Delta Connection Flight 4951

Hello all. Of course I have an opinion about the video that was released. So let's hear it and get it over with.

I know that passengers want to get videos of unusual events like this but to me, their safety is more important. Especially in an emergency landing where G forces will be displaced to the occupant. We all know that when the landing gear is not there, the energy will be displaced to the fuselage, then to the seat rails, then to the seat, then to Joe Blo recording his video. The landing gear is a very critcal comoponent when it comes to absorbing vertical Gs.

And hello, our bodies don't take vertical G's very well. We only take 15Gs for 0.10 seconds well. Yes this was a very low speed impact, but still, PUT THE CAMERA DOWN and brace yourself! She's not yelling at you for nothing.

Water Water Everywhere!
"The Short Amount of time to prepare is on the Jumpseat"Did you know that 44 out of 50 of the busiest United States airports are located within 5 miles of a significant body of water? How about that 194 out of 256 of the large airports worldwide have at least one overwater approach?

Over the past three decades of air travel the likelihood of a jet actually making a landing in the water and staying in one piece almost seemed something of a fairy tail. However, with the ditching of the Overseas National Airlines DC-9 off St Croix and Sully's famous landing in the Hudson river, it was shown that people can survive these accidents. Other incidents like and the hijacked Ethiopian Airlines 767 in the Indian Ocean and Air Florida Flight 90 have also shown us that there are still chances of survival even in  a non-level wing attempt to land. These however raised other concerns which will be listed later.
First, let’s start off by defining  terms:

According to the FAA a:

Ditching: is a planned emergency event in which good time allows to don life vests, warn flight attendants of proper evacuation procedures and the aircraft remains under control.

Inadvertent Water Landing: is an emergency landing in which there is little or no time for passengers and crew to prepare the cabin or themselves for the landing.

EOW: Extended Over Water Flight which is considered a route 50nm in horizontal distance from the coastline.

Flotation Equipment & Demo
On an Extended Over Water Flight or EOW, all flotation equipment must be mentioned in the safety briefing. Notice the key word, mentioned. Not demoed even though the FAR requires an oral demonstration of all equipment. However, the demos rarely if ever, will cover a water event happening on takeoff or landing.
Flotation Equipment onboard will vary in nature but generally includes Life Cots and Infant Life Vests for children weighing less than 35lbs, Adult Lifevests, Slide/Rafts, Auxiliary Life Rafts, and seat cushions.Personal Flotation
Seat Cushions:Seat Cushions, although wonderful flotation aids have a few problems associated with them. They are big and bulky, they take up space in the aisles and reduce critical maneuverability through exits, and especially the overwing exits can present a timely egress problem. Seat cushions also require passengers to grasp the cushion firmly to remain near the cushion. If for instance, the water is cold and the victim becomes overcome by hypothermia, the victim will lose grip and the cushion will float away causing the victim to drown.


Life Vests:The current life vest design has proven itself to be a very effective design. However with the era of cost cutting, airlines have experimented with the idea of single chamber life jackets. This may be cost effective but every now and then, one chamber fails to inflate. a dual chamber jacket would have a safety redundancy in it. Luckily, the jackets with one chamber still have the oral inflation tubes.
Oral Inflation Tubes:According to the FAA, the oral inflation tubes is the preferred method to inflating the life jacket because it gives the occupant most leeway with adjusting the vest to their desired inflation. However, once the vest becomes over inflated, the occupants generally panic because they do not know the proper way to let air out of the vest. Proper way to relieve inflation is to use the one finger "air quote" method on the tubes. Place your fingers into the tubes pushing down on the safety valve. You will feel the vest deflate slowly. This is a good method to re-adjust when entering the water. Wearing a collar shirt also protects the occupant from the vest rubbing against the neck creating irritation and a chocking feeling.

Crew Communication IssuesAs expected, most times than not, the Flight Attendant Manual and Flight Operations Manual will outline different procedures for water landings.

For example, in the "ditch switch" (a switch that needs to be moved in the flight deck) will not appear in the flight attendant manual where how to properly drop the sea anchor will not appear in the flight operations manual.Another thing that is generally overlooked but a very important factor is the fact that signals from flight deck to cabin may not be standardized even at the same airline. Flight attendants need to be aware of the events unfolding to have the upmost preparation in a short amount of time.

Some examples of the above topics include UsAirways Flight 1549 and Air Florida Flight 90 because both occurred in the frigid winter waters of the northeast in January. Further, other things to consider with these two accidents were they both happened on takeoff giving the crew very little time to react to the given situation, they both had post crash survival issues such as hypothermia, and the flight attendants needed to anticipate the emergency quickly on their own, on the Jumpseat!

Good practice is for flight attendants to conduct the following silent briefing on their jumpseat on an EOW:
1. What Commands Do Passengers Expect To Hear?
2. What Flotation Devices are onboard?
3. Where are the rafts?

Anticipation is the best defense against the unexpected!

Racing The Storm: The Tale Of Flight 1420

Whenever I talk about American Airlines Flight 1420, the phrase "Should Have Never Left Dallas" is the first phrase that exits my mouth first.


