I wonder what part of the engine damage was from the birdstrike directly and what part was caused be the unbalanced engine wobbling away.

Good job.

Isn't it about time geese were fitted with and trained in the use of TCAS?

Lobby your politicians and watch this fly ...

Airbus Birdstrike Threat Awareness notes:

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Tail strike in 1% of cases..

What does a wobbling engine have to do with a bird wrapped around the avionics door and a dent on the opposite site of the fuselage?
Looks like a flight of geese to me. Lucky the other engine didn't take any..

at first I thought you were making an Airbus joke---seriously:}

:ouch:

What puzzles me is why we still don't know at exactly what altitude they overflew Haarlem with all these live-flight trackers around nowadays. The MSA following a departure off 19L with an immediate right turn is 1700 feet. I assume the crew would at least try to reach that altitude. Overflying a city at 1700ft with one engine at MCT may be quite unsettling for people on the ground, especially with one engine spitting out feathers and engine parts.

From the route flown it looks like the crew didn't get/take the time to read any checklists..

Schiphol komt met vogelradar | nu.nl/binnenland | Het laatste nieuws het eerst op nu.nl

Translation:
Airport Schiphol will start using a unique radar system which can recognize individual birds and predict their flight pattern, the newspaper Trouw reports.

The system is called Robin Lite and was designed by TNO. The number of birds at Schiphol has increased in the past few years and is a danger to aircraft.

With the radar the birds can be tracked better. Incidents, like with the Boeing 737 from Royal Air Maroc should become less common with this system.

Birdstrikes
The number of birdstrikes with planes around Schiphol has almost doubled in the last year. In 2008 there were four birdstrikes per 10000 aircraft movements in which birds entered the engine of a plane, in 2009 this number has risen to more than 7.

Schiphol plans to introduce bird radar system this year for experimental trials.
It will be a version of the Robin (radar observation for bird intensity) system which was developed the Dutch innovation thinktank TNO http://www.tno.nl for the Dutch airforce & is supposed to be able to detect birds from a height of 1 meter and also supply information as to which sort (eg: small or large) by detecting wingspan.

Vogelradar op Schiphol - Binnenland - Telegraaf.nl [24 uur actueel, ook mobiel] [binnenland]


Use of ROBIN system cuts birdstrikes by 50% around Dutch military airports (In English) TNO - ROBIN: Radar Observation of Bird Intensity


Schiphol struggles with overflying geese problem - admits they do not have any control over the situation. Geese fly overhead in this area where there is much pasture for them to feed. Alarm bells already rung 18 months ago about hazards of rising bird population around the airport, primarily geese. Regional taskforce created to reduce numbers by culling birds & treating eggs to make them unhatchable. Birdstrike incidents rise to 7 per 10,000 aircraft movements in 2009 from 4 in 2008 - apparent increase could be result of Schiphol's increased attention to birdstrike incidents. The issue is a priority one & the airport has 16 employees working around the clock to deal with the problem of birds on and around the airport.

'Geen grip op ganzen rond vliegveld' - Binnenland - Telegraaf.nl [24 uur actueel, ook mobiel] [binnenland]

76-er, stick to playing with your Flight Simulator :rolleyes:

Uhhhh, nothing probably. . . see above.

@Avman: Nah, I prefer my 'own' left seat on the 747-400ERF if you don't mind and let my kids play FS-X..:E

Keep climbing until you reach/exceed the related MSA. A shallow climb or even almost level segment (around 200fpm) can be expected at MFRA (minimum flap retraction alt - 1000' AGL usually) to allow for clean up. At airports such as EHAM, where terrain isn't a factor, this will involve climbing ahead on the extended runway centreline until reaching MSA. Once there, the usual steps are to devise a plan with the aid of the QRH (and other information available). In this case i.e severe damage, it will be to 'land at the nearest suitable airport.' Please also remember that ATC would be fully aware of their problem. It would be their decision to vector the aircraft over Haarlem (knowing that it was single engine) once the crew had accepted/requested radar vectors. At an airport such as AMS I would be very surprised that the crew would be wishing to navigate their a/c by any other means. Work load would have been high in the flightdeck (much checklist negotiation, system analysis, crew involvement) and ATC will always be there to help. My philosophy would be to allow them.

In an emergency amsterdam ATC will provide you with a discreet frequency for subsequent communication with them. Once "able to manoevre" they will vector you for return to a runway of your choice.
So unless they were manoevring on their own, which I doubt, it was under radar vectors that they crossed the towns.

I suspect that this was at 2000 feet.

