BF2S Forums Heathrow Passenger Jet crash

Wow. Heard about this but didn't realize that they lost power and all electronics too!
That's pretty damn bad. Lucky for them that they were already so close on aproach. You can only imagine that kind of thing happening over a city, sea or mountains.

RoosterCantrell wrote:

Pilot deserves a fucking medal. Seriously.

It's what they are trained for and the main reason they sit in the cockpit.
Most of their training after they get their pilots licence and type licence is emergency situations.

Still, he did a great job, can't deny it.

justice wrote:

I think the aircraft almost definately ran out of fuel, resulting in a power loss in the final seconds before touch down. I say this because the majority of the undercrriage was ripped off and the aircraft dragged along the ground, yet no fire or even a sign of fuel leaking.

How it lost the fuel remains to be seen (if indeed it did run out).

Well done to the pilot, the failiure occured on final approach and how he reacted quick enough to

a) Raise the aircrafts nose and get it over the A30 and then

b) get it down safely, is outstanding.

If he hadn't this could have been fatal.

Glad no one was hurt.

It's a possibility. I know there have been 'close calls' with fuel calculations (Done by pilots while they plan the route. They are very much qualified for it though). I still highly doubt it, they always take enough fuel for multiple go arounds and possible other delays. And they would have told the air traffic control if they were running low.

There are tanks in other parts of the plane as well besides the hull. The wings carry a major amount of it too. And the plane landed on relatively soft soil compared to the runway for example so it could prevent fires. Only in the movies there is always an explosion

Edit: Disgussed it a bit with my dad and this really seems REALLY weird. They had a 8-10h flight behind them and in the last minute they lost both engines. Now, the likelyhood of both engines failing at the same time is so small* that the reason has to be somewhere else. Possibly faulty fuel gauges or something. The pilots would not have taken off with too little fuel and they would definately had done something if they noticed they were running out, they would have landed in Amsterdam or another airport in their route.

*The plane is considered safe because of the minimal change of both engines failing. The plane can fly just fine with one engine, twin engine passenger jets actually have twice the power they would need for this reason.

Last edited by Gawwad (2008-01-17 13:44:12)

justice wrote:

m3thod wrote:

justice wrote:

Yeah first time on a trip, happened on an a330 air transat a few years back....the pilot glided it over half the atlantic and landed it, amazingly (though the fuel loss was his fault in the first place) .

You can't really glide a jet, can you? I was under the impression from my limited knowledge of aerospace/physics jiggery pokery that you need thrust to keep it in the air and moving forward.

Well, I don't know the exact science....but when your 38,000 ft in the air at such speed, you can stay up for quite a while, with the assistance of this instrument that deploys underneath the aircraft which spins and generates some energy (like a windmill)...he only just managed to reach a small bunch a islands and land.

Yeah, you obviously can't sustain flight, but you can optimise your headings and attitude to get surprisingly far. The plane landed on the Azores, and it ran out of fuel due to a unit conversion mistake, if I remember correctly.

mikkel wrote:

justice wrote:

m3thod wrote:

You can't really glide a jet, can you? I was under the impression from my limited knowledge of aerospace/physics jiggery pokery that you need thrust to keep it in the air and moving forward.

Well, I don't know the exact science....but when your 38,000 ft in the air at such speed, you can stay up for quite a while, with the assistance of this instrument that deploys underneath the aircraft which spins and generates some energy (like a windmill)...he only just managed to reach a small bunch a islands and land.

Yeah, you obviously can't sustain flight, but you can optimise your headings and attitude to get surprisingly far. The plane landed on the Azores, and it ran out of fuel due to a unit conversion mistake, if I remember correctly.

You remember wrong.

The fuel conversion problem was an Air Canada flight that ran out of fuel and had to land on an old airforce runway turned into a Go-Kart track. The 767 was the first aircraft type for the company to use metric kilograms instead of imperial gallons. Oops.
The pilot, also happened to be a glider pilot, managed to sideslip the aircraft and land. Without the sideslip maneuver it is likely the plane would have crashed. For those to that do not know what that is: it is a way to rapidly lose altitude without increasing your speed. You bank the wings in one direction but turn the rudder in the other direction. You end up flying sideways.

