Resolute Bay Accident - Pilots Discussion Thread

[cncpc]

That path is in line with the VOR (unless they moved it during the past 25 years). Am I wrong?

No, you are very right. And the inbound course to the VOR would be very close to the inbound course on the ILS.

[5dayer]

maybe an engine failure in a missed approach,poor climb performance and it would not take much heading deviation to end up there.It will come out in the investigation.

[bmc]

If I'm not mistaken, the news report says that the accident occurred to the west of the airport. The picture puts the accident to the east up in the hill.

[Old fella]

Well the TSB would appear to have lots to work with in the course of the investigation. CVR/FDR data(assuming it is readable/reliable), major aircraft components are located at site impact, communications( assuming there was with the military operational ATC unit at the aerodrome), witness and unfortunately/fortunately(whichever way you want to look at it), any info the survivors may be able to share during the final moments up to and including impact.. It pains me to read about such accidents and heartfelt sympathy for the young families’ left behind as a result of this tragedy.........

[cncpc]

If I'm not mistaken, the news report says that the accident occurred to the west of the airport. The picture puts the accident to the east up in the hill.

The news report also said it was 8 clicks away. I'm quite sure the location shown in yellow is correct, but if anybody with better knowledge can correct, much appreciated.

Here is the location of the VOR, a line drawn parallel to the inbound localizer course, and the presumed debris trail in yellow. The trail starts at 460 feet, the MDA for a localizer only approach.

And, the VOR is right at the end of that road.

All of those are facts.

Whether the flight called in that the GS was U/S is speculation for now.

[55+]

The media and their instant experts............

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Arc ... story.html

[Gino Under]

This will surprise few of you, but I looked up the definition of expert. As it turns out, even though I've never consider myself one, not only am I an aviation expert but most of you are as well.

If you're flying professionally, you've already accepted a degree of responsibility beyond that of most individuals, so don't be afraid to express your expert opinion on this or any other accident.
There is nothing wrong with speculation as an expert as long as you understand and accept the fact you could be way off on your speculation.

Those who wish to stay out of speculative commentary should feel free to do so. But please don't tell those who wish to speculate to STFU. Even the speculators understand and appreciate the need for sensitivity and respect for grieving survivors.

Gino

[iflyforpie]

Those who wish to stay out of speculative commentary should feel free to do so. But please don't tell those who wish to speculate to STFU. Even the speculators understand and appreciate the need for sensitivity and respect for grieving survivors.

Gino

I agree.

If somebody speculating on a fatal crash of mine saves a single life because somebody changed their thinking or the way they operate--whether the speculation itself is right or wrong--it is worth it IMHO.

[fivebyfive]

The National Post article has been edited to remove references to the AvCanada forum, northern airports lacking navaids, and an inability to divert to another aerodrome.

[medi-whacked]

Whether the flight called in that the GS was U/S is speculation for now.

First and foremost..Condolences to all effected by this tragic event.

cncpc - Where did you read this or where is this information coming from? Did someone post that the flight crew made a call to this effect?

[gwengler]

ATTENTION: PLEASE DON’T READ THIS IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY PURE SPECULATION!

IF the trail of debris depicted previously on Google Earth is mostly correct, so that it heads directly to the VOR on a heading of roughly 350T, i.e. parallel and offset with the runway,
IF the GS was perhaps U/S or perhaps not,
IF the crew dialled in the VOR frequency instead of the ILS frequency and thought the GS to be U/S, so they thought to fly the LOC approach (MDA 540), and
IF perhaps they also took the distance from the VOR instead of IRB,

THEN the point of impact (terrain rises very at point of impact to 653’) could be explained with the LOC MDA and the heading to the VOR. This point is also about 2.5NM from the VOR at which one had to go missed.

I am not saying at all that this is even what I believe has happened, it is pure speculation, but it would explain the strange offset from the ILS by about 1NM (full deflection).

I am very saddened by what happened. I have flown to CYRB myself and did the LOC BC approach. I do remember clearly that I could not see the runway many miles out even though I was clear of clouds in good visibility. It’s all gravel, the runway is not clearly visible at all against the background and the lights are useless, because it’s all uniformly looking gravel. It is very deceiving because all the little roads seem to delineate the runway, which they aren’t.

I know Aziz and have sent him my condolences.

Gerd

[cncpc]

ATTENTION: PLEASE DON’T READ THIS IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY PURE SPECULATION!

