BA B777 Incident @ Heathrow (merged)

[shoey1976]

we're receiving tipoffs of something going on at LHR. anybody know anything?
thanks
Ian Shoesmith
BBC News
020 8624 9505
[email protected]

[Al Tiro]

Looks like a BA 777 blocking the southern runway - rumours here of a collapsed undercarriage

[Captb747]

BA777........Came in with a very high A of A, hit the deck hard and allpax evacuated (Slides) Looks like a main UC collapse.

[Spitfire boy]

BA Boeing 777 emergency landing on southerly runway close to Hatton Cross end of runway, literally at the end of the runway so a good work bythe pilots to reach the tarmac. Plane intact, all chutes out, rear under-carriage collapsed, no fire visible, passengers off judging by coaches alongside and emergency services in attendence.

[IcePack]

OOPs, I pity the Crew, lots of interviews. Hope they are a member of a union & getting good advise.:hmm:

[shoey1976]

reports plane inbound from shanghai landed short of runway -- aviation sources quoted by the Press Association

[Ken Wells]

BA 777 landed short at Heathrow.

Surrounded by Fireengines. Wing ripped off!

A/C departed China.

PM due to fly out to China at Heathrow now.

All flights in and out suspended!!!!!!!!!!!

BBC news live now!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Pilot Pete]

Ok It landed right at the start of the runway but I think that was the plan all along??????

It touched down on the grass, short of the runway and stopped on the piano keys. That was not the plan.

When all the info is out I bet it will turn out to be a non event

A crash is not a non event.

PP

[HeliCraig]

From the BBC:
Six engines were at the scene of the incident.

Lets hope the missing word is "fire" (although they prefer to call them fire appliances these days!) - otherwise this is one very special 777!!!

[Hudson Bay]

BA777 written off in incident at Heathrow today.

Inbound from China. Bejing

Wings ripped off fuselage.

Not known how many injuries. At least 3 confirmed.

No gear down.

LHR SROP's

Slides deployed.

BA038.

1242hrs - Emergency landing. Landed short.

PM Gordon Brown delayed outbound to China.

[Danny]

Just been watching the pictures on BBC News 24. The B777 touched down immediately in front of the LOC antenna, in the grass, before the threshold of Rwy 27L. The a/c then slid several hundred meters before coming to a stop on the threshold of Rwy 27L, skewed approx 45 deg to the right of the centreline.

The main undercarriage have detached and the nosegear appears to have partially compressed into the airframe. The main gear structures have punctured up through the wings. The engines are damaged but I was unable to make out whether they had been rotating at the time they started to pick up mud and debris. Flaps appear to be deployed but unable to tell if full flap.

There are two very deep furrows where the a/c touched down in the mud and then long furrows to where the a/c came to a stop. From the aerial shots on the BBC following the furrows, there are remnants of the main gear including at least one leg and bogie still attached. Frangible approach lights have been taken out from LOC antenna to threshold 27L.

This is not a little incident. This was literally a crash landing and thankfully there are no fatalities. It will be interesting to find out why this B777 landed so short and so heavily from the runway.

Anyone know if an emergency was declared before the landing?

Further to the post above this one, the wings were not torn off the a/c and the a/c most definitely touched down with the landing gear deployed in the down position. Almost certainly helped to dissipate a lot of the initial energy when they detached.

Also, usual "this is not terror related" hype. I wonder why they don't mention that it was also not "elephant" related! Whatever! :rolleyes:

Live BBC coverage with footage from helicopter (http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7190000/newsid_7194100?redirect=7194123.stm&news=1&nbram=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1)

[Superpilot]

BAA's website saying, "we can confirm that a British Airways flight made an emergency landing today". Does this mean an actual emergency was declared?

Somebody mentioned a high AoA, flap problems?

[scroggs]

Eyewitness reports suggest the aircraft was significantly displaced from the centreline at a late stage of the approach, and that some fairly aggressive manoevring was employed to get back on the centreline. It appears to have had a very high AoA at the time of touchdown. At least one engine was running,the power setting is uncertain though a PPL eyewitness commented that the noise seemed unusually loud. As he also commented that the aircraft seemed much lower than normal (which is consistent with the short landing), the extra noise may be related to the lower than normal altitude. The aircraft's configuration at touchdown appears normal, and the weather, though a little gusty, seems unlikely to have been a major factor.

Whatever the cause, at least everyone got out safely.

[Hudson Bay]

Aircraft very low on approach. That is the big question. Why? Flaps and leading edges all in expected position.

This was not a premeditated emergency according to a pax. They knew nothing until the impact.

Eyewitness suggest that engines were making more noise than usual which indicates that the crew were trying to re-establish the 3 degree glide path after discovering they were dangerously low on approach. Unfortunately it was too late.

The aircraft main gear has broken away from the aircraft which suggests it landed heavy and slow.

I wouldn't like to be the skipper of this one.

Looks like soot marks on starboard side.

[Schnowzer]

How on earth does anyone have any idea what happened? There are many possible causes ranging from across the entire spectrum. Why not stick to the facts, as presented by Danny. We have David Learmonth on telling us BA don't make mistakes, PPLs chipping in with all sorts of bunk and windshear based on 2 day old met reports.

[V12]

BBC TV showing footage indicating B777 touched down just yards inside the perimeter fence at Hatton Cross, short for 27L, and is beached, correctly upright short of the numbers at the 27L threshold, with all doors open and chutes deployed and no activity. Implies all exited and away. Can't figure how it stopped in less than 400m, with so little damage. Miraculous, esp if you were at Hatton Cross!

[Ex Cargo Clown]

Eyewitness on Sky suggesting the aircraft was "porpoising" on finals, and then stalled it in.

Anyone got a METAR for the time it happened ??

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

A live report from a passenger on board (sounds S African) states that after the aircraft came to a halt the cabin crew told people to remain seated, then an evacuation took place WITHOUT a command from the flightdeck.

Obviously not conclusive in any way but if accurate suggests a cabin crew initiated evacuation.

WWW

[ACMS]

Interesting to see the APU inlet door open.
This maybe legit as they might have needed it running under the MEL.
However if both engines flamed out it would start and the RAT would deploy.

Can anyone see if the RAT is out?

Holy smokes they were lucky.

[strake]

Willie Walsh quoted on BBC:

"..........our cabin crew did a fantastic job. Also on-board were three flight crew and 136 passengers......"

[Mungo Man]

EGLL 171350Z 22015KT 9999 FEW021 12/09 Q0995 TEMPO 24018G28KT SHRA BKN015CB

...but as someone said this type of weather doesn't normally pose a problem for pilots.

[outofsynch]

EGLL 171350Z 22015KT 9999 FEW021 12/09 Q0995 TEMPO 24018G28KT SHRA BKN015CB
EGLL 171320Z 22016KT 9999 BKN014 BKN020 11/09 Q0996 TEMPO 24020G32KT 6000 SHRA BKN015CB
EGLL 171250Z 20013KT 9999 BKN008 10/08 Q0996 BECMG 24018G28KT SCT012 BKN020
EGLL 171220Z 21014KT 180V240 9999 SCT008 BKN010 09/08 Q0997 TEMPO 21018G28KT 4000 RADZ BKN008
EGLL 171150Z 20014KT 170V240 9999 FEW006 SCT010 09/08 Q0997 TEMPO 20018G28KT 4000 RADZ BKN006
EGLL 171120Z 19017KT 160V230 5000 DZ BKN006 OVC010 09/07 Q0998 TEMPO 19020G30KT 4000

No sign of windshear conditions, but very hard to imagine any other explanation!

[cwatters]

Two eye witnesses reported plane did not make normal straight approach but was turning/heavily banked. Unclear if it was turning or just banked when they saw it. Photos confirm landed very short and slid a long way on grass - almost from the fence. Pax said no briefing given and thought all normal prior.

Sorry if this is duplicate post due bandwidth problem.

[My 737]

Wx, no factor.
Are there any signs of fuel where it came to rest, or anywhere else?

No casualties, the most important thing!

[ACMS]

Some observations from the BBC pictures

Flaps don't appear to be at 30 deg
Spoilers are retracted
APU inlet door open.

Maybe all this is a result of the very heavy landing?

And it slid only about 1500'

Must have been a very slow forward speed.

Some very lucky boys and girls, and one tough 777

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Second passenger now interviewed on Sky says the evacuation was initiated by the cabin crew without hearing from the pilots. Re-iterated that he heard nothing from the flightdeck over the PA.

Sounds as if he is in shock. Racing certainty (for me) is that the evacuation was initiated by the cabin crew.

Pax now breaking into tears (called Jason) as being interviewed..

WWW

[rolling20]

The 777-200 aircraft, registration G-YMMM, was built by
Boeing in 2001. The twin-engine plane is powered by Rolls-
Royce Group Plc Trent 800 engines and had accumulated 23,476
flying hours as of Dec. 31, 2006, according to data on the Web
site of the U.K. Civil Aviation Authority.
Poor weather may have been a factor in the incident, which didn't appear to be a premeditated emergency landing, said Robert
Cullemore, a consultant with Aviation Economics in London.
``From all sources, it would seem that something must have
happened in the minutes or seconds prior to touching down,''
Cullemore said. ``Windshear, a sudden burst of wind, is the
most likely culprit.''
British Airways will most likely have to write off the
damaged aircraft and may consequently face operational
difficulties, he said.
``BA's safety record is exemplary and the rapid evacuation
of the passengers without loss of life is a tribute to their
safety commitment,'' he said.

[ACMS]

I will correct my previous post

After looking at another photo of a 777 landing the outboard Flaps DO appear to be in the correct postion ( 30 deg ) on BA 38

[JB007]

Latest from BBC. A quote from an "airport worker" who has spoken to the Captain:

"...loss of all power and avionics, it was a glide approach"

[luvly jubbly]

News 24 claim Captain mentioned loss of all power and avionics, having to glide the A/C in....... Though witnesses claim a noisy aircraft passing overhead

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Willie Walsh now on live UK TV. Deliberately praised both the Cabin and FLIGHTDECK crew. Mentions incredible crew training, his 43 B777's have his "total confidence", said it was "completely innapropriate" to comment on pilots actions when specifically asked.

For a live TV interview under difficult circumstances he (to my eyes) came across well. Sombre, reasonable and credible.

WWW

[Ex Cargo Clown]

What hit the starboard elevator ??? Looks a right mess with bits flapping off the leading edge.

The whole airframe looks a w/o, wing snapped at the spar.

WW looked in shock then as well, I think there might be an awful lot to this story....

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

Sky News now reporting "chatter" that the aircraft lost all power and that the passengers "owe their lives to the heroes in the cockpit". Meanwhile the studio presenter states that these "planes glide like bricks". Direct quotes from one minute ago from Sky :(

The media read every word here. Post appropriately.

WWW

[Feathers McGraw]

ITYF that it was the starboard u/c assembly departing that struck the horizontal stabiliser, the pix I've seen show that the port u/c is jammed under the fuselage with the top of the leg several feet through the wing top surface whereas the other main u/c legs (starboard and centre) are some couple of hundred metres behind the airframe.

Whatever the cause, and as ever there are conflicting reports, it seems all the crew earned their pay and our respect today.

It seems to me that it's probably just as well that they touched down in some nice soft soggy grass, the same descent rate onto the tarmac could have resulted in a lot more damage, perhaps breaking the fuselage and allowing a lot of fuel to leak out.

[Ex Cargo Clown]

I'm suprised the issue of Fuel Starvation hasn't been brought up by the BBC yet......

Loss of power on finals etc.....

[luvly jubbly]

Despite what the so called aviation experts claim, loss of both engines at low level is very rarely practised in the sim. Though I have seen it done, it is by no means routine.

Everyone is out safe tonight... I see the pax are:ugh: complaining now because the flight deck told them nothing.:ugh: I guess they were a bit too busy at the time trying to avoid West London!

This lack of Pprune bandwidth is a bit of a pain..... Must be all the journos desperately pressing the refresh button:D

[rmac]

Looking at the marks on the grass from the media coverage, if power was lost then it looks as if he stretched the glide and just sneaked it in over the fence with a fairly high rate of descent due to stretching the glide to get it there. No other options I would suppose. Very very lucky, skillfull, both ?

[cootem]

BBC has a witness (engineer) who told them that the pilot said he had to glide it in (engine failure) so what I think happened is the engines failed. Came in to land at LHR but was getting low before the runway (maybe a bit of windshear) so the pilot pulled up to try and gain a bit of altitude but lost a lot of airspeed (witness reports say that the plane came in very slow) but with loss of speed and the nose up the plane stalled nose came down (witness reports say it had a swing action with the nose going up then coming down) with it stalling it fell out of the air and hard on to the ground before the runway causing a very hard landing which would have resulted in the landing gear collapsing.

let me know what you think Matthew Coote age 16 want to be a pilot

[G-CPTN]

Interesting to see the APU inlet door open.
Some 'expert' on the Beeb (Radio Five) claimed that the crew were 'busy' trying to restart the engines using the APU . . .

