vindaloo

ROFL.... A "Police Aware" sticker would do the job

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

I think it was GoldenEye too

No passengers were hurt in the making of this joke

Account deleted by request

We shall see but my train of thought is similar.

I have to say I have absolutely no aviation experience (apart from being a regular flyer) so it is an un-qualified view - I just smell something thats not right.

However it may be that the pilot did a superb job and saved many lives.

We shall see.

chop

SirFozzalot

Impressive stuff.

FlightMan

BAW38 performed a perfectly normal arrival, right up until radar coverage of the flight ends. That's approx 600ft from the ground. There is no indication of anything wrong with the aircraft, or its approach, up until that point. What happened after that, I can't say.

Snazy

Cant help but wonder what the bizarre twist is that caused all this..... But the stories take so long to investigate, it will be long forgotton before we get the official word.

Keep the info coming though mate all very interesting.

So from the radar, it was not bobbing up and down, making severe turns, or WAY off flight course as some "eye witnesses" have reported?

FlightMan

Did any passengers on the plane speak about " bobbing up and down, making severe turns, or WAY off flight course "

Put a microphone in front of Joe Public and he'll say whatever he thinks will get him on the radio/tv.

That's it from me for now. Lets wait for the experts to tell us what happened.

Snazy

Your 100% right mate I totally agree. Just loving the media spin. But not helping the industry.
Watching the ongoing stuff on Sky News.

53 flights cancelled today from lots of operators, god im glad the holiday is out of the way.

A Delta jet arrived at Punta Cana yesterday morning when we were leaving, and GOD was it making a noise!
Was turned round in just over an hour, so I still wonder what the clattering coming from the jet was!

Shark Man

Yes, LOL. Some of the quotes from witnesses in the pictures section of the Sky News website made me laugh.

One said it was going backwards and forwards in the sky.

Another said the tail end of the plane was lower than the front as it came into land.


Says it all really

StickyMicky

in the paper today, that the computer glitched, pulled the nose up and dropped the engine power, slamming it intop the ground

probaly got a RROD

bugeyeandy

Say no more

Geddon

My first guess was ran out of gas. The 'total loss of power' and lack of fire lend some weight to this but then people say they heard the engines gunning so quite odd. Also the cabin had no warning which may imply the power was off for comms.

Very unlikely to be the pilot imo. My dad was a 777 captain for BA (retired now) and they are all extremely profesional - not some eastern block trainees!

Its extremely unlikely to be using autoland- that is only normally used in v bad weather. My only guess was maybe the reverse thrusters screwed up but more likely something microsoft() based if both engines were affected.

Nido

Errr, they all do that mate!

bugeyeandy

From the photos i've seen today it "appears" that No 1 engine was running at time of impact and it "appears" that No 2 engine was not running at time of impact.

Shark Man

Exactly!

Leslie

We just don't know enough yet to say why it happened of course. It has been reported that it lost all power at about 400 feet or so. That is a horrific thing to happen. Large arcraft make a powered approach at the "Approach Speed" which is calculated for the aircraft weight at the time. The power will maintain the normal angle of approach(3 degrees) untill it arrives at the threshold of the runway where the speed is reduced to the calculated threshold speed (a bit lower) and the aircraft flown level just above the runway until it touches down with the power off.

If the power fails then the angle of approach can no longer be maintained and the aircraft will descend more quickly if the approach speed is maintained.

What this chap would have had to do is to trade the excess speed above the threshold speed or just slightly below that in order to "stretch the glide" in an effort to reach the runway. At 400 feet which is more that a mile away he would never have been able to reach this. He seems to have done the very best possible and with a bit of delicate and skillful flying, managed to make it past the houses and roads on the approach to the grass undershoot. He must have had a bit of an "arrival" since he was running out of speed above the stall and that broke the undercarriage due to a combination of a heavy arrival and the drag of the very soft wet earth.

The controls these days are usually hydraulically operated but each control surface has its own hydraulic ram powered by a pump driven by its own electric motor. So you need electrical power to run the controls. The ram air turbine and the airborne power unit would probably provide electrical power after the loss of the engines. I am not certain of the 777 systems of course. The controls may need a central supply of hydraulic power to run them and tha Ram Air Turbine may provide that. The Airborne Power Unit is usually running during an approach to land, or we certainly did that on the Vulcan and the VC10.

It was reported that he was senn with about 45 degrees of bank on the approach. This is a very high angle at this stage of flight and maybe he was trying to avoid a flock of large birds. A Canada Goose could easily take an engine out I bet. I have had a Vulcan engine destroyed by just one seagull!

On the other hand, I dont know how the throttle system works on the 777 but if it is like the Airbus, it might be totally computer operated. I remember the Airbus crashing on a demo flight because the computer for its own reasons would not allow the pilot to increase power during a low level flypast! Hope it was not a glitch which made the computers shut the engines down-such as spurious fire warnings! I reckon that if the reverse thrust had engaged, they would have crashed before the undershoot. The thrust buckets act as extremely effective airbrakes even without power. The Tornado buckets feel like you have put the brakes on before you even open the throttles.

