MJW

Although not strictly a plane story, a few years back my dad took his one and only helicopter ride. During the Jet Ranger trip with an ariel photographer, the pilot told my dad and the snapper that the aircraft had developed a severe hydraulic failure. My dad said he thought nothing of it at first, thinking it was a wind-up, but when the pilot told him to open the door to see if the main rotor was on fire his jaw must've dropped to floor. He'd never been in a helicopter before and here he was hanging out of it to check whether his number was finally up. Although there was no fire, the rotor was kaput and the pilot had to land by auto-rotating (where the nose is pitched up so the air currents spin the rotorblades instead of the engine) in to a field, no mean feat by all counts. My dad vowed never to go on a helicopter again !

hedgehog

You don't want to fly into Belfast City then, it's the only airport I know of where the runway is shorter than the plane. Most of the crew seem to spend their time trying to divert to Belfast International where the runway is a decent length and doesn't end in the sea or on the motorway, depending on the direction of approach.

Dieseldog

I thought noise abatement was putting the engines to climb power to climb away as quickly as poss. Hell, I don't know

Brit_in_Japan

There are reports of aircraft flying into volcanic ash clouds 80 times in the last 20 years. And 4 engined flameouts are not unique, it happened to 2 747's in completely seperate incidents over Indonesia in 1982 (one was the BA flight and the other was Singapore Airlines) and a KLM 747 suffered the same way over Alaska in 1989.

I can only point a couple of interesting moments. One was a flight out of JFK airport on a very new Boeing 767. I was sitting towards the rear of the aircraft and there was quite a lot of vibration on take off and climb, so much so that a large section of roof panel fell off, giving a glancing blow to some unfortunately tall passenger sitting beneath it. He was not seriously hurt and we continued the rest of the flight staring at the inside surface of the pressure vessel, airconditioning ducts and wiring.

The other incident was a journey from hell. Arriving at Schiphol to get a flight to detroit on NorthWest airlines we were told that the 747 was a no-show from the day before. So there were about 700 passengers waiting for a flight to Detroit and only one 300 seat Boeing 767 to get them there! After a bit of passport lottery I was lucky enough to get on that aircraft. Eventually we got on board and after another delay we took off. The entertainment system then went u/s so time passed slowly. Then after maybe 8 hours flying the captain came on and told us that due to unexpectedly strong headwinds we didn't have enough fuel to get to Detroit! So we had to divert to Toronto for a "splash and dash".

The problems weren't quite over though. I was travelling with a colleague, or at least we were supposed to. He didn't get on the same flight though and had to travel via Housten to get to Detroit. That wouldn't have been a problem for me except he'd made the hire car booking for our onward journey and they wouldn't let me take the car without his credit card.

coolangatta

I am not a nervous flyer but have had two 'buttock clenching' moments both in Japan.

On final approach to Narita in a JAL 747, had been a long and un-eventful flight from Heathrow, when the fookin thing dropped like a lead balloon
I'm talking big drop here, several seconds, Every woman and most of the men on the flight screamed. I would have screamed like a big girl too if it wasn't for the fact that all my breath was exhailed just like when you drop on a big coaster !!
I was pushed hard up into my lap belt and would have hit the ceiling had I not been wearing it. Fortunately because we were on final everyone including the cabin staff were strapped in. The girl sat next to me would not take her face out of her pillow until we had come to a stop at the gate.

On an internal JAS flight from Haneda to Misawa in August last year. Before leaving Haneda we were cautioned that due to fog at Misawa we may have to return to Tokyo. No probs I thought, another night in Roppongi wouldn't be a problem.
Misawa is a mainly military airport and apparently does not have the sophisticated landing aids that major airports have. So, I'm sitting in a window seat and peering out into the murky night. All I can see is, well pretty much nothing except the glare back off the fog from the wing mounted landing light.
We descend for what seems like an eternity, subsequently found out from USAF personnel that we were being guided from the ground by radar, suddenly lights appear, we are almost on the floor and.....that does not look like Misawa airport !! Then the engines scream into full throttle and we're back up into the fog again.
****, I thought, that did not look good but no probs we'll be back off to Tokyo now. 'Not on your nelly'. Perhaps it came over badly in the translation but we were told in a very calm and polite Japanese way that 'the pilot is going to CHALLENGE the runway again'. and again and again and again.
We got down on the 4th attempt to rapturous applause from the passengers.

