Polish LOT 767 wheels up landing

[The Dominican]

I'm amazed at the responses to the comments about no spoilers after touchdown.

WOW? Who cares, pull the speedbrake handle. It doesn't require WOW activation.

What for? You certainly don't need the additional drag to stop and you certainly don't need the possibility of uneven drag from partial spoiler deployment due to the hydraulic failure, no spoilers is the correct procedure in this case.

[Airbubba]

Reading the observations, questions and responses on this thread, I'm astonished at how few contributors to this site are "PROFESSIONAL PILOTS".

Well, the mods seem to favor other postings now that this is a commercial forum, their right I suppose. Many of the knowlegeable veterans (e.g. Ignition Override and Shore Guy) have either left or rarely post any more after some of the summary deletions. I can certainly relate.

On the face of it, there must have been multiple failures on this aircraft. C hydraulic system, Altn Landing gear system? The question will be why.

Some of the pictures posted earlier on this thread seem to show the tailskid down which would imply that C HYD was available at some point after the gear handle was put down. Unless of course, they crossed the pond with the gear up and the tailskid out, you would get both a Tailskid light and a Tailskid EICAS message in this condition. The tailskid on the -300 does not deploy with alternate gear extension.

This picture shows some of the spoilers (7 and 10 perhaps?) deployed on the uh, rollout:

Photos: Boeing 767-35D/ER Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

With engine nacelles scraped some further loss of hydraulics would be expected but perhaps not instantaneous, this was the case in a 737 gear up touch and go incident in TXL years ago.

Apologies for talking shop here but some of us actually do fly for a living...

[Pinkman]

Fine - now how do I get out of Warsaw?

Was on the BA 850 about 25 minutes behind the LOT flight. Quick swerve and off to the alternate - Krakow. Three and a half hours on Polish rail later....

The aircraft is still sitting there and BA has cancelled all flights to Warsaw today..

Any suggestions?

[skol]

Spoilers are a non-event in this landing, I'm sure the co-efficient of friction once the aircraft touched down would have been high enough to do the trick.

[PAXboy]

(from an amateur observer) Watching the last of the landing videos that were linked, the belly warning lamp goes out about five seconds before touch down. Obviously, it might NOT have been but the questions are:

• Once commited to the belly landing, would SOP be to shut down the engines?
• and ALL possible electrical circuits?
• Would it be done Prior to or at touchdown?
• If such circuits are isolated - would that leave the handling pilot with no control surface?
• In which case, a prescribed list of circuits to be isolated to reduce fire risk?

[flipperb]

Lowly SLF here, but wanted to offer a thought:

If the hydraulic failure left them with the option of a gravity drop, is it conceivable that they might have elected to the belly landing for fear that a gravity drop might have left them with an asymmetrical deployment? Per the video posted of a failed gravity drop test on a B767 - or perhaps other factors we don't know yet - could the crew have decided that a gravity drop created greater risk than a belly landing?

Kudos to the competent crew!

[Bearcat]

This is a major major incident for the Boeing 767. Folks are mentioning re cb's , resets etc. as a previous mentioned they had 8 hrs previous crossing the pond to go through all the eventualities in liaison with their maintenance folk. From the radar trace they must have held a good 40mins at Warsaw before commencing their approach as they I presume retraced all their options and set themselves up for a nightmare landing that none of us ever want to experience.

From an engineering view point, with all the damage incurred on the underbody will the repair cost exceed its hull value? Those 767s are a good age with LOT.

well done to the crew and the capt.

[sanjet]

Come to think of it, regarding the decision to continue 30 min after departure with a HYD sys failure. If you knew you were doing a manual gear extension, would you expose the failed system/parts to -40 degree temps at FL360? Pure speculation but what if staying at that temperature for 7 hours straight might have frozen some part of the landing gear that would be gravity extended?

[Fratemate]

First of all, well done to the crew. Looks like very competently handled situation and the best outcome that could have been expected.

I share Captplaystation's concern that a CB tripping could lead to snags with the ALTN lowering system but I'm quietly confident that would have been talked about and checked while they hung around in the overhead chatting to the engineers.

Despite the QRH drill for C Hyd calling for flap 20, it certainly looks from the photos like they went for a flap 30 landing (for obvious reasons). No criticism at all; I would have done exactly the same thing (after discussing it with my colleagues, of course) and just offer the comment as an observation.

Flipperb, I would suggest that thought would not have gone through their minds at all. Presented with a C Hyd failure you run the QRH. There is no reason to suppose the gear wouldn't come down on the ALTN system and I am quite sure the first time they would have thought 'now we've got a problem' is when it didn't. Until that point I reckon they would have been fairly relaxed with, let's face it, an unusual occurrence but something that is practised regularly in the sim and is not really a big deal.

