Why were they landing downwind?

You can't fly over the town of Aspen. This prevents the airport from turning around when the wind shifts.

RE: IR... To see through snow/fog.

Flight line security at night.

That and as the video shows, IR "sees" things a non IR camera can't possibly: The accident video would have been aircraft lights tossing about and then the explosion and that is about it.

IR has changed the way we fight and watch.

Gusty winds (wind sheer?) is what I heard on the TV news.

Bummer.

www.theavherald.com is worth a look for pilots and nonpilots looking for a bit more tech details on daily incidents

Makes sense.

Did anyone see the SF Asiana incident video off the OP's link? :eek:

Read on another forum that the FAA intends to cite the 6? bizjets that landed in front of the Gulfstream for landing well above max edit tailwind.

Max for the Gulfstream is allegedly 10knts - winds were well in excess of that.

Think Joeaska has a ton of hours in the type.

I think 10 kts is max recommended tailwind. (No limit on crosswind component)

Here is a good commentary on the event.

A Longtime Pilot on the Aspen Crash - James Fallows - The Atlantic

Teterboro. Hundreds upon hundreds of airplanes there year round. It is the GA airport right outside of NYC.

It is not a recommendation it is a limitation. Meaning if you break it, you can get violated by the FAA.

I have almost 8k hours in the CL-65 which is basically the same airplane as the Challenger with a couple fuselage plugs added to hold 50 people.
I wouldn't say its tricky to land but its a little different than what most are used to flying on larger airplanes. The approach speeds are relatively high and the entire approach is flown in a nose down attitude since its a 'hard wing' meaning no leading edge devices. So there's a little bit more of a rotation in the flare than you have on airplanes with slats.

Landing at high elevation means you're going to have higher true airspeed. Couple that with a tailwind and they must have been cooking coming in there. Higher ground speed means higher descent rate which may have caught them off guard as the runway rose up to meet them.

Inadequate flare results in a bounce off the main gear, inadequate correction means they come back down on the nose gear, the mains come down hard, porpoise up and throw the airplane up into the air with a pitching down moment. Come down hard on the nose again and that's all she wrote.

Nothing more than my speculation from my watching the video and probably completely off base but there you goSmileWavy

What Gulfstream?.. not heard anything about a Gulfstream...

Didn't know Joe flew Gulfstreams, knew about Lears, etc.

Did a Gulfstream land before the crash?

The Challenger that crashed was the last plane to "land" there for the day.