Thank you for that additional input Arnoud.
Found the Discussion on livenet at http://www.liveatc.net/forums/atcaviation-audio-clips/cirrus-sr22-crashes-at-zurich-(lszh)/
Rick - yes, a tailwind on Rwy 14.
Recall the ATC recording - after the airlines have begun to be sent around and put in holds, one airline pilots asks ATC: “is the tailwind on 14 too strong now?” I think he thought that a switch to land in the other direction had been initiated - ATC replied, no - there is an emergency at the airport.
I don’t beleive Circle to land is normal ops at Zurich. Landing with a small tailwind might be.
Never can tell, I was not there, but I would guess that since he came down on an ILS approach for 14. When he missed it, low weather, overshot, saw intersection, probably did not really think of any wind angle at that time anymore; he did know he was supposed to land on 14, so that’s where he would head back to… It is not too hard to imagine that at such a time one would not think of the wind direction anymore …
Better option would probably have been to continue to the end of 16, do the 180 there and land on 32. This would have been a headwind, but even an 8 kt tailwind would not have been an issue with 10827ft of runway…
Again, all speculation, but it can make sense…
If your question was if the cleared ILS would have resulted in a tailwind, I guess the answer is yes, it would have been. Had he followed the ILS perfectly he would have had to land with a tailwind. Again, enough runway to handle it, but it would have been a tailwind…
I have looked up the plates for Zurich; no circle to land …
Arnoud
Positioning for Rwy 32 make sense considering the wind, however given the low cloud and visibility - which appears to have been very little forward, only down (best we can tell so far) - this might not have been an option. One would hope that if the 32 end had come into sight and been a viable option that the pilot would have jumped at that and landed that way.
The tailwind would (probably) not have been a issue - for an actual landing - on a long runway.
For me the tailwind may have influenced the accident in at least a couple of ways.
- Downwind approach: What was wind strength? 8kts on the ground, I’ll guess at 15knots on the approach. Flying 160kt IAS to four miles = Groundspeed of 175/180 knots.
At three miles per minute with the wind behind, four miles does not give much time to slow a Cirrus down to approach speed in the circusmstances the pilot had to contend with. I have not figured out in my own mind whether there was also more than “3deg slope” of altitude to lose as well. Maybe one for the simulator guys to try if they have not already.
- It may be that any stall/spin occurred after the aircraft had run upwind back to the 14 end, and then was turning onto 14. To keep the rwy insight (mainly downward) the pilot may have had to stay close in. Turning/turned in (how tight?) - the visual illusion of being too fast (groundspeed due tailwind, + after running upwind) may have induced the pilot to raise the nose to slow down - a well known response. Added to all the other factors at the time, tailwind element could possibly have been the ‘the last straw’.
I hope there is data which can reveal what systems were available until when on this flight. Coping with one thing, then another, then another, and another… and succeeding with those, would then take person with an extraordinary amount of wisdom or foresight to decide - “Enough! Climb, Pull!” whilst still in control.
At 180 kt TAS you need to take a 900 ft/mn rate of descent to stay on the GS. If unable you might be above the glide with full deflection of GS indicator and think you lost glide slope signal…
Swiss Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau initial information about the crash of the Cirrus N467BD
http://www.bfu.admin.ch/common/pdf/N467BD.pdf
Google Translation…
In cruising demanded the pilot to 15:33 LT at the
Air traffic control center to land in Zurich. As a reason
for these alternate landing, he gave the failure of a
Alternator on. During the approach to Runway 14 of the
Zurich airport occurred, according to the pilots
further problems. The machine was
Finally, west of the runway 14 and held a
Left turn and then a right turn into
low altitude over reason. This maneuver brought
the aircraft head north of the runway 14, where it
Bank right on the ground aufschlug.
German
»
English
Translate
Thanks Jon:
That clears up the “loss of power” issue. It was the alternator and NOT the engine.
I know little about this accident. I do land a fair amount at large airports. I know they can be imtimidating with LOTS of traffic around and a desire not to feel out of control. I wonder if the pilot had declared a real emergency and not just the loss of the alternator, whether they could have cleared all the planes and given him a sense of being able to land anywhere on the airport and given a bit more guidance. I for one hope I will have no problem declaring that I need lots of help and attention.
