The Lima, Peru Flight


People are complaining about this "movie" being boring with bad acting, but I disagree. Especially the Lima, Peru flight depicted. I was so upset by the end of that one, I was screaming at my TV! I saw someone else on here post (and I guess they are a pilot?) about it, and it answered some of my questions. What made me so angry was that the two pilots (I guess in real life they were both men) kept asking the tower, or ground control, to give them their altitude and speed, because none of the plane's instruments were reading correctly, and it seemed like ground control wasn't taking them seriously. They weren't continuously feeding them the info, and when they did, the pilots kept asking again and again, "Are you sure?" and "Is that correct?" Well, when I read the words 'Controlled descent into terrain' at the end, I was so pissed off. I didn't hear ground control give them ANY indication they were descending into the ground, and even if they were receiving their readings from the erroneous readings of the plane (why would they do that, why wouldn't they be pinging their own separate readings?) they still never told the pilots to pull up or warn them that they were descending directly into the terrain. Why??!!! The pilots also asked multiple times for a guidance plane to be scrambled to their location to fly them in, but, again, the tower didn't seem to jump on that fast enough, the first few times the pilots asked, I didn't even hear any positive indication that ground control was even working on that. And ground control sounded way too calm during the entire thing, they didn't sound concerned at all, it really pissed me off. Unless I was misunderstanding what I was watching and hearing, at the very least, the Lima, Peru crash could have been either avoided, or not nearly as catastrophic as it turned out, had ground control done their job correctly and properly assisted those pilots. How come the one pilot was reading through the plane's manual, why wasn't a crew on the ground looking through the same manuals to help them??!! Ugghh....that one "skit" really upset me, and if it affected me that much emotionally, the acting couldn't have been so bad. The movie is fine, it's just very different from what most people are used to watching. It's not boring. You're watching (or more importantly, listening) to the real life LAST moments of multiple plane flights that ended in either full fatalities, no survivors, or only a couple that have any survivors at all. The very first flight has no fatalities, and it lulls you into expecting nothing too major, but EVERY flight depicted beyond the first one is FULL FATALITIES, or nearly so. Just to warn people. But, back to the Lima, Peru accident, it was caused by the maintenance crew doing something wrong? I didn't understand what happened there. Something about the maintenance crew sealing something over? I don't remember the exact wording, but I wanted a further explanation of what that meant and how it caused all their instruments to fail?? Anyone know or can explain that?

reply

I did explain a bit in my previous post. Not to get too technical, but you may have noticed there are very bright "socks" with "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" which cover pitot tubes and other sensors so they are protected on the ground.

The configuration of the sensors on this aircraft are almost flush, and they were covered with tape by a ground crew member who forgot to remove them.

A majority of the blame was placed on this ground crew member and his supervisor. In reality, the true blame lies solely with the Captain and 1st officer. The pilot is responsible to check his plane before takeoff, it's their job to check every nook and cranny for any obvious anomalies, they SHOULD have spotted the taped over sensors. The pilot also takes a fuel sample and checks for the correct grade, contamination etc. Visual check of fuel quantity is also part of a thorough pre flight check.

The crew missed the tape during their walk around, if they even did a walk around.

As for the tower being calm, they're supposed to be. There is absolutely ZERO tolerance for emotional outbursts or loss of control over ATC's emotions. Like a 911 operator, the last thing you want is an emotional person on the other end of the conversation.

That was the most realistic and emotional vignette in the film.

if it was any good they'd have made an American version by now - Hank Hill

reply

I don't think the tape was there as a "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" type of cover. If I remember the aircraft had just came off the wash rack and the tape was missed.

I'm in the USAF and work on F-16's and we NEVER put tape on those ports unless it's going into wash. And then we have to place two pieces together and then tape that piece over the port like a makeshift band-aid to ensure none of the sticky glue gums them up.

Ever since reading this mishap report, everytime I see those ports I think about it.

I'm not a pilot but to me it seemed odd they didn't turn around immediately and land VFR, I'm guessing it took place at night.

