BA 747 divert to Irkutsk after nav system fails

[Ye Olde Pilot]

The London-Beijing flight with 270 passengers and 16 crew landed in Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia, at 10.41 local time on Wednesday.
Siberia Times report
Passengers were told there was a malfunction of the flight software on board flight BA 039. The plane landed 40 minutes after the initial request from the pilot to bring the plane down in Irkutsk.

British Airways Boeing 747 makes safe emergency landing after failure of navigation equipment (http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/british-airways-boeing-747-makes-safe-emergency-landing-in-irkutsk-after-failure-of-navigation-equipment/)

http://siberiantimes.com/PICTURES/OTHERS/Boeing-emergency-Irkutsk/inside%20boeing.jpg
http://siberiantimes.com/PICTURES/OTHERS/Boeing-emergency-Irkutsk/inside%20people%20getting%20towards%20it.jpg

[D'pirate]

Interesting with 2 GPS, 3 IRS, VOR, DME, ADF and FMC? More to this than is immediately obvious!

[Ye Olde Pilot]

Airport spokesperson;

'The plane made an emergency landing in Irkutsk because of the failure of navigation equipment', said Yelena Stavitskaya, the Siberian airport's spokeswoman.

'Its passengers will be accommodated in hotels Angara and Irkutsk.'

BA technical experts are expected to fly to Irkutsk to assess the damage to the jumbo aircraft. It is expected many passengers will be offered onward travel by S7 - a Siberian airline that is also part of the OneWorld alliance.

The BA website indicated that an onward flight would be available at 21.00 (9pm) local time

[CaptainProp]

For landing fuel, it was 40 min after the request to land, not after T/O.

[Bearcat]

Those old 74's have seen better days. They are jaded and odd ball failures are bound to occur.

[GalleyTeapot]

BA 747's are dropping to bits, the 767's are even worse!

[Lord Spandex Masher]

Bearcat, I was about to say speak for yourself...but then you edited. ;)

[GobonaStick]

Whatever happened seems to have happened over the northern Mongolian border.

[Ye Olde Pilot]

It appears to be an oldie G-CIVI..reg in May 1996.
They certainly get their moneys worth out of airframes at BA.

[Heathrow Harry]

Could have flown by Bradshaw - follow the Trans-Siberian................

[Contacttower]

1996 is young compared to some 747s in the BA fleet...

[Skipness One Echo]

Seventeen years is not old for a long haul airliner. Even Emirates have seventeen year old B777s, G-CIVI is from the second tranche of BA B744s.

[Capetonian]

It appears to be an oldie G-CIVI..reg in May 1996.

17 years ..... middle aged perhaps, but it's more about cycles than actual age and it will have done far less cycles than an aircraft of similar age used on short haul routes, and there are plenty of 20 year old+ shorthaul aircraft flying safely.

I have noticed though that some of BA's 747s are tatty inside and that doesn't give a good impression of the overall maintenance standards although I am confident they are safer than some other carriers with newer aircraft.

[Ye Olde Pilot]

Whatever the age of the aircraft this appears to be a software problem.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Emergency landing? Just a tech diversion surely?

[eckhard]

There are around 15 QRH drills that may require landing at the 'nearest suitable airport', inc:

Fire
Smoke
Fuel filter
Equipment cooling
Hydraulics
Fuel leak
Engine fail/damage

Not sure that 'navigation' per se was the problem. Maybe Equip Cooling affecting the nav displays?

Anyway, well done to the crew!

[GobonaStick]

If the nav system's conked, how do they know it's Irkutsk? :E

[Capn Bloggs]

Bluetooth GPS...ON
Tablet...ON
Memory Map...Start
Now Capn, where was it you wanted to go again?

[Ex Cargo Clown]

Are the BNL lot still knocking about?

[buggaluggs]

I would hazard a guess that if they did have a dual FMC issue, and were no longer able RNP, the Chinese may well refuse them entry into their airspace, especially Beijing. In which case Irkutsk has got to be a better option then Ulaanbaatar :ooh:

[lomapaseo]

If this was a multi system failure than it rates interest.

If not surely it can compete with other minor flight interruptions without photos

[FANS]

A reminder of why BA crews love pprune.

