YYZ RJ landing Accident

[rookiepilot]

PF chopped the thrust at 150 ft with an increasing performance wind shift. Then forgot to fly the thing the rest of the way down. Didn’t add any thrust, didn’t flare. PM didn’t recognize this, both seem to ignore the sink rate EGPWS alert. Hit the runway at 1000+ ft a min decent rate.

Lets feel deep feelings for this crew, I am told.

[Hangry]

PF chopped the thrust at 150 ft with an increasing performance wind shift. Then forgot to fly the thing the rest of the way down. Didn’t add any thrust, didn’t flare. PM didn’t recognize this, both seem to ignore the sink rate EGPWS alert. Hit the runway at 1000+ ft a min decent rate.

Lets feel deep feelings for this crew, I am told.

How terribly sad it must be to be you.

[pelmet]

Exactly. Lots of new instrument rated FOs cannot hold straight and level in actual IMC.

When/why are you hand flying in IMC?

First four twin turboprops I flew had no autopilot.

[airway]

https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repo ... inary.html


.

[Donald]

Interesting that the landing was hard enough to break the right hand main gear and snap off a wing, but not hard enough to trigger the ELT.

[pelmet]

Was this a training flight?

[digits_]

Interesting that the landing was hard enough to break the right hand main gear and snap off a wing, but not hard enough to trigger the ELT.

ELTs activate around 9G. The basic ones are oriented to sense a deceleration in the forward direction. Perhaps the airline ones could be more advanced to sense a vertical deceleration as well. Either way the wings would snap off way before reaching 9g when they are encountering a solid object (runway) during that deceleration.

[rookiepilot]

Was this a training flight?

Maybe with the captain surfing on Instagram.

[CpnCrunch]

There are plenty of clapped out 703/704 machines flying around without autopilot. I have over 3000hrs hand bombing a 1900 and a lot of that was IMC.

Sure. Most of my own flying in IMC is without an autopilot. But there's no way in hell I'm getting on any commercial aircraft in IMC as a passenger that doesn't have a autopilot today. It's not really safe or reasonable, or even necessary.

[rudder]

The only word that can apply is….. brutal.

There is not a swept wing jet aircraft built that will have an acceptable v/s on touchdown with thrust reduced to idle @150’ AGL and never increased again above idle. In point of fact, such a power reduction above 30-50’ AGL would likely result in a firm to hard landing.

Idle thrust at that height AGL is unstable yet no go-around called by either pilot. Excessive descent rate (indicated) and EGPWS ‘sink rate’ callout yet no go-around called by either pilot (by that point the spool time required might have meant runway contact was inevitable due low energy regime). No recognition by either pilot that a significant thrust increase was required. No action taken.

The flight experience level of the two pilots tells a meaningful story. This scenario is a great learning exercise in the sim, but not in line operations. A total hull loss resulting from a handling error can never be acceptable.

[Inverted2]

Very low experience crew. The first officer had 1400 TT with 400 on type. Don’t they have a 1500 hr rule? Also 1000’/min descent. Holy crap. It’s just a matter of time up here where an entire crew may have less than 2000 TT.

[dieselbro]

My goodness, reading that report was tough. I can’t remember exactly what the flight idle N1 is on the 900, but usually I would have had 55-60% N1 during a normal approach, so coming in to a nice long runway with gusty conditions at or near flight idle (43%N1) at 150 AGL with a 1* nose up attitude on touchdown is pucker factor over 9000. How nobody considered a go around is baffling.

Also the prelim report states that the only MEL item was a generator for one of the engines (necessitating running the APU for the entire flight). In the flight plan page that circulated around the internet there was a note on Rad Alt inop procedures and it appears that it would not have applied to this aircraft.

Low-time in the aircraft for the captain too.

The captain has worked for Endeavor Air since October 2007… including 764 hours on the aircraft type… the occurrence flight was his 1st flight in 7 days… He had flown 3.5 hours in the previous 30 days

[thepoors]

Sim instructor. Barely flew enough to stay current. 764hrs on type in 18 years...that's 42hrs/yr.

[pdw]

So there wasn’t any flare, simply because … there was nothing left to flare with.

