BA B777 Incident @ Heathrow (merged)

[tykepilot]

Contactower

Please refrain from posting, your lack of knowledge is embarrassing!

[punkalouver]

bsieker said:

I always found it curious that digital cameras do not seem to count as electronic devices, although they undoubtedly are.

I've never heard a flight attendant object to me using even a 1+ kg digital SLR camera during takeoff and landing.

I have been told to stow a camera for landing.

[Contacttower]

Sorry...enlighten me then...

Apologies for my ignorance again, I have now taken the time to find out exactly what triggers it: (essentially BA's way of enforcing SOPs)


a) Event Detection
This is a selection event types detected by BAs SESMA program:

• 
  Abandoned takeoff
• 
  Altitude deviation
• 
  Abnormal pitch landing (high)
• 
  Approach speed high within 90 secs of T/D
• 
  Climb out speed low 400 ft to 1500 ft AAL
• 
  High rate of descent below 2000 ft AGL
• 
  Deep landing
• 
  Land flap not in position below 500 ft AAL
• 
  Deviation above glidepath below 600 ft AAL
• 
  Mmo exceedence
• 
  Early flap change after T/0
• 
  Pitch rate high on takeoff
• 
  Exceedence of flap/slat altitude
• 
  Reduced flap landing
• 
  Excessive bank above 500 ft AAL
• 
  Reduced tail clearance
• 
  Excessive pitch attitude
• 
  Speedbrake on approach below 1000 ft AAL
• 
  Flap placard speed exceedence
• 
  Stick shake
• 
  Go around from below 1000 ft
• 
  Tail strike GPWS windshear warning
• 
  WAS resolution advisory
• 
  High energy at 1000 ft
• 
  Unstick speed low
• 
  High normal acceleration at landing
• Vmo exceedence

[pasoundman]

787FOCAL
" I said laptop running. I never said wireless running. Read and absorb before you jump. "

Show me a laptop that doesn't have wireless networking fitted and enabled as standard these days.

How many people know even how to turn it off (the networking) ?

[pasoundman]

#1
The AAIB have already said both engines failed to respond. That has come from hard data, not human perception.

#2
We don't know that for a fact. That part of the report could well have come from the interviews with the Pilots.

Yes we DO know. That info comes straight from the AAIB's site.

"the Autothrottle demanded an increase in thrust from the two engines but the engines did not respond."

http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/latest_ne...ial_report.cfm

Please check your sources.

[slink]

GP

" Seeing as no one has attempted to answer my question as to exactly where along the runway the glideslope is targeted...

I'll ask it again, please....?"

From the AIP: 27L PAPI 420M in from THR, MEHT 65ft.

So, the PAPI (roughly in the middle of the touchdown zone, TDZ), is inset 420 metres from the painted threshold (not necessarily the end of the tarmac). The glidepath will "aim" at the same point, being calibrated to achieve this. The MEHT (minimum eye height threshold) is 65ft, which means that the pilot's eyes must be at least 65ft above ground as he crosses the threshold to see an "on glide path" indication.

If he is doing an autloand, the MEHT and the PAPI may not be relevant, as he possibly can't see them (fog - although not in this case before I get flamed ), and the autoland system will take care of the flare, landing and possibly rollout. If however, he is flying the aircraft visually, the PAPI will provide a visual reference of his position on the glide path. Bear in mind that in a larger aircraft, the pilot is higher in the airframe, so as his eyes cross the threshold at the MEHT (or hopefully, somewhere above the MEHT), the wheels will be considerable lower, so a larger aircraft will touchdown earlier than a smaller one, given that all other factors are equal. The MEHT is calculated to take this into account.

See CAP637, available from the CAA, for further definitions, and the AIP for all the numbers.

Not sure what you're going to prove now you've got the numbers though...

[30mRad]

Thanks Contacttower - I should have googled first, asked second!

Typepilot - poor comment

[pasoundman]

Hand Solo
the aircrafts Quick Access Recorder has already been analysed which will have all the data on thrust lever angle and engine response

How much extra data (if any) does the QAR record above what a modern DFDR does ?

[Eboy]

Cell phone jammers

Question not too far back about specs for cell phone jammers . . .


Here is a data sheet for one series of high-power "tactical" jammers.

TX Frequency Range: 20 MHz to 4.2 GHz

Power output at the RF port up to 800 watts

http://www.antennasystems.com/cellul...onejammer.html


Here is a data sheet for a smaller series of jammers.

TX Frequency Range: cellular bands

Power output at RF port up to 36 watts

http://www.antennasystems.com/cellphonejammer.html

[Contacttower]

It is BA's flight data monitoring system, developed in the 1970's -more information available via here.

And even more here in fact: http://www.theairlinepilots.com/flig...taanalysis.htm

[KaptinZZ]

No fire?? Mmmmmm!

I appreicate that it's been said further back that fuel quantity wasn't a problem, and what are the odds that both engines would quit as a consequence of fuel exhaustion at exactly the same moment? Not very likely I wouldn't think, but perhaps one had quit a little earlier and they were on one, started to sink, firewalled the other, but it didn't have enough fuel to deliver the goods.

