SIDs, 4 Engines or Not?
 

If a 4 engine aircraft pilot accepts a SID from ATC, must the aircraft be capable of achieving all of the alts, climb gradients etc within the SID, not necessarily obstacles, on 3 engines to comply with BCARs.

[ 16 August 2001: Message edited by: charliesbar ]

Don't know what BCAR's is, but EVERY aircraft has to comply with EVERY instruction given, be it off ATC or a SID/STAR chart, unless prior permission has been obtained from the controller. I would hope that even just losing an engine, leaving three, any pilot would at least inform ATC even if no affect will occur on operations. Should anything subsequent go, at least the AIBB have a starting point.

If you lose an engine that sir is an emergency in most books. You declare an emergency and all bets are off. We just move everyone out of your way and get you back to the airport...

regards

If you can't comply with the SID then you should tell us, if you're a 3 engine ferry, then you should tell us. We may have traffic to depart behind you that will quickly catch you up and then we have all the paperwork to do because you got too close to each other.
I would hope that a 4 engine a/c running on 3 engines woudn't have performance problems to such a degree as to not be able to comply with SID alt restrictions.

Gentlemen - SIDs are designed for the all-engine case. If an aircraft loses an engine it will not necessarily be able to make the alt. constraints in the SID - it depends on the conditions on the day.

Every airline has different procedures for what to do on an engine-failure on departure. In my mob, SOPs state that if the engine fails on the runway or before the initial turn in the SID, we will continue on runway heading. Once we've started a SID-mandated turn we will continue on the SID.

Of course we will inform you nice guys in the Tower ASAP (probably by forgetting all RT procedure and screaming "help" ;) ), but it may well take us a minute or 2 to get around to it as there are other things on our minds at that stage of the game.

Hope this helps.