Samsonite

That puts Nkped right on the money at west/northest. Looking at Google Earth it looks north/northwest (to me,) but I can't argue with a compass.

North/northwest it would appear. As the accident happened late in the morning, the sun would have been just about directly overhead.

On Thursday the NTSB held their "final update" at SFO and that subject was the first thing in the agenda.

This is very well done. The "ghost" plane show where the aircraft should have been on approach. "Detailed animation depicts San Francisco airplane crash" http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-buzz/detailed-animation-depicts-san-francisco-airplane-crash-161114606.html

From reading the article in Monday morning's Wall Street Journal, it would appear it was pilot error. The co-piolt was flying the plane at the time and, well, here is the quote, "...An Asiana spokesman identified the co-pilot who was flying the plane when it crashed as Lee Kang-guk, born in 1967 and with just under 10,000 hours of flying time—but only 43 hours of that piloting 777s. He previously had landed aircraft at San Francisco International but this was his first 777 landing at that airport, the spokesman said...."

That 777, with Rolls Royce engines, had ice in the fuel that, IIRC, blocked a filter screen, causing fuel starvation. There was some talk about watered down fuel, but everyone is too politically correct these days to point the finger. Allegedly, the heat exchangers on that series of engines were re-designed and flight procedures changed, to keep it from happening again.

First accident with a passenger fatality at SFO since 1937.

True, most landings of these big jets are done "auto-magically" these days, but the airlines require their pilots to do a manual landing every now and then to "refresh" their skills. A friend and retired airline pilot said he was required to make one out of every 10 landings manually. By the time a pilot is the captain or first officer (co-pilot) of a 777, he should be able to fly a visual approach, in good weather, during daylight hours, without any aids other than looking through the window at the runway. At this time only one person is unaccounted for. Reasonably good live coverage at, http://www.ktvu.com/videos/news/ktvu-live-news/vtSfR/?updated Don't waste your time with CNN.

Looks like it landed short, in good weather!!?? The news media is just about worthless as they are reporting wild rumors. I'm waiting to hear the details. Looks like Asiana Flight OZ214. Looks like the right main landing gear hit the sea wall..... No fatalities reported as of the moment. Now a report of 2 deaths due to the fire.

I liked EVA's old 747-400 Combi-s, but most of them, if not all, have been taken out of passenger service. Looks like there are still a few in passenger service, http://www.evaair.com/en-us/flying-with-us/fleet-facts/passenger/ Just found this,

Airbus continued to build and deliver A380s with the known wing problem (cracking L brackets). Their plan calls for the planes to be taken out of service at a later date to fix the problem. I've read the "fix" takes anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks or more per aircraft. I don't know if they have been able to improve upon that or not. Of course, Airbus will compensate the airlines for the loss income while the planes are down for repairs.

Don't most people close their curtains when changing clothes, sleeping or nailing their latest bar-fine?

No curtains?

Good One! Thanks.

Well, had the plane been delivered on time that might very well have been the case, but it was 3 years late and Boeing has already paid out Billions in penalties for late deliveries (in money and substitute aircraft, usually 767s). It will be years before they see a profit given all of the cost overruns, production delays, late fee penalties, and heavily discounted prices.

The charging system may be from a French company and the batteries cells are Japanese, but it turns out the battery components are put together by an Arizona company, who sub-contracted the assembly process to a Vietnamese company. How is that for irony? Boeing farmed out entirely too much of 787 and it has become apparent, to me anyway, they have not properly audited their sub-contractors nor have they been testing the components delivered to them. Another management failure and it supports the theory that the McDonnell/Douglas management team, who drove their company into the ground, somehow managed to take over Boeing with Boeing's money. The people coming out of the business schools seem to be extraordinarily short sighted.

Six aircraft were used for the flight testing program and the results are well documented. How much of that is available to the public I don't know. Boeing did have, probably still has, a web site just for the 787 flight test program. Much of the information I read is from a forum where one of the participants is a 787 test pilot. A couple of others are Boeing engineers. They are careful what the say as they cannot reveal proprietary information, but they provide insight into the program we couldn't get otherwise and they try to correct some of the wild ass speculation, mis-information and outright lies (mostly from the airbus fanboys) that you would expect on a forum. You always seem to have an answer, so give it a shot. The Comet suffered from metal fatigue around the windows. Three of them exploded in mid-air before the cause was discovered. The Concorde only had one fatal crash (that I'm aware of) in July of 2000. It was the result of a tire damaged by debris on the runway and pieces from the tire punctured a fuel tank.

The 787 is the most tested and inspected airliner in the history of aviation. The FAA had questions about using lithium batteries and setup special requirements for the battery system. Boeing complied with the requirements and the FAA inspected, tested, and certified the aircraft. It had several thousand hours of flight testing and over 50,000 flight hours since it went into commercial service, so why are there problems with the batteries now?

Cathay Pacific and China Air (Taiwan) both have midday arrivals. Depending on which connecting flight you catch in TPE, China Air gets there around Noon. Cathay around 10:30 a.m. Between the two, Cathay is the better airline and you make your connection in Hong Kong vs Taipei, but China Air is usually cheaper.

The FAA grounding is in regard to the batteries and the re-charging system for the batteries. The batteries are made in Japan, the re-charging system in France, Once that is sorted out, they should be flying again. One retired 747 captain has suggested they just replace the Lithium batteries with Ni-cads. I don't know if the solution is that easy.

Whole different ball game when you are paying $200 to $300 million per airplane vs a couple of bucks for a burger. But, then you know that....

With over 1,400 777s sold, so far, I doubt it is "one of the worst." Sounds like someone has been sniffing the "white out."

I saw that. When are you going to be onboard?

Oracle has posted the patch two days early and are calling it a new version. IIRC, 7.0.11. You can download it directly from their web site.

If you want to take the time to look it up, go right ahead, but you're find the 777 has better than a 99% dispatch rate.