The Azores flight was initially a mechanical malfunction of the fuel lines. Some dufus installed the wrong part and it vibrated against something and ruptured. The pilot's mistake was not noticing this and transferring fuel from the unaffected tank thus emptying all his tanks and he also had to glide. Another Canadian pilot btw.

Today's passenger jets have vastly improved glide ratios compared to 747 and older aircraft. Which explains their better fuel economy.

The windmill thing is called a ram air turbine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_air_turbine

Last edited by Stubbee (2008-01-17 15:39:30)

Until you've been in a Russian made YAK-42 Air Cubana on your way from Cuba to Mexico and had the cabin fill up with smoke, you don't know what a shitty aircraft is. I'd fly in a fucking hot air balloon before I'd get in another one of those things.

Stubbee wrote:

mikkel wrote:

justice wrote:

Well, I don't know the exact science....but when your 38,000 ft in the air at such speed, you can stay up for quite a while, with the assistance of this instrument that deploys underneath the aircraft which spins and generates some energy (like a windmill)...he only just managed to reach a small bunch a islands and land.

Yeah, you obviously can't sustain flight, but you can optimise your headings and attitude to get surprisingly far. The plane landed on the Azores, and it ran out of fuel due to a unit conversion mistake, if I remember correctly.

You remember wrong.

The fuel conversion problem was an Air Canada flight that ran out of fuel and had to land on an old airforce runway turned into a Go-Kart track. The 767 was the first aircraft type for the company to use metric kilograms instead of imperial gallons. Oops.
The pilot, also happened to be a glider pilot, managed to sideslip the aircraft and land. Without the sideslip maneuver it is likely the plane would have crashed. For those to that do not know what that is: it is a way to rapidly lose altitude without increasing your speed. You bank the wings in one direction but turn the rudder in the other direction. You end up flying sideways.

The Azores flight was initially a mechanical malfunction of the fuel lines. Some dufus installed the wrong part and it vibrated against something and ruptured. The pilot's mistake was not noticing this and transferring fuel from the unaffected tank thus emptying all his tanks and he also had to glide. Another Canadian pilot btw.

Today's passenger jets have vastly improved glide ratios compared to 747 and older aircraft. Which explains their better fuel economy.

The windmill thing is called a ram air turbine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_air_turbine

Yeah.. gliding a fighter is quite easy.. but a civi plane? Damn!!

Flying is still safer than crossing a road.  I fly UK domestic 8-12 times a month, at various airports.  Worst I've had is loss of cabin pressure (Twice) which was dealt with by the pilots descending below cloud level and slowing down.  Got to destination safely both times.

I've run off the runway before after landing. That sucked ass. They made us sit in that damned plane for two hours while some jacked up tow truck that looked like an enormous square lumbered over to us, hooked up to the plane (that took a fucking hour itself) and pushed us onto the runway, then unhooked, hooked back up, and pulled us to the gate. That was the suck.

Did they drop the rat?  Didn't the still have the APU?  Back up batteries?

Also.....There is no way the data recorder could lose power, they have batteries.

Last edited by usmarine2005 (2008-01-18 21:37:39)

I was on a plane supposedly target by a bomb, so they had to evacuate us. We got to stand on the tarmac at LAX for four hours

It sucked, although sliding down the slides was fun.

Last edited by nukchebi0 (2008-01-18 23:21:51)

Spark wrote:

Airbuses are fine IMO

Oh the airplanes are fine, but the company fails.   They do not deliver as promised.  Both in performance and support.

Last edited by usmarine2005 (2008-01-19 08:19:57)

M.O.A.B wrote:

usmarine2005 wrote:

Spark wrote:

Airbuses are fine IMO

Oh the airplanes are fine, but the company fails.   They do not deliver as promised.  Both in performance and support.

Are they still having the probs with the A380 deliveries?

I don't know.  I cannot keep track of all their problems with that.

^*AlphA*^ wrote:

but remember how Boeing took a huge gamble when introducing the 747... almost went down under back then also if I remember correctly,

not feeling that A380 myself, well maybe if I would fly to New Zealand (if it can go there non stop I don't know)...

anyway, a A380 with 400 seats that would be good, but knowing some airlines they will put you in a sardine can anyway.

Yes but Boeing did not have to sell the rest of their aircraft at very very low prices in order to survive.