Virgin nose wheel incident

[Barkly1992]

Tickle

The guys in the tower certainly did notice the nose wheel still up when Ansett's first try at an international flight from Sydney ended up as a wheels-up at KSA on return due to an engine failure in the B747.

They called the aircraft and advised them their nose wheel was not down just as it landed and was committed. Very embarrassing.

The fireies used to have a picture of it on the wall of their station in KSA.

[FRQ Charlie Bravo]

From aap:

Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association secretary Steve Purvinas called on Virgin Blue to conduct pre-flight safety checks before all flights.

Finally somebody is calling for pre-flight inspections of aircraft. That advice 100 years ago would have probably saved us from all those pesky deaths.

FRQ CB

PS Not a dig at Mr Purvinas but the writing.

[splashman]

So who does preflt inspections on VBA aircraft ?

Pilots, engineers or baggage handlers ?

If it was a corroded axle, who would be most qualified to pick it up before the aircraft left the gate, the pilot, an engineer or a baggage handler?

Seems to me that with a 30 to 45 min turnaround, a pilot would have lots of pilot stuff to do, and a baggage handler would have lots of baggage handling stuff to do.

Preflt takes a good 10 to 15 mins including refuelling.

I think Mr P of the ALAEA has a very good point

[teresa green]

How long ago did this AC have a D check, and are you kidding me that there is no walk around on Virgin aircraft, you must be.

[Getzo]

Was an inspection conducted before the aircraft subsequently moved or the taxi back, lucky the other nosewheel did not come adrift????

86'er

[kimir]

You ask the question....Who does inspections on turn arounds? engineers and/or pilots.....depends on the flight/port. (edto or not/ outport or not) I can tell you however I personally have picked up concerns regarding the aircraft after a "qualified" lame has done a walkaround, and I'm just a pilot who has to strap his ass to the thing. Every one of us misses things / makes mistakes, we are only human, no problem there, I would prefer an extra set of eyes but this is pure scaremongering by the media. Mr p from the alaea should be careful. Qantas was hit in the media similarly last year, I disagreed with that then too. Having said that I would however prefer an engineer for "every" pushback...not most. In this case it wouldn't have helped anyway. - Highlighting the old problem. Machines break.

[makespeed250kt]

Kimir, I fail to see any scaremongering here? We are talking about the same incident are we?

I'm not sure I'd be to happy If my loved ones had just boarded that aircraft.

[Critical Reynolds No]

Barkly1992:

The fireies used to have a picture of it on the wall of their station in KSA.

They sure did and were told to take down any photos that clearly showed the Airline name on the fuselage. The only photo they could use was just a close up of the nose on the ground with a truck blocking out the Ansett Australia titles.

[feetonthedash]

What was the rego of the VB aircraft with the axle problem?
How old was it?
I thought most VB aircraft were fairly recent models.....

[vee1-rotate]

Aircraft was VH-VBA, one of the first 737NG's the company puchased. An '01 model I believe.

And Getzo, yes an inspection was definately carried out before the aircraft taxiied back. Engineers went out to the aircraft on the taxiway to assess the issue and deemed it ok for them to taxi back to the gate, albeit a very slow taxi.

[Anonymousbluesky]

Just to make it clear, on all VB flights there is a preflight walk around, the pilots are required to do a walk around prior to every flight but are probably only allowed 10-15mins for this. If there is a PPU (power push back unit) it would be an engineer doing the push, once again due to VB's short turn around there is only about 10 -15 minutes to do a walk around.
You may have seen the bag boys doing a walk around prior to a flight, unfortunately these guys are only trained to drive the tug, plug in a headset to speak to the crew and tell them the chocks are in. So any walk around performed by a bag handler would only be looking for the obvious things i.e. refueling panel closed, engine oil panels closed (although wouldn't check the oil fill cap is on), holds are shut and so on.

But despite all this, if there was a obvious sign of corrosion on the nose landing gear this would have most likely been noticed by the R&D bag boy.

