cossack wrote:Slow onto and off the runway. Runway Occupancy Times are surveyed every few years and some of the times are staggering.
This has for years been monitored full time in the UK as far as I know, and companies that use up too much time too often hear about it officially.
Of course, more a management level thing....but....
.....the rules should be changed if that is what is more sufficient. From what I have seen, Heathrow times line-ups as well, ALL THE TIME(or so it seems) and ranks the airlines. I have seen the reports. There are meetings as well followed by memos to pilots(at least at some places). If pilots are slow to line-up and clear, put a reminder in the ATIS and in the Jepp reference charts and start the process of speeding people up instead of accepting it. Heathrow doesn't accept this. Everybody knows you don't waste time there. No one seems to talk about YYZ that way. I suppose just giving up is easier with 3 parallels available with big crosswinds allowed for "Noise Abatement" reasons.
15 minute hold? Better than the 2 hour ground delay you just threatened us with. If there is a strong crosswind for the east west runways resulting in 33L/R, Time Based Separation would be very applicable.
Perhaps GTAA is too busy with their magazines that they are publishing than to care about low vis approach capabilities. Some stuff about various wines in a recent issue I read.
It's always the same after any accident/incident. The theorizing begins, and then the resident self-appointed "I-know-best" types jump in and in their typically self-righteous way say the same old mantra "Guys let's not jump to conclusions and let the investigators do their jobs and wait for the report and armchair quarterback second guess you don't know you weren't there blah blah blah".
Essentially, the patronizing attitude that somehow the "official experts" are the only ones possessing a brain and capable of coming up with some plausible idea of what might have happened. God no wonder Canadians get constantly raped by their leaders, with that mindset of "gubmints know best".
This is an aviation forum. It is frequented by, I (used to?) assume, numerous working pilots, operating day in and out, with a combined tens of thousands of hours and hundreds of years of experience in every facet of aviation. So where the bloody %^&$ do people think is a MORE appropriate place to exchange ideas about such issues? Or is the idea that we just stop thinking and talking until we're told what the "official" version of events are? Yeah, that's a great plan.
Of course we don't have access to the same physical data that one would hope an investigation team does. No one is suggesting we must definitively SOLVE what happened. But if intelligent discussion of possible causes of an accident/incident gets people thinking of potential threats, traps, and ways to mitigate them, perhaps those with the apparent faith in the glacially-slow "officials" could explain why that would be a bad thing?
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Last edited by complexintentions on Mon Feb 27, 2017 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I’m still waiting for my white male privilege membership card. Must have gotten lost in the mail.
Cat Driver wrote:Having flown worldwide for many decades it is my opinion the Canadian TSB is one of the slowest fact finding groups on the planet, by the time their reports are released there have been many more incidents / accidents for them to investigate thus the lessons if any to be learned have been eclipsed by many more of the same types of events.
Maybe you could enlighten me on why they take so long to release their reports.
From my own experience with them I have come to the conclusion I would not offer any information to them because it is my experience they are more politically motivated than safety motivated.
I have mentioned this before. It is my belief that it can take months to translate a report before release. If so, then the TSB has put politics ahead of lives by delaying the release. Maybe TSB Tasker can let us know.
The NTSB often releases interm reports on accident investigations they are conducting. They released an interm report I believe a few weeks after the Asiana accident at SFA. They then released a full report a year after the accident.
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Welcome to Redneck Airlines. We might not get you there but we'll get you close!
In a previous life back and during my Transport Canada Aviation days, I was appointed the "Minister's Representative" on TSB investigations, it was done through the System Safety Division. It was an observer’s status but sometimes had to answer questions or get info as it related to Transport. Interesting to see and understand their (TSB) process, I was and still am of the viewpoint TSB is professionally run and does not have an "ax to grind” be it political or whatever, has very qualified investigators from all disciplines. In my minor capacity, that is what I observed.
I'm not speaking for the TSB but there seems to be a few misconceptions floating around,
The TSB is not Transport Canada.