[Tinytim]

Given that the damage appears to have disrupted the fuel tanks and that there was no ensuing inferno...despite the sparks.....this coupled with the alleged glide approach points a finger very firmly in one direction. Fuel, or rather absence of it.

What would the normal MDF be for a 777 at LHR?

[Feathers McGraw]

In the event of fuel being low enough for both engines to flame out, there would be ample time to declare a fuel emergency well before this occurred and so obtain priority approach clearance.

This doesn't appear to have been what happened today, so another mechanism is likely to have been in play.

As for ruptured tanks, I would expect the fuselage tanks to be empty after a long flight, and I assume that the u/c legs are designed to break free without major structural damage, particularly to the wing fuel tanks. I don't know how much fuel spilled and it's hard to tell from the photos I've seen.

[harrogate]

Rather strangely, a friend of a friend (stay with me) recorded the whole event on his video camera.

Long story short - said friend of friend was killing time at LHR with his camcorder while his missus was in an interview at BA, and by fortunate quirk of fate was in the right place at the right time and filmed the lot.

The 'authorities' have got his footage and he's going to be in the news tonight. He said News At Ten - which should be ITV, but not 100% sure.

Don't know if the news people have got the footage also.

[Hotel Mode]

Given that the damage appears to have disrupted the fuel tanks and that there was no ensuing inferno...despite the sparks.....this coupled with the alleged glide approach points a finger very firmly in one direction. Fuel, or rather absence of it.

Classic piece of uninformed speculation there tinytim (nothing to do with your issues with BA obviously?)

1. Few sparks because they landed on sodden grass
2. BBC have been reporting that there was plenty of fuel in the tanks for several hours
3. Why would the fire brigade foam the broken wing of an unburning aircraft unless there was fuel in or around it.

[outofsynch]

Lack of fuel has got to be rubbish. That sort of emergency would have been declared long before.

LACK OF FIRE DOES NOT MEAN LACK OF FUEL!!

Very cold Jet-A1 wont catch fire very easily...

[Keef]

Both engines failed? On a 777? How many duplicated and redundant systems would need to fail for that to happen?

I've heard and read some wonderful speculation this afternoon. Who are these "experts" that keep getting drafted in? I worry that I may be missing out on a profitable niche as a self-appointed expert in something.

[JB007]

Maybe the PPRuNe server is saving us from silly speculation!

I agree with WWW, thought Mr Welsh came off incredibly well in his interview. Jim Mc from BALPA also came off quite well, I liked his comment "we should sit on our hands until we get the facts and not speculate"

I hope a certain LHR based B777 crew are enjoying a drink or two this evening...well done guys!

[Rage]

Vortex wake may be in the frame as BAW038 was following another 'heavy' down the approach.

[WindSheer]

Anyone know if wind from 220 poses a turbulence threat on 27L??
As far as I was aware it was only when the wind crosses the main terminal areas towards the landing rwy that it occurs?

No doubt that would not be the cause, but weather has got to be the main player.....whats the chances of running dry on short finals??

[llondel]

There's going to be loads of people practicing flight sims on their PCs tonight so we can have the definitive answers by tomorrow. (No I don't have one installed :})

It'll be interesting to see the cause once the fog of disinformation has cleared.

I bet the pax in the seats next to the port undercarriage had a bigger shock than most, it looks rather close for comfort.

Interesting assertion from the local MP, who claims that had it lost power fifteen minutes earlier, it would have landed on central London. Methinks it would have had enough altitude for a decent glide out to open space.

Well done to all concerned for making a landing good enough to walk away from.

[oliverpollard]

Could have very well been catastrophic failure of power and avionics, and if so the pilot did extremely well. Media making a big deal out of the fact there was no mayday, but bearing in mind the failure probably only seconds before crash landing, this is not surprising.
Media 'bigging' it up once again - it would appear most the passengers didnt even know the flight had crash landed. Obviously a serious incident, but no need to make it so dramatic. Re the above comment, couldnt agree more - this 777 would have glided well clear of London.
Just spoken to friend at AAIB - still no decision been made yet about recovery and whether its heading off to F/b.

[shoey1976]

if anybody knows who was on the flight deck I would love to hear from you. please email [email protected] or ring my mobile 07769 977665.
best wishes
Ian Shoesmith
BBC News

[manrow]

Regard remark above about APU door open, doesn't 777 APU autostart in these circumstances?

[HeathrowDictator]

Don't you just hate the news channels for their lack of facts and for over-cooking what facts they do have? Take one quote on the BBC news page about this incident:
Eyewitness John Rowland, who was driving on the nearby M4 motorway, said: "The plane's wheels collapsed, doors were flown open.

1. The M4 runs roughly east-west and to the north of 27R (yes there is the spur road, but even that goes nowhere near 27L). Therefore the aircraft would not have flown over the M4 on approach.

2. The taxi driver John Rowland has already said on Sky News when interviewed that he was on the Southern Perimeter Road - not really the M4 BBC is it?!

This is just one of many things being embellished by the various news channels and it really gets my back up...why on earth won't they just report the facts then wait for the conclusions? All this scare-mongering and sensationalistic journalism does my head in!!!

The over-exaggerations remind me of a BMA A320 at DTV in 2006 which had a compressor stall on applying takeoff power. There was a flame from number 2 engine and it stopped immediately....the local rag reported a "miraculous escape" despite it doing a whole 20-50kts max!! (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=240343).

Anyway, I venture off topic...rant at the media over. Well done to the crew for getting the aircraft down and getting everyone off safely. I'm very interested to hear what the cause(s) are of this.


-HD-

P.S. This post has taken best part of an hour to send due to "server busy"!!!

[Propellerhead]

Love the way there's only 3 pages to this thread because no-one can get on pprune today due 'server too busy'!!

The best thing is it's stopped most of the bulls*** speculation we normally get. I trust no professional Pilot will respond to Ian Shoesmith's plea for the names of the Pilots involved. Last thing they need is press on their doorstep. LEAVE THEM ALONE!!:mad:

[HeathrowDictator]

Agreed with WindSheer - Mr. Shoesmith, I suggest you focus on reporting the facts and not trying to name or contact the flight crew who I would imagine the last thing they would want to do is talk to the media!!!

-HD-

[fox niner]

If both engines have flamed out, the APU will autostart. It takes about 1 minute to start.
the RAT does not seem to be deployed. view could be blocked by the slide at door 2R...

[lomapaseo]

I have lots of questions, but suspect it's way too early to ask 99% of them.

As a carry over from the earlier thread discussions on all power lost etc.

I assume that if both engines go down then this aircraft immediately reverts to battery power for essentials.

Would these essentials include power for communication between the flight deck and the cabin crew of the state of emergency?

or: is it likely that the Flight crew priority would be totally devoted to a puckered checklist for achieving a runway landing?

[SoundBarrier]

Right...

No speculation etc from me, just wondering why there aren't camera's filming approaches and take-off's given that most incidents happen at these stages of flight and that cost of storing these videos will not be prohibitive - nor would the equipment mind you.

Just glad this wasn't more serious!

[luvly jubbly]

Mr Shoesmith, whilst I applaud your honesty and transparency in your request for information, I don't think you will find anyone on here willing to divulge crewmembers names.

I'm sure BA's media department will arrange a full press call and photoshoot with the crew if the AAIB report shows they were in any way heroic.

[Lafyar Cokov]

Why is the server so busy today????


Whatever may have happened - it appears that at some point the crew made a reasonably good job out of a bad situation. :D

[JB007]

Ian Shoestring,

You're only ever gonna get rude remarks from your posting!

[scroggs]

Why is the server so busy today????

Could have something to do with over 7000 people on the site at once, most of them trying to find out about a certain BA incident, don't you think? ;)

[sevenstrokeroll]

I am not a 777 driver...but:

does the 777 have a "ground Idle" setting...is it triggered by WOW "weight on wheels"?

if for some reason the gear/wow switch told the plane it was on the ground, would idle thrust lever settings go to "ground idle" instead of "flight idle"

[exmanman]

This URL will take you to the lo-fi version of this thread. Seems to work even when 'server busy' , but you won't be able to post.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-309075.html

[Danny]

Based on the more plausible eyewitness statements that I've heard, and from the touchdown furrows and the relatively short distance that the a/c slid, it certainly looks like there was very little, if any, forward thrust whilst airspeed was maintained at or very close to stall speed. Whilst I have no experience of the B777, it certainly looks as though this a/c landed at very low speed and probably at stall speed. This, possibly due to the pilots trying to extend their glide to at least put it down within the perimeter of the airport.

The running out of fuel scenario certainly is very unlikely, whether by leakage or faulty fuel gauges. Also, for the FADEC system to remove the power uncommanded is unheard of. What could be a factor, IMHO, is a multiple bird strike whilst on short finals.

Looking at how close to the Localiser antenna the a/c touched down, any failure of thrust more than a few seconds earlier would have had much more dire consequences with regards as to where the initial ground contact would have been. A multiple bird strike that seriously reduced the available thrust, late in the approach, would have left the pilots with no options but to try and stretch the glide and get it on the ground within the airport boundary where light fittings, antennae and other sharp pointy bits are of the frangible type and emergency services are available and trained to deal with the consequences.

[interpreter]

BBC2 tonight had a number of "guessers" but wind shear ranked highly. Forecaster said just the right conditions existed at Heathrow at 12.45 for such an event and to hit shear with the aircraft carrying maximum drag must have caused the pilot to do everything possible to lift the nose over the boundary fence and get the aircraft down. Wet, soggy soil from days of rain would be devastating to the undercarriage which was clearly ripped off on one side and thrust through the wing from high G impact on the other.

Whatever the cause the Flight Deck did a great job and full marks to the Cabin Crew who reportedly started the evacuation without an audible Flight Deck instruction. First class conduct all round.

[Beavis and Butthead]

Inevitably the press have published the Captain's name. Do the general public really care about names and ages of those involved at the expense of their privacy on a traumatising day for them? I very much hope he doesn't get harrassed thanks to them.

BBC also referred to him as "the pilot". Maybe the incident happened because the 777 should have had more than one pilot ... rostering error ... and said one pilot had the fish ...... print that on your website BBC as a possible cause :ugh:

Personally I'll wait for the AAIB to tell us the cause but gut feeling is this crew done good :ok:

[ATCNetwork]

wouldn't bird activity been reported at a busy airport?

[typhoid]

What doesn't make sense about the 'loss of power' theory is that none of the passengers have reported 'the lights went out' or 'the screens turned off.' That's normally the sort of stuff pax notice, and the first to be load shed in the event of a problem.

[discus177]

Mr PPrune

I think your statement is deffinately plausible, makes much more sense to me than some of the rubbish i've read this morning. Visibility certainly would have given aircrew a suitable view of the runway in question, i deffinately believe the engines lost power, and aircrew dealt with their situation and delayed the touch down point appropriately, great effort aircrew :ok:! If they hadn't of reacted so quickly IMO, the aircraft could have possibly landed further aft of their current touch down point taking out the ILS installation and/or ending up in the scrub, wonder what the PAPPI looked like from the flightdeck when losing thrust.

Cheers

P.S Great job aircrew! :D

[Captain Galactic]

Theres no way this was a result of multiple bird strikes, in most cases you would still have some sort of power left to get the aircraft on the ground even if the engines were on fire. Neither would I believe the windshear theory it would take a very severe microburst to bring down a 777. I would place a bet on faulty fuel gauges....

[Grease Weasel]

Maybe the 777 hit the pprune server as it crash landed short of 27L? :p
That would explain a fair amount! :mad:

I can't help but think how frightning that must have looked from the Flight Deck - however it happened. :eek:

Hope the crew manage to get a good nights sleep, maybe this can remind us all how there is nothing 'run-of-the-mill' about flying airliners, and how there are thousands of crew out there who prevent accidents like this happening every day..........

[Feathers McGraw]

It's a real head-scratcher isn't it?

I feel that the open APU inlet door is significant, whether it autostarted or was due to crew action I have no idea. What are the crew actions needed to bring it on line? I'd assume it is fairly high up the list of actions to take on total engine failure.

How on earth are they going to shift the aircraft? The lack of u/c is going to make it tricky, and anything they could bolt a temporary u/c to has quite likely been left rather bent.

[aviat179]

Looks like windshear from a microburst, recent weather conditions are conducive to such an occurrence. Microbursts last for avg 5 minutes and can affect an area up to 5km wide, they materialise due to downdrafts from Cu/Cb clouds. I would guess the a/c entered the most dangerous tailwind portion on short finals. Given eyewitness reports sounds like pilot flying did the right thing holding her at CLmax and the resultant relatively low airspeed accounts for very short landing roll.

