The A 300 is a early model of Airbus and was not equipped with the side stick.

This tracic accident reminds me of a discussion we saw here some days back, about cockpit cameras and the likely misusage of the content by others than accident investigators. In this particular accident, I think cockpit cameras would have been of very limited usage (-and yes, I am against them), but recording cameras pointing lenses to specific parts of the aircrafts like the tail, wings, undercarriage etc. would have been of much more value, at least in this case for the investigation of the accident.
I am also sure these outside cameras -if technically advanced, would increase safety and be very useful during many ground operations, e.g. to monitor flight control checks, flaps, ice or snow on wings, closed/open fuel panel, if towbar is disconnected (its often hard to hear the groundman when eng. are running after start), status of landing gear with unsafe cockpit indications in flight etc. etc....

Best wishes to the families of those lost.

I.M Esperto, you are truly unworthy of your alias. Otherwise, you would have known that unlike the later generation A320 family, the older A300s do not have a side stick but a conventional yoke.

I should like to respond to those that call for this thread (and similar ones) to be stopped.

All that is happening in this thread is an extension of what is happening on the ground. If this prang had happened the day before a PRRuNe Bash, then it would have been the subject of conversation for many. People would relay information heard and relate their experience of similar a/c etc.

Some would say, "I'm not going to speculate about this." and go off to chat with others on other topics. Some would avidly discuss it all evening.

It is human nature to try and make sense of the world we live in and the life that we have made for ourselves upon it.
We all know that it will take months for a definitive result but the lives and livelihood of those posting and reading may depend, in part, upon this. Those that do not wish to read the thread, do not have to

As to the charge that journalists may read the thread and then speculate in public, they have always done that! I am sure that when my grandfather was discussing these sorts of topics at Hendon and Croydon airfields in the 1930s, there would have been plenty of journalists ready to buy him a drink and try to get more information.

I can only repeat, discussing this subject is no different to discussing any other, we are being human.

I. M. Esperto
I think what you read with regard to autopilot controlling the take-off, may refere to the autothrottle. As in the Boeing (757 in my case) The autothrottle controls and sets the required EPR or N1 as commanded.

Also the A-300 has no side stick. It has some EFIS and conventional controls. Check out www.airliners.net and search for A-300 flightdeck pictures.
Eff Oh.

I remember this report ealier this year :


AIR safety experts have ordered urgent inspections of hundreds of jet engines because it is feared they could
disintegrate, blasting shards of metal into passenger cabins.

The alert follows three failures in the CF6 engine made by the American company General Electric (GE). The most commonly used engine in wide-bodied passenger jets, it has been in production for 25 years. More than 5,000 have been made, each costing up to £6m.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has carried out a risk assessment and identified 42 British planes with the engines. It is liaising with American authorities to ensure that they are inspected and overhauled.

No aircraft have been grounded, although the National Transportation Safety Board in America has given a warning that the faults could cause a "catastrophic accident".

Aircraft engines are supposed to contain any problems; if there is internal damage, failed parts are designed to eject safely out of the rear.

If broken components shoot through the engine's casing in an "uncontained failure", this could cause a plane to crash. If a hole is made in a plane's cabin, passengers could be sucked out by the low air pressure at high altitudes.

More than 5,000 General Electric CF6 engines have been manufactured. It is fitted to airliners such as the Boeing 767 (above), the DC-10 and the Airbus.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a stream of airworthiness directives requiring immediate scrutiny of the oldest engines.

This follows incidents which have rocked faith in the engine after 200m hours of almost trouble-free flight. They include:

Partial disintegration of the left CF6 engine on a Brussels-bound Continental Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10 on takeoff at Newark near New York last April. Fragments of metal ricocheted off the runway and disabled the right engine. The pilot circled for 30 minutes dumping fuel in preparation for an emergency landing. The plane landed safely using its tail engine.

In two other incidents last year Continental had to abort takeoffs at Newark and Amsterdam after engine failures. The problem was blamed on failure of a lock which caused normally stationary nozzles to rotate and cause damage. GE has introduced a metal plug to hold the nozzles in place until a new nozzle lock can be fitted.

The captain of a Varig Airlines Boeing 767 was able to brake and abort a takeoff in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in June after a CF6 engine partly disintegrated. The failure was blamed on metal fatigue inside the compressor.
This caused cracks in the titanium spools, a series of discs which hold the spinning blades that compress incoming air. If the blades come lose they can shoot through the engine casing.

GE has been ordered to increase inspections of the spools and is offering airlines large discounts to replace them with new ones.

A CF6 engine on a US Airways jet undergoing maintenance checks blew apart on a taxiway at Philadelphia in September when a disc failed in the high pressure turbine, showering parts into a nearby river.

GE admits that the cause of this latest incident is still a mystery and experts have called for a review of the design of that part of the engine. Measures to rectify the other two problems will cost the company up to £20m.

Rick Kennedy, spokesman for GE Aircraft Engines, said there was a "real sense of urgency" at the company. It had undertaken an exercise to inspect 300 engines 12 months earlier than had been planned.

He added: "There are 4,000 aircraft takeoffs each day using CF6 engines. Without minimising the seriousness of these failures, the sheer statistics are such that it is pretty rare."

