Bird strike out of Guernsey continues on one Engine to Birmingham
 

Bird strike destroys Flybe plane propeller but pilot continues to fly on ONE ENGINE | Daily Mail Online


OK, Daily Mail, but does anyone know the true story?

OMG - you'd think the world had ended...

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp...-plane-engine/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/avia...s-look-on.html

Dispatcher Dan seems to know the full story!! Even for the DM, they've excelled themselves this time.... :ugh:

Think my favourite bit is Credit to the designers of the engine though, when the prop is feathered it really is minimum drag... Hardly any movement despite significant forward speed!! :D

Maybe I've been too long out of the business, but in my day an engine shut-down was an immediate landing at the nearest suitable. Of course, it could be that BHX was the nearest suitable.

A 20 min 2 engine climb out of Guernsey with a tail wind might well put Birmingham as close as any time wise in a s.e descent. It's the time that counts, not distance after all.

Interesting to see the P & J parroting verbatim the hooey from it's gutter companion, the daily wail...

You fly to where it can be serviced and/or where the weather might be better. A shutdown in stable flight is a non event on a twin. If it weren't, then every single engine aircraft would be in a constant emergency. Non-story.

We do not know how precautionary the shutdown was and how confident the commander was of a restart if needed. Probably "very" to both questions.

Twenty minutes into a flight from Guernsey they would already have crossed the south coast. And there are alternates pretty much all the way for an aircraft like the Dash 8 with its quite modest runway requirements.

Oh dear.
The DM again with the obligatory photo of suitably distressed 'survivors'.

The Torygraph was hardly any better with a breathless report of the 'front propeller' being smashed (as opposed to the rear one, of course).

Compare that with the Spicejet 737 at Surat, India a couple of days ago (South Asia forum).
They damn-near ingested a buffalo on take-off.
"The impact with the buffalo was heavy and very noticeable", observed a passenger afterward."

Seems the pilots in India are more cautious than ours - the passengers were required to take another aircraft to continue their journey.

I heard these guys declare a PAN, my colleague remarked about how they didn't envy them having to land single engine in the high winds that were around on the day.

Perhaps they chose to carry on to BHX where a safer landing could have been made without a large crosswind! Sensible decision imo.

where it can be serviced

hmmm don't think that washes...not a factor in determining suitability...weather, airport CFR facilities..runways, approach types,...yes...

I was the OP. In my book a bird strike after take off with any signs of damage you go straight back in. I wonder if they didn't initially see any signs. Then sure if they had reached cruising altitude continue with many alternatives available en route.

Without wishing to comment on this specific incident, because who knows what the truth was behind the newspaper reports.....

Most/many rules sets pertinent to commercial Ops state that if an engine is not capable of producing "go-around" power then it should be treated to all intents and purposes as failed. Most of those rule sets also state that for a twin if you have an engine failure then one should land at the nearest suitable airfield, as ironbutts says servicing doesn't enter into it.

Just saying...

Back into Guernsey single engine? No ta.

Why not? If all else is equal then head to a maintenance base.

About the only thing that can be drawn from that is dispatcher dan knows just enough about aircraft to be dangerous, but not enough to say anything intelligent. He also appears to know even less about the dash.

"The other engine would have to be at full power which is very dangerous" - :ugh:

Yes, nearest suitable may include maintenance base so why not land there. If continuing beyone nearest suitable for convenience of airline then explaining why may be tricky. Most of us have or will at some time be in this position.

One wonders what view Dan's employers might take? Particularly if his company handle Flybe at GCI.

Mine (non aviation) certainly wouldn't have been too happy about me pontificating to press on matters so close to work.

What's the climb rate of the Dash? 20 mins into the flight would indicated a "high" bird and probably quite big to destroy the spinner. What's the sector time GUR(?)-BHX? Be interested to know exactly where the strike occurred.