Brit_in_Japan

Large passenger aircraft can glide and land even if all the engines are out, but you really wouldn't want to be on board when they make that landing. Following is a link to some pictures of the Air Transat incident in 2001 resulting in an unpowered landing in the Azores. There was a fuel leak owing to incorrect maintenance and improper management of that fault by the aircrew resulted in them running out of fuel mid-Atlantic. They had to glide the aircraft for about 115 miles to the Azores, land at high speed and hope they could stop it in time. Fortunately the pilot did his thing and there were only some minor injuries.

www.heimsnet.is/geirfugl/Thisandthat/ Canadian%20Airline%20Incident.ppt

edited to add, the aircraft was an Airbus A330-200 with 304 passengers and crew on board.

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

EROPS = Engines Running Or Passengers Swimming.


And did anyone see that series on air crashes on (IIRC) C4 last year. One plane went down killing all on board because a ground engineer left a piece of gaffer tape over the static tube. Two inches of tape brings down an air-liner - who needs bombs?


M

boxst

Hello

SO glad I read this again this morning. I'm off to catch my flight: So look out for BA2227 on the news later ...

Steve.

hedgehog

I believe that a contributing factor in that case was the infamous Airbus computer. When it told the pilot he had a leak I suspect the reaction was "it is always saying that but it is a bug..."

I guess it is the same software that caused the Airbus crash at an airshow. When the pilot did a low level pass of the runway the computer decided that he had landed and so had absolutely no need to increase power to gain altitude at the end of his low level pass. This resulted in his crashing into a forest at the end of the airfield.

I try to stay off anything made by airbus.

NotoriousREV

The only incindent I've been involved in was a non-event really but very scary at the time.

Coming back home on an 11 hour flight from Mexico we were somewhere over the Atlantic (middle of nowhere, couple of hours from a landing site) when the pilot came over the PA:

"ladies and gentlemen, we have a fire warning indicator on in the cockpit"
LONG PAUSE - Gasps and the beginnings of panic from the passengers
"this has been caused by someone smoking in the toilets"
PHEW!

I genuinely think that the pilot **** himself when he saw the warning light and wanted to do the same to us. He then invited us to smell the person next to us to see if they'd been smoking

I live under the final approach for Liverpool airport and you hardly ever hear the plane coming in. Occasionally you hear one giving it full throttle all of a sudden and wonder...

Edcase

Anyone got the link for this???

Fat Boy

A couple of fun flights in africa back in the 90's.

Harare (Zimbabwe) to Jo'burg on Zimbabwe Express, a privately owned Zim airline.

It was an ancient 727- 100, probably revived from the arizona desert. Flight from Jo'burg to Harare was uneventful, but then waiting at the airport to board to fly back we were told that there were some technical problems that would cause a short delay. We then all watched this bloke carry a set of step ladders out to the plane in front of us where he climbed up them and calmly started wiping the oil/ fluid off one of the engine pods at the back of the plane. No - one else went near it and 5 minutes after he left we were all invited to get on the plane as their "technician" had completed his work.
We take our seats and listen to the pilot welcome us to today's "flight to Bulawayo" followed by a muffled "****! Hang on, where are we supposed to be going?... I mean Jo'burg". We then taxi out to the runway and, being sat in the front seat nearest the door I realise that there is a breeze coming under the door and that daylight can actually be seen, so I call the stewardess over who informs the pilot. He - a huge Afrikaner type- comes out of the cockpit and fiddles with the door for a while before administering a few hefty kicks, before pronouncing himself satisfied. We then take off (amazingly) and the guy next to me and I are anaesthetitizing ourselves with booze when the intercom bongs, and the stewardess says will " Mr de Vries make himself known to the staff please"? my neighbour groans and says " it's me, now what". The stewardess comes over and says in a very sincere stewardess school of charm way " Oh, Mr de Vries, I note from our passenger schedule that you're hard of hearing. I just want you to know that if there's anything you need just ask for it". He looks at her slightly goggle - eyed and said " Point 1 how did I hear that announcement and Point 2 how did I hear your little speech if I'm ******* DEAF"!!! She retreated and we kept on drinking heavily ....

