Our plane is just too BIG. We're going back to ORD

[4eyed anorak]

It happened at Edinburgh not that long back when Etihad sent a A340-600 instead of the usual A330. They even sent a A340 towbar however it was for the A340-500 and didn't fit the -600. Looooong delay!

Regards 4ea

[Less Hair]

I wonder what towbar Stratolaunch's "Roc" needs. I have seen some An-225 twin-towbar and that's already huge.

[jmelson]

Originally Posted by A Squared

Jeeezus, the suggestions just keep getting dumber and dumber. So you're going to push a 60,000-70,000 lb jet beck from the gate by hand? Seriously?

Yes, I've helped move an Aero Commander 500C, and it was VERY hard to get it started. A CRJ? Wow, I'd sure love to see the Youtube video! There is a (Russian, I think) video of some guys basically doing a tug-of-war pull on something in this size range, they had quite a bunch of people on the rope.

Jon

[alby2000]

Originally Posted by jmelson

Yes, I've helped move an Aero Commander 500C, and it was VERY hard to get it started. A CRJ? Wow, I'd sure love to see the Youtube video! There is a (Russian, I think) video of some guys basically doing a tug-of-war pull on something in this size range, they had quite a bunch of people on the rope.

Jon

I am not sure about the circumstances, but I found this video on youtube. Not saying that it was the right thing to do nor I have an idea whether it was an approved procedure, but it just shows it can be done....

Here it is:

You Tube

Alby

[pants on fire...]

I'm not sure what kind of "Men" they have in Chatanooga, but there are multiple ways of moving large Aircraft. For instance for a 747;
Master Bird Pullers - https://www.news24.com/xArchive/Arch...nises-20010108

Taiwanese men to pull plane with their penises

2001-01-08 11:58 Taipei - Twenty Taiwan men will fly to the United States in March to set a world record for pulling a Boeing B747 passenger jet with their penises, the organiser of the planned event said on Monday.

"We have received invitation from the Guinness Book of World Records museum in the US to perform in Los Angeles," said Tu Chin-sheng, who teaches "penis-hanging art", a Chinese martial arts style. "We will send about 20 men, their age ranging from 25 to 77, to pull the 400-seat B747. We hope to set a world record," he said. Last October 29, three of Tu's students pulled a truck loaded with 100 men for three metres in a central Taipei square.

Tu, 46, has been teaching Chiu Chiu Shen Gong (Nine Nine Magic Art) in Taipei for 20 years. He claims that hanging iron blocks weighing up to 300 kilograms to one's penis or testicles can enhance one's virility and general health.

Some doctors call the training dangerous, saying that hanging weights to the penis or testicles and swaying the weights can break the penis. - Sapa-DPA


Or, if you only have one Man available, then that's easy too.

Heaviest aircraft pulled (male) | Guinness World Records

[Eutychus]

Originally Posted by harrryw

How long to organise the loan of a towbar from a nearby field and truck it over, surely cheaper and less disruptive.

One of my rare bad SLF experiences of Ryanair was quite a few years ago now, when they swapped the planned 737-200 for a 737-400 (?) just before boarding at STN, boarded us SLF, and then discovered that the destination airport at that time had only one fire truck and thus apparently could not legally accommodate the newer aircraft. LONG delay while they scouted around trying to borrow another fire truck from somewhere, before giving up and eventually squeezing us all into a BAC 1-11 from some other carrier (AirUK?). By that time the weather had worsened, so that was my first experience of a missed approach/TOGA too. After the pilot had told us they thought they had reached the end of their working day prior to our flight leaving.

[RAC/OPS]

Or they could get a KLM 747 under tow to nudge it back off the gate.

[er340790]

Nice clip, Alby. That made my day!

Just rope in 8 x burly baggage handlers and the job's a good 'un!

[Ascend Charlie]

Do what Delta used to do in Dallas with their DC-9s, use reverse thrust to back out.

[tdracer]

Originally Posted by Ascend Charlie

Do what Delta used to do in Dallas with their DC-9s, use reverse thrust to back out.

