The Atlantic Glider revisited - official report released (Merged)
Iconoclast
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: The home of Dudley Dooright-Where the lead dog is the only one that gets a change of scenery.
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Aw gee wiz. I'd like to honor my mother, my producer.........
To: Pigboat
Almost all of ny helicopter models are manufacturers models and some are custom built. A good portion of my fixed wing models are manufactures models. I have quite a few that are custom built and and a lot were purchased from a local model store. I have several factory model amphibs but I'm sorry to say no PBY. My favorite is a 1:72 model of a Coast Guard HO3S in the livery of a helicopter I maintained and flew in when I was in the Guard. This was built from a kit.
I didn't build any of them. My hands are too shakey and my fingers would most likely get super glued together.
When they signed me for the interview they asked if there was some place with an aviation atmosphere where they could conduct the interview. I told them wait until you get in my basement office. They were very impressed. They took a lot of footage of the collection but it never got on the show. They spent almost 4 hours in the interview and 80% of it ended on the cutting room floor.
Hi Lu. That's a great model collection Are they all from kits, or are they manufacturers models?
I didn't build any of them. My hands are too shakey and my fingers would most likely get super glued together.
When they signed me for the interview they asked if there was some place with an aviation atmosphere where they could conduct the interview. I told them wait until you get in my basement office. They were very impressed. They took a lot of footage of the collection but it never got on the show. They spent almost 4 hours in the interview and 80% of it ended on the cutting room floor.
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Danny Fine---"Capt.PPrune"...
I wholeheartedly agree with your post. I suspected as much from a few posters.
As far as the "Atlantic Glider", I was flying a trans-Atlantic sector that night to LGW in a 767 and heard the Air Transat flight at the beginning, before they got out of range on 123.45; I was VERY impressed with the coolness and the professionalism of this crew, trying to make Lajes. When I heard the next day that they made it, I was very relieved and even though this incident has human factors and obvious errors associated with it, I am VERY impressed with the airmanship of that crew in landing safely. ALPA awarded them the "Superior Airmanship Award" last year, which says alot.
I'm sure the investigation will highlight the original mistakes, but applaud the crew for their reaction to the potential loss of the aircraft and souls on board.
Man, I wish I could see that "Discovery Channel" program in the US.
I wholeheartedly agree with your post. I suspected as much from a few posters.
As far as the "Atlantic Glider", I was flying a trans-Atlantic sector that night to LGW in a 767 and heard the Air Transat flight at the beginning, before they got out of range on 123.45; I was VERY impressed with the coolness and the professionalism of this crew, trying to make Lajes. When I heard the next day that they made it, I was very relieved and even though this incident has human factors and obvious errors associated with it, I am VERY impressed with the airmanship of that crew in landing safely. ALPA awarded them the "Superior Airmanship Award" last year, which says alot.
I'm sure the investigation will highlight the original mistakes, but applaud the crew for their reaction to the potential loss of the aircraft and souls on board.
Man, I wish I could see that "Discovery Channel" program in the US.
Apache for HEMS - Strafe those Survivors!
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A lot of people are getting awful high and mighty about "computer glitches" and indications which the crew should have acted on and "how they should have known / noticed what was actually happening".
Well, I enjoy the luxury of operating a twin engine, full glass-cockpit, single pilot IFR helicopter built by a well known european corporation. It is a wonderful machine and tremendously capable, HOWEVER..... We have had a number of incidents recently, all of which led to MORs, of electrical glitches or failures. On each occasion the indications and warnings that the crew observed should not have been possible ( the manufacturers words ), the actions in the emergency procedures cards did not resolve the situation and the crew had to analyse the fault in the air and use their best judgement to resolve the situation.
Computer glitches ARE a reality in very electric aircraft, confusing indications with drills that do not resolve the problem ARE a reality. Manufacturers subsequently changing procedures given the benefit of someones often painful experience (and often denying this as the reason) ARE a reality.
The crew may have made errors, but if the manufacturer saw fit to change the drills or update the software as a result of this incident then things cannot have been entirely right when this crew found themselves in trouble.
One last thought, we all make mistakes or end up in situations we wouldn't choose, how you cope with those situations is what matters. On this occasion exceptional flying skill and airmanship averted disaster, big hand of respect to these guys for pulling it out of the fire - how many of us can be sure we would have handled the whole situation as well?
