If you re-read some of the posts that first provided accurate info on the position and circumstances of the turn-around, then a couple regarding the overshoot, and even another from earlier today, you'll realise that some ATCO's that were very close to the event have contributed.
As for further contributions or details from ATCO's, as a result of how this unfolded, how long it went on for, and what was said, most feel exactly like the people at UPS right now. So you won't be hearing a lot from them for now.
wiggy, On the big jet freighters, the lower sill of the front exit door is several feet below the mainplane, and yards from the nearest engine. Just curl up into a ball and roll out, drop like a stone, then count to ten before pulling the ripcord, which is actually a large 'D' shaped handle.
Much as I appreciate the crews' desire to return for a safe landing pronto, I really don't think they would have opted to dump fuel with a fire onboard.
Boeing policy does not preclude jettison during any fire. Its all out there in Boeing pdf somewhere. As for the other posters parachute theory, really, have a word with yourself.
Ok, can I make a design suggestion? Fit the crew smoke hoods or goggles with Wi-Fi Heads Up Display with basic flight instruments. This crew would have appreciated that!
Last edited by Old Haltonian; 4th Sep 2010 at 20:37.
Actually flew with a skipper on the death ship who carried a paraglider reserve parachute in his flight bag - just in case! One of three guys in my career that I threatened to refuse to fly with.
We need to wait for the report before wondering if things like EVAS would have worked in this case. No-one knows where the fire was - we know they couldn't see well if at all - but one has to concider that, depending where the fire was, it could have burned right through the avionics wiring to the flight displays. It's very well possible that even if the smoke was cleared - they would have had no instruments anyway. What time did this happen? was it night?
For the other matter - can anyone here tell us if UPS planes are equiped with EVAS devices?
Plane's on fire, land ASAP, and I don't mean "nearest suitable"...ASAP means land on the desert below you, rather than out of control attempting to reach an airport...in the Valujet example, if the crew had done that (and I have flown with that Captain and she was "top notch") maybe the outcome would have been the same...but if only 20 out of the 100+ on board survived, well...
As for dumping fuel, if you have to manuver a heavy A/C at low altitude, especially if it's 100 tons overweight, and yoiu've never done it in an emerg situation, if you survive, you'll dump fuel next time...immediately...
Just to go back to Fridjmagnit's post, the "enthusiast" mentioned (I know him) did not "mine" the internet for data but had the info at his fingertips using an SBS box on his laptop. If you want to know what an SBS box is then you could go "mine" the internet.
ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--At the request of the families, UPS can now confirm that two of our crewmembers, Captain Doug Lampe of Louisville, Kentucky, and First Officer Matthew Bell of Sanford, Florida, lost their lives in the crash of Flight 6 yesterday, Sept. 3, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The two pilots were flying a 747-400 en route to Cologne, Germany, when it crashed near Dubai International Airport shortly after takeoff.
“This is a terrible tragedy, and all of us at UPS extend our deepest sympathies to the families and friends of both of these crewmembers,” said UPS CEO Scott Davis. “Our thoughts and prayers will continue to be with them during this difficult time.”
The UPS Family Assistance Team is working with the victims’ families to help them in their time of need.
Captain Lampe, 48, has been with UPS since 1995. First Officer Bell, 38, has been with UPS since 2006. Both crewmembers flew out of UPS’s Anchorage, Alaska domicile, or pilot base.
The aircraft, tail number N571UP, was just three years old, entering UPS service off the Boeing production line in September 2007. The airframe had flown 9977 hours, completing 1764 takeoffs and landings. It was up to date on all maintenance, having just completed a major inspection in June 2010.
UPS owns 12 747-400s, eight of which are new, and four of which have been purchased from other carriers and adapted for UPS use. The aircraft, which has a payload capacity of nearly 258,600 pounds, is used on long-range international routes, such as the regular Dubai-Cologne routing.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is dispatching an aviation investigation team to assist the General Civil Aviation Authority (GACC) of the United Arab Emirates in the crash investigation. The GCAA will take the lead on the investigation and release all information on the progress of the investigation.
NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman has designated senior air safety investigator Bill English as the U.S. accredited representative. His team will include NTSB specialists in the areas of human performance, fire, operations and systems. The team will also include technical advisors from the FAA, Boeing, UPS, GE and the Independent Pilots Association.
A UPS team has arrived in Dubai at this time and will cooperate with authorities in the investigation.
“We established an internal command center within minutes of learning of this tragedy. It will be staffed around the clock with experts from every part of our operation,” said UPS Airlines President Bob Lekites. “Safe, secure operations are our top priorities for our employees, our customers, and our public stakeholders.”
For the latest information on this incident, visit Home - UPS Pressroom, or call our reporter hot line at 502-320-0110.
Minhad is 09/27 rwy direction. They would have been approaching it at nearly an exactly perpendicular track where they came from after being too high at Dubai. There is nothing at all around the runway there so it would stand out if the runway lights were on.
which is wrong on many levels...
Minhad is a poorly lit runway, with approach and runway lighting that is not easily visible even at close range when prefectly aligned, with the often poor visibility there.
As he himself says, the aircraft in question was due North, perpendicular to the Minhad runway, making the runway virtually invisible given the directional lighting employed.