If you're overhead LHR or LGW, it would only be 5 miles away or thereabouts.... Does that mean it's the nearest suitable in such an event??

Maybe an airport 100 miles away would be more suitable to allow descent, planning, briefing, etc...

:rolleyes:

And the Times' report is accompanied by a photo of a Flybe Saab 340 ...

Flybe pilot flew on one engine after birdstrike | The Times

The report suggests strike was on departure from GCI with impact damage to prop spinner rather than blades or by ingestion. Reported to flight deck by cabin crew.

Shutdown only after one of one of pilots had gone back and viewed damage. While there was some vibration (or even more than usual in a Q400 according to some wags) engine was functioning normally and could presumably have been re-started.

BN 2A
 

FWIW a colleague of mine had pretty much that happen...ETOPS Twin (early days of ETOPS) engine failure at TOD for main base but, as it happened, also directly overhead a very suitable and available airport XXX. My mate carried on to base....at the subsequent board of enquiry the authority did ask some very pointed questions but eventually accepted that continuing the descent to destination, rather than diving into the alternate was fair enough......However he was of the opinion that if the failure had happened before TOD the authorities might well have expected him to divert, and that they wouldn't have looked very kindly if he'd used a excessively lengthy decision making process to make home base even more suitable...;)

Questions from an ex ATCO. Is maintenance available at BHX or SOU? Would EXT not have been considered? If it was ,what would be the logic in rejecting that option?

A loss of 50% of power plants prompts UK ATC to initiate an emergency turnout,however this seems to have been treated as a non event by the commander.

Is this a fair assessment by me?

NOT judging in any way shape or form.....merely curious.

SOU isn't much longer than GCI, or JER. EXT may have been considered but if you're over the south coast on your way to Brum then there's not much in it.

The bird carcass was stuck in the rear plate of the spinner on arrival at BHX. The bird appears to have been a yellow legged hawk-perhaps a twitcher could identify it.

The Dash-8 Q-400 propellers are GE-Dowty 6-blade, single-removable composite type.

Kegworth? Nearest suitable, not nearest maintenance.

You would think dispatcher Dan would be aware it is illegal to take photographs Airside at a uk airport, without the express permission of the airport authority! Yes I know it's rarely enforced, but as a so called aviation professional feeding the gutter press rubbish to print, who feels he should be made an example of?

Bournemouth would have been an option if they wanted a longer runway or a different wind from Sou

Anybody who has operated in or out of GCI at this time of year would tell you that somewhere the other side of the channel or on the French mainland would be a damn sight more suitable than Guernsey. Short, humped runway with horrible local winds and awful weather. If you're pointing towards the mainland, do your checklists, preparation and so on while heading in the right direction rather than getting dizzy in the hold.

"Nearest suitable" isn't the same as "nearest practical" and neither is the same as "land immediately" never mind when " ... considering an off airfield landing" gets appended. The manuals I am familiar with have a graduated set of advice (not instructions, in an emergency captain's prerogative is always in effect) and nearest suitable is the lowest level of urgency.

Consindering how small the UK is by air and given the weather conditions I see no problem to choose BHX which is quite a good option for strong crosswinds in the UK due to its layout.

This is a professional site discussing a real event.

If you wish to post opinions that detached from industry reality, try :ugh: .com or :confused: .org.

The only flaw in the "press on to the full base maintenance and support facilities" approach is that you don't know exactly what the damage is. The shattered spinner debris had potential for causing secondary damage, the vibration before shut down the same, was it more than one bird? Was it a bird? Only by landing and having some level of engineering inspection can you absolutely rule out secondary or additional damage.

In this case, descending to Birmingham was arguably as expeditious as peeling off to an en route alternative, but it won't always be the case. A good captain's decision will have more than a little curiosity about exactly what has happened to the aircraft and a desire to secure that knowledge sooner rather than later.

