BA 747 divert to Irkutsk after nav system fails
 

The London-Beijing flight with 270 passengers and 16 crew landed in Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia, at 10.41 local time on Wednesday.
Siberia Times report
British Airways Boeing 747 makes safe emergency landing after failure of navigation equipment

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Interesting with 2 GPS, 3 IRS, VOR, DME, ADF and FMC? More to this than is immediately obvious!

Airport spokesperson;

For landing fuel, it was 40 min after the request to land, not after T/O.

Those old 74's have seen better days. They are jaded and odd ball failures are bound to occur.

BA 747's are dropping to bits, the 767's are even worse!

Bearcat, I was about to say speak for yourself...but then you edited. ;)

Whatever happened seems to have happened over the northern Mongolian border.

It appears to be an oldie G-CIVI..reg in May 1996.
They certainly get their moneys worth out of airframes at BA.

Could have flown by Bradshaw - follow the Trans-Siberian................

1996 is young compared to some 747s in the BA fleet...

Seventeen years is not old for a long haul airliner. Even Emirates have seventeen year old B777s, G-CIVI is from the second tranche of BA B744s.

17 years ..... middle aged perhaps, but it's more about cycles than actual age and it will have done far less cycles than an aircraft of similar age used on short haul routes, and there are plenty of 20 year old+ shorthaul aircraft flying safely.

I have noticed though that some of BA's 747s are tatty inside and that doesn't give a good impression of the overall maintenance standards although I am confident they are safer than some other carriers with newer aircraft.

Whatever the age of the aircraft this appears to be a software problem.

Emergency landing? Just a tech diversion surely?

There are around 15 QRH drills that may require landing at the 'nearest suitable airport', inc:

Fire
Smoke
Fuel filter
Equipment cooling
Hydraulics
Fuel leak
Engine fail/damage

Not sure that 'navigation' per se was the problem. Maybe Equip Cooling affecting the nav displays?

Anyway, well done to the crew!

If the nav system's conked, how do they know it's Irkutsk? :E

Bluetooth GPS...ON
Tablet...ON
Memory Map...Start
Now Capn, where was it you wanted to go again?

Are the BNL lot still knocking about?

I would hazard a guess that if they did have a dual FMC issue, and were no longer able RNP, the Chinese may well refuse them entry into their airspace, especially Beijing. In which case Irkutsk has got to be a better option then Ulaanbaatar :ooh:

If this was a multi system failure than it rates interest.

If not surely it can compete with other minor flight interruptions without photos

A reminder of why BA crews love pprune.

Hmmmmm.... quick refresher required on use of compass, maps and ded reckoning.

An unusual task for systems managers.

This event will have been a nice change from a routine flight.

A bit of genuine hand flying.

I love the cracked paving and weeds in the pictures.

Despite being without NAV they managed to avoid the schoolyard AND the hospital, so no probs.

They probably could have found their way, without the NAV, but the argument could be made nowadays, that losing the NAV could be a symptom of problems yet to be noticed or to come, in other important electronic equipment on the aircraft, so I give them them a pass. I'm sure they are relieved to hear that!!!

Yes, they will have been sweating on a :ok:from PPRune.....................

Those pictures of a 17 year old BA 747 stuck on a weed infested cracked runway in Siberia are a PR man's nightmare.

If we spool back to the days of Lord King v Branson he tried to sell the idea that Virgin would operate old unreliable aircraft.

Eddie Stobart does not operate 17 year old trucks and I guess most people on here don't drive 17 year old cars. There is only so much you can do to a 1970's design before things start to go wrong.

If the age of ever commercial aircraft was emblazoned on the side how many passengers would board an elderly airframe:=

"If the age of ever commercial aircraft was emblazoned on the side how many passengers would board an elderly airframe"


Oh yeah, I do feel much safer in a 3 month old Lionair 737-900 than I do on a 17 year old BA 744 :rolleyes:

EE cooling failure!!

But what happened to the orphanage! :eek:

;)


Just to help the understanding of our layman readers, I believe that means Electrical & Electronic equipment compartment, which is usually somewhere under the floor of a Boeing aircraft. Without proper cooling down there, things can go a bit awry!

MrB

Indeed, and as far as I recall it for very good reasons (you may end up with equipment overheating) if the QRH actions don't immediately resolve the issue then it becomes a "land at nearest suitable", regardless of the crew's navigational skills.

Initial information incorrect see here: -

Incident: British Airways B744 near Irkutsk on Aug 28th 2013, avionics overtemperature

Well given where they landed the avionics will have cooled own quickly.

The question remains why the overheat?

Weather's nice there just now. Don't know about the midges though.

We'll have to see what the outcome is but the bottom line is BA are out to milk the last drops out of their aircraft.

Compared to Ryanair.
The cabins in the BA 747 fleet are tired as are the airframes.

Hire cars are restricted to 15000 miles.

BA are running an old fleet like a lot of the flag carriers.

Perhaps the crew were thinking about the Swiss Air MD 11, flight 111 which ended up in the Atlantic ?

Some are some aren't. Most of the B744s have been through a New First product refresh, the ones that didn't get it are retiring. I think a B744 needs to work a little harder to pay for itself than a hire car.
Fleet age British Airways | Airfleets aviation

It's only old compared to exceptional cases like Singapore and QATAR. Even Cathay fly some pretty legacy wide bodies having the first build B777s and A330s. The B767s are an issue as they're supposed to be well on their way out as the B787s are late.

Ye Olde Pilot - you must have had a pretty charmed aviation life then? There are many, many B737 around that are thirty years old in regular scheduled work, just imagine the cycles on those compared to the BA 747-400! It would be interesting to know if the Equipment Cooling fan was a 'lifed' item and if so when it was last changed, possibly nothing at all to do with the age of the airframe.

Continue flying across potentially unknown territory in a 747 using a map and a Boy Scout compass ? I don't think so - unless absolutely no option.

I know insufficient about the -400, ( even less about the cause of this one - thinks.... does anyone else ! ) but ....en route London/ Bahrain I had 2 INS units fail on a 747 Classic within the space of 5 minutes, and had dumped fuel and was on the ground in Frankfurt very soon afterwards.

The LH mechanic assigned to look after us was very miffed, it being Saturday night and he was now going to be late for his party, "Why didn't you go back to London? " was his complaint. Because the INS units drive my flight instruments, I replied, it's snowing in London and I don't fancy trying to fly an ILS approach to minima on standby instruments. 2 Units have failed in quick succession, how long before the third (and last) unit goes tits up too ? I'm down here wishing I was up there, instead of being up there wishing I was down here - fix the problem.

He did, and we were airborne again not long afterwards.

If correspondents think they can outguess the operating crew - - - no, I'll go back to my cave.

I'm sure you'll all sort it out.