This line from the ATWO report quoted above looks confusing to me:

As seen from this pic, RAT probe is located way forward of the engines under the cockpit so how the heck could it (???) or its heater prevent icing on the engines??
http://i35.tinypic.com/mio106.jpg

Ignition Override;

I didn't know about the Eastern incident. I know we had an accidental deployment at 350 on a '9 in the late 60's early '70's; it tore the reverser off, rolled the airplane near 90deg but the crew recovered.

A reverser deployed accidently is indeed a very serious circumstance from which recovery can be difficult to not possible depending upon flight regime and the stated crew coordination. The 320 drill was to "control roll with rudder, perform the engine shutdown drill"...having done it in the sim it was "academically" controllable if you were quick but it was no mere engine fire (which is even simpler than an engine failure most times), again, as stated.

Yup, the old PanAmerican configuration check.
I follow it, likewise...before every takeoff, without exception.

Tu-134 crash - any similarities?
 

Here is an airport camera shot of a crash involving a similarly designed (2 rear mounted engines) Tu-134 Russian aircraft:

YouTube - Tu-134 crash (full version)


The scenario is very close to this one here: long takeoff roll eating up much of the rwy, feeble liftoff, l/h roll (r/h in our case), falling back on the rwy, break up and fire.

What do you think?

Not the same at all, I think. In the TU case, one engine failed (forget if it was birdstrike or something else, you can see it on the video), and the pilot aborted (I seem to remember it was a mistake). Then, they landed back (not fell) and just overshot the runway; there was no damage prior to that. Luckily, they walked away from it (don't remember if everybody walked, but some definitely did, and there were no fatalities).

Was there any significant crosswind. If so the bang heard could be a compressor stall on one side leading to reduced power take off ?

At this point, talks of a "bang" noise heard before the airplane hit the ground for the first time are not necessarily reliable.

Only survivors (and not all) speak of hearing a bang, but never before being airbone (which only lasted 6 seconds) and it's unclear whether it may have been when they already hit the ground or prior to that. They may just be confused. Very possibly they heard the "bang" when the airplane first touched ground with the wing to then "continue" bouncing around some 6 times on the ground until it caught in fire and crashed some >200m (3-400m likely) away.

They all describe the airplane as moving "side-to-side" (possibly rolling) and falling very shortly after airbone, though. And one survivors speaks of: "lift off, steep side-to-side 'weird' (erratic) movement, hearing a bang, crashing, loss of memory til she found herself outside the airplane amid mud".

Survivors are 8 women and 7 men age 22-60 plus 3 children (6-11). 2 survivors are still in very serious condition. The 3 children among them are not in extreme danger (boy and girl with single leg fracture and another boy with skull fracture and other face wounds).

wall street journal: focus on wing flaps!
 

Focus on Wing Flaps
In Spanair Jet Crash
No Evidence Found
Of Engine Failure
In Preliminary View
By ANDY PASZTOR
August 25, 2008;*Page*A7


The Spanair jetliner that crashed during takeoff from Madrid last week apparently didn't suffer an engine shutdown or fire before impact, according to people familiar with the details, but investigators suspect movable panels on the wings weren't properly extended.

As preliminary information trickled in over the weekend about the accident, which killed 154 people, an international team of experts continued to comb the wreckage looking for parts of the McDonnell Douglas MD-82 used to extend its flaps, these people said. The flaps are movable panels at the rear of the wings designed to provide extra lift during takeoffs.

Another major goal of the team is to determine whether some internal fault or engine-control setting may have caused a malfunction in the twin-engine jet -- a workhorse for international airlines since the 1980s.

At this point, investigators believe the engines were working properly and putting out adequate thrust.

It's still too early for investigators to draw definitive conclusions, and Spanish government officials and a spokesman for the airline, which is owned by Scandinavian airline SAS AB, have declined to comment on the direction of the investigation.

Several people familiar with the effort said various portions of the plane that have been recovered, along with video footage taken by cameras at the airport, don't show any signs of fire or explosion during takeoff. Initially, eyewitness reports and comments from airport officials indicated that flames were coming out of the left engine during takeoff.

Investigators believe both engines were turning as the plane struggled to get airborne using much of the roughly 10,000-foot-long runway, flew briefly and then smashed back to the ground.

Investigators in the next few days intend to enhance video images, while the U.K.'s Air Accidents Investigation Branch will attempt to determine what happened by examining the plane's so-called black boxes, which record flight parameters and cockpit conversations. At this point, investigators don't believe that a defect detected in an outside-temperature sensor before takeoff played any significant role in the accident.

According to people familiar with the Spanair probe, investigators are looking at a variety of possible causes but they are focused on trying to determine whether the pilots may have been distracted during the pre-flight checklist, or received incorrect indications about flap settings. Two U.S. jetliners have crashed since the 1980s because pilots failed to deploy flaps as part of their normal checklist procedures before takeoff.

Yes the bang could have been the aircraft contacting the ground but little mention of possible intake stalling so far. Could anybody please post the Barajas weather actual at the time ?

Someone has if you would take the trouble to look it up yourself in this very thread!

Please would people stop posting irrelevancies and primitive theories of their own! It is making it difficult to sort wheat from the chaff with this cascade of idiocy. 43 pages on very little is absurd!

Yes and that's also what BOAC taught me when I did the B 707 conversion in 1970 - stuck with me since!

sevenstrokeroll,

according to what you said at the end of your post, which is also valid, but this case it should be focused on whether the a/c lifted off or not (some survivors mentioned to have lifted off or they may have confused with the rotation??)...only if confirmed not lifted off the ground that theory of an incorrect or absent drill of the before take off checklist by the pilots could be brought up, otherwise flaps were selected correctly.

over 10 years ago in South America there was a B737 which because of bad cockpit procedures & no discipline of checklists at all, started the take off roll with flaps up, disregarded the TO warning sound thinking of a false one (even more crazy on them), but the thing is the a/c rotated but obviously never lifted off, all dead at the end of the runway.