IF the trail of debris depicted previously on Google Earth is mostly correct, so that it heads directly to the VOR on a heading of roughly 350T,
IF the GS was perhaps U/S or perhaps not,
IF the crew dialled in the VOR frequency instead of the ILS frequency and thought the GS to be U/S, so they thought to fly the LOC approach (MDA 540), and
IF perhaps they also took the distance from the VOR instead of IRB,

THEN the point of impact (terrain rises very at point of impact to 653’) could be explained with the LOC MDA and the heading to the VOR. This point is also about 2.5NM from the VOR at which one had to go missed.

I am not saying at all that this is even what I believe has happened, it is pure speculation, but it would explain the strange offset from the ILS by about 1NM (full deflection).

I am very saddened by what happened. I have flown to CYRB myself and did the LOC BC approach. I do remember clearly that I could not see the runway many miles out even though I was clear of clouds in good visibility. It’s all gravel, the runway is not clearly visible at all against the background and the lights are useless, because it’s all uniformly looking gravel. It is very deceiving because all the little roads seem to delineate the runway, which they aren’t.

I know Aziz and have sent him my condolences.

Gerd

It seems from the photo that the debris trail is aligned very close to runway alignment.

If the VOR frequency was tuned in error, there would have been no GS. The GS needles would have indicated on GS at all times, i.e. they would have remained in the center. It may be that the crew reported the GS unserviceable and continued on a LOC/DME approach. The missed approach point would have been 0 DME, on my reading of the chart, which is the far end of the runway, or in this case, the VOR itself.

If this happened, it isn't the first time. There was an incident at Prince George in the 70s or 80s where a CP 737 crew flew the localizer approach tuned to the Prince George VOR and only pulled up when they heard the trees hitting the bottom of the aircraft up on Tabor Mountain. Or so the story goes. At any rate, they made it.

I think for now the picture speaks for itself. The TSB has the scenario. The boxes will tell the story.

[another_try]

There is nothing wrong with speculation as an expert as long as you understand and accept the fact you could be way off on your speculation.

Those who wish to stay out of speculative commentary should feel free to do so. But please don't tell those who wish to speculate to STFU. Even the speculators understand and appreciate the need for sensitivity and respect for grieving survivors.

Gino

Here, here. +1.

I'm sick of people on this board who pretend as though speculation is illegal. And my post was edited because I agreed with the suggestion that CFIT was the likely cause? Give me a f'ing break.

[Bede]

While it is important to pay our respects to fallen aviators and passengers, we can still discuss ways to make our profession safer given the information we have. It is never to early to learn from an accident. There is a huge difference between drawing conclusions based on a lack of evidence and knowledgeable pilots discussing known facts and attempting to make sense of it.

We know the weather was poor and we know the location of the accident relative to the runway. Based on the photographs indicating a low impact angle, I think it is safe to call this a CFIT accident, which is a pretty broad category of accidents. Is there anyone one this board who believes otherwise? Honestly? It certainly wasn't an "uncontrolled" impact or a a runway over run. However, why this happened accident happened is something that will take much longer to determine and I think that sort of speculation needs to wait.

I read an article a while ago that claimed that there had not been a CFIT accident involving North American carriers since EGPWS was introduced. The article also mentioned a potential hazard of EGPWS in that it is largely based on a terrain database and a failure of the database would decrease the performance of the system. I have flown in the Arctic, but not as far as YRB. Is there TAWS/EGPWS information that far north?

[cncpc]

While it is important to pay our respects to fallen aviators and passengers, we can still discuss ways to make our profession safer given the information we have. It is never to early to learn from an accident. There is a huge difference between drawing conclusions based on a lack of evidence and knowledgeable pilots discussing known facts and attempting to make sense of it.

We know the weather was poor and we know the location of the accident relative to the runway. Based on the photographs indicating a low impact angle, I think it is safe to call this a CFIT accident, which is a pretty broad category of accidents. Is there anyone one this board who believes otherwise? Honestly? It certainly wasn't an "uncontrolled" impact or a a runway over run. However, why this happened accident happened is something that will take much longer to determine and I think that sort of speculation needs to wait.

I read an article a while ago that claimed that there had not been a CFIT accident involving North American carriers since EGPWS was introduced. The article also mentioned a potential hazard of EGPWS in that it is largely based on a terrain database and a failure of the database would decrease the performance of the system. I have flown in the Arctic, but not as far as YRB. Is there TAWS/EGPWS information that far north?

