Air Canada A340 at Heathrow

[Captain Spunkfarter]

Yesterday afternoon a sharp-eyed British Midland pilot spotted a major problem with an Air Canada A340s undercarriage as it taxied past him at Heathrow.
The forward right wheel of the right main undercarriage bogie was twisted inwards through 45 degrees, and was being dragged along by the rest of the gear. The A340 was minutes from take-off.
It's a bit worrying that there were no warning indications on the flight deck.

[U R NumberOne]

Or noticed on the walk-round! http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/eek.gif

[Evil Jethro]

As the controller to whom this was reported I can state the circumstances frist hand. The Midland aircraft reported "a shredded tyre port bogey" or words to that effect. The a/c was no longer on my frequency so I shouted to the departures controller (who happens to be my ousemate!) to stop the ACA, he asked why and I passed on the BMA's report and the Deps controller looked and noyiced something obviously wrong and initiated Aircraft Ground Incident action and informed the ACA. The fire service attended very shortly afterwards. As it transpired the shredded tyre, which even with the high powered binoculars in the tower looked very "wrong" turned out to be a blag plastic bag wrapped around the tyre...hence the lack of indications in the cockpit.

Hope that solves the mystery!!

[bearsden]

To Captain Spunkfarter and U R Number 1...Be advised that 2 walk arounds were done on that aircraft prior to pushback, one by maintenance and one by myself....I can only assume that the black bin bag in question was picked up sometime during our taxi out....And of course we have no indications in the cockpit to indicate any foreign object blowing into our gear.

[cleared2land 27left]

"High powered binoculars in the tower" where are they kept?

[U R NumberOne]

Bearsden,

Please don't get the impression I was questioning your ability to do your job properly - I was just reacting to the original post that claimed the gear was at 45 degrees to the others.

Is this sort of incident good justification for external cameras, that I understand the A380 will have?

[EGCC4284]

Well spotted that pilot

------------------
A BIT EXTRA FOR MUM.

[EnglishPatient]

From what Ive read from the original thread, to its comments later, I think OLD Spunkfarter was making a point about cockpit indications not other peoples ability to spot errors/faults etc....

Again I echo roll on A380 style aircraft we all needs eyes in the backs of our head in this industry !

rgds....Mr Fiennes (hush hush)

[Captain Spunkfarter]

Absolutely correct Ralph.
No criticism of bearsden at all. From the tower it looked very off!
Not the first time a bag's fooled me :)
Glad to see you back on Mr Fiennes, very acceptable

Edited for unacceptable spelling mistake

[This message has been edited by Captain Spunkfarter (edited 15 January 2001).]

[EnglishPatient]

Actually, the concept of having cheese and onion pies in your bank account is relevant to, and quite surprisingly has a gearing ratio of 4:1 with an exploding microwave tuned into channel 5 on a sunday evening !

The A340 was quite evidently unaware that if all wheels were covered in plastic bags then the V1 speed would have been significantly increased, this could be counteracted by a boys choir version of the airport tune in D minor.

I have no doubt that the crew of the A340 where professional and diligent in their pre-taxying duties but had they considered the press release of Roland Rats come back tour! and did the tower controller realise that his actions would lead to a backlog in the production of spacedust bubble gum ? I think not !

Lastly if I ever come to my senses, then I will quit ATC and opt for a more decisive decision making job like Burger King ! Want fries with that sir ?

[Yellow Snow]

It was C minor actually!

[EnglishPatient]

Yell Snow, trust you to be so perfect,with those Golden balls of yours you should be able to do B sharp!!!

Just remember, make them turn into the bad engine ! or is it into the good engine ?

Wiedersehn Herr Schindler

[Joe fat boy Petroni]

Come on Spunkfarter, if there had been a problem, you would have saved them. You've already saved Concorde http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/tongue.gif

[Joe fat boy Petroni]

Not to worry spunkfarter, any problems and you can always do a talkdown, with a little help from me of course http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/tongue.gif

[Bright-Ling]

Joe fat boy petroni....

it's Mister Bright-Ling to you.

Bit sad repeating posts to make yourself look popular!