I haven't trolled through all the comments, so I'm probably repeating what's already been said. Firstly, as an ex-EK 777 driver, may I offer an enormous 'well done' to the cabin crew. Convincing pax, (is it politically incorrect to say 'particularly from that part of the world'?) to leave their hand baggage behind is impossible. Ethiopian Airlines had an evacuation in Dubai some years ago and most of the pax were Nigerians on their way to Dubai to do major shopping/business. There was NO way they were going to leave their hand baggage behind, and the crew wisely recognised this and got everyone off, with their bags, far faster than they would have if they'd tried to enforce the no bags rule.

I'd be very surprised if the final report on this incident doesn't come to a similar conclusion. If there were only four injured in the evacuation, I'd have to say I'm amazed. Given the wide age and state of health range usually found on any EK flight, (on average, every EK flight in my day was met by 10 to 20 wheelchairs, but maybe we should not go there right now as to why that was so), I would have half expected one or more deaths due to heart attacks and the like in the most benign of evacuations, which this was was definitely not.

"ABC World News Tonight," here in the States, said a few minutes ago the crew forgot to lower the landing gear, tower noticed the improper configuration, told the crew to go around, but evidently too late.

With an air temperature (49C) well above the minimum flashpoint of JET-A1 (38C) and the ground surface (concrete or asphalt) likely to be even hotter, any fuel spill might well generate plenty of immediately ignitable vapour. Then any ignition source would cause a rapidly growing fire and even fuel/air explosions, causing the fire seen in the video sources mentioned so far.

Can any specialists comment on whether very hot airports have an increased fire risk of a fuel leak (compared to, for example, the BA38 crash where there was no fire, or the Asiana crash at SFO where fire seemed to take hold more slowly)?

Never say never, but rather unlikely - if you get below 250 ft. with the gear up you get a rather loud EICAS CONFIG warning.

It would be good if at some time, some of you could go over to the cabin crew forum and post a little thank you for the professionalism of the girls and boys shown today during the evac. The pax were something to be desired, and I have had plenty of experience with them over the years.

Although those involved probably will not be monitoring the string, too traumatised going through the what if/if only/perhaps/mumkin/yumkin and Company policy. There are those close to them who will. Just to see/understand what their peers think of them during this traumatic time.

Thank-you

Re the clip taken inside during evacuation. At one point didn't I see a male cabin crew member racing down the aisle shouting "Leave everything, jump on slide' repeatedly? By that time what could be seen of the inside was fairly empty. It was a short message and very much to the point, and I can easily imagine it was being shouted well before we heard it on te clip.

If we had fuel tanks exploding in ground fires there would be signs of over-pressure and ruptures. Ullage ignition is more likely associated with higher energy sparks or time enough for the heat to boil the fuel.

Still to be seen is whether the over-wing departing engine ruptured a fuel tank before the later explosion.

In one of the videos looking head-on at the aircraft there is plenty of dust/smoke but little visible fire and yet the motion of that slide much later is quite violent.

As far as the cabin is concerned, there is little smoke and fire visible inside when the video was taken. However once the RH doors were left open and the external fire took hold it seems to have entered the cabin and flowed along the ceiling.

Good that the passengers got out quickly, but what doors you open can make a difference in how much time you have vs the location of external fires.

Again any comparisons with the SIA event and this one will still need to wait on many details only available in a final report.

As always your mileage may vary so as a passenger you need to listen for trained crew instructions and not believe everything you read on the internet.

Fire service response
 

In respect to fire service, could someone explain the significance of the different liveried fire trucks?
A video appears to show passengers 400 meters from the plane and passing beside a plane parked near hangers, but yet they are passed by a convoy of yellow liveried fire appliances racing toward the plane.
This would be over 6 minutes after the 777 came to a full stop.
Also in this video there is a red fire truck stopped on the apron facing away from from the plane and near the walking passengers, perhaps returning for more water?

How far away is the most distant fire station from the incident?
https://twitter.com/mailonline/statu...41108410605568

The onboard video taken by a passenger shows a brief glimpse of two red liveried fire trucks positioned beside the plane.

