The A-320 ditching push button, boxed item, rest a rant.

[Phil Drake]

Greetings all. First time posting. Must say I am quite impressed with this sight and the group you have here.

In America they in general try to dumb down in some areas the AB-320-340 training. If the IP or flight manager doesn't know it, its not important. They, however will not be out over the Atlantic on an EOW when all hell breaks lose and its hurricane season and we just went around one deviating to the east. Then the impossible happens, electrical fire at altitude. 2-4 min latter fire is not out. We must ditch in our 320. Rat's giving us blue hyd but no elec. Or maybe no Rat at all, we will go down fighting one way or another.

I am asking this question here because you Brits and Europeans have more extensive ground schools and more detailed training. In America most airline piloting is conducted in the whoomb of Conus which may explain some training attitudes. $AFTEY, that's how it's spelled. But now we are greatly extending our ops to the eastern Carib and S.America.

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Question: I believe this is so, but correct me if I am wrong. With batt power powering ess AC, DC and and their respective shed busses and also the respective Hot batt busses being powered the ditching PB should close all appropriate valves below the. waterline. Does anyone have any specifics as to what bus(es) are required for each of these critical valves. Also time to closure would be nice along with further advice or comments.
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Thanks, Phil
p.s. I am beggining rackle some feathers in the traing department, bulling my way into cubicles and searching for any and all documentaion on somethings that I believe are quite important, but I am unassailable because of my record. As for perfect records they at the time of the unthinkable mean Nothing. Many perfect record guys have been perfect till their fatefull flight. I hold no attitude no matter how good they tell me I did on my sim ride. I further complain we need multiple emergencies approaching cataclysmic proportion in the sim. Union says no, F! the union in this regard. There I vented!

[guclu]

Check your QRH !

- ELEC EMER CONFIG-SYS REMAINING

Guclu

[RatherBeFlying]

Based on what happened in this 767 ditching, I doubt that the valves will make any difference.The plane crashed near a beach north of Moroni, capital of the Indian Ocean archipelago, and broke into two or three pieces, apparently while attempting an emergency landing. Ethiopian Airlines Hijack (http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9611/23/hijack.ethiopia.update/)

[idg]

Guclu,
I know the QRH says that certain items will be working but the FCOM doesn't (as far as I can see) specify what powers the avionics valves. The AEVC for instance may be working as per QRH but what about the valves themselves? They may not be powered despite being signalled by the AEVC to close.

For instance the pack #2 valve will definitely be open (power off it is open) with DC 2 off. However I don't see this as a major problem. In a smoke scenario (for example) if pack #2 were the smoke source and you don't wait the requisite time to establish if you have eliminated the smoke after turning off the #2 pack, resorting to Emerg Elec Config will ensure that the smoke stays!

Hopefully I can get in a sim tomorrow and try this Phil and report back.

[Dehavillanddriver]

Phil,

You need to look at statistical probabilities.

Training needs to be realistic not unrealistic.

Having multiple emergencies at altitude is in my opinion unhelpful, it just becomes an exercise in running through the checklists and determining in which order they should be run.

We manage to do a lot of negative training in simulators.

How often have you done a RTO or EFATO in the box at what could be considered a "training weight". I would rather see people demonstrate an RTO or EFATO at limit weight, see what effect not lining up within the line up allowance makes on a limited runway, let them see the GPWS go off on a close in obstacle because you are only going to clear it at 35+ feet.

I think that these sorts of exercises will make people think more than having multiple failures enroute - but that is just me!

[Wino]

Its a stupid question.

You ditch a 320 into real water and you are going to have HUGE holes in it as it breaks up.

The Ditching pushbutton is really mislabeled. It should be the "Prepare for deicing push button" but that wouldn't sound glamorous.

The Ditching pushbutton won't change things by more than 1/100th of a second if the airlplane hits the water. The plane is either gonna float or it aint, and that will be more of a function of the fuel tanks than anything else.

Cheers
Wino

[Phil Drake]

I realize the odds are long of this happening, but the people who talk of these long odds, primarily engineers, are always proven wrong, e.g. UAL Siox City Iowa USA, Us Air A-330 deadsticks with O fuel into Azores. The WTC was designed to take a direcect hit from a B-707 going transcon, but far lighter A/C 757 and 767 going transcon took the WTC down, the 75 and 76 I know had way less fuel on board and a B-707 was a better weapon because it was a heavy metal machine.

Multiple emergencies or something unexpected would keep pilots minds out of the box for these improbable expectations. Checklists! maybe, maybe not, if you waste time on a checklist for the wrong thing you'll be just another meaningless statistic. Swiss Air ASKS for a fuel dump sight! At that point I own the entire Fing sky and tell ATC. What I am getting at is pilots need to be put in these situations occassionally, then need to tell ATC I own all airspace 0-370 the ac is uncontrollable block it for me know. Read the Alaska Airlines NTSB report. That's the MD-80 that crashed off Lax. I might have died but it would have been heading for Edwards AFB and I would have told Lax center block all altitudes vector us to Edwards. If you read the report the company was blasaie about the whole thing because the C/O was to cool in his radio transmissions and behaving like a test pilot with the flaps. Alaska Mtx was mainly to blame but what was this guy thinkinking? Read the report.

Another interesting thing on an A-320 is a low speed abort, say between 50-72 kts I asked for one. Counter intuitive...but you are in no mans land litte rudder and little or no nws, we kept it on the runway but this isn't std training on the AB-320. This kind of abort is highly possible. Give it a try sometime in the sim 10 kts crosswind and maybe an engine failure. Interesting.

[compressor stall]

I ownder if the eithiopian airlines one mighthave been a bit different if the flight crew were not being attacked with the crash axe?

[RatherBeFlying]

Good point that CS,

With all those retired jets in the Arizona boneyards, it might be an idea to set up a few up for a remote control ditching to see what really happens when the aluminum hits the ocean.

A remote control crash was done with a retired 707 to see if a fuel additive would prevent post-crash fires.