[ZeBedie]

Of all the engines ever designed, which is the least likely to be disabled by a bird strike? Unless pigs or cows can fly, I'm not convinced.

[Rob Courtney]

Im not qualified to speculate and wouldnt even if I was.

Well done to the crew for getting everyone off safely:D:D:D:D:D
Rob

[747-436]

Glad that everyone got out ok. Seen the Daily Mail's headline for tomorrow, 'The pilot Grappled with the controls'. Usual journo description, but maybe this time they might be partly right?!?!

Well done to all the crew.

[HossaJose]

Just thought I throw my 5 cents in the discussion as well... If it was a dual flame out, could it possibly be that the loud noise eyewitnesses heard could have come from the extended RAT? I know that the RAT makes a hell a lot of noise on the A320 when deployed, so I was wondering if that might be a reason...

[tommytill]

One of the passengers goes into detail. This is that 'Jason' fella mentioned previously.

http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=-9042431662733675653&q=ba+777&total=82&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=7

[raejones]

Never has the phrase "any landing you can walk away from is a good one..." meant so much...!

Perhaps, for once, the 'speculators' will refrain from 'informed comment' and simply maintain a dignified silence until the official outcome. 138 passengers, and who knows how many others, owe a great deal to the experience and professionalism of two people today....

"It is a wiseman who says nothing...when there is nothing else to say...."

[&&&]

Ian Shoesmith.

Do you seriously think that the aviation community is so unethical as to give you the names of the crew? Perhaps you should start by telling your print, internet, radio and tv people that aeroplanes have TWO pilots. If they stop refering to "the pilot", we would be a little less inclined to think that you guys are not just a bunch of braindead hacks.

[gordonroxburgh]

Jason was a fraud

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=368442

Some pissed-up aussie who thought it funny to call a UK TV station saying he was a passenger

[exeng]

I find it difficult to believe that you have the cheek to ask for the crew members names.

Back on thread - great that nobody was seriously hurt.

I believe the AAIB will have a prliminary report out in a relatively short time, so whilst we all will speculate as to the reasons, best we don't get too carried away with it.

Interesting time for Boeing Corp by the way when you consider that the 787 is yet further delayed, QF have had a very recent B.744 total AC elec failure, and today they experienced their first B.777 write-off.

I'm a great supporter of Boeing products, having flown them for for 30 years, so I'm not knocking them but just pointing out that it has recently been a difficult time for Boeing. I did fly busses for 2 years and will say no more.


Regards
Exeng

[Danny]

A birdstrike does not necessarily completely disable the engine. A rapidly decaying thrust indication may be all the info you get. As long as they couldn't maintain enough thrust to stay on the glideslope then they would have had a problem.

Anyway, it is purely speculation based upon observations and experience. Just one point of view from a fellow heavy metal pilot.

[fireflybob]

If this was a microburst/windshear and a warning was given by onboard systems then one presumes the crew would fly the escape maneuver - ie Max Thrust, Pitch Up to Stick Shake etc.

Maybe they were doing this when the aircraft hit the ground?

[TheOddOne]

wouldn't bird activity been reported at a busy airport?

Heathrow mount a bird control patrol, callsign 'Seagull' and most of the other Ops vehicles, including 'Checker' are equipped with bird control capability. The primary aim is to reduce as much as possible the bird activity on the aerodrome itself. Bird activity is usually only 'reported' i.e. broadcast on the ATIS is there are unusually high concentrations of birds on teh aerodrome that won't respond to dispersal. If this accident was the result of a multiple bird strike (and a catastrophic failure of this nature HAS been caused by birds in the past - a burnt-out DC10 at least) then the birds would have been struck somewhere out on the approach. When I was at Heathrow in the 80s, we used to patrol the reservoirs out to the West and South-West as well as rubbish tips nearby (as well as good old Perry Oaks, where T5 now stands). The aim was to at least understand where the concentration of birds was so that we could anticipate their likely flight paths over the aerodrome. The received wisdom is that the threat for an aircraft striking birds is greatest for departing a/c, where any power loss will be more catastrophic.

How far out should an aerodrome patrol to try and maintain a bird-free environment? It's difficult to imagine an effective bird patrol, up Hounslow High Street!

TheOddOne

[rubik101]

On another, not unrelated thread here on flight deck forums, regarding the bounced/baulked landing of the Iberia Airbus 320 at Bilbao recently, we have several accusatory, ignorant and puerile postings from the likes of lingasting, badboyraggamuffin and flap80, criticising the flying pilot for his lack of training, flying skills and poor airmanship.
Here we have an incident, cause unknown, involving a BA B777. I don't see any posts criticising the same qualities, or lack of, regarding the pilot flying in this instance.
Just how ignorant do you have to be before you rush into print about a perfectly capable Iberia pilot who flew his aircraft away from a potentially hazardous situation? Very, is the answer.
Just how educated or perhaps biased do you have to be before you rush to judgment regarding the pilot of the BA 777? Not very, is the answer.
The double standards and ignorance of some of the posters on this site never ceases to amaze me.
I do not profess to know, nor do I have the certainty to post an opinion on everything brought up on this site, unlike some of the more opinionated and ignorant posters on these forums.
However, I do know when an idiot posts something which is just plain stupid.
Before you post anything on this site, please put yourself in the position of the pilot concerned, carefully study the facts and the situation carefully and consider how you would have reacted in such circumstances. If you are unable to restrain yourself before rushing into print, try writing it on a plain sheet of paper and read it aloud to yourself. More often than not you will see that you have no idea what you are talking about.
Much the same as I feel now!! (you might opine)
Happy landings.

[Buster the Bear]

According to my information, vortex wake was very unlikely to be an issue, but a "total loss of power" was.

I have no idea what a total loss of power means in this situation as I am not a flyer, but this could relate to a whole raft of scenarios.

The chap (engineer) interviewed by the BBC who spoke to the crew after this incident seems to have the 'known fact's' spot on!

[JohnDKeller]

As I fall into the category of "one, who unburdened by knowledge, may speak freely on the subject"; I simply wish to point out what strikes me as extraordinary:

1. God BLESS those officers in the cockpit that controlled a potentially horrific crash into a safe landing, save for minor injuries.

2. And God BLESS the cabin crew for their remarkable evacuation with minimal injuries.

3. And to those engineers and craftsmen who designed and built that airplane, what an achievement indeed that their machine survived a horrific landing and remained remarkably structurally intact.

I cannot offer anything constructive, but I can express my amazement as a layman and long time passenger; and I may take great comfort in the future of aviation by the examples set today by the Pilots, Crew and Workers in your industry.

Well done to you all

JD

[boardpig]

I'm so sick of the media and how much nonsense they report. I feel sorry for the poor viewer/reader who has to swallow the sh** they spew. In two reports the aircraft "overshot" the runway, and in another one a "wing had come off a 737!!" D:mad::mad:Heads.

On the real subject, a fine job by the crew whatever happened. No-one lost, very well done.:D

[Mungo Man]

A friend said he saw a brief mobile phone clip of the final apparoch but not the landing - any idea where I can find this as I've been lookin on the main news sites to no avail.

[psmd0311]

Well now the pilot flying can say that he made it off at the first exit in a 777at LHR!

[dustyprops]

Speculation rife as per normal, with lots of "experts" chipping in their 2 penneth worth. Why not just wait to see what actually happened instead of the usual situation of everybody that has ever flown in a 777 suddenly becoming the authority.

Nobody killed, a few minor injuries, and they got it on the airport, so a good job done. That's all there is right now, move on people.

[BlooMoo]

Perhaps, for once, the 'speculators' will refrain from 'informed comment' and simply maintain a dignified silence until the official outcome.


Very noble.

138 passengers, and who knows how many others, owe a great deal to the experience and professionalism of two people today....

Until the 'official outcome' as you put it, that's speculation (as opposed to dignified silence) though isn't it?

[fox niner]

I would think that windshear is not very likely. Sure, there was "some" wind, no really windshear-like conditions. And what's more, the B777 has a so-called Predictive Windshear System. (PWS) The system is always operational during approach, using the advanced weather radar on board. It is also operating, and scanning for windshear, even if the flight crew has switched off the WX radar.
It will display windshear in ahead on the navigation display, and announce: "caution, windshear ahead" or "go-around, windhear ahead" depending on the severity. And IMHO windshear will not cause a double flame-out.

Then: multiple bird-strike and a resulting double flame-out. Could be possible, but you would need to fly through a large flock of birds. And thereby hitting several other birds on other places such as the nose, windshield, leading edges etc. But I don't see any other places where these hypothetical birds have hit. So I would guess this wasn't the cause either.

Fuel: At the end of the flight the B777 uses its wing tanks only. typical fuel amount at the end of such a flight is 7 tons, i.e. 3500 kg per wing tank. (about 70 minutes endurance. 100 kg = 1 minute's worth at landing weight on the B777) Even if the fuel pumps are not operating, it will gravity-feed to the engines. "Bad" chinese fuel will not cause a flame-out, only degraded thrust, which would have been noticed looooong beforehand.

Onboard computer glitch? Resulting in a total blackout? Hey why not? I wouldn't know. I know nothing about computers. There are a lot of computers on board the B777. And some of them run on Windows! (the EFB)

This is going to be an interesting one. I hope they will find the cause.

[Xeque]

If one loses both engines on a 777 and it takes about a minute to kick in the APU (someone told us that in an earlier post) then what power is available for the fly-by-wire controls in the interim? I ask because the PPL who was a witness on BBC TV during the afternoon spoke of a (quote) '45 degree bank to the left'. He didn't say if the aircraft was turning or whether it was still on the centreline with the port wing low. Would there be a few seconds when the aircraft was out of control until the APU began producing electrical power?
Other witnesses mentioned the aircraft porpoising. Trading speed for height would have that effect.
On TV the fire brigade looked as if they were still hosing down under the aircraft a long time after the incident took place - spilled fuel maybe?
Whatever - those guys, flight deck and cabin, did a magnificent job. Sleep well tonight - you've earned it:ok:

[av8boy]

One of the local television stations here in Los Angeles (KTLA) conducted a brief, live interview with a “British Airways spokesperson” this morning. I only wish I had thought to Tivo it to preserve the thing. A female newsie in the LA studio posed a question for the BA gentleman who was on the phone from the UK (and who appeared to have a US accent):

Newsie: “I understand that there are several airports around the world at which, I believe, airplanes are unable to land themselves, and at which the pilot actually has to land the airplane. Can you tell me, is Heathrow one of those airports?”

BA Spokesperson: (Apparently stunned) “I…ah… don’t really understand your question, but Heathrow does have an ILS. I don’t know what the conditions were during the landing though…”

Unbelievable. I’ve got to hand it to the BA guy though. He handled it much better than I would have. :ugh:

[randomair]

From the sun website:

"The plane narrowly missed Prime Minister Gordon Brown whose convoy was travelling on the airport’s perimeter road."

..............riiiiiiight

[interested voyeur]

I'm not speculating as to what caused this, but you have referred to CPU shutdowns causing the total power loss.

Has there ever been a reported total CPU shutdown experienced before that anyone knows of?

[altonacrude]

Perhaps as a quiet send-up of the more sensationalist media, the London-based weekly newspaper The Economist reported last (http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10536174&top_story=1) night as the lead story on its web home page:

Hard landing at Heathrow


Small incident, not many hurt


IT IS a sight to make even a hardened flyer gulp. The pictures of a British Airways (BA) jet lying askew on its belly, wings crumpled in a sea of foam, will travel to the four corners of the world served by Britain’s leading carrier. Deep parallel gouges in the runway strip, the clear grassy area around the landing area, show that the plane only just made it onto the grounds of Heathrow, London's main airport and the world's busiest international one. Sections of landing gear strewn about prove that the jet passengers inbound from Beijing had a lucky escape when their Boeing 777 failed, by just a few short yards, to complete its journey on Thursday January 17th....
The report goes on to note that worldwide figures for air travel casualties last year were the lowest ever.

One occasionally finds pockets of sanity in this mad, mad world.

[Duck Rogers]

The chap (engineer) interviewed by the BBC who spoke to the crew after this incident seems to have the 'known fact's' spot on!

I hope this is sarcasm.

As for the wild speculators on here...........:ugh: Do us all a favour would you? If your post could be started with the words 'I'm not a pilot/engineer/aviation professional' or include the phrases 'I'm no expert', 'I'm just guessing' or 'I'm assuming' don't bother. Click 'back' on your browser and go elsewhere.

[Clarence Oveur]

In connection with the APU auto start, how is loss of both engines detected by that system?

[Contacttower]

The general consensus seems to be that the crew did a good job. The 'favourite' explanations seem to be either wind-shear or some sort of complete power loss on short final.

