Aerolineas Argentinas low level flyby on revenue flight

[broadreach]

So, what do you make of this? Don't think it's been posted yet.

AA pilot on last flight - Miami-Ezeiza - prior retirement performs a low level fly past at Jorge Newberry with, presumably, a full load of passengers. Hands up all those who would give their their left hand or other part of the anatomy to do the same. And now, hands up all who would lose their left hand, pensions etc for doing precisely that.

Airbus A340-300 Aerolineas Argentinas rasante low level flight Aeroparque Jorge Newbery - YouTube (http://youtu.be/mPZp8IVkrTc)

[Oilhead]

Seriously unimpressed I would have been to be held hostage for that as a passenger. Just land the blasted thing and go home. Why the need for exhibitionism!? You've spent your life presumably delivering precious self loading freight and now you want to risk it all with a stupid flyby, like the vain Concordia Captain? GMAFB.

[chiglet]

Seen AF concords do it at LPL. Depart 27. 180 over the Wirral and low approach g/a on 09. with pax. BA Bac111s used to do " airshows " from MAN, with pax, again low apc and g/a. Pax loved it

[Ozlander1]

Well, at least he got it right. :D

[BN2A]

Flared a bit high, then went around. Perfectly safe procedure to carry out in such an event.
Think we've all seen or heard of the results of trying to get it down at any cost...

:D

[captplaystation]

It seems from the video it wasn't exactly "unplanned" & was (in effect) just a "Go-Around" with a slow climb. Nothing to see here, please move on.

Would prefer a Vmo/50' pass myself, but probably not worth the legal fees afterwards :=

[MrMachfivepointfive]

I remember when Pan Am said goodbye to FRA in the early 90s. After takeoff and a brief pattern, they did a Vmo low pass in a fully fueled and loaded 74. No cries of outrage then.

[Check Airman]

What's wrong with what he did? Is there anything inherently dangerous about a fly-by?

[MrMachfivepointfive]

Exactly. :)

[CDRW]

Exactly - but there are always the likes of Oilhead out there who think this sort of things is "dangerous". Good for this guy!!!!

[toffeez]

Argentinian ego the size of his bank balance.

[India Four Two]

Would prefer a Vmo/50' pass myself,
captplaystation:

You mean like this?

WestJet retires their last -200 in 2006
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMFGEztzzck

Unfortunately it was a non-rev flight.

[BN2A]

The TAP A310 mentioned on previous threads is more like it.....

:E

[Super VC-10]

Check Airman - Is there anything inherently dangerous about a fly-by?


No, nothing can go wrong with a fly-by with pax on board, can it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296 :=

[Wally Mk2]

Oh boy there's some worrying souls out there! Looked bloody harmless to me in fact I was expecting a REAL low flyby not some sedate pass over the rwy dirty, almost an anticlimax!

[Hotel Tango]

Too many oilheads in this world :(

[Cows getting bigger]

That was a perfectly safe go around. If you want to find something to criticise, how about?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WmhAa_CJYY

[pma 32dd]

That's the normal g/a climb rate for a 343 :E

[flaphandlemover]

we need like buttons on this forums...
great responses....
nothing to see... move on

[wd-15717]

But if this really did happen at Aeroparque (SABE/AEP) then there's no scheduled A343 service there -- that is the in-city commuter airport.

Long-haul flights go to Ezeiza (SAEZ/EZE) outside the city.

One thing to say it was just a go-around for fun and then proceeded to land -- another thing to have done it all at a completely different airport.

[Captivep]

That is definitely the airport right in the centre of Buenos Aires, not the international one (which is presumably where he was being paid to fly to)...

[Basil]

Not impressed! Who does he think he is? Captain Schettino? :*

Edited to say: If as reported.

[starling60]

For all we know could this have been previously agreed and approved by AA?

[pontifex]

I seem to remember that an AF pilot tried to the same sort of thing at Habsheim in an A320 some while ago with rather less success. At least this time the guy had his gear down which simplified matters somewhat.

[Sheikh Your Bootie]

I think you will find there was some sort of Festival going on, fill your boots with these flypasts.

The Aviationist » Watch this: How insanely low you can fly a civilian jet liner! (http://theaviationist.com/2013/10/29/737-low-pass/#.UnkxmOhFDct)

[gcal]

Many moons ago and a DC10-10 with 380 bums on seats + crew out of LGW for MCO and a low level fly past at the Biggin Hill airshow.
No hullabaloo no fuss and the punters got a bit extra for their money.