Crunk, see what you mean now.. can't say. Engine is indeed as unbalanced as can be.
About the vectors over Haarlem: a left turn would have brought the plane over Amsterdam and Amstelveen, so even worse.
Time available a track to/over the coast would have been preferable, but in their situation I would have preferred to stay near the field as well.

Overflying bulit up areas
 

I would also consider the fact that ATC at EHAM were only too aware of previous analysis relating to decisions to vector aircraft over built up areas. The Bijlmer accident in 1992 where an El Al Cargo 747 crashed in to an appartment block in the eastern suburbs actually overflew central Amsterdam two times as it was postioned for an approach to RW27. As I recall from the report, ATC were not fully aware of the actual problems that the crew were experiencing (both engines on the right wing sheered off causing severe control problems - this led to the actual report concluding that recovery would have been virtually impossible). I believe that mis-communication from the El Al crew combined with ATC using varied assumptions were analysed in the report. I am certain that current controllers at AMS are all well briefed on this event.

The first time though, was during the (uneventful) climb-out, before engines 3 & 4 fell off.

Neither were the crew, probably, since they reported "engine on fire" while said engine was already on the bottom of a lake. Moments previously, they had reported "we lost engines 3 & 4" probably meaning to say they lost thrust (and interpreted as such by ATC) but most likely they were not aware they quite literally lost them.
The inboard engines on a 747 are not visible from the flight deck, the outboard engines just very barely, and being a cargo there were no reports from the passenger cabin...

Two Weeks Ago at AMS,

Taxied from Hotel stands with permission to cross 36C for 36L departure. Reported a flock of 12 swans (flying perfect vic formation) at 30 feet flying south-north right up the middle of 36C. Tried for 3 mins to talk ATCs eyes onto them with no success. Seemed to me a lack of concern to what I considered a major hazard.

Certification of our engines do not take into account, encounters with the likes of a single swan/goose never mind multiples of the buggers!

Had over 50 birdstrikes in flying career; little ones cause little or no damage thank God. However, have seen enough of what one medium-sized can do if it hits in the wrong place.

18 years military, 7 years airline and the risk assessment on the civil side is miles away from where it should be!!!

Willing to be shot down on this, but what the hell !!

Remember, we are told statiscally a double engine failure is impossible, well tell that to Sully and Im sure he won't buy you a beer!!

Reader not a Writer

You may have misunderstood :)

A double engine failure has a probability of 1 in a million for all causes and and 1 in 10 million for other than crew error causes. It's only statistically improbable against independent causes that a lot of pilots seem to worry about while dozing for dollars (tongue-in-cheek mode)

Sully demonstrated that it is entirely possible to survive with a double engine failure.

But back to the subject event.

After seeing the pics, this was an extremely close call. I'm afraid that a very bad result would occur if this gets repeated at V1+ You are correct in that the engines and aircraft are not designed to accomodate running into a flock of geese at V1+ whether twins or quads so a large ounce of prevention, avoidance etc. must be regulated.

The issue in this case appears to be an airport bird flock on the runway ala Elmendorf etc.

The pilots must report flocks of this type directly, if seen on the ground, and the airport authorities must take immediate action to close the runway until the birds are moved.

I'm not sure why this event happened or where the loophole is.

Did any crew actually see a flock of geese on the ground near this runway that day and did they report the same? I hestitate to get into the subjectivity of transient bird flocks on the move, but this flock appears to have been on the ground and on a runway.

Strange, bird control is a continuous ops at SPL and they are always eager to shoot some flares on the first opportunity.
You say they were going N-S along 36C. As you were crossing that runway it means it wasn't in use (at SPL crossing active is not allowed), maybe that's why they were less concerned

From reading the Dutch print media, this incident is being viewed as a very serious one which could have ended badly. Who knows how close the 2cnd engine was to being struck.

The airport management already raised the alarm about the issue of birds nearly 2 years ago. According to statements made by Schiphol there are no resident birds on the airport grounds itself - the airport has measures in place to ensure this.

The problem is that the airport is located in a prime area for large birds such as geese where they can feed & rest. Thus, the issue is of birds & flocks originating from outside the Schiphol grounds, which overfly the airport as they move from one location to another.

I think its reasonable to assume this Air Maroc incident will have set off some major alarm bells at Schiphol, which will now be focusing even more energies & expertise into managing the problem than was previously the case (it was already high on their priority list apparently).

As it is, a version of the bird-detecting radar system developed for the Dutch air force 'ROBIN' is apparently set for introduction this year for experimental trials.