So, the flaps setting issue in this case should be related only to that lift off...unless any asymetric flaps setting not been checked during checklist?? this last i don't think so...

Me too Bob, trouble is on overstretched aircraft like MD's the Stab Trim 'Green Band' can be moved as well...

Total Rubbish I'm afraid... :ugh:

Just the slightest bit of research and/or knowledge would reveal an identical type taking off without any flats/slats. It got airborne for some 4000' before hitting things (lightpole).

Aircraft with zero/insufficient Flas/Slts configurations will tend to get airborne. However, they will adapt an unusually high nose attitude, wing rock, and very shallow angle of climb. The Flt Crew will probably be experiencing a stick shaker, which will distract them / might convince them to land back on. I will leave you to deduce which of these seem to fit some of the "facts" (or rather "rumours") around this accident...

NoD

Nigel, if you are referring to NW 255 in Detroit on Aug 16, 87 your facts are incorrect.

From the NTSB accident brief:

NORTHWEST FLT 255 (NW255) CRASHED AFTER TAKEOFF FM RWY 3C AT DETROIT METRO AIRPORT. WITNESSES SAID NW255 ROTATED FOR TAKEOFF 1200-1500 FT FROM THE END AND LIFTED OFF NR THE END OF THE 8500 FT RWY. AFTER LIFTOFF, THE WINGS ROCKED LT AND RT AND THE ACFT FAILED TO CLIMB NORMALLY. 18 FEET OF THE LT WING SEPARATED WHEN THE WING CONTACTED A LIGHT POLE 2760 FT BEYOND THE RWY END. THE ACFT ROLLED STEEPLY TO THE LEFT AND STRUCK POLES, A BLDG, AND AUTOMOBILES BEFORE CRASHING INTO A RAILROAD EMBANKMENT. THE ACFT WAS DESTROYED. THE EVIDENCE INDICATED THAT THE FLAPS AND SLATS WERE IN THE UP/RETRACT POSITION AND HAD NOT BEEN DEPLOYED FOR TKOF. NEITHER PLT RECITED THE ITEMS OF THE TAXI CKLIST. STALL WARNINGS WERE ANNUNCIATED BUT AN AURAL TKOF WARNING WAS NOT ANNUNCIATED BY THE CENTRAL AURAL WARNING SYSTEM (CAWS). IT WAS CONFIRMED THAT 28 VOLT DC PWR WAS NOT PROVIDED TO THE CAWS PWR SUPPLY #2. THE REASON FOR THE LOSS OF ELECTRICAL PWR WAS TRACED TO A CIRCUIT BRKR BUT NO MALF OF THE CB WAS FND. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, SEE NTSB/AAR-88/05


So the airplane flew for 2,760 feet (1/2 mile) no higher than a light pole, not 4,000 feet as you said.

NoD,

yes, but your very elegant suggestion is valid when having enough remaning runway after VR, so as to continue accelerating the a/c at least to any minimum speed needed for that, maybe on that Madrid runway being long enough.

on that B737 accident in the past, runway was only 2000 mts long, by the time it happens what you say, you will be off the runway already...

rubbish is always what human beings never wanted to consider until it happens...

PJ2,

you are correct I am speaking utter nonsense, the drill I refer to is for when the system is stuck in the ground mode...:ugh: .
However the reverser deployed theory has been covered extensively about 200-300 posts ago.

Xander

xaf2fe Apologies - I added the rotation point to impact - not airborne, so ~maybe 3000' airborne - although in fact it took 4.5s after liftoff until it passed the end of the runway which pushes it back to 4000' again;) Whatver, read the post I was responding to - a definitive statement that that if the aircraft got airborne, the flaps were selected correctly.

Again, reading the report - the MD-82 referred to "should have got airrborne" at 163KIS (V2+10), but actually got airborne at 169KIAS... so speed at liftoff / ground run used was not markedly different. What was different was the attitude required, and drag / wing-rock / stick shake / climb rate achievable.

I am not going to draw conclusions about Madrid. All I was doing was correcting a definitive, and provably incorrect statment I had read...

NoD

Overthewing - post 802


I'm sorry but if the fare paying public actually thinks any Pilot doesn't really understand what a warning light means - we have a problem. What the light means is usually obvious - what is causing the underlying problem is often not. That's why, as a precaution, the crew return to have things checked out. Often, the underlying causes are minor and irrelevant. Sometimes the warning requires more attention.

I have yet to see an A/c Commander agree to proceed with a flight if there is any doubt about servicability nor and engineer sign off a tech sheet without being staisfied that the fault has been cleared or that he is totally satisfied that there is nothing to concern the safety of the flight.

Especulation.
 

1) Part of the ground sensing ,change to flight condition.( A circuit breaker open or some wrong in relays or circuit)

2) Pilots, during first takeoff intention, notes the RAT increase and EPR reduction ( Rat probe was heated)

3) The mecanic not detected the condition and choice disconect the heater feeder wire ( the plane stay in flt condition)

4) In this condition the Take off configuration warning is inoperative.

5) The roll inestability is típical a stall condition because the wings d´not enter in this condition simultaneously.

6) when there are some problem ,the pilots atention is focused in this and rest is out of the loop.

PD : The flight recorder start in ground whith either fuel lever is open and parking brake is release. In flight ,the ground sensing, bypass this items

The voice recorder start when the plane is powered

The thrust reverser is operative in ground and flight (is prohibited used in flight)