As a matter of fact they're often at odds. The TSB is about as for from political as possible while still being a part of the government. It is an independent organization that reports to President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Democratic Institutions and is separate from any other Canadian government institutions or ministers. Anything said to a TSB investigator in an interview is protected like a CVR under the act and won't be released (with a few exceptions)
They are well respected internationally and the report quality that is generated is as good as the AAIB, NTSB etc. They have chosen not to release interim reports like the NTSB and that is certainly a debatable point. I think everyone one would like the reports out sooner but the TSB has about 200 employees nation wide for air, rail, marine and pipeline, and is limited by resources. For example there are only 5 air investigators for all of Ontario.
Often people don't understand the TSB process so I'll briefly describe it in order to understand why it can take a year or more to generate a complex report.
1- NavCanada or law enforcement notifies the TSB of an accident or incident. The standby on call investigator will take the information and asses whether to deploy or not in conjunction with the regional manager.
2- Data Collection Phase:
If they decide to deploy two investigators will travel to the scene. They may need anywhere from a few hours to days on site to assess the accident. They will conduct interviews with crew, flight attendants, ATC, first responders and witnesses. That can take days depending on people's availability and the number of people involved. They also need to asses the scene and take pictures, inspect the aircraft or wreckage, retrieve data recorders, decide on if they need to collect anything, recover wreckage, deal with fatalities or next of kin, conduct media interviews etc etc. After they deal with perishable data they will return to the office and decide what other information is needed such as ATC radar, audio, company manuals, crew training records etc.
This can take weeks to get all the information needed.
3- Analysis Phase:
Bring in other specialists from within industry or the TSB such as Human Factors, manufacturers etc, send wreckage or data recorders off to the TSB lab for analysis. Begin to construct a sequence of events in an accurate timeline and identify the safety significant events and analyze each one for the underlying factors. Again this is a process that may take weeks to months depending on how busy the lab is and what information is required from manufacturers and other outside entities. By the time the sequence of events analysis is complete the TSB has a pretty good idea of what the factors and risks were and what defenses failed.
4- Report Writing Phase:
The investigator in charge, with help from other resources such as human factors specialists etc will begin to write the report. This is actually a fairly quick process as the analysis phase identified the issues. A technical writer will review the report for grammatical and format accuracy.
5- Quality Assurance Review
The report is thoroughly reviewed for accuracy by a team of investigators in quality assurance, and the investigator incharge (IIC) will fix any issues that come to light.
6- Board Review
The report then goes to the Board for review and comments. The IIC owns the report and will address any board concerns and modify the report if he agrees with any board additions or modifications. If he doesn't he is able to discuss his concerns with the board until an understanding is reached.
7- DR Review
the report goes out to a select group of people for review and comment. These will be players involved such as the crew, airline, manufacturers etc. This is where if you don't agree with something that has been written you have an opportunity to address it. The IIC must address each comment made, though not necessarily modify the report.
8- Board Review
The board has a last chance to review the report after the DR comments have been incorporated.
9- Report publication and release.
It will be translated at this point which is a process that takes a few days, not months and it will be released to the public.
Remember that while this process is ongoing an investigator may be working on several reports or incidents at the same time, resources are limited. I think everyone wishes reports could be generated in weeks, but it's not practical given the resources and complexities and maintaining report quality.
Agree or disagree at least that should clarify the process. At least don't confuse the TSB with Transport Canada.
If at any time during this process the TSB identifies a safety deficiency that requires immediate attention that information will be communicated immediately to stakeholders such as Transport Canada, the airlines or manufacturers. They don't wait for the final report to be published.
If in the meantime pilots wish to speculate on causes or if your opinion is that the crew just screwed it up and no further investigation is needed then that's your prerogative.
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Last edited by tbaylx on Tue Feb 28, 2017 9:56 am, edited 2 times in total.
Wow...this thread drifted faster than the airplane left the runway.
Initially I thought that maybe the crew had landed far from the centerline but if the marks in the grass are indeed 4000'+ from the threshold, that points to an excursion fairly far in to the rollout phase.
