Incident at Heathrow
I continue to read hogwash about who owns the cowl latches Airbus, IAE etc.
It makes little difference to who designed them or who manufactured them. The AAIB, if they choose, will address their recomendations to the certifying agency that covers their airworthiness. Wait for that to find out if you need to blame somebody.
Or just keep up with manufacturer issued service bulletins and who signs them.
Meanwhile we need to wait for some AAIB investigation findings to be released in order to put a dampner on this free for all of should ofs, would ofs, could ofs
It makes little difference to who designed them or who manufactured them. The AAIB, if they choose, will address their recomendations to the certifying agency that covers their airworthiness. Wait for that to find out if you need to blame somebody.
Or just keep up with manufacturer issued service bulletins and who signs them.
Meanwhile we need to wait for some AAIB investigation findings to be released in order to put a dampner on this free for all of should ofs, would ofs, could ofs
Nigel
Yet another example of playing the man and not addressing the question. It is not acceptable in civilised debate.
Would you care to quote an example of the ***** that I write? You will not find that personal attacks figure in any of my posts.
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On the contrary, I could have followed NoD's example and been a lot harsher. NoD "suspects" they found something and that there would be all sorts of forensic investigation. (He admits he does not know) My own experience of witnessing incidents at LHR much more serious than this was that every effort was made to get the airport back in operation as soon as possible.
Nobody has attempted an authoritative answer to my original query. Did Heathrow commit so many appliances to this emergency that the required cover was reduced? If not, what was the reason for the delay?
Safety is crucial to us all. But causing massive disruption to passengers and airlines does not necessarily have to be a consequence and should worry any professional pilot.
What part did bureaucracy and fear of litigation play in the shambles?
I trust you are referring to the ***** you then write, and not Ham Phisted?
Would you care to quote an example of the ***** that I write? You will not find that personal attacks figure in any of my posts.
I think you're being very harsh on ham phisted
On the contrary, I could have followed NoD's example and been a lot harsher. NoD "suspects" they found something and that there would be all sorts of forensic investigation. (He admits he does not know) My own experience of witnessing incidents at LHR much more serious than this was that every effort was made to get the airport back in operation as soon as possible.
Nobody has attempted an authoritative answer to my original query. Did Heathrow commit so many appliances to this emergency that the required cover was reduced? If not, what was the reason for the delay?
Safety is crucial to us all. But causing massive disruption to passengers and airlines does not necessarily have to be a consequence and should worry any professional pilot.
What part did bureaucracy and fear of litigation play in the shambles?
Last edited by scotbill; 25th May 2013 at 13:12.
On the inspection front there are plenty of other environments where mirrors are used for both looking underneath things and acting as a prompt.
Scotbill
Those are valid questions. My guess about why the delays were so bad is that LHR runs at such high capacity it has little or no room to accommodate delays of any kind. The same thing happens with Low Vis Ops you will recall I'm sure.
Those are valid questions. My guess about why the delays were so bad is that LHR runs at such high capacity it has little or no room to accommodate delays of any kind. The same thing happens with Low Vis Ops you will recall I'm sure.
Last edited by BBK; 25th May 2013 at 13:19.
Its a pretty basic problem that should have been sorted out years ago after the first few incidents, the cowls have a latching mechanism that allows the panels to appear correctly fastened when they are not.
I am quite sure, given suitable motivation (threatened withdrawal of type certificate perhaps), the manufacturer could design a mechanism that solves that anomaly. A pin with a large "remove before flight" tag that must be inserted into the latch before it can be opened and can't be removed until its properly closed would be one approach but I am sure there are others.
We can only hope that this incident finally provides the impetuous to get what is a long running problem sorted out before it kills. However, knowing how this business works I will not be holding my breath.
I am quite sure, given suitable motivation (threatened withdrawal of type certificate perhaps), the manufacturer could design a mechanism that solves that anomaly. A pin with a large "remove before flight" tag that must be inserted into the latch before it can be opened and can't be removed until its properly closed would be one approach but I am sure there are others.
We can only hope that this incident finally provides the impetuous to get what is a long running problem sorted out before it kills. However, knowing how this business works I will not be holding my breath.
Last edited by Max Angle; 25th May 2013 at 13:44.
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But causing massive disruption to passengers and airlines does not necessarily have to be a consequence and should worry any professional pilot.
Many years ago I sat behind a 767 on 27R that spat it's engine internals out onto the runway. There was a lot of expensive twisted metal on the runway that had to be collated, logged and collected. It took time.