No one though seems to have dared to suggest that actually this was simply a cocked up approach...similar to a particular MD11 in Hong Kong a few years ago...loss of airspeed followed by a high sink rate prior to touch down...in windy conditions but NOT wind-shear as the report decided. There doesn't have to have been a system failure for there to be a crash.

Trouble is as usual there are plenty of contradictions...the claim (from the captain apparently) that the plane lost all power and glided in just doesn't tally with lots of noise on approach and passengers not aware of anything until after touchdown.

[Champagne Anyone?]

Xeque... The 777 is NOT fly by wire.

[slapdash8]

From the sun website:

"The plane narrowly missed Prime Minister Gordon Brown whose convoy was travelling on the airport’s perimeter road."

..............riiiiiiightyet the 747 with him on board was sat on the taxiway waiting to depart. did heathrow check in just become instantaneous?

todays best media excerpt for me

...camera focuses on 2 main gears, laying down on the grass....

'aviation expert' - "if im not mistaken, that appears to be part of the undercarriage"


actually, scratch that. my favourite quote......

"it will take some time for the information held on the FDR to be recovered, as it will have to be broken into. they are desgined to withstand extreme crashes"

or, they could just plug a laptop/flashcard in and do a download....or is that too simple?

[JR737]

Hi

Perhaps a likely reason for two engines to fail (presumably near / or at the same time [only going from what I have read]) would be fuel starvation. Being at the end of the flight, this would seem at least a possible area. If it was unexpected (as it seems it was), it could have been faulty readings of fuel remaining and or / combination of an error in fuel loading somewhere along the line. Just thoughts out loud - most likely it will be something entirely different and a more complex series of events.... first time poster.

Regards
Jason

[randomair]

....eh yes it is

[G-CPTN]

A pilot's (albeit PPL) account of the approach:- http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=2201330773432754019

[I Just Drive]

Firstly, in 11 years of reading PPRUNE, ive never seen the server thrashed so much. How annoying is that server too busy message?

Anyways, i'm waiting with eager anticipation for the facts to emerge. From the facts I have seen so far I can't believe the conclusion I am led to.

1. Aircraft lands short but within airfield boundary, not on runway.
2. Incredibly short 'landing roll'.
3. Multiple passengers saying no word from flight deck.

This surely can only mean significant loss of power for some reason.

Aircraft only just makes it to the field and has very low forward speed on touch down.

I would be amazed if its windshear. I really can't see windshear powerful enough to do that to a 777 coming out of todays weather, you would need severe TS.

Fuel starvation is plausable but both engines on short final with no word to ATC beforehand? I cant see that either.

A lot of large birds would be needed to instantly and catastrophically shut down both donks at once so I can't see that either.

So we will see.

I'm raising a glass to Boeing for making such tough tractors.

[aviat179]

IN REPLY TO: "I would think that windshear is not very likely. Sure, there was "some" wind, no really windshear-like conditions. And what's more, the B777 has a so-called Predictive Windshear System. (PWS) The system is always operational during approach, using the advanced weather radar on board. It is also operating, and scanning for windshear, even if the flight crew has switched off the WX radar.
It will display windshear in ahead on the navigation display, and announce: "caution, windshear ahead" or "go-around, windhear ahead" depending on the severity. And IMHO windshear will not cause a double flame-out."

I suggest there was 'windshear-like' conditions, specifically those of a microburst. Yes the 777 should provide confirmation of windshear conditions, but windshear is incredibly difficult to forecast and identify and the system you refer to could only specifically trigger an alert once already in windshear conditions, by which time the recommended escape manoeuvre of full thrust and alpha to stick shaker would have to be employed. "And IMHO windshear will not cause a double flame-out." Your final point there demonstrates quite overtly your ignorance on the subject of windshear; the danger associated with windshear has absolutely nothing to do with an aircraft's engines, but the massive degradation it has on the lift of even the largest aircraft. It is quite probable the reason BA 777 landed short of the runway today was because it encountered microburst conditions on short finals.

[ILS27LEFT]

Luckily this has happened on 27 left.
The Wet grass saved all involved.
A of A was very high just over Hatton Cross, nose went suddenly up. I tend to believe they did it to stall the machine on grass at very slow speed nose up, rather than crash land on the hard dry asphalt.
I have seen a video and it looks like the plane went nose up and then stalled to finally touch down on the best available point located immediately after the fence/lights: this was the perfect ideal final gliding-landing on grass.
Same landing on asphalt would have been catastrophic.
It looks like they lost power, kept the plane perfectly aligned and decided to bring it down gliding on the grass.
They have done a fantastic job, but the total loss of power is difficult to digest, after so many hours of perfect engine performance, why total loss of power on final, I believe in only a few options:
-severe bird strike, in early approach
-severe wind shear, very final
-fuel starvation due to faulty gauges, in early approach

Flight was nearly 20 mins early, I do not think fuel could have all gone by 1240, ETA was 1300.
Wx was excellent compared to the previous days, but sudden windshear can always happen. Very rare to cause such a loss of speed but not impossible.
Bird strike could be also a possibility, but very rare.

I have been told gear was downed quite late, this could explain a gliding approach, with a final decision to land on the soft wet grass. If this is confirmed they are heros for ever, and then it was possibly a bird strike over Hounslow, or fuel starvation.

We will soon find out. They are all alive :)...fuel starvation is not impossible, due to faulty gauges of course!

If it was wind shear instead, excellent handling on final. Soft landing on grass.

[D O Guerrero]

Danny wrote:
"Whilst I have no experience of the B777, it certainly looks as though this a/c landed at very low speed and probably at stall speed. This, possibly due to the pilots trying to extend their glide to at least put it down within the perimeter of the airport."

I may well be wrong and please feel free to correct me, but how does landing at very low speed or at the stall speed increase the glide? I thought the maximum glide distance would be achieved at best glide speed which is presumably quite a lot greater than the stall speed on a 777? And therefore that any speed either greater or lesser would only have the effect of reducing the glide distance. I don't dispute that the crew would have wanted to slow the aircraft as much as possible just prior to touching down - but I would have thought that slowing to stall speed in order to try and make the perimeter would be an extraordinarily bad idea....
Please feel free to tell me I'm talking rubbish!

[flint4xx]

Birdstrike, fuel starvation, windshear, in that order.

[ILoadMyself]

Speaking as an agnostic, I simply don't know! :-)

After the initial shock/horror probe instinct had left us and the happiness of the outcome had overcome me and my son we settled back to watch the telly coverage.

All day and evening the BBC has tried to find the sensational angle on this incident. And failed. Dismally.

TV Anchor: "How frightened were you?"
Passenger/Witness from a/c: "Pardon?"
TV Anchor: "Was it frightening?"
Passenger/Witness from a/c: "The landing felt a bit bumpy"

Kirsty Wark tried the same on Newsnight and made a complete front bottom of herself. The man from BALPA was painfully polite to the sad hack.

I'm just a pax, guys and gals, but I've loved planes since my boyhood as a cadet on AEFs in RAF Chipmunks out of Turnhouse Aerodrome.

Today has been a great day for anyone who loves flying, albeit for all of the wrong reasons.

P.S. Ian Shoesmith is only doing his job. And the people who are sitting on their hands ignoring him are doing their's also.

Peace to you all.

[Duck Rogers]

Waiting.

For.

The.

Facts.


In THAT order.

[dns]

"actually, scratch that. my favourite quote......"

My favourite of the day has to be:

"it appears that BA are trying to block the view, a large plane, I think it's a jumbo has been parked in the way"

Actually it wasn't a 747, it was an A319... New coverage for the first hour or so was truely terrible!

[avionic type]

Until the readings of the F.D.R are recovered and made known surly everything is pure speculation. just thank all we have is a bent aeroplane :=

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

@ D O Guerrero

You are correct that best glide speed is not stall speed, and an indefinite glide is best achieved at best glide speed.

However, gliding involves exchanging potential energy for kinetic energy (or, using a gravity component along the flight path to combat drag). If you were trying to extend a glide, and were, say, 500ft AGL, at say 1.3vs, you might be better off trying to use up some of the stored KE represented by the speed rather than simply use up that 500ft. Exactly what the best energy management would be is dependent on a lot of aircraft dependent factors, but hitting the ground at your lowest possible flying speed does ensure there was no wasted energy left which might have been used to extend the glide.

[Self Loading Freight]

We'll find out what happened soon enough - all the evidence, electronic, physical and human, is intact - and no doubt the right lessons will be learned. There's talk of the first official preliminary report coming out by the weekend, so whatever actually happened is no mystery to those on the ground (as it were), and that may be worth thinking about in its own right while we're waiting for yer actual facts. I'm hoping for heroes rather than villains.

Meanwhile, I think there's a good discussion to be had on PPrune and the press. I've got lots of ideas, as I'm sure have lots of others on all sides, but I don't know which forum is best for the kick-off. If TPTB would give a lead on that technicality, I'm happy to smear myself with antelope scent and leap into the lion's den...

R (a hack)

[eyeinthesky]

D O Guerrero:

Aircraft approach at a speed which gives them a margin above the stall speed (usually around 30% higher). In an emergency such as this, this 30% extra speed can be traded for height and therefore 'stretch' the flight path compared to that which would result from flying 30% above Vs with no power. It is a measure which has only a limited life, since once the stall speed is close the nose must be lowered again to prevent the stall. Then the aircraft is committed to where it will end up. It needs fine judgement and the failure to occur not before a certain point for it to work and the aircraft to reach the field. it would appear that in this case it worked, so well done to the teams aboard!

Unfortunately, there are too many crash sites in history where an attempt to 'stretch the glide' had insufficient energy (potential or kinetic) for it to work and the result was a wreck.

[Raven30]

D O Guerrero

You're talking rubbish!! :)

Reread Dannys post and you will see that you have misinterpreted his post - The low speed will be as a result of trying to extend the glide(If indeed that is what happened) not the other way round.

It's been a long day, especially for the crew - whatever the cause, it's nice to hear so much praise for a job well done.

[theaviator2005]

Even though no one here knows what really happened its always fun to see all the different opinions.

Only a few here have the same thought that i have had from the beginning that maybe it was a screwed up approach.

1) weather is not BAD

2) Low on fuel?? If so the pilots are gonna be in deep s...t as they never declared min fuel. sooo i wont believe thats the cause.

3) blocked fuel lines or other system failures- seams strange when the 777 is build so fail-safe with as many backup systems as possible.
Total loss of electric power, the essential systems should be powered by the battery. blocked fuel lines.... would in any case only shot down one engine or something real screwed up should have happened that would have blocked or clocked all the separate fuel lines.

4) big flock of birds??? hmmmmmmm thats all i would say for now

But what if they got in on a screwed up approach, might not have been configured correctly or something els which would have made the pilots come in below Ref and close to stall which maybe could lead to the turn that some people have mentioned that they saw the 777 make before landing which the pilots then might have reacted to a little too late......

Anyways just another opinion im prob. way off and no matter what the Pilots did a great job on the final part of the landing making everyone walk away safe......

[llanfairpg]

Nice to know there are still so many self appoinited experts within our community.

Whatever the cause well done to ALL the crew.

[speedrestriction]

I've read all four pages of this thread. The only two important facts which have been established are:

I) There is a BA triple seven in a sorry state on one of LHR's runways.

II) Nobody is dead as a result.


Please let's just wait for the AAIB to do its job.and stop filling PPruNe's boards with tedious speculation.

sr

[mmmbop]

EmergingCyclogenesis,

Nice theory except for one small detail. The aircraft was 20 mins early.

Oh, and the (only!) guy who said it was travelling fast has been proven a fraud. One look at the skid marks and how quickly it pulled up shows that this jet didn't have a an excessive amount of forward momentum.

M

[missrubytuesday]

This came through on an Aussie news site....

"An Australian who claimed to be a passenger on board a British Airways flight that crashed at London's Heathrow Airport was a hoaxer, according to the network that originally ran the quotes.
A representative from Sky News in the UK confirmed to ninemsn that the Australian who called himself Jason Johnson was a prankster who decided to have a laugh at the network's expense.
It was amazing we came in very, very fast and once we'd landed we spun 90 degrees," Jason told the network in a phone interview.

http://ninemsn.com.au/9msnshared/images/space.gif"I felt like I was in a washing machine.
"There was this major shift to the side and all of us were slung off to the side of where we were sitting."
After Sky ran a live interview and used grabs in a separate story, Jason e-mailed them to admit the call was a prank.
"He admitted it through e-mail. One of our producers called him up and he said, 'I was a bit pissed and thought it might be quite funny'," a Sky journalist told ninemsn.
The quotes have run extensively, both in Australia and across the world.