Well, I enjoy the luxury of operating a twin engine, full glass-cockpit, single pilot IFR helicopter built by a well known european corporation. It is a wonderful machine and tremendously capable, HOWEVER..... We have had a number of incidents recently, all of which led to MORs, of electrical glitches or failures. On each occasion the indications and warnings that the crew observed should not have been possible ( the manufacturers words ), the actions in the emergency procedures cards did not resolve the situation and the crew had to analyse the fault in the air and use their best judgement to resolve the situation.
Computer glitches ARE a reality in very electric aircraft, confusing indications with drills that do not resolve the problem ARE a reality. Manufacturers subsequently changing procedures given the benefit of someones often painful experience (and often denying this as the reason) ARE a reality.
The crew may have made errors, but if the manufacturer saw fit to change the drills or update the software as a result of this incident then things cannot have been entirely right when this crew found themselves in trouble.
One last thought, we all make mistakes or end up in situations we wouldn't choose, how you cope with those situations is what matters. On this occasion exceptional flying skill and airmanship averted disaster, big hand of respect to these guys for pulling it out of the fire - how many of us can be sure we would have handled the whole situation as well?
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"how they should have known / noticed what was actually happening".
..pretty basic really.
we all make mistakes or end up in situations we wouldn't choose, how you cope with those situations is what matters.
..pretty BIG mistake...you make these kinda mistakes, you have no business being in a cockpit.Same deal for crews of UA DC-8, LM DC-9, AC 767, HF A310.
exceptional flying skill and airmanship averted disaster, big hand of respect to these guys for pulling it out of the fire
Try "pure arse". Really don't know where some here are coming from... In my dictionary, airmanship includes not running outta gas..
Apache for HEMS - Strafe those Survivors!
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scanscanscan
I have always felt that a good flight engineer is worth his weight in gold, especially when life starts to get interesting.
Only thing is, given some of the flight engineers I've worked with that could be an awful lot of gold!
I have always felt that a good flight engineer is worth his weight in gold, especially when life starts to get interesting.
Only thing is, given some of the flight engineers I've worked with that could be an awful lot of gold!
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Agree that a good Flight Engineer might have made it all go away, but what can you do when the company doesn't want to pay the freight for a third set of eyes, ears, and lobes?
Answer has to be: Make the G**#% aircraft tell you what it knows whenever the heck you want to find out.
The aircraft either knew or could have quickly reckoned what was happening in regard to fuel ....problem was the crew evidently had no procedure available to depart from the SOP menus and ask the airframe the pointy kind of questions that would have quickly illuminated the bolix. Cost to add this class of function is not big, but it is a departure from the "we'll tell you what you know when you need to know it" philosophy -- a banality suffisant to offend the highly artistic senses of the designers.
Give it another hundred years and the surviving airframe companies are sure to have this sort of thing figured out.
Answer has to be: Make the G**#% aircraft tell you what it knows whenever the heck you want to find out.
The aircraft either knew or could have quickly reckoned what was happening in regard to fuel ....problem was the crew evidently had no procedure available to depart from the SOP menus and ask the airframe the pointy kind of questions that would have quickly illuminated the bolix. Cost to add this class of function is not big, but it is a departure from the "we'll tell you what you know when you need to know it" philosophy -- a banality suffisant to offend the highly artistic senses of the designers.
Give it another hundred years and the surviving airframe companies are sure to have this sort of thing figured out.
Azores deadstick landing report released
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Transat report blames pilots
By PAUL KORING
Associated Press
POSTED AT 5:58 AM EDT Monday, Oct 18, 2004
The harrowing, engines-out, emergency landing of a Canadian airliner that ran out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean three years ago could have been avoided if the Air Transat pilots had followed established fuel-leak procedures, the official report into the accident concludes.
Instead of a near-disaster, a routine diversionary landing with plenty of fuel remaining would have resulted if proper produces were followed, Portugal's Aviation Accidents Prevention and Investigation Department says.
Passengers aboard Air Transat's Airbus A-330 cheered and applauded Captain Robert Piché as a hero after he slammed the unpowered jet onto the runway at Lajes air base in the Azores after gliding for 19 minutes after the second engine failed.
But accident investigators determined that the pilots turned a fuel leak into a near-disaster by failing to recognize it and trying to correct from memory -- rather than by following a checklist -- what they believed was a weight imbalance, during which time they pumped tonnes of fuel overboard.
