US1549 Ditching in Hudson River - Q & A's (Merged)

[starbuck123]

Thanks to rog747 for the answers, all of which make sense! You can see now why should always read the saftey card as aircraft are different! Flying with BMI baby this friday so will see how that compares!

Thanks again

[rog747]

i agree starbuck

i agree starbuck this section of pprune is for pax/slf questions,

if airline or flying crew can answer then please can it be constructively
thanks

i am ex airline ops/safety in uk since 1972 now retired

[Final 3 Greens]

Starbuck

Don't worry about it.

Forget's comment is probably reacting to your choice of words, since "drop like a stone" sounds a bit like a red top headline, a little sensational.

One fact of flying known to all pilots is that aeroplanes fly becuase of the wing, not the engines, which are there to get them up off the ground and keep them up at cruising speed.

But it is the SLF forum and your question is okay for me ( I am SLF and also hold a pilot's licence for little aeroplanes and you can only fit a small ego into the cabin )

Rainboe can be fierce, but he is a very experienced pilot and as much as I often argue with him on these fora, if this happened to me, I couldn't think of any better than Rainboe to be captain, I reckon he would get a Boeing down safely, too, in similar circunstances.

But he does take offense at (a) anyone he perceives as implying criticism of the profession and (b) people who are nervous passengers.

The first I can understand, as professionals do stick together and the second is because he is a grumpy old git

But if you avoid the sensationalism and ask Rainboe nicely, you might be surprised at the quality of the reply you receive.

All the best!

[starbuck123]

Hi Final Greens

Thanks for the comments! i would never saying anything negative towards pilots as they do a great job and have up most respect for what they do!

Being a nervous fly is only something that has happened in the last few years. It seems to be take off that worrys me for some reason. once im up in the air im fine!

I would be intrested to know why he dont like nervous passengers?
The "drop like a stone" was a bit daft so i apologies but my questions were genuin and not being a pliot or have any experiance in the industry i needed to know. The commnets made previous have tought me alot already about different types of shoots and things.

Its nice to know that if passengers do have questions or issues that pilots can answer them on here. maybe it should happen more then there wouldnt be any nervous flyers??

[rog747]

starbuck reply 2

starbuck,

your terminology of 'stone and drop like one' is ok coz thats exactly what does happen if an aeroplane does not have the speed left to maintain the height that one needs to avoid the dropped stone scenario !
quite simply put...
speed is organised by power (engines) and height is maintained by speed (get it) lol

so please dont think you really were that wrong lol


so thats why when you are in the cruise (high up) you have lotsa lovely height to play with if you lose power.
(and thus hopefully lotsa time too for sorting out the no-power issue coz you can glide an awfully long way without the power from that height)

what is not nice is being near the ground when the power goes,
hence skill, speed, height, and the attitude of the a/c is crucial here to coax and/or maintain what you have to get you somewhere as safe as can be rather quick.

[Final 3 Greens]

what is not nice is being near the ground when the power goes,

We train for engine failure after take off in the little planeswith only one engine.

From 200 feet, with no engine, you have maybe 10-15 seconds before you land, so I agree with Rog747

With multiple engines in an airliner, the probability is lower, but we have had a cluster of events recently.

The very high standards of training for airline pilots have shown their value in these incidents.

[Seat62K]

To return to the "luck vs. skill" issue raised several posts ago, surely it was a case of both and not either/or?
In different circumstances (that is to say, where neither the Hudson nor anything else which could have performed the role of a "runway" was available) no amount of skill would have prevented a very different outcome (i.e. fatalities).
The pilot flying the A320 exhibited great skill, but he (and all those onboard) were also very lucky. Put another way, their luck enabled the pilot to exhibit his skill.
The same is true, for example, in the Air Transat case cited above. What would have happened if no airport had been within "gliding" distance?
(Wasn't there another Canadian airliner - Air Canada, I think - which also "glided"? A mix-up between imperial and metric fuel quantities, if I remember correctly.)

