Virgin landing gear incident LGW!
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Mikehotel152 wrote:-
If a plane crash lands and substantially breaks up with a fire on one runway at a two or more runway airport then of course the whole airport is normally closed whilst the emergency is dealt with by fire crews, ambulance and Police.
But once any fire has been extinguished and all injured or deceased passengers removed and the fire crews put back on standby (plus any broken or used fire fighting and other related emergency equipment replaced) then there will be huge commercial and also passenger pressure to reopen the other runway and continue operating as many flights as possible as soon as possible. The BA038 777 from Beijing at LHR on 17th Jan 2008 happily didn't involve any fatalities but the aircraft did partially break up and remained on the Southern runway for several days while the AAIB documented everything and plans on how to remove the aircraft were made. If that had happened at Gatwick the whole airport would have undoubtedly been shut for at least 2 or 3 days. Instead of which the Northern runway at Heathrow was back in normal use the same day within just an hour or so (see post #27 at [17 Jan 2008] BA38 lands short of the runway - Page 2 - FlyerTalk Forums)
As Gatwick wouldn't initially be anywhere near as busy as Heathrow for at least another 15 or 20 years after a second runway opened it probably ought to manage to resume close to full operations quite well with only one runway if an aircraft crashed on the other and there was a several day delay before all crash investigation and wreckage removal was complete. But it depends which 2nd runway option they choose since if they went for the close parallel ones where the two runways can't operate at the same time its possible a crash landed plane on one runway could mean the other being closed too until the other one was fully cleared. So hopefully they will avoid choosing such a short sighted runway option for that very reason (as well as the passenger capacity related reasons on top of that).
EDIT:- Just couldn't help resist mentioning that in watching quite a bit of the coverage on Sky News and BBC News yesterday I also saw no sign at all of Chris Yates but there were interviews with several highly experienced British former commercial pilots. Does this mean that he has finally been de-listed as an "aviation expert" by the British media?
A quick News Google for "Chris Yates" suggests he is in fact still operating and making comments about the Air Asia crash but only the German media now seems to believe that he is an "Aviation Expert". See yesterday's coverage at www.dw.de/analyst-indonesia-has-a-poor-air-safety-record/a-18155440
His Linked In entry at https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/chris-yates/22/b09/12b suggests that even Jane's have finally given him the push as their "Aviation Security Editor" (they would do far better to employ my former school class mate Philip Baum if they want a real one) but he is still running his own rather amateur website (which claims rather forlornly that something better is "coming soon") with speculation on a variety of crashes at www.yatesconsulting.co.uk/ and encouraging the media to contact him for more so called "insight and analysis"
Would a second runway make much difference? The limiting factor is usually the airport's overall fire cover being reduced below minimum levels whilst dealing with an emergency.
But once any fire has been extinguished and all injured or deceased passengers removed and the fire crews put back on standby (plus any broken or used fire fighting and other related emergency equipment replaced) then there will be huge commercial and also passenger pressure to reopen the other runway and continue operating as many flights as possible as soon as possible. The BA038 777 from Beijing at LHR on 17th Jan 2008 happily didn't involve any fatalities but the aircraft did partially break up and remained on the Southern runway for several days while the AAIB documented everything and plans on how to remove the aircraft were made. If that had happened at Gatwick the whole airport would have undoubtedly been shut for at least 2 or 3 days. Instead of which the Northern runway at Heathrow was back in normal use the same day within just an hour or so (see post #27 at [17 Jan 2008] BA38 lands short of the runway - Page 2 - FlyerTalk Forums)
As Gatwick wouldn't initially be anywhere near as busy as Heathrow for at least another 15 or 20 years after a second runway opened it probably ought to manage to resume close to full operations quite well with only one runway if an aircraft crashed on the other and there was a several day delay before all crash investigation and wreckage removal was complete. But it depends which 2nd runway option they choose since if they went for the close parallel ones where the two runways can't operate at the same time its possible a crash landed plane on one runway could mean the other being closed too until the other one was fully cleared. So hopefully they will avoid choosing such a short sighted runway option for that very reason (as well as the passenger capacity related reasons on top of that).