The jet crash landed short of the runway at London's Heathrow airport at around 12.42pm (11.42 AEDT), injuring six people and causing delays at the world's busiest airport.
The undercarriage of the Boeing 777 was wrecked with the back end and the engines touching the ground. Passengers poured out of emergency slides while firefighters sprayed safety foam around the jet. One said he felt he had won the "lottery" by escaping unharmed.
Television pictures showed skidmarks carving up the grass ahead of the runway used by Flight BA38 from Beijing with 136 passengers and 16 crew on board. All the injuries were reported as minor.
BBC television quoted the pilot as saying he had lost all power as it was landing and had to glide it in.
A passenger, Fernando Prado, told BBC television by telephone that all the passengers had been evacuated within two or three minutes, adding of his escape: "I won the lottery today."
Six passengers were taken to hospital with minor injuries, said a spokeswoman for the London Ambulance Service"

Hope that helps a little :O

[Danny]

...and after the last post by 'EmergingCyclogenesis", I think it is time to go to bed and have a rest. :zzz:

As mentioned somewhere earlier, there is informed speculation and uninformed speculation. I would trust speculation from any jet pilots who regularly fly in and out of LHR. As for things such as "...the aircraft was flying some base leg approach..." and "...and then finds that the jetstream is particularly strong today, giving rise to significant rainfall and wind over northern europe...", well, I don't need to say any more. :rolleyes:

Those of us who know, know. Those who don't, make fools of themselves. :ugh:

Goodnight.

[mattridley]

Bad month for Boeing, first the QF 744 with AC loss, then the 787 delays and now this... I suspect the pilots had a struggle getting it within the perimiter fence so congrats and thank god it ended in a relatively positive way.

[EasyGlider]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYwQ4EHQY8Y

[strobe12]

Holy :mad:!!

Here is the link http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=309075


and some pics!!
http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=1318129

http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=1318128

[strobe12]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23070462-601,00.html?from=mostpop

[Buster Hyman]

Interesting position the rudder is in, in those pics.

[BuzzBox]

In connection with the APU auto start, how is loss of both engines detected by that system?


The APU autostart system detects loss of electrical power to both AC transfer busses. That would occur if both engines failed, as the IDGs and backup generators are all driven by the engines.

[Hand Solo]

Oh but they would let them talk to the media about their heroic deeds if it was 100% clear cut that the pilots managed to land the plane without it breaking up through mechanical failure or bird strike etc that was absolutely no fault of their own.

No they wouldn't. Of course barely 12 hours after the accident it must already be clearcut that the pilots didn't cause it at all so their refusal to talk to the press can only be taken as confirmation that they ran out of fuel due to BA's costcutting and the three pilots inability to override their flight planners. Give us a break! You shouldn't be allowed near a computer!

[Mechta]

Does anybody know what indication the crew would have if the 777's water detector was completely submerged in water, so there was no water/fuel boundary visible?

Does the 777 have jet pumps to emulsify any water in the fuel, as Airbuses do?

The gauges may have been showing a liquid quantity, but was it fuel?

[dns]

Capvermell,

There are many reasons for not talking to the press... For a start it is forbidden under BAs FCOs.

[WeekendFlyer]

Tell you what has most wound me up today; the absolute GARBAGE spouted by media hacks who clearly know very little about aviation. Some of the comments and commentary on the BBC, and on News 24 in particular, were shockingly inaccurate, sensationalist, and often just pure drivel. Sky were not much better. A few times I found it hard not to scream "SHUT UP YOU FOOLS!" at the screen. I am sure I was not alone in that!

What a contrast: the professionalism and skill of the BA crew vs the sensationalism, incompetence, arrogance and stupidity of the broadcast media :ugh:.

I think we should push for a new law requiring all news to be reported in the style of "Pathe News" during WW2, with a terribly nice Queen's English-speaking reporter passing on established facts and no speculation or opinion, with some jolly music in the background. What do you think?

I'll get off my soapbox now. And yes, I do feel better for it!

Looking forward to the AAIB report; could be VERY interesting.

[Bazzamundi]

Wonder how long it will be until they get 27L open again. Could be a while.

I can imagine there will be some huge delays to and from London in the coming days. Perhaps some very long taxy times and waits for departure. It could make a few scheduling nightmares given they are already very short in most categories on the 744.

Will have to be careful answering any calls from a private number in the coming days.

;)

[DickyPearse]

The calls for an end to the speculation on this thread are considerably more tedious than the speculation itself.

It is human nature to seek the answers to all that is unknown. What we have here is a puzzle (albeit a potentially disastrous one) and there is no harm in trying to solve it. However, that doesn't mean the speculation should have no bounds. Where the speculation results in, or implies, blame on BA, the crew, Boeing, the Chinese fuel companies etc without absolute fact, then this must be stopped.

However, such postings have largely been absent on this thread, so lets continue to enjoy solving the puzzle - afterall, even Danny has had a crack (and he didn't state the birds were at fault in doing so!)

[SIDSTAR]

IMHO Ian Shoesmith is not a disgrace. He's a journalist, apparently an honest one who says who he is, doing his job which is to try to find out what happened in this accident. He's always tried to get 'expert' opinion from here and I'm sure by now he's got a very good idea of who's posts are reliable professional information and which ones are twaddle. However, Ian, it's a bit naive to expect that anyone would give you the Captain's phone number but I can't blame you for trying.

All we know is that it was a crash-landing short of the runway, no fire and everyone got out. Everything else is speculation (including from professional pilots) until we know more facts. What is certain is that the cabin crew did their job in getting everyone out and the pilots did their job in managing to put it down largely in one piece. Another professional crew doing an excellent professional job at the end. What happened before that, we'll just have to wait and see. Nice to see WW praising his crew but he is a pilot after all!

[dns]

I quite agree weekendflyer.

The stupid woman on Sky News said earlier "of course we all know that without power a plane glides like a brick". I had to be restrained to stop myself hurling a brick through my TV screen after that priceless gem... :mad:

[ACMS]

Firstly the 777 is Fly by Wire

If all Generators and PMG's ( both transfer busses are un-powered ) are lost the Flight Controls will run on DC power from the main battery. Even then they have their own batteries for 1 min while power is transferring around from Battery to RAT.

The APU ( if serviceable, and it is 99% of the time ) Will Automatically start in about 1 min

So.........
Seems to me, looking at the pictures: Both Engines flamed out at around 500'

There are no spoilers deployed, indicating loss of Hydraulic power.
The APU inlet door is open indicating that it was in the process of starting.
Cannot see if the RAT is deployed, but it will be I'm sure.
With the Engines failed and quiet the loud buzzing noise heard by the witness WILL BE THE RAT, it makes quite a noise.

The Crew did an amazing job of using what little excess energy they had available above Vs to reach the grass. Damn fine effort.


Now as to why they lost Power???????????

That's what we need to wait for.

[Keg]

Report I just read indicated that 27L now open for departures......full length obviously isn't available! :}

Glad everyone is OK. Looking forward to an interesting report on this one.

[BGQ]

What we know,

The aircraft was a Brirish Airways Boeing 777. It crashed.

What we don't know is

why,

Everything else is speculation... including whether the pilots did a good or a bad job.

Personally, as a pilot who flies B777s and has operated them into Heathrow, I would not wish to be praised for a good job on the basis of speculation or equally I would not wish to be damned in the same circumstances.

When we know for sure please tell me so I can operate more safely myself. Until then just the facts please.

Factual Information below

For what it's worth a double engine failure with plenty of altitude under a B777 does not cause a lot of initial drama. Electrics and Hydraulics continue due to windmilling engines as long as sufficient speed is maintained. Subsequently the RAT will deploy or is deployed manually.

[groper]

The outcome of this accident is nothing short of a miracle, regardless of the pilots' skills. I reckon the view from the cockpit in the last 10-15 seconds of this approach must have been sensational.:ooh:

[DirectAnywhere]

Buster, perhaps not so interesting when you look at the METAR:

EGLL 171320Z 22016KT 9999 BKN014 BKN020 11/09 Q0996 TEMPO 24020G32KT 6000 SHRA BKN015CB

Given the aircraft is offset to the runway by 45 degrees or so that's what you would expect to see with 20 or 30 kts of breeze at right angles to the rudder.

[yorkshireman]

Well as SLF myself now I have to say well done to the pax. I've never seen so many salivating journos gagging for "dooooooom, horrrrorr!!!!!!" so pissed off by row after row of chaps and chappesses who "felt a bit of a bumpy landing", were a tad cross that "they only gave us water in the terminal for the first hour, still we have some tea now so it's ok" and when one couple who when asked in screeching tones "DID EVERYONE PANNICK AND SPRINT FOR THE EXITS?!!?!?!?!" answered "yes a couple of people did, but then the cabin crew asked them to sit down".

Great job by the flight crew and the cabin crew in ensuring the safety of all concerned and great job by the slf for keeping a stiff upper and dicking the media off when they thought they had a mad panick on their hands.

[ACMS]

That's right.......the rudder is un-powered so it will weather cock as it usually does in the wind. Big Rudder on the 777

[skol]

Often after an accident you see the phrase "the pilot did a fantastic job", or "he was a great pilot". I wish people would refrain from this because nobody actually knows and while I'm not speculating on this accident no one knows until a report is published. These phrases often cause intense embarrassment when it's not actually the case.
A few years ago not far from here there was a crash that killed everyone on board. The pilot was feted in the media, by his family etc. until the dreadful truth was known. That this individual should have had his licence removed years before for gross incompetence.
Not commenting on this accident as above.

[dns]

Out of interest, why are there so few posts on this topic? It's been 12 hours since the accident and only 8 pages... On the BA forum we'd hit that in about 12 minutes... Something to do with the forum being down? I'd assumed the busy messages were due to so many people discussing the incident.

[Baltasound]

I have only a passing interest in aviation (I work in the rail industry) but can I just add a touch of "welcome to our world" here.

The presence of rolling 24hr news, tv cameras, mobile phones and the like mean that bull**** has gone twice around the world before truth has got its boots on to paraphrase a great writer. I worked the night of Ufton Nervet when a MOP decided that he wanted to kill himself by parking his car on a AHB and then waiting for the train to hit him. It took an awfully awfully long time for the news networks to actually comprehend that this was not a "train crash" caused by the railway. The usual airheaded, vacuous ill informed nonsense continued for 24hrs until it dawned.

At one stage the headlines on BBC Radio 5 rolling bull**** were those generated by the phone in preceeding it...i.e. distressed caller "at my level crossing they pass at 100MPH at it takes 29seconds for the barriers to lower......UNSAFE".

Rant over. Some of you may not read this but I thought that some in the "opposition" share some of what has been posted here. Wait for the facts; once speculation hardens it is a bugger to remove.

Cheers.

[BYALPHAINDIA]

I give the BA pilot's full praise for today's attempts to avoid the 'crash landing'

You never know when the 'SIM' training will be needed.

It was a 'miracle' that G YMMM missed the dual carriageway.

Or and to the Australian idiot = Can't you satisfy that us = Brits are not in a GOOD MOOD after today's accident.:=

Well get you back at hometime.......

[Woof etc]

"If one loses both engines on a 777 and it takes about a minute to kick in the APU (someone told us that in an earlier post) then what power is available for the fly-by-wire controls in the interim?"

The three flight control DC buses are provided with DC power from 3 dedicated power supply assemblies. Each power supply assembly has a dedicated battery to provide power for brief periods during power source transfers.

If power to the left and right transfer busses is lost, the ram air turbine deploys and the APU auto starts. In the interim power to the left and centre flight control busses is provided from the hot battery bus. (ie from the battery)

[Buster Hyman]

Okay, here's my 2cents worth:

1. I have no idea what happened.
2. I don't know who the crew are & wouldn't pass it on if I did.
3. I am not the Aussie that made the hoax call.
4. I am very glad that the airmanship of BA crews is still as high as it was when that 742 went through the volcanic cloud.

Okay, can anyone else add to my list?

:ugh:

[PJ2]

ACMS;

What's the location of the RAT, please? The 777 AOM doesn't say. The A340's is in the right-outboard canoe on the wing. Seems to me that the RAT deploys from the fuselage - just curious if it's visible from any of the photos, that's all - likely not, but it's some more info. Thanks...

PJ2

[Clarence Oveur]

There are no spoilers deployed, indicating loss of Hydraulic power.
The APU inlet door is open indicating that it was in the process of starting. With the damage done to the gears, I would have thought it possible that the aircraft reverted to air mode again after the initial ground contact.

[Seven]

The calls for an end to the speculation on this thread are considerably more tedious than the speculation itself.

It is human nature to seek the answers to all that is unknown. What we have here is a puzzle (albeit a potentially disastrous one) and there is no harm in trying to solve it. However, that doesn't mean the speculation should have no bounds. Where the speculation results in, or implies, blame on BA, the crew, Boeing, the Chinese fuel companies etc without absolute fact, then this must be stopped.

