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single engine immediate return, large jet transports

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Old 20th Nov 2007, 10:59
  #21 (permalink)  
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I think there are some dodgy decisions coming up here! Read your checklist! 'Land at nearest suitable airfield' is there for a reason. A twin on one and heavy- you are thrashing your remaining engine. Any runway you took off from, you can land on. If, for some reason, you can't, then you go to the next nearest. I would not be happy to blithely set off to a runway 50 miles away on one engine. Not that many aeroplanes have jettison systems anyway, and they are indeed slow. Far more important to get people back on the ground, overweight as required.
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Old 20th Nov 2007, 11:25
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land
land
land

we have had this (or similar) discussion a few times this year, after the onur air, thomson, nationwide

it is simple, follow your QRH (or ECAM) Land at Nearest Suitable means just that.
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Old 20th Nov 2007, 12:19
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Don't forget that a "simple" engine failure may be for a "simple" but "global" reason -- fuel contamination! What may start out as benign may become catastrophic...
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Old 20th Nov 2007, 12:25
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Without getting into specifics, except to say that I don't fly a twin (perish the thought), some here might find this just a tad odd...

on the one hand
So if we depart at max takeoff mass
whereas, later it is
an overweight landing is the option otherwise,
Oh dear, the Europeans do have their knickers in a twist with takeoff mass and overweight landings.
Perhaps being on the same page of music would be helpful....

As a side note, SV years ago had a problem with a brand new Saudi captain wherein he decided to steam around over the old RUH airport for one hour ten minutes so as to consume as much fuel as possibe after finding that his number two engine failed on rotation in his 737...weather CAVOK.
The respective fleet manager was not totally amused...
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Old 20th Nov 2007, 12:37
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411A
I'm sure you mean well. And I'm all ears (or eyes) to learn something.

But do you have a view on the initial question, or simply wish to nit-pick the language used in the responses?

is this the right thread for discussing mass/weight, or can we all presume that for the purposes of the discussion at hand(original question), they refer to the same thing?

red rag dangling!
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Old 20th Nov 2007, 14:13
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Overweight landing

The worst incident I have come across was a SAA B733 on T/O from JNB enroute for LHR. Bird ingested in to #2 a fan blade exited via the intake & was swollowed by #1, I spoke to the crew later who said "we landed quickly"!!!!

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Old 21st Nov 2007, 17:22
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Boeing recently published an excellant article on overweight landings in aero magazine. Its in 3rd quarter for this year. Its available online. Well worth a read.

In summary it says it should present no great problems. Certainly if you are in a twin its clearcut, lose 1 engine and you land ASAP. Overweight if necessary. ETOPS or no it doesn't matter, do not expose yourself your crew and your pax to more risk than necessary. This is justified as any degradation to the other engine will compromise safety of flight so you do not want to delay unecessarily before landing and dumping fuel would be an unecessary delay.

In a tri or 4jet then its a different story as losing 1 engine may not place you in a situation were the loss of a further engine would compromise safety of flight so there is more judgement involved. E.G. BA continueing trans atlantic on 3 engines having lost one on departure.

Anyway thats my take on things. Do read the article thoguh as its written by those much more knowledgable than me and has all the technical and legal detail involved.
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Old 23rd Nov 2007, 01:10
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So what's the point of the dump system?

Originally Posted by Ashling
Certainly if you are in a twin its clearcut, lose 1 engine and you land ASAP. Overweight if necessary. ETOPS or no it doesn't matter, do not expose yourself your crew and your pax to more risk than necessary.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion--and I've certainly never qualified on a heavy twin jet--but I'm wondering then, what's the point of installing a fuel dump system on a twin engine jet if not to dump down to landing weight?

I read that same Boeing article and I agree, it's very good. But I don't take that as carte blanc to perform overweight landings. If there's a system and a procedure surely it's meant to be used, no?