Apologies for the long post, I think the pilot apears to have pulled off an amazing escape but we will not be able to say more until the facts are revealed.

Les

Boro

iTrader: (1)

The blade test vid was pretty spectacular. I then found some 777 vids on youtube.

These landings amaze me. How can such a massive piece of kit be guided inch perfect like this.

YouTube - Boeing 777 on final approach in high cross wind compo

billythekid

Further to my first post the APU and the RAT were both running from the photos on heathrowpictures.com

From what I understand the RAT is very loud when its running. Also apparently some of the geeks on PPRuNe ran some sims today with engine failure at 400 feet and the brid came down at about the same point.

billythekid

That engine was not running at the time of impact.

http://www.heathrowpictures.com/pict...72_gymmm20.jpg


This one looks like it was.

http://www.heathrowpictures.com/pict...772_gymmm3.jpg

FlightMan

Les, the track across the ground is spot on, so I'd dispute the member of the public's 45 of bank comment. It was gusty yesterday so it could well have been a crosswind approach with the longitudinal axis of the plane at 45 degrees to the runway. Maybe that's what he meant?
As for being out of fuel, the amount of A1 in the area would contradict that. The lighting pits were full of it for starters.

Leslie

Yes it does look as though it has lost the front compressor stage but could that be due to a bird strike on the approach. The other engine certainly looks undamaged compared with the second one. Could still have had no engines at all though. How embarassing if the wrong emgine was shut down after a bird strike!

Les

j4ckos mate

PPRUNE IS STILL FOOKED

Snazy

"Catastrophic power failure" is the statement they are making at the mo.

How long til that changes

Leslie

Snazy,

I dont know the approach speed and threshold speed for the 777 but an educated guess would be about 150 ish knots, or 193 mph on the approach and about 135 knots or 173 mph threshold speed at the beginning of the runway. He probably had to stretch it to about 120 knots to make it to the grass bit.

Les

Snazy

I know it seems a cruel sorta thing to say, well, more uneducated about these matters really. But I am interested to know if the pilot actually aided the safe landing, or if it just all panned out ok.

Either way, im still pleased to see a structure of that size touch down and stay intact at such a speed

astraboy

http://www.heathrowpictures.com/pict...772_gymmm3.jpg
I agree, looks like it was going at a fair old lick too, sheared off compressor blades usually indicate high engine RPM on impact.
astraboy.

Nido

Also if it had run out of fuel both engines would not have died exactly at the same time, one will always carry on for a little longer than the other.

MartinM

Was that the "planespotter" on TV that said 45deg of bank and then used his arm to indicate what everyone would interpret to be 45deg of pitch (ie hand above elbow, forearm at 45deg)

Brit_in_Japan

Nice to see some informed comment Les

If I take Flightman's estimate that when dipping below radar at 600ft they are 1 min out, at 400ft there would have been about 40secs to landing, not the best time to lose thrust!

If they lost all electrics (it has been reported, but it's almost unprecedented in a modern airliner) then there is a reversionary FCS mode which gives the flight crew direct electrical control of the flight control actuators rather than via the FCS computers. Everything is double and triple redundant, apart from a flock of geese being sucked into both engines simultaneously, there should be negligible (like 1 x 10^-12) chance of two independent problems knocking out both engines at the same time.

Jumping the gun massively, but if there was any fundamental system weakness which could lead to common mode failure of both engines, it would require urgent fixes worldwide of the 777 fleet and the engineers at Boeing would be looking urgently at the 787 design.

Leslie

I did not say that he had 45 degrees of bank on as he touched down-that would have been fatal and it was supposed to be for a short time back up the approach path. That is why I said he might have been trying to avoid a flock of large birds which had suddenly appeared from below which is how it usually happens. Seen it often enough myself! We were used to that sort of thing during low level flying and the standard reaction is to pull up since frightened birds always fly downwards. 45 degrees of pitch nose up or down at on the approach would be shortly before a terminal crash!

He must have touched down with the wings level of course or with hardly any bank at all to get away with it and to travel straight towards the runway on the grass undershoot.

The point I was making above was that it is possible that he got a large bird in one engine which destroyed that and maybe the 1st pilot shut down the wrong engine by mistake-so no engines left! It would not be a quick job to relight the good engine and to spool it up again in time either at that stage of the approach. I have seen that sort of thing happen in the simulator!- thank goodness it was there. I hope that was not what really happened though-too embarassing!

As you say B in J, there might be a mechanical reversion to operating the controls if the computerised system failed-like the Tornado in fact, but electro hydraulic power would still be required to operate the control surfaces. The mechanical bit only directs the operation of the control surfaces.

Les