[rudder]

Very low experience crew. The first officer had 1400 TT with 400 on type. Don’t they have a 1500 hr rule? Also 1000’/min descent. Holy crap. It’s just a matter of time up here where an entire crew may have less than 2000 TT.

Restricted Privilege ATP (R-ATP).

1000 or 1250 hours depending on institution/program.

https://www.faa.gov/pilots/training/atp ... y_List.pdf

[Inverted2]

So if the Captain wasn't a line pilot what was he? A babysitter to try and force through the diversity hires that couldn't meet standards?

It couldn’t have been training at that point. She was there a full year and had 400 hrs on type. No company would keep someone on line indoc that long DEI or not. Bad combination though. A sim instructor who hardly flies and a low experience new hire.

[cdnavater]

My goodness, reading that report was tough. I can’t remember exactly what the flight idle N1 is on the 900, but usually I would have had 55-60% N1 during a normal approach, so coming in to a nice long runway with gusty conditions at or near flight idle (43%N1) at 150 AGL with a 1* nose up attitude on touchdown is pucker factor over 9000. How nobody considered a go around is baffling.

Also the prelim report states that the only MEL item was a generator for one of the engines (necessitating running the APU for the entire flight). In the flight plan page that circulated around the internet there was a note on Rad Alt inop procedures and it appears that it would not have applied to this aircraft.

Low-time in the aircraft for the captain too.

The captain has worked for Endeavor Air since October 2007… including 764 hours on the aircraft type… the occurrence flight was his 1st flight in 7 days… He had flown 3.5 hours in the previous 30 days

43% N1 is flight idle, ground idle is about 39%, based on the final seconds I can surmise the FO went to flight idle because of the increased performance, the indicated airspeed remained more or less constant despite being at flight idle. Combine that with the increased rate of descent and you can reasonably assume the FO pitched down to maintain airspeed, which is an absolute mistake, the scariest part is that 3 Gs can collapse the gear and rip off a wing.
Someone mentioned the 720fpm for the gear, to be clear they said the oleo was designed to withstand that, the gear itself should still be able to withstand more than that. I am curious about the design testing of the gear.
No question, this was an unstable approach carried through to landing and a go around was necessary!

[Eric Janson]

https://avherald.com/h?article=5255818c&opt=4606

Same company - could easily have ended the same way.

I'd be curious to see how much damage there was.

Seems to be an issue with crosswind landings at this company. Either a skills or a training issue.

100% agree Eric, but it's certainly not limited to Endeavor.

Since around the mid to late 2000's, it seems to me that flight schools started putting crosswind limits on both solo and dual training flights (well below airframe limitations). Some were sorta reasonable, but I've also heard of some downright silly low limits. As a result we have had many pilots coming into industry who have never been permitted to fly in an environment where they can learn proper technique, nor learn of their own personal limits. Even at the airlines (mine at least), we have had to impose crosswind limits on First Officers until they have X amount of time on the airplane. These were limits that generally didn't exist when we were trained to fly. I'm thankful that I was taught by instructors who knew their own limits, and therefore would encourage and coach me through crosswinds at or, in some cases, beyond the demonstrated crosswind components of the airplane. Then we went "north" and operated in some pretty gnarly conditions because we simply had to.

Pilots who have never had these opportunities are obvious (to me at least).

Level D simulators are great for programming in a wind, but they are by no means real world. You have that comfort of knowing you're bolted to the floor with the crash-inhibit enabled; no amount of simulator training completely prepares a new pilot for the real thing

Stable approach and landing technique in the 705/121 world is a concern, especially with low time pilots from the past 10 years or so.

I know of one Flag Carrier where their crosswind limits are lower than what the the manufacturer publishes....

A good indication of whether someone knows what to do in a crosswind by whether the rudder is used. Too often the rudder doesn't move at all.

People seem to have no idea what to with the rudder after the aircraft takes off.

I did suggest that my company buy a small tailwheel aircraft and give people the opportunity to learn how to use the rudder. Deputy Training Manager thought it was a great idea (he has a crop dusting background).

Interesting that the landing was hard enough to break the right hand main gear and snap off a wing, but not hard enough to trigger the ELT.

