Old B747SP incident in Buenos Aries
 

After dinner with friends last night the gentleman told me about a flight he made out of BA - (destined for NY I think) On takeoff they lost two to on one side, in addition to flap damage due to heavy bird strikes..

It became a serious challenge to maintain control of the very heavy aircraft, reconfigure fuel weights and dump until they were down to weight. As I understand it at one point a third engine also lost power but was recovered, The guy sitting next to my friend in First was a senior executive with overall responsibility for flight safety and ops responsibilities for an American Airline, He very quickly became convinced that they were going down but did not choose to tell my friend the bad news not knowing what his reaction would be.

After some five hours of flying around getting reconfigured and discussing potential outcomes, they returned to make a safe landing back at BA. The now "two best friends" met up for a further two days of de-stressing and at that time, he gave my friend the news that during the flight he was convinced they were not going to make it. Said friend I understand was quite happy not to have known the potential outcome.

Now here's the sting, I can find no reference to this incident and I have looked in the PPrune archive, on various websites, and on the NTSB web site (I think Panam was mentioned) and date in the 1980's possibly around 1985. and found nothing.

Does anyone have any knowledge of said incident? or information, possibly a report?, I understand that certain issues of this type could be buried in the long grass by certain airlines not wanting bad publicity, who knows. I will be seeing my friend in a few days time and I might have a little more detail, but as a starter for 10, here we are. I would like to continue our discussion with a little more knowledge since he seems to be laying something to rest.

Your mission, should you accept it, etc, etc....

With thanks,

IG

It's not your one but has a lot of similarities with the PeopleXpress B747-200 ex EGKK in the early 80's which had very similar issues at Vr, 2 engines on port side stalling and 3rd flaming, and got almost within treetop height of Russ Hill just west on Rwy26, whilst dumping everything it could. Unbelievable airmanship from the crew to save it. I saw it taxi out but didn't see the ensuing near disaster.

Here's a link to a website devoted to the B-747SP. I'm not familiar with that particular website, but it may be a good starting point for your search. Good luck and let us know what you find out.

The link: https://www.747sp.com/

Cheers,
Grog

I would have access to anything like that if the facts were even partially correct. Since I don't recall in my mind anything that matches I don't want to waste a lot of time.

Can you at least provide a couple of guaranteed facts and I'll tell you if the data is recorded against them

Pan Am to JFK sounds more likely.

Aerolineas did fly a single 747SP for 10 years, but it appears to have been most often used to MIA and LAX rather than JFK.

Edit: No, AA's 1987 timetable does show the SP serving JFK.

I have a vague recollection of 'coffee pot' discussion of an event that sounds like this one - what my coworkers described was an over-rotation on takeoff - inlet separation cause 3 engines to surge (two unrecoverable), they circled around while dumping fuel and landed.
Events of that type meant much tougher requirements for inlet performance at high angles of attack for the 767 and for the 747 re-engine with the JT9D-7R4G2.

I had seen the complete video of that one taken by a passenger behind the port wing. It starts out on taxi out (boring) and then continues through the takeoff. After liftoff (normal) and passing over the end of the runway below, you can see the flame spurts from the right engine followed by the hedgerows below rising up into closeup views.At that point the aircraft has descended below the horizon from the tower view and the equipment was being called, then the film is cut-off only to come back on much later in and out of clouds with fuel dump pouring out of the wing. The sound is heard of the pilot saying not to worry and that he expects the ground staff will be already to meet them and rebook them on alternate flights. The passengers reported no-ground staff ever met them (went home).

I recall (subject to the official report) The investigation showed that most of the engines were heavily worn with little EGT margin (as purchased from PE by CO). The FDR showed the crew over pitched the aircraft after the first engine quit (nonresponsive in an engine stall condition). The other engines continued to operate during the turnback but likely may have experience a short powerloss while pitched up.

I have seen clips from that video in the public arena since then.

The official AAIB report ('I have the honour to be Sir your obedient servant' etc.) is here:

https://assets.publishing.service.go...989_N605PE.pdf

No F/E in the cockpit?

Thanks Airbubba, but I don't think that the incident I'm thinking of - the 1988 time frame is too late (we were well into certifying the 747-400 at that time). The incident I'm thinking would have been years earlier - around when we were doing the 747-200 with the JT9D-74RG2 (which struggled to meet the stiffened high angle of attack inlet requirements - that would be around 1983 or '84 time frame)

After meeting my friend this morning I know a little more.

a) It was definitely PANAM
b) Definitely an "SP"
c) Definitely Buenos Aires to JFK
d) After checking with SWMBO, he has stated that it is now definitely in the late '79 to early 1980 timeframe
e) The passenger sitting next to him was a KLM Executive expert, who was subsequently called to provide input to an internal enquiry. Possibly under non-disclosure? (My thoughts here)

I don't know whether I will be able to push for too much more info, his description of the event has obviously burnt a mark on his memory, but it has tweaked my interest.
Thanks for all the help so far, he was really appreciative of the feedback from this site since not a great deal of the "What and Why" appears to have been communicated with the SLF.

Thanks,

IG

According to the report the crew member in the Flight Engineers Station was a licensed flight engineer - turbojet. He was also an ATP holder (although not rated on the 747 as a pilot).

OH

Enroute re-clearance might have been to reduce fuel loads. We do it on the newer jets today while crossing the pond, it allows us to carry less reserve fuel.

Could be PA N739. Had 2 in less than a month, dual engine bird ingestions, one event in IST and one in EZE. Single IFSD, not a big deal except to the birds.

N739PA, the plane that was blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, was not an SP.

Ok, how about PA N743 it had two event of double engine fuel icing resulting in a single engine IFSD.

I doubt that the subject description in the OP is in the recorded data, other than the ice cubes in a drink