Flight from Maputo (mozambique) to Nelspruit (SA) on Matavia , a Mozambican domestic airline.

I had missed my SAA 737- 800 connection back to Jo'burg for a flight home to the UK and my only chance was to get a seat on this little twin prop plane to fly us first to Nelspruit in the drakensberg mountains, just over the SA borders and then change to a south african domestic flight. I was going "business class" with my then Japanese boss so we were shown to the front seats ( one either side of the aisle) of an ancient 8 or so seater plane on the runway of Maputo airport. In those days Maputo airport was still full of the legacy of the civil war so we had to drive past upside down burnt out planes and tanks etc to get to our plane. The rest of the cabin had only two local guys in it who were going economy who were both looking very sweaty and as pale as their dark skin would let them (they either had never been on a plane before or had been on this one several times). Anyway, we take off into clear sunny skies and then turn towards SA. The mountains on the border between SA and Mozambique are pretty serious ones at up to 12K high and I could see them in the distance with what looked like a full on African summer storm going on around them, which promised a bumpy ride. Still as I settled down to my business class meal (a greasy glass with clingfilm over it and some unidentified "juice" inside it, plus 3 cold and very smelly cooked prawns wrapped in a tissue) I stretched my legs forward to ease the cramp following which the plane made a lurch and the curtain was whipped back by the pilot who said " Watch it, you've got your feet on the pedals"! We then reach the mountains and the storm - any of you who have not experienced a real african/ tropical storm would have no idea of the fury of these things - and we start flying up a narrow steep sided valley as the pilot said that he couldn't get over the storm. So we're looking at the valley sides that are flashing past, it seemed, our wingtips with the plane juddering, and rising and falling viciously. The two black guys in the back started screaming and shouting in portuguese and their local dialect and my Japanese boss closes his eyes and starts praying, judging by his moving lips. I look back out of the window while trying to somehow stay in my seat (the prawns and juice have long ago been abandoned and are flying around somewhere behind me) and notice that the engine on my side has a nice big Skoda sign on it - great. We go through about half an hour of this and then as suddenly as these storms form, they also disappear so suddenly we're back in sunshine and coming in to land on the runway, which the pilot does a neat wingover into and slams the plane (ex SADf pilots) down. They then disappear back off into the gloom leaving my japanese boss, the two black guys ( who have both thrown up all over themselves unless it was the business class "lunches") and me standing there. No-one else. The "terminal" is a locked container and there is a 6 inch high fence in a lawn with some deckchairs on it in front of it. We all sit down a bit shakily and about 20 minutes later a car arrives and the passport girl gets out, checks our passports and tickets and then tells the two local guys that they can't sit in the deckchairs as they only have econ tickets and that this is the business lounge !! She then drives off leaving u son our own again, but the two poor guys would not sit down despite us telling them to. Rest of the flight was uneventful and i did make my flight to London that night. The contrast between my BA club class bed and the Matavia plane was pretty extreme. Still, at least I didn't get bothered by my japanese boss to take him on trips for a while

Bigwood

Flying to Las Vagas to see the Lewis vs holyfield.

