It still surprices me that the it was nose into the bay instead of the tail. Costly fault anyway...:}

ADAT is the new name for GAMCO(GULF AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE COMPANY ABU DHAI)

Wingview, do you care to read the posts in this thread??:confused:

First of all according to the telex from Airbus the incident happened while leaving the engine run up area.

Secondly, earlier somebody made a description why it sometimes necessary to park the aircraft nose in.

Not sure if you are familiar with the Schiphol layout but have a look at the engine test bay at the beginning of runway 27, opposite McDonalds.
This engine test bay is constructed in such a way that regularly during engine test you are facing a wall. Especially when facing South - East. If the brakes would fail and the chocks would not stop the aircraft than you will end up in the same position as the Etihad aircraft.

After having done a fair amount of engine runs in this position myself, and seen other operators do it, i would advise you to be very carefull with appointing blame. :=

de groeten. CEJM

http://maps.google.nl/maps?hl=nl&t=h...6866&z=16&om=0

I wish those injured a speedy recovery.
But this exactly the kind of thing you would expected from GAMCO no matter what they change there name to.

GAMCO had nothing to do with this incident. They were unwitting passengers far as I know?

So why is it sometimes necessary? An aircraft in a walled off run-up pad should be backed in. Anything else is nonsense. It's easy to check which is right. Just note the end with the very expensive blast deflectors and put the pointy part of the aircraft at the other end.

Not like so .......

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...titled-1-9.jpg

Quote:
....... earlier somebody made a description why it is sometimes necessary to park the aircraft nose in.
So why is it sometimes necessary? An aircraft in a walled off run-up pad should be backed in. Anything else is nonsense.


Wind direction.

Wouldn't the blast deflectors, ummmm....stop the wind :rolleyes:

Maybe Airbus should lay down an EMAS surface at either end of its engine testing facilities leaving enough room to enter and exit... just in case :hmm:

Fox3snapshot: Wouldn't the blast deflectors, ummmm....stop the wind

In a word, no. There is a big gap, although obviously not big enough, to get the aircraft in and out.
Seriously though, on older aircraft during EGRs it’s not unknown to have to reposition the aircraft into wind. During new aircraft acceptance, lease transfer etc, any variance on the engine parameters could carry a financial penalty.

Wind direction? Just where, precisely, is the anemometer in this walled-off pad?

Engine runs aren’t (weren’t) my thing but I’ve spent enough time on airfields to have an opinion on this whole sorry cock up.

If someone suggested to me that I could carry on working with my ‘wires’ while they moved the aircraft into a walled of run-up pad for high power engine runs, I’d consider it.

When they told me that, due to a shortage of tugs/tow-bars they were taxiing nose in, I’d reconsider it.

When I saw that the aircraft was then pointing at a sloping concrete wall - with a six feet high three inch thick steel guillotine on the top, I’d get out and watch from a safe distance.

What the hell happened to common sense?

Whoever sanctioned/supervised/approved this operation needs introducing to the rag man’s trumpet. Pathetic - Incompetent - Negligent. :ugh::ugh:

PS. So this one's saved a few bob then! :bored:

"Not sure if you are familiar with the Schiphol layout but have a look at the engine test bay at the beginning of runway 27, opposite McDonalds?"

Would that be a drive thru or Fly thru :}

I've read the entire subject..... and so far I'm no nearer to what really happened.
Does anybody have any factual information?
Like why an aircraft managed to climb up and over blast defectors that should have been behind the aircraft?

Forget,

Have a look google earth at the engine run bay at Schiphol at beginning of runway 27. You will see that while facing South-East and with the exhaust pointing to the blast deflector the nose points to the wall on the other side.

http://maps.google.nl/maps?hl=nl&t=h...6866&z=16&om=0

Too many people jumping the gun here, have heard it was taxiing following ground runs. I wasn't there though so will wait a while before condemning those on-board.

JET II
You are a bit out of date:)
Gamco have not maintained Gulf Air aircraft for several years :=

ChristiaanJ,

Its going to be very difficult when the engine test bay is U shaped with the lower right hand corner of the U not being walled. To have the tail of the aircraft facing the blast deflectors you have to point the nose to the opposite wall, either 90 degrees or a smaller angle but it will face a wall. Have a look on Google Earth Toulouse airport and follow the Airbus facility. You will find the engine test bay and probably will understand why it was facing a wall.

http://maps.google.nl/maps?hl=nl&t=h...1457&z=16&om=0

Point taken (for now) - neck wound in (for now).

I believe that the wind consideration in engine runups have to do with the engine stability, most notably fan issues at high power.
When you are standing still at high power the inlet is sucking air and any wind across the inlet is akin to angle of attack changes on the inlet itself. Some engines might not like this and even backfire/surge/stall (its hard to sell this product afterwards to a customer). While in other cases minute angle of attack changes could oucurr to the fan blades themselves setting up a flutter zone which might rapidly wear out the whole fan blade set.
Steady state winds are easily accomodated but gusting winds are not so easily defined in directionality. Its not a question of being boxed in and not getting enough air, it's the need to have smooth airflow at high power if you are anywhere near the fan blade flutter speeds.

