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847 thoughts on “Blog Down”

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  • Flaming June

    Nevermind writes of the BBC’s sexism.

    Marion Bartoli also had to withstand sexist remarks about her looks from John Inverdale. He has now apologized. Her IQ of 175 has been referred to briefly.

    In all their Murray mania, the media hardly mention Virginia Wade winning the women’s championship in 1977.

  • Passerby

    All the best Craig and family, and hope you will be well enough soon to be back with more vigour and vitality to kick the Illegitimi/Bastards around like never before.

  • Clark

    glenn_uk, nevermind and Jives, hello. I’m sorta stuck near Lampeter in Wales; I maintain operating systems for a couple of friends here. I came here after the solstice party at Stonehenge (it’s sad, police and private security are seemingly paid to refuse to have fun), thinking I’d visit for a couple of days, but first I got sick, and then I encountered problems when I tried to install the latest versions of Ubuntu and Debian on my friends’ PCs. Then today one friend’s hot water system sprung a leak, so now I’m doing emergency plumbing. I’d like to meet up with some of the Welsh contributors, but I’m working as fast as I can (which is partly why I haven’t checked my e-mail for over a week), and the people who are looking after my cat might not approve.

  • Anon

    Trowbridge,

    Highly possible scenario from professional pilots forums.

    Relatively inexperienced pilot on type is handling the landing (not Captain apparently). Came in slightly too high at first, selected FLCH (Flight Level Change) and corrected. Forget to un-select Flight Level Change after correction which left auto-thrust inhibited with result engines idled too low and plane slowed well below 137 knots where it should have been. Pilots did not initially notice speed dropping off (This seems totally inexcusable to most pilots given the conditions). Spotted at 7 seconds before impact and call made to increase power. No additional power initially applied. At 4 secs from impact stall warning shaker goes off. In the final seconds throttles are finally opened and engines begin to respond normally. At 1.5 secs call to go around as engines continue to spool up. Too late. Boom.

    That seems to be the majority opinion of those qualified on type (and who are willing to speculate) is after they watched the NTSB briefing.

    Confusion over the auto-thrust inhibition because they were mistakenly still in Flight Level Change Mode could have added to the confusion between a problem being recognised and corrective action taken.

  • Clark

    Would anyone like a cat? I said that she could stay with me after her keeper died as no other home was available. She’s slight, black, quite talkative (almost conversational), neutered, immunised, about twelve years old, and catches mice. She’s never bitten or scratched me.

    I shouldn’t leave people’s computer systems not working properly, but I can’t really fix software while there’s water dripping through the ceiling.

  • Anon

    Oh one final thing, Although ground-based auto-land systems were not available, the particular aircraft and runway were both certified for GPS only auto-land. (Don’t try this with your phone’s GPS as altitude is usually not accurate enough for several reasons!).

    GPS alone auto-land certification is relatively new I believe but that option was available to the crew as far as I can gather. Whether they didn’t trust it, couldn’t use it for some other reason or just intentionally came in for a manual landing as the preferred option will presumably be explained later.

    But it seems the plane was perfectly capable of landing itself despite all the ground systems down for upgrades.

  • Mark Golding - Children of Conflict

    Western intervention in Egypt.

    Reports suggest Western/Saudi backed Qatari terrorists in support of the Muslim Brotherhood attempted an operation to subvert the peaceful demonstrations of ordinary Egyptians. The escalation of violence was achieved by firing on the Republican Guard in Cairo who retaliated by returning fire killing supporters of Mohammed Morsi.

    In response to this the Muslim Brotherhood called for an uprising(Divide and Rule? – Syria?).

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ5C5LcpwEg#at=67

  • nevermind

    Hi Clark, somebody locally here has mentioned that they would like her as their cat was killed on the road.
    Their kids are missing the cat and would like another one.

    You can then carry on with you summer pursuits.

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    Just more ignorant crap from pilot blogs.

    Pilot at the controls has been fling for nearly 20 years, having flown over 10,000 hours.

    Has flown the 777 43 times, and has landed many times at SF in other planes.

    What better time for him to make what should ave been a routine one at SF, given the very good weather conditions?

    Increasingly think that the plane’s ability to land safely was sabotaged, especially its instruments about air speed and altitude, and to control its movements, especially its descent.

    When the pilot realized his desperate situation, he switched to full power, and deliberately crashed, realizing that it was the only way he could save any passengers.