Coming into land at Lasvagas, about 8 meters in the air still above the run way the plane somehow drops to the right, im by the right wing, wing tip nearly touches the runway, passangers on the right side of the plane start to scream. The captain puls it together and lands the thing just!. On the mic afterwards, he said " Well that was a close one hahahah" i was in shock, and hes laghing down the tannoy!

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I think that was caused by the pilot switching the plane to "landing mode" to make the low level pass. But upon trying to climb, the system overided the pilot and the plane decided it wanted to land in the forest. Although that could be a cover up to blame the pilot and not the plane

Had rather an amusing air pocket when flying through a storm to South Africa (4 engined airbus A3** sommat ). Small hours of the night, so everybody was alseep (except me...I never sleep, even after nicking a load of my Dad's Tamazpan I was still awake). Plane hit a HUGE air pocket, the thing dropped like a brick. To this everybody woke up and thought they were going to crash, so mass screaming started until it managed to level out. I think I was the only one of the few who was laughing at the time

One scary flight was an internal one in Egypt via Egypt air. Old 737 (first version by the looks of it). You could still see "Orion airways" underneath teh egypt air paint work on the side of the plane. I thin Orion went bump in the mid-80's.

It brought back the memories of a few bumpy and shaky flights that I had as a kid on said Orion air too. The plane shook, the whole airframe vibrated. Any bump on the runway caused at least one of the storage lockers to come open. Once up the air it wasn't so bad, bit of turbulance. But the landing, I think the pilot practiced on a pogo stick. Lucky it was a longish runway. We must have hit the ground at least 4 time before slamming the thing hard on to the ground hard - to which most the storage lockers had opened. Then slamming the brakes on as hard with full reverse to get the thing to stop before the end of the runway. I hate 737's, especially Egypt Air ones

messiah

Went on a lads holiday to Lloret years ago and the flight to Gerona (?) was the first time that one of the lads had been on plane. Richard had managed to blag the window seat (still chuffed even though it was night-time), anyway, the plane is taxi-ing and Richard is looking outside and watching att the blue lights that line the runway at Newcastle airport, so his head is going from side to side as if he's watching tennis. You can probably guess what happened next - as the plane's accelerating down the runway, his head is going faster and faster as he's following the lights....

Later on we were discussing which was worse - take-off or landing. Richard's comment was "I don't like take-off, it gives me a bad head..."

Same flight - and Richard had pinched my walkman, so he failed to hear the Captian usual blurb about "coming into land" & "a rise in engine noise". About 10 minutes later the engine noise increases a lot - but most of it got drowned out by someone shouting "WHAT THE F**K WAS THAT???"

Leslie

I flew the RAF VC-10's for some time and never had anything much worse that a generator failure on the descent into Bahrain despite all the dire emergencies we used to practice in the simulator.

I did have an exciting incident in the Vulcan once. We were over N Florida and were on a navigation competition practice at night. We had an extreme air temperature change which can happen very occasionally, especially in the vicinity of a jetstream which is a thermal wind. The effect of this is to increase the Mach number instantly and in the Vulcan which was already at a high Mach No., to drop its nose rapidly into a steep dive knocking the autopilot out of engagement. The is destabilising since the speed increases and as the situation gets worse the elevon controls lose their ability to raise the nose at the overspeed in Mach No for aerodynamic reasons.

Luckily I was half expecting something since I had felt light clear air turbulence which often indicates a temperature change. I had my hand on the control column and together with the co-pilot we managed to hold full up elevator. close the throttles and extend full airbrake. It took some little time but the speed stopped increasing and finally the nose started to come up, what you have to remember though is that as the speed decreases as the nose comes up, the elevators( or elevons) start to become effective again and you have to get all that up elevator off again quickly before the aircraft gets a +G overstress. We got away with it that time but it doesn't half concentrate the mind for the rest of the flight

This phenomenon is known as "jet upset" and it has caused to loss of a few large aircraft in the past. An airliner was lost near Mount Fuji some years ago due to extreme turbulence and temperature changes.

