UKC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7194086.stm

In reply to mat_galvin:

They train for this eventuality all the time. I am slightly worried that all the electronics went dead, presuming the report is true. I believe the new 787 and 380 are even more dependent on electronics.

In reply to wilding:
Indeed. Good on 'em-they make a very difficult job look standard

In reply to mat_galvin:

judging by the image on the bbc website, he stopped it in just over 200m

(before the numbers)

In reply to mat_galvin:

a great effort. despite training for it there is nothing like the real thing especially on approach.

cleared the mway as well. cabby on the radio said it was almost close enough to touch.

In reply to trevor simpson:
Wonder if his/her mates are clubbing together to buy them a 'medal the size of a frying pan'?

They can dine out on this one for years!

In reply to trevor simpson:

Without any wheels or engines, I suspect he was just along for the ride by the time he hit the grass.

Sends a shudder through people living under the flightpath, though, I'm sure.

In reply to trevor simpson:

Once the wheels snapped off when they hit the grass I don't think the pilot had much to do with stopping it.

The Ent

In reply to wilding:

Given these things are basically gliding anyway throughout the approach, I'd say they weren't going to land too short anyway.

As for electronics going dead, I think all they said is he lost "power" - that being engine power. The APU or RAT would keep everything electric going.

In reply to David Martin:

Unless it's an ETOPS flight, the APU would not be running until they are on the ground

and i doubt they would have had chance to deploy the RAT (ram air turbine) if it happened close to landing as they would have been prepairing for an emergency landing, this also is why they didnt inform the cabin crew of an emergency - I'm guessing that we'll find more out once they look at the CVR and DFDR (cocpit voice recorder and Digital Flight Data Recorder - 'Black box')

Thats just my 20p's worth

I reckon on what limited info we've been given the pilots did a great job.

Just think, last year Boeing were putting the B777-200ER (Extended Range) on test flights from Sydney - non stop- to Brazil. Now there's a thought of it in the middle of the Pacific with an inflight shutdown!!!!!

In reply to David Martin: In the article it says the pilot had told an airport worker that the electronics had also failed.

In reply to mat_galvin: Credit where credits due, I dont care if the pilot was just a passenger, I felt proud of the whole plane and especially all the crew, The pilot was doing something because it was banking round not the usual long straight approach

In reply to chris fox:

Obviously all speculation, and I'm not sure what prompts the RAT to deploy (I really know nothing about 777s), or if it was ETOPS or not, but at the very least the battery will provide more than enough juice for a few minutes at least.

I think the lack of power may be missreported - power to the layman is the stuff that makes the TV work, but in aviation it is almost certainly referring to engines. So fuel? Bird strike? Stewardess' panties jammed in the throttle?

This does put in to question ETOPS in general. But it's not something you can pull the plug on now (787 is around the corner after all too)

In reply to marie:

Yes, and if that's true it's really rather disturbing because I had always thought that there were triplicate backups to all the electronics.

In reply to mat_galvin: I agree that if he lost power a couple of hundred metres before the runway, essentially he wouldnt have had too much to do. However if he was banking around it sounds like he lost power way before finals (the glidy straight bit), and cut short his circuit in order to get down. In which case the pilot will have had to work very hard to get that plane where he did, and either way, the fact that he didnt even make the runway shows how little he had spare in the bank.

In reply to Dr Avid:

Sounds like it went wrong a minute or two before landing.

Oh and, thank god it wasnt on the way up. A power off shortly after takeoff in a built up area is lights out, training or no training.

In reply to Dr Avid: You're rekindling my fear of flying... :oS

In reply to Dr Avid:

PS If, as is reported, he communicated no difficulties with the aircraft, it suggests that it happened very suddenly and the whole crew were working 101 per cent to bring the plane down safely and hadn't got a single bare billisecond to send out any kind of mayday.

In reply to marie: Ye, learning to fly has given me an inexplicable fear of passenger jets too

In reply to mat_galvin: had a good look on the news and whilst I'm a good flying passenger, this worries me. It's quite miraculous it ended up no worse. 20 feet above the perimeter fence (probably more but must have made the traffic below crap themselves) and then no fireball upon break-up. The passengers thought it was a 'bumpy landing'!