EDIT:- Just couldn't help resist mentioning that in watching quite a bit of the coverage on Sky News and BBC News yesterday I also saw no sign at all of Chris Yates but there were interviews with several highly experienced British former commercial pilots. Does this mean that he has finally been de-listed as an "aviation expert" by the British media?
A quick News Google for "Chris Yates" suggests he is in fact still operating and making comments about the Air Asia crash but only the German media now seems to believe that he is an "Aviation Expert". See yesterday's coverage at www.dw.de/analyst-indonesia-has-a-poor-air-safety-record/a-18155440
His Linked In entry at https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/chris-yates/22/b09/12b suggests that even Jane's have finally given him the push as their "Aviation Security Editor" (they would do far better to employ my former school class mate Philip Baum if they want a real one) but he is still running his own rather amateur website (which claims rather forlornly that something better is "coming soon") with speculation on a variety of crashes at www.yatesconsulting.co.uk/ and encouraging the media to contact him for more so called "insight and analysis"
Last edited by Capvermell; 30th Dec 2014 at 10:03.
When they made their initial call to LGW tower they said that they where a "Pan" aircraft, surely this sort of issue would of warranted a Mayday at least ?
Mayday = threatened by grave and imminent danger and require immediate assistance whereas Pan = state of urgency.
Either way I think you'll find ATC will treat it as an emergency.
The fact they were able to fly around for a few hours proves, I would suggest, that this was not a Mayday by definition.
Lucifer,
They must have been busy in La Rochelle in the last year since I went there. 
then I seriously wonder why they didn't go to LRH which has a longer runway and is also a Virgin base (Maintenance, Pax handling etc) instead of returning to LGW.
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If you look carefully at the photograph of the under-belly of the aircraft you see that three gears are extended normally but the right hand wing gear is blocked in the wheel well by what appears to be a substantial white sheet of material that has jammed between the open wing gear door and the truck asssembly.
Some video that has been released shows a shower of sparks from the underbelly area of the aircraft on touchdown. This would have been the bottom edge of the wing gear doors contacting the runway during the flare? Once the nose was lowered the contact stopped.
Some video that has been released shows a shower of sparks from the underbelly area of the aircraft on touchdown. This would have been the bottom edge of the wing gear doors contacting the runway during the flare? Once the nose was lowered the contact stopped.
it depends which 2nd runway option they choose since if they went for the close parallel ones where the two runways can't operate at the same time
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LLuCCiFeR,
Stop talking b******s old chap. You're making your point based on wing flex?
For your info, Virgin do have a maintenance base and a nice big hangar at LGW (and pax handling too as funnily enough the aircraft left there it the first place?) but strangely enough not at your preferred diversion at La Rochelle
Stop talking b******s old chap. You're making your point based on wing flex?
For your info, Virgin do have a maintenance base and a nice big hangar at LGW (and pax handling too as funnily enough the aircraft left there it the first place?) but strangely enough not at your preferred diversion at La Rochelle
Last edited by Flightmech; 30th Dec 2014 at 10:35. Reason: more satire
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Hip hip hurraaaay!
Stop talking b******s old chap. You're making your point based on wing flex?
It's amazing how far people go, quite literally, to turn a blind eye on certain aspects just and only because they are from a certain airline and/or nationality. A lot of supposedly responsible and critical professionals seem to have a standard judgment canned and ready to go: if it's an Asian operator or an Irish low cost airline then everything sucked, if it's British airline then everything was jolly well and "well done to the crew."p.s. It's a little bit difficult to see, but are those spoilers already deployed before the nose wheel touches down?
p.p.s. Rochelle? I have no idea what you are referring to.
Some video that has been released shows a shower of sparks from the underbelly area of the aircraft on touchdown. This would have been the bottom edge of the wing gear doors contacting the runway during the flare? Once the nose was lowered the contact stopped.
