Jaybird-UK

ANA passenger aircraft rolls after the co pilot flicks the wrong switch

What the heck was this single switch then? Maverick/Iceman mode on|off ?

http://video.uk.msn.com/watch/video/...tokyo/2g5lgcf0

Dedrater

I think that switch is called a I just s*it my pants switch.

FlightMan

First Office hit the rudder trim switch switch, which is 10cm away from the cockpit door open switch. He was just letting the Capt back in from a toilet break.

He probably needed another one after that!

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I wonder how many people demanded a free flight after than

RobsyUK

iTrader: (2)

how many were not wearing their belts and flew all over the place?

Jaybird-UK

The G held them in

DaveD

iTrader: (2)

It was dark and not many passengers even knew what had happened because the aircraft maintained positive g

PaulC72

Theres a design fault if I ever heard one. Important buttons like the cockpit door open should be kept away from the rudder buttons

boxst

I was in a 'plane that dropped a 1000 feet (maybe more) according to the pilot. I thought I was going to die and did not want to get back on a 'plane again after that.

Pilot came on, said sorry, said something about unexpected pocket of air (?) whilst everyone was looking very sick and very scared.

Off for a 10 hour flight tomorrow (Sunday), wish me luck!

Brun

Could a passenger plane really roll fast enough for the G to keep people seated?
I can't believe for a second that not many passengers knew. Surely to maintain pos G it would have to have been a fairly violent roll.

All of this is guessing as the only thing i know about flying is how to get the attention of the trolly dollies to acquire another drink

CrisPDuk

Yes they can, it's all about the position of the centre of the roll.

There is a very famous film of Tex Johnson, performing a full 360 degree roll whilst demonstrating the all new Boeing 707. The guests and crew aboard remained in their seats throughout.

Here it is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vHiYA6Dmws

what would scooby do

They also microwave the pasties

hot hot hot

CrisPDuk

Brun

Impressive - i would love to see footage from inside that type of stunt.
As a passenger though - you must be very aware that the plane is rolling though?

CrisPDuk

Not sure, I've never been in one. I don't hink

But I would suspect that if the aircraft maintained about +1g and you had no external references (night-time, closed windows), you would probably detect some movement but possbly not how much

I think Les may be the man to answer this one for us

Brun

Calling Les

billythekid

Modern air liners are actually quite agile. So yes quite easy to keep +ve g.
Also, in the dark, with lowish g loads its hard to keep your orientation, even more so in the cabin. Plenty of crashes have been attributed to pilots losing their orientation.

Most modern aircraft have a 'bank limit' set into the auto pilot.
So you never really get into high angles but they can still be thrown around if the pilot relay wants too.

Jaybird-UK

I looked at the official flight report (in Japanese PDF) and the picture shows two very different switches. Translation courtesy of Google so may be way off, but how would you get this mistaken for each other?



The flight data looks like some rollercoaster of a ride! , to me, that looks like they pulled close to 3G?

Leslie

Only just seen this. The video wont work for me unfortunately.

I dont understand the term "trim ladder switch" If they mean the rudder trim control switch then I can understand that if he held it over for a specific amount of time, that would apply a rudder force. If that caused the autopilot to disengage than the aircraft might roll towards the direction that the trim was applied fairly slowly and one would also feel a sideways force due to the aircraft's sideslip. That may not have registered to the pilot at the time.

If the first officer was not paying attention to the aircraft attitude then it might roll fairly slowly towards the inverted. He would be being well in the wrong to allow that to happen of course. The nose would drop and the aircraft would eventually enter a spiral dive if there was no recovery action. Recovery would involve pretty positive control movements to restore the aircraft to straight and level flight and could well involve highish G forces. That would depend on the pilot's style of using the controls during the recovery. I see that the Mach no. did not get all that high which was pretty fortunate and the indicated air speed also did not increase too badly. The nose low pitch must have been recovered fairly quickly. Maybe he used speedbrakes as well.

140 degrees of roll is fairly high, also depending on how low the nose dropped at the time. not irrecoverable luckily, I have many times had a Vulcan banked to 180 degrees of roll as a matter of course during displays. I always kept the nose on the horizon until the aircraft was recovering to a lesser angle of bank on the exit of a wingover.

It may well be that the aircraft got to that position due to unintended application of rudder trim with the autopilot disconnected while the operating pilots attention was distracted while trying to unlock the door.

Not a very good thing to happen on an airliner of course and they were all pretty lucky to get away with it.

Les

Tidgy

are you sure that the mig didn't have missile lock and he was told 'break now jester?'

CREWJ

That's pretty impressive from a plane of that size.

Nimbus

Isn't that upside down?

billythekid

Holy crap! The data is not good to see! 3G for 30 seconds, not a *lot* but it is a lot for a pax airliner, IYSWIM!

Also there are 2 clear spikes from 1G to 3G. Anyone stood up would struggle to stay on their feet thats for sure.

Its also worth mentioning that the average modern airliner is rated to about 3G. Some of the really new stuff is slightly higher, 3.5 ish, but thats about the max design limit. Actual operational limit will be much below this, at 2G approx. I would say they have been lucky not to have a structural failure of some kind.

There is also the issue of objects causing serious injury and damage at high bank / roll AND high G... objects very quickly become fast moving 100kg+ projectiles.

Swift Nick

Called freestyling nowdays

Jaybird-UK

Good point, a drinks trolley on casters could have been catastrophic

Leslie

Yes of course.

les