CONCORDE ACCIDENT - PART 2
 

At the request of Capt PPRuNe, I have edited the list of questions which Jackonicko and I had posted in my earlier 'Concorde Discord' thread (now deleted). Please note that these questions are not intended to be in any way xenophobic, it is merely the truth which is being sought - OK??

Let's get back to the whole point of the thread:

1. RIP Capt Marty, his crew and passengers who died during an heroic attempt to make a forced landing at Le Bourget following critical failures suffered by F-BTSC.

2. Whilst the principal cause appears to have been tyre failure leading to subsequent hydrostatic shock rupturing a fuel tank and an external ignition source causing the resulting severe fire, are there other areas of the aircraft's operation which merit closer scrutiny? Specifically:

a. Was the ac over its maximum certified structural take-off weight when it began its take-off roll?

b. Was the 8kt tailwind sufficient to reduce RTOW to a figure below that of ATOW?

c. Are current AF SOPs adequate to prevent uncommanded engine shut downs at critical stages of flight?

d. Is current AF CRM training adequate to prevent an aircraft taking-off outside scheduled performance limits?

e. Are CdeG runway inspection standards now adequate?

f. How far aft was the C of G (the Observer said more than the BEA), and what effect would this have had?

g. What was the effect of the missing spacer on the undercarriage?

h. What would be the likely impact of taking off one tonne above structural weight, or six tonnes above RTOW? How reasonable is it to wonder whether this would have exacerbated or even caused the tyre blow-out?

i. Have we been well served by the BEA and DGAC with their report and our own CAA who simply rubber-stamped it?

Although I don't have any additional content to add to this thread, it is to the good that it has been resurrected - undoubtedly one of the most interesting in recent times, and the unresolved issues it has featured need to be kept alive until they have been satisfactorily explained.

[edited for clarity]

[ 28 August 2001: Message edited by: Jolly Tall ]

In addition to being overweight, was the aircraft also 'overfuelled'? Was the fullness of the tanks a contributory factor to the 'explosiveness' with which hydrostatic shock caused the tank to burst?

Did the crew carry out their preflight duties adequately?

Did the crew recalculate weights, distances and speeds when informed of the change of runway? How seriously should we take it if they didn't?

Can anyone justify taking off downwind in these circumstances - and from that runway rather than the other - apart from noise abatement?

Can anyone quantify or even guesstimate the likely affects of being 1 or 6 tonnes overweight and behind the aft c of g limit on tyre performance, acceleration, and control speed, and on the speed at which departure became inevitable?

How critical was the piece of FOD ( a flat bit of metal) in causing the tyres to burst?

Would they have got away with it without an ignition source for the venting fuel?

Can anyone confirm, quantify or conclusively deny the early suggestions that there was a marked difference in BA and AF tyre use practises (retreads or not, no.s of landings allowed before replacement, etc.)?

What were the affects of the tailwind?

When the accident happened, much was made of a recent repair to a thrust reverser cowl. Which engine was that, and did it have any bearing on the accident, or on the crews response to the situation as it unfolded?

[ 29 August 2001: Message edited by: Jackonicko ]

Irrespective of CG, overweight, tailwind, tire failure, engine failure, fire....

The fact was that the airplane was airborne at 200 feet at sufficient airspeed with enough flight control authority to effect a controlled crash landing straight ahead into an open field. No other option!

What we can learn from this accident is what to do when faced with similar unimaginable inflight terror.

First we must overcome the limitations of simulator training and its "mind set" of always being able to return a crippled jet to an airport.

Secondly, we must apply our survival instincts and act accordingly.

Marty, perhaps overcome from sensory overload with bells, chimes, crewmember prompts and ATC talk, had hesitated. Despite three urgent reminders from his F/O about airspeed decay, Marty, with Le Bourget in sight, continued to extract performance from his jet.

The airspeed indicator should have triggered the captain's survival instinct; immediately lower the nose and put the jet down. Right now. Such an instinctive decision requires neither time nor thought, only technique in effecting a high speed soft field crash landing.

What every single engine student pilot learns on day One: If the engine quits right after takeoff, don't even think about turning; land straight ahead!

An off airfield crash is not a surviveable option in this scenario. In fact there have been precious few examples of off airfield landings of jets that worked out. The only ones that I can think of involved a total absense of fuel on the aircraft.

200,000lbs of fuel at 200 kts is a HUGE fireball. If you don't impact in the immediate, I mean IMMEDIATE vicinity of the field firestation, you haven't got a chance.