[er340790]

Hmmmmm.... quick refresher required on use of compass, maps and ded reckoning.

[Ye Olde Pilot]

An unusual task for systems managers.

This event will have been a nice change from a routine flight.

A bit of genuine hand flying.

I love the cracked paving and weeds in the pictures.

[fleigle]

Despite being without NAV they managed to avoid the schoolyard AND the hospital, so no probs.

[Coagie]

They probably could have found their way, without the NAV, but the argument could be made nowadays, that losing the NAV could be a symptom of problems yet to be noticed or to come, in other important electronic equipment on the aircraft, so I give them them a pass. I'm sure they are relieved to hear that!!!

[BOAC]

Yes, they will have been sweating on a :ok:from PPRune.....................

[Ye Olde Pilot]

Those pictures of a 17 year old BA 747 stuck on a weed infested cracked runway in Siberia are a PR man's nightmare.

If we spool back to the days of Lord King v Branson he tried to sell the idea that Virgin would operate old unreliable aircraft.

Eddie Stobart does not operate 17 year old trucks and I guess most people on here don't drive 17 year old cars. There is only so much you can do to a 1970's design before things start to go wrong.

If the age of ever commercial aircraft was emblazoned on the side how many passengers would board an elderly airframe:=

[GGFFB]

"If the age of ever commercial aircraft was emblazoned on the side how many passengers would board an elderly airframe"


Oh yeah, I do feel much safer in a 3 month old Lionair 737-900 than I do on a 17 year old BA 744 :rolleyes:

[gas path]

EE cooling failure!!

[MrBernoulli]

Despite being without NAV they managed to avoid the schoolyard AND the hospital, so no probs.
But what happened to the orphanage! :eek:

;)


EE cooling failure!!
Just to help the understanding of our layman readers, I believe that means Electrical & Electronic equipment compartment, which is usually somewhere under the floor of a Boeing aircraft. Without proper cooling down there, things can go a bit awry!

[wiggy]

MrB

Indeed, and as far as I recall it for very good reasons (you may end up with equipment overheating) if the QRH actions don't immediately resolve the issue then it becomes a "land at nearest suitable", regardless of the crew's navigational skills.

[west lakes]

Initial information incorrect see here: -

Incident: British Airways B744 near Irkutsk on Aug 28th 2013, avionics overtemperature (http://avherald.com/h?article=4678f3c0&opt=0)

A British Airways Boeing 747-400, registration G-CIVI performing flight BA-39 from London Heathrow,EN (UK) to Beijing (China) with 289 people on board, was enroute at FL390 about 300nm eastsoutheast of Irkutsk (Russia) in Mongolian Airspace when the crew reported an overtemperature indication for the avionics and decided to divert to Irkutsk. The aircraft landed safely on Irkutsk's runway 30 about 50 minutes later.

Russia's Emergency ministry initially said the commander reported the avionics had failed but later corrected to say the avionics had overheated.

[Ye Olde Pilot]

Well given where they landed the avionics will have cooled own quickly.

The question remains why the overheat?

[Basil]

Weather's nice there just now. Don't know about the midges though.

[Ye Olde Pilot]

We'll have to see what the outcome is but the bottom line is BA are out to milk the last drops out of their aircraft.

Compared to Ryanair.
As of July 2013, the average age of the Ryanair fleet is 4.9 years.

The cabins in the BA 747 fleet are tired as are the airframes.

Hire cars are restricted to 15000 miles.

BA are running an old fleet like a lot of the flag carriers.

[Metro man]

Perhaps the crew were thinking about the Swiss Air MD 11, flight 111 which ended up in the Atlantic ?

[Skipness One Echo]

The cabins in the BA 747 fleet are tired as are the airframes.

Hire cars are restricted to 15000 miles.
Some are some aren't. Most of the B744s have been through a New First product refresh, the ones that didn't get it are retiring. I think a B744 needs to work a little harder to pay for itself than a hire car.
BA are running an old fleet like a lot of the flag carriers.

