If all is true and they didnīt screw up the electrics, this is how it should be done! Finally a crew that does not give up, but reverts to the basics of flying, saves all people on board and the ship. There are still some pilots that donīt just push FMS buttoms but know their trade. My full respect and congratulation to the crew.
A Turkish Airlines Airbus A310-300, flight TK1123 from Istanbul (Turkey) to Lagos (Nigeria) with 196 people on board, lost all navigation instruments and communication radios ......
A hand held VHF and GPS would have been a blessing I would have thought. Even though I only fly VFR here in Thailand, I never leave the ground without both - just in case. Well done those Turks!!
The fuselage is basically a Faraday cage, blocking out most radio signals. In the back, the windows are portals for EMF. Up front, the windshield blocks RF due to deposited gold or other metals in the heating elements leaving only the side windows. The small RF passageway combined with all of the EMF noise from instruments, inverters, fans etc makes for a pretty tough operating environment for a handheld. When the aircraft is powered, good luck with VHF band signals.
Best signal to noise ratio is when you are all dark in there.
If you've lost all the electrics then chances are it won't interfere with anything on transmit, and even if you can't receive, at least you can alert the world to the fact that you're up there in the dark and could they please turn on the lights.
Is the Herald report accurate where it implies that the lights were only on because of another aircraft movement? I know that unmanned airfields often have the lights connected to the radio system (not much use in this case, obviously) but this was a manned site.
The fuselage is basically a Faraday cage, blocking out most radio signals. In the back, the windows are portals for EMF. Up front, the windshield blocks RF due to deposited gold or other metals in the heating elements leaving only the side windows. The small RF passageway combined with all of the EMF noise from instruments, inverters, fans etc makes for a pretty tough operating environment for a handheld. When the aircraft is powered, good luck with VHF band signals.
Actually, I've seen handheld R/T's demoed by AOPA types on the flight deck on modern Boeings and Airbuses. They do work, perhaps could get you by in an emergency.
Older GPS's don't work from the flight deck of the newer planes but recent models with the SiRF III chipset seem to work fine. I carry a PDA GPS and a Microsoft USB GPS for my notebook, they are usable near the side windows. ADS-B planes have a separate GPS in the CDTI electronics, seems like you can get a latlong readout from one of the maintenance pages.
There have been previous A-310's that have lost all the screens and IRS's, usually due to equipment cooling faults. One of these was a TXL based PAA plane as I recall.
There was a massive overwater Boeing EFIS malfunction in 1996 that was finally blamed on a faulty main battery shunt:
There have been previous A-310's that have lost all the screens and IRS's, usually due to equipment cooling faults. One of these was a TXL based PAA plane as I recall.
There was a massive overwater Boeing EFIS malfunction in 1996 that was finally blamed on a faulty main battery shunt:
A320 also had at least one occurence: the BA A320 that lost all it's displays....
Edit: that one just popped up in another thread (and actually it was an '319).
Last edited by golfyankeesierra : 16th August 2008 at 10:14.
A handheld Garmin III GPS works well next to the window of L1 on the A310. Once you get locked on, you can bring it into the cockpit and receive next to your left widow. It stays there nicely as well.
I almost always have my Garmin 295 on the glareshield, works perfectly, although signal strength is about 1/2 when not recieving thru the B737-300/400 windscreens. King KX99 transciever has also been used when we had total radio failure about 5 years ago on a B727-200, reception very good, transmission range limited....acknowledged all ATC instructions with "squawk Ident" as well as transmissions, stayed within 25NM of the field and never lost communications.
We had a similar situation at night where we lost nearly everything but one iru comm vor and stby instruments. All but one of the flatpanel displays crapped out and we couldn't see each other sitting right next to each other. Billowing white clouds rolled out of the cracks. It was actually raining in the cockpit.
Problem: misfited or omitted aircond/pack waterbags. Nobody would admit who really screwed up on that one....
I heard a noise in the back and assumed it was the copilot gone to investigate.
I yelled: Patrick! Get up here! I'm going to need your help on this!
In a very quiet voice he said: "Pac, I'm right here next to you...."
One IRU stayed working with one pfd, otherwise it would have been grim.
Suspect that there are now two more pilots that will fly with a handheld GPS in their flight bags on the offchance that they might get a signal !
Gutsy choice, staying offshore to avoid issues with terrain and obstacles while engaged in a bit of night VFR at low level till they got a clear shot at a set of runway lights. Hoping the local ATC were on their game with the radar (and that it wasn't U/S) so they wouldn't bump in to any other user of the runway lights while not transponding or receiving (no TCAS), and if the story is true about not knowing where they landed, taking a bit of a punt on the runway length by visual assessment of the lights at night. Of course, this being Africa, you could also throw in the possibility of being shot at !
Probably best option available, many TK pilots ex-military, wonder how some of the career button pushers and dedicated SOP slaves would have approached this one ?
Many congratulations and a standing ovation to the Turkish crew. Many many thanks also to the Kenya 513 crew : they were helping the Turkish all the time, giving information about the area, suggesting vectors, giving weather info, relaying between the 1123 and Accra control, asking other aircraft to not congest the frequency, since all new contacting a/c were not aware of the situation. My question is : since Accra has a radar, why not giving vectors to the Turkish ? Why not informing him about his position ? The only interest of the controller seems to be "souls on board and fuel remaining ?" !!! Another enormity : as soon as the a/c landed in Lome, on top of all what happened in the air, the pilots had been given a roasting by the Lome controller : he started shouting on the freq : WHY HAVE YOU LANDED WITHOUT CONTACTING ME AND WITHOUT ASKING FOR A CLEARANCE ??? No comment !
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