Location of Engine
 

The earlier picture of an engine with TR engaged continues to confuse. The picture appears to show the engine at the END of a runway. I wonder if that was a genuine picture and, if so, how can that be?

Not sure about the picture, but one engine was significantly (actually very) far away from the other. First debri from the plane is said to have been found some 150m off the runaway to the right (most of the rest was spreaded over 3-400m away, I think).

I think parts of the airplane were moved kind of early on during rescue and fire efforts, trying to find victims and survivors. One of the engines was picked-up much earlier than the other. The last two unaccounted victims couldn't be found until larger pieces were moved the following day.

Huh?

Somehow I don't think this is a likely scenario.

Mmmmmm.....do you think?

Airline Transport World report does not support engine fire speculation . . .

Spanair crash probe: Video of failed takeoff doesn't support engine fire theory
Monday August 25, 2008

Spanish investigators are backing away from blaming an engine fire for last week's Spanair MD-82 crash following emergence of a video of the failed takeoff that shows no signs of fire until after the aircraft, which elevated only a few meters off the ground, crashed back down on the runway.

Initial speculation following the accident that killed 153 passengers and crew centered on a possible engine fire (ATWOnline, Aug. 22), but investigators are finding little evidence to support that theory and believe there may have been multiple causes, El Pais reported. Civil Aviation Director General Manuel Batista told the newspaper that "more than one breakdown" likely caused the accident. "I'm not so sure the engine failed," he said. Even if it did, he explained, an engine failure would "not cause an accident" unless it combined with "other causes."

Despite initial eyewitness accounts that an explosion and fire were spotted as the aircraft ascended, an airport video of the attempted departure and crash reviewed by inspectors revealed that the fire-sparking explosion occurred "several seconds after" the MD-82 hit the runway, El Pais reported, citing sources close the investigation. The video also revealed that the aircraft fell to the right after its slight ascent.

Controversy continued to swirl around the decision of Spanair maintenance technicians to clear the aircraft for takeoff after it returned to the gate owing to a malfunctioning air intake probe. Jose Maria Delgado, president of the airline's mechanics union Assetma, said the technicians who worked on the plane disabled the probe and cleared the aircraft for takeoff. He said the maintenance manual for the MD-82 allows for it to fly for up to 10 days in that condition, adding that the device is more relevant in cold winter weather because its main purpose is to prevent ice from forming on engines. It is not important during the summer and its disablement is "not at all" relevant to the crash investigation, he told the paper.

But investigators reportedly are examining whether the cockpit warning light indicating that there was a problem with the air intake probe could have been indicating a more serious problem. "The pilot detected something" that caused him initially to abort a takeoff attempt, Bautista noted.

by Aaron Karp

PJ2:

As for uncommanded thrust reverser extensions, this happened decades ago during or soon after rotation to an Eastern Airlines' DC-9 crew.

They identified the 'bad' engine and kept the plane under control.
This is much worse than a simple engine flame-out as any pilot can imagine.
If a pilot rushes and does not coordinate with the other pilot, they won't survive a mistake.

Thrust Reverser
 

This is a serious problem. On 4 July 1966 an Air New Zealand DC 8 ZK>NZB was on a training flight in which simulated engine failure procedures were rehearsed.
The Check Captain rapidly retarded No.4 engine moments after lift off/rotation. This generated inertial forces that caused the associated brake thrust lever to rise and enter the reverse idle detent. Recovery was impossible before the aircraft impacted the ground about its starboard wingtip and cartwheeled several hundred metres along the Main taxiway , adjacent to the main runway, with a/c breaking up and catching fire in the process. Two of the five crew on board were killed. There were no passengers.
This accident highlighted a potentially fatal flaw in the DC8 throttle system not previously encountered during developmental or test flying, and led to subsequent modifications.
If a thrust reverser had been engaged at a critical moment in the rotation/lift off recovery may have been impossible.

This line from the ATWO report quoted above looks confusing to me:

As seen from this pic, RAT probe is located way forward of the engines under the cockpit so how the heck could it (???) or its heater prevent icing on the engines??
http://i35.tinypic.com/mio106.jpg

Ignition Override;

I didn't know about the Eastern incident. I know we had an accidental deployment at 350 on a '9 in the late 60's early '70's; it tore the reverser off, rolled the airplane near 90deg but the crew recovered.

A reverser deployed accidently is indeed a very serious circumstance from which recovery can be difficult to not possible depending upon flight regime and the stated crew coordination. The 320 drill was to "control roll with rudder, perform the engine shutdown drill"...having done it in the sim it was "academically" controllable if you were quick but it was no mere engine fire (which is even simpler than an engine failure most times), again, as stated.

Yup, the old PanAmerican configuration check.
I follow it, likewise...before every takeoff, without exception.

Tu-134 crash - any similarities?
 

Here is an airport camera shot of a crash involving a similarly designed (2 rear mounted engines) Tu-134 Russian aircraft:

YouTube - Tu-134 crash (full version)


The scenario is very close to this one here: long takeoff roll eating up much of the rwy, feeble liftoff, l/h roll (r/h in our case), falling back on the rwy, break up and fire.

