There is a nice benefit of having a personal blog, and that is I can publish my opinion.

The results of the NTSB report on the crash of Asiana Flight 214 came out today. For a while the news media was speculating that Boeing might be partially at fault regarding the ‘complexity’ of the flight computer. The results were that it was totally the pilot’s fault, I’m glad the NTSB used their brains instead of listening to the press.

In my opinion the pilots were 100% at fault. They weren’t monitoring their descent rate as they approached the landing. As the descent rate increases it takes more altitude to land. This is similar to a car going around a corner. If you don’t slow down properly before the corner, you’ll skid.

I say this from experience. I was flying a C-130 at night over water and with no external visual cues I let my descent rate get to large and I almost hit the water. Descent rate can be a killer if the pilot doesn’t monitor it.