30 yrs ago today
Years ago I was among a group of trainers who suggested to our managers that we should refer to 'engine 1' and 'engine 2' rather than 'left' and 'right' to remove this uncertainty. The numerical designation also removes the ambiguity arising from observers facing forward or aft. Nothing came of our input.
The annotation depended on customer choice. On Britannia Airways B757/767s the fuel control switches and engine fire switches were labelled 'L' and 'R'. Ditto EICAS messages:
Last edited by Discorde; 12th Jan 2019 at 09:03. Reason: minor change
Don’t really know if the cabin crew on a 737 would get confused about left and right. The doors are numbered L1 R1 etc, but don’t think they get confused if they happen to be looking backwards instead of forwards.
The announcement itself was unambiguous, referring to "trouble with the right engine ... which was now shut down", and heard by many of the passengers who had been observing signs of fire from the LH engine, but nobody brought the discrepancy to the cabin crew's attention.
I was always under the impression at least 2 of the cabin crew including an FSM Ali Osman heard the skippers announcement but it was not their remit (nor in their training) to trouble the flight deck again as it was assumed they (the FD) knew what they were doing and they were diverting to EMA (not an emergency landing, as far as pax and cabin crew were concerned)
I was always under the impression at least 2 of the cabin crew including an FSM Ali Osman heard the skippers announcement but it was not their remit (nor in their training) to trouble the flight deck again as it was assumed they (the FD) knew what they were doing and they were diverting to EMA (not an emergency landing, as far as pax and cabin crew were concerned)
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My wife was a flight supervisor/purser with Midland at the time and shared a house with the flight supervisor on the BD92. About six months later, Midland had an identical issue with a B737-400 on the same route. On this occasion, my wife was the senior cabin crew member on board and she went into the FD and pointed at the side she had seen flames/sparks coming from, rather than say L or R, 1 or 2. The aircraft subsequently diverted to EMA and the CC were then required to operate on a DC9 to take the pax across to BFS!
Yes Dave, back then it was in no one's remit, nor in the FOM/SOP/SEP nor CC manuals to go tell the FD something like that...
Capt Kevin Hunt was a approachable man and pragmatic too.
I did not know any of the CC nor the FO but Kevin was a really kind and lovely man who I had known and worked with for many years since 1977 - he was not rostered that flight (BD92) but stepped in to swap with a colleague who wanted the Sunday off.
I'm ex BMA LHR D/O as you may know - At our LHR reunion (class of 77/78) 2 years ago in 2016 the talk then still was very much about BD92.
Many of my old ground colleagues worked with EPIC and for many months after with all the relatives and survivors - a harrowing time and task for all at the Heathrow Care centre and BD emergency response - They were terrible hours days and weeks- life defining for all involved and all were affected.
After a day in Epic, My pal who was supervisor of BD LHR baggage services was despatched to Donington to meet up with the Police who took him to their Training HQ. - shown to a Gym which was full of belongings and luggage that was being brought in from the crash site. One by one he went through every item including coats and handbags, the personal belongings in the handbags made it desperately real and sad and for 5 days he worked with relatives and Police to repatriate belongings. To this day he will struggle with the simple request to get something out of a handbag and will never forget the smell of damp muddy belongings and aviation fuel.
Over the following weeks he would meet some of the relatives as they passed thru the Heathrow care center run by my colleagues and again at the Memorial Service held in Belfast which is his hometown.
Now we go back to those weeks in January 89 when all did the best they could to make things better. They all cared at the time and still do.
I remember talking to the traffic officer/flight dispatcher about the flight a few years later, I think he re-trained to work in air traffic control/Tower?
His stories about accepting late passengers at the gate as we did back then (LRP's/LMC's) on that evening, made my hairs stand on end.
I also knew the handling agent at Tenerife in 1977 (He handled us too there) who found the last 4 late pax (Mum Dad and 2 kids) for the KLM 747 that were missing and wandering in the terminal and he rushed them out to re-board the Jumbo for Las Palmas...
Capt Kevin Hunt was a approachable man and pragmatic too.
I did not know any of the CC nor the FO but Kevin was a really kind and lovely man who I had known and worked with for many years since 1977 - he was not rostered that flight (BD92) but stepped in to swap with a colleague who wanted the Sunday off.
