Monarch 767 In-Flight Return to MAN 18/10

[Localiser Green]

Anyone know why MON387 (G-DIMB/767-300) returned into Manchester yesterday morning. Got about halfway across Ireland then headed back sqawking 7700.

[Monarch Man]

News to me.......some digging to be done:ok: will see what I can find out, I'll probably get beaten to the punch though!

[IcePack]

Oil QTY went to 0,
Shortly followed by the Oil pressure. So engine shut down and A/C returned.
No problem, Crew doing for real, what they practise in the SIM every 6 Months.:)

[Localiser Green]

Thanks IcePack, good to see they were not over the Atlantic at the time, where it would no doubt have caused a little more sweat.

Job well done :ok:

http://www.flightontime.info/MON387.jpg

[Max Angle]

Does ETOPS capability modify the usual practise of going to the nearest airport?No it does not, it simply increases the distance that you may fly from the nearest suitable airport.

[Localiser Green]

There's much more to it than just landing at the 'nearest (adequate) airport'. The crew make a decision on the nearest suitable airport. A number of factors make an 'adequate' airport 'suitable', including (but not limited to):

Time to reach airport
Wind Direction / Weather
Approach Aids / Likely Type of Approach
Runway Direction / Runway Length
Crew Familiarity
Emergency Facilities
Ground Facilities

etc...

Remember Dublin or Belfast do not boast 10,000ft runways (to my knowledge) and the aircraft would likely be landing perhaps 30-40 tonnes overweight, with a lower flap setting and so at relatively high speed.

The crew have to assess the situation and the likely risk posed by continuing to an airport a little further away, and this may be done in conjunction with the company operations department (for whom it was no doubt preferable for the aircraft to return to an engineering base).

With a situation like this by the time the crew had briefed and prepared for the s/e landing they would be halfway back to Manchester anyway.

[763 jock]

Any news on what caused the oil loss? Had a similar event on a 757 a few years back (not MON) down to a badly sealed oil filler cap.:rolleyes:

[Silver Tongued Cavalier]

Damn you Localiser Green!!! :mad:

For writing an informed , professional, and eloquent reply on the subject of engine failures and decision making! ;)

I was looking forward to reading the usual posts of Flight Sim/Spotters/Armchair AAIB Inspectors thoughts on the handling of the incident. :}

[FlightDetent]

Thanks, Max. Must have been shut down well after the U-turn then....

No, the donk quit first and the decision to turn happened only afterwards. The crew looked for the first safe haven (for whatever that means!) which in this case was the departure airfield. We do trust our one+one engines to take us over 3000 miles, why not trust one to take us 200. Also to be considered by you (as you are not a twin jet pilot - right?) is the fact that under such STANDARD emergency scenario you will take NO CHANCES where the room for your personal mistakes becomes NIL. Hence what you need is time to secure longevity for all involved. In SIM, 15 minutes will suffice. Apply the same drill in real life you get 20 and then you carefully cross-check EVERY single item. 30 mins +. 200 miles in descending 767 should be about 35 minutes - time to breathe. Had they chosen a closer airport, the time on one engine would be the same. Also, apart form all of this, ETOPS limitations - read one engine operation to closest airfield - maxima read about 3 hours these days.

FD.
(the un-real)

[StudentInDebt]

Pininstauld - Something else to consider is that to get into Dublin/Belfast from that position at 30,000 feet would require covering almost exactly the same distance flying big circles as it would be back to Manchester in a straight line. Another consideration is the weather, how do you know that Dublin/Belfast weren't below Cat 1?

[ETOPS]

Er - what is occuring here :confused:

I posted a question to Localiser Green earlier today which somehow disappeared. I put it down to finger trouble or browser probs so reposted it.

It was there a short while ago but has now vanished just like the other one.

If a moderator is interfering here could he (or she) kindly let me know. As a long term member I am unclear as to what is happening to my question......:=

[BOAC]

I sent you a PM at 1345 about it - and my prediction was correct.:)

[ETOPS]

Thanks

All has been made clear :uhoh:

I obey, I obey I obey..........:ooh:

[J.O.]

Before second-guessing how the situation was handled, one must remember that the Commander and his crew must consider many relevant facts when deciding their course of action. If the situation is stable and one has time to think about it, one of those considerations would be the effect of exactly where one diverts to, on the ability for the engineering folks to enact a fix. Given that the cause of the engine failure seems to have been definitive and quite obvious as a loss of oil quantity, there would be little reason to suspect that the other engine should succomb to a similar failure, unlike an unexplained loss of power that may have been caused by something such as fuel contamination. Add that to the fact that they would need to fly some 100 track miles from that altitude to get down in any case, a diversion to MAN (their maintenance base) seems quite logical and reasonable.

