To Flip flop flyer and others who think pprune sucks bigtime: take it easy. If you really want to know what happened, log on to this site. Just take a look at the Gol-embraer accident in brazil and the ensuing thread. or take a look at the Congonhas 737 overrun thread. There are
a lot of real professionals on this planet, and somehow they all meet here. That is a great resource! It is free, accessible to everyone and 24/7.
Sure, there will be sub-standard remarks by some.
But also remarks by people who actually know a lot of stuff. And they will keep the quality of the discussion in check.
When they say there was no response from the engines does it mean the engines did not react to the demand?
That is correct. The engines did not react at all (apparently). It is like flooring the pedal in your car and nothing happens.
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Now, I have been thinking...... What strikes me as possibly relevant is that both engines failed to respond to A/T input
simultaneously. What makes these two engines, fitted on this 777,
not unique?
1. they are/have been in the same, identical ambient conditions from PEK to LHR. ---- cold soak problem of some sort?
2. they are consuming the same fuel.---- bad quality uplifted in china?
I would discount fuel starvation. It says in the AAIB preliminary report that a lot of fuel was leaking from the plane. So evidently there was some on board. Also, suppose the crew left the crossfeed open and forgot to close it, when balancing fuel. And thereby depleting one wing tank. This I find very unlikely. Because if that is what happened, one engine would quit before the other one does. This is because the engine, which is further from the wing tank that is being used, gets to consume the fuel that is
in the crossfeed. It will give you about a minute's worth of additional fuel.
So in my more or less educated opinion, no fuel starvation. Not from one wing tank, and also not from both wing tanks. (i.e. 0000 kgs on board)
Bad fuel quality is always a possibility.
Also, some computer glitch. I have no clue at all.
Once again, two engines don't fail at exactly the same time. To me that sounds relevant.
Anyone else?