TOM stall?
 

Heard a rumour of a Thomson fly 737 stalling in the approach phase, anyone know the story here?

There was G-BYAG at Girona in 1999...

I guess he meant in the UK area, not UK airlines.

nothing like giving the press something to play with eh? Honiley considering you say you have no facts you are still quoting figures that can be used against all of us in this industry.:ugh:

Except the 747 at Stansted then, and the Loganair ones

Either way, idle speculation is hardly useful - is it under investigation or not? If not, then no more should be said.

Why make a fuss?

Probably bait for a media story?:hmm:

BYAI

Pilotbear:The best way to avoid giving the press something to write about is not to stall an a/c full of pax.

This is Pprune and the R represents 'rumour' ... that's exactly what Honiley takes the trouble to point out and whether there is any truth underlying the rumour or not, if it raises our consciousness to errors that any of us might one day be guilty of then that at least is a positive outcome.

poorwonderingwun,

I agree with your sentiments - don't have the problem to start with (assuming there was one in this case) ...

But this is the BIG problem with PPRuNe - people with inside expert knowledge seem to be more than happy to dump it into an open public forum.

You can be damn sure that there are no other professional groups that regularly accuse each other of all sorts of negligance on a public bulletin board.

There are an awful lot of 'commercial pilots' out there than need to show some professionalism and stay away from this type of very damaging rumour mongering.

If indeed this incident occurred as advertised, then the AAIB, CAA and other relevant authorities will take the neccessary steps to ensure that lessons get learned. We have one of the best aviation regulators in the world - let them get on with it ...

I have no problem with an open honest approach. The moment Joe Public thinks you're hiding things ('cos you don't think they will like them) you lose their trust, never mind respect c.f. most politicians.

I have it on good authority that it is true.
Something like 45 degrees nose up with a speed less than 90 kts.
Will obviously be the subject of a full investigation

Not commenting on the alleged incident, but more of a general query regarding the 737 stall protection system with which I am not familiar. Is it actually possible to stall in the 'conventional' sense (ie, not g-stall or shock stall) an a/c fitted with a modern stall protection system.

My understanding of such systems was that they would ensure a minimum airspeed for any given configuration, and limit the a/c in pitch so that if level flight could not be maintained at the required airspeed, a descent would be the result rather than a stall.

:confused:

737 has a stick shaker, but not a stick pusher. So yes, it is very well possible to stall it.

Maude Charle - Wrong

These aircraft are not too far removed from the Wright Flyer. V Basic and will bite back if neglected.

Your comments are forgiveable in light of the bar talk I have heard over the years from people whom should know better.

As regards the BOH speculation, I gather it was not all that special, will see what the investigation unearths.

Yes it did happen, yes it is subject to enquiry which is ongoing at the present time.
Figures given not far from actual.

Yes.

Even aircraft fitted with a stall pusher may actually have it set such that it does not trigger until an angle of attack higher than the "natural" stalling angle of the wing. This would be for a case where the natural stall is relatively benign (and basically certifiable) but there is a requirement to prevent excursions into an angle-of-attack regime where a deep stall is possible. This applies to (some) T-tailed designs.

There's no huge difference aerodynamically between what I think you're calling a coventional stall (deceleration in essentially level flight at nominally 1'g') and a "g-stall" (either deceleration at elevated 'g', such as the decelerating turning stall used for civil certification, or a progressive increase in load factor at constant speed, such as used for the buffet boundary penetration tests in civil certification). Provided tha Mach and altitude are similar, it doesn't matter much what the load factor is (allowing for issues such as wing twist induced by load and inertia distribution, of course).

Just as interest, BRITs B737-204 series a/c, might have been the ADV version only, memory not to good, had a stick nudger as well as a shaker.
So you might find other CAA reg B737-200s might have had them as well. :ok:

Alt Flap,

Go to the Professional Doctors forum or the Professional Lawyers forum. It happens all the time.;)

Those Professional are slandering each other all the time. No wonder they don’t get the respect us pilots receive.:}

737, 45 degree pitch up, <90 Knots. :confused:

The length of the investigation would depend on how badly the FDR and CVR were damaged.

So nobody actually knows anything. That's why this site is a 'Rumour Network'!:)

JTP,
Please read my previous post. The final part of the investigation takes place tomorrow. The AAIB have been investigating said aircraft for the last week or so. Extensive checks have been carried out under the watchful eye of the AAIB.
Forget,
All equipment removed was delicately handled and totally undamaged!


Edited. Checks on auto throttle and auto pilot

You gotta love this forum!

The Grim EPR - You have to be a Microsoft Flight Sim kinda guy?

"Apparently the crew experienced an auto throttle problem (uncommanded thrust reduction). They tried unsuccessfully to increase thrust, but were unable until the auto pilot and auto throttle were switched off" :confused::confused:

You clearly have zero concept of how basic this aircraft is - Both the flight controls and the thrust levers are mechanically linked, directly to the actuators. ie - Push the throttles forward and the MEC fuel valves on the engine will command more fuel into the cans.

Perhaps we need a closed forum for Pro-pilots.