Shouldn't be a problem justifying continuing to BHX. My past experience of these kind of scenarios is that the CAA are looking for safety orientated decision making. Any mention of commercially driven decisions such as continuing to a maintenance base would be far more likely to attract scrutiny. Yet, I do hear pilots briefing that they will continue or divert to the maintenance base in the event of problems.

As for dispatcher Dan, hope he's enjoying his 15 minutes of infamy.

Reply
 

The Daily Mail like to sensationalize every story but the facts as we are told are that the birdstrike happened immediately after lift off causing a large piece of spinner to break off. The propellor which would have been at take off power would almost certainly have had some damage - there was increased vibration noted and was there any other damage to the elevator perhaps, engine ingested debris, wing L/E damage? - At the time nobody knew only engineers on the ground could have assessed it. I would have thought that the flight should have been diverted for a full assessment of the damage to be carried out and repairs made, at the first suitable airfield which I find hard to believe was Birmingham .

The bump in Guernseys runway was removed during runway resurfacing works a few years ago.

To all those saying "he should have landed back immediately", nobody has mentioned landing distance. Guernsey is SHORT ! only 1,700m.

With the loss of an engine - and who knows what collateral damage - did they have all their stopping systems available? Wheel brakes, hydraulics, spoilers etc? They obviously only had reverse pitch available on one engine, and depending on the weather and conditions, asymmetric reverse pitch might have been a no-no.

We don't know do we? , but there is a strong possibility that their landing performance might have been compromised. So they opted for an airport with a longer runway. Given that you have left Guernsey and are flying north, it makes no sense to turn south towards France, and Jersey is also quite short, so that leaves you with EGKK, EGLL, and EGSS with long runways in the south of the UK. If you are near the south coast of the UK by the time you have contained the problem and run all the appropriate checklists, the obvious thought would be EGKK. But again, I don't know what the weather was, or what the approach aid servicability was that day. There might have been a very good reason why EGKK was not the most suitable diversion airfield - and forget about EGLL unless you have an uncontained fire !

As far as I am aware, nobody with a current ATPL, let alone a Captains rating or even a type rating is a staff writer on the Daily Mail, or the Torygraph. So what the hell do they know about landing a Dash 8 - Q400 with an engine failure?

Gentlemen of the press if you are reading this: Please would you show more respect to your own profession by at least thoroughly researching incidents before pronouncing on the actions of actual professionals who are doing a highly skilled job that you have no experience of.

The comments in the Mail do include a somewhat more balanced one (than Dan's) from another of the passengers on board:

"I must refute the story of horror and terrified passengers as utter crap. Everyone was calm and the crew were excellent. What Dan failed to say was that captain announced that the best weather in the south of England at the time was Birmingham so we would continue with an on time arrival. Having just left Guernsey with a strong crosswind and wet runway with turbulence in the climb even Dan should have known it would not be a good idea to return with just one engine."

Uplinker
 

How dare you have the temerity to critisise journalists, do you not understand that they are experts on everything?

When issued with an NUJ card they are empowerd with knowlage and wisdom that the common man can only gasp at in ore, it also gives the moral right to pry into people's private lives, bug phone conversations, follow people around constantly photographing them, wreck professional careers, accuse people of crimes without evidence and a host of other activitys all in the name of a free press.
Journolists are the only people who prosess these very high standards of integrity and moral character to be permitted to excersise such powers without any responsability for the consequences.

It is crystal clear to all the readers of the DM that the journolist in this case was a stickler for accuracy, after all the information was obtained from Dispatcher Dan ( a well respected aviation professional with a years standing) who was able to conferm that dispite years of aviation training and experience the professional flight crew made dangerouse and wreckless decisions and endangered all aboad the aircraft just to save the airline a quid or two.

Without doubt it is clear that the journolists are acting in the public interest exposing these wreckless practices that are prevalent in the air transport.

Sarcastic Moi ?

GCI is even shorter than 1700m - 1463m I think (still).