It's hard to see but it's possible there was a lot of side loading on the right gear. Landing gear is not designed to take high side loads. Be interesting to see the report.

[goingnowherefast]

The 1100ft/min, 3g impact was on only the right gear. They had a reasonable bank angle. If that impact was spread across both gear legs, instead of just one, it would probably have looked a lot different.

[fish4life]

It also doesn’t help that with the angle of roll all of the impact would have been on only one main not spread out across both.

3G’s is a very hard landing but I am still curious if there was fatigue that lead to the catastrophic failure. I’m also curious what the certification standard is for the aircraft’s gear.

I’m not nearly as alarmed by the FO’s experience as I am the cpt. It’s one thing to be a sim guy that doesn’t fly much when you have 5000+ on type and 10k + total time, it’s different when someone barely flies for years and also doesn’t have the habit building long term experience. I can see more stringent requirements for currency coming as a result of this. Maybe a 1 year and 5 year min hours requirement.

[fish4life]

The 1100ft/min, 3g impact was on only the right gear. They had a reasonable bank angle. If that impact was spread across both gear legs, instead of just one, it would probably have looked a lot different.

Great minds think alike haha

[CpnCrunch]

I’m also curious what the certification standard is for the aircraft’s gear.

From the report: "The MLG shock struts on this aircraft are designed to absorb the energy of a 720 fpm (12 fps) descent velocity at the maximum landing weight."

The FAA certification standard is 10fps.

When doing a search for the certification standard, I came across one other gear collapse accident:

https://tsb.gc.ca/sites/default/files/r ... 7o0124.pdf

It is a very similar type (CL-600-2B19 vs CL-600-2D24), it hit the runway at 20fps (compared to 18.3fps in this accident), and it was also at Toronto.

[dieselbro]

43% N1 is flight idle, ground idle is about 39%, based on the final seconds I can surmise the FO went to flight idle because of the increased performance, the indicated airspeed remained more or less constant despite being at flight idle. Combine that with the increased rate of descent and you can reasonably assume the FO pitched down to maintain airspeed, which is an absolute mistake, the scariest part is that 3 Gs can collapse the gear and rip off a wing.
Someone mentioned the 720fpm for the gear, to be clear they said the oleo was designed to withstand that, the gear itself should still be able to withstand more than that. I am curious about the design testing of the gear.
No question, this was an unstable approach carried through to landing and a go around was necessary!

Thanks for confirming those engine numbers! Sounds like a valid assumption of what some of the control inputs may have been in the final moments there. Any sort of pitch down that close to the ground in a medium jet is sketchy and probably speaks to the inexperience.

Still shocked that someone would go to flight idle (and remain there) at that stage, the gust increase to 154kts ASI is still well below the 170kts flap 45 limitation, and the CRJ despite having an old CRT flight deck still gives useful pink trend vectors on the airspeed, little adjustments would have been a better course of action. I’m really curious to see what the FDR confirms what the flight control inputs were. Unstable approach for sure.

I would have to imagine contacting a single main gear leg at 7* angle of bank, combined with some side loading, plus the >1000fpm descent rate, and 3G vertical acceleration arrival played a large part breaking things.

[fish4life]

I’m also curious what the certification standard is for the aircraft’s gear.

From the report: "The MLG shock struts on this aircraft are designed to absorb the energy of a 720 fpm (12 fps) descent velocity at the maximum landing weight."

The FAA certification standard is 10fps.

When doing a search for the certification standard, I came across one other gear collapse accident:

https://tsb.gc.ca/sites/default/files/r ... 7o0124.pdf

It is a very similar type (CL-600-2B19 vs CL-600-2D24), it hit the runway at 20fps (compared to 18.3fps in this accident), and it was also at Toronto.

Ya I’m assuming that’s their daily normal landing design but they aren’t supposed to break at that point. I’m more curious what they have to certify the gear to withstand before collapsing.

[rookiepilot]

The lawyers are gonna have a field day with this, as they should.

I hope the judge or whoever throws the book at Delta, assuming this information is the complete picture.

That’s how the system is disciplined, through financial pain, and then people who don’t even deserve a PPL are forcibly removed from having any responsibility for people’s lives.