Spoilers, schmoilers. They wouldn't have armed them for landing and not all of them work with a C Hyd fail anyway. IF I had time and remembered during the 'roll out' I like to think I might have popped the speedbrake lever but, as has been pointed out already, it really isn't going to help too much with the landing/sliding distance and it's just another thing to remember to stow prior to evacuating. It looks like this intrepid crew DID remember during the slide and just adds credence to a job well done

[frieghtdog2000]

There was a case some time back on a B757 Freighter on a high security European flight (money) where the local plod insisted on inspecting the landing gear bays. So open the panel underneath, select the Door Arm switch and Doors Open. Nothing. Scratch head, check the books and try again -still nothing. So AOG - same system does the alternate gear. The B767 has the same system.

Congratulations to the crew for plugging the last hole in the Swiss Cheese.

[Fratemate]

Since I'm on a 'roll'; Sanjet, what if they had the C Hyd fail 1 hour prior to landing? The various bits of landing gear would have still been exposed to the same environmental conditions for the same time and I'm pretty certain Mr Boeing's components are meant to survive those conditions on every other flight the aircraft makes.

For the record, I'm in the 'continue' camp. Presented with the same symptoms after leaving Newark, having run the QRH, established there's nothing else wrong with the aircraft and agreed the same with my mate(s) on the flight deck, I would have done exactly the same and pressed on to WAW.

Having sown that seed, I'll now shut up and leave the Flight Sim 2000 brigade to shout down how wrong I'd be and how we don't know what caused the damage to cause the leak, that might have also damaged a pump that could overheat and set fire to the hyd fluid spraying from a leaking hose, causing the aircraft to crash in a huge fireball and proving, therefore, that my decision would have been wrong

[bubbers44]

Having time in the B767 as a captain I would agree with their decision to continue to their base and burn off fuel. It made the landing at a lower speed and lots of time to comunicate with their company. Why the alternate landing gear extention didn't work is still unknown.

Landing early in a situation like this to avoid a crossing of the Atlantic probably wouldn't have helped matters. Yes, possibility of further failures due to the loss of Center hydraulics must be considered but as I recall the center hydraulic system can be isolated and have no direct connection to the engines. I haven't flown one in 8 years because I turned 60 so don't remember.

As I recall it is all electric pumps and pnuematic air pressure pressurizing the center system. They did a great job of sliding it in and don't think they could have done anything more to improve the outcome.

[sanjet]

Only speculation fratemate that is all. But with all due respect, a failed system exposed to 7 hours of -40 versus 1 hour of -40 temps would be a difference. I am not rated on boeing so I ask: does the failure of a HYD C sys result in a "Land ASAP" situation or Emergency status.
And yes I do agree in this situation to continue the flight with the given public data so far available.

[Rollingthunder]

Captain announced there were mechanical problems 4 hours into the flight.

For the record, I'm in the 'continue' camp. Presented with the same symptoms after leaving Newark, having run the QRH, established there's nothing else wrong with the aircraft and agreed the same with my mate(s) on the flight deck, I would have done exactly the same and pressed on to WAW.

Point of no return?

[Carbon Bootprint]

Point of no return?

Perhaps, but with quite a few alternates, say Reykjavik, Shannon, Dublin, Heathrow, Gatwick, Schiphol etc. etc. While many interesting details are sure to emerge, at this point it appears to have been a calculated and rational decision that paid off. And whilst they fortunately had a few hours to work it out, it's not like they had days and days and the wisdom of hindsight in their favour.

Great job, guys.

[Bearcat]

What's the point of diverting to or Snn with a single Hyd fail and landing in the DARK? No thanks, they did the correct thing in continuing says me.

The big ?......what happened the Alt gear?

I kook forward to the report

[The Dominican]

a failed system exposed to 7 hours of -40 versus 1 hour of -40 temps would be a difference. I am not rated on boeing so I ask: does the failure of a HYD C sys result in a "Land ASAP" situation or Emergency status.

It does not, I don't think the "what if" question entered their minds as to the alternate system failing, it is an electric release that lets the gear fall on its own weight, I don't see them thinking about temperature exposure any more that you would think about it when you operate the gear normally, it is the same up lock system that you are commanding to release when you operate the gear normally anyway

[bubbers44]

A lot of pilots would have probably handled this in a different manner but I think these pilots did a perfect job of handling their situation. I salute them.

[Jabawocky]

And whilst they fortunately had a few hours to work it out, it's not like they had days and days and the wisdom of hindsight in their favour.

Great job, guys.

If only they could have jumped onto pprune and asked around for help

[bubbers44]

I think they already know we support them and they did the right thing. Glad I didn't have to go through this **** on one of my flights. 23,000 hrs and nothing happened. Maybe I was just lucky???