Had they put the aircraft down strait ahead in a field fully fueled, the result would have been the same, all on board dead.

Furthermore, there is no way they could have known where the fire was. Aluminum degregrades VERY rapidly when heated, I suspect the holes in the plane were rapidly getting larger. If a fuel tank is streaming fuel and on fire, I hate to say it, but its gonna end badly. The only hope is to land on the doorstep of crash fire and rescue.

Also, landing an airliner in dirt is the worst possible scenario. They simply aren't stressed for it. That is why when the landing gear is hung up and you can't get it down you belly land on the concrete, not the dirt next to the concrete. This is because the aircraft will slide around on the concrete doing less structural damage then in the dirt where it will tend to dig in. Airplane digs in and tumbles, initial impact may have been controlled, but the second one won't be.

Don't believe me? Its a mandatory write up and inspection ANY time an airliner leaves the concrete, even taxing at 5 kts because of the stresses on the uncarriage. Yes, I know there are exceptions for the 727/737s with the gravel kit, but those aircraft are designed for it.

As to the climb to 200 feet. I suspect that he was trying to get just high enough to see the field, at less that 100 feet you would be ontop of the field before you could aquire it visually...


Cheers
Wino

[ 29 August 2001: Message edited by: Wino ]

Beagle,

Capt Marty (RIP) was between a rock and a hard place. I most sincerely hope that I never have to face the scenario that he and his crew did. I'd like to state that we are now looking at this horrific situation with 20/20 hindsight. And we are dissecting the situation as such. It is my belief that Captain Marty was attempting his 'approach' into Le Bourget knowing that he had at 'catastophic' situation on his hands. Unknown to him it would seem that the F/E had shut down an engine that was producing power. (There was a fire warning on that engine.) Normal SOP's would seem to dictate that an engine would only be shutdown when ordered by the Captain, but there may have been some divergence from SOP's in this case.

Capt. Marty and his crew would have been trained for (in the case of Perf 'A' A/C the loss of one engine on T/O). To the best of my knowledge there is no training for losing two engines at max weight, with the gear failing to retract, and a raging fire which has (unknown and obviously untested) effects
on the performance of the A/C.

a)Was the ac over its maximum certified structural take-off weight when it began its take-off roll? No it wasn't. But it would seem that it taxied out overweight.

b. Was the 8kt tailwind sufficient to reduce RTOW to a figure below that of ATOW?

This one did shock me when I first heard about it, but I am told (by sources that have a British origin and all that) that by all reports the A/C was within the limits. This is becauase the authorities have 'apparently' looked at the actual wind that prevailed at various locations at CDG at the time.

c. Are current AF SOPs adequate to prevent uncommanded engine shut downs at critical stages of flight?

I don't know the answer to that question, but I would ask you if any airlines SOP's are adequate. Unfortunately we are dealing with very frail human beings here.

d. Is current AF CRM training adequate to prevent an aircraft taking-off outside scheduled performance limits?

I can't answer that question, but I would ask the same question of any other airline.

e. Are CdeG runway inspection standards now adequate.

Yes I believe they are, and they 'probably' were adequate at the time. (How did LHR's differ at that time?)

f. How far aft was the C of G (the Observer said more than the BEA), and what effect would this have had?

Insignificant, or so I'm told.

g. What was the effect of the missing spacer on the undercarriage?

It is my personal belief that this may have had a significant impact on the chain of events that led to the accident.

h. What would be the likely impact of taking off one tonne above structural weight, or six tonnes above RTOW? How reasonable is it to wonder whether this would have exacerbated or even caused the tyre blow-out?

Clearly taxing out in excess of the max structural weight (by one tonne) cannot be condoned but I do not believe it to be a significant contributury factor in this case.

The RTOW case would perhaps be answered by question 'a' above.


i. Have we been well served by the BEA and DGAC with their report and our own CAA who simply rubber-stamped it?

I really don't know the answer to that one either mate. The cynic in me says that there is a chance of a 'whitewash'. I do however truly believe that the CAA would only allow re-certification if they believed the A/C to be 'safe'. And, by the way, I believe the A/C to be safe and would fly on it tommorrow!


May I say that I believe that Captain Marty performed exceptionally well under the apalling circunstances. Let us hope that none of us fellow airman find ourselves in a situation similar to Captain Marty's.

As an aside I truly hope that none of the families of the crew involved in this terrible accident have access to PPRuNE.