    Since he saved probably all but one. i give him tentatively excellent marks for his performance.

    And who are you anyway?

  • Anon

    Trowbridge,

    The displays could all have switched to Martian and the pilots should still have been able to land safely by looking out the bloody windows. It was a VFR approach after all.

    Visual flight rules (VFR) are a set of regulations under which a pilot operates an aircraft in weather conditions generally clear enough to allow the pilot to see where the aircraft is going. Specifically, the weather must be better than basic VFR weather minima, i.e. in visual meteorological conditions (VMC), as specified in the rules of the relevant aviation authority. The pilot must be able to operate the aircraft with visual reference to the ground, and by visually avoiding obstructions and other aircraft.[1]

    They failed miserably to do that. Unlike the flight crew of United 882 which was able to see the approaching plane well below the glide-slope and radio a “heads-up” warning to ATC and hold their own taxi for take-off even before the crew of Asiana 214 noticed anything wrong.

    Instruments or not they are supposed to look where they are going on a VFR approach and that they disastrously failed to do. Even some passengers on the plane knew they were too low before the pilots did.

    And there has been absolutely no suggestion from either the NTSB or airline that any fault has been reported by the pilots or uncovered in the investigation so far. Both the CVR and FDR have been recovered and apparently show no indication whatsoever that the pilots noticed anything wrong until 7 seconds before impact.

    Sometimes very bad mistakes happen. Not everything is a conspiracy. And this looks like an accident to me. So far anyway.

  • Kibo Noh

    @Clarke. 4 41pm
    @Nevermind. 5 59pm

    WOW! 1hr 18mins!

    You’re doing a great job Craig, even when you are (likely) doped to the gills on a hospital bed.

    From CNN:

    “Wrong on so many levels.” Take a look at how the MSM distort the Craig Murray Cat Adoption Service’s ground-breaking delivery system. Don’t feel obliged to watch the whole 2min 33secs.

    Don’t worry Craig. I, for one, am not taken in. I know the parachutes are faked. After all it’s much quicker and more ground-breaking without.

    I hope you are comfortable and well into recovery mode and being spoiled rotten by a squadron of unspeakably gorgeous nurses.

  • Anon

    NTSB have now said that more detailed analysis shows thrust was first commanded about 7 seconds before impact and engines had reached 50% power 3 secs before impact. Auto-thrust was not engaged. They were below Vref and dropping for over 30 seconds before they noticed and by then they were skimming the waves.

  • fedup

    Even some passengers on the plane knew they were too low before the pilots did.

    Well that is a new one, how can anyone accurately determine how low, how high are they in a jetliner?

    So far as the VFR rules go, the cloud cover and the complications thereof are not outlined.

    Both the CVR and FDR have been recovered and apparently show no indication whatsoever that the pilots noticed anything wrong until 7 seconds before impact.

    Does this not perhaps point to a major shortcoming in the systems design of the aircraft?

  • Villager

    Kibo, reminds be of Bertrand Russell complaining of having double-pneumonia but only one nurse.

  • ToivoS

    “Even some passengers on the plane knew they were too low before the pilots did.”

    Many who have landed on those two runways at SFO during a clear day have experienced that — it feels like you are going to land in the water but then at the last second the runway appears and you are safely down.

  • Ben Franklin -Machine Gun Preacher (unleaded version)

    “In the face of British/American intransigence and apathy we might want to prepare for economic collapse and war.”

    Mark; Doesn’t the power of intention make the case for a great fever resulting in a breakthrough?

    We may be on the precipice of a quantum leap, but we need the help of many to transcend.

  • Anon

    Fedup,

    Assuming there was no tampering the plane would be telling the crew in all sorts of ways that something was wrong. Most importantly airspeed which they should be watching at all times. But if this incident means some additional warning that could prevent this then of course I’m for it. What aids the plane did have that were not used or disabled we will find out in due course.

    Possibly of note the previous day’s flight 214 went around and came in on the second go.

  • Hasbarista

    Obomber promises not to intercept Snowden commercial flight and then arranges for an unprecedented hijack of Morales’ Presidential jet?!! WTF and not even a whimper in protest or mention in the MSM?!!

  • Kibo Noh

    @Komodo. 9 23am

    Help!

    I’m clearly as thick as a planck when it comes to this stuff.

    Can you give a synopsis in short words?

    Thanks.

    Now I’ll cool my head on a bath of cold water.

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