It looks like a major commendation for the pilot!

In reply to marie:

you know when you are coming in to land and all the weird noises start?

cabin crew will pass that off as landing gear & flaps deploying to any worried passengers.

all the time they know its really the sound of the gremlins scurrying back to their hiding places before touchdown.

In reply to satori:

These gremlins?

http://www.ukuleleman.net/uploaded_images/Gremlins%201-703817.jpg

In reply to marie:

you me both, when I flew to PNG I got cheerful roundabout India, I'm sure it'll be the topic of conversation re the engines at work tomorrow though.

In reply to satori: When I flew Balkan Air back from Bulgaria and those noises started up, all the cabin crew turned white and started smoking.

In reply to yer maw:

"the pilot" - there are always 2 on all airliners and 3 or possibly 4 on the longer longhaul destinations.

In reply to andykirkland:

There's always a Captain, though. And the initial signs are that this one did very well, and chose not to communicate with the ground (but of course that could have been wrongly reported) because his hands were so full in those last few seconds.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

>chose not to communicate with the ground (but of course that could have been wrongly reported) because his hands were so full in those last few seconds

Although of course his language may not be suitable for broadcasting. A bit like you knowing you are going to fall off a climb and may die.

In reply to sutty:

It'll be interesting when we eventually hear what really happened, and what was actually said on the flight deck

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Finding it very odd at the moment. I have flown on that exact plane twice this year on the same route

In reply to andykirkland:

hey I've watched 'Airplane' you know so don't try to pull a fast one on me pal.
So did they take turns at landing it then?

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

sticking to pilot steotypes then something along the lines of "I say my lovely, could you get budge over while I see what all this bloody beeping and flashing is about".

In reply to mat_galvin:

yeah but what's he done on grit?

In reply to Nic: Laughed out loud and been spotted on the ukc website instead of doing various other 'important' tasks at work.. damn you.

In reply to sutty:

Nah, I reckon it was recieved pronunciation and and stiff upper lip all the away. Rodger wilco chaps, lets get this kite on the ground shall we? He may have had to bite down on his pipe on landing mind.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Unfortunately they are usually blanked out with the word "Power you mother <explicit> <explicit>!"

As it was they did the right thing - "aviate, navigate, communicate" is the mantra (or words to that effect), in that order. I guess the PIC never quite got to the communicate bit before the grassy knoll intervened.

And why do they always refer to "the" pilot? There is a Captain and a First Officer on the flight deck, and the roles are largely interchangeable. Anyone of which could have been pilot flying the approach. Elitism maybe.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth: The mantra for dealing with inflight emergencies is: "aviate, navigate, communicate" the most important thing for aircrew to do is keep the plane under control, telling anyone else about the problem comes a distant 3rd to keeping it in the air and going the right way.

Also earlier on someone commented that as they were coming in to land they were basicly gliding anyway. No they weren't. Large aircraft always land under power, their glide ratios are far too poor to allow for routine glide approaches. The pilot in charge of this landing did a stupendious job only 19 minor injuries from a forced landing on an approach over a built up area? this guy was very good.

In reply to David Martin:


No, people say the pilot precisly because there are 2 capable people in the cockpit, if we said the captain did a good job that could well be doing the first officer out of his dues! Pilot implies "person at the controls at the time"

In reply to David Martin:




woolsack will be along in a moment to start a conspiracy theory.....

In reply to D0dge:

That's probablility for you.

In reply to mat_galvin:
...and apparently the first (well potentially anyway) hull loss on the 777 not bad seeing as it's been in service for just over 10 years.
in all seriousness, the handling pilot did a flipping good job on managing this incident and as long as the crew didn't cause the problem in the first place then they are due a significant pat on the back!
aviate - navigate - comunicate or so i'm told.
as for the "they are almost gliding on final approach anyway" comment. listen to the engine note next time you are in a plane and you'll see this isn't completely true. the flaps extending into the airflow create quite a bit more drag than the 3deg normal decent angle can overcome. power is constantly fluctuating to mantain the "glideslope" and it's normally only when you fly over the threshold that the throttles are idled. losing both engines about 150m above the ground is quite a significant kick in the teeth for your survial chances.
(trainee ppl)

In reply to mat_galvin: The news on radio1 just played an interview with the captain. He sai that it was the 1st Officer who had control of the plane at the time... he must have been on UKC and seen the thread...