Airbus has a history of occasional nosewheel steering faults, and this is certainly one possibility. They also don't steer well with large angles of nosewheel steering inputs on slippery surfaces. The nosewheel oleo is pointed forward, and at large deflection angles, weight is lifted off one tire, reducing contact area right when you need it the most. I wonder if this could have added to the crews difficulties in trying to regain control of the airplane.
No crew goes to work in the morning planning to have an incident or accident. Some accidents are more bone headed than others. But at the end of the day when we know what happened here, I suspect I will be thinking , "Wow, I had better be careful not to let that happen to me." YMMV.
OK, ., Rockie, and complexintentions can you guys take a step back, go through the thread, and realize that you are doing that thing that always happens here, and makes the thread harder to read for those of us who just want to read about A320s and reasons for runway excursions?
AvCanada is notorious for almost every conversation devolving into silly bickering, and this time it's you three who are doing it. I'm not innocent myself, but I thought if I draw your attention to it, you might cut it out yourselves this time.
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If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself
Nothing useful to prevent an accident in this release shown above. At the time the update was released, it was soon after the accident but it is almost two years now. I have a bit of a guess from a pilot...something to do with VNAV approaches with non-GPS equipped A320's and how accurate or inaccurate they might be compared to the GPS equipped A320's in the same fleet. What if the VNAV path is not as accurate on the non-GPS as the GPS aircraft? Could a pilot continue at minimums with a couple of blurry white lights in sight but not much else(as is sometimes done on an ILS) thinking that their centered "on descent path indication" is the actual proper descent path which would take them to the touchdown zone when in fact the path indication was erroneous and it turns out that the lights they saw were from a vehicle or something similar.
If there is something about this, it needs to be publicized soon.
What if something similar happens somewhere else?
On the other hand, this info may be totally inaccurate.
Here is the Russian interim updates on the FlyDubai incident. Notice how they quickly provided FDR data readout instead of guarding like it is some sort of secret.
Sometimes accidents and the resultant TSB report and recommendations fundamentally change the way we do business in this industry. I think YHZ is going to be one of those times so getting it right is critically important.
Maybe the change has already started. At Air Canada's request, all CPA carriers have adopted approach ban criteria for non-precision and CAT I ILS approaches that are more restrictive than the CARs.
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Last edited by rxl on Wed Mar 01, 2017 5:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
Back on page 2 I suggested that there was probably a good reason that the configuration of the airport was 15R/15L. In the thread on PPRuNe someone posted this:
It clearly shows weather to the west which probably precluded arrivals from the west and departures to the west, so any configuration using the east-west runways was unavailable. The only CATIII runways are 05 and 06L.
The area to the south of the airport is very noise sensitive so the preferential landing runway after midnight would be 15L. Due volume of traffic still arriving, two runways were probably still authorized for use by the GTAA, so 15R is the arrival runway and 15L the departure runway. Using them in the opposite way brings about its own challenges on the ground, so is avoided unless we're in snow/de-icing.
The usual upper winds with a weather system like this are usually from the SW, making approaches to the 33s not only over a noise sensitive area but with a tail wind too.
Cossack,
Thanks for the good feedback re pilot contributions to speed things up.
FICU,
Here's something about different grooving types I ripped off another forum re difference in grooving between YVQ and MIA.
Let's approach the issue of dry, wet and damp runway conditions from the pavement engineering perspective. Dry runway means that the dry weather friction can be expected (which is usually good). Damp runway means that the wet weather friction can be expected (which can range from fair to poor; it is not usually poor and would only be so on greasy or polished stone surfaces which are very rare on runways). Wet runway means that the wet weather friction can be expected plus there can be standing water (friction can range from fair to very poor; it can easily be poor or very poor because standing water can lead to aquaplaning).
Now the normal runway micro surface (that is the surface seen from very close-up) should be a little bit rough, just as it should be on any road. ICAO requires a minimum texture for a new surface of 1mm. In fact, as I tell my students of pavement engineering, if you fall off your bicycle, you should skin your knee. This means that the surface has some texture. The texture enables the stones imbedded in the surface to stick up above any water, and small rain showers or very thin sheets of standing water can dissipate between the stones as the tyre rolls over them, and this ensures that no aquaplaning occurs unless there is lots of standing water.
