XL Airways new 737 diverts to LCA

[lederhosen]

Lets wait for the report. But I cannot follow Yamaha's maths, my company operations manual defines 60 minutes single engine flight on the NG as 375 NM. If they were 300 miles from LCA and 200 from Cairo the difference is 16 minutes in theory, in practice probably less. The theoretical time to landing in Larnaca is 48 minutes. What is all this about flying an additional unnecessary 60 minutes?

In any case the Boeing flight crew training manual specifically says: 'The pilot in command may determine, based on the nature of the situation and an examination of relevant factors that the safest course of action is to divert to a more distant airport than the nearest airport.'

[daikilo]

Before ETOPS we have TOPS

From the info I have seen, it is not clear to me that this was an ETOPS sector hence any discussion on this aspect may be sterile.

d

[HXdave]

yamaha out!

based on post #54 by smudge the cat, i would petition the MODS to permanantly exclude yamaha from this forum, or maybe limit the forums he can discuss in.

anyone with me?

[Rainboe]

What seriously disturbs me about this incident, and it appears to be the greatest problem of the whole saga, is actually how it has run to 4 pages in Pprune! A simple engine problem/diversion has itself been diverted by trolls and irrelevant contributions from non aviation people into 'my hide is so valuable (to me) in any incident we MUST land IMMEDIATELY!'.

This section is perhaps the last refuge of a Professional Pilots forum where Professional Pilots can discuss incidents in the news. This section is one of 3 under the title Flight Deck Forums, there are only 3 in this section, so please can non-pilots refrain from chucking in their oars and giving us their opinion on something they know and understand little about? Every Tom, Dick and Harry is jumping in with idiocy. This really has to stop if real pilots are to continue a dialogue here. maybe with incidents like this, a separate thread can be started in the Passenger Forum for non-pilots to vent their horror? Some of the contributions here (and elsewhere) are keeping real pilots out. I was afraid to come here and view it, I wish I hadn't!

[A and C]

Yamaha

It would seem that you can't understand that even if an airliner is overhead an airfield it can't instantly land, from FL300 it will take you about 25 min to get the aircraft on to the ground if all the other factors are in your favour.
This time is used to set the aircraft up for the unexpected landing and by the cabin crew to get the cabin ready for the landing and brief the passengers.

It is much less trouble to do this decent on a direct track to some point as it takes a lot less flight crew effort to do this rather than the constant attention of one flight crew member that would be required to circle downwards, the flight deck time time that is saved by getting the aircraft on to a direct track can be used in preperation for the landing.

So to put this in terms that you can understand if you are at FL300 any airfield with in 120 miles is the same distance away in terms of track miles that the aircraft will fly and time taken to get on the ground.

This is all IF you have full co-operation from ATC. Cairo have got a lot better over the last few years but it is a busy place and this would mst likely delay a landing, Larnica on th other hand is not to busy and the ATC is first class.

Most of the last paragraph is accademic as the failure to this aircraft happened at a point where Larnica was the nearest airfield with a good approach.

[Cambrian man]

To be fair to Yamaha (if permitted), it took over 40 posts before someone got off his high horse and answered the question.

[Rainboe]

Which question?

are xl financially sound?

That was another gem! One could say, 'what has that got to do with it?'

I'm a little concerned about Yamaha. Reading his history, I suspect he is a ground engineer of some sort. Nothing wrong with that, but if he is not a pilot, he should really not try and lead the discussion where he is, and certainly not give employment advice to a German pilot. So are you one, Yamaha?

[smudgethecat]

Yamaha is certainly not a ground engineer , he is in fact a shop assistant who has attempted on numerous occasions to pass himself off as a pilot on the engineers forum before being "outed"

[BOAC]

it took over 40 posts before someone got off his high horse and answered the question.

- actually someone dismounted much earlier at post #26 I think you'll find?

NO reflection on this occurrence, but for Rainboe we should not pretend that 'financial soundness' of an airline does not sometimes influence 'decisions', not least depending on who is flying it

[barry lloyd]

I have no qualifications to comment on the actions of the crew in this instance. The fact that some of the posters are unable to spell the diversion destination of this aircraft correctly perhaps reveals how little the commentators know. For the record it's LarnAca, not Larnica. Pedantic? maybe, but how is one to believe what is posted here when those concerned cannot spell the name of the airport correctly?

[d71146]

Post#65

I am with you on this one Rainboe

[Starbear]

yamaha and HX Dave

I was a passenger on an aircraft that attempted to fly from Crete to Germany with the gear down. It ran out of fuel and had to make an emergency landing.