Out of interest I have never, ever, been involved with the operation of Concorde. But I know a few people who are.

By the way I'm with 'Sick Squid' on his defense of the post by 'wallabie'. You could say that I'm not too keen on 'vultures' picking on the remains of carcasses.


Regards
Exeng

Wino,

I believe that you may be being unduly pessimistic about the survivability of 'off runway' forced landings or crash landings, and wonder whether you have been unduly influenced by the fact that a belly landing on tarmac may cause less (and less expensive) damage than a gear-down landing on 'dirt'. Bear in mind that Concorde has no underwing engine pods to dig in, and look at how often our expectations are confounded during force-landings - look at that RAF Nimrod (Comet) which pulled off a successful ditching in which the only injuries were a broken thumb and kerosene ingestion related inflammation of one chap's throat. With the severity of the fire however, it naturally didn't look good....

Exeng,

You say: "Clearly taxing out in excess of the max structural weight (by one tonne) cannot be condoned but I do not believe it to be a significant contributury factor in this case." I'm pleased you 'don't believe', but are you so sure that it didn't cause or exacerbate the blow-out? That it didn't provoke the veering off the runway by putting extra stress on the gear with its missing spacer? Can we even be convinced that the over-stressed gear didn't generate the ignition source?

And had he been underweight, how much more likely would the aircraft have been to reach a more sustainable speed, or establish a better rate of climb? What difference would it have made to the speed at which the pilot lost control?

And was the extra tonne (or five tonnes) all fuel? If so, did filling the tanks that tight make their failure more likely when subject to tyre impact?

I don't think it's ever acceptable to lose a human life. The death of even the least able, most cack-handed pilot will always be a tragic human loss. And I think Captain Marty was obviously a great character (he inspired great affection and loyalty in those who knew him, clearly), but as long as people aren't making highly personal attacks on him, or his engineer, or his co-pilot, then I think that on balance, it's just about acceptable to ask questions about the crew's actions and about human factors. I wouldn't like it if I was tyhe grieving widow, I'll admit, but nor would I like it if I were the widow of one of the passengers, and I knew that airline professionals were inhibited from trying to learn lessons by their reluctance to 'disturb' even the memory of one of their own - and that's how it could look.

Brave fellow, top bloke, obviously, but perhaps not without faults and failings - like every one of us. The question is, were those inevitable human frailties relevant this time? They do seem to have been a factor.

"By the way I'm with 'Sick Squid' on his defense of the post by 'wallabie'. You could say that I'm not too keen on 'vultures' picking on the remains of carcasses. "

Thanks mate.

[quote]Jackonicko
Wino,
I believe that you may be being unduly pessimistic about the survivability of 'off runway' forced landings or crash landings, and wonder whether you...[/qoute]

Jackonicko, it seems to me you are not really looking for answers, but rather seeks affirmation to the points of which you have already made up your mind. :confused:

Concorde is not a Cessna 152. You don't "stretch the glide" (in your words) because it's not gliding. If you get a ground proximity warning "pull up" in a jet you pull back until stickshacker onset, ease a bit, and keep it there until clear of terrain. Doesn't that tell you anything?

The captain did a great job in my opinion (atleast once airborne - and the rest is speculation) and had great survival instict. He did the right thing according to the CVR, trying to make Le Bourget.

Cosmo,

I'm big enough to admit I haven't got a clue! Could he have landed? Dunno? But I'm interested in people's views, yours, and people who've flown similar types. And look at the responses - Wino, a twin-jet F/O thinks "no way", while Glueball, a wide-body Captain isn't so pessimistic.

But what I haven't done is make up my mind, on that or any other issue. What a pity that your selective quote left out the other part of my sentance - namely: "With the severity of the fire however, it naturally didn't look good...."

But let's not get drawn into the if he'd gone for a forced landing would it have been survivable road again. The answer has to be maybe, maybe not, and to be honest, there may be few lessons to learn here. There are other, more germane questions being asked however - or perhaps you think I've made up my mind on those too?

Should we perhaps have a separate, 'slag off' and kick the journo thread, and leave this one clear for asking and attempting to answer the outstanding questions? Alternatively, if you just want to get some bile off your chest, then drop me an E-mail and save some band-width.

It seems to me there's second-guessing, and then there's second-guessing.

I think it's perfectly legitimate to ask whether the Concorde taxied out and/or began its takeoff roll overweight, and why the crew didn't switch runway when the wind shifted. These were all decisions the crew took calmly and deliberately. There are procedures and regulations to follow. If there are doubts, there is both time and the means to resolve them.

