Go Back  PPRuNe Forums > Flight Deck Forums > Rumours & News
Reload this Page >

Caribbean B738 at Georgetown on Jul 30, 2011, overran runway

Rumours & News Reporting Points that may affect our jobs or lives as professional pilots. Also, items that may be of interest to professional pilots.

Caribbean B738 at Georgetown on Jul 30, 2011, overran runway

Old 30th Jul 2011, 09:49
  #1 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Jan 1999
Location: Europe
Posts: 341
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Caribbean B738 at Georgetown on Jul 30, 2011, overran runway

From: AvHerald

Accident: Caribbean B738 at Georgetown on Jul 30th 2011, overran runway


A Caribbean Airlines Boeing 737-800, registration 9Y-PBM performing flight BW523 from Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago) to Georgetown (Guyana) with 154 passengers and 8 crew, overran Georgetown's runway at around 01:30L (05:30Z), broke through the perimeter fence, fell onto a perimeter road and broke up, the front section separating just ahead of the wing root. Two passengers received serious injuries (leg fractures).

The airport is currently closed.
Time for the Airbus ROW-ROP system to be made mandatory?

Last edited by 320DRIVER; 30th Jul 2011 at 13:25.
320DRIVER is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 11:55
  #2 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 7
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts


Mapleflot is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 12:04
  #3 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: europe
Posts: 359
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Reversers deployed , but NO flaps or slats deployed.
bluepilot is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 12:14
  #4 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2001
Posts: 7
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Well spotted.
Compare to Kingston AA:
Mapleflot is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 12:33
  #5 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: LV
Posts: 2,296
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Obviously i dont know details, but would suspect its the same age old story of an iffy landing on a short runway in the dark in wet weather and apparently in the wrong config. Wont be the last.
CabinCrewe is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 12:35
  #6 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 14
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Sorry to see this - I flew into GEO for about two years in the 757. 7500' for Rw 06, the ILS never worked the entire time I flew in there, and was never notamed as out. The VOR approach can be interesting since the DME didn't work either. I had more map shifts there than I've ever seen before or since. Add to that the closest realistic alternate is POS, so you tanker a bunch of fuel in addition to (usually) max payload. Add the occasion tropical downpour and it can get interesting!

Good catch on flap position - I bet that was a big jump from the overwing exits. Can't imagine an -800 even trying it with less than full flaps. One wonders how they managed to be "up" when the reversers are still deployed?

I always thought my career had hit rock-bottom when I did an overnight there. Haven't seen too much worse, but Khartoum comes to mind!
Escape Velocity is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 13:02
  #7 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Denmark
Posts: 31
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Why land without flaps???
They must have some kind of problem prior landing then!
Otherwise?
Walder is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 13:36
  #8 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Madison, WI
Posts: 299
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Pretty impressed that no deaths for a crash like this one.

Among the injured was Geeta Ramsingh, 41, of Philadelphia, who said passengers had just started to applaud the touchdown "when it turned to screams," she said, pointing to bruises on her knees.
Do people applaud landings frequently? Or was there some sort of sense of impending disaster that the touchdown alleviated?
ross_M is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 14:11
  #9 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Not here any more.
Posts: 646
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Cannot explain why the pic shows the flaps/slats retracted. I have thirty plus years experience into GEO with the predecessor airline to Caribbean and we always landed with max flaps for the type due to the challenging approach, normally bad weather and short and slippery runway. If I remember the 737 if you did not get full weight on wheels you can only get partial spoilers and idle reverse. Maybe when the over run was inevitable they retracted them.
NG_Kaptain is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 14:16
  #10 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: TTPP
Posts: 109
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Isn't the clean speed af a 737 with 150 pax something in the region of 190-200kts? Unlikely that they would have conducted an approach and landing at that speed thats like 50kts more than with full flaps! Not to mention all the red lines that would appear on PFD speed tape...
chock2chock is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 14:17
  #11 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Hong Kong
Posts: 5
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Flaps/slats retracted

