Pinkman

The BBC segment referred to above was really rubbish "BA report reveals heroics". It referred to the internal BA report (where the flight deck crew cleaned up the aircraft to get a few extra yards). And that was it. Didnt talk about the POSSIBLE CAUSE or STATUS of the AAIB investigation and the experiments that are ongoing to establish the cause. It would have taken 15 - 20 seconds.

The BBC website is hilarious....It states that "both officers tried to keep the plane in the air after it suffered a double engine failure" and on the bullets on the same page: "Engines running on crash plane"

Wake up BBC!

sky9

Pinkman,
I think that you have got a little mixed up. As I see it there are 2 issues.
1 Why was there a double engine "failure" in so far as the engines failed to respond to inputs from the thrust lever or autothrottle. This has become such an involved investigation that the AAIB with the help of both RR and Boeing have yet to come up with an answer. It is interesting to note that there have been no AD published that would provide a clue as to where the investigation is going and why.

2 What were the crew reactions during the 50 secs or so that they had after becoming aware of the situation that was presented to them where there was no checklist for or they had previous experience of.
If as reported the Captain raised the flaps to the G/A position so reducing drag I would suggest that the 2 crew on board did everything that they could to retrieve the situation other than get out and push it. The fact that they all walked away from it is down to their actions and a big dose of luck.

BOAC

Is this indeed just crass reporting by Auntie, an attempt by BA PR to re-write history or are the AAIB on their way to changing their report? Perhaps the Beeb are looking at PPRune and taking some of the crap as a fact?

I was under the impression that the report stated that the autopilot was 'left engaged' until it disengaged itself near to the point of stall as the speed washed off (presumably no more tailplane trim/elevator authority available to it). I grant that a 'lowering of the nose' at that point would be a good idea, but hardly the stuff of heroism that gained those extra yards? BA appear convinced that the flap reduction was beneficial, but nothing still from the AAIB on that.

Can one of our moles explain how the nose was lowered to stretch the glide (edited to add 'as reported' on the Today programme this am. I DO see that there is no implicit claim to this effect on the linked item)?

TyroPicard

Pinkman et al...
The BBC seem to have updated their report to read..
" after it suffered a loss of engine power."
The power of PPRuNe..
TP

woodpecker

Hopefully this post will not be swept up and deposited in some other area of pprune as we are talking about the selection of 25 flap.

Surely the job of the AAIB is to establish what happened to cause the situation and 100% of their efforts should be focused on that. On the way they may come across items that need immediate attention in the form of directives (as was the case when it was realised that the order of operation of the fire handles and fuel cut-offs could effect the closing of the spar valves) but their job is not to feed titbits to the many flightless birds around the bird table here on Pprune

They are aware of what other actions the crew took in those few seconds, and the effects those actions had on the flight profile, and I am sure they will come out in the full report.

Their interim reports have been factual and (correctly) have not focused on whether the crew "allowed" the aircraft to stall or, as the A/P cutout held onto what speed was still available by lowering the nose.

Lets not forget, the crew had less than 50 seconds, no "electronic checklist", no simulator training, no ops manual guidance, very little EICAS information, attitude increasing to that of the dear old Trident (with rapidly dissapearing visual sector) but still managed to stick to the basic BA procedure of the handling pilot flying (initially in this case using the autopilot) while the other two (remember there was an extra crew member on the flight deck) pilots trying various actions (not all reported so far) to restore the power to "normal levels" and at the same time accepting the worst and retracting the flaps to 25 which has (again not been officially quoted) been calculated as giving them an extra twenty eight feet, allowing them to clear the localiser array by seven feet.

Lets focus on what a good job they did and allow the AAIB (without criticism of not giving us the "total" picture) to find out why it happened.

J.L. Seagull

I'm exceptionally surprised that the contents of an internal BA investigation or report into the crash have been published or even released outside the company at all. AAIB have taken charge of the investigation and executorship of the MOR, and that normally means no details will be published until they conclude. A little like being sub-judice.
[That of course excepts any directly related safety issues required to prevent re-occurrence.]
Someone is playing fast and loose inside BA methinks, I'd love to know what AAIB thought about this latest information!

Bearcat

the big question is why did those engines fail....was the aircraft flown outside its temperature envelope ??

Super VC-10

Which raises a question:-

Is there such a thing as a "temperature envelope"?

woodpecker

All airlines have to have investigation procedures in place following any reportable accident/incident.

These procedures are approved by the CAA. One of the requirements of BA's (and I am sure many other airlines) procedure is that "interested parties" are kept in the picture by regular updates.

Whether it's a left hydraulic loss or a total hull loss the procedure is the same.

NigelOnDraft

Bearcat... just a quick read of the AIIB bulletin would answer your question NoD

BOAC

- absolutely, but while we have this 'unexplained' occurrence it is important that crews have an idea of what happened, what was done and the results of such, and this should not be confined to BA crews. If retracting flap gained 28 feet, then tell everyone. Who 'showed' the BBC the report?

Remember also that the appetite of the flightless birds has largely been stimulated by BA's PR activities - and your and your colleagues' posts.

I personally think you and the other BA posters were wrong to feed titbits yourselves, especially where presumably confidential company information is concerned. To quote JL, "Someone is playing fast and loose inside BA methinks".

Few of the flighted birds here have cause to level any criticism at the crew at this stage. All of them need answers as they come.

Bearcat

Super VC-10 says


Which raises a question:-

Is there such a thing as a "temperature envelope"?

should have said environmental envelope? SAT-70 is the limit for the airbus 320/1.....what is it for the 777?

130.4

It may not have been the BBC. The Daily Mail/Evening Standard has the same story almost word-for-word. I don't know who's plagiarising whom, or if they independently copied the same words from the report, though I would be surprised if the report had worded it that way.

Sunfish

Pinkman:

....and that was apparently enough to save all on board.

Pinkman, could you and your fellow non flying colleagues please try and be more offensive next time? The standards of your posts seem to be slipping lately.

atakacs

Does anyone have any firm evidence of this ?

To be honest given the timing of the incident and (thankfully) very unique circumstances there wasn't much they could actually do.

Reducing flaps might have saved the day, or it might have them miss the runaway. I'd love to see some hard evidence either way.

Notso Fantastic

You evidently don't have much experience of actual flying. Who are you to decide? Why don't you have the courage to state from what basis of experience you speak? (like put something in your profile?)

woodpecker

Sunfish,

I think atakacs should be added to your list! What does he mean by

Machaca

atakacs

Sorry if it sounded otherwise but I was merely asking. It might possibly be a trivial question, in which case I would be more than thankfully to read a factual analysis of the 777 performances under those very unusual circumstances with various flap settings.

I believe to have read every single post in this thread and if this was already unequivocally addressed then I overlooked it, in which case my sincere apologies.

Bis47

Reading the chart, - 80° sat is the lowest temp limit.

Since this is not a frequent occurrence, I wonder how much testing was done to substantiate that ...