The Globe and Mail obtained a copy of the Portuguese final report into the Aug. 24, 2001, accident. The report is expected to be released today.
Efforts to contact Air Transat yesterday for comment about the findings were unsuccessful.
Capt. Piché's extraordinary airmanship, including making a steep, 360-degree turn only a few kilometres from the threshold of the Lajes runway to lose sufficient height, then gliding to a landing, impressed the Portuguese investigators.
"The captain's skill in conducting the engines-out glide to a successful landing averted a catastrophic accident and saved the lives of the passengers and crew," the report says.
However, the report makes clear that such heroics would not have been needed had the pilots shut down the right-side engine (where the fuel was leaking) or had not pumped tonnes of fuel from the undamaged left wing into the right-wing tanks, from where it was poured overboard at more than three kilograms a second.
"Either of these actions would have conserved the fuel in the left-wing tanks and allowed for a landing at Lajes with the left engine operating," the report says.
Instead, "opening the crossfeed valve put the fuel in the left tank at risk, and initiated a worsening of the serious fuel-leak situation."
The crew failed to comprehend that the aircraft had a major fuel leak, even after the second engine died.
"Notwithstanding indications that there had been a massive loss of fuel, the crew did not believe that there was an actual fuel leak," the report says. Instead, the crew believed they were dealing with a computer malfunction.
Details of the flight-crew conversations were lost to investigators because the pilots inadvertently recorded over the 90-minute cockpit voice tape after the landing.
Investigators established that fuel began leaking from the twin-engined, wide-bodied jet more than an hour before the pilots noticed anything amiss. When they did, they treated the problem as a fuel imbalance and failed to heed the checklist warning of fuel-leak possibility.
They did not call up the checklist on the computer screen, relying instead on memory for their actions. Fifteen minutes later, with the fuel level dropping alarmingly and below the minimum needed to reach Lisbon, the crew elected to divert to the Azores. But they continued to transfer the dwindling fuel from the left wing to the leaking right side.
At 6:13 a.m., with the aircraft more than 240 kilometres from Lajes, the right-side engine flamed out for lack of fuel. At 6:23, the crew radioed a full-scale mayday. Flight attendants were told to prepare the passengers for a ditching. Three minutes later, more than 100 kilometres from the nearest land, the left engine flamed out. During the next 19 minutes, in darkness and with only limited instruments, Capt. Piché nursed the unpowered aircraft to a landing.
Investigators determined that the fuel leak was caused by improper installation of the right-side engine nearly a week earlier. Air Transat technicians, dealing with a slightly different model of Rolls-Royce engine than they were familiar with, had improperly attached fuel and hydraulic lines to the engine. The lines chafed, eventually fracturing the fuel line.
The report says that the Air Transat flight crew were inadequately prepared to recognize and deal with fuel leaks.
"The flight crew members had never experienced a fuel leak situation during operations or training," the report says, adding the "lack of training in the symptoms of fuel-leak situations resulted in this crew not being adequately prepared."
By PAUL KORING
Associated Press
POSTED AT 5:58 AM EDT Monday, Oct 18, 2004
The harrowing, engines-out, emergency landing of a Canadian airliner that ran out of fuel over the Atlantic Ocean three years ago could have been avoided if the Air Transat pilots had followed established fuel-leak procedures, the official report into the accident concludes.
Instead of a near-disaster, a routine diversionary landing with plenty of fuel remaining would have resulted if proper produces were followed, Portugal's Aviation Accidents Prevention and Investigation Department says.
Passengers aboard Air Transat's Airbus A-330 cheered and applauded Captain Robert Piché as a hero after he slammed the unpowered jet onto the runway at Lajes air base in the Azores after gliding for 19 minutes after the second engine failed.
But accident investigators determined that the pilots turned a fuel leak into a near-disaster by failing to recognize it and trying to correct from memory -- rather than by following a checklist -- what they believed was a weight imbalance, during which time they pumped tonnes of fuel overboard.
The Globe and Mail obtained a copy of the Portuguese final report into the Aug. 24, 2001, accident. The report is expected to be released today.
Efforts to contact Air Transat yesterday for comment about the findings were unsuccessful.
Capt. Piché's extraordinary airmanship, including making a steep, 360-degree turn only a few kilometres from the threshold of the Lajes runway to lose sufficient height, then gliding to a landing, impressed the Portuguese investigators.