However, such postings have largely been absent on this thread, so lets continue to enjoy solving the puzzle....

Unfortunately, some speculation does inadvertently cast aspersions even if fingers of blame are not directly pointed.

As I said in an earlier post (which seems to have disappeared - server troubles I assume), "There but for the grace of God......" is something worth keeping in mind before speculating, particularly online.

[dns]

The RAT deploys from the fuselage just aft of the right hand gear bay as far as I know.

Just noticed that something has punctured the skin, just aft of D3R. Anyone got a guess as to what caused the damage?

[farrari]

The rudder is not unpowered, powered by 3 Power control units, left, centre and right hydraulics and 3 actuator control electronics.
Also see that the APU was running.

[Hiflyer1757]

The RAT on a 777 is just aft of the right main gear.....and ahead of the aft cargo door. Just found a good pic of one deployed on a AA777 in flight.
http://www.sportscarwarehouse.com/DSC_0272.jpg

[Woof etc]

RAT is located in the right wing fairing, just behind the trailing edge on the underside of the fuelage.

[PJ2]

dns, woof, thanks. Re the hole to which you refer dns, I wondered if it was a section of the departing right gear hitting the fuselage as it went by, likely tumbling? Not sure of the final locations of these sections - various photos show the two separated right gear sections fairly near the aircraft but other photos do not show them at all - perhaps it's foreshortened telephoto work, not sure. I wondered too, about the black soot-ish smears on the right fuselage at the wing-root - likely rubber deposits as the tires abraded at initial impact but just a guess, nothing more.

We should know very quickly whether the engines were developing power or not and what the fuel state was. The theme running through witnesses with amateur aviation backgrounds is, they sensed the approach was "abnormal". I've spent enough time on the M4 from the downtown London layover to know where in the sky approaches on the 27s are, so I give these kinds of reports some small credibility if only as indicators. Also, a "tight turn" onto final was reported by one, again credibility notwithstanding. I don't think it is possible to speculate on the meaning of the gear and flaps being in the landing config until we know when and at what altitude they were thus placed. Just not enough known yet.

[mocoman]

Okay, can anyone else add to my list?


5. Lucky it was 27L....


nah, seriously........


Lucky it was 27L.....:ugh:

[dns]

And even luckier that nothing was waiting to cross the threshold of 27L as so often happens on the way to or from T4... Could have changed the situation somewhat...

pj2, I see what you are refering to, didn't notice it before. Marks from the tyres would make sense, judging by the final resting angle of the aircraft, it seems likely that the gear would have been twisted to the right hand side as it sheared off.

[PJ2]

dns - and I see the left gear is driven almost vertically through the wing - (this has been commented upon very nicely during the thread I know), indicating a high vertical rate. One can see dimly through the looking glass as these factors emerge...

[FOXPRESIDENT]

It is is good to know that no one has died. And i'm sure all the crew did there best to save everyone.

I would like to know in relation to none of the commands been given from the F/D - don't some A/C's have the ability to have pre-recorded emergency announcments? Could they not have a button in the F/D that would alert CC to shout brace signal whilst the F/D crew prepared to land - obviously I realise that it may be apparent they had very little time to react to what ever situation that was presented to them. But in addition to that - surely crew who would have been flying into there home base would have realised something was wrong just prior to landling. If they've self evacuted could they have not shouted out Brace command?

Pleased everyone is ok at least.

[slamer.]

What were the WX conditions like at the time...? any possibility of core icing....? I will assume the BA machines use Rollers.

Great news no one seriously injured. Nice job who ever planned the clearways at the rwy ends.....:ok:

[RobertS975]

Massive birdstrike would likely have dead birds all over the place, and this would have likely been reported by now.

Many years ago, a UA DC8 crashed while on approach to PDX (Portland, OR). There were only a few fatalities as there was no fire. And there was no fire because the plane ran out of fuel.

Premature, but I noticed that there was no apparent fire in this accident despite a plane that sustained some major damage. But if fuel starvation or depletion was a issue in this accident, I would find it unusual to lose both engines virtually simultaneously.

No question this will fascinate the aviation world in the days to come. One of the premier aircraft types belonging to one of the world's premier carriers crashes at one of the busiest airports in the world...

[CityofFlight]

Big :D:D to the B/A crew for bringing the a/c down. Both F/D crew and C/C must have been in adrenaline mode and focused on the task as trained. PAX off w/only minor injuries...no catastrophes other that a probable write off of a/c. How many times do we get a chance to survive an incident like this? :ok:

As SLF...and because I'm an avid reader of PPRuNe...I'm very aware of the potential for emergency evacuations now and pay attention to my row versus exit doors, etc. I used to be very skeptical of ever living to an emergency evacuation. I'm now convinced otherwise. One nevers knows.

Regardless of the circumstances leading to this crash, the crew did what they were trained to do to avoid casualties. The fact there's no loss of of life is worth congratulating them. :D:D:D:D

Hats off from a Yank!
C of F

[Philly Pilot]

FWIW

Our (USA) union's international pilot union committee guy put this note out earlier:-


"We've been in contact with BALPA throughout the day.

Needless to say, the fact that everyone walked away is a testament to the airplane and the flight crew and to be fair, the cabin crew.

At this point in time all we know is that the airplane suffered DUAL ENGINE FAILURE at 400 feet.

The BA flight crew has spent the day accompanied by two BALPA Reps.

The full BACC was just about to vote on action regarding OpenSkies as this event unfolded. As a result, that vote was delayed to accomodate all their resources to help both this crew and the multiple crews stranded as a result of LHR closing.

As more details emerge I will endeavor to provide such information.

In the meantime can I please ask that we refrain from speculation and send our best collective wishes to this crew."

[BYALPHAINDIA]

It is is good to know that no one has died. And i'm sure all the crew did there best to save everyone.

I would like to know in relation to none of the commands been given from the F/D - don't some A/C's have the ability to have pre-recorded emergency announcments? Could they not have a button in the F/D that would alert CC to shout brace signal whilst the F/D crew prepared to land - obviously I realise that it may be apparent they had very little time to react to what ever situation that was presented to them. But in addition to that - surely crew who would have been flying into there home base would have realised something was wrong just prior to landling. If they've self evacuted could they have not shouted out Brace command?

Pleased everyone is ok at least.


As we have all said again & again, I think it is 'best' not to 'speculate' or 'simulate' anything until we have more 'factual' information.

Goodnight.:ugh::*

[dns]

foxpresident,

in a planned emergency landing, the flight crew flash the smoking/seat belt signs on and off repeatedly to signal the crew to brace, if they don't have time to make a PA. Presumably if this did not happen today it was because their workload was too high and that what happened was totally unexpected.

[DirectAnywhere]

Yeah, I reckon the hydraulics would have been operating perfectly looking at the condition of the aircraft.:rolleyes:

[MungoP]

SLAMER What were the WX conditions like at the time...?



EGLL 171320Z 22016KT 9999 BKN014 BKN020 11/09 Q0996 TEMPO 24020G32KT 6000 SHRA BKN015CB
EGLL 171250Z 20013KT 9999 BKN008 10/08 Q0996 BECMG 24018G28KT SCT012 BKN020
EGLL 171220Z 21014KT 180V240 9999 SCT008 BKN010 09/08 Q0997 TEMPO 21018G28KT 4000 RADZ BKN008
EGLL 171150Z 20014KT 170V240 9999 FEW006 SCT010 09/08 Q0997

[GrahamB73]

As a pax on a waiting craft, I'd just like to say thankyou to the BMI crew, both cockpit and cabin, on BD56 LHR-EDI.

A ditch like that is never going to be "nice" to those in the industry, yet our crew disseminated the right amount of information (ie truthful and frank) and behaved both professionally and impecably.

Top work ladies and gents :ok:

[Rananim]

Two choices as I see it:
-lady luck was in the driving seat.ie.they did have catstrophic power loss and they did just have enough inertia to clear that fence(highAoA supports this but large bank angles wouldnt) OR
-the pilot was in the driving seat-it was all by design-partial or significant power loss-(birds..surge/stall)-the highAoA to stall it onto the grass is all intentional-bank angle on app may have been height-loss maneuver-let the gear take it and plough to an early stop in the grass.
Of course,the other option is a delayed or "sloppy" response to eng fail on short final(explains bank,explains undershoot).
In fact the only thing anyone can say right now is that the Boeing 777 is an incredibly well-built plane.

[coolcaptain]

Needless to say, the fact that everyone walked away is a testament to the airplane and the flight crew and to be fair, the cabin crew.


Was the "to be fair" part really necessary?

[FlyingFreddie]

First post so please be gentle. Just a thought but 777 with GE engines have suffered thrust rollback in the past, is it possible the same thing could've effected a RR engine? I know the reports of rollback were on take off but could it happen to an 777 on finals?

[MungoP]

To lose both engines at 400ft is not something we're trained for (to my knowledge) announcements to CC would take ZERO priority when dealing with the task in hand... well done to all involved.. this should NEVER have happened to you... sleep well tonight.

[EIDW RJ85]

News Clip with good aerial view!!

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2uarAnyhzw&feature=related

[Wonder Boy]

From what I could make out today, the fan blades didn't seem to be significantly dammaged.

I was having a chat with an engineer from my company and he informed me that, had the engines been running at the time of impact, most if not all of the fan blades would have shattered. Flameout?

[strobe12]

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20080117-0


some video footage of the accident.

Waddya think of there was a bet to see if the PF could pull it up by the first taxi way :}

You are correct sir!! :O

[sevenstrokeroll]

one witness indicated that the engines came up to full power as the plane hit.

if this is true, could the engines have relighted?

in a post which may have become lost in space, I asked 777 guys if there is a "ground idle" engine range that might be commanded by a ground shifting mechanism (WOW, squat switch, what have you).

also, could a lack of selecting engine anti ice while descending through clouds, followed by a quick melting of ice, sending a stream of water through the engines.

both engines quitting at 400 feet simply does not happen, and if it does, the thinking behind long range or any range twinjets might just go out the window.

[RetroFire]

Having just seen the You Tube clip, the high AOA is clear, leading me to suspect the following possibility:

1) A/C begins approach fully configured with all engines operating (including full landing flaps, landing gear down, etc) for normal two-engine approach in accordance with BA SOP criteria.

2) Sometime after that, anywhere from the FAF to short final, one of the two engines experiences significant power loss (either mechnical, possibly injestion of flock of birds, fuel problem, etc)

3) "Engine Failure on Final" checklist attempted, including:

a) resetting and acheivement of higher airspeed target due to imminent use of lower flap setting (to lessen drag)

b) actual resetting of flaps to lower setting

c) resetting of ground proximity warning system due to use of alternate flap setting

d) possible securing of inop engine depending on time left and nature of problem.

The acheivement and maintainance of a higher approach speed with an inoperative engine at the same time one is attempting to maintain LOC and G/S while the flaps are being reconfigured (requiring an increase in pitch attitude) all while on final approach, IMHO, is quite a busy time. Any slight distraction can lead to exactly the nose high, high power setting on operative engine, flattened approach that we see on the You Tube clip. Perhaps following that with too high a sink rate once the road was cleared lead to the undershoot.

In other words, it's a handfull of airplane and procedures in the most critical of flying environments for which, IMO, there is barely adequate training for in the simulator. Engine failures in the traffic pattern miles outside the final approach are one thing, and practiced to a great extent. This kind of emergency, however, is quite a different breed.

In any case, my thoughts are with all involved.

RF

[grumpyoldgeek]

Did you watch "Fate is the Hunter" last night?

Student pilot here. The one remark that I can make is that this is a perfect example of flying a presumeably broken plane down to the ground and landing it in the lowest possible energy state. Lots of broken aluminum, but everybody gets to tell the story to their kids.

[misd-agin]

BGQ - post 141 and
Tigs2 - post 177


BRAVO! You two gentlemen are the grand prize winners. It's to early to congratulate the crew because none of us know if their actions lead to the situation in the first place!

Patience. We'll know the facts in due time.

The one video, if it's even of the accident a/c, does appear to show a high pitch attitude which we tend to link with a high AOA. But does anyone know exactly what a 777 approach looks like from that exact spot, at the exact weight and flap configuration the a/c was in? If you can't answer the question with 100% certainity you're speculating which isn't helping anyone.

Patience. :D

[Ian G]

While some regulars are clearly getting annoyed with the level of speculation, I have to say this thread has a great deal more credibility than anything the media has come up with. Obviously the facts are not out - obviously therefore speculation will ensue. For those people who have posted useful information, thank you. For those of you who think the industry learnt nothing from Kegworth, please consider the plausibility of this! Are you Australian?