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DaveReidUK said:-
Yes they do. That option is called the Close Parallel Runway. The nature of the Gatwick airport site is such that there are issues with aircraft taxiing across the end of the existing runway with even the the two wider spaced runway options but there is unikely to be a problem constantly taxiing across the end of a runway that is closed unless that is the exact point where the crash has actually taken place.
See www.gacc.org.uk/resources/Gatwick%20Unzipped%20pdf.pdf and AirportWatch | Gatwick publishes its 3 options for a southern 2nd runway enabling up to 87 mppa
That is why in their submission GAL state that:-
51. A close parallel runway would provide comparatively little extra capacity. GAL state that the existing runway can handle 40 million passengers a year, rising to 48 million by 2050. A new close parallel runway would raise this to around 60-66 million. Thus the increase in capacity could be as little as 25%.
DoorsToAutomatic said::-
Because its only designed to be used when the main runway is temporarily out of use being inspected or resurfaced or repaired or otherwise maintained (eg new landing light system installation) but is far too close to the main runway to ever be safely operated when an aircraft (especially a 747) is standing on that other main runway.
Anyone who knows anything about Gatwick knows that the current so called "second runway" is just a glorified taxiway (its normal function the rest of the time) that is only used basically as a last resort and mainly at night (typically from midnight to 5am and probably not for any length of time overnight in July or August when there are far more middle of the night arrivals than during the rest of the year) when there are relatively few aircraft operations that will actually need to use it and hence the lower safety factor and clear extra risk involved in using it is minimised.
None of the LGW expansion options involve only being able to operate one runway at a time, for obvious reasons.
See www.gacc.org.uk/resources/Gatwick%20Unzipped%20pdf.pdf and AirportWatch | Gatwick publishes its 3 options for a southern 2nd runway enabling up to 87 mppa
That is why in their submission GAL state that:-
50. The runways would have to be used dependently i.e. operations on one runway temporarily interrupting operations on the other.
51. A close parallel runway would provide comparatively little extra capacity. GAL state that the existing runway can handle 40 million passengers a year, rising to 48 million by 2050. A new close parallel runway would raise this to around 60-66 million. Thus the increase in capacity could be as little as 25%.
Just out of interest why was Gatwick's emergency runway not brought into use? I thought it was there for this very eventuality?
Anyone who knows anything about Gatwick knows that the current so called "second runway" is just a glorified taxiway (its normal function the rest of the time) that is only used basically as a last resort and mainly at night (typically from midnight to 5am and probably not for any length of time overnight in July or August when there are far more middle of the night arrivals than during the rest of the year) when there are relatively few aircraft operations that will actually need to use it and hence the lower safety factor and clear extra risk involved in using it is minimised.
Last edited by Capvermell; 30th Dec 2014 at 12:17.
As a regular reader it never ceases to amaze me the level of angst and animosity displayed on PPrune at times.
here we have a succesful outcome toa very tricky situation, I wondered about the 'bounce ' watching the news last night but I've seen lots of big airliners bounce on landing and they didnt have missing landing gear and hydraulic system and therefore control surface failures.
Seeing the video from head on shows just how tricky this was and how asymmetric a 74 looks with a wing gear missing and therefore how real the risk of it tipping over to the starboard side was before slowing to a safe moderate pace.
Then we have people slagging off the crew for now 'greasing it on' and other claiming the Brits have some innate superiority over certain other countries when it comes to aviation innovation and include France in the list a country even the most ardent francophobe would concede have made a pretty big contribution to aviation history.
A great shame people get so annoyed and personal and I hope they are all interested observers like me and never get on the business side of a flight deck door with those atitudes.
Oh and lets have a spare airport with 11000ft runway, ILS and lighting and full fire cover plus pax handling facilities available just in case something like this happens and delays Joe public for a few hours or maybe a day. After the Xmas rail chaos why not build a new London terminal connected to all the main rail lines in the event of over running engineering works too -where on earth would that approach end??