"The captain's skill in conducting the engines-out glide to a successful landing averted a catastrophic accident and saved the lives of the passengers and crew," the report says.
However, the report makes clear that such heroics would not have been needed had the pilots shut down the right-side engine (where the fuel was leaking) or had not pumped tonnes of fuel from the undamaged left wing into the right-wing tanks, from where it was poured overboard at more than three kilograms a second.
"Either of these actions would have conserved the fuel in the left-wing tanks and allowed for a landing at Lajes with the left engine operating," the report says.
Instead, "opening the crossfeed valve put the fuel in the left tank at risk, and initiated a worsening of the serious fuel-leak situation."
The crew failed to comprehend that the aircraft had a major fuel leak, even after the second engine died.
"Notwithstanding indications that there had been a massive loss of fuel, the crew did not believe that there was an actual fuel leak," the report says. Instead, the crew believed they were dealing with a computer malfunction.
Details of the flight-crew conversations were lost to investigators because the pilots inadvertently recorded over the 90-minute cockpit voice tape after the landing.
Investigators established that fuel began leaking from the twin-engined, wide-bodied jet more than an hour before the pilots noticed anything amiss. When they did, they treated the problem as a fuel imbalance and failed to heed the checklist warning of fuel-leak possibility.
They did not call up the checklist on the computer screen, relying instead on memory for their actions. Fifteen minutes later, with the fuel level dropping alarmingly and below the minimum needed to reach Lisbon, the crew elected to divert to the Azores. But they continued to transfer the dwindling fuel from the left wing to the leaking right side.
At 6:13 a.m., with the aircraft more than 240 kilometres from Lajes, the right-side engine flamed out for lack of fuel. At 6:23, the crew radioed a full-scale mayday. Flight attendants were told to prepare the passengers for a ditching. Three minutes later, more than 100 kilometres from the nearest land, the left engine flamed out. During the next 19 minutes, in darkness and with only limited instruments, Capt. Piché nursed the unpowered aircraft to a landing.
Investigators determined that the fuel leak was caused by improper installation of the right-side engine nearly a week earlier. Air Transat technicians, dealing with a slightly different model of Rolls-Royce engine than they were familiar with, had improperly attached fuel and hydraulic lines to the engine. The lines chafed, eventually fracturing the fuel line.
The report says that the Air Transat flight crew were inadequately prepared to recognize and deal with fuel leaks.
"The flight crew members had never experienced a fuel leak situation during operations or training," the report says, adding the "lack of training in the symptoms of fuel-leak situations resulted in this crew not being adequately prepared."
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Details of the flight-crew conversations were lost to investigators because the pilots inadvertently recorded over the 90-minute cockpit voice tape after the landing.
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Rotornut
I know it's an awful drag to actually read the report, but why don't you give it a try. It doesn't have any joined up writing and doesn't use many terribly long words.
If you do read the relevant section you will see that deletion of the CVR data was inadvertent. However it is obviously much more fun to make sly insinuations.
I know it's an awful drag to actually read the report, but why don't you give it a try. It doesn't have any joined up writing and doesn't use many terribly long words.
If you do read the relevant section you will see that deletion of the CVR data was inadvertent. However it is obviously much more fun to make sly insinuations.
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Read the report
Interesting read. As with all accidents there is a chain of events that leads to the incident taking place. Blaming the Captain/FO for doing the checklist from memory misses any number of factors. Interesting ones for me were:
1) Training at the time did not seem to cover fuel leaks - so the crew were not trained to look for this.
2) Fuel leaks only appeared as a caution note on the fuel imbalance proceedure!
Overall sounds like the crew did an amazing job on getting this one down and putting all the blame on their doing a "check list from memory" is a gross oversimplification of the man steps that led to this incident.
Mac
Report says that the procedures on pulling CBs were not clear and the crew pulled 2 out of 3 - hence the data got zapped.
Mac
1) Training at the time did not seem to cover fuel leaks - so the crew were not trained to look for this.
2) Fuel leaks only appeared as a caution note on the fuel imbalance proceedure!
Overall sounds like the crew did an amazing job on getting this one down and putting all the blame on their doing a "check list from memory" is a gross oversimplification of the man steps that led to this incident.
Mac
Report says that the procedures on pulling CBs were not clear and the crew pulled 2 out of 3 - hence the data got zapped.
Mac