Why would someone select flaps up during the landing roll?

Go around perhaps ?:ooh:

"Why would anyone select flaps up during the landing run".

A F/O did this to me without being asked just seconds after touch down on a very wet runway one night. He told me that it made the aeroplane sit down better. He had come from DC-3s!

After my debrief, I doubt he ever did such a daft thing again (unless he went back to DC-3s).

Go around perhaps ? Go Around after reverse selected.. no.. but go-around would not be at Flap 0 in any event,,

As for "unweighting" the aircraft.. ground spoilers do that job... retracting flaps would have no positive effect and is certainly a wreckless action during the high speed regime of roll out.

Lets see what the CVR reveals :ok:

A flapless go-around is the same as a takeoff without flaps.
Normally you will not survive that.
The normal go-around flaps setting is 15. (Or 1 if the approach was conducted with flaps 15 - single engine.)
And if it was a go around, why is the reversers open then?

I doubt flaps were selected up deliberately – the travel time takes easily 25 seconds from 40 to 0.

Again – no flap motion can have taken place after the crash, the flaps motors needs inputs from the cockpit, and is driven by the hydraulic system, whist must be broken when we look at the pictures. The alternate system (an electrical motor) can only deploy the leading edge flaps and slats, not retract them.

A flapless landing is very rear on the 738 – if ever have happened - but if so, you will follow the checklist, and have declared EMERGENCY, because you land with much higher speed, and that might end up in an uncomfortable situation. So IF an EMERGENCY were announced the rescue team should have been at the plane before the passengers had time to take a taxi…..(according to the newspapers….)

If the configuration horn did not sound – (that happened in the Madrid accident) they should have been suspicious to the indication on the speed tape, and IF they had tried to fly with the speed for flaps 30 or 40 (but with flaps up) they would have stick shaker too. Furthermore the Ground Proximity Warning would have shouted “Too low – FLAPS” – as another on this forum already have mentioned. (As I remember it is not in connection with the configuration warning – so it should have sounded as well!)

I still really wander what happened here?????

Plenty of chance for damage to wiring to actuate flap retraction...

Only electrical - and then the leading edges will not retract - they can´t!
The hydraulic flapsmotors can not operate if the lines are broken, and the lines goes to the nosegear too - they must be broken!

But let´s se what the investigators finds - maybe I AM vrong:ouch:

More info on the flight BW 523 from the Captain
 

This is from a local newspaper in Trinidad. I have not posted the whole article, only the relevant portions. While his name is mentioned in the link, I have removed his name from the excerpts below.


Trinidad and Tobago's Newsday : newsday.co.tt :

'I DID MY BEST TO SAVE LIVES'

By Nalinee Seelal Sunday, July 31 2011



Trinidadian pilot , who crash-landed an Air Caribbean Boeing 737-800 at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport early yesterday morning, told relatives in Trinidad that poor visibility due to heavy rainfall resulted in the aircraft over-shooting the runway, but insisted he did his best to prevent the loss of lives.

The pilot 52, who was traumatised by the incident and suffered injuries to his legs, spent some of the time nursing his injuries at the Pegasus hotel in Guyana yesterday, but when Sunday Newsday telephoned to speak with him last evening he had already checked out of the hotel.

However, a relative of the pilot, who preferred not to give her name, said his main concern was ensuring that no lives were lost when he negotiated the aircraft on the runway early yesterday.

He reportedly said the runway had poor lighting and this contributed to the poor visibility when he attempted to land at about 1.32 am. the captain, his co-pilot and crew members are expected to receive counselling from professional counsellors in the coming days, the Sunday Newsday was told.

Sunday Newsday understands that the pilot’s wife was distraught on learning of the incident and gave a prayer of thanks that her husband and others aboard the aircraft escaped serious injuries. It remained unclear yesterday when he will be returning home.

.........................

According to reports, the pilot barely missed going into a 200-feet wide ravine; this could have resulted in dozens of deaths. Following the incident, the airport was closed, leaving hundreds of passengers from other parts of the region stranded. The airport was reopened at 11 am yesterday.

..............

According to reports reaching Sunday Newsday, the aircraft, which is valued at US$38 million, left New York and made a stop in Trinidad before eventually landing in Guyana. The airline said it was carrying 157 passengers and six crew members.

...................

