Munich Incident
 

With respect to Angels and Hellraiser, surely a little premature to praise "great work by the crew" and a "perfect job". My recollection of the F70 is an aircraft which can cope well with icing conditions and heavy snowfall....... assuming of course that the icing systems have been selected ON in a timely manner! On this basis maybe we could praise the crew of the Air Florida 737 which went into the Potomac River? Sorry to be cynical but this may well turn out to be another finger-trouble ba**s-up. bm

Looks to me like the snow on the ground probably did much for saving the aeroplane and it's occupents.

It is too early to speculate who the heroes and villains are, and where any faults lie. However, I seem to remember a SAS MD81 crashing some years back after takeoff due to ice breaking from the wings and entering the rear mounted engines. Anyone else remember it and could it be a possibility with the F70?

ES ;)

Nearly exactly a month ago, I asked this question about whether multi-engine pilots should practice PFLs. There was some good discussion on the subject (before the thread got sidetracked into talking about engine maintenance issues).

If the cause of this accident is shown to be icing problems in both engines, it might be worth considering my question again, since this is clearly a case where it doesn't matter how many engines you've got - if there is an icing problem which prevents your engines from running properly, you're going down.

Obviously no need for the pilots in this case to practice their PFLs - they seem to have been perfectly capable of ensuring a safe outcome. Nice one!

FFF
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Electric Sky:

There was certainly an instance of a SAS MD80 series coming down in Sweden about 12 years ago after ingesting snow into its engines on take off; there were some fatalities in spite of a very professional forced landing by the crew.

The sad thing about this incident was that it happened only a couple of years after an almost identical situation with a Paramount Airlines MD83 charter from Gatwick to Nice during an unseasonal March blizzard. On this occasion the snow/slush ingestion damaged the engines but still allowed the aircraft to remain airborne - but only just! After a very fraught 40 minutes or so the aircraft made a successful (second) landing attempt at Filton, chosen because of the length of the runway and availability of emergency services, which were thankfully not required. Again it was a masterful recovery by the crew of a very dangerous situation - caused by the build-up of snow/slush on the wings coming off at rotation and going straight back into the engines. I believe that allowable times between de-icing (to which the Paramount aircraft had been subjected) and take off have since been reduced significantly to prevent such an occurence happening again.

Finger trouble or not, they did a bl**dy good job getting it down in one piece.

The last week of 2003 and the first of 2004 have been pretty crappy ones for the aviation biz and we could have easily been looking here at a hole in the ground and 35 more lives to add to the hundreds lost already in the last month.

A cool head and good bit of stick and rudder has turned a catastrophe into a lot of form-filling. Be grateful for that chaps.

Weather?
 

Any actual / forecast weather reports available? Icing layer, freezing fog etc? Weather en route?

Why would the pilots choose a muddy field over a runway if it was only a gear problem. The chance of digging in and turning/cartweeling should be much greater "off road".
Surely they would have chosen to land at a suitable runway???

Fokker's are indeed very suspectible for ice but AUA knows about that very well and they have also learned a lot from SAS accident and did relevant changes in FOM and SOP's.

Wonder what caused it....:uhoh:

Seloco:

There were no fatalaties in the SAS MD80 accident in Sweden, only one serious injury. The primary cause was clear ice on the wings, which broke off during take-off and was ingested into both engines.

Not a likely scenario here, as it apparantly happened during approach.

The above discussions about ice on aircraft from the various respondents , shows a basic misunderstanding about the problem. The previous accidents were all about take off related icing problems...ie ice forming on the aircraft while on the ground and then being ingested by the engines after take off. This is guarded against by de-icing before take off and observing hold over times relevent to the weather conditions. The F 70 being an aircraft with a super critical wing (No leading edge devices too) the hold over times and a clean wing BEFORE take off is vital.

This accident today though was not during this phase of flight , and in no way related to these type of problems. The F70 de-ice / anti ice systems work perfectly well in all ice conditions that I've encountered...as long as they are turned on and operating normally.

power loss during approach
 

At the Austrian Television the AUA chiefpilot made the following statement:

"Die genaue Ursache der Notlandung blieb am Montag nach wie vor unklar: "Unser Flug meldete im Anflug Leistungsprobleme auf beiden Triebwerken", sagte Austrian Airlines Chefpilot Gustav Baldauf Montag im Rahmen einer Pressekonferenz der AUA am Flughafen Wien-Schwechat."

The exact cause of the emergency landing is on monday still unclear: our flight reported in the approach power problems on both engines, said Austrian Airlines Chefpilot Gustav Baldauf at a pressconference at Vienna Airport.


Der Schub sei in etwa 4.000 Metern Höhe auf etwa 30 Prozent zurück gegangen. Er sprach von einer richtigen Entscheidung, auf der Wiese zu landen.