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Old 23rd Nov 2007, 01:38
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Boeing has any number of models that have takeoff weights well in excess of their landing weight, but the aircraft are not provisioned with fuel dump systems. Many of the early 767-200ER's did not have any dump capability, yet had MLW many thousands of punds in excess of the MTOW, so I guess Boeing felt pretty comfortable with this concept.
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Old 23rd Nov 2007, 10:02
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zerozero,
But I don't take that as carte blanc to perform overweight landings.
What is carte blanche to perform an overweight landing is having a planeload of people depending for their lives on one engine. In larger airline ops, we just don't do that. The instruction is 'land at the nearest suitable runway'. you can add to that 'without delay' in brackets. Just remember you are thrashing that remaining engine

As an example- one of my colleagues was flying down to Madrid. Over northern Spain, he shut one down approaching top of descent. In view of his position at TOD, he elected to continue to MAD. Unfortunately he was over 'a suitable airport' (something beginning with 'V'). He was chewed out for it- he should have gone for the airport he was over. Another example- 767 out of Glasgow loses an engine- continues to Manchester. Another black mark in the record.

The problem is some people refuse to acknowledge the danger of a twin with one out, just as others don't recognise the safety built in to a 4 engine jet with one out. I would quite happily have flown the 747 from LAX to LHR with one out (I have flown a 747 from the Newfoundland coast to Chicago like that), but were I to lose one in my current 737, that thing would be on the ground so quick the cabin crew would still be serving coffee!
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Old 23rd Nov 2007, 12:20
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zerozero, Rainboe is quite correct.

I agree with you its not carte blanche to land overweight whenever and whatever the circumstances.

However there are situations that present an immediate threat to the safety of flight and an engine failure on a twin is one of them. Others might be fire/smoke, single electric or hydraulic source or multiple unrelated failures you judge to be a threat to safety of flight. A severe medical emergency is also justification to land overweight. In any engine fail scenario while you may suspect you have no real idea why your engine failed and while it is unlikely the other engine is also compromised it is possable (fuel contam, birds, sabotage/terrorism, FOD). If it was to fail then thats probably it for all on board so while you do not need to rush to the extent that doing so presents a hazard it is clearly prudent to land as expeditiously as you can. That may be several hours if your over the Pacific but only as little as 20 mins if you've just got airborne. Just because your ETOPS does not mean you are allowed to stooge around on 1 engine for 3 hours if you could have landed in 20 mins.

Clearly if the wether is poor the decision may be more complex but the maxim "if you can get airborne from it you can land on it" is true.

I believe Boeings article in Aero magazine was designed to demistify the whole overweight landing thing so that when this very scenario presents itself the correct decisions are made.
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Old 23rd Nov 2007, 14:54
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zerozero
Over 250 posts so far. Perhaps I should click here and order a Personal Title

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So what's the point of the dump system?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ashling
Certainly if you are in a twin its clearcut, lose 1 engine and you land ASAP. Overweight if necessary. ETOPS or no it doesn't matter, do not expose yourself your crew and your pax to more risk than necessary.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion--and I've certainly never qualified on a heavy twin jet--but I'm wondering then, what's the point of installing a fuel dump system on a twin engine jet if not to dump down to landing weight?


For reducing landing weight for less critical situations.

Delaying landing after an engine failure is not what the fuel dump system is for.
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Old 23rd Nov 2007, 15:10
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How about to increase your takeoff weight?


Mutt.
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Old 23rd Nov 2007, 20:44
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what's the point of installing a fuel dump system on a twin engine jet if not to dump down to landing weight?
For FAA certification, the airplane must meet the requirement of FAR 25.1001. It starts with:

"(a) A fuel jettisoning system must be installed on each airplane unless it is shown that the airplane meets the climb requirements of §§25.119 and 25.121(d) at maximum takeoff weight, less the actual or computed weight of fuel necessary for a 15-minute flight comprised of a takeoff, go-around, and landing at the airport of departure with the airplane configuration, speed, power, and thrust the same as that used in meeting the applicable takeoff, approach, and landing climb performance requirements of this part."
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Old 23rd Nov 2007, 21:06
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Roger THAT!

Ok, ok, ok...

Don't dump it!

All this drama about flying around on one engine. Wow!



Happy landings!