[reventor]

Who can name five incidents, in which passengers have suffered noteworthy injuries or worse, caused directly by lacking information given in the pre-flight safety brief?

Panic-induced actions excluded, as it obviously entails a frame of mind unable to recall and logically act on previously given instructions. Excluded as well are actions performed deliberately and knowingly against the instructions/regulations, such as not wearing a seatbelt when required etc.

The NTSB stats for 2007 say roughly 1 accident per million depatures. Cross your fingers for me as I herocially board these death machines time and time again. Death by boredom that is.

[rog747]

reply to reventor

Who can name five incidents, in which passengers have suffered noteworthy injuries or worse, caused directly by lacking information given in the pre-flight safety brief?

Panic-induced actions excluded, as it obviously entails a frame of mind unable to recall and logically act on previously given instructions. Excluded as well are actions performed deliberately and knowingly against the instructions/regulations, such as not wearing a seatbelt when required etc.

The NTSB stats for 2007 say roughly 1 accident per million depatures. Cross your fingers for me as I herocially board these death machines time and time again. Death by boredom that is.

my answer,
of course reventor flying commercially in the western world is safe as you can ever be if you do the numbers crunch!

i can certainly name several fatal unexpected/unprepared accidents whereby casualties may have been lower had the pax been more aware of their situation if they knew that the unexpected means be alert.
if they had been more aware of unexpected events that CAN and DO occur in the critical phase of flight then they may have lived.

TENERIFE KLM and Pan Am 2 747's collide on runway,
the KLM pax all were killed, Pan Am jet did have survivors, but many more Pan Am pax could have got out from their smashed and burning jet,
older pax going on a cruise ship holiday and simply did not comprehend what had happened to them, they sat in their seats, did not move, did not unfasten their seat belts and died...

MANCHESTER British Airtours 737 rejected t/o engine fire
fire penetrated cabin quickly before exits had opened.
again here in this incident the scenario was confused and some exits unusable,
some delays in opening exits due confusion and jamming, and some pax died as the urgency to evacuate was not understood, nor their understanding of the location of their best exit.
lethal smoke/fumes gave very little time for any delay in acting.

i hope this gives you an idea how important it is to really be prepared.
you think ''oh it wont happen to me'', as you sit their reading your economist mag with your shoes thrown off under the seat...

well, i can assure you if you have some idea of how and where you would get out in an unexpected event upon t/off or landing then you decrease your risk quite alot...
listen to the crew, they are there only for you and no one else otherwise vending machines would have been installed long ago for coke and chips...
read the card, how do the doors and exit windows open and where are the exits nearest to me...
you know the story (if you ever listened before lol)

[13 please]

Oh reventor, reventor,

You have nothing to worry to about, if anything does indeed occur on any of your flights, it's going to be such a shock, you'll drop dead with shock.!!

I've been cabin crew for 17 years, I know that possibly anything can happen at anytime.

This is purely my opinion, but in an incident like the one in the Hudson, or last year's 777 at LHR, if half the pax mentally prepare themselves, and the other half do not think anything will ever happen to them, I'm pretty sure which lot would get out first.
In some past incidents, that would mean the difference between life and death.

Reventor, I hope you sit in window seats, so you don't get in anybody's way whilst they evacuate.!!

[Final 3 Greens]

Further to my earlier post and just for anyone who is interested, here is a clip of a light aircraft that had engine failure at 200 feet.

Note how quickly the aircraft returns to earth. BTW, the cow was okay (you'll have to watch the clip to see what I mean

Biplane Clips CowVideo

Many thanks to Van Horck for finding this and posting it on another thread.

Once again, proof that the wings make the aeroplane fly

[rogerg]

An aeroplane needs two things to fly, airspeed and money.

[strake]

Using the word "luck" for this incident seems to have four letter connotations to some.

