thcrozier
 

"Also, are the engine pylons designed to shear off under the stress of a water landing?"

I think the answer is somewhere on PPrune. I know for a fact that in the early days Airbus adopted a different means from Boeing to meet the requirement that (from memory) in an accident large masses should not fly around and cause even more damage to the plane and pax cabin. Boeing always used the famous "fuse pins" designed to let the engines separate early under relatively low loads. Airbus chose to ensure, as far as possible, that the engines remain attached.

I'm not 100% sure that this philosophy was carried over to the A320 Family, but I think it was.

One of 8 (now 9?) successfull ditchings
 

Here is a photo of another successful ditching of heavy airliner. Tupolev 124 jet, USSR, 1963, all 52 on board survived.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...CCCP-45021.jpg
Tupolev 124 ditching in Neva River - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Article says "It remains one of 8 documented intentional water ditchings of commercial passenger planes. "

superb job well done by all the crew :D:D

runway condition ?

wet wet wet.

As SLF my view of ditching has always been, that the yellow rubbery things are just to help the investigators find all the bodies.

Better change my view now i spose.

and we better start looking to regulate the geese, or tax them out of the skies of course.

does anyone know how many geese were injured/killed and whether they were fitted with TCAS, or what make of geese they were.

just trying to give the accident investigators a leg up here in true PPRUNE fashion :E

again - well done crew :ok:

Double bird strike
 

There was a multiple bird strike just a few weeks ago on final approach. Both engines stalled. Ryanair plane landed hard but safely at Rome Ciampino.

Jesus Walking on Water - Violent Femmes
 

Quote "This crew really have done the industry proud.

From a flight attendants view , I am so amazed at how the 3 cabin crew ( 2 seated at front...1 at rear ?? ) managed to control 150 people once the aircraft landed in water. Not an easy task."

Well done to the FA's for getting the right ratio of PAX on the left and right wings ! Must have been interesting at the herding point :)

Out of interest, we always know the FO never gets a mention, but who WAS the Pilot Flying ?

We all assume it was the captain.......

How about a mention of ALL the crew...

Wonder if the crew got the flight folio and their headsets off.....

Well done...

The 'Ditching' button closes outflow valve and in addition, the emergency ram air inlet, avionics ventilation extract valve and pack flow control valves close.

Has nothing to do with doors.

Power assist is purely mechanical - no electrics involved. All it is is a gas bottle attached to a ram that pushes the door open when opened in the armed mode.

Team work
 

FO
 

As reported:
Sullenberger's co-pilot was Jeff Skiles, 49, of Oregon, Wis., a 23-year US Airways veteran

Congrats to captain Sully and his crew.

As for all the reports of no fatalities; whatever happened to the bloody birds?

What a nightmare. We sit there in our cockpits for years and years and nothing goes wrong. Then all of a sudden you have seconds to decide.
I salute you sir, and your crew.
(MD11 driver.):ok:

__________________

FAA Regs same as Canada. ;)
Air Canada’s regional carrier Jazz is removing life vests from all its planes to save weight and fuel. Jazz spokeswoman Manon Stuart said Friday that government regulations set by Transport Canada allow airlines to use floatation devices instead of life vests provided the planes remain within 50 nautical miles of shore.

Question to those here who drive the Big Iron: in a situation like this, assuming it's the FO's sector, would the Captain take over ? We know this was not the case with BA38 / 777 at LHR, but what's the standard procedure (if any)?


Well, I asked the same question to my pal who is a skipper on a widebody and he told me that he would be inclined to let his first officer fly the aircraft whilst he initially sat on his hands, quickly assesed the situation and then went through with emergency action procedures.

He said, (generally) flying the thing was the easier of the jobs, and that managing the emergency and making the correct command descions for the whole operation is where the cool head was really needed.

I guess when you get close to the ground, is where the capt. may want to take control? each situation will be different I guess and depends who is flying in the righthand seat, beacuse it could be a 300hr recent abinito or a 9000hour senior FO - your willingness to let them land the thing may well depend on this. In the BA incident, the FO was a high hour pilot.

Sorry, my post may have come across as meaning power assist is electrical, thanks for clarifying it, I meant that perhaps the averge person confuses the 'power' to mean 'electrical'

Quite a few posters mentioned ALL the crew, and pax as well... well done them for not losing their heads- they look quite calm from the wing shot- perhaps seeing the ferries on the way helped :E

Airbus A320s, like the one involved in today's dramatic but fatality-free crash, and their Boeing 737 counterparts, will come to rest in survivable ditchings in a tail down attitude with the rear door sills under water.

Firstly, may I say that as pax/ppl I usually respect the overwhelming "pro's only" comments on threads such as this and quite rightly too, but I thought this might be an interesting response to the above.

I have a large collection of safety cards (gained leagally by asking crew for spares, so don't preach) and having just checked, the A320 ones (UA, B6, BA, BD etc.) ALL clearly show via diagrams that the rear exits should possibly be used in a ditching. Contrary to the article above, all the instances of 737 I checked seem to specifically prohibit the use of the rear exists in this scenario and a few (BA 734, BD 733/5 for example) state that ONLY the overwing exits (not the front doors) should be used. Interestingly, several have no specific guidance on the use of exits after ditchings!

It seems clear from the pictures that this aircraft would very quickly have sunk with open rear exits. Maybe this will be one of the (I'm sure many) safety improvements that comes from this amazing incident. I'll be watching with interest as both pilot and pax. Just a thought.

My thoughts, as ever, are with the families of the birds concerned.

Take a look at this guys, he narrowly avoided a head on with helicopter N461SA coming in the opposite direction up the river at 1000ft! Looks like the heli took avoidance measures.

Go to 15th Jan, 15:25. Click on a plane for details. The A320 appears at 15:59:57
LaGuardia Airport - AirportMonitor - by Megadata - powered by PASSUR

Here's the track log from flightaware.com

FlightAware > Live Flight Tracker > Track Log > AWE1549 > 15-Jan-2009 > KLGA-KLGA

The aircraft is still floating and tied up to a dock. I imagine a couple of heavy-duty cranes in the morning to do a lift and then some serious considerations about how to get it the hell out of there. The wings are going to have to come off.

the airport monitor does not seem to work. Could it be because i m not in the US?

A helicopter was indeed rerouted according to an earlier thread

I wonder if the nr. 2 engine is still on the pylon, hence the wing down appearance the fuselage has had since the early photos. The training in this profession - and others - just amazes me. What a super job by all concerned.

Video of La Guardia rw31 departure showing ditch area
 

For those wondering if they could pull it off this video gives an idea of how it might have been.

It's a departure from RW31 looking out of the left cabin windows. Manhatton and central park come clearly into view at 2mins 30secs, quickly followed by the river at 2mins 50secs. By this stage presumably the crew were well on their way down (and thus the view much more challenging).

It brings a lump to the throat realising the only option left to do is to whack it round to the left and go for a southerly ditch. For a light aircraft, I guess Central Park itself might be an option (has any aircraft ever landed there?)

YouTube - TAKE OFF FROM LA GUARDIA AIRPORT NEW YORK