Quick Rundown:


American Airlines Flight 1420
Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW)
Little Rock National Airport (LIT)
McDonnell Douglas MD-82
N215AA


As Flight 1420 sat at the gate in Dallas, dispatch was pushing the crew to expedite the departure of flight 1420 to race the storm that was scheduled into the Little Rock area later around their arrival time. As 1420 pushed off the gate, the first officer recited that their alternate airport was Nashville (BNA). The first officer was a recent hire to American Airlines. The Captain was the chief pilot for the MD-80 using flight 1420 to maintain his line flying currency. 


Once airborne, the flight was normal, drinks were served, people dozed of, and the flight seemed to be perfectly normal until the first officer got a message from dispatch to "Expedite their arrival." The first officer continued to monitor the airplane's radar cone ahead of them and there were clumps of red and amber indicating very heavy storms. Two wind shear reports were reported to the aircraft over the radio approximately two minutes later of the first officer's questioning weather to continue their approach to Little Rock. 

Weather Radar Over Little Rock June 1 1999 as AA1420 approached the feild

As the aircraft continued it's approach to the Little Rock area, a severe thunderstorm approached the feild and the controller's last report to the aircraft before touchdown stated winds at 330degrees, at 28 knots. This exceeded the MD-82's cross wind limitation for a safe landing on a wet runway.


The Captain, who again was the chief pilot for the MD-80 over ruled the first officer's questioning and decided to continue with the approach. With the continued push from dispatch to get the airplane on the ground, both pilots forgot a critical component of the landing checklist that sealed the aircraft's fate; arming the ground spoilers.


The MD-82 crossed the piano keys no later then 2355CST and slammed onto the tarmac according to passengers. The CVR picked up "We're down......we're sliding! We're sliding!" From the First Officer. The captain put in full brake input and reverse to the number one engine. With the contaminated runway and the lack of ground spoilers, the braking was ineffective. The MD-82 was still flying in theory. The MD-82 overran the runway and hit the ILS tower at the end of the runway. The accident claimed the lives of 11 including the captain.

The Morning after the accident

What We Missed; What We Learned


1) Leaving Dallas


The crew was very aware that there were terrible storms in the area. The choice to leave Dallas, and then to not use Nashville was a combined problem between the crew and the push from dispatch to get that aircraft to Little Rock.


2) Diversion to Nashville


Again, with the terrible storms approaching Little Rock, Nashville should have been utilized in my opinion. Yes the push from dispatch was there so that the aircraft could be used for the morning flight out of Little Rock and the crew was very close to timing out. However, neither the crew, nor aircraft returned to Dallas that next morning.


3) Spoilers


Witnesses over the wings say that "no devices popped up upon landing." This is consistent with the fact that the spoilers did not show up on the FDR. As we know, once the main struts compress, the spoilers will pop up on the wings to spoil the lift on the wing helping with braking. 


4) Crew Dynamics


The first officer was a new hire flying with the chief pilot of the MD-82. Better pairing of crews should be considered in the future.


5) ILS Tower


When the MD-80 departed the runway and hit the ILS tower, the aircraft broke into 3. Normally this wouldnt have been such a problem and puzzled NTSB investigators for quite sometime. The previous ILS tower at LIT had been taken away in a flood in the current of the Arkansas river which is at the departure end of 4L. Usually these structures would break away upon an impact, but to prevent being swept away, this ILS tower was built rigid and reinforced on purpose.


6)EMAS


Little Rock did not have an arresting system at the time of the accident. Updates have been made to LIT.


Why Didn't They Live? 


American Airlines Flight 1420 was a survivable impact and a survivable accident as per the NTSB. We did loose 10 passengers and the captain because the deceleration forces did not remain within human tolerances for some as well as those affected by post crash factors.


The captain was killed instantly upon striking the ILS tower when the structure penetrated the cockpit shell. 


A passenger in 27E was killed instantly when the aircraft stopped violently because he was standing up on landing without a proper restraint.


The remaining passengers were killed with lack of fuselage and seat track integrity. They were all located in areas where the aircraft split into one of three places.


Finally an evacuation concern that popped up in this accident was proper evacuation using the tailcone on MD-80 family aircraft.


The squat switch  is in the landing gear on many aircraft, on the DC-9 family in particular it is a fail safe for tailcone deployment. If deployed in water, the tailcone sill is below the water level so it would take in water and the weight of the engines and groups of people was always a concern during water evacuaton but more so the sill level. In a dry evacuation it is there to prevent deployment in belly landings or when the landing gear is torn off  because the height needed to jetison the tailcone is not there and it would jam causing a secodary impact hazard. Luckily the flight attendant had seen in a bolt of lighting that during the impact with the ILS tower, the tailcone had separated just enough to squeeze 4 people out.

Basics of Survival

The study of survivability Is defined as determining to what extent the  injured or killed were unnecessarily injured or killed and taking that the information and fixing it.

In order to survive the accident, the occupant must survive the impact first. In order to survive the impact, the following criteria need to be met:

• Occupiable Living Space
• G forces remain within human tolerance.

Once the occupant survives the impact, in order to survive the accident the following criteria need to be met:

• Occupiable Living Space
• G forces remain within human tolerance.
• Post Crash Factors must be taken into account

Post Crash Factors

A survivable accident is an event in which there is enough habitable living space for the occupant, the deceleration forces remain within human tolerances and the post crash factors of Environment, Fire, Entrapment, Egress and Drowning are taken into account.