ILS Landing

The cause of the accident hasn’t yet been determined. An Airbus spokesman in Toulouse, France, said the manufacturer is ready to offer assistance.

Heavy fog and clouds often are present at this time of the year in Hiroshima and the aerodrome is equipped with a category-3 instrument landing system, or ILS, Kyodo News agency reported. That’s a ground-based instrument approach system that provides precise lateral and vertical guidance to a plane approaching and landing on a runway using radio signals.

The ILS facilities are located at the east of the runway in Hiroshima, requiring planes to descend from the west, according to Kondo Masao, an official in the flight control division of the transport ministry’s Aviation Bureau. The Asiana jet may have approached the runway from the east, an entry against the wind that that isn’t supported by the ILS, Kondo said.

The landing devices that the plane hit were about six meters tall, and descending aircraft usually keep to a height of about 30 meters at that spot to avoid hitting them. The Asiana jet was flying lower than that, causing contact, said Takeshi Endo, director of the ministry’s Air Transport Safety unit.

Rains

The pilots lowered the altitude manually using signals from satellite when the plane approached Hiroshima Airport, Mainichi reported, citing the transport ministry. Visibility may have been bad due to the rain, and the plane descended early, the report said.

There were thunderstorms and rainfall in the area at the time the plane landed, according to the Flightaware website. Passengers were evacuated using escape chutes, and the plane didn’t catch fire, according to the transport ministry.

The captain of the A320 plane had 8,233 flying hours and the co-pilot had 1,583 hours, according to Asiana. It didn’t say which one was in control when the plane landed.

South Korea’s government on Wednesday told Asiana to step up simulator training for its A320 pilots and ordered all local airlines to strengthen safety checks, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said in a statement.

Pilot Training

Since the 2013 San Francisco accident, Asiana said it had strengthened pilot training, appointed a new chief executive officer and hired an official to oversee safety. Pilot errors, insufficient training and confusion about the plane’s automated controls contributed to the San Francisco crash, U.S. investigators concluded last year.

The airline said Wednesday it would further step up management and monitoring of safety procedures after the Hiroshima accident.

The accident in Japan was the fourth incident involving an Airbus plane since December, including the crashes of a Germanwings flight in France last month and an AirAsia Bhd. plane in Indonesia late last year.

The plane, which was delivered in October 2007, sustained damage to its left horizontal stabilizer, an engine cover and the rear of the fuselage, according to Takuya Nakayama, a transport ministry official. The airport’s radio facility also was damaged, he said last night.

Japan’s transportation safety board will lead the investigation, Nakayama said by telephone.

Japan Airlines Co. and ANA Holdings Inc. cancelled at least 40 flights Wednesday as Hiroshima Airport remained closed after the accident. It’s not clear when the airport will reopen or when the damaged plane will be removed, the transport ministry’s Endo said in a press briefing.

Of the 73 passengers, 46 were from Japan, nine from China, eight from South Korea and two each from Canada, Sweden and the U.S. There was one each from the Philippines, Russia, Vietnam and Singapore, Asiana said in a statement.

--With assistance from Andrea Rothman in Toulouse, Julie Johnsson in Chicago, Edward Dufner in Dallas and Yusuke Miyazawa in Tokyo.

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