I flew the palne for a few years, and of course there are thrust reversers. A very nice plane, mixing very advanced avionics (at the time) and very simple systems (you can still fly it with all hydraulics lost). For the reverse, there is a cable going to the thrust lever: if the reverse accidentally "deploys" in the air, it pulls the cable, and the cable pulls back the thrust lever to idle...Simple and effective! The autoland was extremely good (we tried it just to see in very gusty conditions and it landed the aircraft like a dream!) but ADF approaches...I guess it is a matter of stopping at minimum altitude...and flying no further...
In addition to Narvals technical description: we used to practise an inadvertent reverser deployment inflight on occasion in the simulator. While it shook the aircraft quite well until the engine was shut down (if I remember correctly, this was one of the few engine failures where the aircraft would not indicate the affected engine by lighting up the fuel lever; identifying the side was done by looking for the retarded power lever and the little R on the engine display), it was still flyable without noticeable loss of altitude. An open TR is not an instant accident in this aircraft at all.
When Fokker went titzup someone bought out the company, renamed it Rekkof, and continued on a spares&service basis. So you still get full factory support but they no longer build new aircraft.
Lovely little aircraft, easy to fly and tough as old boots. The only downside is the outdated and thus somewhat thirsty engines. KLM replaced their last one about a year ago.
Craking little airplane to fly, Airbus avionics and simple controls. Still lots of them flying, all with thrust reversers. They are also now available as biz jets with a full re fit and range extended. The mod to the thrust reverser system that automatically closes the corresponding thrust lever on inadvertant airborne deployment, was brought in after an accident in Brazil, when one deployed on take off and they took out a tower block.
Would be interesting to know the elapsed time from impact to all the photos being take. The 'fog' appears to have cleared by 100%. Sky News report the fire crews on hand quickly, due to proximity of airfield, also mentioned that USA had given an advisory notice about the carrier in previous months - no details of what and when.
What about the investigation - does Burma have the capabilities to investigate this accident itself, does it relegate this job to any other countries authority or will this accident go uninvestigated?
Tu.114: local media reports flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been located and will be sent to Singapore for read out. So that might reveal what happened, apart from what the pilots will tell us.
thank You for the information. Especially paragraph 5 of the report You linked is interesting reading and makes me wonder how serious Burmese authorities will be about investigating this accident. If what is alleged in there is true and the supervising authority was under orders to turn at least one blind eye to this company, it would likely be good to have at least a part of the investigation done outside of the country.
I spent seven years flying the F100. It certainly does have reversers. The confusion could come from it's official designation, which is F28-100. The original F28 (Speys, not Tays) did not have reversers.
Oceancrosser, having worked as a licensed engineer on F100/70s for many years I can assure that thrust reversers are indeed installed on these aircraft. Totally agree with Herod, think you are getting confused with the F28.
Fog in Heho in the morning lifts quickly once the sun raises, so it could well be gone by the time the photos were made. It normally forms a low haze like layer with visibility around a mile, with no clouds above that layer. Approaching Hehe from the north (RW18) it is often possible to locate the runway trough the fog by means of a small mountain which stands out above the fog layer and is immediately east of the threshold. It is actually partly taken of in order to provide some obstacle clearance (doesn't look really PANS rules complient). Approaches are usually made to runway 18, coming from Mandalay that is also the most direct approach. The terrain around is about 8000 ft high, in almost all directions. If the engine failed or was on fire before touchdown I could imagine a scenario where the pilots thought it to be safer to attempt a landing through the haze layer rathe than climbing out of the valley single engine with the other one burning to fly back to Mandalay which is like 15-20 min away. Fuel is normally tankered into Heho and with the moderate to high pax load the gross weight wouldn't be far from max landing weight, it would take the F100 at least two circles in the valley in order to gain altitude before it could proceed on course to Mandalay. But be shall wait for the pilots to have a say and then for the official report based on what the recorders hopefully reveal.
