Flight Simulator Accident

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Flight Sim Accident

Is anyone aware of any details of an accident that happened (allegedly in the USA) in a full motion flight sim where the hydraulic rams went out of control?

The pilots were not belted in and died being thrown around inside the sim.

Dates?
Type of Sim?
Accident Report?

Any info (or any similar related accidents) please.

Cheers

[BOAC]

No news here, but it reinforces the 'SOP' of being strapped in before the hydraulic power is enabled:eek:

[ZFT]

Never happened.

Whilst there have been a few injuries due to uncommanded motions excursions – there have certainly been no deaths

[woodpecker]

It also happened a few years ago . The exercise at the time was an emergency descent and the hydraulic rams overextended and the sim fell over! The oxygen lines to the sim were also severed.

Two of the crew almost died due to the lack of oxygen at 35000 feet!

[Cornish Jack]

Two runaway incidents that I know of.
Both in full motion sims. One was frozen by the FE instructor - a crew member got a bit bruised. The second was unoccupied and under test - came off the jacks and ended up on its side on the motion hall floor!! A stark warning (should it be necessary) of the need TO FASTEN SEAT BELTS in the sim!! Things CAN get rough in there:(

[Doors to Automatic]

I believe it was a US Airways DC-9 simulator which was being put through during a series of violent manouevers.

Some or all of its mountings failed and the simulator crashed through a wall and fell a considerable distance to the street below. It was the impact that killed at least one person on board - the only time a simulator has claimed a fatality.

Not sure of location or date.

[nugpot]

Two of the crew almost died due to the lack of oxygen at 35000 feet!

Who operates the sim on Mt Everest? ;)

[Nearly Man]

woodpecker :D That was brill :}

[wiggy]

I will run this one up the flag pole, from memory, and wait for the inevitable corrections/denials.

There was a very close call in a Hunter (Hawker) sim I believe many moons ago....the story goes that bottled air/oxygen was normally used in the sim to enhance realism, unfortunately one day there was a c**k up and a cylinder of Nitrogen was installed instead of breathing gas. Soon after donning his oxygen mask the occupant very quickly keeled over and very nearly died, only saved by the quick actions of the sim instructor.

Any further input? - I heard the story 25 plus (gulp) years ago.

[Jetavia]

I experienced a wild ride in a 737 sim during my training. What was supposed to be a wind shear exercise turned out to be a very wild ride .. more like severe turbulence actually .. took the TRI some time and a lot of swearing to hit the emergency stop button.. luckily the sim stayed put in its mountings.

[kenparry]

Wiggy,

Yes, the Hunter sim story is true. It was at Chivenor, late 1960s. As you say, N2 was fed instead of O2. The puzzle was: the supply bottles are supposed to have different threads on the connectors to prevent that happening. I don't recall the findings of the enquiry.

[con-pilot]

I was in a 727 sim when we had a major failure of one of the struts. We had to be removed by the fire department because of the position the sim ended up in with the door nearly straight above our heads. Nobody got hurt and we got to the bar early that night.

I was the last one out as I was on the bottom in the left seat. First out was the instructor, then the FE followed by the other pilot and then myself.

(The FE did have a hell of a hangover the next day, that could count as an injury I suppose.):E

[LGB]

NASA apparently had a fatal simulator accident in 1967 (a fire), although not an aircraft, but a spacecraft sim (Apollo program): http://www.rpi.edu/dept/NewsComm/Magazine/mar03/presidents/presidents.html

I heard stories about fatal simulator accidents, but I haven't been able to verify it. Maybe just (yet another) rumour.

[ZFT]

Are our memories so short that the Apollo 1 tragedy is already confused with a simulator!!!

[effortless]

When I worked on sims, I was told that there had been some mishaps but usually when harnesses were not used. There were loads of stories about fatalities but no one could give chapter and verse. Just urban myths I reckon.

[LGB]

Are our memories so short that the Apollo 1 tragedy is already confused with a simulator!!!

I do believe NASA have had more than one fatal accident ever. If you read the second paragraph in the link, you will see that

... Low, who went on to become the 14th president of Rensselaer, was tapped by NASA in 1967 to rebuild the devastated Apollo program after three astronauts were killed in a simulator fire. ...