The power went back to about 30% at an altitude of about 4000meter ( 12.000 ft ). He said it was the right decision to land on the field.

Was war mit dem Fahrwerk?

What was with the landing gear ?


Mit der gedrosselten Leistung sei kein Horizontalflug mehr möglich gewesen, sagte Baldauf. Der Kapitän habe daher die Maschine, die um 7.50 Uhr in München landen hätte sollen, sieben Kilometer vom Flughafen entfernt zu Boden gebracht. Gegen 8.07 Uhr sei das Flugzeug auf einer Wiese gelandet, so Baldauf.

With the reduced power a horizontal flight was impossible, said Baldauf. The Captain therefore brought the flight, which was sheduled to land at 7.50 Uhr in Munich, seven kilometers in front of the Airport to the ground, so Baldauf.

Entgegen erster Berichte meinte Baldauf, dass die Fahrwerke der Fokker ausgefahren gewesen seien. Der Pilot habe sie wegen des hohen Luftwiderstandes zunächst wieder eingezogen, und kurz vor der Landung wieder aufgemacht. Möglicherweise seien die hinteren Räder noch nicht ganz heraußen gewesen.

Opposite to first reports, meant Baldauf, that the landing gear had been deploit. The Pilot initially retracted the gear because of the high drag and shortly before landing he lowered the gear again. Maybe the rear wheels didn´t come out all the way yet.

Im Sinkflug sei die Maschine dann kontrolliert niedergegangen, sagte er. Mit einer Geschwindigkeit, die er auf rund 250 km/h schätzte, sei der Pilot gelandet.

In the descend the airplane was controlled brought down, he said. With a speed of about 250 km/h, he guessed, the pilot must have landed.

Hope that gives a few more clues. I am very happy nothing more happened.

Pictures from the incident:

http://www.orf.at/040105-69403/index.html

More pictures .

Loss of thrust could also mean that some sensors of the power plant could have been affected by icing and thus given wrong input for power setting. There is no need for ice ingestion. Rolls Royce Tay is a rather old engine design without FADEC (=computer control). It is quite a long time ago I flew the Fokker 100 so I do not have any special memory of icing problems. I also congratulate for the happy outcome, also in respect of the low visibility close to ground. In snow it is very very difficult to judge altitude and attitude. Fortunately it happened in Munich and not around an airport closer to cities or to mountains.

At 8.07 and in this weather there can't be much light yet. Very well done for such a landing.

BTW they were a bit late on schedule.
Anyone at MUC that time knows of holding delays? That's where you're most likely to pick up ice .... low altitude/ low thrust...

They all got out alive. Top marks to the Captain. End of story. If I ever meet him I will buy him a very large beer.

Speculate all you like. What actually caused the crash? Choose from:

Double engine failure.

Icing leading to double flameout.

Icing leading to compressor stall.

Pilot shut down both engines by mistake.

Pilot ran out of fuel.

Severe airframe icing leading to massive increase in drag.

Ditto leading to massive loss of lift.

Fuel contaminated.

Fuel filters frozen with water caused by internal condensation.

I could go on with another couple of dozen wild guesses - why don't we just wait for the inquiry to tell us the true cause?

Top marks to BOTH of them from me. I´ll buy them both a beer if I ever see them.
Good job Austrian guys.

Interestingly, from what I can see, they all got out by the same forward exit. No other exits were used. Pax must have stayed super cool and, I guess, followed crew instructions. Even though it wasn't a full flight I would have expected to see the overwing exits used on pax personal initiative maybe. Tell you what, I have to confess that if I'd been number 35 (and last) in line I might have been tempted to say, "Sod it" and taken one of those wing exits. After all, no matter how "smooth" the crash-landing may have been, I wouldn't have wanted to hang about, just in case.

Great job by ALL concerned!

BoeingMEL - no offence taken, but as others have pointed out, even if it was finger problems the Captain and F/O got themselves, the cabin crew and the pax down safely.

For that we should be thankful.

Time will tell what caused the loss of engine power and maybe some lessons will be learned.

Cheers.

I have some fond memories of handling the OS contract at LHR, especially the great crews either side of the cockpit door and the long turnarounds with fine hosties that needed entertainment...I digress. Can't say I remember any names here but I have worked this aircraft more than once. A bit worrying as this is the third aircraft I have worked with that has been invloved in a serious incident.

Whatever caused this worrying loss of thrust, I am more than grateful that there were no real injuries, although some may take a while to get over the experience.

"The exceptional pilot tries to avoid the exceptional situations that might require exceptional skill..."

Yet still thumbs up for the positive outcome.

From the Techs, how long would the repairs take in such a case and am I correct in assuming that this is nowhere near a write-off?