There was a time when Korean Airlines was rife with problems. The airline had two fatal crashes just in the 90s that almost spelled the end of the Asian carrier.
In 1993, the airline known as Korean Air, had a terrible crash when an inexperienced pilot crashed on landing, and killed almost 200 people. In 1997 another fatal crash occurred.
At that point South Korea knew it had to take major steps to turn things around, and they did. For years, the carrier was one as one of the safest.
So what happened? After renaming the carrier Asiana Airlines, and the memory of that terrible period subsided, there seems to have been a return to lax procedures.
The crash that almost turned into all out tragedy in San Francisco is a reminder of what happens when you take shortcuts in Airline safety.
Apparently, the Boeing 777 hit the retaining wall that separates the beginning of the runway from the sea. It did so because the pilot, a trainee, apparently had not evaluated the landing properly, and had not engaged the electronic landing system, which assists on difficult landings, and should always be engaged.
After the vessel's captain realized the error, he tried to correct the landing, but it was too late, the vessel had been fatally maimed and it landed with an enormous thud on the runway and burst into flames.
Already South Korean authorities are calling for a review of the training plans for pilots, but is it a little too late? What kind of wisdom was employed when a trainee was allowed to land a Boeing 777 on such a difficult airstrip as is San Francisco's runway?
The onboard systems, furthermore, did warn the pilots that the plane was flying too low. Even passengers who survived told of a terrifying vision of the plane being close to landing and seeing nothing but water underneath the flying vessel.
The system also warned that the plane was about to go into a stall.
News are now coming out of South Korea that detail a frightening scenario. The plane had apparently been manned the whole time by a trainee. The Boeing 777 is a very large plane with a similarly wide wing span. Although it is very sophisticated, it is not the kind of plane that should be manned entirely by a trainee. In addition, the trainee had only had 43 hours of training on the type of aircraft that crashed, although he had a total of 9000 hours of flight. An experienced pilot was at his side, but apparently was not engaged in the landing until the warning was made by the plane's own computer.
However, the crew of the plane acted with excellence, in deploying the slides and getting everyone out as soon as possible.
Some foreign pilots however, are also blaming the lack of ground based systems that aid in the landing procedure, such as the Airplane Glide Path system, and the Precision Approach Path Indicator. Both systems were out of use because of system renovations. Without these two systems, a German pilot who has landed at the San Francisco Airport has averred that is "was only a matter of time", before an incident would occur.
At this point however, the true causes of the crash have not been determined.
Source : France 24/ 7.8.13
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