[pontifex]

Actually he didn't. He thought he knew all about the beast and pulled some cbs he thought to circumvent AB safety protocols that would not let the ac go below a certain height without the gear down. (i forget how high that was.) Unluckily for him those cbs also controlled other functions hence his elegant descent into the trees. It did prove how relatively strong an AB was though.

[Ozlander1]

But if this really did happen at Aeroparque (SABE/AEP) then there's no scheduled A343 service there -- that is the in-city commuter airport.

Long-haul flights go to Ezeiza (SAEZ/EZE) outside the city.

One thing to say it was just a go-around for fun and then proceeded to land -- another thing to have done it all at a completely different airport.

Well, if you're at the wrong airport, you about have to do a GA. :D

[sleeper]

I think you will find there was some sort of Festival going on, fill your
boots with these flypasts.





The Aviationist » Watch this: How insanely low you can fly a
civilian jet liner! (http://theaviationist.com/2013/10/29/737-low-pass/#.UnkxmOhFDct)


Interesting. Notice all military aircraft, even the fast jetjockeys, fly higher than the civilian B737.

[misd-agin]

Fighters were flying wing on the 737. The last place they want to be is tucked in and below his wing at low altitude.

[Aluminium shuffler]

Strikes me as pretty damned stupid and arrogant, approved or not, passengers or not - a little bit of turbulence off a hangar or a bird down an engine and you have no height or time to correct a resulting flight path variation. Airliners are too big and have too little agility/responsiveness to be doing that sort of flypast. A few hundred feet is one thing, but a few tens of feet is another - it looks clever, but anyone with a small amount of wit knows how stupid it is. It's the same as boy racers in their hot hatches and on their bikes.

[skkm]

Actually he didn't. He thought he knew all about the beast and pulled some cbs

Looks awfully like landing gear sticking out the bottom of the A320 in question to me... Air France Flight 296 - Airbus A320 Crash 2 1988 France - YouTube (http://youtu.be/bPbocqkMzBY)

[HOMER SIMPSONS LOVECHILD]

a little bit of turbulence off a hangar or a bird down an engine and you have no height or time to correct a resulting flight path variation. Airliners are too big and have too little agility/responsiveness
Just remind me how we are supposed to land these things . :ugh:

[con-pilot]

Noting to get excited about, he was just having the tower do a visual gear check.

[J.O.]

I seem to recall a story of a captain from a certain Asian carrier who was dismissed after conducting a similar manoeuvre at BFI on a delivery flight with a brand new B777. He'd been given the okay by his boss riding in the back but was subsequently axed when it made the news back home and some higher-ups were embarrassed.

It looks innocent enough but I have to wonder of the sensibility of doing it, given the tendency for innocent looking stuff to go viral on social media these days. Wanna play? Go rent a Citabria on the weekend.

[Jorge Newberry]

The pilot's name is :mad:, ex boss of the pilots union and thick as, erm, thieves with the government, the same govt that owns aerolineas, so connections like that bring privilges.

[broadreach]

Thank you for the replies, pro and con. It was posted a bit tongue-in-cheek: thirty years ago as a passenger or in a jumpseat I was much more gung-ho; at 68 I'm a bit more conservative regarding my own skin and that of others - for some reason I like more "perfectly safe" layers.

Just to clarify: the flypast was over the domestic Jorge Newberry runway in Buenos Aires and the aircraft then went on to land at Ezeiza. Miami-Ezeiza is what, around 11.5 hours?

[Captain Dart]

Ironic really, the captain involved in the Post #37 flypast had been a member of Cathay Pacific's infamous 'Star Chamber' that fired a group of pilots 'for no particular reason' 'pour encourager les autres'. The 777 had company passengers and a trans-Pacific fuel load on board.

And he ended up fired himself.

[Kengineer-130]

Thats nothing, I flew on a BA737 a few weeks ago, LHR to ABZ, the crew were useless. They got so low the wheels actually hit the runway, and the aircraft had to stop and taxi to the gate to inspect for damage! :ugh:. Who do I sue for being put in such danger?:confused:

[DozyWannabe]

Actually he didn't. He thought he knew all about the beast and pulled some cbs he thought to circumvent AB safety protocols that would not let the ac go below a certain height without the gear down. (i forget how high that was.)

Sorry, that's not the case - for one thing there are no CBs to "pull" that will force the Airbus FBW systems into a different control law. The plan was to override A/THR by holding down the disconnect buttons, but apparently he didn't get around to that (a point obscured by a mistranslation of the report, apparently). There are definitely no protections stopping the aircraft from descending without the gear down - they'll keep the aircraft from stalling or going into a spiral dive whilst airborne (i.e. above 100ft RA), but that's it.