Once in the air, on fire, too slow, claxons blaring, I find it a little less legitimate to argue about whether every split-second decision was right or not. Should the crew have tried to put down the airplane at once? Given that we know the outcome of not doing so, it's easy to say it would have been worth a try. But certainly there's enough uncertainty about the likely success of such a maneuver in a high-weight, high-speed jet loaded with fuel and already on fire. With Le Bourget so close, with a nice long runway, fire services, etc, that's a gamble that I can see myself making. It doesn't even require a 180 turn, just a fairly shallow turn, into the problem engines.

So I say, let's by all means examine very carefully the events and decisions that led that Concorde to have to take off on fire, including technical issues (fuel tank design, tyres, etc), procedural (ADP runway inspections), operational (weight calculations, runway selection), and serendipitous (that metal FOD, and the 747 in the Concorde's path). And if does turn out that the crew made mistakes, let's not shy from criticizing the crew for any errors or rule violations they might have made. Great human being or not, when you take up some 100+ people, you accept a lot of responsibility. But let's end this rather sterile debate about whether attempting to reach Le Bourget was preferable to putting the aircraft down in a field. Even from the comfort of my living room, with time for reflection, analysis of available crash statistics, examination of photographs of the terrain, and all the other luxuries Marty and his crew lacked, there's enough doubt in my mind about either course of action as to make a decision difficult. In the pilot's seat, with the stick shaking, alarms blaring, and my own life and those of 110 other people in my care at stake? I'm not going to second-guess anyone in that situation.

Somewhere in between these two cases is the engine shutdown decision. Yes, it was under pressure, but it also (apparently) went against both SOPs and common consensus. SOPs are there for a reason, and a particularly important reason when they deal with emergencies. So I think it is legitimate to ask why this shutdown took place, and especially whether its a systemic problem of poor CRM training or habitual disregard of SOPs.

In the brief interval between posting and coming back to say "Damn! there is something I've almost made my mind up about" came Spag's excellent and common-sense post.

Arguments about force-landings (to do or not, survivable or not, etc.) are sterile and time-wasteing. He's quite right.

But what I'd meant to come back and admit to was my growing belief (I've almost made my mind up!) that had the FE left the No.2 running, they might perhaps (peut etre for Wallabie) have made it - maybe even had a good chance of making it, but once that engine was hut down, tragedy was inevitable.

But I'm still not quite comfortable with that conclusion, but can't explain or work out why.

Maybe it's because however stupid the decision was, and however far it ran counter to the rules, proper CRM and all the rest, I find it hard to criticise the FE, sitting there with chaos exploding around him, with things going very badly awry, and with ATC telling him that they had a severe fire. Maybe the afterburner problem was at the front of his mind? Maybe he forgot his training (inexcusable, technically, but....) and thought that shutting down No.2 would make it all go away. But perhaps we can say "Yes, if that happened then he made a fatal mistake" and yet still do so with compassion, sensitivity and understanding and without condemning him for it? Calmly acknowledging what went wrong could save lives however, whereas brushing the error under the carpet could lead to more deaths in the future.

I suddenly see from Spag's post that he's a journo, too! But I'm not agreeing with him for that reason, I assure you all!

Spag! Do I know you? Who do you write and phot. for, matey? Do we have any clients or customers in common, I wonder?

Just a thought.

Captain Marty's decision - to attempt to make it to Le Bourget - is now being discussed in absolute terms - that his only choice should have been (insert favored selection here).

But those choices are all based on a balance of probabilities - they are not hard-and-fast, and the discussions of them here are being had by people who were not in his seat. He knew best what the a/c was doing, how it was responding, and so forth. And even his knowledge may have been imperfect, but what else was he to base his decisions upon?

As the Sioux City incident showed us, it is possible to snatch some measure of recovery from the very jaws of disaster.

And we should also not lose sight of the fact that, once he made his decision, subsequent failures (in machinery or crew) may have made it a poor one - in hindsight. But I've been in the cockpit of a Concorde, and I saw no crystal ball installed. What seemed like his best choice may have turned into his worst choice 30 seconds later, because of some other condition which he could not foresee and may not even have known about.

It's very easy to be dogmatic now, and say "well, he should have crash-landed it right there in a straight line, any other decision is moronic and shows that he was a crappy pilot." But it's pretty obvious from all the testimonials that he was, in fact, a very fine pilot.