Airbus A318 2 3.8 years On 19 airlines operating this type of aircraft British Airways ranks 5
Airbus A319 44 11.4 years On 129 airlines operating this type of aircraft British Airways ranks 109
Airbus A320 47 7.7 years On 229 airlines operating this type of aircraft British Airways ranks 110
Airbus A321 18 7.6 years On 65 airlines operating this type of aircraft British Airways ranks 25
Boeing 737 19 20.7 years On 272 airlines operating this type of aircraft British Airways ranks 93
Boeing 747 52 18.4 years On 92 airlines operating this type of aircraft British Airways ranks 39
Boeing 767 21 20.2 years On 97 airlines operating this type of aircraft British Airways ranks 61
Boeing 777 52 12.2 years On 64 airlines operating this type of aircraft British Airways ranks 53
TOTAL 255 13.4 years The calculation of the fleet age can be approximated because it is only based on the supported aircraft

Fleet age British Airways | Airfleets aviation (http://www.airfleets.net/ageflotte/British%20Airways.htm)

It's only old compared to exceptional cases like Singapore and QATAR. Even Cathay fly some pretty legacy wide bodies having the first build B777s and A330s. The B767s are an issue as they're supposed to be well on their way out as the B787s are late.

[parabellum]

Those old 74's have seen better days. They are jaded and odd ball failures are bound to occur.

Ye Olde Pilot - you must have had a pretty charmed aviation life then? There are many, many B737 around that are thirty years old in regular scheduled work, just imagine the cycles on those compared to the BA 747-400! It would be interesting to know if the Equipment Cooling fan was a 'lifed' item and if so when it was last changed, possibly nothing at all to do with the age of the airframe.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Continue flying across potentially unknown territory in a 747 using a map and a Boy Scout compass ? I don't think so - unless absolutely no option.

I know insufficient about the -400, ( even less about the cause of this one - thinks.... does anyone else ! ) but ....en route London/ Bahrain I had 2 INS units fail on a 747 Classic within the space of 5 minutes, and had dumped fuel and was on the ground in Frankfurt very soon afterwards.

The LH mechanic assigned to look after us was very miffed, it being Saturday night and he was now going to be late for his party, "Why didn't you go back to London? " was his complaint. Because the INS units drive my flight instruments, I replied, it's snowing in London and I don't fancy trying to fly an ILS approach to minima on standby instruments. 2 Units have failed in quick succession, how long before the third (and last) unit goes tits up too ? I'm down here wishing I was up there, instead of being up there wishing I was down here - fix the problem.

He did, and we were airborne again not long afterwards.

If correspondents think they can outguess the operating crew - - - no, I'll go back to my cave.

I'm sure you'll all sort it out.

[Dannyboy39]

Unlike Airbus aircraft, IIRC there is no design life limit on Boeing aircraft, so does it really matter how old the airframe is? As long as its looked after and maintained IAW its AMP and EASA regulations, that's fine isn't it?

And to compare it to Ryanair... please! A BA 747 would operate around 600 cycles a year? Whereas a FR 738 is thrashed up to approx 1800-2000 cycles per year, over a 5 year period before they sell them on.

There are still A300s in operation from the 1970s! The vast majority of components are replaced during the life of the airframe, so in essence its a new aircraft anyway. And the more safety critical components are 'lifed' and replaced or O/H after a certain number of hours/cycles.

[Mk 1]

Hmmmmm.... quick refresher required on use of compass, maps and ded reckoning.

Nah, just break out the smartphone with a gps chip. Works in a car :}

[DaveReidUK]

The vast majority of components are replaced during the life of the airframe, so in essence its a new aircraft anyway.Well yes and no. If you're talking about rotable components, that's true, but most of the primary structure will be as delivered from Boeing. We're not talking about, say, RAF Hawks - some of which are flying around with new wings and new fuselages. :O

But your point is a valid one. When airlines retire aircraft it's normally because they have become too expensive to operate (fuel burn, maintenance, etc) compared to what else is available, not because they have started to fall out of the sky.

[joy ride]

Old at 17? The Vickers VC 10 has just retired after nearly half a century of service! Yes I know much of its service has not been comparable with daily airline service, but still an impressive innings to show how long a well engineered plane can last.

