Olympic A340 Aiturnback

[gonso]

OA A340 had to return to Athens after bird ingestion and loss of thrust on #1 engine. (I believe it was #1 engine out, purely because that engine's reverser was not used for landing.)

Looking at the footage on the telly, it grabbed my attention the fact that the main gear doors were open on landing.

Being a Boeing driver all my carrier, I have no knowledge of Bus systems. So any Bus drivers could give us an idea?

If the hydraulic system responsible for the gear operation is not affected by the loss of #1 engine, I can only assume the gear was hit by birds (as well) on rotation, causing a leak that although allowed the gear to retract did not allow normal gear extension (hence the altn gear drop was used, hence the doors were open on landing).

[mymymy]

gonso,

Green sys hydraulic's (used for gear exension/retraction) powered by engines 1 and 4. With eng 1 Shutdown, I imagine EDP on engine 4 would provide more than enough power to retract or extend the gear.

Can you remember if the centerline gear was extended when you viewed the footage?

The centerline gear stays retracted when the free fall extension system is used.

Note: CLG does free fall on A340-500/600

3my

edited to add note

[gonso]

Well , it was hard to say about the centre gear.
The gear doors hanging between the two mains, were obscuring the image (sunny day, huge shadow under the belly). If I would have to make a guess, it probably was up. I was more focused on the doors and the stowed reverser on #1.

So from what you say, hyd pressure coming from 1+4 should not influence the gear retraction or extension (unless they lost 2 eng which I very much doubt). That's why I am asking you see. I find it hard to believe that a 4eng aircraft, loosing 1 eng, ends up with such a complicated situation as to have to extend the gear on altn on top of having a lost eng. :confused:

[mymymy]

No sir,

what I'm trying to say is that the green hydraulic system (Airbus loves colours) supplies the hydraulic pressure to extend/retract the gear. The Green system is normally powered by two engine pumps.....one on Eng #1 and the other on Eng #4.

If #1 Eng is lost due birdstrike, I believe the pressure provided by the Eng #4 pump would be sufficient to extend or retract the gear.

With that in mind, I, like you am also curious as to why a free fall extension was carried out.

rgds

3my

By the way, from airliners.net, it appears that OA only flies -300's.

[gonso]

Yes I got it.

So still a mystery.

Thanx for your reply:ok: