to cause harm to the U.S. and he is placed on the terrorist watch list but allowed to board an airliner in Nigeria for a flight ultimately to the U.S. The State Department does nothing. ICE, the new improved name for the old ineffective agency that is supposed to keep the bad guys out of this country does nothing. The TSA does nothing, and he is allowed to board a U.S. bound airliner with a bomb.

Now Lagos, Nigeria has been repeatedly on the U.S. State Department list of airports with questionable security anyway, yet this man who is a known risk is allowed to board, fly to the Netherlands and then board a U.S. bound aircraft with no one stopping him as a known terrorist.

Fortunately, his bomb doesn’t go off and we are spared another disaster of incompetence.

Now what is TSA doing about all of this born of the Government’s failure to do anything to protect us once again? It is going to impose more stringent security measures on whom…us. How stupid is this? What will it accomplish to keep us in our seats for the last hour of the flight because this man was said to have entered the bathroom for 20 minutes before he tried to detonate his bomb. Nothing we have done since 9/11 and nothing since each of these events have protected us from anything.

The only way to prevent terrorism on aircraft is to keep the terrorists away from the airport. Anything less will not work since our Government has proved itself again and again to be incompetent.

Here’s a further suggestion. Fire the people at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria responsible for this neglect. Fire the people at ICE who didn’t make their terrorist list a no fly list. Fire the people at the FAA who have proven once again to be ineffective. Fire the people at Homeland Security and TSA who still do not do their jobs to protect us.

We passengers are the last hope to prevent a terrorist from causing the deaths of all aboard. The Northwest passengers were lucky because had the detonator worked, they would all be dead. We are all self deputized as air marshals since the Government has failed us. We have the duty and responsibility to do the profiling that our Government refuses to do and report anyone who fits our view of a suspicious or dangerous person. If the Government won’t do it, we must help ourselves.

Lastly, we must require a background check of everyone who boards or wishes to board an International Flight. All done by and at the expense of the country who issues the passport, which then should be held fully responsible for the consequences of failing to their jobs effectively. In short, if you want to come here, you should prove that you will do us no harm.

We are at war and we still treat aviation as if it is not part of the front line in this war. We will have a disaster if we don’t start taking this risk seriously.

– Arthur Alan Wolk

REPEAT LESSON: Landing in thunderstorms is dangerous

American Airlines learned yet again that attempting a landing in a thunderstorm can be very tricky. This is the second such accident suffered by the carrier in 10 years when its crew landed in very heavy rain from a thunderstorm over the airport.

Here’s the problem. Thunderstorms generate very sharp changes in air current direction and velocity called wind shear. They also drop lots of rain in a short time making visibility poor and just coating the runway with sheets of water making tire traction and braking marginal. Even with the best auto braking and anti-skid, stopping distances are greatly increased. Pilots reacting to the bumps and windshear on approach add extra speed which further increases the landing distance and stopping distance as well. Put this all together and an overshoot is predictable, as occurred recently in Jamaica.

Fortunately, the aircraft left the runway at very slow speed so even though it broke into three pieces, the velocity was slow enough so injuries were not life threatening.

Interestingly, this airport had no safety areas beyond the runway ends to prevent damage to the aircraft, opting instead to use all the available real estate for the runway. Had the required 1,000 foot safety areas been in place beyond the 8,900 foot paved surface, or had EMAS (porous concrete that slows aircraft about to leave the runway) been installed, this airplane likely would have been towed out intact and no one would have received injury. One day, all airports that receive commercial service will install such safety features but until then, these accidents will continue. At this airport not only was there no safety area, there was an abrupt drop-off from the runway edge to the adjacent road and beach below, which broke the airplane that otherwise would have likely remained intact. The airport approach light system was incomplete due to a month long outage which, had it been working, would have assisted the crew in making a stabilized approach under the adverse weather conditions.

Bottom line, every pilot should once again be reminded that landing in a thunderstorm is a chancy proposition, especially on an island runway at night in very heavy rain and windshear. Holding for 20 minutes until the rain subsided would have been a better choice. There simply is no substitute for a stabilized approach and without it, landings become an unpredictable event.

American Airlines should lobby very hard for safety areas or EMAS at all airports it serves. It should also remind its flight crews that landing long and fast in the rain at night leaves very little margin left if the airplane can’t stop. All aboard this flight were very lucky.

– Arthur Alan Wolk