Speculation I know, but jet engines don't just fail without good cause. Eye/ear witness accounts can't be relied upon as indicated back a way; some heard it fly overhead very quiet and others heard the engines roaring.

I haven't flown a 777, but I'm sure safeguards are built in to prevent the autothrottle shutting down the engines, and you certainly can't do it manually with just throttles in any jet I've flown.

I hope my speculation is wrong.

[ILS27LEFT]

Facts

Engines perfectly worked for 11+ hours.
Plenty of fuel available.

What caused this incident remains a mistery.
It could be even impossible to find a final answer through the official Inspectors especially if fuel was fine in quality and quantity: it could be that nothing else will show an anomaly except for the inexplicable loss of power.

If the fuel side of this 777 is all ok, then we are left with an electronic/software issue which could even be impossible to identify or replicate.

I think it would be better/easier for aviation to find out that this incident was fuel related.
Otherwise it is another e-factor, still linked to the low altitude and final phase of flight, which could present "electronic/software issues" which are still quite unknown because extremely rare and so hard to replicate.

The voice recorder will be useless : a series of Sh*t from the moment the engines did not respond! They probably expected to see the plane in pieces behind them.

Well done to the crew, excellent gliding skills. Your landing was perfect.




P.S. Many said 27L has got same stretch of grass as 27R: from Google maybe it looks the same, from the air it seems that they would have touched down on the car park if same incident happened on 27right. The grass in front of 27R looks ~50/100mt shorter than the one where the 777 gently landed but I could be wrong. Distance from the last light to the beginning of runway.

[pasoundman]

KaptinZZ
Speculation I know, but jet engines don't just fail without good cause.

Indeed and the ENGINES themselves didn't fail.

Something controlling them apparently did (or fuel issues).

[M.Mouse]

From several pages back.

If flaps are at a high drag position, bringing them up (if system still functioning) to a setting for best glide angle (suggested as 20 on this thread) will help move the touchdown point further forward.

That one raised a laugh of 7/10. Effects of controls Part 2 when learning to fly as a PPL demonstrates the absurdity of that statement.

We don't know that for a fact. That part of the report could well have come from the interviews with the Pilots.

The AAIB now publish hearsay. Idiot quotient 9/10 for that one.

At 4nm, the gear would be lowered and the flaps extended to reduce to "normal" approach speeds (again, I´m not familiar with the 777 but the VC10 would have been about 120-125kt)

For quoting the completely irrelevant 9/10 with a bonus point for having not read the 20 odd quotes expanding on BA's SOPs.




Keep them coming folks I haven't laughed so much since my mother -in-law broke her arm.

[pasoundman]

ILS27LEFT
P.S. Many said 27L has got same stretch of grass as 27R: from Google maybe it looks the same, from the air it seems that they would have touched down on the car park if same incident happened on 27right. The grass in front of 27R looks ~50/100mt shorter than the one where the 777 gently landed but I could be wrong. Distance from the last light to the beginning of runway.

Put these 2 up on your screen and compare.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=5...&t=h&z=17&om=0

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&...,0.009978&z=17


There's nothing of significance in it as far as I can see.

[greenman65]

Interesting question.

So was there. ? A message

This plane would have been making a fully automatic approach with the handling pilot ready to take over if it went pear shape.

The facts so far are the handling pilot noted the ATS did not respond to a demand. Manual correction did nothing so at this point I guess the AFCS was ditched.

What ever the reason for the ATS and or power lever input to FADEC not spooling the engines up ,the FADECcomputer programme was unable to realise it should have powered the engines up to a min power setting.

Billy Boeing is in trouble even if in the end the Captain takes some of the blame.

[Contacttower]

That one raised a laugh of 7/10. Effects of controls Part 2 when learning to fly as a PPL demonstrates the absurdity of that statement.

The statement may have been absurb...but effects of controls Part 2 when learning to fly as a PPL does not demonstrate that it is absurb...far from it, if when gliding a light aircraft with drag flap you subsquently lift the flap the gliding distance will increase.

[PJ2]

greenman65;

This plane would have been making a fully automatic approach with the handling pilot ready to take over if it went pear shape.

Where is this information from? How do you know this?

[hajk]

Triple redundancy on the triple-7?

I'm SLF but I did development work on some avionics a long while back. I do maintain a keen professional interest on how technical systems fail.

A colleague was ex-Airbus and working on the 320. Like the triple-7 they had triple redundancy on all flight critical systems, however they used at least two completely different types of computer with programs developed by different teams isolated from each other. It meant that the software 'flew' the plane interpreting the pilots instructions according to a spec. If hardware or software failed, then it would be ignored and the remaining 'good' systems would continue.

My question is that the 777-300 also has such systems, was Boeing also so cautious not to replicate a possible technical problem three times?

[PJ2]

Contacttower;

if when gliding a light aircraft with drag flap you subsquently lift the flap the gliding distance will increase.

...but let's be clear about this: it has no relevancy whatsoever to the present discussion.