EK near-disaster or typical Indian media froth?

[Geebz]

Emirates flight suffers air pocket fall, plunges 15,000 feet - India - The Times of India (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Emirates-flight-suffers-air-pocket-fall-plunges-15000-feet/articleshow/5855390.cms)

TV here is reporting "air disaster narrowly avoided." And "15,000' air pocket"

yeah, right.

[filejw]

Little early to be speculating either way don't you think...:O

[stylo4444]

There are several articles from various media sources out now:

'Emirates pilot couldn't avoid Cumulonimbus cloud'- TIMESNOW.tv - Latest Breaking News, Big News Stories, News Videos (http://www.timesnow.tv/Emirates-pilot-couldnt-avoid-Cumulonimbus-cloud/articleshow/4343790.cms)

Doesn't bode well for the pilot, although he should be applauded for recovering the jet and landing safely. A hero in the eyes of most people...however, I'm not sure how EK mgmt will feel. Yikes.

[NG_Kaptain]

From Spectators Balcony (Spotters Corner)

Emirates Flight from DXB-COK cruising at FL350 hit severe turbulence at 0230 UTC and lost 200 ft. Some pax have sustained injuries and were reportedly the ones not wearing their seat belts. The overhead bins opened and the luggage has fallen out. Also the video shows the cabin in a chaotic state.Some channles are reporting 18000 ft loss but the Emirates have reported 200 ft loss.
Does anyone remember any severe turbulence or air pockets over this region in clear air ?

[Bidalot]

loss of 18000 ft and recovered at 1500ft??? Forget it. Do rather believe 200ft but let's see

[Aussie]

yeah i think that 200ft sounds more like it... but dont let the truth get in the way of a good story :)

[mensaboy]

Clearly the media has once again gotten things wrong. Perhaps this was a serious incident and even though my initial inclination is to believe it was fairly serious, the News reports aren't credible. Hopefully EK will get the true info out asap.

Unfortunately, things like this do happen and often times it comes without warning. Does anyone know if this was a training flight, as it showed 3 pilots on the portal?

In my humble opinion, EK has poor weather avoidance training, or lack thereof. Part of it is due to the fact that we don't regularly fly in poor weather and part of it is due to the fact that many of us don't have a great deal of TRW experience (trainers included). Africa can supply some massive storms and the monsoon season can be challenging yet the guys from NA seem to demonstrate the best abilities and proper respect for TRW's, as compared to most of my colleagues. They just seem to know when to completely avoid cells or when it is best to zig-zag their way thru them.

I have seen some guys at EK do bizzarre things when it comes to TRW's in spite of the fact they were otherwise competent pilots. A couple of examples to illustrate my point.

-Radar tilt at zero descending in the mid-to-lower levels during descent and basically flying around the red patches that were clearly cities.

-One training dude going into TRV became incredibly agitated (to the point of losing situational awareness) because I was not avoiding the gazillion red patches on the radar... because he persisted in changing my selected tilt setting.... to -0.5! No TRW's or turbulence by the way.

Then the guy who deviated 10 left, then 15 right, then 80 left to avoid daytime TRW's that were about 4000' below our altitude and separated by about 30 miles. That only cost about 1 tonne of fuel which became the bigger issue later in the flight aside from the fact we crossed about 4 other airways without contact with the African ATS services!

On the other hand, and agreeably much worse than being TOO conservative, are the few guys who are oblivious to what is so blatantly obvious on the radar or even directly in their line of sight. I have had to question my partner on several occasions if he was seriously planning on flying through the cell directly in front of us on the climb-out! Their typical response was.... well its just one cell and we will be thru it in a minute or so. My response was..... yeah but the crew is performing their duties and it would take us about 20 seconds extra flying time to deviate !! (traffic and ATC was not an issue either)

My apologies for going off on a tangent about TRW's. Every single pilot flying widebody jets around the world should have an in-depth and practical knowledge of TRW's but it seems to be sometimes lacking here.

Once again, I have to reiterate that I am not criticizing any actions taken on the part of the pilots of that flight. Nobody could make that assessment now (except of course OUR management team). Those moments were probably just bad luck.