Possible explanation may be that during the evacuation checklist, which calls for F40 selection, if not already selected, the flaps were inadvertently retracted. Seems unlikely that the crew would have attempted a landing without flaps/slats set. Imagine the landing distance requirement.
Praise the Lord for no loss of life.
Jonnie Chan is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 14:25
  #12 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Texas, like a whole other country
Posts: 444
Likes: 0
Received 2 Likes on 1 Post
Do people applaud landings frequently? Or was there some sort of sense of impending disaster that the touchdown alleviated?
In some cultures, notably the Caribbean/South America and parts of Asia, this is not uncommon. Those are the places where I've seen it happen, though I won't say it necessarily happens on every landing in those places.
Carbon Bootprint is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 17:27
  #13 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: The Far Side
Posts: 297
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Timehri (now Cheddi Jagan) is well known for night fog. As someone else said, the ILS is there in name only most of the time. Those who know it treat it with great respect.
BWIA had 2 over-run incidents in the distant past, none of them as serious as this.
A Viscount overrun that was due to reverted rubber hydroplaning, and an MD-83 that was hit by lightning on the T/O roll and aborted (below V1) and overran. The runway was noted for slipperiness
Too early to speculate what happened, or why it happened, but when BWIA was closed, many of the more experienced pilots were picked up by sandpit operators. The pilots union was squeezed out, and a new philosophy was put in place. Let us say it was slanted to "productivity".
They say that a safety culture dies slowly unless nurtured carefully.
It has been 5 years since the old regime was broken up, I hope the replacement will stand scrutiny in the investigation.

Last edited by ZQA297/30; 30th Jul 2011 at 19:24.
ZQA297/30 is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 18:22
  #14 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: MI
Posts: 570
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
As to the lack of flaps/slats.....perhaps that particular Captain retracted them at touchdown on short runways to dump the lift and, supposedly help with the stopping. Just a thought. I never did that but it WILL work.
DC-ATE is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 19:30
  #15 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: The Far Side
Posts: 297
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Soft touchdown on wet runway.......not good.
Policy in Georgetown used to be "no greasers", put it down firmly and get spoilers and reverse fully engaged asap. Braking unpredictable. Not so, NG?
I doubt that has changed.
ZQA297/30 is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 20:15
  #16 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: My Stringy Brane
Posts: 377
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts






Machaca is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 20:30
  #17 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Denmark
Posts: 31
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Sorry, but I don´t believe the flaps were out. If you land with full flaps, it takes actually quirt some time to retract the flaps. And I do not believe it was done deliberately after the crash – I don´t think there is any connection to the flaps nor any functional hydraulic system – they must have broke. I just wonder!
Walder is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 20:52
  #18 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: U.S.A
Age: 46
Posts: 33
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
RE: Retracted Slats

A FA friend mentioned, on B738s, once the emergency evacuation is activated,the flaps will retract to allow pax to use the overwing exits as an evacuation area...
There is no way, this plane would have landed with 0 flap settings...
waves-dubai is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 21:18
  #19 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: TTPP
Posts: 109
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
The speed between 0 flaps and vref 40 is like 60kts.
chock2chock is offline  
Old 30th Jul 2011, 21:19
  #20 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Denmark
Posts: 31
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
The evacuation checklist on the 737NG:

Parking brake …SET
Speedbrake lever … DOWN
FLAP lever ….40
Pressurization mode selector… MAN
Outflow valve switch… OPEN
Hold until the outflow valve is fully open.
If time allows, verify that the flaps are 40 before the engine start levers are moved to CUTOFF.
Engine start levers (both) … CUTOFF
To be continued….

The reason for the flaps is set to 40 is to assist the evacuation from the overwing exit. The passengers can slide on the flaps.

Walder
Walder is offline  

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service

Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.