A CAA spokesman said: "We are aware of the problems that have occurred. We are working closely with the FAA and liaising with British airlines to make sure they comply with the airworthiness directives that have been issued. We have not had to ground any planes."

British airlines said that where necessary they were complying with the directives. British Airways, which usually buys Rolls-Royce engines, said it had only one plane, a DC-10, with CF6 engines but it was up for sale and had not flown for several years.

Virgin Atlantic's planes have GE engines built after 1995, which have not suffered any of the problems. The charter airlines Monarch, Britannia and Air 2000 said their CF6 engines had undergone the necessary tests.

Bill Gunston, editor of Jane's Aero-Engines, said the CF6 was an engine designed 30 years ago that had experienced few problems until now. "There are captains of big jets who were not born when it was first undergoing tests, so it shouldn't be doing this sort of thing now," he said.

http://av-info.faa.gov/ad/NPRM/2000ne30.htm

apologies if I'm raising a point already covered;

Is it possible perhaps that 1 engine unit detached, which at T/O power, induced a massive yaw (& secondary effect roll) with the remaining unit still attached, depending on when that other unit also detached (?),
this yaw/roll could perhaps have induced a
side load large enough to detach the fin
(if it was in some way weaker than at build,
e.g. perhaps over stressed at some point damaging the composite mat'l...(danger with composites can be that damage is not always visible)

I would EMPHASISE that this is of course only speculation & a question point.

Finally, sincere sympathies to all involved
words do not offer much help, but at least
it helps maybe that people care.

(I was V cross seeing the TV reports that, as usual insisted on showing poor folks
hearing the awful news, TV guys - some advice, please dont show it, it is private
grief for these poor people)

keep safe everyone,

[ 14 November 2001: Message edited by: blended winglet ]

Has anyone heard if they found the "missing" Cessna 172 that was inbound to New York at the time?

Techman,

I am alive and as well as can be expected. I flew that trip on Sat (2 days before). With 9 funerals to go to, I won't be as busy here as usual.

Thanks for your concern
Wino

Gentlemen - Thanks for straightening me out on my misconceptions about the A-300 controls.

The BOAC 911 investigation resulted in restricted use of the spoilers on the B-707's. It was felt that using them in descent in turbulent air could induce the sort of structual failure that brought 911 down.

Todays newspapers indicate that the engines were intact (indicating no massive failure?).The CVR came up with a rumbling noise, and a voice said "wake encounter".
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index....r/15024f6.html

At this time, I for one would NOT rule out sabotage.

[ 14 November 2001: Message edited by: I. M. Esperto ]

What 172? Any details on that? It's new to me.

I have to say that I would go along with the overstress theory. If they did suffer a failure and subsequent separation of number one engine, that close to the ground, and an encounter with wake, the temptation not to slam on as much rudder as possible must have been insuperable. The left engine is on the inside of the turn for a Breezy Point or Carnarsie climb, and the sudden loss of power and significant disturbance in roll ensuing a separation would have left controlability marginal to say the least.

I suspect that the sudden application of full rudder coupled with the lateral load due to the thrust assymetry was simply too much for the vertical stabiliser. A truly tragic accident, and one that all of us would have found virtually impossible to counter.

I was crossing the pond at the time, and it sent shivers down my spine as the incident was reported piecemeal over the radio. I feel deeply for the colleagues of the AA flight crew as they heard bit by bit of the demise of their colleagues. The tremble in the voice of the New York controller was palpable as she broadcast 'suggest you utilise all prudent security measures'. You could hear the 'Here we go again' being pondered by everyone involved.

I feel ashamed to say that thank God it seems it was only an accident. For those who have lost loved ones, it is disaster just the same. Deepest sympathy.

I think it is more likely that the first shudder felt was from initial failure of the tail and it "lifting" partially off the fuselage. The second shudder probably came when the fin came off completely. Wake turbulence, they must think we are daft! :mad:

blended winglet

I'm encouraged by someone at least asking a questions, such as yourself, rather than making uninformed point by point statements of their idea of the sequence of events.

I support your kind of discussion following an accident, rather than the latter.


Only by group discussion of experts should anybody attempt to put together a trail of findings/analysis. I know that collectively there are experts on this forum, but I doubt that any one person has sufficient expertise to set forth some of the speculative scenarios I saw on the earlier pages, especially when they are counter to historical facts.

For background material the members might consider previous experience with widebody twin aircraft relative to gust loading tearing off engines and/or tailfins, or engines themselves catastrophically failing and tearing either themselves off or the tailfin off.

The products flying today have immense margins against this type of loading.

Time to put this one to bed as it reaches 100 replies.

Thank you to the experts who have put forward hypothesies which are palusible and goodbye to the 'experts' who obviously have no idea what they are on about but like the way they 'sound'.

One point reference the 'wake' comments heard on the CVR, I would suggest that perhaps the pilots 'thought' the vibration or shuddering he was feeling might be due to wake turbulence as a catastrophic structural failure is not likely to be the first thing that springs to mind.

For the uneducated in flying matters I would just like to point out that in ANY situation we pilots are taught to AVIATE, NAVIGATE and COMMUNICATE in that order and so those of us who fly for a living will have sympathy for the pilots during the horrendous events that overwhelmed them and of course for the rest of the crew, passengers and people on the ground and their families and friends.