"I knew it. I'm surrounded by *beep*

reply

The crew missed the tape because it was duct tape, which is a silver-gray color on the non-adhesive side. From the angle the crew saw the tape, they didn't realize their pitot tubes were still covered. This is why the bright flags with "REMOVE BEFORE TAKEOFF" are recommended, but they were either not *required* or not available for this plane (can't remember exactly which), so the maintenance crewmember used whatever.

reply

No the tape was left on from the aircraft being cleaned, here is the excerpt from the NTSB report.

19.-
a.- PRELIMINARY ACTIVITIES
SEQUENCE OF EVENTS
(Seven sets of initials) 40
In accordance with the analysis carried out using the information obtained from the
events and activities before the accident, the following can be established:
a.1) The maintenance service completed the work requested, and the
maintenance reports were established, with two blades of the right-hand
turbine being changed as they had been damaged by avian ingestion (FOD).
The hydraulic pump in the right-hand engine was also repaired, and the
aircraft was then ready for the flight to be carried out. In addition, the
polishing of the lower front part of the fuselage was scheduled, and it is the
normal procedure to cover the static ports with adhesive tape, in this case
masking tape, to avoid the static ports' becoming obstructed with the
material used for polishing or with any other foreign material.
a.2) When a large part of the fuselage was recovered, it was observed and
verified that the static ports were covered with the adhesive tape used when
an aircraft is polished, an indication that the tape had not been removed or
duly detected by the various checks which are mandatory when work on an
aircraft undergoing maintenance is completed and it is subject to a quality
control test. It is then handed over to the duty supervisor, who hands it over
to the line chief, who then hands it over to the pilot scheduled for the flight. It
would appear that this sequence was not properly completed, with the
presence of the adhesive tape (masking tape) not being detected.

The pitot tubes were not covered. It was "pitot static ports" which are never cover unless maintenance will be done in the direct area and FOD can be introduced into them.

Here's a picture of a static port
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Static_port.JPG

Here is the link to the full report.

http://www.skybrary.aero/bookshelf/books/1719.pdf



"I knew it. I'm surrounded by *beep*

reply

I blame the air traffic controller, he clearly was not looking at the correct plane. I want to give him a pass, but they did say *are you sure?*, he really should have figured out he wasn't looking at the right plane. If he had given them correct information, or nothing at all even they probably would have been fine.

reply

Read up on the accident. He was looking at their plane, but it's a lack of systems understanding. Much of his data comes from the plane telemetry, so is the same (bad) data they are seeing. Height finders are rare on radars, and never on commercial ATC radar. But no one really knows this.

Well, now. This crash is pretty well known.

reply

Height isn't the issue though, he says they are out over the ocean. They crashed into a mountain.

reply

You are apparently confusing it with another incident. The JAL one where it crashed into a mountain after a while was on the show as well.

Aeroperu 603 crashed into the ocean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroper%C3%BA_Flight_603

The static port failure meant they had no accurate data on speed or altitude. Contributing was a computer-controlled aircraft, so the functional radar altimeter data was not as prominent as it could be. With more discrete instrument readouts (not just a mechanical/electronic problem, but one of design) they could maybe have flow by hand and ignored the clearly wonky instruments and survived.

IIRC, also contributing was the airplane's electronic controls trying to fly to the instrument data, and it not being easy for the crew to permanently over-ride the warnings and autothrottle.

So, they went through a series of overspeeds and stalls and lost altitude until they crashed.

ATC couldn't help as their altitude and speed data was from telemetry. If they'd realized this and shut that off, they probably could have helped more. At least allowing the crew to diagnose the issue better.

reply

I don't know what manufacturers have done since this accident, but airspeed indication is the number one vital piece of information for safe flight. Allowing a huge airliner to even leave the ground without a process of checking and cross checking proper function of the pitot static system is simply criminal.

There should be an air pressure test with indication of clear and proper flow in all the tubes or the engines can't even be started. Something that blows air through the tubes, and also maybe something that flips open the fuselage opening area to expose a fresh opening if the main one is clogged. Or similarly an auxiliary pitot static system that can clear itself and be activated if the main system goes awry.

In addition, I don't know, but hope that FMS/GPS/ATC systems are currently or planned to calculate a virtual airspeed from ground speed, angle of attack, deployed control surfaces, etc. we have more than enough inputs and computer power to not have to totally rely on air blowing into a tube like its the 1920s.

reply