Page 12 - Depth Perception News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

137 knots? i mean, that's -- it's just inexplicable. jon: also the fact that, you know, as we're seeing in this animation, the plane was coming in over the water. that presents some problems in and of itself, especially for someone who habit flown into san francisco -- hasn't flown into san francisco in this type of aircraft before. >> right. if you're coming in over a flat, featureless area like water, you know, you can have a tough time on depth perception. but the cockpit of this aircraft has all sorts of avionics that tell you how fast you're going, how high you are, what your sink rate is...

>> can you overlook that, or is that a pretty obvious alert that goes out to pilots? do you check that every time you land some place? >> it could be overlooked. but if you're on a trans atlantic flight and you're coming in where you could have instrument conditions, that's going to be an issue because you need that for instrument conditions. now, today they were landing under visual flight rules, so this was an eyes on, there's the airport, i'm flying the airplane, i'm going to land there. >> it was supposed to be a flight from seoul, south korea. your ils situation is out. that's a hypotheti...

Because the equipment was out of service in daytime visual conditions, you are just fine visually, and the pilots have flown visual approaches repeatedly since the beginning of their training. you really have to use your depth perception and visual accuse to know if you're high or low. >> it seems sort of hard for me to understand. i've flown in planes in alaska. i was with franklin graham on a small plane. when we got too close to a mountain, we heard pull up, pull up, pull up. i would think there would be something more sophisticated in the cockpit of a triple 7 to tell you you're too low as...

Meanwhile, you see this terrain there. it's a unique airport. according to the hero of the hudson, captain sully sullenberger, he says this particular airport has unique terrain as you approach it. >> lets listen to sully. >> he says the faa classified it as a special airport, along with other airports worldwide that involve mountainous terrain or other special challenges. it is surrounded by water. a featureless terrain where depth perception can be difficult. there are shifting winds, low visibilities. there are several things that make it special. high terrain just passed it. high terrain c...

Sullenberger, landed his us airways flight safety on the hudson when his small airbus had a flock of birds. he's reacted to this crash today. sullenberger describing some of the difficulties he says pilots face when landing at sfo. here's a quote from him. the faa classified it as a special airport along with other airports worldwide that involve mountainous terrain or other special vachallenges. it is surrounded by water and of course water is a featureless terrain where depth perception can be difficult. there are shifting winds, low visibilities, so there are other things that make it diffi...