What prevented the Alpha Floor protection from activating was being well below 100ft RA, and the reasons for that start with the crew being incorrectly briefed - they were expecting an approach to the paved runway, not the grass strip, and the charts they were given were incorrectly photocopied - the tree graphics at the end of the grass strip were of a greyscale too light to transfer. Finding themselves off-course, fast and high, the Captain elected to try to salvage the first approach rather than turn back and try again, and in doing so he pulled the throttles back too far, causing the engines to spool down. The combination of ending up lower and slower than the intended profile with the engines spooled down meant that by the time they noticed the trees were an obstacle there was not enough time for the engines to spool up and begin building up airspeed, and the crash was at that point inevitable.

The flyby in this AA case was a very different matter - the profile AoA was well short of demonstrating Alpha Prot, the runway had no obstacles at the far end, and it does at least appear that the manoeuvre was properly briefed and executed - you can't compare it with AF296 in that regard. As has been pointed out, it was far more akin to a scheduled go-around than an airshow flypast.

I did recently find this demonstration (to the best of my knowledge without pax aboard) of a correctly-briefed and performed demonstration of Alpha Prot and Alpha Floor on an A330 - compare and contrast! :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYSYgBGo2z8

[JammedStab]

Strikes me as pretty damned stupid and arrogant, approved or not, passengers or not - a little bit of turbulence off a hangar or a bird down an engine and you have no height or time to correct a resulting flight path variation. Airliners are too big and have too little agility/responsiveness to be doing that sort of flypast. A few hundred feet is one thing, but a few tens of feet is another - it looks clever, but anyone with a small amount of wit knows how stupid it is. It's the same as boy racers in their hot hatches and on their bikes.

What if there was no turbulence from the hangar because the winds were light.

What if you had an engine failure at V1 at max weight. Better to be at 280 knots and light. Maybe the rest of us are foolish. How little guaranteed terrain clearance is there in a second segment climb.

[Oilhead]

I have no objection to people wanting to do fly-bys - some of them are quite fun - in Spitfires, F4's etc. flown by professional air display pilots, not some frustrated and bored old git wanting to have one last rather pathetic attempt at getting a boner on the way out the door.

My point in this concerns the poor bloody passengers in the back being taken on a ride like this totally against their will and expectations. While some might find a flyby, or whatever you want to call it, a fun story to tell later, other passengers are scared witless to start with on just a normal flight, and my objection is that they have no vote in the matter.

I have done plenty of things in appropriate planes that are fun to do and to witness from the ground, but on my own or with a student etc. - certainly no one in the back. I chose not to inflict this stuff on people who are utterly unprepared and unbriefed for such surprises, and are being held hostage to the Captain's fragile ego.

FWIW my airline quite rightly has very clear and predictable language in the FOM about "style of flying" etc.

[nitpicker330]

Time and a place

Time and a place

That's not it. :=

[Pugilistic Animus]

Wait till they get the fuel bill :}

[JanetFlight]

Long and lost forgotten are those nostalgic times when there was no Internet, no "PseudoFSwebkidsthatknowsabouteverythingflying" and bla bla bla, where aviation could be discussed without crucifying the pilots in the blink of an eye because of every action they've done and choose...could it be a normal go-around, a bumpy landing, a occasional surge/flame out, etc etc...now everyone behind a PC desk and a nickname can be a 747 Captain, a 380 instructor or even a Bush&Safari pilot with 3000 Moon Landings...yeap, this old ARG guy is surely another one waiting for the aviation web and foruns Gallows Pole...:(
BTW, great post Kengineer-130 ;)

[stilton]

Yes, it's harmless and great fun to some.


But I don't want to be in the back when some idiot decides he's an airshow pilot.


Not what I paid for and it's not what he's supposed to do, take me from A to B with no fuss in the safest manner possible.


As a professional Pilot myself the idea of 'showing off' in such a manner is abhorrent.


These people are idiots.

[Snowcat]

Low pass with or without pax onboard shouldn't be allowed by any flight department. :=

A firetruck shower on the ramp like Captain Sully should be enough for a retirement flight

[West Coast]

A go around procedure whether optional or not does not categorize one as a airshow pilot.

Looked nice, wish the skipper a pleasant retirement.

[Teddy Robinson]

For starters all we see is a plane above a runway, where are the "facts" that there were indeed fare paying pax on board ?
If there were, how would you feel if your nearest and dearest were on board and you were watching this "death defying feat" ?
It's only death defying until the sky-god gets it wrong after all, and history as well as many airfields are littered with the DNA of suddenly undone egos.