Me, I'm just self-loading freight. But I think I want a PIC up at the sharp end who is flexible enough, in such a situation, to be able to consider his options, all of them unpalatable, and choose the one that he thinks, based on what he knows, is least likely to fry my sorry ass, and then try everything in his power to make it happen - and not simply say "well, statistically, the best thing to do is to crash land right now, so now we crash-land. That way, noone will be able to fault my good judgement at the inquiry."

The questions about equipment, take-off weight, FOD and all the rest, are an entirely different matter. Many of them were unknown and unknowable to the flight crew. But I think it's a very shabby deal to suggest tangentially, as some others have done, that the PIC made a poor decision about eg TOW, and that therefore all his other decisions were similarly poor.

JMHO

llater,

llamas

Wino & Cosmo:
Check out the result of this deliberate off airport, gear down, controlled crash landing in a farmer's field a few miles short of Orly airport. (Fire in lavatory, smoke in cabin).

SURVIVORS? Yes, including crew.

Click on it

[ 29 August 2001: Message edited by: GlueBall ]

Jackonicko,

You ask if I am 'sure' that taxying in excess of the max structural (by one tonne) didn't cause or exacerbate the blow out?

I stated that I did not believe it to be a significant contributory factor. I am not 'sure' about anything. One tonne over max structural amounts to approx 1/2% of max gross weight, so what do you think? There are other factors that 'may' lead to tyre failure; for example under inflation of the affected tyre or it's opposite tyre on a shared axle can have devastating consequences. I'm not suggesting that was the case here, but it may have been and we will never know.

The missing spacer would have had an effect, but it would be irresponsible of me to attempt to quantify that effect. It is unlikely that we will ever know with certainty the effect of that and many other factors in this accident. Human beings like to see answers in perfect black and white but aviation, in common with many other facets of life, turns out to be many shades of grey.

The tower reported a tailwind component but 'perhaps' there was other evidence to suggest to Capt. Marty and his crew that this was not the case. I have certainly been given wind reports from the tower at various airports worldwide that are at variance with my observation of a windsock or smoke. On most occasions I will discuss this with the other crew before departure but I do remember on one occasion just pointing at the windsock and smiling. The CVR will not record this. We will never know for 'sure', will we, exactly what the wind was.

I appreciate Jackonico that you wish to ensure airline professionals can learn lessons from this tragedy. I believe that they will.

My view on whether an 'off airfield' crash would have been survivable. For what it is worth I am with Wino on this one and believe the chances of surviving are very small indeed; hence my previous remark about Capt. Marty being between a rock and a hard place. Hindsight is the clearest of all so we now know that the final actions ended in tragedy. Perhaps landing straight ahead would have ended with a similar result. If so who amongst us here would now be asking, "Why didn't Capt. Marty attempt to land at Le Bourget?"


Regards
Exeng

Ahhh, Glueball.

I looked up your crash and low and behold,

> Accident Database > Accident Synopsis > 07111973

Date of Accident: 11 July 1973
Airline: Varig
Aircraft: Boeing 707-345C
Location: Paris, France (Orly Airport)
Registration: PP-VJZ
Previous Registrations: N9322S
Flight Number: 820
Fatalities: 123:134
MSN: 19106
Line Number: 683
Engine Manufacturer: Pratt & Whitney
Engine Model: JT3D-8B
Year of Delivery: 1968
Accident Description: The aircraft made a successful emergency landing after reporting fire in a rear lavatory, but 123 of the 134 passengers were overcome by smoke and carbon monoxide before the plane could be evacuated.


Now notice that 11 people out of 123 survived. Maybe more would have survived had crash fire and rescue been nearby it assist in the recovery of the people. In these cases the smoke in the cabin usually doesn't get out of control UNITLL THE DOORS ARE OPENED, and then the chimney effect takes off.

Another point, this is an aircraft that was LOW on gas and weight and even fully loaded had a much slower approach speed than a cocorde. Take the soiux city crash by comparison. Because they were able to crash inside the perimeter of the airport, almost half the people were saved through a combination of on scene medical and all the hospitals were perpared and double shifted for the incoming casualties.

If you don't crash at the airport you haven't got much of a chance.

Cheers
Wino

Thank you Wino. Where were you in the first thread? :D

Jackonicko, I'm not slagging you. Wheren't you the one that called me "stubborn or ..." (I presume I was to insert a stupid there?) - doesn't sound like you are much interested in any opinion that doesn't support yours :rolleyes: Anyway...