[Loose rivets]

Speedrestriction. I entirely agree, that is when you say. I shouldn't be here...and this includes any other low post Ppruners that think they have the right to tell us that we shouldn't discuss this matter -- until it has been fully investigated.

So what the blazes is the purpose of R&N?

Oh, and by the way, Don't shout...especially in red.




What have we got?

No communication from the flight-deck? Well, hardly surprising...they were busy.

High energy met conditions? It's the middle of winter, rough days at this time of year are rather more obvious.


Low fuel? He would have had to be gambling on not telling anyone. No reason to take a great risk hiding the fact, low-fuel calls happen all too often these days.

Birds? I bow to Danny's senior knowledge, and indeed recency, but why wouldn't the Captain have said as much when he reported the dead-stick to ground staff? He (or his colleague) would have surely been looking ahead at that time, a flock big enough to stop thoes donks would have almost certainly been very apparent.



NOT fly-by-wire.Would someone be kind enough to give a simple description of the 777's control system?

I have the uneasy feeling that if this aircraft had denied the PF the power to drag in with an extreme nose up attitude, they would have almost certainly ploughed through road traffic, or even houses before arriving at LRH.

It's possible that that contol authority saved a lot of lives today.


Another question. Supposing he had 7 tonnes on board, and something caused a major wing drop/stall. And supposing, just for a moment, the ball slipped hard over. With that side g and that level of fuel, would the scavenge system fail for a moment?

[dns]

It's to early to congratulate the crew because none of us know if their actions lead to the situation in the first place!

Can we perhaps congratulate the cabin crew? We know for a fact that they evacuated the aircraft without serious injury or loss of life...

[Carrier]

Quotes from above:
‘BBC inaccuarcies...’
‘BBC also referred to him as "the pilot". Maybe the incident happened because the 777 should have had more than one pilot ...’
‘Multiple bird strike on short finals?’
‘Loss of power on finals etc.....’
‘.....whats the chances of running dry on short finals??’
‘I would guess the a/c entered the most dangerous tailwind portion on short finals.’

There has been much criticism of the accuracy of the BBC and other members of the media. How about certain presumed pilots applying the same level of accuracy to their own posts? How many runways do they think the aircraft was trying to land on at the same time? To those fully familiar with both aviation and the English language the four legs of a circuit (pattern for Yanks) are crosswind, downwind, base and final (or final approach). Note that all are in the singular! Are there many pilots who do not know the difference between singular and plural or is it fairly common to hear some pilots advise that they are on crosswinds, downwinds and bases?

‘The double standards and ignorance of some of the posters on this site never ceases to amaze me.’ ‘You are as bad as the Journo's.’ Interesting comments! Perhaps those who live in glasshouses should not throw stones.

[XTRAHOLD]

Under the weather conditions at the time, it is pretty certain to assume that the crew added the close to the Boeing maximum 20 knot wind additive to their Vref. That extra energy was probably to thank that they made the field at all if indeed they experienced a double engine failure on final. With the gear down and locked as well as the final landing flap setting, the drag is so big without power that they must have been quite close when the power loss happened. With the flight data and voice recorder it wil be possible to recreate exactly what happened to them and we'll be reading about it in FI or another industry periodical soon enough.

[boardpig]

Apparently any landing you can walk away from is a good one. Hence this was a good landing. The ships had a bit of a ding, nothing a few coats od paint and a hammer wont fix.. I don't see what all the fuss is about.:}

Do I know what happened?..mm no. Will we know what happened eventually..yes. So in the meantime out of all the folks in the tin tube, all walked away and have a story to tell down the pub. That fact alone, is the real story. What an amazing job done by the crew.:D:D:D:D:ok:

[&&&]

Under the weather conditions at the time, it is pretty certain to assume that the crew added the close to the Boeing maximum 20 knot wind additive to their Vref.

Not necessarily, they wouldn't need to add anything (above ref plus +5) if they were using autothrottle.

[The Messiah]

So from the above it pitched rather than 'banked heavily' and can someone please clarify for me what is 'a textbook crash landing' that he referred to?

Furthermore chaps in an emergency evacuation both engine fire switches are pulled which amongst other things depressurises the hydraulics, and for farrari the APU fire switch would also be pulled which obviously would shut that down.

[stickyb]

Not a pilot, so hope you don't mind me asking a couple of questions (and i don't have flight sim on my pc either)

what would be the horizontal distance from the piano keys at 400 ft vertical on a normal approach - ie how far were they from the end of the runway in distance?


What would be the normal time from 400ft alt to touchdown - ie how far were they from the end of the runway in time?

Thanks

[PJ2]

Not necessarily, they wouldn't need to add anything (above ref plus +5) if they were using autothrottle.

Need some info here please - does the autothrust cater to headwind component to maintain the energy level of the aircraft in much the same was as Groundspeed-Mini on the 320/340 type aircraft? If not, then the crew would have to manually change the addition to Vref (above the usual 5kts). Just a point of info, nothing else - thanks.

PJ2

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

@stickyb

Assuming a 3 degree glideslope, 400ft high would be about 7500ft back. Glide path intercept point is nominally 1000ft down the runway, so that would make 400ft AGL just over 1nm from the end of the runway. With a 20:1 ratio, any small error in that 400ft number makes quite a difference, of course. And I don't know the specifics for the runway in question re glideslope angle and GPIP.

[PJ2]

Not necessarily, they wouldn't need to add anything (above ref plus +5) if they were using autothrottle.

Need some info here please - I don't believe the autothrust caters to headwind component to maintain the energy level of the aircraft in the same was as Groundspeed-Mini on the 320/340 type aircraft does. I understand that thrust response is higher in gusts but the target speed is always the commanded speed. I ask for this clarification because if it does not, then the crew would have to manually change the addition to Vref (above the usual 5kts). Just a point of info, nothing else is suggested here - thanks.

PJ2

[Sleeping Freight Dog]

To all that are speculating that wind shear or a microburst could not
bring down a 777 sized aircraft, I need only to point out DL191 which
flew into a mircorburst at DFW. The plane,Tristar-L1011, was forced down short of the runway but was intact until it hit the water towers.
Whatever caused today's incident will come out in due time, but let's
all be thankful the headlines dont read BA jet plows into busy roadway
or bursts into flames on landing. A great job to both cockpit and cabin
crew.

[dl540]

No fire NO gas ????:sad:

[farrari]

Yes the APU fire switch is to "Override and Pull" in an EVACUATION , what i meant was that the APU is usually started when clear of the runway, the fact that it was started in flight either MANUALLY or AUTOMATAICALLY means they needed another source of power, an therefore must have had some warning of a problem.

[Porrohman]

Is there any history of electro-magnetic interference causing this type of problem with civil aircraft systems? All aircraft and avionics are subjected to qualification testing to ensure they are suitably protected from normal electro-magnetic interference so it's unlikely to be the cause of the accident unless there was a particularly powerful electro-magnetic source and/or there was a system fault that increased susceptibility. Although somewhat improbable it is, theoretically, a possible cause.

[Speedbird]

APU auto starts when you lose power to the transfer buses

[Fatfish]

If it is case off running out of fuel, I hope the paxs sue the pants out of BA. Teach the bean counters a lesson for not allowing the pilots to carry fuel. A 1245 hr flt from China and plan resevre of 30 mins. If this is so, once again, blame goin to be put on the laps of the poor pilot. CAA should heftily fine aircraft landing with less than min fuel but then CAA is in BA's pocket. But then no lost of life here, so not a dam thing will happen. :ugh:

[AKAAB]

EMP - temporarily flummoxed the electronics and the engines rolled back to idle.

Hey, I can toss in a WAG like everyone else, can't I?

AKAAB

[Dream Land]

Thanks for the speculations by real pilots, always interesting to hear their ideas, yes it's speculation, so what. As far as all the whining about the news media, who cares, these people are always in a hurry to put out a report, good bad or otherwise, what facts they don't have they make up, real aviation experts know the information is worthless, I personally go to PPRuNe when I hear about an accident however in this case, couldn't do to system overload. :bored:

One hell of good dead stick landing and successful EVAC, well done. :ok:

[FrequentSLF]

A 1245 hr flt from China

Flight time is 11.05, not 12.45

[&&&]

Need some info here please - does the autothrust cater to headwind component to maintain the energy level of the aircraft in much the same was as Groundspeed-Mini on the 320/340 type aircraft? If not, then the crew would have to manually change the addition to Vref (above the usual 5kts). Just a point of info, nothing else - thanks.

It is simply that with the autothrottle engaged you only need to have ref +5 (depending on the company). It just flies at the bugged speed with the required ammount of thrust for the headwind/ground speed.


Further. I really doubt that anyone arrives intentionally with 30mins fuel. They would either have alternate fuel or the mandatory LHR holding reserve and some extra ammount that substitutes for alternate fuel.

Even further. If anyone doesn't like specualtion about this incident go and read the BBC website. This is the professional pilot RUMOR network. Get over it, you are at the wrong place.

Even more further. It COULD be Kegworth revisited quite easily. Yet again, it may not be.

[acmi48]

would the acars work on touch down in a case like yesterday ?? with an
'on' message and FR

[gulliBell]

All I've got to say is lucky they were in a 777 and not another popular type with a center MLG bogey. For the aircraft to have hit the ground in a such a way as to force the MLG mounts up through the wings, a center MLG bogey being forced up into the main cabin would have been a very grim outcome for passengers in that section.

[Final 3 Greens]

Can we perhaps congratulate the cabin crew? We know for a fact that they evacuated the aircraft without serious injury or loss of life...

As a frequent SLF, I second this.

We trust in the CC in emergencies and it is reassuring to see everyone out with only a few minor injuries.

Well done.

[Velhurstairport]

As a recovering (i.e., no longer very active) member of this despised profession, I congratulate you all for noticing the torrent of rubbish published in the aftermath of this incident. The 24-hour news channels are the worst but the papers are dreadful, too.

What I can state with authority is that this is roughly the standard of journalism as it is applied to more or less any subject. In this case you have noticed it is crap because you know something about the subject. If you work in the NHS then you will notice that the media's coverage of health is delusional. if you are a teacher, then you will know not to believe a word of the drivel published on education. Unlike pilots, no training whatsoever is required to be a journalist.

You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God, the British journalist.
But seeing what the man will do unbribed, there's no occasion to.

Actually, the top line of that ditty is wrong, too.

Anyway, this is just a reminder that on any given news story, any resemblance to the facts is completely coincidental.

The only journalism you should even start to trust is that signed by people who are known to you and who have a demonstrated track record. These individuals are few and far between...

[Say Again, Over!]

To those of you who think that the crew intentionally landed short into the grass.... pray tell: what would be the point?

They stalled to land into the grass to avoid crashing on the runway

Duh! Don't you think they could have LANDED on the runway?

People, please!! :{:ugh:

[Nakata77]

yes lucky no central wheel under cabin section

very lucky it hit wings level by the sound of it, and not while it was banking...results would have been very different

[arcniz]

One thing is clear: this event sets a new standard for short-field landing performance with the 777.

A little sketch on a bar-napkin suggests that the skillful pilots of the incident aircraft managed a very successful unexpected low-speed arrival some 2000 feet short of the nominal touch-down point.

If one plugs in guesswork numbers for a normal final approach speed vs an improvised stretch manoeuver at the lower edge of feasible slow flight, it would seem that the time window available to the crew for discovering, identifying, adapting to and then successfully handling the extraordinary situation of power loss on short final might have been as little as ten to twenty seconds. From a perceptual point of view those would have been very long seconds, but still not long enough to do other than apply instinct and training in a direct and irreversible manner, then see what happens.

Well done!

[PJ2]

Matthew;

Thank you for being honest about your age and your interest in becoming a pilot. Posting your theories here takes a bit of courage but I'm glad you did. One thing - you should keep a copy of your post tucked away so that as you grow into a career in aviation, you can refer to it. I think you should follow your dream. Also, the fact that you have taken the time and trouble to offer your thoughts on an accident may someday make you a flight safety expert as well as a pilot. We can always use both!

All this said, you will discover that pathways to accidents and causal behaviours in very large transport aircraft likely preclude what you are posing. My thoughts would be, read carefully all the posts here and listen to your own thoughts about what makes sense and what doesn't. Develop a "sixth sense" about when something rings true and when it may be questionable. It is as much to do with the language used, syntax and follow-through as it is just offering up "facts" and thinking out loud without thinking...

There are some very fine, and deeply experienced minds at work here on this forum but there are also charlatans, people who wish to convince rather than inform and angry people who wish to control a freely-offered dialogue. Some dislike speculation in advance of the facts - a valid view providing one doesn't know what one is talking about!

