Airline pilots occasionally must decide whether to abort a landing because the approach isn't quite right, as with Asiana Airlines Flight 214, and safety experts are studying the industry reluctance to circle an airport and try again.
In the Asiana crash, the pilot's decision seconds before impact to try a "go-around" came too late and the plane crashed Saturday at San Francisco International Airport, killing two passengers and injuring more than 160.
More often, a mistake in the landing means a "runway excursion" where the plane runs off the end or side of a runway with little or no injuries. But safety experts have found pilots reluctant to abandon landings, so they are studying whether there would be fewer accidents if they performed more go-arounds.
"It's not that they're making the wrong decision necessarily, it's how they get led down that path," said Rudy Quevedo, director of global programs at the Flight Safety Foundation, which studies aviation accidents. "One of the biggest things that we see is that the pilots don't feel a threat -- they feel they can recover."
The foundation reviewed 16 years of accidents worldwide and found that one-third involved runway excursions. In studying the biggest risks for excursions, the foundation surveyed 2,500 pilots worldwide and discovered that a plane approaching a landing in an "unstable" way occurs in 3.5% to 4% of all approaches, according to a report released in February.
09/07/13 Bart Jansen/USA TODAY
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
In the Asiana crash, the pilot's decision seconds before impact to try a "go-around" came too late and the plane crashed Saturday at San Francisco International Airport, killing two passengers and injuring more than 160.
More often, a mistake in the landing means a "runway excursion" where the plane runs off the end or side of a runway with little or no injuries. But safety experts have found pilots reluctant to abandon landings, so they are studying whether there would be fewer accidents if they performed more go-arounds.
"It's not that they're making the wrong decision necessarily, it's how they get led down that path," said Rudy Quevedo, director of global programs at the Flight Safety Foundation, which studies aviation accidents. "One of the biggest things that we see is that the pilots don't feel a threat -- they feel they can recover."
The foundation reviewed 16 years of accidents worldwide and found that one-third involved runway excursions. In studying the biggest risks for excursions, the foundation surveyed 2,500 pilots worldwide and discovered that a plane approaching a landing in an "unstable" way occurs in 3.5% to 4% of all approaches, according to a report released in February.
09/07/13 Bart Jansen/USA TODAY
