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Plane Down in Hudson River - NYC

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Plane Down in Hudson River - NYC

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Old 17th Jan 2009, 22:59
  #721 (permalink)  
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kontrolor




someone didn't pay attention to flight attendant's preflight safety mumbo-jumbo...



heheheh that tickled me that did Kontrolor , nice one lol.

serious side though so many people get on civvy aircraft these days and ignore the cabin crew.This occasion may make people listen a little bit more in the future.
 
Old 17th Jan 2009, 23:06
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KeepItTidy,

I doubt it, most will still think "it'll never happen to me"
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Old 17th Jan 2009, 23:07
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Retrieval

Does anyone know if the where they able to retrieve the plane from the River or is it going to spend another night in deep-freeze?
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Old 17th Jan 2009, 23:20
  #724 (permalink)  
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From abcnews.com:

The removal of the plane originally was to have begun at 10 a.m. this morning, but as evening approached there were no signs that the craft would be leaving the water anytime soon.
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Old 17th Jan 2009, 23:38
  #725 (permalink)  
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barit1;
Water ingestion at low RPM, if it causes any damage, will likely drive blades downstream into stator vanes.
From a friend who is an engineer and a retired 30-year airline pilot:
The entire thing is a "tail-wheel" three-point landing using the lower/aft surface of the engine nacelles as the "main-gear" and the aft-fuselage as his tail skid (a la the antique Spad)----beautiful water-skiing until, inevitably, the speed decay demanded an ever-increasing surface-area to sustain the hydrodynamic lift and, at this lower speed, water topped the nacelle-lip and entered the diffusers.

The engine pylons, severely damaged (modular titanium) by the catastrophic lateral vibration resulting from the dynamic imbalance of the N1 and MP compressor blades which, when driven into the guide vanes and down stream stators by the geese, would have sheared off and passed through the engine to say nothing of the captive remains of the geese themselves (average weight about twelve pounds) compacted into the axial compressors and rotated with the engine spool's mass possibly as long as flight was sustained. As soon as river water entered the diffusers the enormous drag load would lead to an unsustainable load on the pylon mount and the engines were torn from the mounts.

Without this "preconditioning-damage" of the pylon/wing mount the aircraft might well have "stood on its nose" rotating around the mid-pylon attach point (About the MAC?). When they locate the engines this theory may well be born out.


The only correction would be that one engine remained. He also adds,
A wonderful outcome marred only by the bleating of the media about "Miracles". The landing of this aircraft on the Hudson River is a testimonial to calm competence. The pilots having guiding the machine onto the river's surface, the cabin crew preparing the passengers properly for a ditching, the automatic deployment and inflation of the Airbus's escape slides (used effectively as floatation dinghies, their intended secondary use) and the orderly egress of everyone. Quite remarkable but completely in keeping with the known efficacy of standardized training in competent, dedicated people.
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Old 17th Jan 2009, 23:39
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Lakerman

You are right about the left engine digging in and turning the plane. One of the few posts on this thread that makes sense.

WIth the nose high climbout attitude of any airliner, one must consider; a tailmounted engine like the DC9 or 727 would probably have been protected by the wing from bird ingestion in this phase of flight.

The underwing mounted engines would take the brunt of any bird strike. I've flown both types and prefer the tailmounted engine types.
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Old 17th Jan 2009, 23:43
  #727 (permalink)  
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because I've seen certain things and the NTSB comment doesn't really make sense, going by the evidence, apart from it being the usual beaurocratic malebovinefaeces you can expect from official bodies until they have looked at things.
There is a stipulated procedure, and if the authorities didn't follow it to the letter it would leave them open to criticism afterwards. Think of the conspiracy theories surrounding recent major events.
I recently discovered that a pathologist doing a post mortem (autopsy) must carry out the complete procedure, even if the cause of death is blatantly obvious.
Of course the blackbox data will confirm any failures (assuming it is intact), but what if they discover that some aspect of an engine had been incorrectly assembled or was metallurgically defective?
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 00:02
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I was with an outfit once that had a bizjet hit a deer that ran across the runway just as it was landing. When they dismantled the nose gear, which was the point of direct impact, they found deer hair inside that had entered through the grease fittings. There will be plenty of goose DNA in the engines when they find them. Not even the fish and crabs will clean all of it out if fuel and oil residues don't scare them away.

