The Boeing 777 that crash-landed at San Francisco airport was “significantly below” its target speed near the runway and the pilot tried to abort the landing, US investigators say. The pilot of the Asiana Airlines flight from Seoul requested a “go around” 1.5 seconds before the crash, they say — BBC.Passengers on aboard the Korean 777 jetliner that crash-landed at San Francisco airport yesterday can only regret that it was not making an instrument landing. The Boeing plane is fully capable of finding the runway and executing a feather light touchdown with its ILS (instrument landing system). But quite apparently, that was not the case yesterday as the captain and first officer had control of the plane as it made it’s approach in bright sunny weather. What happened? It is revealing that already the Asiana management has said that the crash was not caused by mechanical error and has not ruled out pilot error. Landing a jetliner after a long flight can be a deceptively dangerous matter. Frequently, the tricky business of being so close to the ground is overlooked by pilots. The flight recorder will tell us, including what the cockpit crew was discussing. Were they paying sufficient attention as they came in by manual control? Maybe not. Passengers uniformly say the plane seemed too low for the final moments of the approach Horrifyingly undeniable evidence marks the ground where the jet tail smashed into the runway mere feet from the beginning of the pavement. It appears from what some passengers say there was a panic attempt to pull up that went terribly awry.