The fact is that you are being sceptical about certain actions the crew was making. However, on one hand you critise them for not adhering to procedures and on the other hand you blame them for not, in Glueball's words, overcome the limitations of simulator training and its "mind set" of always being able to return a crippled jet to an airport."

Always, always, always stick to procedures. It's like seatbelts. Some unlucky few might get caught in the seatbelt and die as a result BUT a lot more will be saved by using it. The point is that no pilot should start inventing new procedures, unless of course there are no established ones in the first place (i.e. Sioux city).

Btw. When (and where) will we see you article published?

[ 29 August 2001: Message edited by: cosmo kramer ]

Kramer

Stubborn or something else. What something else? Dunno. You had me lost for words.

Sceptical about some of the crew actions? No, critical of some decisions/actions - taking off overweight, not re-calculating limits to take account of the chnaged conditions and shutting down the wrong engine at the wrong time.

But not expecting, or ever advocating that they should have tried to think creatively outside the box. Procedures and checklists are there to help, and should be adhered to. It's standard procedure to stuff the nose down to maintain speed, landing if that's the end result. It goes against every grain of sense to let the speed bleed away in an attempt to reach a particular landing site. Is there a QFI out there who's ever taught anything different. This should not be controversial on a pilot's forum, let alone a professional pilot's forum. A forced landing may kill you. Spinning in definitely will.

You quoted glueb: "overcome the limitations of simulator training and its "mind set" of always being able to return a crippled jet to an airport." NOT MY WORDS, NOT SOMETHING I'VE AGREED WITH.

As to the article. 5K words in a UK aviation mag, possibly 1K in a major Daily newspaper, and almost certainly a radio news feature. Timings/dates still to be decided.

BUT please can we get back to the other questions and away from this sterile force landing/crash landing one. PLEASE!

:confused: Can I put an uninformed (and certainly non-expert) opinion on this post? How about we look at the postulated factors and say that they all, to a greater or lesser degree, contributed towards the crash? Surely we can then say that, with a degree of certainty, various individuals may have been in the position to stop this tragic accident. It seems to me that the incident may have been a classic 'chain of events' that could have been broken: fuel upload, incorrectly configured landing gear, FOD, tailwind on departure, shut down of a serviceable(ish) engine, decision to go for an airfield rather than crash landing, VIP aircraft obstructing the taxyway near the overrun, company pressure to ensure that the Premiere Service is provided on-time on-spec etc etc........

My other point is that we should not seek to muddy the waters. Many of you will be aware of the RAF Chinook crash on the Mull of Kintyre. Although the issue has not yet been put to bed, it has not been helped by idle speculation and "experts" going-off at a tangent.

Off my soapbox and abuse me if necessary. Please just remeber this is a forum for opinion.

Jackinoto,

Show me one transport category jet that had fuel on it and made a successful off airport landing where everyone walked away. Just one. The jets have been flying for almost 50 years.

Furthermore You do NOT stuff the nose down. It is not done in stalls either BTW in a transport category jet. When you do stalls in a jet you maintain pitch attitude and increase power or VERY slightly reduce pitch.

Under no circumstances do you "Stuff the nose" in a transport category jet. They are far more pitch sensitive than a cessna. Concorde is also an extremely pitch sensitive aircraft.

Its normal touchdown angle is HUGE, you cannot be going slow and have any less of an angle, so the aircraft will not pancake in like you think it will. It will strike the tail quite firmly then break up. Mix in 200000 lbs of fuel and everyone will die. Pure and simple. Its a done deal if you try it. If however you get closer to an aerodrome, your odds go up.

Should the Transatt crew just have ditched in the sea? An off airport landing WILL result in deaths. Everything else is just hollywood.

Cheers
Wino
PS. Jackinoto, I was a captain of A320s 737s and 727 for 6 years. I recently changed jobs and went to a larger airline (AA) and am now an A300-605R first officer. Its a wide body, and do not assume that I am less experienced than your other thread members. Among other things, I have been the ALPA safety rep for my airline, part of the "Go team" and a member professional standards. On the management side I have done the engine out ferry and post maintance test flight duties for 2 seperate airlines.

[ 29 August 2001: Message edited by: Wino ]

I wasn't going to rise to this.

OK, so casualties (even fatalities) are very likely in an off airfield landing (Nimrod in the Moray Forth, BTW - a ditching in a Comet where no-one died).

