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-   -   Diversion - Did Manchester Shrink in the Rain? (https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/576725-diversion-did-manchester-shrink-rain.html)

donpizmeov 28th Mar 2016 09:44

Eppy, that's not even the system that caused the problem.

No bent metal and already on page 3. So much wasted talent with all these experts out there. I can't see there ever being a pilot shortage.

Flap62 28th Mar 2016 09:46

Well done you.

Incidentally our company SOPs would allow you to continue in those circumstances.

Happy for you to level an accusation of "child of the magenta" against me. With a couple of thousand hours military fast jet and over 10,000 hours heavy civil I'm reasonably comfortable with my level of airmanship.

flydive1 28th Mar 2016 09:51


Originally Posted by His dudeness (Post 9325634)
Flew an approach to then relatively new airport at Athens in a CJ1 - VFR, daytime. At about 700ft AGL the GPWS went wild and blared Pull up Go Around.

Looking out of the huge windows and verifying with RDR ALT, DME/ILS GP and my eyeballs I was fine, I continued against our SOPs.

I´m a cowboy, I admit it.

Ever seen children of the magenta ?


BTW, turned out to be a database issue

If I remember correctly there was a notam warning about false GPWS false warning at Athens.

It was caused by the database not yet updated and still showing a hill that was "shaved".

A slightly different situation.

aox 28th Mar 2016 10:25


Originally Posted by Council Van
But to fly round the hold for a while, try another couple of approaches then divert to come back 4 hours later to land on the same runway. That just seems like crazy SOP's to me.

Well, to begin with the aircraft thinks it's too heavy to fit on the runway length. After a few hours it will be lighter, but then it will also have less fuel available for diversion.

Just kidding ...

The weather can also have improved.

RAT 5 28th Mar 2016 10:28

Below 500ft the landing system uses live flight, weather and a/c parameters; weight, speed, altitude, AC position and wind.

Interesting. There is another topic about what wind to sue for landing; the tower AC wind of the FMC wind. (First Officer's Crosswind limitations - in Tech Log) The overall consensus was Tower wind. Now this situation seemed to be created by FMC wind at 500'. That doesn't seem consistent with what the rest of us would do without this magic box of tricks. We'd use Tower wind and ignore 'an inconvenient truth'. However, especially with such unequivocal SOP's, when there's doubt there is no doubt.
It was mentioned that if a crew disobeyed the G/A SOP it would be tea no biscuits at mission control. If that were the case I'd not be surprised if the crew were grounded at destination and could not even fly back to base. Hero to zero in a blink of an OFDM.

kumul1 28th Mar 2016 10:38

Cheers Council Van.
At the end of the day, it's another tool in the tool box. Whether you decide to use it is up to you but if you do, then there are SOP's that come with it. In this case a Go Around if you get a particular warning.
The crew did the right thing.

EK380 28th Mar 2016 10:42

PULL APRT NAV and the problem is gone. FCOM recommends to do so for spurious warnings.

As long as you make sure the LDPA is checked, one does NOT need the ROW/ROP and BTV to land an A380!

In the end, that is what they did on the way to LHR... A bit late, if you ask me. But then again, I wasn't there!

seen_the_box 28th Mar 2016 10:48


Craggenmore, whatever the boxes may say, the FACT is neither runway at Manchester at 10000ft and 10007ft is too short as has been demonstrated many, many times. It is TOTALLY due to management which would prefer to rely on boxes rather than experienced humans. True, humans are fallible but in this instance where the facts of the runway length are incontravertible and there was a cross wind seemingly within limits, airmanship should have sperceded management dictats and a faulty computer.
I don't fly the A380; merely smaller Airbii. However, if what Craggenmore wrote about BTV is correct, I don't see that the crew had a choice if everything happened as is being reported here. If you get an amber or red message on your PFD, you had better be bloody sure what you're doing if you decide to disregard it.

To give an example to illustrate the point: an incident happened here a while ago where a crew ignored a REACTIVE windshear warning (WINDSHEAR aural callout and WINDSHEAR in red on PFD), because in their opinion no actual windshear condition existed. In the debrief, it turned out that the windshear warning was absolutely correct, and the aircraft had ended up in a low energy state. As I said, you have to be absolutely sure what you're doing before you start disregarding amber or red messages on your PFD.

MrSnuggles 28th Mar 2016 11:02

As a mere SLF who cares about my life, I'd rather have the crew divert and try somewhere else. The A380 is huge and extremely complex, and if winds and rain makes the runway unsafe for landing things could go very wrong. Such a big plane just wouldn't stop on a penny.

Yes, yes, why take orders from a computer and following rules and SOP's - well, in this particular case I don't think anyone knows (yet). Wind angles, rain conditions, number of pax, weight of cargo, all things considered it was calculated that the stopping distance was not enough for that particular plane on that particular evening. As SLF I absolutely respect that the pilots move on to next place, hopefully with a longer runway. I surely would not want to end up in a burning wreck some 100 metres overrun with my laptop on fire.

Nah, I'll choose a slight annoyance over a life-or-death-situation any day.

atakacs 28th Mar 2016 11:42

does anyone have any idea WHY the automation reported the runaway as too short ? System error / failure (I find it unlikely that if there was such a bug in the A380 software it would not have poped up earlier) ? Bogus data feed ?
Just a thought - does EK do tankering (I guess not but maybe that bird was heavier that one might think) ?