Dogma
With reference to the "Perhaps we should have a closed forum for Pro -Pilots"
Whilst i have nothing to do with aviation industry as far as employment goes, i read the opinions of all people on these boards with interest(some with far more knowledge of aviation than i will ever have! ), and whilst some forums have to be closed (understandable in some circumstances).making it closed to the likes of me is in my opinion a little unfair.
I find it interesting to read what the aviation fraternity think about things that are happening or have happened to increase my overall knowledge of this industry and to make my travelling experience as pleasurable as possible.
I am not one for commenting on things normally on PPRune but feel it would be a shame for people like me who are not in the industry but are interested in it all the same not being able to read the wealth of knowledge and experience that appear on these boards.


HLXPAX

Difficult to assess what actually happend from these post's but one thing is for sure - the basics weren't happening, i.e no-one was flying the aeroplane!!!

Not meaning to be awkward here, but it was previously mentioned that the a/c was configured with flap 30 at the time, thus making it likely that it was during the last 1200 feet of the approach. Wouldn't that make a full stall recovery a bit unlikely?

Much more probable (if true at all) that the speed got low for whatever reason and the stick-shaker triggered. This in itself isn't that uncommon - my Company used to operate the B737-300 and I can remember at least three occasions when reports were filed for stick-shaker activation: twice due loss of situational awareness when dispatching with A/T u/s, and once due to the A/T being disconnected when a/c was high on glideslope.

Also, this would not be noticeable to the pax... however, a full stall recovery losing so much height, with 45 degrees NU pitch, at 90 knots with overboosted CFM's... I'd say that the pax would find that mildly uneasing. It's not like they would just get off the plane thinking "well that wasn't weird at all, was it?"... I had a pax phone a newspaper once just to report that we had stopped the a/c on the runway, and he'd never noticed that before (?!)...

Fine if people like you in these sections stuck to 'reading' but far too many people with limited knowledge are involving themselves in discourse way beyond their comprehension or knowledge, without letting on. It makes a mockery of any serious discussion by industry people. We've even had aviation armchair hobbyists announcing here how they would have handled a recent emergency (differently to the pilots involved)!

Dogma raised a very valid point, and was quite correct in criticising the post. It is an absurd statement for anyone that knows the 737-300. Perhaps until more information is released, we can refrain from postulating or stabbing in the dark? A lot of what has been written is evidently junk.

Here, here.

Too many are not open about who they are. Fewer fantacist armchair enthusiast comments would be fabulous.

There must be more to this than the 'rumours' reported. I really cannot believe a qualified crew from a major european company have actually stalled a servicable 737? :confused:

I too say leave this one to rest for the full picture to emerge.

I used to fly for TFly and remember we always disconnected A/T to land. At BA we ARM Speed mode by presseing the SPEED button and thus A/T stays in, this gives alpha floor protection. I think that this is a better method in light of this conversation. Doesn't help my landings though!

FlyingTom - you need to re-read your manuals! It does NOT provide 'alpha-floor protection' - it merely applies power if the speed gets too low. Someone in BA has always thought this was 'apha-floor'.

IF you mishandle a low-engined a/c and get the speed too low, with full power you get a lot of nose-up. Have a re-read also of your 'unusual attitude' notes or whatever BA call them.

BA themselves nearly lost a 747 recently at LHR at an extreme attitude and low speed, and I think with stick-shake. It is somewhere on here.

OK, minimum speed reversion is the proper name (with an A symbol in the window, hence it is incorrectly named by people like me).

Power is applied if you let the speed get to low, which is a good thing in my book.

PS. the 747 was TOGA' itus.

unbelievable
 

NineForks Said
Don't read any accident/incident reports, or you might get overwhelmed with what some fully qualified crews can do with perfectly serviceable aircraft... :eek:

The Invisible Man wrote:

...absolute rubbish. :cool:

Still, it's nice to see so many experts here who have already got the whole thing worked out. :ugh:

Then we had:

Whilst the grammar and syntax here are unforgiveable, the sentiment is laudable. :ok:

...especially when they rely on automatics day in, day out.:ugh:

I'm afraid we rely on auto thrust so much now it is actually becoming a serious problem whenever you fly with an aeroplane where it is unserviceable. I don't know if that is a factor with this incident. The level of relying on automatics is such now that Airbuses are banned without autothrust in various places now, aren't they? I know when I have flown without A/T, sooner or later it is inevitable the speed does something unexpected through you relying on it so throroughly.

Flight story:

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...stigation.html

Flight story. Who needs FDRs.......... :hmm:

FOK

Along with the details I picked up I gather it's been tried a few times in the sim as part of the investigation - outcome wasn't good! Which is why the AAIB are considering it an accident.

It never fails to amaze me how ridiculously trusting people are of the results of using a TRAINING simulator to investigate the behaviour of an aircraft operated outside of the training envelope.

@Mad

Correct.:)

@FlyingOfficerkite

If you want to know how an A310 with 88 pitch up and 30 kts reacts, check this:

http://aviation-safety.net/database/...?id=19910211-0