Obviously if the aircraft was grounded and a recovery flight was dispatched, then either the crew was traumatized or the aircraft experienced G loads that required a certain amount of maintenance inspection.

[Fellowship of the drink]

Is this the red eye Cochin were talking about?

If it is then fatigue IS a factor as well. We've all been through the though 3 am departure with little rest during the day before (because we're human) and we all know how slow our brains work at that time of day.

God knows how many night flights he has had and how many hours he has flown. Easy on our colleague please. It could be any one of us being on the sharp end of the stick that day.

FOTD

[stylo4444]

Indications are that this was a situation of the a/c encountering CAT even though there are plenty of reports that still say that the a/c was flying into a cloud when this happened, one report saying that the pilot had no way of avoiding the cumulonimbus cloud.

Aircraft grounded in Cochin for extensive maintenance checks. I've read that there were up to 364 passengers and crew on the flight...does the 777-200 really have that kind of capacity? I guess on a two-class it might be the case, but good Lord EK sure packs in a lot of seats on those 777s. :eek:

[411A]

I've read that there were up to 364 passengers and crew on the flight...does the 777-200 really have that kind of capacity?

Don't know why not...it's a tad larger than my L1011 and I can get 362 passengars plus 14 crew on...every flight.

[Togalk]

777-200 up to 346 pax
777-300 up to 442 pax

[Saltaire]

362 pax's in an L1011; comfortable ride :eek:

I think mensa has some good points. Weather avoidance training and prudent use of weather radar should be included in initial and recurrents. It looks like this was indeed a training mission for a new transfer from the Bus :ouch:....but as mentioned, the 3am departure wouldn't help - fair comment.

[togapilot]

Try this:

'Emirates pilot couldn't avoid Cumulonimbus cloud'- TIMESNOW.tv - Latest Breaking News, Big News Stories, News Videos (http://www.timesnow.tv/Emirates-pilot-couldnt-avoid-Cumulonimbus-cloud/articleshow/4343790.cms)

The CB's in this region can be very nasty especially this time of the year. I think the aircraft flew into the CB followed by excessive control inputs resulting in loss of control. I would fit the altitude loss between the bandwidth of 200-20000 to say a few thousand feet perhaps, unless things got out of hand in the flight deck, which is also a possibility given that these days the guys flying the 777, especially in the right seat don't quite comprehend what a rudder deflection at high altitude can do to a BIG JET. This could also be a good clue to what may have happened to AF447. Feel bad for the guys in the seat.

[White Knight]

Togapilot - no altitude loss FYI... And I hear (may be totally wrong) that the guy in the right seat was a training skipper..
Neither is it the monsoon season yet:rolleyes:

[LongExcursion]

Early release media reports are inaccurate and unreliable at the best of times. Journalists no longer wait for facts, they jostle for front page headlines and then subordinate less sensational developments to the back pages. -200 feet: likely. -18,000 feet: crap.

[NG_Kaptain]

Do believe they lost 35000 feet, but that is because they had to land...
I always loose many thousands of feet every time I fly, it's part of the job. You go up then you come back down again.

[kumul1]

Nice one NG;), and the levelling off at 1500 ft was because the CDA calculations were slightly off so they had to level off to configure.

[palm]

Why are they removed from roster then, the 3 of them.......time will tell but according to them nothing happened on that day, as usual good communication and feedback for all the community.....

[EGGW]

[B]togapilot[B/] can you pleease return to your flight sim game and stay there. This wild speculation is unhelpful. The press love a story. 200 = no story, so they adjust the figures to 20000, et volia sensational headlines.

The auto function of the T7 radar is being done on the latest recurrent. Maybe they haven.t done the course.

EGGW

[HAWK21M]

200ft.Lots of Cabin damage as per pics obsered.There was a report on minor structural damage too.Not sure though.

[Geebz]

I don't know about you guys but I get paid by the minute. Going around all weather never hurt anyone and only helps reduce my stress.

I have flown with guys in India who think nothing of punching through CBs or get their panties in a bunch about going off course 'cause they want to get back home "on time." Not to mention Captains I've done LCs with who don't feel it necessary to seat the FAs when deviating around wx.