This happened to another Vulcan once in the Mediterranean and he did not catch the dive in time, he lost over 20K feet and when the Mach No. reduced at the lower altitude the nose snapped up with the up elevator(elevons) and he went vertically straight up and exceeded the negative G limits on the ensuing pushover. The aircraft had some +8-10 G pulled on it and looked like a corrugated iron roof with all the wrinkles when it landed. Tough old airoplane that one!

Obviously with all those years of military flying you will get moments when you think all is lost occasionally since military flying pushes the boundaries a lot of the time. We have all had exciting incidents and I have had my fair share of them. I won't go on about it and bore you, but I still would not have missed the job for anything.

That Airbus crash was indeed caused by the "fly by wire" sytem getting it all wrong and not allowing the pilot to apply the necessary recovery action. We can only hope the system is fully sorted now. Not so easy to get such a system 100% right for all circumstances. The Tornado control system is very good however and is truly delightful to fly. Difficult to believe it is a computer operated system.

Les

FlightMan

That used to worry the heck out of me as well. The initial noise, then all quiet, the "drop" and then the noise and climb again. I say used to, because I know what it is now.
I can only speak from a Heathrow perspective, but our noise monitors are all
about 3 miles from the start of the runway. Hence pilots will climb, reduce thrust over the monitors ( to reduce noise ), then throttle up again. Its that simple!

mart360

I flew from mexico city to Hermosillo last year, roughly a 2-3 hr flight..

when we took off there was a big, and i mean big!! storm to the left of me..

lightning non stop... after about 30 mins i nodded off, when i awoke i thought the storm had finished... NOPE it was on the right.

i had to identify myself to the cabin crew, cos my lugage had been left behind..

when we got out of the terminal it was like a bomb was going off.. rain was hammering down, overhead transformers were blowing and the city was in near darkness... it was a very big storm!!!


we had similar when we flew out of Graz in austria, we hit 34,000 ft, and the big anvil cloud out of our window was still climing above us (gulp)

had a few neg pressure drops, and the screaming brigade kicked off..


its amazing what alcohol can do!!

MArt

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Essentially correct: the Airbus (all of them) work in various "modes", set by a big dial on the top of the control panel. This includes things like "Take-off", "Climb", "Descent", "Landing" etc. Each mode only allows the pilot to do certain things - if he attempts anything else the plane assumes he is doing something wrong and therefore ignores him (90% of crashes are pilot error). In this case the pilot should have changed from "Landing" to "Take-off" but forgot. When he pushed the trottles open the plane assumed this was a mistake and that he was still trying to land - so the engines never span up. Crash.

An accident in India was caused in a connected fashion: the plan was in Landing (IIRC) rather than Descent mode. At the top of the control panel is a big digital display of the main thing that the pilot wants to see - but WITHOUT UNITS! The display should have showed descent rate, but was actually showing something different - but the pilot thought it was the descent rate and couldn't understand why the figure was too low. So he kept increasing the forward stick movement. Crunch.

Then there was the DC10 that crashed in the Everglades because the crew were trying to find a pencil on the floor to test a bulb (you push the recessed bulb in to test the lighting circuit - if it lights, the bulb is fine and the problem is real) and no-one noticed the autopilot had been knocked off..


M

Leslie

Very interesting to hear how the Airbus system works in that you have to select different modes depending on the stage of flight. In all due seriousness I would say that a system like that is an accident waiting to happen! Just the sort of thing that could happen with a late "go around" surely when the crew are in a stressful and heavily occupied situation. Only an engineer could design such a system!

Can you back up that generalisation that aircrew error is responsible for 90% of aircraft accidents Meridian. Seems a bit unfair to me.