Whilst Yamaha has quite rightly been flamed for some of his more ridiculous postings, whether he was a passenger or not on this flight, his highlighting of the Hapag-Lloyd fuel starvation near Vienna reminds us that we are not perfect or free from criticism and some pilots do make incorrect and sometimes even bad decisions. This reply is in no way intended as a comment on this XL incident as it seems to me on the info so far that LCA was a perfectly reasonable choice.


Dave to answer your question of post #40

how easy or even how safe would it have been to manouver the aircraft around that much on a single engine to safely make an approach into CAI?

This is just not an issue at all as the aeroplane is fully manoeuvreable on one engine. A small exception to this statement is that in the event of an engine failure just after take-off, pilots will limit the bank (roll) angle whilst the airspeed is very low i.e. at or close to that just after lift-off (known as V2) This is to enable the maximum performance of the airraft is available and utilised for climbing away from the ground or obstacles nearby. Above a certain height e.g 1,000 ft the aeroplane will then be accelerated by lowering the nose and when airspeed increases above a particular value, there will be no further limitations on bank angle. Procedures on exactly how all of this achieved will be provided by each airline for each aircraft type and even for each runway where necessary

[A and C]

Barry Lloyd

If you had been to the Greek islands you would know that it is not uncommon to see place names will more that one spelling. However my excuse is the cr@p state education that I recived, despite this I have managed 4000 hours command on the B737 without major inccident.

I find that those who pick holes in posts for minor spelling mistakes have very little to offer to the debate apart from spellcheck.

[stue]

Just to bring this thread back to something to do with the title…….

Said -900 is being brought back from Larnaca tonight, all fixed (I hope!)

Looks like I shall miss Top Gear then……….

[yamaha]

If you would actually go back and read my posts and in fact some of my responses to the more professional answers that I did receive (few and far between) it is you that is making pprune what it is not me.

I am sensitive to these issues for the reasons given and I do not believe in nine lives I believe in one. I also believe my initial questions were completely valid but drew in the main only angry responses. I thought aviation had an open culture?

It actually took until A and C's post #66 to supply a reasonable sensible answer and complete the picture. I am now relatively happy (not that anyone has to please me) and look forward to the report should it ever become public.

If you don't want to see this forum go to ruin just answer the question no matter how stupid it may seem to you "professional pilots" without the abuse or aggression. If you don't want to answer then ignore. That way SLF and other as you put it "unwanted persons" would leave more quickly.

Rainboe I do have to question how in touch you are with the real world for you to make fun of the financial question. All industries and not just this one bow to the dollar or the pound or the yen or whatever. However on checking your history you appear to be respected so I will assume you jumped on the bandwagen and went along with everyone else and hit someone whilst they were down.

If lou stulewater is genuinely a pilot he should be absolutely ashamed of his pathetic childish post. I hope you do take a better attitude with you in the cockpit.

To those who remained civil no matter how much I may have unintentionally raised your blood pressure thank you. Now where was that other thread that grabbed my interest..........................

[Lou Stulewater]

Yamaha,I most certainly am a pilot . Therein lies the probem. There are too few of us on these boards and we are having to put up with sad little trolls like you, so get back to selling whatever it is you sell in your LHR shop or go for a flight in your vitual airline.....muppet.

[G-STAW]

stu its a crap episode anyway!ha........

i think the 767-200 has served its purpose, its being flown back to gatwick either tomorrow or wednesday for a well earned rest.

the -900 is all set for service after wednesday one engineer was saying this morning, they've been under the kosh for the last week or so...

G-STAW

[paris13e]

I've really enjoyed this thread, as ex-crew and current SLF... It has brightened up my day - especially Yamaha, but for all the wrong reasons! My only point is that as crew or SLF I would be much happier landing in Larnaca than Cairo....regardless of maintenance availability. The A/C landed in one piece, without casualties - isn't that really all that matters? No doubt the flight crew will have spend countless hours explaining their actions rightly or wrongly - is there still an element of guilty of error until you prove otherwise within our airlines?

[stue]

G-STAW, yeah it was the 767 that took us down there, I was talking to the crew and I think they need a rest too, good job done!

We brought the engineers back too, from talking to them, and from what I could understand (and this is pure speculation) they where talking about the N1 and N2 being fused together by under lubrication of one of the bearings. Therefore, the two spools started turning together when it went pop. Let me just say though, they haven’t examined it yet, I don’t even know if it would be our engineers that would do? So the above is by no means hard and fact truth! (I know what this place is like…….)

[G-STAW]

yes they did are fantastic job, saw the captain today looked completely drained, hes got a few days off now though,kudos to them.....


in regards to the engine, i heard about the same happening a few years ago on a 737 in asia, this is very rare though,(if all bearings are lubed up that is). The engine must of came to a striking hault, a big grinding would of been heard i guess....

could of been a lot worse though mate.....

G-STAW