PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - what would you do in this emergency scenerio?
Old 4th Mar 2011, 21:35
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SNS3Guppy
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
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In the United States, we teach that 7500 is used for hijack or illegal interference with a crew member; 7600 is for radio failure, and 7700 is a general emergency squawk. No special mnemonics needed.

No airport is going to turn away emergency traffic; not even a military field with strict entrance and landing requirements.

Light signals are established for lost communications. One need only land, either at the nearest airfield, or at an expedient precautionary landing site off-field. Problem solved.

Lost communication is not the end of the world, nor is it much concern. There is no certain death here. There is no doorbell to the afterlife.

A forced landing should be a familiar event if one has been properly trained.

I've had thousands of bird strikes over the years; some have done significant damage in high speed aircraft, most have done little more than leave blood and feathers. I've shared the cockpit with birds on a number of occasions. I've had bird strikes in 152's and 172's and a falcon crushed the wing in a 210 I flew, back to the spar. Many of the birds, the vast majority, were flocks through which I flew while doing ag work. Approach low to the crop, my sound footprint masked, the birds rose up right in front of me, often resulting in flying through the entire flock.

Bird strike damage varies in severity. Most bird strikes occur at low altitude. I have experienced two at night at 10,000', and the 210 wing damage occurred between seven and eight thousand, but the majority of my bird encounters happened at low altitude.

I don't believe I've ever heard of a cracked fuel tank in a Cessna 152 resulting from a bird strike.

Generally in the professional world, we train for emergencies in singularity; we don't do compound emergencies during training for a reason. They seldom happen. That's not to say that one emergency doesn't lead to another, because this is often the case. Compound emergencies also happen, though in extreme rarity. The famous case of the airbus in the river (Sullenberger) recently is such an example, as is UAL 232 at Sioux City, with the loss of all hydraulics.

In theory, a severe bird strike with a really large bird could damage one communication antenna, though that doesn't necessarily impair communication. Another bird strike sufficient to crush a wing and "crack" a fuel cell is more fantastical, and in combination with the damage to the antenna, of rather long odds. The loss of the transponder is curious as to how or why, but the timing is fantastic.

The only issues of note in the scenario are that the airplane is flyable and under control, and that a suitable landing site exists. The problem is, therefore, solved.
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