[AlphaWhiskyRomeo]

There's much more to it than just landing at the 'nearest (adequate) airport'. The crew make a decision on the nearest suitable airport. A number of factors make an 'adequate' airport 'suitable', including (but not limited to):
Time to reach airport
Wind Direction / Weather
Approach Aids / Likely Type of Approach
Runway Direction / Runway Length
Crew Familiarity
Emergency Facilities
Ground Facilities
etc...
Remember Dublin or Belfast do not boast 10,000ft runways (to my knowledge) and the aircraft would likely be landing perhaps 30-40 tonnes overweight, with a lower flap setting and so at relatively high speed.
The crew have to assess the situation and the likely risk posed by continuing to an airport a little further away, and this may be done in conjunction with the company operations department (for whom it was no doubt preferable for the aircraft to return to an engineering base).
With a situation like this by the time the crew had briefed and prepared for the s/e landing they would be halfway back to Manchester anyway.


Plus, if you need to lose a certain amount of altitude from your current height anyway, you are going to be in the air for x more minutes anyway, so you may as well do that by flying to a preferred airport rather than spiralling down to the nearest if it is safe to.

[chiglet]

Landed 24R ["Greaser" actally] smoke from port u/c, vacated ok, shut down and towed to stand. :ok:
watp,iktch

[EGKK931]

Localiser Green,

How did you get the aircraft route on a map like that? Your second post on this thread.

Cheers

[IcePack]

I suspect that if he was off on a transatlantic he would also have had to jettison fuel. The authorities prefer that to be done over water, despite the fact it is all suposed to disipate 2000 ft below the a/c.
Me thinks very well handled by crew all very calm and no rushing no drama.:)

[LCA Bound]

what a bunch us enthusiasts are and i didnt realise that we were held in such high regard by the proffesionals , who must seem to forget that us enthusiasts are also paying passengers ... yes the very same people who pay to keep you proffesional , and the ones who take an interest in the hard work thats put into our safety and dont just regard a flight as a bus with waitress service :ugh:

oops just slipped off my soap box ;)

[Monarch Man]

Its ok LCA, most professional pilots are also enthusiasts:ok: we wouldn't be in the job if we didnt have an affinity for it (well for the most part!;) )

Unfortunately however there does exist a vast swathe of the general populace who belong to the "OK" or "Daily Mail" school of common sense, and it is they who enjoy speculating about issues and situations of which they have no concept from which to base an opinion.

Well done to the crew once again for an outstanding effort:ok:

[fmgc]

Well said Mon man.

As a professional pilot it would be nice to think that I could make a major decision without it being scrutinized on here, and without having to endure a load of half truths and in some cases accusations of wrong doing by people who have very little knowledge of the job.

You will notice that rarely do other airline pilots question the decisions made by their colleagues.

and the ones who take an interest in the hard work thats put into our safety

In extremis you could argue that these amateur pontifications reduce safety as a crew may well have this forum on the back of their minds when making a decision. I would hope not, and I do stress in extremis.

The Company that I work for will never question a decision made by one of their Captains as long as the decision was SAFE, this relieves the Captain of the pressure of having to think "what will the Company say...". It would be a shame if that philosophy was ruined by the pressure put on by people here.

In this instance I believe that Pininstauld's question was pure inquisitiveness (sp), and there is nothing wrong with that, but there is a very thin line between that and uneducated speculation, which we have to endure a lot of on these forums.

[Flight Safety]

I would assume that after the safety issues are sorted out and all is stable, passenger convenience factors (getting them on their way again, etc) could then be considered?

[WindSheer]

There is a very fine balance within the charter airline industry when trying to make the correct decision.
Had they circled (pointlessly) over Ireland and put down there, they would have ended up with an AOG 767, in a non MON base, full of pax, and no engineering support. Commercial nightmare!


Well done to the crew....hope it mirrored the sim!!:ooh:

AND FOR ALL YOU JOURNALISTS.....safety is NEVER compromised, certainly not for financial reasons!!