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Old 23rd Nov 2007, 21:48
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well done zerozero
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Old 24th Nov 2007, 09:07
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Angel

Wrt an engine failure in a twin-jet, the phrase "Land at nearest suitable airport" implies that operations on a single engine represent a significant increase in risk and therein Mr Boeing / Airbus want you to get it on the ground asap. Or putting it another way, they want you on the ground asap in order to limit your time-exposure to operations on just a single engine.

'Risk' is a normally referenced to statistical probabilities of certain events occurring, wherein for aviation purposes the following are normally assumed:
  • Frequent (Up to 1 per 1000)
  • Reasonably probable (1/1,000 to 1/100,000) Unlikely to occur frequently but may occur several times during the life of each aeroplane, e.g. Engine Failure.
  • Remote (1/100,000 to 1/10,000,000) Unlikely to occur to each aeroplane during its life but may occur several times during the life of the fleet. e.g. Low speed over-run; Failure to achieve NTOFP.
  • Extremely remote (1/10,000,000 to 1/1,000,000,000) Unlikely to occur in the life of the fleet but still possible. E.g. High speed over-run; Ditching; Hitting an obstacle in the NTOFP; Double engine failure in twin engine aircraft
Nb. The use of ‘Fleet’ in the above refers to all the aircraft of a particular type, i.e. as produced by the manufacturer (and not to a particular airline’s fleet of that type).
Whilst the above suggests that a double engine failure in a twin-jet has an 'Extremely Remote' probability of occurring, that does not mean that it can't happen!

Therein I'll agree with Rainboe et al and the the old adage that it's much better to be down here wishing you were up there, than up there wishing you were down here.
That said, I would not promote rushing drills and / or approach briefing & set up / flying, etc, in order to get it on the ground asap, as we all know that rushing exacerbates the level of risk.
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Old 24th Nov 2007, 18:57
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I would not promote rushing drills and / or approach briefing & set up / flying, etc, in order to get it on the ground asap, as we all know that rushing exacerbates the level of risk.
Rainboe's anecdote above (engine failure at TOD) illustrates this concept very well. The Captain decided to continue on a NORMAL, PREPLANNED arrival at the destination airport, rather than scrambling with an UNPLANNED, possibly UNFAMILIAR "emergency" approach at a different airport. The time difference might have been a few minutes at most. I would agree with the Captain at the time that continuing with the preplanned arrival was much SAFER.
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Old 24th Nov 2007, 21:45
  #39 (permalink)  
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I think the problem with the decision was that a normal 2 engine TOD would have been say 3 x Alt in thousands. Once on one engine, that TOD pulls forward when you consider a second failure, to something like 2 x Alt in thousands. So a 2 eng TOD becomes a long drag on one engine, then the destination becomes unachievable if at any time the second engine fails from TOD, even single engine TOD, and that was what hung the pilot involved. The difference could be 40 miles or more. It is accepted practice in simulator training that on one engine, you do not rush, but you do try and get it on the ground without undue delay. Then with a chuckle, the trainer makes you go around!
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Old 25th Nov 2007, 01:45
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Smile Getting Chewed Out:

Not in the same league as you heavy metal chappies:
I had a PT6 suffer a "hiccup" en-route Nasuori Rotuma, some miles out over "the Big Blue Wet Thing"
Hitting "Nearest" on the "PFM" thingy, gave me Nadi as closest, by 5+Nms, my F/o wanted to go into Nadi:
However with the wind on track " being a more or less direct tail wind" I elected to return to Nasouri?
I was asked to explain my actions for 5 Nm's and I guess rightly so!
When I explained it was 1:28 seconds closer, to return to Nasouri, the "Owner" of the "Airline" "stopped short of saying BS" and asked me to prove my concise answer, I asked for the Pax Manifest handed in after every days Flt?
If I can digress a tad here: I was taught to always do a Hdg/As/Tk/Gs computation in cruise: and record the Wv/Dir!
Having it written on the back of the Pax manifest (my flt log for every flt)
It was rather simple to answer.
In saying this : today I find it common place that F/o's dont even carry a "Kane" yep call me pedantic an old Fuddy duddy: but I thank the Chaps that taught me how to become a Fuddyduddy?
I guess at the end of the day Pucker factor is Pucker factor:
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