[rog747]

Monarch has 4 A300-600R still in service (absolute workhorse) since 1990,
and never really played up that much.

also some 757 flying around still with a few holiday airlines are late 1980's vintage

BA's 747-136 PW powered started life in the very early 70's and went on for well over 20 years, until late 1999 with BA!

the Roller powered -236 series didn't have such a BA long life in comparison.

[Basil]

Hmmmmm.... quick refresher required on use of compass, maps and ded reckoning.
If you progress to big aeroplanes you'll find out why not - unless you absolutely have to.
p.s. Edit to note that you are the first person I've seen use the DR term correctly and not call it 'dead reckoning' :ok:

Hire cars are restricted to 15000 miles.
Not now. Used to be 12 or 15k when leased by rental company from manufacturer and mileage limit was just there for resale value.
Now some hire companies buy cars and run them up to 50k miles. Y'all check those tyres :ok:

[Georgeablelovehowindia]

Monarch has 4 A300-600R still in service (absolute workhorse) since 1990,
and never really played up that much.

Monarch has THREE A300-600R in service. One went to the graveyard in Tupelo Ms last November, followed a few days later by a 1992-build A320. All three remaining A300s are due to be withdrawn by next March, along with two of the older A320s.

[rog747]

ah thanks for the update...i knew their time was close for withdrawal...

[Coupled_To_Me]

Eddie Stobart does not operate 17 year old trucks

Eddie Stobart does operate 24 year old ATRs, albeit under a different brand.

[EEngr]

This serves as a reminder: I'll have to dig up my DVD of White Nights and re-watch it.

[olasek]

Whatever the age of the aircraft this appears to be a software problem.

Hardware problem much more likely..

[tdracer]

Way back when, the Boeing design life was 20 years/60,000 hours/30,000 cycles. I'm pretty sure it's higher now, but I don't know the specifics.

That being said, Boeing is on record as saying that "with proper maintenance" their airplanes can be flown indefinitely.

In the aftermath of the Aloha 737 "Convertible" (when the upper half of the forward fuselage ripped off in flight) the FAA developed new 'aging airplane' requirements - basically additional inspections and such that were needed on older airframes. Boeing has supported the development of these requirements (I presume brand A has done the same).

There are a number of (relatively) low cycle 767 and 747 aircraft out there that are north of 100k hours. While most of the high time 747s are freighters (i.e. freighter conversions), most of the high time 767s are still passenger versions. I've heard that the operators really like the 767 for long routes thin routes - easy to fill and low maintenance.

A few years back I had to do a flight test on a BA 747-400 out of the BA maintenance base in Wales. Word was that the airplane in question was headed to the desert for storage as soon as we were done with it (it was one of their early -400s). Wondering around the airplane, I noticed that coach was, well, coach. Business was damn nice, but First Class stunk - I considered Business to be much better than First.

Hardware problem much more likely..

Ditto - not only is a "new" s/w problem unlikely on an aircraft that was certified 24 years ago, equipment cooling has minimal s/w involvement.

[training wheels]

That being said, Boeing is on record as saying that "with proper maintenance" their airplanes can be flown indefinitely.


As proven by Sriwijaya Air, Express Air and Trigana Air in Indonesia who still operate B737-200s on regular commercial flights!!

[Auberon]

The largest airline in the world is still flying around DC9-50s from the 1970s. They even have Wi-Fi.

[jimjim1]

@Basil
p.s. Edit to note that you are the first person I've seen use the DR term correctly and not call it 'dead reckoning'

I had always used "dead reckoning" - so I looked it up.

The Oxford English Dictionary has never heard of ded reckoning or ded-reckoning but has an entry for dead reckoning.

The origin of the phrase is not known.

World Wide Words: Dead reckoning (http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-dea7.htm) has one explanation of the origin of "ded".

I'll be staying dead.

[DaveReidUK]

Even by PPruNe standards, this is an old chestnut.