Most [black coloured] runways are surfaced with asphalt (asphaltic concrete for the Americans and bituminous concrete for the British). This typically has a very smooth surface, and the ungrooved texture is low/poor. I measured a pretty smooth asphalt surfaced carpark the other day to test a new texture measuring machine, and got 0.4mm. Normal asphalt texture varies but an average could be 0.6mm. If you fall off your bicycle, you won't skin your knee. Small rain showers or very thin sheets of standing water cannot dissipate between the stones because the surface is so smooth that it doesn't have any stones sticking up. Asphalt needs grooving.
The few runways that are "sealed" or "chip sealed" are also black and have a rough texture (typically 1.5mm) and you will skin your knee if you fall off your bicycle. Sometimes the airport will put a chip seal (aka surface dressing) on top of the asphalt to get the same effect.
Grooving is an artificial way of restoring texture to asphalt, and it is a Good Thing. It gives the gaps that the water can dissipate into as the tyre rolls over the asphalt. A grooved runway is restored to being equivalent in surface texture to a surface that is a little bit rough. The ICAO groove spacings of 3mm x 3mm @ 25mm centres adds 0.4mm to the asphalt texture of say 0.6mm, which gives 1.0mm. The "big tropical" grooves of 6mm x 6mm @ 31mm centres add 1.1mm texture, giving typically 1.1+0.6=1.7mm. An asphalt runway that is not grooved is a) a lot cheaper to build, and b) plain dangerous. You'll sometimes see a few around the place, disappearing rapidly under your wing as you frantically try and stop in the wet. The other treatment you may see, which is equivalent in terms of restoring texture to grooving, is "porous", and it is also a Good Thing.
For example, look at Perth, Australia - the 06/24 and 03/21 runways are respectively porous and grooved (well done Torb). This simply means that they are now up to normal surfacing standards in terms of texture. Look at Cairns, Australia - the 12/30 and 15/33 runways are respectively sealed and grooved. This means that 12/30 is already at normal texture surfacing standards, and 15/33 is up to normal surfacing standards (well done Andy).
Grooving won't cope with standing water due to ruts and birdbaths in the runway (common in worn-out runways). Grooving won't cope with deep standing water due to heavy rainstorms (hint: equatorial). Grooving won't cope with standing water due to all the grooves and texture being filled up with rubber (hint: Bangkok).
If you can see standing water (puddles or sheets of water glistening) as you line up, then you should be concerned regardless of whether the book says the runway has been grooved or not.
In conclusion, grooved asphalt should be treated as a normal runway surface, and normal limits applied (wet/dry etc) without further regard to whether it is grooved or not. Ungrooved asphalt or "not porous" asphalt should be considered as sub-standard and treated with caution. By the way, the groves give no grip at all in themselves, and I cannot see why any crosswind limitations should be changed on grooved runways.
Occurrence No.: A17O0043 Occurrence Type: INCIDENT REPORTABLE
Class: CLASS 5 Reportable Type: RUNWAY EXCURSION (v)
Date: 2017-03-15 Time: 05:10:00 UTC
Region of
Responsibility:
ONTARIO
Location: CYOW - MacDonald-Cartier Intl - Ottawa
Country: CANADA Province: ONTARIO
Ground Injuries: Fatal: 0 Minor: 0
Serious: 0 Unknown: 0
---------- Aircraft 1 ----------
Registration: C-FGYL Operator: AIR CANADA
Manufacturer: AIRBUS Operator Type: COMMERCIAL
Model: A320-200 CARS Sub Part: 705 - AIRLINER
Injuries: Fatal: 0 Minor: 0
Serious: 0 None: 130
Unknown: 0
Occurrence Summary:
C-FGYL, an Airbus 320-200 aircraft operated by Air Canada, was conducting flight ACA470 from Toronto/Lester B. Pearson Intl, ON (CYYZ) to Ottawa/MacDonald-Cartier Intl, ON (CYOW). During the landing sequence on Runway 32 at CYOW, the aircraft drifted to the left and, upon touchdown on the hard surface, the left main landing gear was laterally within a few feet from the runway edge