Given the Embraer has underwing engines, that's a good way to cause a surge and end up AOG with a massive engine repair bill.
I can't think of any commercial aircraft with underwing engines that backing with the reversers is an approved procedure.

The more I read all the 'alternatives' being posted, the more I think they made the right decision to turn back

[A Squared]

Originally Posted by tdracer

I can't think of any commercial aircraft with underwing engines that backing with the reversers is an approved procedure.

Well, the engines on the L-382 are below the chordline of the wing and the turbine section is "under" the wing in all senses of the word. I've reverse taxied on a number of occasions.

Seriously though, even if you disregarded legality and engine health, would it be possible to reverse taxi on an E-175? I would assume that reversers, if even installed would be cascade reverses, and I have heard it said that they wouldn't generate enough actual reverse thrust to move the airplane backward.

[dtaylor1984]

Originally Posted by A Squared

Well, if Sky West at Chattanooga normally boards it's flights via a jetway, then it's very likely that they don't have equipment, procedures and staff in place to disembark passengers across the ramp. That's not the sort of thing that it's wise to improvise at the last minute.

Wouldn't there need to be procedures to disembark passengers in the event of, say, a mechanical failure away from the gate?

[FlightlessParrot]

Originally Posted by pants on fire...

I'm not sure what kind of "Men" they have in Chatanooga, but there are multiple ways of moving large Aircraft. For instance for a 747;
Master Bird Pullers - https://www.news24.com/xArchive/Arch...nises-20010108

Or, if you only have one Man available, then that's easy too.

Heaviest aircraft pulled (male) Guinness World Records

A good example of what used to be called muscular Christianity.

[A Squared]

Originally Posted by dtaylor1984

Wouldn't there need to be procedures to disembark passengers in the event of, say, a mechanical failure away from the gate?

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.

[A Squared]

Originally Posted by wetbehindear

SLF here, so please hold your fire.

What about 2 degrees down slope to keep fuel leaks away from terminal. Does it not help?

Yes, if that is the case, it would help. But again, the problem was discovered when there were options:

Option 1: Press on, and assume that we can push the plane back by hand, even though, we have never done this before, we don't have procedures in place for doing it, we don't know how many people it would take, we don't know if we will be able to muster enough people and we're not 100 percent sure that we will be able to do it at all.

Option 2: Turn around, put the passengers on a different airplane which we *know* can be disembarked, boarded and pushed back at the destination, safely and certainly, using the standard procedures and equipment we use every day on a normal basis.


Option 1 has a lot of question marks. Option 2 does not. I'm not sure that it would be all that smart to choose option 1 over option 2 purely for economic reasons.

[CargoMatatu]

Originally Posted by A Squared

Jeeezus, the suggestions just keep getting dumber and dumber. So you're going to push a 60,000-70,000 lb jet beck from the gate by hand? Seriously?

I was on board an Indian Airlines A320 when they did exactly that in BOM due to a Ground Engineers' strike.

[ethicalconundrum]

Would I be out of line speculating that the decision on whether to proceed or return was NOT made by the guy/gal sitting in the left front seat of the flight? I doubt he/she(PIC) would even know that the needed equip at destination was avail before loading the meatsacks. Be interesting to sort out who knew what when(so to speak).

[SeenItAll]

Originally Posted by dtaylor1984

Wouldn't there need to be procedures to disembark passengers in the event of, say, a mechanical failure away from the gate?

If no suitable air stairs available, that is what the slides are for.

[A Squared]

Originally Posted by ethicalconundrum

Would I be out of line speculating that the decision on whether to proceed or return was NOT made by the guy/gal sitting in the left front seat of the flight? I doubt he/she(PIC) would even know that the needed equip at destination was avail before loading the meatsacks. Be interesting to sort out who knew what when(so to speak).

I don't think you'd be out of line at all. Obviously, the pilot isn't in a position to know that what towbars are available at an outstation. I would expect that the realization was made by whomever on the ground, brought to the attention of their operations folks and the decision to return to Chicago was already made when it was communicated to the flight crew.

[A Squared]

Originally Posted by SeenItAll

If no suitable air stairs available, that is what the slides are for.

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.