What do you think?

Not the same at all, I think. In the TU case, one engine failed (forget if it was birdstrike or something else, you can see it on the video), and the pilot aborted (I seem to remember it was a mistake). Then, they landed back (not fell) and just overshot the runway; there was no damage prior to that. Luckily, they walked away from it (don't remember if everybody walked, but some definitely did, and there were no fatalities).

Was there any significant crosswind. If so the bang heard could be a compressor stall on one side leading to reduced power take off ?

At this point, talks of a "bang" noise heard before the airplane hit the ground for the first time are not necessarily reliable.

Only survivors (and not all) speak of hearing a bang, but never before being airbone (which only lasted 6 seconds) and it's unclear whether it may have been when they already hit the ground or prior to that. They may just be confused. Very possibly they heard the "bang" when the airplane first touched ground with the wing to then "continue" bouncing around some 6 times on the ground until it caught in fire and crashed some >200m (3-400m likely) away.

They all describe the airplane as moving "side-to-side" (possibly rolling) and falling very shortly after airbone, though. And one survivors speaks of: "lift off, steep side-to-side 'weird' (erratic) movement, hearing a bang, crashing, loss of memory til she found herself outside the airplane amid mud".

Survivors are 8 women and 7 men age 22-60 plus 3 children (6-11). 2 survivors are still in very serious condition. The 3 children among them are not in extreme danger (boy and girl with single leg fracture and another boy with skull fracture and other face wounds).

wall street journal: focus on wing flaps!
 

Focus on Wing Flaps
In Spanair Jet Crash
No Evidence Found
Of Engine Failure
In Preliminary View
By ANDY PASZTOR
August 25, 2008;*Page*A7


The Spanair jetliner that crashed during takeoff from Madrid last week apparently didn't suffer an engine shutdown or fire before impact, according to people familiar with the details, but investigators suspect movable panels on the wings weren't properly extended.

As preliminary information trickled in over the weekend about the accident, which killed 154 people, an international team of experts continued to comb the wreckage looking for parts of the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 used to extend its flaps, these people said. The flaps are movable panels at the rear of the wings designed to provide extra lift during takeoffs.

Another major goal of the team is to determine whether some internal fault or engine-control setting may have caused a malfunction in the twin-engine jet -- a workhorse for international airlines since the 1980s.

At this point, investigators believe the engines were working properly and putting out adequate thrust.

It's still too early for investigators to draw definitive conclusions, and Spanish government officials and a spokesman for the airline, which is owned by Scandinavian airline SAS AB, have declined to comment on the direction of the investigation.

Several people familiar with the effort said various portions of the plane that have been recovered, along with video footage taken by cameras at the airport, don't show any signs of fire or explosion during takeoff. Initially, eyewitness reports and comments from airport officials indicated that flames were coming out of the left engine during takeoff.

Investigators believe both engines were turning as the plane struggled to get airborne using much of the roughly 10,000-foot-long runway, flew briefly and then smashed back to the ground.

Investigators in the next few days intend to enhance video images, while the U.K.'s Air Accidents Investigation Branch will attempt to determine what happened by examining the plane's so-called black boxes, which record flight parameters and cockpit conversations. At this point, investigators don't believe that a defect detected in an outside-temperature sensor before takeoff played any significant role in the accident.

According to people familiar with the Spanair probe, investigators are looking at a variety of possible causes but they are focused on trying to determine whether the pilots may have been distracted during the pre-flight checklist, or received incorrect indications about flap settings. Two U.S. jetliners have crashed since the 1980s because pilots failed to deploy flaps as part of their normal checklist procedures before takeoff.

Yes the bang could have been the aircraft contacting the ground but little mention of possible intake stalling so far. Could anybody please post the Barajas weather actual at the time ?

Someone has if you would take the trouble to look it up yourself in this very thread!

Please would people stop posting irrelevancies and primitive theories of their own! It is making it difficult to sort wheat from the chaff with this cascade of idiocy. 43 pages on very little is absurd!

Yes and that's also what BOAC taught me when I did the B 707 conversion in 1970 - stuck with me since!

sevenstrokeroll,

according to what you said at the end of your post, which is also valid, but this case it should be focused on whether the a/c lifted off or not (some survivors mentioned to have lifted off or they may have confused with the rotation??)...only if confirmed not lifted off the ground that theory of an incorrect or absent drill of the before take off checklist by the pilots could be brought up, otherwise flaps were selected correctly.

over 10 years ago in South America there was a B737 which because of bad cockpit procedures & no discipline of checklists at all, started the take off roll with flaps up, disregarded the TO warning sound thinking of a false one (even more crazy on them), but the thing is the a/c rotated but obviously never lifted off, all dead at the end of the runway.

So, the flaps setting issue in this case should be related only to that lift off...unless any asymetric flaps setting not been checked during checklist?? this last i don't think so...

Me too Bob, trouble is on overstretched aircraft like MD's the Stab Trim 'Green Band' can be moved as well...