[Centrefix]

Probably time to tie up the loose ends and thank everybody for the complementary remarks made over the last few days.
Initially when we lost the oil quantity followed by the oil pressure the immediate thought was where is the closest suitable, Shannon was my No 1 due to runway length, but frankly, like Dublin and Belfast too close and would probably have just ended up with a rushed approach without time for a proper briefing and preparation for the crew. A Mayday was declared and Shannon ATC were brilliant giving us immediate descent down to a suitable single engine level. As Localiser Green states the factors making the decision of where to go all go through your mind and as Manchester was a 1000'/min descent from where we were it seemed the best option, the live engine only having to produce relatively low power for the descent so no great deal. We had a fairly low passenger load (about 190) approaching the end of the season so we only needed to jettison about 8 tons of fuel and this was done as we jinked around Anglesey, as you can see on the plot. North Wales was fairly clear for a change so a 15 degree left turn was requested and granted for this exercise.
Obviously familiarity with our home base was a factor in the decision to return, the weather, runway length, emergency services and the fact that Manchester is an engineering base were also important. Also the knowledge that our ground staff could organise a suitable replacement aircraft and accomodation, if necessary, for the passengers. In fact they departed around 1800L the same evening, on an Excel 747, just over 6 hours after disembarking form our aircraft, a pretty good job by our Operations department.
As has been stated we practice this exercise every six months in the simulator so it did not produce anything unexpected, fortunately, this time we did not have to go around at decision! We landed just under MLW at 144 tons with a Vref 20 of 154kt and with max auto brake only used about 6000' of runway, before leaving at the last RET.
I am fortunate to work for a company that prides itself on its standards of training, one of the reasons why I joined them 20 years ago, and the crew on this day were without exception brilliant.
I would just like to say how relieved I was that this happened over a friendly country where the use of mayday is understood and not answered by a stony silence. Please pass on thanks to everyone in the ATC units in Shannon, London and Manchester who got us back without any drama and to the emergency services at Manchester who did a first class job, but there again would you expect anything else!
P.s. BTW Localiser Green, where DID you get that plot from!? Are we all watched like this nowadays?

[LCA Bound]

Thanks for the description centerpoint as someone who is a slightly nervous flyer it is reasuring to know that these situations are dealt with in such calm thoughtfull way :D to all involved

[overstress]

Centrefix: nice one - hope the paperwork didn't take too long! It is postings like yours that make PPRuNe worth visiting.

I think localiser uses this website:

http://www.flightontime.info/

PS: can anyone tell me why I am now apparently sponsored by google?

[TSR2]

Thank you for the concise explanation of the event. Much appreciated.

The ability to implement trained procedures under pressure and particularly for an event which must rank as a 'rare occurance', is the mark of a true professional.

[Selfloading]

Once again filled with admiration at the way Centrefix and his colleagues deal with emergencies, and thanks for taking the time to tell us what happened. I'm guessing your flight was tracked on this website: http://www.openatc.com/
I find it fascinating.

[hobie]

PS: can anyone tell me why I am now apparently sponsored by google?

overstress .... all is explained here ....

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=248334

[Localiser Green]

Localiser Green,

How did you get the aircraft route on a map like that?

It was from http://www.openatc.com, (click on 'Emergencies' on the left hand menu and you will see the MON387 listed).

The image is hosted on another website, not associated with the screenshot itself which was taken from Open ATC.

I did say all this in response to a post by ETOPS earlier on the thread, but both posts were deleted by a moderator without explanation. :confused:

[Ambulance]

Hi everyone,

I was on the afforementioned MON387 when it lost the engine and pretty damn scary it was too..

We were passing over Dublin still climbing to our cruise when I heard one of the engines winding down. This was accompanied by a sudden descent and sharp 180 degree turn. the cabin crew started rushing about putting things away that they had just got out.

The Captain then said something like "Cabin crew bravo code blue" on the tannoy.

An announcement was then made that due to technical problems we were returning to Manchester and one engine had been shut down.

Looking out of the window i noticed that by this time we were passing Anglsea and you could clearly make out RAF Valley's runways. At that moment I wondered why we were flying all the way back to MAN and bypassing a lot closer airfields in doing so. (Liverpool, Blackpool etc)

On landing at MAN we burst 2 tyres and had to be towed from the end of the runway with smoke still coming from the undercarriage.:eek:

By the way, we were flying to Punta Cana and were delayed 12 hours until a blessed Excel 747 and crew were chartered to carry us.

[Ambulance]

Forgot to add to the above thread my appreciation of the Crew aboard this aircraft whos calmness throughout made an emergency landing a little less stressful that it may have been.:D

We flew home from the Dominican Republic a week later on G-DIMB with nothing exciting to report.