I thought it was based on radar altimeter data, but database makes sense.

[onspeed]

As far as flying the ILS approach off a VOR frequency, I'd think the GS would be flagged not show on center.

For CFIT, there are other malfunctions that could have occurred, ie. engine out, reverse deployed etc... There is TAWS and EGPWS info for databases this far north.

[Rudy]

Let's not forget a First Air 737 had an engine failure only hours after this accident. What did these two aircraft have in common? The same parts suppliers? Maintenance procedures? Fuel source? There's lots of information that needs to come in before we can flatly say CFIT. Although I agree with Bede that the weather is telling, failures don't always happen like they do on a flight test. P6SM SKC and you're just waiting for it. Running emergencies procedures through head before it even happens. I know there were only 15 people on board but what was the rest of the load? I can't imagine someone would charter a 737 for only a few passengers. How heavy were they? Engine failure on a slow-responding turbojet when you're heavy, low and slow, with everything hanging out, and in the soup, with rising terrain right beside the runway. Shudder.

[nutbutter]

I assume this was the last weather.

Correction, this was the weather 20 minutes after the accident.

METAR CYRB 201800Z 19008KT 10SM VCFG SCT003 OVC010 07/07 A2983 RMK
SF3ST5 SLP108=

At the airport, there doesn't seem to be any difficulty in getting in on either the full ILS or the localizer. It looks like its not so good to the E-SE.

I'm not a heavy aircraft pilot, but I would think the reaction to an engine failure would be to continue on to land if within 3 miles and all ok otherwise.

I can't see circling being involved when a straight in ILS was easy. Maybe the weather changed, and it wasn't easy, but in that case circling wouldn't be an option.

I don't see an emergency and pull up without a radio call being likely, given that the crew would have known they had Borek somewhere out on the backcourse.

And there's a lot of things that don't make sense on the mistuned VOR bit as well.

At what point do you call it quits as a First Air Captain flying into CYRB with regards to tail winds, and how much could a wind check from Tower somewhere prior to or on approach affect the decision to commence a circling? How big a difference does it have to be to issue a Special with regards to winds on METARS? Also where does rad alt, and GPWS come into play?? Ignored? Malfunctioned? Inop? Misunderstood? Lots of questions.

Best guess is all, I have no idea what happened.

[cncpc]

The step down approach (localizer) really comes into the equation if the aircraft is mistakenly inbound on the 167T radial from YRB. In that scenario, the crew believes it is tuned to the ILS, can't get glideslope, and switches to a localizer approach with the final drop only 160 feet four miles back. They keep tracking the 167T radial as if it were the localizer. They don't have glideslope because they're tuned to 112.1 instead of 110.3. Their DME is coming off the VOR.

In the mistuned VOR scenario, they have to have POKAN on the 167 radial at 4 DME, basically a mile east of proper track. Then do the PT and back inbound on the false localizer. To me, and I welcome correction, that seems to be a situation where they left the VOR eastbound with 167 already set on the OBS, flew it needle centered to the false POKAN, did the PT and reintercepted inbound. Get no GS, maybe call it in U/S, and fly the localizer approach instead. That scenario ends exactly where the accident happened.

I can't see a late tuning of the VOR and nobody noticing that the needle moved when the OBS was turned. If they'd been tracking 167 outbound to Pokan, and then set up the inbound course on the CDI, they wouldn't have noticed it so much as they would have been in the PT where they would expect it to be deflected.

What kind of radar coverage is there around there, if any? Would vectors to the localizer be possible or too low? I know there was military radar, but it can't have been in operation or they'd have warned the flight that it was well off track.

It would be interesting to know the sequence of events leading up to the issuance of the GS U/S Notam?

I've had a look at the CADOR and the accident time was 1740Z. From the description in the CADOR, it seems the location of the wreckage trail on the google plot is quite accurate.

[cncpc]

I don't know.

Here's the ILS notam.

110129 CYRB RESOLUTE BAY
CYRB ILS 35 U/S
TIL APRX 1108312359

I read that to say there was no serviceable ILS at the time of this accident. Does that mean no GS only, with a good localizer, or nothing? Must have had a localizer, because Borek was doing a back course.

What does a temporary tower add? Was there PAR? Could the flight have used it? If it was operational, why didn't somebody warn the crew?

There used to be a Cape Martyr beacon RU about 2 miles from the button of 35 but I see it's gone and the plate is only two months old.