Presumably one station has red trucks and another has yellow?

Sad to hear that a firefighter lost his life in the callout.
Mickjoebill

Microburst possibly having put the gear up for a go around ?

Windshear is lethal. Diverted recently without making an approach having heard the preceding 6 aircraft had all gone round due to windshear. Didn't stop one smart arse passenger getting off in his final destination, only an hour an and a half late telling me I should have flown through it through the open flight deck door 🙄

I would like to see a locking system for the overhead bins. They auto lock at, say, application of TO power and can only be unlocked manually, after, say seat belt sign goes off. Re-lock when seat belt sign is activated to On, (turbulence or landing) and once again, have to be manually unlocked after both engines shut down. The manual over ride, CC or flight deck, should always be available in the event of a technical failure.

The fire trucks in the city's stations are all yellow. The aerodrome firetrucks are all red. I'm guessing that due to the gravity of the situation the city's yellow firetrucks for called for additional support.

Yes, probably because it was low on its belly!

Design intent is that in an overload situation, the strut will fail in such a way that the engine goes over the wing instead of under, without rupturing the fuel tank. However that's all done by analysis - how it works in the real world will be interesting to find out.


Regarding windshear - many airports in the US have ground based windshear detection systems (Doppler radar based, IIRC) so ATC can warn approaching aircraft or even temporarily close down a runway. Why wouldn't a major airport like Dubai have a similar system?:confused:


As for passengers evacuating with carry-on luggage, how about creating a separate thread so you can re-hash all the arguments that get repeated after every ground evacuation without cluttering up the thread for those of us that want to discuss what actually happened? Maybe the mods can make it a sticky :rolleyes:

local Captain will be hailed a hero in due course.

Aussie FO will be hung.

EK SOP

"Passenger say minutes before the flight crashed, one of the pilots made an announcement that there was a problem with the landing gear and that the plane would be making an emergency landing."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/busi...354fc9c9b62484

Since Boeing monitors 787 and 777 real time, it is assured that the details will be available.

Also this:
The crashed Emirates 777 wirelessly transmitted critical flight data within minutes of the accident to airline officials, the supplier of the data storage and transmission device says.

Raul Segredo, president and chief executive of Avionica, says the device spared safety investigators a search through the wreckage for the flight data recorder to recover immediate data about the last seconds of the landing sequence.

Miami-based Avionica supplies the miniQAR Mk III quick access recorder for the Emirates 777 fleet. The device receives flight information from the same databus that feeds the flight data recorder, Segredo says. The device is linked to a 3G wireless transmitter.

A key feature of Avionica’s design may have made the speedy data transmission possible despite the crash landing. Similar devices are programmed to begin transmitting data after the landing gear have touched the runway, Segredo says. The miniQAR MK III uses a proprietary algorithm that uses a mixture of parameters to determine when to activate the data transmission on the ground, he says. Emirates officials have confirmed to Avionica that the device worked on the crashed 777."

Check gear down and locked
 

Keep hearing these reports that ATC "reminded the crew to lower the gear", but I'm yet to hear that on the LiveATC recordings. The transmissions from ATC are very poor, but surely one would think there would be some kind of reply from the crew if ATC indeed reminded them of lowering the gear...

Where is this info coming from?

If true, would it not be indeed strange for ATC to remind pilots to
"lower their landing gear"? Or is this now normal procedure?

Flaps 30 to 20
 

on very low level go arounds ( ground effect?)with adverse ambient and performance conditions ( low speed, low thrust, tailwind, low pressure, high temp) would the SOP of flaps 30 to flaps 20 remove both drag AND lift at a crucial juncture?

Julio747 wrote

Yes but invariably they don't have the luxury of 1000s of acres of sand to use,or relatively flat land

ESP wrote
My point entirely look at how much of Dubai is sand, could easily have had a building embargo of mile if the had wanted to.

http://i63.tinypic.com/ffcpb5.jpg

I would not be at all surprised if this turns out to be the normal "Cabin crew, prepare for landing" PA.