I think it is good to step back a bit, read everything, read as much as you can about aviation and flying large transports, read everything you can get your hands on about accident investigation and why things happen the way they do. I'm not saying don't contribute because posting here is a very good place to learn and try your ideas out so long as you are prepared for a rough ride!

best,
PJ2

[Jabawocky]

A good reason to have your seatbelt FIRMLY fastened, incidents like this and turbulence lik in Canada recently are perfect examples of why they are installed!

J

[The Messiah]

Indeed it does such as in the case of a double engine failure (can anyone make out if the RAT had deployed?) or you would manually start it after a single engine failure. :cool:

[PJ2]

&&&;
It just flies at the bugged speed with the required ammount of thrust for the headwind/ground speed.

Okay, that doesn't really answer the question but I'll leave it for now, tx.

[Noddys car]

On the 777 daily check for ERs you usually do the Fuel Drain check for water contamination

Drain 1 gallon from center fuel tank sump drain valve as per AMM.

I guess if this was not done in PEK due cold weather, the water content in the tank could have been higher than realised. Would explain both engines flaming out. Crew thinking indication they had fuel.

[Buster Hyman]

Yeah, fair enough. I just noticed it because in my Certificate IV in Accident Investigation at Broady TAFE, they told us to look for that sorta thing!

:ok:

[theFATchuckster]

no posts or news article have said whether they broadcast that they were having an emergency?

no radio = no power?

[downunderscouser]

they would have had battery at minimum, so radio would still be working. I am surprised no mention has been made of any abnormal radio communications or anything at all coming from anyone in ATC.

The PPL pilot who witnessed the planes approach said it was banking heavily and not making a straight in approach. If I recall all of the approaches for these runways are typical straight line approaches from a FAF, that was definately not what he described seeing. Which says to me that there had to be some communication of some abnormality before that 400 ft high engine flameout.

One thing I have not heard any mention of is whether 27L was even an active landing runway at the time.

[MrWooby]

Congratulations also to London ATC. In the aftermath of the accident they remained very calm and professional when dealing with the many holding and diverting aircraft. In a very british statement reminiscent of Lawrence (Titus) Oates last words (see Scott's Antartic expedition) ATC said " we're just cleaning up a bit of debris from the runway, we're not sure how long it will be !"

[XPMorten]

On the photo's the APU inlet is open, so it apparently was running.
Is it common to have the APU running when landing the 777?

M

[&&&]

they would have had battery at minimum, so radio would still be working. I am surprised no mention has been made of any abnormal radio communications or anything at all coming from anyone in ATC.

The PPL pilot who witnessed the planes approach said it was banking heavily and not making a straight in approach. If I recall all of the approaches for these runways are typical straight line approaches from a FAF, that was definately not what he described seeing. Which says to me that there had to be some communication of some abnormality before that 400 ft high engine flameout.

One thing I have not heard any mention of is whether 27L was even an active landing runway at the time.

Stupider and stupider.

27L is almost always active, it only closes at night. This was day.
They were flying and dealing with a problem. Ever heard of aviate, navigate, communicate?
What a PPL saw is about as reliable as what a journalist saw.

[life_sentence_as_AME]

I too thought of water contamination but on a flight of that length, water being heavier than fuel, and fuel being picked up from the bottom of the tank, I would expect water contamination to show its ugly head a lot earlier in the flight.

[vs69]

Noddys car....I think water content in the fuel would have reared its head a lot earlier as it collects in the lowest point in the tank and would normally get sloshed around with the fuel by the jet pumps....Forgive the wording its been a long night but i think someone out there knows what I mean!

[HotDog]

Ferrari,
The rudder is not unpowered, powered by 3 Power control units, left, centre and right hydraulics and 3 actuator control electronics.

It is powered whilst there is hydraulic pressure but will deflect in the wind when hydraulic pressure is terminated.

[BuzzBox]

Not necessarily, they wouldn't need to add anything (above ref plus +5) if they were using autothrottle.


PJ2:

According to Boeing procedures for the 777, speed additives are only required when using manual thrust. If the autothrust is engaged, which it normally is, then the MCP command window is set to Vref+5.

From the Boeing Flight Crew Training Manual for the 777: "Sufficient wind and gust protection is available with the auto-thrust engaged because the auto-thrust is designed to adjust thrust rapidly when the airspeed drops below command speed while reducing thrust slowly when the airspeed exceeds command speed. In turbulence, the result is that average thrust is higher than necessary to maintain command speed. This results in an average speed exceeding command speed."

[BigJETS]

'........the water content in the tank could have been higher than realised. Would explain both engines flaming out'

Unless they just selected a new tank that happened to contain enough water and supplied both engines--not very likely. Water would be the first out.


This was an extremely close call. Glad there is no puzzle to assemble.

[SeldomFixit]

Sounds more like an FJ Holden to me :rolleyes:

[Capt Kremin]

I'd be checking the fuel quality in Beijing.....

[Chronic Snoozer]

In the fullness of time the causes will be revealed. If it was a birdstrike, it must have been some flock of birds.

In the meantime it sobering to think that a modern airliner operated by a first world airline could end up like this.

As a pilot - it reminds us that it can happen anytime, to anyone.
As a pax - reinforces the importance of listening to the safety announcements and reading the emergency card in your seatback pocket.

[BuzzBox]

On the photo's the APU inlet is open, so it apparently was running.
Is it common to have the APU running when landing the 777?

XPMorten:

As stated in a previous post, if both engines lost power there would have been no AC electrical power to the transfer busses, and the APU would have attempted to start automatically. That could be the reason for the APU inlet door being open.

Normally, the APU is not running for landing, unless it is required by a QRH or MEL procedure.

[SeldomFixit]

Yeah, they were using what they had left from the outbound leg, right up to the Loc Antenna at LHR................

[Cubbie]

To praise the pilots as heroes without all the facts is worse than the standard shouting of Pilot error. How much farther is the fall from grace then when the truth could later be found out to be in opposition? :sad:

[spannersatKL]

Downunderscouser
I remember the words on my 777 (engineers) course......the only source of standby power on the 777 is the RAT...... probably not a lot of use by the time it deployed and spun up in this case?

[greenslopes]

Nope,sorry but I cannot see a BA flight running out of fuel..........some Indo airline maybe but not Nigel.
Best stop and wait for the facts!

[Capt Kremin]

I didn't say they ran out of fuel, but there are only two things that can practically fail both engines at the same time. One is fuel starvation caused by not having enough fuel or mismanaging what you have.... very difficult to do in a 777 and there appears to have been no mayday call or low fuel advisory to ATC.

The other thing is contaminated fuel. Considering the aircraft was out of Beijing, this would be the first thing I would be checking if I was in the management of any airline flying out of there.

If it wasn't one of those two things, then I am stumped.

[Cubbie]

I have a picture of the rat door,or lack of it! (anyway of posting pics onto PPrune??) looks like the rat was out, but with such a force of impact to push the gear through the wing, no reason why the rat could not have fallen out at the same moment...

[pasoundman]

" Seen the Daily Mail's headline for tomorrow, 'The pilot Grappled with the controls'. "

Despite an unusual (for the Mail) lack of claims that passengers saw their lives flashing before them, the Mail has now excelled itself by informing readers how ILS uses a LASER BEAM to help airliners land.


" the instrument landing system (ILS) approach where a laser beam is followed to help the crew land "
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=508957&in_page_id=1770

When will the media EVER learn some basics about flying ?

[Helen49]

Fortuitous that 27L at EGLL has a good sized RESA.....doubtless the very soggy ground caused the abrupt deceleration.
Congrats to all those who did a good job. The AAIB will determine who they are!
H49

[Eligy]

Jeez there's an incredible amount of crap in this thread. So long since I've posted I had to make a new account. O_o

777, a fly by wire jet, will auto start its own apu in the event of loss of AC from the transfer busses.

BA don't have the EFB fit, to whoever, mentioned windows as an OS on some systems.

Hell yeah though, it has a lot of computers and even if they all fall over it should still feed fuel to the donks by suction.

It's been demonstrated that the 3 standby instruments are surplus in that theoretically you cannot fail the 777 to the level where they are all thats left, unless of course the batt goes pop too.

In addition to my earlier post (#226) It is possible for a high water content to give an inaccurate fuel quantity reading.

Surely in a nine hour plus flight, contaminated fuel would rear its head before short final?

the only source of standby power on the 777 is the RAT...... probably not a lot of use by the time it deployed and spun up in this case?
Other than the battery, yeah.

I think the longer the press didn't know who the crew were the better, last thing the boys need is those gits digging into their lives printing the usual paraphrased, inaccurate drivel, though of course the names are out now anyway.

[Capt Wally]

I don't care what the reason they fell out of the sky, the guys at the pointy end must be feeling awful right about now, ya gotta feel for them that's for sure. They (the flt crew) can't be that silly as to let this happen willy nilly, they wouldn't get anywhere near the lattest technology if they showed signs of anything other than shear professionalism.
If & I say If they stuffed up then we shall all learn from it not just them. Am keen like everyone else in here to find out the facts so that 'we' may not be put in the same situation for whatever reason.

You walked away from it guys:D:D:D

CW:)

[pasoundman]

" The 'favourite' explanations seem to be either wind-shear or some sort of complete power loss on short final. "

Is there ANY history of serious wind shear at Heathrow ?


" this was simply a cocked up approach...similar to a particular MD11 in Hong Kong a few years ago...loss of airspeed followed by a high sink rate prior to touch down...in windy conditions "

Those WINDY CONDITIONS you refers to (China Airlines wasn't it - again ? )were a damn storm. The weather at Heathrow was nothing unusual. British weather is really quite mild generally.

[Jonty]

I would like to say well done to all crew on this aircraft. No matter what the circumstances that led up to this incident, the fact that they made the airport perimeter is incredible.

[PJ2]

BuzzBox;

From the Boeing Flight Crew Training Manual for the 777:

Yes, understand the AOM remarks, thank you - I don't want to take the thread off on a tangent because frankly I don't think there is any low-hanging fruit in the wind-shear/airspeed/energy line of thinking. This was not a significant windshear situation and there was no evidence in the METARS of convective activity at the time.

I very much want to stay away from Airbus-Boeing comments at all times! I am just trying to clarify my understanding of the two different a/t systems.

In the 777, the a/t will:

- fly the command speed which can be either be calculated by the FMC according to weight, landing flap config etc, or it can be modified by the crew according to the standard formula for such occasions, (Vref plus half the wind, plus all the gust up to a max of 20kts, or slight variations on the theme);

- In other words, if Vref is 145kts making the approach speed Vref + 5, (command speed) 150kts, that's what the a/t's will fly, and if gusts or shear causes the aircraft to lose speed below that command speed, they will (very swiftly, the AOM indicates) add thrust to maintain the command speed of 150kts.

- Groundspeed is not sensed for this purpose, so in a 20kt headwind component, the groundspeed of the aircraft would be 130kts.


The Airbus 320/340 GSMini autothrust mode will however, command sufficient airspeed so as to maintain the groundspeed equal to the approach speed set in the FMC.

- If Vapp (Vref + 5) on a 340 is 150kts and that is the approach speed calculated by or entered into the FMC and there is a 20kt headwind component, the a/t system will fly the approach to maintain 150kts groundspeed. The resulting airspeed could be as high as 170kts, (getting close to flap limiting speed). GSMini mode is entered when final landing flap configuration is set.

The a/t system is sufficiently aggressive so as to make quick modifications to the groundspeed flown so as not to compromise the landing distances required. The GSMini can move up and down the airspeed scale quite rapidly in gusty conditions or as strong winds shear out closer to the ground.

We used the technique decades ago in the '8 when INS was first introduced and I'm sure many here will be familiar with it.

Again, I do NOT want to cause thread drift or even hint that there is an Airbus/Boeing discussion here - I know there is the potential to do so in these remarks. There is no such intent - I just wanted to understand how the 777 a/t system behaved so I could better understand aspects of the aircraft's energy level. As I say, I don't think these areas of speculation will be fruitful. Thanks for your response.

PJ2

[nugpot]

All airliners I have ever known about have had battery as the first source of power. The RAT if I remember right charges the batteries which provide the power to the systems.

You obviously don't know many airliners then.

On most airliners, the RAT supplies AC power to the Emergency bus. This drives at least one TRU which supplies power to the battery bus. The Standby instruments and some other essential services are AC services driven directly from the Emergency bus.

Light piston a/c and some turboprops on the other hand, has a mainly DC system. Your experience seems to be more on that side of the weight category.

[Eligy]

The RAT on a 777 can provide enough to fly the thing, period.

This looks like both engines, for whatever reason, stopped. In the landing config thats gonna ruin anyones day.

To the muppet that suggested a cocked up approach.... I'd eat my hat, your hat, and everyone else's hat if it came out that was the cause. Or fuel starvation for that matter. We're not talking about bongo bongo airways here for heaven's sake.

I've just remembered why I haven't been on here in years, too many resident retards and not enough people with brains to engage.