Amazon Prime Plane Down In Houston

Microbursts are nothing new. They have been around forever, but we never understood them. I believe it may have been a meterorologist that charted the first one back in the 70’s. To describe it so that you can understand it will be difficult, but it’s actually a cloud that forms from a thunderstorm and it creates a downward draft with winds of up to 100 mph. There are dry and wet microbursts.

Microbursts have been cited as a cause of airplane accidents in at least six accidents that I can think of off hand. The main danger with these things is when the pilot is landing the aircraft. To survive a microburst, the pilot needs altitude, which allows him time to get out from under the cloud.

We are getting better at distinguishing them from wind shears and other weather phenomenon. While landing at the airport, the pilot may get a notice from the controller that conditions do exist for a microburst. We also get weather reports from our flight dispatcher who will continually advise us on weather conditions, especially if severe conditions exist.
 

I have a friend that lives in Virginia and at one time worked for the NTSB as an investigator. I spoke with him just last evening and we spoke about the crash in Trinity Bay and if any current news has come forth. He told me that he spoke with someone that is still at the Board and that person told him that the case is proving to be more difficult that they had thought it would be.

That tells me that they haven’t placed the cause on mechanical, weather, or pilot. The final determination may be surprising.
 
I just read more confusing reports on the Amazon flight that went down near Houston in Trinity Bay. The NTSB is stating that the data from the FDR is showing that they may have hit a band of severe turbulence while in their descent into Houston.

Supposedly, the plane surged to 495 mph with the engines revving up to full thrust with the nose pointed at 5 degrees up. Then, the plane abruptly turned 49 degrees nose down. Doesn’t make sense. Turbulence? Hmmm......Anything is possible.
 

Just my uninformed musing, oldman, but I have to wonder what was happening with the plane's altitude while it was at full throttle and 5 degrees nose up. If it wasn't climbing, might that support the theory of it being caught in a severe downdraft?
 
Tommy said:
Just my uninformed musing, oldman, but I have to wonder what was happening with the plane's altitude while it was at full throttle and 5 degrees nose up. If it wasn't climbing, might that support the theory of it being caught in a severe downdraft?
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What the NTSB is stating is that because the plane’s FDR has shown is that right before the crash, the plane climbed with full acceleration and then leveled temporarily when suddenly the plane went nose down at almost 500 mph. Because of these moves on the FDR charts, the NTSB is telling everyone that this shows to them that the plane was entering an area of turbulence. These moves and statements are confusing to me.

When I have entered an area of turbulence during my descent while in my approach, I generally found it best to point the nose down at about 5-6 degrees and go to flaps 4. That way, I had no worry with creating a stall scenario and if I found that I was getting into a downdraft or microburst, I could easily push the throttles to full and retract the flaps to 3 and do what we call a TOGA,” which stands for Take Off Go Around. Then, do a 360 and come back to the airport and try again.

Make sense?
 
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Interesting oldman. Thanks. It makes me wonder how well FDR technology has remained current. These days, when any of us can easily carry around several terabytes of computer memory in our shirt pocket leaving room for a pack of cigarettes, one would think the FDR should be able to reveal virtually everything that had gone on with a plane during a flight.

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Tommy said:
Interesting oldman. Thanks. It makes me wonder how well FDR technology has remained current. These days, when any of us can easily carry around several terabytes of computer memory in our shirt pocket leaving room for a pack of cigarettes, one would think the FDR should be able to reveal virtually everything that had gone on with a plane during a flight.

:magnify:[/QUOTE


Tommy——The new FDR’s, which are now digital recorders, will run for several hours (50+) and then do a loop or record over. The CVR’s only run for a few hours. Both recorders have made huge increases in recording time the last ten years, mainly due to the manufacturers of these recorders shifting from tape to digital protocol while using solid state circuitry.

It seems to me that you have some knowledge of aviation. Do you or have you ever flown a plane as a pilot?
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Right now, I would like to be a fly on the wall inside Boeing's engineering facilities. I would almost bet my house that there are quite a few engineers at work today inside Boeing.

A lot of companies have these MAX 8's and 9's in their stable and they need to get them in the air. Boeing, OTOH, has to come up with a solution to the problem ASAP. The biggest challenge facing Boeing is to resolve the issue with whatever fix is needed and not only do so quickly, but make dog-gone certain that it's the right fix. If Boeing would come out and tell the world that they have a fix for this issue and apply the fix and then if another plane would go down for the same issue, Boeing's credibility would go down with it.

At that point, Airbus may become the only full size manufacturer of passenger jets.
 
I was speaking with a friend of mine who is still flying for United and he was telling me that he’s hearing that Amazon is going to make a run at getting into the logistics business and give UPS and FedEx a run for their money.

That’s a huge goal for even Amazon. Taking on these two giants that are already established in the business is a huge undertaking. IMO, if Amazon just takes on delivering all their own packages, it will definitely have at least a small impact on these two companies, not to mention the USPS. I read somewhere that FedEx’s business with Amazon is just less than 2% of their total sales.

I think that I also read that the postal service lost $4billion in 2018, even though they made $1billion over the previous year. I never understood why Amazon pays less to ship packages via USPS than I do. Maybe they have a contract that calls for reduced rates. I mean, the difference between what Amazon pays and I pay is not even close.
 
Heard from my friend at United last night and he told me that he spoke with an NTSB investigator who told him that not to expect a final determination on the plane crash into Trinity Bay for some time.

At at this time; weather, mechanical and pilot error has not been ruled out. I was like, “Well, that about covers anything that could have caused the crash.”

As for when we can expect to hear something more exact, I have seen crash investigations take a year or longer. Of course, there’s always that possibility that we could hear something in a few months.
 

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