BBC Journos in Celtic scare
 

Ooops sorry should read the actual title!

Celtic in Aircraft Scare
Celtic are (were) stranded in Lithuania after their airplane aborts take-off whilst on the runway

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foot...ue/3112025.stm

....and quote:

"The Boeing 757 came to a sudden and frightening halt as it charged down the runway and Celtic operations manager Ronnie Hawthorn explained to the passengers what was happening.

"The air speed indicator wasn't working and so he didn't know what speed he was doing on the runway and aborted take-off," said Hawthorn.

"Many things can cause this, such as a blockage caused by a bird or something simple".

Terrifying stuff for all concerned. Sorry, shouldn't take it this way really...but do we have to go overboard YET again?

The really despicable thing about it is the inclusion of the reference to the Man Utd Munich crash. The only thing in common is the "football team/aviation incident" related nature. Only included to evoke panicky memories of death and destruction.

For a detailed discussion of media ignorance and flight safety see
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...ght=journalist

<<caused by a bird or something simple>>

so he isn't very politically correct then?

Oh, THAT sort of bird! :D

and I'm sure I heard a scottish sports reporter who was on the flight claim "the pilot (only one??) made an emergency stop as he reached a speed of 250mph"! Anyone know which airline?

Simfly, when you're as p1ssed as the average journo, any speed above walking pace looks like 250.

Hmm... the evening times (Glasgow), has reported an insect was stuck in the, er.... peto tube :rolleyes:

Personally I thought this was that much of a joke, it were Jetblast forum material, as seen here....

At the time of the Peru 757 crash, one of the TV 'in-depth' talking heads here referred consistently to the speedo tube.

Well, I'm glad to hear they didn't abort on the taxiway. :}

. . . or in the middle of the sky . .

Tee Hee,

That finest bastion of Scottish journalism, The Daily Record said that £50 million worth of football stars "dived for cover" as the jet came "screeching to a stop" on the runway. I wonder where the dived to? And did the goalie do so with more panache than the rest of the team?

I wonder if the team are worth more than the aircraft.

From their website this morning:

"A PLANE was forced to abort its landing a minute before touchdown because another aircraft was on the runway.

Passengers on the Ryanair flight from Barcelona to Prestwick were shocked when their jet pulled up sharply in the middle of its descent. It landed 10 minutes later after circling the airport in the Tuesday night incident."

Wen I gro up im gonna be a jurnalist for the daly rekord:yuk:

Britannia Airways B757 i believe.

Bally Heck - some of their forwards are better at diving than Rab Douglas their keeper - Sutton for example. Lest we forget the Leeds team at Stansted (I think) on an Emerald Air flight, as well as the Munich crash.

What was Martin O'Neil doing outside the aircraft?

Surely the a/c could not have been travelling very fast. Does the airspeed indication not come alive at a fairly low speed? No doubt an emergency stop may have felt dramatic, but would the a/c even have got beyond 100 knots?

...and it does bring to mind the old joke...


Bobby Robson is bringing the England team home from the World Cup. As he relaxes after departure the hostess offers him the menu. "I'll have the steak" says Bobby. "What about the vegetables Mr. Robson?" asks the hostess. "Give them steak as well." says Bobby!

Surely if there was a bird stuck to the pitot head, Neil Lennon would have been out there like a shot...;)

Though I'd have to agree that on the whole Scottish sports journalists aren't the brightest stars in the sky, it often strikes me that on this board there is a marked lack of appreciation of the customer perspective. Indeed some of the comments err on the side of smug rudeness.

According to a fairly lengthy article in today's Times (of London not Glasgow) entitled "Celtic flying high even if plane isn't", the situation was that:

'...the Britannia Airways captain pulled out almost on the point of take-off. The plane slewed across the runway before shuddering to a halt at such force that everything inside the cabin was tossed around as the passengers were jolted backwards viciously by the impact of the brakes.'

Now to a seasoned flight crewer reading that report they may well think 'job well done, proper procedures followed, no risk to passengers, blahblahblah', but you might also want to note the comments of Paul Lambert - an experienced pro who has probably flown hundreds of times:

'It was certainly the worst thing I have been involved in on a flight. It was very frightening and the flight crew deserve great credit for the way they acted.'

It may be no big deal to you, but to the average passenger sitting facing the back of the seat in front, a sudden deceleration in 60 odd tons of aircraft from 100+ knots to zero, coupled with veering from the runway centre, just as they were waiting for the wheels to leave the ground, would amount to something a little more nerve racking than a visit to Alton Towers.

So feel free to bash the (deserving) press, but maybe a little more empathy with the punters in future?

sparkymarky

You say:

I think that most pilots would agree that a high speed abort is a very big deal indeed and one of the most critical manoeuvres that a pilot has to make.

I wonder how big the "speedo" tube is on this aircraft is if a bird can get lodged inside it? :O I presume I could put my fist inside it.

A 'high speed' abort, yes, but if it was a Britannia 757 or any other Boeing, surely there is the '80 kts' call, to cover incapacitation and ASI failure?

An 80 kts reject is NOT a big deal!

or how a bird managed to "fly up the" pitot tube while the aircraft was hurtiling along the runway at 100kts +.


Wouldn't the flight crew have noticed that the airspeed indicator wasn't working before getting to that sort of speed anyway ? :rolleyes:

fmgc

Glad you are with me on this one!


Andrew M

Pure theorising of course, but isn't there the possibility the foreign object (I understood it was an insect not a bird) actually lodged in the tube as the aircraft reached that speed?

Your post and sarcastic smiley tends to imply the failure MUST have happened at a lower speed?

With that sort of logic any future air accident investigation can happily rule out mechanical/instrument failure as a cause, since if everything was OK at engine startup there can't possibly have been any failures during the flight.