Aluminium shuffler 28th Mar 2016 11:53

Yes, EK tanker fuel. I don't think it is done on UK sectors, though, at current prices. But if they were likely carrying a fair bit extra for weather, which would seem to be the case if they could do three apps before diversion, that extra fuel could conceivably have put them over landing weight. That is a real double edged sword with contaminated (rather than wet) runways; carrying the extra to allow for runway clearance or holding in a big queue at an alternate or needing a further alternate can put you overweight, while going min fuel could get you in, but holding to burn of fuel could see a runway window close on you as the contamination builds up again but you no longer have the fuel for the further alternate. It can be a juggling act in some cases.

Jwscud 28th Mar 2016 11:58

I'm sure we've all had situations where the tailwind at 500ft on the FMS/ND shows out of limits and the tower is reporting calm winds or similar. I assume the software design made the assumption that winds below 500ft were fairly representative of the landing conditions and decided to be conservative in triggering the warning...

staircase 28th Mar 2016 12:22

What no one has mentioned or they have missed is the insurance company.

I sat through a Health and Safety day at my present employer and the instructor said the following;

‘apart from anything else you may learn today, a major reason your company is providing you with this course is to stop the insurance company welching out of any subsequent claim’

I can’t help but think that this sort of mentality results in, shall we say slavish, adherence to the SOP.

I can not therefore 'blame' either the management or the crew

philbky 28th Mar 2016 19:12

Just reading back through a number of posts, what many here seem to be overlooking is that EK run two A380s a day into MAN. Average pax load factors are in excess of 90%, EK being the first of 3 Gulf carriers to exploit the local market. Manchester has a reputation, not totally deserved, for rain and wind. Contrary to early reports, the wind was 30 degrees off the nose to port at 200 degrees, 17 kts, gusts to 27kts for the first two attempts. For the third attempt it was bang on the nose at 230 degrees at 17kts. At all times the runway was wet, but it is grooved and was in no wetter state than on any other wet late winter/early spring evening. This morning's three LHR A380 diversions faced wind at between 14kts and 16kts from between 310 to 340 degrees with an equally wet runway 05 in use. The EK episode was so obviously a computer glitch it is surprising the crew and ops could not work it out.

lapp 28th Mar 2016 22:55

So this must be the other Emirates flight into MAN today? Stopped on a dime
https://youtu.be/ciotIjiriyY

No problems for Virigin either
https://youtu.be/-mYFvh9cO8Q

ExDubai 28th Mar 2016 23:49


Originally Posted by 1201alarm (Post 9326306)
None of the critical spirits here are talking of the first go around, no issue with that, you better take your time when the warning hits you cold.

However, it's interesting to hear that in some companies SOP's have to be strictly followed even in case you could clearly establish that the system is malfunctioning. Children of the magenta also comes to my mind.

Man where have we gotten in this industry...

Good question, but was it really a malfunction ?

Think about a fully loaded plane with litte bit of extra fuel for holding etc., lets say around 390 t. Heavy rain and in the final calculation the System is using the actual conditions for recalculation based on contaminated runway. If you add now some tailwind to that recipe, you might end up with an runway to short warning.

Edit: Even Chuck Yeager would be amazed about the number of "Top Gun User" in this Thread.

Angel`s Playmate 29th Mar 2016 01:01

411A would have loved this thread...

" I was already in the pub in MAN, while the 380 chaps were still in the Hold, trying to figure out what Alfons Au Revoir was up to, after I landed my L-1011 with the reassuring words from my Flight Engineer. " You can do this ". So I did ...."

Banana4321 29th Mar 2016 03:50


411A would have loved this thread...

" I was already in the pub in MAN, while the 380 chaps were still in the Hold, trying to figure out what Alfons Au Revoir was up to, after I landed my L-1011 with the reassuring words from my Flight Engineer. " You can do this ". So I did ...."
lol lol :D

So very true...

AtomKraft 29th Mar 2016 04:13

Slavish adherence to the rules is perfect......for people without any ability or sense.

The SOPs are great, most of the time, but this modern culture of writing a rule for everything, and then kicking anyone's ass who doesn't strictly comply is, imho, better suited for ground based activities.

In this case, after the first GA, what was to stop the crew making an independent performance calculation, concluding that their system had gone TU, and then landing?

I'm not suggesting that they just say 'disregard that, we operate to here and we're sure it's fine', then slapping it down.

There should be a place for the careful and diligent crew derived decision.

But there isn't.

Marcellus Wallace 29th Mar 2016 04:16

ROW/ROP uses DRY and WET predictions based on maximum braking from an auto land with the WET considering maximum reverse thrust.

The system doesn't know the runway conditions. (e.g.. snow/contaminated/slush/standing water/ice).

ROW/ROP can be erroneous if the database (OANS) length is corrupted or shortened by NOTAM and actual LDA is longer than the database or if the airplane position is erroneous, if the IRS was drifting, or declared threshold was wrongly coded in the database hence displacing the the 3 deg path.

Maximum braking......


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