Les

Dieseldog

If it ain't Boeing, I'm not going

messiah

Coming back from Gran Canaria - our Britannia filght had been double booked (Nice one Thomson!) so our plane load of passengers had to go with someone called scandic airlines (or something like). Got no idea what plane we were on but it was so ancient I was half expecting to be sat next to Indiana Jones. The cabin crew were all kids, there was no telly (!) and all the overhead lockers shook for the whole flight. One woman across the aisle spent 4 and a half hours in the crash position... shouldn't laugh really but it was amusing.

Heard a tale from a woman I used to work with who had an aborted landing at Manchester. A sudden strong gust of wind blew the plane off line enough to mean it was gonna miss the runway...

Graz

Yes I have. It's like landing on a supermarket car park The only fly small passenger jets into the airport. Seem to remember the pilot saying something about the landing and a bit of reverse thrust being needed etc. He wasn't kidding

Closest I've been to any real problems when flying was a flight back from Frankfurt. It didn't get off the stand due to problems during the pre-flight check, think a flap mechanism was broken or similar. Still glad they found out about it then and not when we were in flight.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Hi all,

The incidnet that sticks out in my mind was landing on a soaking wet runway in a 767 looking foward to my holiday in Florida and at the same time
thinking, blimey, this pilot has had the reverse thrust on for a long time without using the wheel brakes. At which point the brakes came on...apparently 767s don't have ABS!! Right near the end of the landing you could feel the plane skid to the right slightly. Shortly after, the pilot applied some power to take us onto the taxi way. I think he was just trying to pull off a powerslide....good lad!

www.amigoingdown.com nice site, quite re-assuring too.

I have an airline pilot friend who's always an illluminating chat. Apparently, the situation many pilots fear most in a twin engine plane is an engine failing just above v1 (i.e the speed up until which the pilot can abort the take off) but below v2 (i.e the minimum speed at which the plane can safely lift off with one engine failed). I asked him what then, he said, "generally it's not a problem as long as you've got a fairly long runway to gain the required speed". What if you haven't, I enquired.

"Well" he sighed, "there's always the nearest motorway I guess!"

Best.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

[QUOTE

Then there was the DC10 that crashed in the Everglades because the crew were trying to find a pencil on the floor to test a bulb (you push the recessed bulb in to test the lighting circuit - if it lights, the bulb is fine and the problem is real) and no-one noticed the autopilot had been knocked off..


M[/QUOTE]
Except the Aligators! :-O

catalunya199again

when i was in the army we flew to kabul in 2002 when it was kicking off. im pretty sure we were in a galaxy or the step down from that. we were over the mountains of afghanistan it was night as well (so its harder for them to see us and shoot us with rpg). we were cruising just fine when all of a sudden there were quite a few flashes outside the windows, werent sure if it was enemy fire or flares deploying then we must of dropped about 500ft in a straight line, stomach in mouth by now. we landed about 15 mins later at kabul airport and must of hit it at an alarming speed i thought the wheels would snap of thats how hard we hit, i never found out what it was or why we dropped like that

hedgehog

I agree Les that this is a problem in many areas of life, engineers are usually the people least well positioned to decide what operators require from the gear they will be using. The worst thing on earth is an engineer who has a head full of bright ideas but no practical experience and, unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of them about. This seems especially true in real time and mission critical situations where all it takes is someone who doesn't understand the real world to have a "good idea" and everyone is in trouble.

From what I recall the Airbus system was changed so that when go around power was applied the system decided that it was going back up. I dread to think what other bugs are in there and believe that one such bug was at the root of the long glide into the Azores as well, the pilot had seen problems with the display before and so believed the information he was getting was incorrect so he opened the cross flow valve to balance the fuel load up and poured the fuel in both wing tanks out a hole.

As you imply I would not be convinced that 90% of errors are down to the operator. Usually the operator is acting on the information available and if there are booby traps in the system then they are most likely to be discovered on a bad day. The fact that the operator discovers them doesn't mean that it is his fault they were designed into the system in the first place.