I didn't mention specifically Appollo 1, but the Apollo project in general, the simulator fire in particular. Unless it is false what is written in the link?

But then, I wasn't even born then, so what am I to know?

[Getoutofmygalley]

LGB I think ZFT means that the Apollo 1 incident wasn't in a simulator, it was on the real Apollo 1 space craft which had a fire killing the three astronauts onboard.

But, at the time of the incident, the three astronauts were running a 'simulation' in the real space craft.

[Rainboe]

Only in Pprune can a rumour with absolutely no truth in it run to 17 replies! It didn't happen. To call the Apollo tragedy that involved the sad loss of Grissom, White and Chaffee a 'simulator' accident' is slightly insulting to their efforts and loss- this was a real launch pad 'simulation', not a 'simulator'. Whatever the article said, it was poorly written.

It never happened. Time to stop wasting space?

[Crash & Burn]

I believe that during WW2 an English pilot was 'flying' a Link Trainer and was killed during a strafing run by a German aircraft. I'm guessing this would have been the first sim fatality?

[effortless]

I believe that during WW2 an English pilot was 'flying' a Link Trainer and was killed during a strafing run by a German aircraft. I'm guessing this would have been the first sim fatality?


A sad loss and showed just how we sent 'em up too soon. Of course if the Airships hadn't insisted on close formation perhaps it may have been a different outcome all together. Bit slow for the Big Wing of course and had to form up a smaller wing with the DH82s when they weren't used for night fighting.

[zlin77]

If I recall correctly there was a fatality in the old Air New Zealand F27 Sim,the story was passed on to me back in 1984 while doing my Sim training in AKL.
Can any Kiwis confirm or deny?

[Rainboe]

Oh my word, as fast as we lay one total rumour to rest, someone pops up with another! I strongly suspect this is another internet 'friend of a friend of a friend' story with little foundation. They cahnge so much in the re-telling over the years. Did I ever tell you about the guy in the Arizona desert strapped some Hercules RATO units to the back of his truck, and lit the blue touchpaper?........

[Charles Darwin]

I believe that during WW2 an English pilot was 'flying' a Link Trainer and was killed during a strafing run by a German aircraft. I'm guessing this would have been the first sim fatality?

And we think modern sims are realistic!:ooh:

[screwdriver]

BA had a 767 "fall over" in the mid nineties. They used the A/c recovery crew from Engineering to recover it. It was empty at the time and under test.

[Denti]

What happens when you crash a sim - e.g deliberate vertical dive into the ground? What does the display do? What does the motion do? Does it take ages to reset it, or is that a porky pie?

Visual just stops and motions settles back into neutral, control hydraulic normally goes into inactive (or depressurized whatever) mode.

[ZFT]

Simulators typically have 2 crash modes. Recoverable and Unrecoverable crashes. The instructor can usually inhibit/reset recoverable ‘crashes’. Unrecoverable crashes usually result in the sim being set in Total Freeze.

Recoverable are typically:-
Excessive IAS
Excessive Mach
Excessive G
Taxi speed excessive
Touchdown speed excessive

Unrecoverable are typically:-
Excessive vertical speed below 50 ft
Excessive pitch below 50 ft
Excessive bank below 50 ft
Moving object collision
Terrain contact

The above varies according to sim manufacturer and customer requirements.

[jumpseater]

I can verify that one should strap in in a sim. Sitting in a jumpseat/observer position the driver was demonstrating recovery from an uncommanded roll, not long after the loss of a 737. Anyway I'd got the lap belt on but not the shoulder harness. The sim 'dived' to the left as I was looking over the co-pilots right shoulder. One instinctively rapidly leans further right as the sim 'flipped' to the left, the only trouble was the sidewall/bulkhead of the sim was still travelling towards me, with the inevitable dull thud as my head and the side wall made contact :ugh:. To say it hurt was an understatement, I genuinely saw stars, little specs of white light, and the headache afterwards!:ouch:

[HotDog]

Depends on the simulator I guess but I experienced one incident as an instructor in a 747-200 sim where the crew under instruction, ignored the loss of hydraulic sys 1 prior to gear extension on final approach. They also ignored the gear unsafe light and the warning horn and landed with the nose gear retracted. A very surprised crew remarked on the steep nose down attitude of the sim when they came to a halt!:{