Air Drama Unfolding Over Lancashire
 

A US Airways Boeing 767-201 on flight no. US711 has been circling over the St. Helens area this morning to burn off its fuel before attempting a landing at Manchester Airport.
No one knows why they requested to land at Manchester.

It's on it's way to the runway now.
Wonder what it's all about?

http://www.flightradar24.com/

Locate Manchester, go to playback and enter 13.00 hours and look for the plane. Code AWE711

You're right, it appeared to circle over St. Helens for ages. Now just landed at Manchester I think. Was going to Chicago from Zurich yes?

That website is really interesting

That's the one.

Other planes are landing again there so I guess that it was an OK landing.

The local radio were keeping tight lipped when I phoned them, they just said that the pilot requested Manchester and no other airport.

It certainly is :)

Click on a plane, then in the left panel that opens click on the plane Reg. and you get taken to another page where there is info about the plane plus a list of sites that have images of the plane.

If I am right in thinking Manchester has the longest runway of airports in the north of the UK so I wonder if that is why he wanted Manchester!

That's right, they have a second runway too so in theory if one is closed off the other can be used.

The plane appears on the screen at 11.16. that's a long time to be circling for.

Confirmed by Radio Merseyside, it was a technical problem, plane is due to depart again later today.
Everyone safe and no problems when landing.:thumb:

:thumb: Just heard it myself!

Nope, the one at Robin Hood is longer.

Robin Hood 2837m vs Manchester 3048m.... can't believe I looked that up.... slow day here :lol1:

This is where you get real stats from....

http://www.ukaccs.info/profiles.htm

You would be surprised who owns these airports too.

The plane has taken off again.
I wonder what the passengers are thinking?

Reminds me of the time my old boss took off from City Airport in London. the first takeoff was aborted as a warning appeared. Engineers boarded the plane and fixed the issue and the plane taxied round for a second go.

The captain came over the tannoy and said 'Just before we attempt our seocnd takeoff of the day I am going to ask the cabin crew to go through the safety procedures once again and something tells me you will be listening this time' :lol1:

That's my thinking; Seeing that its the only airport in the UK that will accept the Antonov AN-225

(World's largest airplane thats still in service to anyone who doesn't know...google it :cool: ).



I'll take a wild stab that its a undercarriage issue (not locked properly or something).

:)

That's a BIG plane!!!!

You Tube

Amazing you can get all of that info from that Flightradar site.

The Antonov 225 going into Manchester may be due to taxiways rather than the runway itself.

Come on, they wernt coming for the sunshine!

could be a number of things, a hydraulic failure (or light indicating so) which would mean some flaps were inoperable at landing, meaning a lighter aircraft would be easier to stop with sub standard braking capabilities.
this can be quite common, and is often a result of faulty indicator lights rather than landing equipment, but the crew have a protocol to folllow to minimise risk. a landing with reduced braking capability can lead to overheated brakes and potentially undercarraige fires, or even an overshooting of the runway.
seems they took decisions to land as light an aircraft as possible - depending on there reeasoning, id say agree with the guys flying the plane :thumb:

id guess they had a warning light that indicated low hydraulic pressure in one of the flap/alerions ect - which would mean lower than normal braking performance.

more then likely just a fault in the swithc ect but saftey actions need to be followed. unlocked undercarraige would be way down my list of scenarios - altho not impossible.

I'm proved wrong then.

Robin Hood, ex RAF Finningley must have had the longest RAF base runway then.

It was always something they went on about on open days.

that site is good. whats cool is when you click on an aircraft there is a cockpit view at the bottom using google earth and real time data you can see out the cockpit window!

Oh, yes, I'd forgotten about that feature

Here's an example for you.

http://www.flightradar24.com/AAL141/view (only valid whilst the plane is flying.)

Like you, I thought it was the longest in England (st athans may have been longer),
but my memory is from the 1960's when my father was stationed there - believe it was lengthened to accommodate the Vulcan..

With CAA legislation any r/w need to far extent any expected aircraft likely to use it, same as likely RFFS availability.

itll only be the most heaviuly laden cat 8 or 9 aricraft that couldnt use most uk airstrips. even then in emergencies it maybe possible, with colsure of many raf bases we see more and more milititary aircraft using our runwamy includning C17 aircraft, or code e cat 8 - which are huge!

Don't forget the second runway at Manchester is relatively new although I think they are both over 3km, but anyway not posting that in 'a pi55ing up the wall contest' context, just I remember reading that about Manchester quite recently.

Theres an awfull ot less to hit in the surrounding area, though. Wiping out Finningley village would be acceptable collateral damage! :D

Oh I don't know, no one would miss Wythenshawe or half of its inhabitants either ;) :D

Nothing more exciting than a problem with the air conditioning system.....