From 2005:

www.pprune.org/african-aviation/176448-attention-ded-reckoning-navigators.html (http://www.pprune.org/african-aviation/176448-attention-ded-reckoning-navigators.html)

[RAT 5]

p.s. Edit to note that you are the first person I've seen use the DR term correctly and not call it 'dead reckoning'

Some of the old skills sometimes come in handy. I remember reading an article in a very old The Log about the exploits of a BA B747-200 skipper. If I remember correctly they were over the Pacific and picked up a yacht radio call on 121.5. The yacht skipper was lost. The BA skipper, who must have come off the old B707 fleet and even before, was navigator qualified: sextant and all that good old fart stuff. He asked the yachty some pertinent questions about start point, time of trip, planned route, guesstimate of location, sun direction & angle etc. He calculated a likely grid position and gave a steer to nearest landfall. I believe it worked. You'll appreciate the memory is very dusty, but DR with a few added tit bits can work wonders.
Francis Chichister did something clever on his Tiger Moth trip across the Tasman Sea. First solo crossing with a very light fuel load for the trip. Could not afford to get lost. He had no wind information in those days, just a guess. He pre-calculated some astro fix readings and set off on a track which he believed would take him either left or right of target ( I can't remember which he decided to opt for.) That way he knew which way to turn once time was up. After an allotted time he took a sun reading and plotted actual position; compared it to pre-planned position and thus calculated the wind. He could then re-plot his next sector and repeat. He made it very accurately. An epic piece of flying and navigating. DR is alive and well but perhaps not best suited to B747's over perhaps hostile territory.

[Linktrained]

A Flight Navigator was required for any flight of 1000 nm over water or 1500nm over land, or more and must have a sextant, a drift sight and some means of checking the compass. A F/N licence was required for a Commercial Airship Licence. ( Why? I don't know !) That was in the early 1950s.

Francis Chichester's flight and his chart were published in " The Lonely Sea and the Sky" and were taught later as Astro Homing to would be Navigators.
'
He wrote a paper for the first issue of the Journal of the Institute of Navigation ( not yet Royal) called " Is Met really necessary". He suggested that a Navigator should be able to work out the pressure distribution for his flight from his own observed W/Vs.

Astro was much easier with HO249 or ANT pre-computed tables. I never tried spheroidal trigonometry in flight. But I was able to get a few Captains to take some star shots and plot them for themselves for the first time. ( I cautioned them with the story of G-ALDN, the Hermes in the desert.)

LT

[RAT 5]

Lonely Sea & Sky is a wonderful read. I obtained it in mid-60's. Inspirational. I know very little of astronomy and all the twinkling names. Never did astro nag, but now I see the newbies with their iphones pointed at the sky and marvel that they now know the names of the heavens. But do they know the stories behind the names, or is that for wikipedia to tell them. How much you could learn flogging across the world behind IRS/GPS with so much free time, until it all goes tits up as with BA 747's. Doesn't the iphone have a "home James" app?

[Capn Bloggs]

How much you could learn flogging across the world behind IRS/GPS with so much free time, until it all goes tits up as with BA 747's. Doesn't the iphone have a "home James" app?
In a manner of speaking, yes. ;)

[maf]

Cant help myself.. But when someone calls out the 744 in BAs fleet as old (refering that to the Irkutsk diversion) is just being blatantly ignorant. And then to compare that with Ryanairs fleet? Come on!

If some of you had the slightest clue to how much wear and tear those 738s have to tackle compared to BAs 744, you'd be thinking twice before boarding a Ryanair machine again...

[Captaintcas]

When I attended Antwerp maritime academy, we still had to know 60 stars by sight, perform astro nav. ( bloody difficult I tell you) and use and maintain the sextant. One time, during a apprenticeship exercise on a Belgian Navy ship, we had an English Navigational officer onboard via NATO cooperation ...she wasn't taught the use of sextant, never heard of astro nav... So even in shipping, things are quickly changing and the whole art of Navigation is quickly disappearing.

At least we must know in the Northern Hemisphere to identify Polaris, Ursa Major, the Orion belt, Rigel, Betelgeuze and Sirius. Most FO's do not have a clue, I try to enlighten them:)
We owe it to our profession to keep at least some traditions intact.

[Basil]

jimjim1,
Re: ded. or dead.
Much indebted for another viewpoint.

[Leftofcentre2009]

you'd be thinking twice before boarding a Ryanair machine again...

I wouldnt "think" at all. I'd rather walk . . .