IMHO:

It was bad luck that a flock of birds crossed the path of the aircraft.
It was extremely bad luck that they were ingested into both engines thus stopping them.
It was good luck that the aircraft had achieved a reasonable amount of height.
It was good luck that the Hudson River is where it is.
It was extremely good luck that the passengers had a couple of guys up front who pulled off what appears to be the most amazing landing in the history of commercial aviation.
It was good luck that all the passengers got out of the aircraft with little injury, bar one.
It was good luck that plenty of boats were available to rush to the rescue.

[reventor]

The arguments appear to assume that listening to the safety brief is a prerequisite for situational awareness and acting with a minimum of intelligence in an emergency. That is a ridiculous notion. The content of the safety brief (which is a different matter than listening to it) is so basic and dumbed-down I would expect it to have little effect in certain emergencies, such as the one in MAN. I also doubt the effect on passengers' mental preparedness from the safety briefing, it certainly causes nothing but mild irritation with me.

[OFBSLF]

After two multiple birdstrike incidents bringing down a 737 and now an A320 will y'all, frequent traveller or not, listen to and watch the safety demo now??

We are frequent flyers but we brief EVERY departure very carefully before we fly it to cover potential disasters.

No. By the time you do the safety demo, I'm way ahead of you.

The first thing I do when I sit down is find the nearest exits and count the rows from my seat to the exit row. I then try to memorize that number. Then I pull out safety card and review the information. In particular, I try to memorize the procedure for opening the various exits. If I'm in the exit row, I've compared the diagram to the exit, to make sure that I understand how to operate it. I also check to see if it says there is a life vest and if so, the procedure for using it.

I know how to open the seat belt and, in fact, have already fastened it. I know how to put on the O2 mask. I know to put mine on before assisting anyone else. I've already located the exits. I've already figured out how to put on the life vest.

Sorry, but by the time you give the briefing, I've already spent 5 minutes studying the safety card and the aircraft. I've already made my plan for my first choice of exit in case of an evacuation. Do I listen to the briefing? Yes, but I don't give it my full attention.

[Eboy]

If the wings had been deiced before takeoff would they have been more slippery in the water (harder to stand on)?

[al446]

rog 747

The MAN 737 fire was somewhat more complicated than you state although I broadly agree with you. It was this incident that brought about the mandatory installation of floor level emergency lighting of aisles, indeed it brought about one of the most comprehensive reviews of aviation evacuation procedures ever. What was discovered during the investigation afaik was that pax were disorientated due to smoke and fumes, this raised the issues both of materials used in seat manufacture and lack of any form of reference for pax when having to crawl down the aisles to get under smoke, I believe that it was found that those who got to the aisles clogged it by heading in opposite directions. There were other findings on which I am sketchy but the same situation would still be possible if those findings had not been acted on. The briefing was irrelevent as different situations appertained.
Hope I have not got this wrong and, if not, that it is helpful.

[WHBM]

Safety briefings should be serious and sensible stuff, and come over as such. Hopefully we will soon see the end of such stupidities as BA's one with the silly rabbit, or Virgin's one voiced by Vic Reeves which seems to be some second-rate entry in a comedy film festival. Because if the safety briefing doesn't take it seriously, neither will the passengers. However they got past the CAA surprises me.

[TheWestCoast]

Though on US carriers, the one you notice and pay attention to is Delta's. AA and UA have forgettable, amateurish presentations in comparison.....

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

[rog747]

thanks al446 and eboy reply

yes al446 i agree
i was siting the MAN example as a complete confusion so that the poster
reventor could just see how ernest it is to get your surroundings rather than the his impression of briefing relevance can help you as well...

cheers for that

re eboy
was the us air accident a/c de-iced ?
i dont know, if it was,
the stuff leave a nasty mucky mess and the pilots on take off may select bleeds off on the engines to stop sucking up the stuff..

the outside air temp v the river water temp on the effect of icing the wings in the water when the pax were standing on them is of interest to me,
seems from info given from the pax is that the wings were icy within a couple of mins in the water...
if it had been de-iced before take off then im not sure if the effect remains
once it was in the water...