Further, there is a camel racing track just 2-3 km SouthEast of Minhad, which is very brightly lit with omni-directional lights, making it highly visible from a considerable distance, easily 20 or 30km. This would have appeared much, MUCH brighter than Minhad.
It is generally accepted that these unfortunate pilots couldn't see their instruments or frequency displays barely inches from their faces. Had they been able to see ANYTHING out of the window, the brightly lit straights of the camel track might have offered them some hope of a welcoming runway, and tempted them that way, rather than the poorly lit Minhad runway, which would have been virtually invisible from their position even in the best circumstances.
Plane's on fire, land ASAP, and I don't mean "nearest suitable"...ASAP means land on the desert below you, rather than out of control attempting to reach an airport...in the Valujet example, if the crew had done that (and I have flown with that Captain and she was "top notch") maybe the outcome would have been the same...but if only 20 out of the 100+ on board survived, well...
Or even consider ditching? Which is what an RAF Nimrod did years ago. I recall that the inquiry said that if they had not done so the results would have been catastrophic - all crew members survived.
Ya'll can Monday quarterback all you want but all of us will have to wait until the final report comes out.
Fires onboard are absolute time critical emergencies. On average, given past history of accidents like Swiss Air 111, you have 15 minutes tops before an accident is nearly guaranteed at 20. A good brief for smoke or fire must include time. I brief it simply, at the first sign of smoke or fire onboard, we cancel the warning, and I start my clock. We will be on the ground in 11 minutes or less. Period.
Run your procedures and the tid bits, but the sense of urgency needs to be there from there frrom the instant you notice the smoke or fire.
Anything more than 10 to 12 minutes, you are just risking it. System failures will be minimal to none at first, but once the smoke/fire reaches the avionics or cockpit, you will have massive failures within a very short time. Swiss Air showed that very well.
I take offense to one of the previous posters regarding nearest suitable landing area and ValuJet 592. The ValuJet fire was already underway during taxi out. They even heard a loud pop (recorded on cvr too) and they wondered 'what was that?' (also on cvr). What they didn't know was that the fire was already so intense it ruptured a company tire in the cargo bin,. causing it to blow. Hence the pop noise heard by them. By the time they took off, a very bad situation became worse when the smoke creeped through the entire floor. Despite initial requests for MIA airport, they accepted any landing field/area that they could make it to. Prior to hitting the swamp, the flight control wirings and controls running through the floor were burned. They plunged with no control. For these pilots, their fire started on the ground, made worse during taxi, and their fate was sealed the second they hit V1.
The concept of depressurising the a/c at altitude as the only method avail to extinguish a fire on the maindeck (apart from directing the FO to don the fire suit and grab one of the 3 X 16 lb BCF's we carry on the maindeck) is sheer folly. Ask yourself this, how many training videos have you seen of the effect to a pallett alight of depressurising the a/c? I have been asking to see one on annual refresher training since 1992 ............ still waiting. In my humble opinion at best you will have a smouldering mass just waiting to reignite with the eventual descent into O2 rich air. Further, this hypothesis of mine does not take into account the CAO items on the same deck with ROX labels. Segregation distances are of little comfort to me.
Like flyer1015 I brief the 11 minute scenario, the look of terror on the FO's face when he realises this will entail a ditching somewhere near Shemya or the like, at night in huge fridgid seas is of interest. Tends to get them out of their comfort zone.
The discussion of parachute egress in a 744 is absurd.
I take offense to one of the previous posters regarding nearest suitable landing area and ValuJet 592. The ValuJet fire was already underway during taxi out. They even heard a loud pop (recorded on cvr too) and they wondered 'what was that?' (also on cvr). What they didn't know was that the fire was already so intense it ruptured a company tire in the cargo bin,. causing it to blow. Hence the pop noise heard by them. By the time they took off, a very bad situation became worse when the smoke creeped through the entire floor. Despite initial requests for MIA airport, they accepted any landing field/area that they could make it to. Prior to hitting the swamp, the flight control wirings and controls running through the floor were burned. They plunged with no control. For these pilots, their fire started on the ground, made worse during taxi, and their fate was sealed the second they hit V1.
Please don't take offense at what others remember anymore than I would take offense at your seemingly wrong memory of Value Jet's CVR.
The Valujet facts are as published in the report complete with timeline etc. (even my memory today is fuzzy so I'll be happy to go with the report if used as a reference)
As I recall the CVR provided no conclusions about time line for pops relative to fire initiation be it on the ground or in-the-air. The CVR group could only determine a single audio anomaly in-the-air followed immediately by the crew resonse "whatzat? ...... dunno for shure ... are we about to lose a bus or somethin?. Which is the first inkling that they had of something amiss. Afterwards there were many CVR dropouts and returns so the quoted words are about the only reliable part of the CVR.
The thought about the intiation on the ground were deductions made in the analysis phase of the investigation and of course unknown at the time to the crew.
The DOT currently use $5.8 million as the VSL, Value of Statistical Life. Nothing is taken into account as far as endangerment of life when forwarding safety proposals or concepts. Everything is backward looking when taken into account. Sad.
Knew Matt, the copilot very well. A great stick, an awesome human being, wonderful husband and a proud dad to a beautiful 4-year old little girl. Former Marine grunt and one of the kindest people I've been around. I'm sure Doug, the captain was a good guy too, both were young, 38 and 48. God bless them and their families.
Fly west my brothers...