Engines running at high RPM when the bird/s entered will produce distinct damage patterns, which are easily verified by comparing them to the damage done to test engines during bird strike certification.

If the engines were dead (still freewheeling) or not producing much power, they would be at low RPM and water would cause a different sort of damage. The black box will reveal a lot about engine state and RPM up to impact.

Water is not as hard as concrete at landing speeds and not nearly as hard as a goose at nearly 200 knots. It will produce a different sort of damage, but this debate will all be moot soon since the odds of not finding DNA if they hit a goose are lower than the odds of the 155 people surviving this would be.
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 00:06
  #729 (permalink)  
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The black box will reveal a lot about engine state and RPM up to impact.
As will the FOQA QAR, perhaps even more, if the card or media survive the water and cold - I believe both AW and US Airways run thorough FOQA Programs.
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 00:42
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Higgins in 8 PM EST interview says:
Both pilots saw birds at at time of impact. They covered the windscreen.
FO was flying; Pilot said "My Plane"; FO said "Your Plane".
FO used checklist to try restart.
Pilot radioed LGA, "too far, too low, too many buildings".
TEB, 'not familiar, too far, congested area' "Its the Hudson"
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 00:48
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Like someone said earlier the examination of the engines would be done using forensics.

The people doing the examination have certainly seen all kinds of bird ingestion damage before vs damage from other causes. In addition there are well documented historical evidence of high RPM and low RPM water ingestion assuming of course that the water got into the engines and wasn't shielded by the inlet lip

There also are techniques for examining for bird debris (if present) even after crash landings. So with all the possible evidences and techniques available lets at least wait until we can see an engine before speculating on what can't be done.
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 00:56
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Higgins, in addition to above report on interviews with CA and FO, also reported on interviews with three FA, all with over 20 years with US (including time of 2 from Piedmont and 1 from Alleghany - merged to form USAir).

From what was said, I gather that "Brace for Impact" was the PA from the FD; and there was no verbal indication of a water landing. Of course, anyone with experience flying in and out of NYC would know by looking out the window that the plane was over the Hudson. That might be a factor in the lack of life jackets.

Last edited by kappa; 18th Jan 2009 at 01:13.
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 01:07
  #733 (permalink)  
 
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Why the Divers failed to notice the RE attached.

As an avid recreational diver (also trained as a rescue diver, but never used it) with 30 years experience exploring caves on the north side of California's Santa Cruz Island (100's of caves, the deepest goes more than 1/4 mile into the island) I can easily see why the divers initially on scene would not notice the presence of the right engine. Entering the water, their primary mission would be a search of likely places survivors might be found. To me that would mean first of all scanning the water surface for potential hypothermia victims, then entering the fuselage, and finally an expanding perimiter around the plane. They would have to be extremely careful to stay close to the surface to maintain spacial orientaion with all of the surrounding boats, which could easily crush them between either the airplane or each other, or worse suck them through a prop.

In low vis, the only thing you have is a compass, and in a swirling current all you would have as a spacial reference to objects on the surface is your last visual check on the surface vs. your current heading, and your experience. Visibility can go as low as inches - which may or may not have been the case here - but once you find a tactile point of reference you tend to proceed from it trailing a string a line you attach to it. In the best case the line is rigged with little fletches that tell you which way you came from just by feel. Many cave diving accidents have occurred because of divers following their lines in the wrong direction.

I believe that the airplane was secured in part by running a cable through a front door and out the overwing window. If that is the case, and once all of the passengers and crew were accounted for, there would be no reason to risk the divers' lives by asking them to perform an inspection of the outboard sections of the aircraft, a task which even if they could accomplish would probably provide little information useful to the investigation.