But show me ONE loss of control/departure/spin/ground impact where there were any survivors at all.

And let's not get anal and pedantic about 'stuffing the nose down' - you know what I meant.

Jackonicko, this is getting stupid and old. Do you really believe that the Captain planned to do a "loss of control/departure/spin/ground impact"? Of course you don't (I hope)! Since crash landing wasn't an option, the Captain took a neck or nothing decision to try to reach Le Bourget. Unfortunately there was probably no cure at that point.

If you mention "why didn't he just land straight ahead?" in your article you will IMO take away some of your credibility.

Btw. as mentioned in the previous thread a delta wing doesn't stall at all (as far as I recall even the late Captain Trubshaw mentioned that in the media after the crash).

[Edit] You didn't specific mention stall anywhere. But a lot of others do. Just before you will be all over me :D

[ 29 August 2001: Message edited by: cosmo kramer ]

Wino:
Yes, passengers and crew have walked away from off airport landings in transport category jets! You saw the earlier photo of the Varig 707 crash landed outside Paris where the crew survived and lived to fly another day. (My message on previous page).

In the following photo you see the 737-300 put down in a farmer's field outside New Orleans after dual flameout. Everyone survived. With only superficial damage to the landing gears, the airplane was subsequently stripped of cabin seats and galleys, defueled to minimums and flown off by Boeing test pilots.

I'm sure that somewhere in your AA flight manual you've come across a little known paragraph that says something to the effect: That these emergency or abnormal procedures do not cover all cases or events, but are designed to provide guidance for most inflight emergencies and abnormalities. These published procedures are not intended to limit the crew's good judgement and common sense....

In other words, sometimes you've got to think "outside the box" and do what's unpublished in order to stay alive.


click it

:cool:

I suspect that, once the speed fell below the 3-engine zero rate of climb speed, Capt Marty did not have many options. The 'forced landing' issue is simply not relevant. The large drag rise as IAS decays in a delta soon reaches a point where a vast increase in thrust is required to avoid further deceleration - and even more to accelerate and climb. All he could do was to try and make Le Bourget, but for whatever reason he was unable to maintain control and the aircraft departed controlled flight. Perhaps the IAS fell below Vmca2 as the No 1 engine failed? Who can be certain? But we can certainly be sure that he was trying his best.......

[ 29 August 2001: Message edited by: BEagle ]

Wino,

Not forgetting the Scandi MD-80 landing in a field in Stockholm after bilateral engine failure. Although some injuries, so I'm not sure everyone 'walked away' by the strictest of definitions, all survived AFAIK.

Cosmo,

I'm not suggesting he spun in deliberately. But how many times did the FO draw his attention to the airspeed? And your contention that crash landing wasn't an option is facile - if he couldn't maintain height, he had to maintain airspeed and crash landing was the only option - though it may have been not much of a choice.


Wino

Noted your new PS. No disrespect intended. Was merely demonstrating that two pros (both ATPLs, one a current FO on twin-jets, one a Captain on something else) couldn't agree. I don't think anyone believes in the old OP Jones image of Captain's infallability any more, describing you as I did was meant to underline the fact that you're a pro with an ATPL, (and jet qualled) not some amatuer PPL monkey or 'untermenschen CPL'. (That, by the way, is a joke. Many P and CPL holders have colossal knowledge and experience. I have personally taken the controls at more than Mach 1 (LIghtning, year dot.) and naturally that makes me an expert on all things supersonic........

Or not!

(Plaintively).
Can we now get back to what went wrong before the aircraft crossed the main road, and finally cease wittering on and on and on and on about force-landings, etc.?

The weight issue, the fullness of the tanks, the undercarriage spacer, the poor decision to shut down an engine etc. are more important issues, and we haven't yet come to any conclusions.

[ 29 August 2001: Message edited by: Jackonicko ]

Here´s a picture of the SAS MD81. Both engines destroyed climbing out of 2-3000 feet, on dec. 27 1991.
120 some pax! 1 serious injury (broken back), some minor injuries, the rest walked off.
Off airport, with no rescue equipment. 6-10 tonnes of fuel (dunno exact, but that would be a normal amount for STO-CPH trip)
But see, they landed on a snow covered field, that may have saved them from turning into a big fireball! http://www.airdisaster.com/photos/sas751/4.shtml

[ 30 August 2001: Message edited by: Hung start ]