If we believe the Airbus Telex, than it doesn't matter if the aircraft was facing a wall while they performed the engie test. Because the accident happend while they were vacating the engine test bay.

We will have to wait for the report from the authorities.

Lamapaseo, you hit the nail on the head. Thats the reason why the aircraft needs to point into wind. :ok:

Hmm. Could have come from any direction!

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b270/cumpas/runup.jpg

Thanks Forget, I couldn't get the picture in the reply, hence the link.:confused:

By looking at the daylight picture of the incident, the aircraft is facing north. Because you can see the hangar (with the two aircraft in front) on the right hand side of the accident picture.

Are you all quite sure the engine test bay involved is the one shown on Google?

I cannot work out the shape of the blast barriers or the whereabouts of the hangers shown in the background in the photo.

Is the Google image 5 years out of date as usual? or has a further length of blast barrier been built? The plane has hit a short section with a long section on its left hand side. The negative can't be reversed unless the aircraft belongs to Dahite airways.:confused:

Or am I talking out of my orifice again?:confused::confused::confused::confused:

Something I haven't seen suggested yet...

Notice the snow on the ground in the pics? Could the a/c have hit a patch of ice whilst taxiing in/out, and skidded across it? I know you'd still need to be moving excessively fast in order to end up and over the barriers, but may be a contributing factor?

I may be wrong, but I don't think it's snow; I assumed it was foam sprayed by the emergency crews?

Mag, Toulouse is in the south of France. That 'snow' is foam. ;)

I departed toulouse this morning, we had to deice, the cars in the hotel parking lot were covered in rime, though no snow on the ground.
But just being southern france doesn't make it snow free.

Nic

The !!!!!!!!!!!!!! shot was a taken with a very long lens. Checking out the building roof etc (yellow arrow) against Google Earth - aircraft ended up at red line.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...itled-1-10.jpg

It may be foam, although it looks to extend quite a long way towards the camera and way beyond the wingtip in the daytime pic.

http://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/open.file/1293784/L/

Plus, I've been at Toulouse in November when it's snowed quite heavily, so don't discount the snow/ice theory so readily.

Anyway we can check the metar at the time of the incidence?


Rwy in Sight

Correct. And if you go further North-East, you will see that the picture was most likely taken from the terminal of TLS airport (or one of the office buildings adjacent to it).

So what happened if this was after the test was completed? One possibility would be that while slowly turning the aircraft towards the exit, thrust was applied too early (either inadvertently by the pilot or due to a technical failure).

Can anybody guess what speed would have been necessary to push the nose over the concrete wall?

Here's a same scale shot of the pan with an A-340. Plenty of room to get a few knots on board - depending on where you start from.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b270/cumpas/tou.jpg

It says a lot for the strength around the nose gear and the keel beam - I would have expected collapse there and concertina-ing rather than 'up-and-over'.

A really frightening experience for those on board, particularly up front.

I think it's quite a bit further in. If you look at the way the tele lens "compresses" the depth.

Take a look at how close to the fuselage the the wing tip rests on the ground, compared to the distance from the wing tip to the near edge of the test bay.

Also compare the amount of fence on the barrier in front and behind the aircraft. The width of individual panels of the fence seen in the far end of the bay helps judge the amount of fence that is seen in front of the plane.

So it appears to be closer to the centre of the north-western ("right") barrier, rather than at the near edge.


Bernd

It reminds me (NB: NO suggestion this was the cause!) of an engineer who taxied a 727 onto stand in TXL but forgot to put the hydraulic pumps on.......................it took a while to get the jetty out of the wing.:eek:

Considering that currently google earth images show at least two A380 standing in the open (besides several A340/A330 and countless A320-series), and that the (c) notice says "2007", it can't be more than a few months old.

For scale: the aircraft on forget's screenshots in the top left corner is a "Beluga" Super Transporter.

No. That's the kind of perspective illusion that a long telephoto lens produces. It has hit a long section, with a short section to its left. The long section appears short because it is photographed almost edge-on.

Here's my best estimate as to the photographer's location, this corresponds to a field-of-view of about 2.2 degrees, at a distance of about 1.45 km.
http://panchromat.org/.misc/Blagnac-Photo.jpg

Bernd

Here's an aerial shot of the NE corner of thepad. The red arrow is (I think) the orange Ground Services unit shown in the Airliners net photo.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b270/cumpas/yyy.jpg

This is rather academic, since the relevant people already know where exactly it was, but this is an interesting experiment nonetheless.

Look at the telltale markings on the wall, circled in blue and red, respectively, their position relative to the airframe (now permanently a "groundframe"), and their relative position on the wall, seen in the backdrop overview:

http://panchromat.org/.misc/Wall-Markings.jpg


Bernd

Was that a -235 model by any chance?

The 727 has a famous design issue where you need to open a hydraulic interconnect under some circumstances to get normal braking. There are pneumatic brakes but by the time you find that yellow handle it's usually all over but the shouting.

I also remember the (TXL) incident and I think it was a 235.