[golfyankeesierra]

If the ones who think age is all would have any notion of the differences between handling characteristics of the supercritical wings of the A330, B777 et al, compared to the "heavy metal" of the 25 year old B747, they would think twice.
On the B747 you seldomly use the "fasten belts" switch. Says it all....

[golfyankeesierra]

fatigue and wear
is not relevant with long haul aircraft.
The issue was reliability and not fatigue bytheway...
And I was pointing out that the older aircraft, with their disadvantages of perhaps lower reliability dispatch rates, still have some huge advantages.
For instance a stable and smooth ride...
When I hear others complaining about the ride I hardly see a ripple in my coffee on my "unreliable" dinosaur.
And while landing in a storm in a B777 or A330 can be a challenge, in the B747 the only challenge is if the windspeed is over the door-limit....

[douglasheld]

Must have something to do with the speed of sound...

[TopBunk]

It did, but then Concorde was retired:sad:

[WHBM]

Astro was much easier with HO249 or ANT pre-computed tables. I never tried spheroidal trigonometry in flight. Mr WHBM Senior :ok: (WW2 nav, Halifax and later DC3) once told me he took along a few times his log tables and 12" slide rules from school days and on the sector home did the calcs from first principles.

It would be interesting to know if the Equipment Cooling fan was a 'lifed' item and if so when it was last changed, possibly nothing at all to do with the age of the airframe.
I recall being on a BA One-Eleven service out of Birmingham in the 1990s, in the last couple of months of service. The interior was immaculate, totally clean, nothing broken, nothing even discoloured. This after 25 years of service.

In contrast the BA European 767s, even a few years ago, had been allowed to get into a dreadful state internally, and regulars on the Moscow flight on Flyertalk started a list, by aircraft registration, of all the unresolved cabin issues which plagued those flights, including broken, missing or filthy cabin fittings, many of which should have been standard stores items. The worst was G-BZHC, whose cabin lighting had some longstanding intermittent issue that caused all the lights to flash on and off at random - this aircraft gained the long-running soubriquet of "The Disco", and regulars said their hearts would sink when they saw it on the gate. Now at the time ZC was the newest 767 in the fleet, less than 10 years old. There really is no excuse for such maintenance budget cheeseparing, and to be frank, saying that it's only non-vital components that this is done with, having two completely different maintenance regimes for different components, strains credulity.

http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf-self-loading-freight/419180-ba-fleet-age-2.html#post5777138

[neilki]

Ded -for Deduced Reckoning. -And to be nit pickitty; looking out of the window with a map is called 'Pilotage'. Ded Reckoning calls for a chart & a stopwatch, and works in IMC (in principal)..:rolleyes:

[ConstantFlyer]

Irkutsk is quite nice. I can think of plenty of places I'd like a lot less to be stuck for 10 hours - Heathrow, for example.

[champair79]

In contrast the BA European 767s, even a few years ago, had been allowed to get into a dreadful state internally, and regulars on the Moscow flight on Flyertalk started a list, by aircraft registration, of all the unresolved cabin issues which plagued those flights, including broken, missing or filthy cabin fittings, many of which should have been standard stores items. The worst was G-BZHC, whose cabin lighting had some longstanding intermittent issue that caused all the lights to flash on and off at random - this aircraft gained the long-running soubriquet of "The Disco", and regulars said their hearts would sink when they saw it on the gate. Now at the time ZC was the newest 767 in the fleet, less than 10 years old. There really is no excuse for such maintenance budget cheeseparing, and to be frank, saying that it's only non-vital components that this is done with, having two completely different maintenance regimes for different components, strains credulity.


You'll be pleased to know WHBM that all of the short haul 767s had an interior upgrade last year and are now actually quite nice. They even have flat screens hanging from the ceiling rather than those flickery old monitors that never used to work!

As for the 747s, some of them are falling to pieces and others are still quite nice. I flew on G-BNLR last week from BKK. Dreadful thing. Hopefully the most dilapidated ones will get the boot soon. Some of the older 747s with New First (Prime) are being retired over the next few months. The new-ish cabins from these aircraft will be used to replace some of the middle-aged 747s that still have old First fitted.

Despite moaning about the interiors, I still love the Queen of the Skies!

Champ