Ryanair incident at Stanstead?

[Up up and away]

Apologies if this is old news but my Twitter feed has come up with a post suggesting a Ryanair aircraft has lost its wingtip/winglet after a 'coming together' this morning....

[TShan1]

I don't know if you've seen the photo, but here it is... https://twitter.com/imhoturenot/status/482763191353896960

[susier]

How is the other plane?

[D-ABAA]

The other aircraft also was a FR which was being pushed back by Swissport ground crew looks to have stabiliser damage.

[TOWTEAMBASE]

We're they both pushing back at same time ? What stands were they on

[TOWTEAMBASE]

There aren't any wing walkers , only a tail man stopping traffic, and a headset man who ......really should have seen it coming

[D-ABAA]

The aircraft with winglet damage was inbound traffic. The aircraft with rudder and stabiliser damage was on pushback.

[jeehaa]

inbound was HHN-STN EI-ENL
outbound was STN-WMI EI-DAN

[stator vane]

Perhaps the terminology might vary, but the purpose should be the same. One tail man could have trouble watching all the aircraft bits and with the sun could be difficult to see and be seen.

[7574ever]

What does Ryanair have to do with anything? I seem to remember plenty of ground collision incidents from other airlines in the recent past (AA/IB, WN/Jet Blue, BA, etc). These things happen all the time.

[TOWTEAMBASE]

The tail man just watches the road until the tail goes over the double whites, then he walks off, he/she doesn't stay there for the duration of the pushback. The person on the headset is called the crew chief for a reason !!!!

And it's about Ryanair because it was 2 Ryanair's that had the accident !!

[Capot]

Looking down the various expert opinions on Twatter I came across this gem...

John C ‏@johnthestatto 6h
@imhoturenot @Ryanair even without the winglet the aircraft probably flyable but it'd be a bumpy ride and v fuel inefficient.

[TOWTEAMBASE]

Prob a Ryanair engineer :-D. Still......at least he didn't say the same for the one with the horizontal stab with the winglet stuck in it

[Ant T]

Looking down the various expert opinions on Twatter I came across this gem...

Quote:
John C ‏@johnthestatto 6h
@imhoturenot @Ryanair even without the winglet the aircraft probably flyable but it'd be a bumpy ride and v fuel inefficient.


Doesn't sound so unreasonable-

There was a HiFly A330 that jammed its winglet under the wing of another aircraft at Ascension Island in January 13, they took the damaged winglet off and continued on to the Falklands a few hours later with one winglet on and one missing. Not hearsay - I watched it taxi in as I was meeting a passenger off it.

[Capt. Inop]

One missing winglet would be 10 day MEL.
No big problem imho.

[Zippy Monster]

At the risk of sounding like a pedant, would this not be CDL rather than MEL?

[Nightstop]

These are Sharklets not Winglets, totally different kettle of fish w.r.t. the CDL.

[Island Jockey]

Blended winglets -Boeing

[scr1]

Now on the BBC

BBC News - Ryanair jets damaged in Stansted Airport collision (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-28072770)

Hope the wife does not see it. we go holiday next week and she hates flying

[fireflybob]

Essex Police said it had conducted "routine breath tests" on both pilots after the incident, but there was no evidence of alcohol consumption.

I presume breath tests were conducted on all other personnel involved in the incident including push back crew, ATC etc?

[golfyankeesierra]

There was a HiFly A330 .. .. they took the damaged winglet off and continued on to the Falklands a few hours later with one winglet on and one missing.
Strange, I seem to remember that on the a330 if one winglet is missing the other one has to be removed as well for dispatch. (as opposed to other aircraft like the 744)

[Ant T]

Golfyankeesierra - re.taking the other winglet off on the A330 at Ascension
Yes, I would have thought it would make sense, but my Dad was a passenger on that flight. He watched the wingtip get jammed under the other aircraft, they then had to sit there for a couple of hours as they didn't want the pax getting off and the aircraft rising up and making the damage worse. Think in the end they refuelled asymmetrically while the pax were still on, to get the stuck wing unjammed.
I watched it taxi in when it arrived in the Falklands and can assure you it only had one winglet on.

[konsult]

inbound was HHN-STN EI-ENL
outbound was STN-WMI EI-DAN

What is the source? Both Ryanair and passengers claims that there was an aircraft change on STN-WMI flight.

My guess it that it was EI-DLJ. Anyone can confirm?

[Sober Lark]

No doubt we'll all be seeing who foxmoth really is in due course.

[D-ABAA]

EI-ENL & EI-DLJ - the two involved.

[On_The_Top_Bunk]

I presume breath tests were conducted on all other personnel involved in the incident including push back crew, ATC etc?

Not necessary as they are always professional and blameless.

[mikeygd]

If they breath tested two pilots, why didn't they test the other two?
Obviously nobody was drunk, but someone made a mistake.
How will I manage to wait until all the facts are released.:bored:

[foxmoth]

No doubt we'll all be seeing who foxmoth really is in due course

I have enough posts on Pp for those that know me to know who I am, at least I have more info in my profile than you do! - I have no connection with Ryanair - and never wish too!:hmm:

[jeehaa]

correct, as written above, Lido had already changed for -DAN, which operated the rest of the day.

[Piltdown Man]

I really feel for the ground crew in this one. I don't think RYR have an understanding attitude to people who are on "interesting" end of an incident, especially if they are holding the cosh. I hope they hang on to their jobs. Now here's a question: Is there really any need for more than one ground crew member to be involved in a push-back? My experience is that the fewer there are the better and that is because of focus. Tug drivers know where the "bits" are and when performing a pushback by by themselves, even from tight spots, can spend more time driving and less time looking out for a weird and wonderful signals from colleagues.