Hours later in Guyana, Nicholas hosted a news conference, where he stated that it was too early for any preliminary comment about what may have caused the crash-landing. He added, however, that the United States Transportation and Safety Board, as well as the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority, will be conducting investigations into what happened.

Should the fuselage have stayed in tact?....
 

May/may not be related but definitely worthy of scrutiny... Dateline, a current affairs program in Australia, did a story just last month about three other 737NG aircraft that have crashed on landing and broken up because of defective parts by a Boeing supplier which Boeing ignored even after two employees made them aware of the problems: "They say they couldn't keep quiet any longer over defective parts being made by a subcontractor, Ducommun, which they say were then allowed into 737 Next Generation planes between 1996 and 2004… some even had to be hammered into shape or packed with filler to make them fit."

See the story and read the transcript here: SBS Dateline | A Wing and a Prayer

The prospect of a flaps up landing would probably incur a return to TTPP where the runway is long enough and there is a mx. base and also not raining. SYCJ with its sub-par short runway away from a maintenance base is quite blatantly not ideal.

The way the fuselage bent could (and I stress the word could) have moved the slat/flap cable run to the retract position. Assuming the engines were still running or at least wind milling there would have been enough hydraulic power to allow the slat/flaps to retract.

I would think a no slat/flap landing would have resulted in a much longer over run.

Re sbs story
 

The same story claimed the Turkish Airlines 737 at Amsterdam broke up after overshooting the runway. It never made it to the runway! A plane dropping the way it did from the height it did - effectively straight down - is going to break. All the people interviewed were ex-employees who may or may not have had an axe to grind. I'm sure the relevant authorities would notice a fault given the number of examples but so far no alarm has been raised by the NTSB etc. Simple fact is - planes travelling at high speed off the end of runways tend to get damaged.

Once my airplane departs a prepared surface at high speed I stop really caring whether or not the airplane survives to fly again. Once that excursion is made, the only thing that really matters are the people on the plane. In this case, the airplane did as well as anyone can ask considering the lack of fatalities.

From the pictures....

Translating sleeves are still aft. Forward idle has therefore not been selected.

No flaps, slats or spoilers.... So no hydraulics you say ? So how did they apparently select reverse on both engines without hydraulics ?

On landing you normally select reverse idle by 60 kts and forward idle at taxy speed. Looks like these guys never reached taxy speed on the rollout. After landing cx with selection of flaps/slats up would follow selection of forward idle..... not precede it.

An inadvertent selection of flaps up on landing roll maybe ? That would stow the spoilers and make stopping far more difficult. But what would you be possibly doing during the landing roll to mistakenly select the flaps up? When landing on a short wet runway all eyes are on the decel and the remaining distance... not pulling levers.

http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/imag...ines-crash.jpg

http://msnbcmedia2.msn.com/j/MSNBC/C...p.grid-8x2.jpg

This was a very slow speed upwind excursion where 10-15 feet of level wet grass would have stopped the jet. Unfortunately that was not the lie of the land.

Maybe the speed was under control on landing, the after landing checks were in progress and as they approached the runway end.... someone inadvertently selected TOGA? Stranger things have happened! Or simply a case of speed misjudged ?

Just a theoretical possibility, from someone with no NG experience..

During the excursion, the fuselage broke. The flap lever may have mechanical linkage to the control system in the wheel well. The linkage may have been pulled to the retracted position during the fuselage fracture. I'm sure the hyd lines that service the NLG extension/retraction/NWS would have been severed, but thats served by system A. System B therefore remaining intact to retract the flaps by either an idling engine or windmilling core rotor of the no2 engine.

Shoot me, its just a theory!

I think I am seeing some spoiler panels up, but a strange mix. Dont think it is possible to get that config in a normal manner, so hydraulics/selectors are somehow out of kilter. Possibly same problem with flaps? Post impact damage?

Wish more runways had crushed concrete arresting pads at the end. Can't be that expensive? I remember Chicago-Midway added some after spilling a plane onto a highway.

I believe it has already earned its keep too!

I see ...
 

long runway ... plane off the end. How ? Why ?

They could have achieved taxi speed well before the runway end, stowed reversers. F/O starts his after landing flow, selecting flaps up, then arriving at the turn-off point at runway end, find nil braking on a flooded, ungrooved runway... nose wheels just slide when turned. Capt reselects reverse, but too late to prevent over run. I've seen it happen...but on a -200 where much more effective reverse saved the day.