Well done to the crew I say and I hope those on board are not put off flying by their experience which was probably legitimately worrying for many of them.
here we have a succesful outcome toa very tricky situation, I wondered about the 'bounce ' watching the news last night but I've seen lots of big airliners bounce on landing and they didnt have missing landing gear and hydraulic system and therefore control surface failures.
Seeing the video from head on shows just how tricky this was and how asymmetric a 74 looks with a wing gear missing and therefore how real the risk of it tipping over to the starboard side was before slowing to a safe moderate pace.
Then we have people slagging off the crew for now 'greasing it on' and other claiming the Brits have some innate superiority over certain other countries when it comes to aviation innovation and include France in the list a country even the most ardent francophobe would concede have made a pretty big contribution to aviation history.
A great shame people get so annoyed and personal and I hope they are all interested observers like me and never get on the business side of a flight deck door with those atitudes.
Oh and lets have a spare airport with 11000ft runway, ILS and lighting and full fire cover plus pax handling facilities available just in case something like this happens and delays Joe public for a few hours or maybe a day. After the Xmas rail chaos why not build a new London terminal connected to all the main rail lines in the event of over running engineering works too -where on earth would that approach end??
Well done to the crew I say and I hope those on board are not put off flying by their experience which was probably legitimately worrying for many of them.
It sounds like the crew did a great job overall. I suspect the pilot flying is not real happy with the landing. The flare was late and abrupt and the aircraft touched down hard no matter how you want to look at it. Still the overall result was exactly what you want!
Yes, I'm well aware that one of the three options is for a close-spaced runway which would operate in dependent segregated mode, where movements on one runway would be affected by movements on the other.
Exactly - with the emphasis on "temporarily". That's rather different from, for example, the current situation where the main and emergency runway can't under any circumstances be used simultaneously. Instead, it's a bit like saying that Windows (in the old single-core days) can't run two processes simultaneously, which while technically true, is only part of the story.
Likewise, the close-spaced parallel runway would increase overall runway capacity from around 55 movements per hour to about 70, though granted the wide-spaced option would up that to around 75 as well as providing other operational benefits.
The runways would have to be used dependently i.e. operations on one runway temporarily interrupting operations on the other.
Likewise, the close-spaced parallel runway would increase overall runway capacity from around 55 movements per hour to about 70, though granted the wide-spaced option would up that to around 75 as well as providing other operational benefits.
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Those who comment on the landing have a very GA attitude.
Of course the pilot was not 'winging' it in, he had been involved in a lot of discussions with his engineering people and his speeds, techniques etc. would have been the result of a great deal of pre planning.
And it obviously worked.
Of course the pilot was not 'winging' it in, he had been involved in a lot of discussions with his engineering people and his speeds, techniques etc. would have been the result of a great deal of pre planning.
And it obviously worked.
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For those of you who don't understand alternate gear extension (required in this case following loss of No 4 Hyd system)
Electric motors power a cable system to unlock the gear doors and gear uplocks, allowing the gear to freefall....
Me thinks it won't be long before there is a Boeing service bulletin to check the motors and cables!
Electric motors power a cable system to unlock the gear doors and gear uplocks, allowing the gear to freefall....
Me thinks it won't be long before there is a Boeing service bulletin to check the motors and cables!
Psychophysiological entity
I suspect the pilot flying is not real happy with the landing. The flare was late and abrupt and the aircraft touched down hard no matter how you want to look at it.
Speed control held tight to the number. Unknown drag and resultant effects on the lift near the starboard UC doors.
If I put myself into that seat in those last moments I can imagine gently pulling back and finding three-quarters of normal elevators just doesn't do quite what I expected compared to the sim. Now is the moment of vital decision making. Reacting to that under-rotation too vigorously could be extremely undesirable and I bet that skipper fought off any temptation to make a last minute correction. A tad too far . . . well, I don't have to spell it out, and again, remember a lot of his brakes are tucked away and he's not overwhelmed with concrete.