Of note I did once get into a bind at Montreal. I was getting vectors to the runway but they turned me base essentially over the numbers. I think they did this because I was in a slow cessna 172. I got real confused and overflew the base for 24 left and headed to the pathway of 24 right. They realized my mistake and helped me around ( to confuse matters, I accidently bumped my headset controll and lost communications for about 10 secs.) to 24 left with vectors. It was night, and I was a bit inexperienced. After that incident I was a bit “more experienced.” I certainly remember the intimidation of being at a big airport. I hope I would do better in the future.
don
What’s new???
This report has been published on the 24th of October, and has been quoted on this thread for the first time on the 25th of October then has been translated and discussed at least 4 times on this same thread…
Sorry! (looked new to me, I hadn’t seen the doc before, and didn’t remember the part at the end about turns to the left and right)
My membership does not appear me access to that thread. Don’t know if I am doing something wrong 
Hi Harry,
I am presuming that you do not have a paid-up membership to COPA hence you can only see the Guest discussions? You’ll need to be a full COPA member to get access to all our forums.
Hi,
Thanks for the reply.
Will have to ask the company to use their card. Knowing our accountants, that will take a while!!!
Harry
Harry McRandle
This reporter had no interest in the European Fly in to Jersey fly in when we contacted him in June. They can’t even spell Cirrus correctly on their front page. I personally feel they should not be on the copa site.
Hi Nicholas,
Whether you choose to believe the following or not, I willelave up to you. A simple case of page space and time prevented the article I prepared from being published about the fly in in June, which was irritiating.
Ref the spelling, a sub-editor took it upon himself to change the spelling for reasons that are beyond the comprehension of anyone here. I let rip yesterday afternoon such was my frustration at an error that was not onlymade once but repeated the following day. You will see from the posted copy above the spelling of Cirrus was correct in my copy.
All I am trying to do in this instance is be accurate, As I said you can choose to believe whatever you want. If you want to call me to discuss my direct line is 611634.
Harry
That’s one of the pitfalls of COPA 2.0 : when we use the function “forums/aviation-non read” we never know in which forum we read and or write…
I think this thread had nothing to do in the public/guest part of the forum.
If an administrator could move it into the member part of the site it would be a good thing.
At this moment in time there is too much speculation around Alex’s traggic death. You will not be able to piece together what happended.
The report will come out by the relevant authorities when they have had time to recover any infomation from the Air Traffic tapes and data from Alex’s aircraft (should the sea water not have destroyed any electronic information)
Hopefully the family will be given a suitable explantion of the proceeding events prior to the crash.
And hopefully we can gain answers that will enable the aviation community and Cirrus members to fly ourselves and famiies safely across continents and oceans.
I’d like to find out if there is any additional information on this accident from 2008… I read somewhere that there may have been an engine failure on short final. If true, is there any indication of how high the plane was when the engine failed. Maybe there we some ATC communications? The reason I ask is to ascertain whether or not CAPS would have been a viable option for this incident. Low ceilings, visual on the airport. Maybe he tried to stretch the glide without power???
Thanks for any information you can provide.
Richard
Richard, the Swiss Accident Investigation Board report of this accident was extensively discussed here: Cirrus fatal #42 probable cause report for SR22 N467BD at Zurich, Switzerland [22 Oct 2008]
For those who are not members of COPA and hence cannot read the extensive discussion, here are a few responses.
IMHO, CAPS would have been an excellent alternative to the long and delayed approach in IMC after ALT1 had failed. The time between failure of the alternator and crash exceeded 50 minutes. However, it appears that the pilot and ATC were fixated on merging the Cirrus into the Zurich airliner traffic rather than deal with an undeclared emergency.
No, he did not lose engine power. But the plane did suffer the loss of the main electrical bus due to ALT1/BAT1 failure after flying so long on BAT1.
Yes, he lost control while in IMC attempting to complete a final approach and then maneuvering abruptly to land as he corrected from being off course.
Yes, lots of ATC recordings implicate the failure of the pilot to communicate the urgency of his situation and several controllers failure to understand the failure as reported (one controller thought the pilot said altimeter failure rather than alternator failure).
Unfortunately, the attempt to fly the ILS approach at high speed and with little remaining electrical reserve resulted in being off course, being low, and being seduced into maneuvering to land that resulted in a stall/spin at about 150 feet above the ground.
Note that this accident happened in 2008. COPA wisdom since then has evolved such that we expect pilots to declare the loss of an alternator in IMC as an emergency and to consider CAPS when failing to maintain course in such a scenario.
Cheers
Rick
If I may pick a nit: IMHO the recordings implicate the failure of the pilot to grasp the urgency of his situation, let alone communicate it. They also implicate a severe lack of systems knowledge. In an all-electric airplane, you better know the electrical system pretty well.