United 777 SFO
 

Apparently 'forced to return to SFO' after lightning strike.

Why?

Pax oxygen masks were deployed (not by crew).

See Incident: United B772 at San Francisco on Apr 12th 2012, lightning strike

Thank you. All we need to know now is why they deployed?

Queertrons....

Fuel Dumping -

I never had to dump fuel in my whole career [except in the Sim of course !! ], but even though it supposedly vaporizes, I can't believe that SOME fuel doesn't reach the ground. I always thought that if I ever had to dump, I'd sure try and be over water or far from civiliztion.

Thoughts...

it does as road grime on your car windshield. Pretty much indistinguishable from every day dirt on shinny surfaces.

The ppm makes it low enough that very few know.

I was aboard a B747 where the pilot announced dumping fuel while over New Jersey. Some of us laughed about if the folks on the gorung would know.

I was never quite sure if his announcement was a pre event or during. I never did forget his announcement right after the first one "please do not smoke"

I spoke to him afterwards and we both stated it was our first air-turn-back and fuel dump.

A question for the experts; during fuel jettison will the fuel become atomized and be susceptible to fire hazard from lightning? Likewise in a small fuel leak, will the atomized fuel ignite due to St Elmo's fire type electrical static charge?

I surmised that they must have dumped fuel away from the area where they first had the lightning strike.

As a Naval aviator, we routinely dumped fuel. In my type aircraft, we usually left a couple of thousand pounds in the wing where it was dumpable, and transferred the rest in. Landing gross weight limitations were absolute and had to be met. You were always saving fuel to better handle contingencies, and then dumping down to landing weight at the last minute, often on downwind and even into the groove. We often observed our wingmen's dump and our own. Depending on the rate of dump and airspeed, the fuel plume would break up into fine droplets and be invisible within a couple of plane lengths.

I've always been amazed at the amount of agonizing airline folks do over dumping fuel.

Swissair Flight 111 comes to mind. Instead of fiddling around with the dump, they would have been far better off to have turned on the dumps, point the nose toward Halifax, and come on down as quickly as possible (only under control this time).

Uh.....don't get me wrong; I would've dumped in a minute IF I ever had to. But, fortunately, I never had to. Pan Am was "The World's Most Experienced Airline" and we let THEM have all the experiences !! :O

April 12 was quite the day to go flying around SFO...10 miles further North...
http://blu.stb.s-msn.com/i/60/DFF9BA...8E64A4113F.jpg

@Machinbird:
Quote:
"Swissair Flight 111 comes to mind. Instead of fiddling around with the dump, they would have been far better off to have turned on the dumps, point the nose toward Halifax, and come on down as quickly as possible (only under control this time)."

Before making such statements take the time to read the final report about the SR111´s accident.

Agree, there but for the grace of God......

Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise”
― David Zindell, The Broken God

I believe I've read it several times through over the years. If they had taken the smoke extremely seriously at the start and instead of declaring a PAN, declared a Mayday, and then started coming down like a safe, they might have had a chance. The decision to fly towards a dump area wasted valuable time. The first 10 minutes after the PAN call they had a fairly functional aircraft. If they had been turning final at that point, they might well have made it. Not an easy piloting job at all, but possible. The 66 mile initial distance from Halifax was well inside their normal TOD.

I have no desire to rehash that entire accident on this thread. We all should know just how bad an emergency a fire in flight is, and that extending your time in the air is extremely hazardous.

Of course, I do have significant hindsight bias.:hmm:

I seem to recall from the first hint of smoke to the pilots becoming incapacitated due to heat was just 12 minutes. The investigators stated that even if the airfield was ideally situated ahead of the aircraft they still wouldn't make it.

First there was a smell.

Then the smoke.

Two different events.