[Nervous SLF]

One passenger on the Warsaw-bound flight said on Twitter: "Huge loud crashing noise and totally felt the crush sitting at the back.
Thank God it only hit the wing as if it was the body of the plane it'd been apocalypse."

Dear oh dear what a thing to say.

[crewmeal]

Now the DM have got hold of the story

Two Ryanair jets collide at Stansted Airport causing delays and passenger evacuations | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2673674/Two-Ryanair-jets-collide-Stansted-Airport-causing-delays-passenger-evacuations.html)

Passengers were evacuated and flights were delayed for three hours

For those in the know, were there any evacuations and were flights held up for 3 hours?

[scr1]

Quote:
Hope the wife does not see it. we go holiday next week and she hates flying

If flying Ryanair she may have reasons, talking to a girl yesterday who used to be in their ops and it was not a nice tale!

No, we are not used to handle them on the ground. Not a airline I would want to fly.

[Yeelep]

You can't CDL a winglet on a 737.

[goudie]

I'm surprised no passengers 'thought they were going to die!'':rolleyes:

[TOWTEAMBASE]

Flights were probably held if for 3 hours while they sourced and prepared 2 replacements.

Piltdown

You will probably find everyone in the UK use a 2 man (or more) pushback crew. At the end of the day, the headset man is the eyes and ears for the PIC,and to relay information. Regardless of ATC clearance, you survey the area behind the ac before releasing the brakes, and stand by until it is clear to push.the trouble with he FR operation at STN is it isn't clearly visible from the tower, and would rely on SMR and the ground crew doing their job unfortunately

[sitigeltfel]

Now the DM have got hold of the story

Two Ryanair jets collide at Stansted Airport causing delays and passenger evacuations | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2673674/Two-Ryanair-jets-collide-Stansted-Airport-causing-delays-passenger-evacuations.html)

Standards are slipping at the Mail. They forgot to tell us the combined value of the pax, crew and ground handlers houses. ;)

[Sallyann1234]

At least the Mail managed to spell Stansted correctly, which several here could not achieve.

[Piltdown Man]

You will probably find everyone in the UK use a 2 man (or more) pushback crew.

I know. I the UK, five plus the driver is my record now. Yet most other European stations use fewer people, if not just one person. My point is that a tug driver left to get on to do the job by them self has always done a better job than a team; and that is over several thousand flights. The ONLY time I have ever had a problem is in UK with large pushback teams. I have never, ever had a problem with a singe crewed TBL tug. Apart from a direct communication with the driver an added advantage is that the driver doesn't have to look of for the rest of the crew. This is a classic case of less-is-more.

[Aluminium shuffler]

G-ARZG: RYR taxy speeds are very reasonable, ever since the 800 was introduced. That is one of the effects of the OFDM programme. Granted, the 200s were taxied pretty swiftly (often very fast), but rarely the 800s.

It's amazing that the Mail journalist, despite seeming considering himself a well informed expert, cant tell the difference between a runway and a minor taxiway in a cul-de-sac. As for the claim of an evacuation, I haven't heard that elsewhere, unless every orderly disembarkation is now considered an evacuation. That rag really should be shut down for continuous libel - they are incapable of printing a single factual story.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

G-ARZG: RYR taxy speeds are very reasonable, ever since the 800 was introduced. That is one of the effects of the OFDM programme. Granted, the 200s were taxied pretty swiftly (often very fast), but rarely the 800s.

Isn't it because the 800s are so slippy they're harder to slow down...?

[Aluminium shuffler]

800s are slippery in flight, but that doesn't really affect taxi speeds in my experience. ;) There used to be a few rogues that threw the 200s around, but the OFDM will catch just about anything you can think of and you will get chased up. It's not a QADR system like EZY had on the 700s, it's a mobile phone based system which downloads the whole aircraft's operation that day into a computer "wash" system that looks for just about any anomaly and every measurable excedence, which is then assessed by a pilot who will interpret what was going on. Basically, you can't hide anything, so it has long since caught any cowboys.

[Sober Lark]

Greenlights, your post isn't an 'incident' you can edit or delete it.


What happened at Stansted is not uncommon or unprecedented. Worldwide there are an estimated 27,000 ramp incidents each year and they are phenomenally expensive for the industry.

[Aluminium shuffler]

How do you know who's fault it was, Greenlights? It could have been the pilots of either aircraft, the ground crew and possibly an ATC foul-up that triggered it. But hey, it's RYR, so just blame the pilots anyway, huh?

[Torque Tonight]

Yes, this sort of thing never happens to other airlines does it. Tug driver twonked the wingtip because the F/O had to pay for his type rating. Imagine how much worse it could have been if the F/O had a tiller on his side.

[Aluminium shuffler]

Greenlights, you are quite astonishingly stupid. The pilots don't push the aircraft back, the ground crew do. They have control and they're the ones who can see what's happening around them. As for the taxying a/c, they would almost certainly have had clearance all the way on to stand and expect the aircraft waiting for push to hold until they were cler, as per the likely ATC clearance.

Now, it is POSSIBLE that ATC didn't issue a conditional clearance to the pusher, orr that the pilots failed to pass that on correctly to the ground crew, or the ground crew may have not understood it correctly. That is what the investigation will find out and has yet to be released, but they are trigger factors, not causal - the causal factor is the ground crew pushing an aircraft infront of a taxying one. So, Greenlights, you owe the pilots an apology.

[konsult]

EI-DLJ is still not back in service. Anyone know what was destroyed as repairs take so long time?