In reply to David Martin:

Money. The Captain gets paid more than the First Officer, and First Officer is also a training post - that's where the new kids on the block start.

In reply to Nic:

class sheer class, that actually made me laugh heartily

In reply to Cats:
also number of hours in there log book.
and
some airfields are "captain only" because of the difficulty of approach, infact there's a captain only just up the road from heathrow. the runway sits inbetween royal albert and king george the V docks.

In reply to Cats: > (In reply to David Martin)

Generally yes but not necessarily

In reply to John Wood:

My mates comments when we went over this col and got all warning noises and lights on were WTF;

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=243500&y=489500&z=4&sv=...

What had happened was the updraft put us into stall mode, so I shoved the stick forward and told him head for the sea at the bottom of the valley. Of course, once windspeed picked up all went quiet, we took the undercarriage back up and all was back to normal
I think that was the only semi emergency in the air I have not bee anxious about, there have been several commercial flights where I would like to have been in the cockpit to see what was going on.

In reply to rallymania: "as for the "they are almost gliding on final approach anyway" comment. listen to the engine note next time you are in a plane and you'll see this isn't completely true. the flaps extending into the airflow create quite a bit more drag than the 3deg normal decent angle can overcome. power is constantly fluctuating to mantain the "glideslope" and it's normally only when you fly over the threshold that the throttles are idled. losing both engines about 150m above the ground is quite a significant kick in the teeth for your survial chances."

Absolutely true. Losing power a minute or two before landing is a long way to maintain a glideslope thats going to get you to a runway. Losing power 150m (in distance)from the runway is not such a problem, although passenger jets are renowned for gliding like bricks.

In reply to rallymania:

shouldn't that read;

aviate, navigate, fornicate with trolley dolly.

Losing power 150m (in distance)from the runway is not such a problem, although passenger jets are renowned for gliding like bricks.

Losing power at 150m (400ft) would be pretty terminal for all involved, in the air and on the ground, unless you have a nice piece of grass in front of you like at LHR. If this had happened at somewhere like Manchester the outcome may have been very different- either land on a car park, or plough through a row of houses.

All the stuff in the media is about as accurate as the stuff that tells me I use an ice "pick" and the "climbers" who get rescued off the railway track on Snowdon each Boxing day.

As for what the blokes have ever done on grit, i reckon this was about E10 4c.

In reply to Tim Davies:

What have you done on a Boeing?

In reply to mat_galvin:

So, here's a question: what makes an aircraft lose power completely, crash land, punch holes though both wings, and not even a flicker of flame? 30 minutes of fuel left for the hold, or not?

In reply to nniff:

As I said before - sheer speculation - yes, a lot of 'fuel' was said to have been splilt on to the runway, but maybe, maybe it was contaminated (e.g. water, as I said before)?

In reply to mat_galvin: May I respectfully suggest that ALL the self opinionated "experts" on these two threads now desist and await the findings of the AAIB enquiry.

In reply to Capt. Speaking:

Hahaha! Sorry but that's hilarious. They are all having a great time making these assumptions, you know.

In reply to Capt. Speaking: Why?

In reply to Capt. Speaking:

Please don't take us seriously. But the idea of a complete computer failure, backup systems and all, is very disturbing to me ... and still sounds a bit odd (lot's of different things have to fail at once).

In reply to mat_galvin:

China's a long way to come with contaminated fuel without a hiccup, given that the fuel is recirculated and heated - it doesn't just sit there as in a car.

But then again, the aircraft measures burn rate, the tanks have gauges as a back up, and dip sticks to verify if need be on the ground, so running out is difficult to achieve. So is a twin engine shut down. Wind shear sufficient to stall both engines but seemingly not the wing would be remarkable.

