Our plane is just too BIG. We're going back to ORD
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It would take 10 hours to truck a tow bar from Chicago to Chatanooga. So now the Aircraft and the Gate is unusable for 10 hours (United has other flights into Chatanooga. ) Best case, *maybe* United has a flyaway E-175 tow-bar that can be put in the baggage hold of United's ORD-CHA flight. Unlikely that would work, but even if the planets did align that would still be 5 hours that the 175 was blocking the gate and not generating revenue.
I can say with some authority that isn't a Boeing approved procedure - more likely a spur of the moment recovery from an 'Oh $#it . (at best, if you ask, Boeing might give you a "No Technical Objection" (NTO) but not a formal OK).
A Squared - it makes a lot of difference how long the aircraft has been sitting. I was on a 767 that we did a T/R backup test long ago just to see if it was possible (CF6-80C2 engines) - but it was similar to the video, we were only stopped for maybe a minute before backing up (and it still took a lot of reverse N1 to get it moving). But once you've been sitting for a while and the tires cooled and took a set, the force required to get moving easily doubles (it also matters the type of tires - radials start rolling much easier than bias ply - although they used to be common I don't know if anyone still uses bias ply for big commercial jets). When I was on an MD-80 that backed with the reversers, they actually went forward slightly to get off the flat spot of the tire before engaging the reversers.
A Squared - it makes a lot of difference how long the aircraft has been sitting. I was on a 767 that we did a T/R backup test long ago just to see if it was possible (CF6-80C2 engines) - but it was similar to the video, we were only stopped for maybe a minute before backing up (and it still took a lot of reverse N1 to get it moving). But once you've been sitting for a while and the tires cooled and took a set, the force required to get moving easily doubles (it also matters the type of tires - radials start rolling much easier than bias ply - although they used to be common I don't know if anyone still uses bias ply for big commercial jets). When I was on an MD-80 that backed with the reversers, they actually went forward slightly to get off the flat spot of the tire before engaging the reversers.
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Unless there was something else going on which made the immediate evacuation of the airplane necessary for safety reasons, no, they would not use the slides to disembark the passengers. Injuries and broken bones are pretty common in slide evacuations. They are intended to be used when you have to get people off the plane *now* or else it is probable that there will be more serious injuries than the injuries which will likely be sustained in a slide evacuation. If the passengers can remain on the airplane without being harmed, that's exactly what will happen until some sort of suitable stair stand is arranged.
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I can't think of any commercial aircraft with underwing engines that backing with the reversers is an approved procedure.
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Looks like Air Berlin used to powerback the 737:
I can remember using reverse thrust to back the 727 off the gate to save labor costs.It was risky, you could shoot a piece of FOD into the marshaller's eye and you had to keep your feet off the brakes going backward or you would set the plane on its tail.
A management pilot named Lou got impatient waiting on a pushback crew at MCO and initiated his own powerback with the power cart still plugged in. It ripped a strip of aluminum off the side of the plane that looked an opened sardine can. Lou was Juan Trippe's personal pilot at one time and landed a Falcon 20 gear up. Years later he was giving a captain's check at Tegel in Berlin and they managed to do the infamous gear up touch and go in a 737 with the FAA onboard. My career has been dull in comparison.
Back in the mid to late 1980s, power backing was very much in vogue for tail mounted engines. It saved on labor costs - not just the tug driver, but since the aircraft was under the control of the pilot - only one person was required to guide the aircraft as it was backing (i.e. no wing walkers required).
But then the airlines noticed that the time between overhaul for the engines was dropping like a rock. The bean counters quickly figured out that the increases in engine maintenance were more than cancelling out the labor savings and power backing rather quickly all but disappeared.
I suspect that the few operators that still use power backing don't directly pay for the engine maintenance - they have 'power by the hour' or similar engine lease arrangements.
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Ahh, OK, Sorry I missed that. But in my defense, there's been a flurry of suggestions equally off the wall which haven't been in jest.
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Sure, but what you might do when you find yourself with a broken airplane away from the ramp is one thing, what you choose to do operationally, when you still have other options, is another. I don't fly passengers (thankfully), but I would expect that if the airplane is capable of being towed, that it would be towed into the gate. Certainly there could be failures which prevent the plane from moving at all, but a broken airplane on a taxiway, while not exactly an emergency, is certainly an abnormal situation beyond the airline's control. I don't know, but I would suspect that such an event would involve the passengers sitting on the airplane for a long time before a plan was made and put into action for disembarking them. On the other hand, if you just discovered that there's no towbar at the destination, the choice at that point to press on and then use whatever disembarking method you'd use if the wheels fell off the plane would be second best next to simply returning and putting the passengers on a plane that the station is equipped to handle normally. I'm not sure I'm explaining this thought well, but the FAA would be a lot more inclined to view benevolently an airline's use of a non-standard, non-approved method of disembarking passengers when there was no other choice due to circumstances beyond their control, than they would view the *choice* to use that same method, when there were other options, the situation was entirely due to the airline's error (forgetting to check the the station had the correct towbar) and the choice was made purely on economic grounds.
If it takes an hour to get a towbar that would mean holding people on the plane for less than 30 minute. Cost of borrowing towbar and truck for 1 hour.
Economic best choice....not really.
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"Contrary to flight manual guidance, the flightcrew used reverse thrust in an attempt to move the aircraft from the ramp. This resulted in blowing snow which might have adhered to the aircraft."
Air Florida, Inc., Boeing 737-222, N62AF, Collision with 14th Street Bridge
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If.... Who says that a towbar is an hour away? You just pulled that out of thin air, an that's not even realistic. Like I said earlier, there nearest airport with airline service is a 2 hour drive from Chattanooga, and there's no guarantee that there was an E-175 towbar available there. That's just the nearest place that there is even the possibility that one might exist. Remember, the lack of a towbar was discovered *after* the airplane was airborne. You might have time to contact the other 2 airlines at Chatanooga to see if they have a E-175 towbar lying around, but that's about all the makes sense.
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Unless there was something else going on which made the immediate evacuation of the airplane necessary for safety reasons, no, they would not use the slides to disembark the passengers. Injuries and broken bones are pretty common in slide evacuations. They are intended to be used when you have to get people off the plane *now* or else it is probable that there will be more serious injuries than the injuries which will likely be sustained in a slide evacuation. If the passengers can remain on the airplane without being harmed, that's exactly what will happen until some sort of suitable stair stand is arranged.
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Now that really doesn't make much sense. A330/340 are more or less the same aircraft, and if Airbus designed a different towbar attachment point on them I'd be very surprised...
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Well, no doubt injuries from a slide evacuation are less likely on an E-175 than say, the top deck of a A380, but the probability is non-zero. I was just reading about an MD-80 evacuation with injuries requiring hospitalization. At least one broken bone, IIRC. I don't think the height of an MD-80's deck above the ground is substantially higher than an E-175's.