[kimir]

makespeed250, perhaps you shouldn't let your loved ones fly in an aeroplane ever again then. As I said, complex machines sometimes break, have flaws. That is why redundancy is built in, sometimes even that is not enough. Scaremongering - I say yes. The media as usual reporting the worst possible outcome in an attempt to gain ratings. Fact - a nose wheel came off, not saying it is a good thing. We are trained to land without any nosegear, lowering the nose before loosing elevator effectiveness. But reported as "the aircraft could be destroyed". It is like having a small accident in the car on the way to work and them saying you could have been killed. Quite possible any time I get in my car. Scaremongering, because the media have an insatiable desire to instill fear in the travelling public. They do it to all the airlines.

[ampclamp]

Steve P is doing his job.Doing his best to get LAME's the best possible wages for their qual's and work and to get as many employed as possible.
I doubt anyone could have seen the issue developing but there have been many occasions when a dispatch LAME has.

Having 2 sets of eyes do a walk around is a good thing.So many times things are picked up.Sometimes pilots see thing we dont and many times the other way.Thats our job.And it is team work in the end.
Bird strikes , cracks fuel leaks hyd leaks, missed lightning strikes, ground handling damage etc.
I'm amazed at what some of the guys find doing a walk around.Cracks in fuselage , hori stab cracks.

The more eyes on the job the better.All the better if its from a pilots perspective and a LAME.'s too.

[bud leon]

I'm sorry kimir, but I don't agree. A wheel fell off. It fell off. That means it was not very well attached before the plane left the terminal. Forget that it is the airline industry, in any industry this would be unacceptable. It would be unacceptable if it fell off a bus. I don't want to hear that pilots are trained to land without front wheels. (And in any case, I'm not sure they trained to take off without the front wheels.)

While I agree that the media scaremongers, and work to instill fear (about everything) it's difficult not to percieve a wheel falling off during taxi as a serious issue.

[greenslopes]

The facts remain that for the last four years at least all airlines have been introducing procedures reducing the number of LAMES required prior to dispatch and pushback. There is as we all know is balanced by the risk of incident. We have now seen an occurence that may or may not be predicated on the reduced number of LAMES present on the tarmac.
Having said all that how anyone let alone a LAME could see corrosion of an axle contained within the nosewheel assembly is indeterminate(unless ofcourse you have x-ray vision).

Lets face it accidents sometimes happen, but sometimes the latent failures sit there and remain latent and only the most rigid of systems can combat this.

[feetonthedash]

Thanks Vee1
Gee......... I have seen shopping trolleys made in 2001 that still have their wheels on them
"If it's not Airbus..I am not going"

[piston broke again]

Was getting ready to depart myself and heard all the radio chatter and saw the aircraft. Appeared to be very well handled by the crew and its sounds like the passengers were never put at any extra risk following the event. Well done.

[kimir]

Bud leon, sorry mate perhaps i should sugar coat it for you and tell you nothing ever goes wrong. We also never operate with defects allowed by the ddg/mel. If you read my post you will notice I agree that it is a serious thing, don't deny that. On a previous post I said i would also like an engineer to do a walkaround on top of mine. I suppose we could carry an engineer every time we go to an outport without engineering too. Many things we do ever so slightly reduce safety in the name of economics. Reduced thrust takeoffs as an example. Can you tell me whether a pilot, or a pilot and an engineer did a walkaround. I doubt it. An engineer can't always be expected to pick something up.... especially if it fails away from the gate. The next time you go somewhere in an aeroplane there is a possibility that there is a flaw in the aircraft that may have been there since manufacture date. United DC-10 (sioux city) springs to mind. Yes we are trained to handle many problems, that is a GOOD thing.

[C441]

Trouble is the responsibility for the safe operation of the aircraft is slowly, but surely moving away from the operator and onto the Pilot in Command, while at the same time resources to support the safe operation are being removed.

[rodchucker]

I think all are agreed this was an "unusual" event and one that rightly has focussed attention.

VB started their gig with new aircraft and so have been entitled to claim a dream run by making that strategic decision and commitment.

Lets put aside the issue of walkarounds for the moment, other than to consider what may be acceptable for a new fleet may well not be acceptable as the fleet ages. That is pure risk management.

The issue for me as SLF is whether the aircraft have been correctly maintained AND whether their capacity to handle an ageing fleet is in place.

It does seem unusual that corrosion that can cause such an event wasnt picked up, but will leave that to the experts.