The decision to close both runways was, IMHO, correct as no one at the time of the incident could categorically state what had caused the failure be it bird strike (carcasses and engine blades on the runway), catastrophic engine failure (as in the 767 above) or FOD ingestion during the take off roll.
Initially Operations called the closure to 12:00 local. I know, I was due to depart that morning. Once the situation was refined they brought forward the opening of 27L. I was only minimally delayed on departure and only 20 minutes late to destination.
At this point you have long haul traffic coming in from all over the globe, SH traffic feeding in to Heathrow and generally carrying minimum fuel for the ambient conditions. We don't want aircraft to be heavy over London burning extra fuel and fumes now do we.
Those pilots now have to make a decision based upon the operations closure time of 12:00 local. Many, quite rightly, diverted early. As SLF you wouldn't understand how quickly suitable diversion airfields around Heathrow become congested. Once those aircraft have diverted you need crews, pilots, ground handling resources, busses, tugs, fuel etc. etc. etc. organised BEFORE you even start applying for slots into an already over capacity airport.
Once a LH aircraft diverts it becomes a question of legal (CAA not Airline) crewing hours for what has now become a multi sector day, albeit with, potentially, a short sector. Pilots and crew need to be rotated, aircraft recovered and turned around etc.
All in all it becomes a logistical nightmare within a time and slot constrained environment.
All that considered do you really think that rash decisions were made by operational planners who run this airport every day, extremely well? As usual the operational team, ATC and the fire services covered what was a relatively benign emergency that, unfortunately, put out both runways extremely professionally and in the quickest time frame possible. This is, as always, done to reduce operational disruption in order to reduce the impact on the customer.
The incident and it's immediate consequences are purely the proverbial 'tip of the iceberg'.
Obviously all IMHO.
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Max Angle
Max Angle , spot on, nobody can disagree with your post. Hopefully they ( the various bodies involved) will not decide to hold those critical and absolutely necessary changes until loss of life is involved.
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There were no departures from 27L between BA762 at 08:17 and 09:24.
Runway 27R was closed from BA762's arrival at 08:43 until 10:46.
So presumably 27L was initially closed for inspection and clearance of cowling debris. Possibly the closure had to be extended because of a lack of fire cover, but we don't know how long it took to confirm that 27L was clear.
The times above are taken from WebTrak and should be correct to within 1 minute.
Talking of WebTrak, anyone got any comments on the curvy approach track of BA762 (see my post #347)?
Runway 27R was closed from BA762's arrival at 08:43 until 10:46.
So presumably 27L was initially closed for inspection and clearance of cowling debris. Possibly the closure had to be extended because of a lack of fire cover, but we don't know how long it took to confirm that 27L was clear.
The times above are taken from WebTrak and should be correct to within 1 minute.
Talking of WebTrak, anyone got any comments on the curvy approach track of BA762 (see my post #347)?
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Max Angle
Your comments about cowl latches are spot on, that is why I carried my trusty screwdriver on a walk around inspection, put the screwdriver in the slot between the cowls and apply a little pressure, if the cowl moves then it is not secure.
Unfortunately the security people in the Government are more worried that I will use the screwdriver to hijack the aircraft that I am in command of rather than the safety of the aircraft and its passengers. I do miss being able to check little things like cowl security and how much fuel was actually on the aircraft but these little things clearly rate a poor second to the unblemished career of the civil servants and politicians who mandate security policy.
Unfortunately the security people in the Government are more worried that I will use the screwdriver to hijack the aircraft that I am in command of rather than the safety of the aircraft and its passengers. I do miss being able to check little things like cowl security and how much fuel was actually on the aircraft but these little things clearly rate a poor second to the unblemished career of the civil servants and politicians who mandate security policy.
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Aeromec 3 said: Most engines, I have had the pleasure to work on, had axial (forward and aft) safety pin latches which engaged into the nose cowl and only after the eye bolt latches had been tensioned, (eg: classic B747 JT9D installation) they are omitted in this installation and I wonder why? As I recall, engine fan cowls are not the remit of the engine manufacturer; you certainly will not find them in their engine manuals or parts list; in IAE's interest, they should be jumping on the airframe pylon bods for a positive modification.
When aircraft manufacturers offer customers more than one power plant, the procedure is to put the responsibility of everything that hangs on the wing to the engine manufacturer including the nacelle with the guarantee that the powerplant package must deliver must deliver a pre contract installed SFC which the air frame manufacturer passes on to the customer. This allows Airbus/Boeing to pass the buck back to AEI/CFM if the customer says that the aircraft is burning more fuel than the FM or ops manual says. There was actually one aircraft where the airframe was designed around the engine - the IL76. The ministry of aviation had an engine, the D30k and told Ilyushin to build a transport aircraft around it.