The rescue divers did a fantastic job, and to fault them for initially failing correctly assess the extent of the damage to the aircraft is just plain wrong.

Last edited by thcrozier; 18th Jan 2009 at 01:52.
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 01:28
  #734 (permalink)  
 
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Liferafts / life vests most certainly were onboard

I've seen several posts saying the aircraft didnt have live vests. I'd like to clear that up about this particular aircraft. All of the CFM powered USAirways A320's, including the accident aircraft have provisions for extended overwater (EOW) flights, greater than 50NM from land This includes door slide/raft combos as well we additional rafts carried in the cabin. Had it been an aircraft from one of the non EOW subfleet. The outcome could have been not so good.

Additionally each pax seat had inflatable life vests (located under the seat bottom ) as well as the seat bottom cushon itself which floats.
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 01:34
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Does anyone know if the where they able to retrieve the plane from the River or is it going to spend another night in deep-freeze?
See my post #693.

WCBS AM 880 reported an estimate that the waterlogged A320 weighed a million pounds - as much as an A380! It's lifted very slowly to try to prevent anything from breaking.
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 01:46
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The aircraft has still not been lifted. It's damn cold here! There seem to be complications caused by ice, tide and current at this spot where the plane is tethered at a pier at the lower tip of Manhattan in what is known as Battery Park City.

It has been as low as 13°F today in Central Park. I'm sure it was lower there and the chill factor exposed to wind from every direction would be around 0°F.

I gather that getting the entire aircraft body in a position so the submerged starboard wing (the one with the engine still attached) is clear of the embankment, and keeping it clear while the plane is being slowly hoisted (and drained) in these conditions, is causing the delays in raising it.

There is the human fatigue factor (that I'm sure all PPRuNer's) will quickly acknowledge. The salvage boat/crane and the ancillary support crews have been on the job for over 12 hours. I doubt the metal will suffer from another night in the freezer.
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 01:56
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PJ2:
I believe both AW and US Airways run thorough FOQA Programs.
Bonger:
Not any more. It expired last month
Bonger:

I don't work there anymore, but I remember the FOQA program was separate from ASAP. ASAP is sort of an in-house ASRS, and is the program that ended (ASRS is of course alive and well). FOQA is a monitoring of FDR data for "exceedances". The latter data pass through a gatekeeper to assure anonimity (we hope), then published for its "educational" value. AFAIK, the FOQA program is still running.
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 02:38
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I'm not a weight lifter who knows 'snatch' or an engineer who knows weight displacement. I'm just someone who has lifted objects out of the water. I would not argue that if the AB320 were full of water (instead of SLF, crew, baggage and air) on dry land it would weigh as much or more than a AB380.

However it is floating; and that means it is buoyant - equating to zero weight. But it is full of water; and thus it could not be hoisted (snatched) from the water by any device. Instead it must be s-l-o-w-l-y raised inch/cm-by-inch/cm, or as rapidly as the hoist can handle the weight, to allow the water to drain from the aircraft.

None of the few posts I have made on this board have involved speculation, so I will wait to see what happens.
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 02:55
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progress in raising

Fuselage surfaced to cabin floor levelpix at Stevo's Bits and Pieces | Kontain
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Old 18th Jan 2009, 03:00
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From AVSIG

Anne, one helicopter crew needs to rethink their method of help.

One of the passengers said he was standing on the wing and had no problem
until a helicopter hovered overhead. That splashed water onto the wing and
the water immediately froze. Several then lost their footing. A lady next
to him started to slip into the water because of this new ice. He and
another man grabbed her, but almost followed.

I saw one video shot where prop wash from a helicopter was causing some of
the folks in boats and ferries to get wet. I only heard of one helicopter
dropping divers, so I don't know what assistance the others were providing,
that close in. I hope they critique their activities.
Valid thought considering the OAT.
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