So what's with all the yehaaaawing ? this kind of thing gets people killed, which is bad enough if is the show off and his overly compliant first officer, but seriously .. to risk 100+ lives ?

Sorry folks but it seems this forum is becoming overpopulated with flightsiimmers and redneck applaudees.

Yeeeeeehaw .. bang fire... your wife/children/loved one is gone in a big fireball.

Very clever.

[West Coast]

It's a go arounf bud, calm yourself.

Could care less if my family got to experience a go around, at least from a safety perspective. If it made them late for a connection I might be a bit torqued but no concern about safety.

[Teddy Robinson]

where does it say it's a go-around ... bud ?

[West Coast]

By watching the video.

Bud...

[Teddy Robinson]

All hail to your opinion.
Would you care to share more ?
Were there indeed passengers on board as alledged .. was this a non scheduled airport for the flight alleged ? you seen to know better than most ... so go ahead .... bird.
I just asked some questions :-)

[West Coast]

You sure make a lot of assumptions. It's a go around, the presence or absence of pax aside.

[broadreach]

Just to clarify. It was not a "go-round", i.e. an aborted landing.

This was a revenue flight from Miami to Ezeiza on or about 17 November; the usual load is around 250 passengers. The captain was performing his last flight for Aerolineas Argentinas prior to retirement. Before landing at Ezeiza the aircraft made a low pass over the downtown Jorge Newberry runway. Passengers were informed prior to the low pass.

There was at least one reporter on board and the fly-by was widely commented in the Argentine press. One link below. There are references to last-flight low passes being "in keeping with tradition".

Se despidió con un vuelo rasante y un "viaje de película" - lanacion.com (http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1640074-un-vuelo-rasante-de-aerolineas-argentinas-y-un-viaje-de-pelicula)

[Pinkman]

Comparisons with Habsheim and whether it was or was not a go around miss the point which is that any unplanned activity introduces the first hole in the cheese. Habsheim was a planned activity that had its own set of holes in cheeses as adeptly pointed out by Dozywannabe above and is not a good example.

A better comparison would be Aeroflot 593: allowing two children on the flight deck (first hole), seating one at the controls (second hole), not noticing that they had inadvertently disabled a/p aileron authority (third hole) because there was no audible disconnect unlike Russian a/c (fourth hole) ... you get the point...

C'mon! it was only a fly by! C'mon! it was only a child visiting the cockpit!

Pinkman

[PENKO]

A low pass...is a procedure that very few professional pilots are trained to do.
Sure, I'm confident to do one in a Cessna 172.
Sure, I'm pretty confident I can do one in an Airbus.

But flying an airliner is a highly proceduralized activity. What I am not comnfident about is to depart from my rigid procedures to improvise a low pass in a highly complex machine. I'm pretty sure I'll get it right, but that is not good enough.

But hey, maybe they practice low passes in the sim every six months in Argentina, what do I know!

[nitpicker330]

"It's a go around...."

Sure it is, we believe you.:=

Didn't you select TOGA? Or didn't it work? :D

[boredcounter]

Could have avoided all this debate by just doing the safe thing and landing prior to carrying out the safe take-off in strict adherence of SOP. Simple and as an added extra, no-one bats an eye at a large airplane landing at the wrong airport

:)

[cosmiccomet]

AEP/SABE is only 131 ft/40 mts wide and 6890 ft/2100 mts long.
So, it wasn´t a go around because in the first place that airport is not suitable for an A340 operation.
The biggest airplane I have ever seen operating in AEP was an Airbus A310 due to wx below minimums at Ezeiza.

[Stalker_]

Argentina has an airline?

[cosmiccomet]

You can answer that question using Google...

[hunbet]

At 4:55 into this video,Delta demonstrates a proper retirement flyby.

Flight to Victorville - The Final Flight of Delta's L1011 TriStar - YouTube

[Snowcat]

Low alt. there is always a risk of bird strikes, specially on the go around.
Yes, Argentina had an airline for a long time, actually two if we count Austral lineas Aereas until it was bought out by Aerolineas Argentinas.

[cosmiccomet]

Google should give you a better information about airlines around the world...
But in Argentina there is one airline controlled by the governmet, Aerolineas Argentinas/Austral. Different brands but the same airline.

http://www.aerolineas.com.ar/arg/main.asp?idSitio=AR&idPagina=239&idIdioma=en

Another "Major" airline is LAN Argentina (4M) operating 12 Airbus A320 and 2 B767-300ERW.

SOL Lineas Aereas is operating 6 or 7 SAAB 340.