I'm ex BMA LHR D/O as you may know - At our LHR reunion (class of 77/78) 2 years ago in 2016 the talk then still was very much about BD92.
Many of my old ground colleagues worked with EPIC and for many months after with all the relatives and survivors - a harrowing time and task for all at the Heathrow Care centre and BD emergency response - They were terrible hours days and weeks- life defining for all involved and all were affected.
After a day in Epic, My pal who was supervisor of BD LHR baggage services was despatched to Donington to meet up with the Police who took him to their Training HQ. - shown to a Gym which was full of belongings and luggage that was being brought in from the crash site. One by one he went through every item including coats and handbags, the personal belongings in the handbags made it desperately real and sad and for 5 days he worked with relatives and Police to repatriate belongings. To this day he will struggle with the simple request to get something out of a handbag and will never forget the smell of damp muddy belongings and aviation fuel.
Over the following weeks he would meet some of the relatives as they passed thru the Heathrow care center run by my colleagues and again at the Memorial Service held in Belfast which is his hometown.
Now we go back to those weeks in January 89 when all did the best they could to make things better. They all cared at the time and still do.
I remember talking to the traffic officer/flight dispatcher about the flight a few years later, I think he re-trained to work in air traffic control/Tower?
His stories about accepting late passengers at the gate as we did back then (LRP's/LMC's) on that evening, made my hairs stand on end.
I also knew the handling agent at Tenerife in 1977 (He handled us too there) who found the last 4 late pax (Mum Dad and 2 kids) for the KLM 747 that were missing and wandering in the terminal and he rushed them out to re-board the Jumbo for Las Palmas...
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Kevin Hunt was a decent kind man and a very approachable pilot as Rog describes. Whilst he was in Stoke Mandeville recovering from his serious spinal injuries one of our BMA Heathrow colleagues was knocked off his motorbike by a car on the Heathrow Spur road. Sadly the person incurred the same result as Kevin, serious spinal injuries which left him unable to walk. I asked Kevin if he would be kind enough to chat to the young man, who was in Stoke Mandeville at the same time. Kevin being Kevin didn't hesitate and met up with the young lad.
Yes Kevin made a costly mistake that fateful night but he was a lovely human being. RIP my old friend.
Yes Kevin made a costly mistake that fateful night but he was a lovely human being. RIP my old friend.
We cannot change what happened on the day . But thank you all those professionals , who did it right afterwards. For your professionalism , backbone and compassion .
rgds condor .
rgds condor .
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I had met Kevin once before over a beer in Glasgow. Certainly a likable gentleman. That night my mother a warden for old folk in Kegworth phoned me in tears. She had heard a plane crash. I was a member of BALPA AIG and then an F/O with Orion in my final month before moving on. I grabbed my jacket and headed to the airport. Orion Ops told me it was a BMI B737. The police let me through their roadblock as I had an ID stating my role with BALPA. I guess I was on the scene about 15 minutes after the accident. I walked down the right-hand side of the aircraft, found the nose gear in the centre of the motorway and then worked my way up the left-hand side. I ended up working at door 1L for probably the next three hours helping get the remaining survivors off. More importantly, I watched Kevin being slowly cut out and removed from the flight deck. Not a night I shall forget.
I have always wondered how many of those killed would have survived the impact if they had been sitting in rearward facing seats. Having spent a couple of thousand hours flying facing aft, both as pax in RAF passenger aircraft which all had rearward facing seats, and down the back of a Victor, I have never felt the slightest discomfort flying that way. Indeed for several years after I left the service, flying facing forward as a passenger seemed distinctly odd to me. I am 99% certain that there is no chance that civil airlines will ever adopt rear facing seats as a policy - it would be a brave maker/operator to be the first to make such a decision, but I think it's a pity. I remember a book on aircraft crashes called "It Doesn't Matter Where You Sit", and that is probably true for the majority of accidents, but there will always be some, like this one, where the direction you are facing could mean the difference between life and death.
The 16g seat standard would have made far more difference than aft facing seats - aft facing doesn't help much when the seats collapse on each other.
In fact, if I recall correctly, this was one of the accidents that lead to the 16g seat standard.
In fact, if I recall correctly, this was one of the accidents that lead to the 16g seat standard.
