I don't think we do, Captain Sullenberger cannot be said to have caused the problems that his flight encountered. In this accident, we cannot be sure that this is the case, and won't be sure until the investigators release a preliminary report at the earliest.

Removing the flight crew from the country actually stops them being subpoenaed by the authorities. If they were thrown on a plane straight back to Dubai the ATSB would have a hard time actually talking to them if Emirates wanted to play hard ball. If they were in Australia then they would have a legal obligation to talk to the ATSB I would imagine.

This whole thing could become a political minefield as the airline is not a private company as such. So the owners may not be to appreciative of another government authority investigating their company.

As for LLZ it is aligned with the centreline. How else would you transmit a beam that tracks you down the centreline?

Hi Guys ,

Do you know what are the countries which use to prosecute/arrest pilots in case of an incident/accident?

a-3twenty

some real muppets on this thread..... v biased un-professional comments.

Lets wait to hear from the real experts eh?

neville_nobody;
Understand and from a political point of view this may make some kind of crude sense but from a flight safety pov, preventing a country's investigative authorities from talking to those involved in an incident or accident within that country is certainly contrary to ICAO Annex 13. Unlike some countries that we have come to know, Australia does not prosecute first and ask questions about flight safety later - at least not the last time I was there, (Dec 08) discussing such issues.

Hempy. I was at MEL at 1300LT today. Your photo of R/W34 depicts strobes 350M south of the threshold. This is incorrect. This is the R/W 16 LLZ antenna array (Orange in colour). It appears to me from the damage to the antenna array it may have been caused by vortices. There were 10 officials inspecting the antenna array area at 1300Lt today.

The a/c is in the John Holland hangar and word at the airport is that the 'incident' is the most serious to have occured in Australia without loss of life. As the pilots left on the next flight approx. 2 hrs later there will be some huge ramifications for EK. (There is a 'rumour' DXB did not know the full storey when the crew were repatriated)

Pj2 & B772
 

I guess the crew did not leave their bags in MEL.

Even on an electric bird like the A340, there could be some paper airfield charts, take-off calcs, loadsheet etc that are best taken home.

Although I don't know how EK does it, the paperwork, ie, the takeoff data, will likely be in the form of ACARS paper. We do all load and t/o data by ACARS and there is an electronic message logging within the ATSU so retrieving the data is not a problem. The QAR/DFDR may or may not record the actual V-speed entries in the FMC but the MCDU chips might. Anyway, that's all downstream stuff for later.

Are the nationalities of the crews involved known; I'd be surprised if at least were not Australian? Could they not still be subject to a sub-peona, notwithstanding the fact that they are working abroad?

Given the efforts EK (and the UAE govt) has put into getting extra access and rights into Oz, the airline would be very strongly advised to co-operate and to permit the crews involved to return. Given the seriousness of the incident, the Australian authorities could possibly impose sanctions, either temporarily and permanently.

Engine failure?
 

In all the postings there is only one person writing about a possible engine failure. Probably I missed some factual information, but a engine failure after V1 in combination with a wind indication mismatch could be a possible cause. The collision with the offset localiser antenna would also be clearer.

Let's hope the crew did well i.s.o.making a mistake.


Good Flying!

John

More of the same...
 

Other than the obviously informed comments here, the rest follows the usual pattern of nonsense we can all expect when reading of incidents and accidents.

My - uninformed - input (but I did work for EK in the 90s):

• Incident occurred - nobody hurt
• Pilots returned to DXB within hours - a little strange
• The FDR and CVR will provide the facts
• Let the investigators do their job

PJ2

My point is that if push came to shove, would Emirates be willing to allow a foreign country's government (which is what ATSB ultimately is) come and investigate them and potentially embarrass the company to the world. While all the touchy feely human factors stuff is great, I am a bit cynical as to whether foreign carriers would actually see it this way.

Hmmm.. I've been out of oz for a few years now so need a little help with my memory..

Can someone point out to me in the CAR's please where it says the flight crew must remain at the scene of the 'accident'?

Akerosid. One poster has suggested the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has sent a team to DXB to interview the crew and have a 'close look' at EK behind the scenes.

Good memories. The only offset antenna array I know of is for the MLS. The R/W 16 localiser antenna is 350M from the end of the R/W threshold.

New News:

It appears the a/c will be patched up in MEL and issued with a permit to fly to a MRO. This could be early next month.

The producers of the TV program "This Day Tonight" have been "sniffing around".

A straight engine failure with properly calculated thrust and V speeds should still have seen them comfortably airborne by the time they crossed the threshold. None of the engineers posting here have mentioned any engine problems. I wouldn't rely on any pax reports either.

Not the CAR's that's relevant - it's the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003 -and that gives the ATSB pretty wide powers - creating amongst other things an offence of hindering an investigation. s43 of the Act would also allow the ATSB to impound the aircraft.

neville......

You perhaps may like rethink your approach to Emirate's supposed 'strengths' in this matter? Because it's looking as though it doesn't have too many from a number of points of view!

Apart from potentially stuffing-up big time with respect to S.24 of the Transport Safety Investigation Act (2003), it looks as though Emirates has also 'exposed' itself to adverse 'response' under S.30 DB and DC of the (Australian) Civil Aviation Act.

It really doesn't matter that Emirates is a UAE-controlled company and can do, as you seem to suggest, as it wants to do. The fact is Neville, if Emirates want's to 'play' in Australia (or beyond in accordance with 'freedoms'), then it has to so in accordance with Australian requirements AND legislation!

And if it doesn't want to play by those rules, then the Australian government has the final choice of telling Emirates to piss-off if it thinks Emirates isn't playing nicely.

It's as simple as that!

SIUYA.....would you mind posting what the relevent regulations say?

ERSA gives localiser IMS (the one which was NOTAM'd) at 37 41.3S 144 50.5E which is on the runway centreline about 350m out from the threshold.

SOPS....

See:-

ComLaw Management - Series- Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003

for the Transport Safety Investigation Act 2003.

and http://www.casa.gov.au/download/act_regs/CAA.pdf

for the Civil Aviation Act 1988.