'Banking' suggests that one engine died first, so that the wing dropped, and then the other died too.

Curious.

In reply to Sandrine:

Yes. Surely the fun thing now is to see just how close or wildly wrong the various speculations turn out to be?

In reply to Capt. Speaking:

But where's the fun in that? Now if it had been a fatal accident then a little bit of decorum would be appropriate. If the broadsheets and the tabloids can play, so can we.

Usher in the next theory please, nurse.

One tabloid reported that "Gordon Brown stared death in the face" from his car - oh pretty please!

Anyway, a 777 is the best Airbus that Boeing ever built.

In reply to nniff:

I didn't invent this. It was one of the early theories I saw mentioned. Presumably the water will sit on top of the fuel, but as you say, would be mixed up. I speculate that that may not be too much of a problem while the fuel lasts, with a lot of water just being evaporated. Then there comes a point where there's a lot more water than fuel left ... ONLY SPECULATING )

In reply to nniff: the flock of burds theory can't be right either as there'd be loads of casulaties (birds that is) on the ground to prove this.

In reply to nniff:


That, I suspect, is exactly what happened, and why the plane was suddenly in that very banked position.

In reply to yer maw:

... and both engines at once. One big flock of birds. And, as you say, there would be huge amounts of evidence of this.

In reply to yer maw:

someone who I know has a knowledgeable theory on this. I will await the outcome with interest as its not 'so' far away from 2 unconnected posts on here.

In reply to Removed User:

do you remember this?

http://www.airdisaster.com/investigations/af296/af296.shtml

youtube.com/watch?v=4b1pkKR-Acc&

In reply to Removed User: so they really were too busy giving one to the dollies to notice they'd turned the ignition off! that's shocking and sackable.

In reply to yer maw:

Are you including the male trolley dollies as recipients of the flight crew's 'generoisity'?

In reply to Capt. Speaking:

5 years.

In reply to mat_galvin:

What no one has mentioned is that this aircraft probably spends a lot of its time flying over lots of water, like the North Atlantic. What would have happened if both engines had failed 1000 miles from the nearest airport?

In reply to mat_galvin:

PEDANT: doesn't matter if its a big plane or small plane, they all glide pretty much the same.

In reply to mat_galvin:
I havent read most of this thread so this may have bee nmentioned, but the general assumption that he would have preferred to land on the runway, I think may be wrong. There was damage ot the fuel tanks and apparently quite a bit leaked out. Sliding on a runway creates a lot of sparks, grass doesnt (at least much less). I suspect taht if he had crash-landed on the runway, 150-off people would not all still be alive. Good job to the co-pilot.

I suspect the cause was some sort of control system failure, as the two engines would not fail simultaneously in any other manner I could forsee.

In reply to Si dH:

Yes, I think there was an element of luck there. It landed on very wet grass, and only hit the tarmac at the very end of it's run. If it had crashed nearer the runway the whole thing might have burst into flames.

In reply to David Martin:

They don't. Depends on weight, wing size etc.

In reply to Si dH:

If it's cold enough jet fuel won't catch fire that easily....sparks or no sparks, a bigger problem may well be fuel falling on to hot engine parts, but even that isn't necessarily going to lead to fire.

Not one to put a dampner on the tabloid story lines, but at the end of the day, all the pilot had to do and could do, was maintain the best glide speed and hope ground effect helps get them as close to the runway as possible before stalling. No doubt checklists would have been pulled and options run through, but the usual "hero" label is being trotted out again when there is nothing the pilots would have done that was above and beyond the call of duty, self preservation, or put them at risk more than anyone else. There isn't much more to it really. There were two other crew but I don't think there was much the pilots could do under the circumstances that would have improved things.

Anyway, talking to the old man yesterday, the latest seems to be that the engines didn't actually fail at all....but were unresponsive. So possibly still sitting somewhere around flight idle.

In reply to Capt. Speaking:

Of course - my point being a big plane is no more difficult to glide than a small plane. One does not drop like a stone while a small aircraft glides for ever....by that reasoning my Ask27 would go further than an Open Class glider!