When aircraft manufacturers offer customers more than one power plant, the procedure is to put the responsibility of everything that hangs on the wing to the engine manufacturer including the nacelle with the guarantee that the powerplant package must deliver must deliver a pre contract installed SFC which the air frame manufacturer passes on to the customer. This allows Airbus/Boeing to pass the buck back to AEI/CFM if the customer says that the aircraft is burning more fuel than the FM or ops manual says. There was actually one aircraft where the airframe was designed around the engine - the IL76. The ministry of aviation had an engine, the D30k and told Ilyushin to build a transport aircraft around it.
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I just wonder why they continued to climb on the BPK SID when they lost the cowlings right after takeoff
, rather like Sally Bercow's *innocent face* clearly implies some criticism of the alleged actions of the crew.One would continue on the SID as it is
a) Your clearance
b) Safe
c) Requires no additional R/T transmissions
d) What the aircraft is programmed to do
This allows the crew capacity to diagnose what may well have appeared to be a complex problem.
If the SID was flown initially, it would have been entirely in accordance with the crew's training.
Unfortunately, PPRuNe once again becomes a magnet for every armchair quarterback who has ever drooled and pointed at an aeroplane up in the sky...
Last edited by overstress; 25th May 2013 at 16:26.
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Cowls
These cowls on the IAE engines have a plunger that drops down when the cowls are opened this then weights a mechanism that holds the doors out a few inches so that the doors are either obviously open or obviously locked. To lock the cowl doors you would have to push the plunger up and lock the doors otherwise the plunger falls and the doors spring open a few inches again. This was a mod after a similar thing happened a few years ago - there was a picture on the net that a passenger took in flight with the cowl doors missing similar to the BA ones.
This means therefore at least one of the 6 laches was fastened and therefore the pilots would not have noticed anything strange on a walk around does it not?
This means therefore at least one of the 6 laches was fastened and therefore the pilots would not have noticed anything strange on a walk around does it not?
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I never post on this forum as quite frankly I find it embarrassing to my profession. It's interesting that on the BA Balpa forum this incident has seven pages of praise for a job well done as opposed to the drivel on here. I thank god that some of the posters on this forum were not at the controls. Perhaps if some of you spent less time speculating (admittedly with your useful MS flight sim experience behind you) and got some life skills you might one day get a decent flying job. Rant over.
This means therefore at least one of the 6 laches was fastened and therefore the pilots would not have noticed anything strange on a walk around does it not?
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scotbill:
Well I've been a professional pilot for 30 plus years now, and I'm sorry to have to tell you I couldn't give a sh1t about inconveniencing ANYONE for the sake of safety.
I'd happily inconvenience the Queen, the Prime Minister, the President of the USA, or face the wrath of Naomi Campbell, rather than compromise the safety of the dustman in seat 48C.
That's my job!
Others have their jobs, and their responsibilities.
Operations at LHR resumed as soon as it was considered unambiguously safe to do so. Why would anyone presume otherwise? (41 minutes to deal with a significant emergency involving the discharge of foam from the emergency vehicles, before reopening 27L, sounds pretty good to me!)
But causing massive disruption to passengers and airlines does not necessarily have to be a consequence and should worry any professional pilot.
I'd happily inconvenience the Queen, the Prime Minister, the President of the USA, or face the wrath of Naomi Campbell, rather than compromise the safety of the dustman in seat 48C.
That's my job!
Others have their jobs, and their responsibilities.
Operations at LHR resumed as soon as it was considered unambiguously safe to do so. Why would anyone presume otherwise? (41 minutes to deal with a significant emergency involving the discharge of foam from the emergency vehicles, before reopening 27L, sounds pretty good to me!)
Last edited by 4468; 25th May 2013 at 17:42.
Now, I have been away from Prune for a couple of days and I have just waded through 19 pages of the usual drivel from the unpromising hysterics interspersed with some good stuff from the engineers and the obvious professional flyers.
Now I am getting a bit elderly and I am not as sharp as I used to be and I do not intend to read all 19 pages again, but do we really know, WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, from a reliable source that the crew actually shut down ANY of the engines or did they land with both engines running sans cowlings?
Now I am getting a bit elderly and I am not as sharp as I used to be and I do not intend to read all 19 pages again, but do we really know, WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY, from a reliable source that the crew actually shut down ANY of the engines or did they land with both engines running sans cowlings?