Jacko:
As to the alleged overweight condition I wouldn't attribute that to a causal factor of the crash nor of being responsible for a tire failure. An airplane with a MTOW of 185,000 kg to be overweight by 2% is relatively insignificant. Besides, in the case of this crash, at the time of rotation enough fuel was already burned off and spilled out of the wing to put the airplane below MTOW. So, in fact at liftoff the airplane was not overweight.
As to the potential tire overload during taxi, that's not significant either because tire loads during taxi are much less stressful than at 180+ kts during heavy weight takeoffs. Imagine also the potential tire overloads during a rough touchdown. Keep in mind also that the boggie gear is designed to carry the overload of one blown tire. Proper inflation is more critical than momentary overloads. In fact maintenance procedure of replacing a blown tire includes the simultaneous replacement of the "good" tire on the opposite axle, because that tire had absorbed the overload of the blown tire.
Obviously there is lots of redundancy in tire strength.
The absence of a BA modified deflector shield is altogether more significant as it could have helped in deflecting some pieces of rubber from the wing and from the engine intakes.
During any MTOW on any airplane it's unknowable whether or not the airplane is actually above MTOW. Because individual passengers and carry on luggage is not weighed. Formulas are used for winter when passengers carry heavier clothing, and formulas are used for summer when passengers carry lighter clothes. And formulas are an approved method.

:cool:
edited for error: deflector vs. spacer. Thanks Spag.
[ 30 August 2001: Message edited by: GlueBall ] Typo.

[ 30 August 2001: Message edited by: GlueBall ]

Is there a confusion here? The Air France Concorde that crashed was missing a spacer on the landing gear that keeps the wheels aligned and properly separated. That was because it was inadvertently not replaced after maintenance some time earlier. As I understand it, all Air France Concordes also lack a protective shield that BA has installed on the undercarriage of its Concordes, to help deflect any debris from blown tyres away from the wing.

You talk about the 'missing spacer', but it sounds like you mean the 'missing shield'. There is no way the missing spacer could have deflected debris, had it been present. The worries about the missing spacer is that it might have slowed the aircraft's acceleration and induced a yaw because of the misaligned wheels.

Let's make sure we don't get ourselves any more confused than we already are.

Spag:
Correct. Deflector shield, not spacer.

Reagrding Glueball's comments about margins and redundancies in compoenents and the likelihood of their being a contributing factor to the wreck -

I've read this kind of thinking in many places and as an engineer, it bothers the heck out of me. I hope that this is not common thinking among aircrew.

Sure, engineers design margin into most things, and in the airplane business, those margins are very well-defined and specifically tested. So far, so good.

But the limit - eg the MTOW printed in the owner' manual - is not a black-and-white thing. IOW, just becauseyou are at or below that limit, does not mean that the performance of (insert part name here) will be as every bit asgood as it will for every lower loading condition. As you approach that limit, the margin designed into the part is consumed in direct proportion.

If you are at the limit - or, as it appears in this case, if you exceed the limit - you start eating margin even more rapidly, because now the part that you have stressed above its intended limit may now be asked to accomodate another failure in another area.

Bear in mind also that the analysis and testing used to set that design limit and margin of safety is only as good as the limits under which it was performed. For example, as in this case - the MTOW is intimately connected with the capacity and the margins of the tires. But did those calculations include the possibility that the wheel specer mentioned - which I understand keeps the tires from touching - was omitted? If they did not, and I doubt that they did - now you have an unknown eating away at your margin, which you have already, knowingly, largely consumed.

A single excursion to the margins is usually tolerable. It's the multiple drains upon the margins of a design which lead to catastrophic failure. Some of them may be unknown and unknowable. And it's often the "stepping" of limits which ends users up in the soup - the thinking that says 'we've operated this way before, that means we can again, and again, and again, and we will still have the same margin at this level of operation as we had at lower levels."

For a perfect case study of how this sort of thinking leads to bad outcomes, may I suggest "The Challenger Launch Decision" by (?) Vaughan. A classic example of working at and beyond the margins, and what may result from.

llater,

llamas

Pse don't take offence, but for a moment I thought that the AAIB had been closed down by the powers that be, and had been replaced by a group of pprune accident experts.

JacKo:
As to the missing spacer resulting in a potential drift to the left side: Doubtful significance. It is not altogether uncommon for a heavy jet, for example, to have a dragging brake, an anomaly easily overcome through initial nosewheel steering and aerodynamic rudder steering. It's more probable that the jet had drifted to the left because of degraded No.2 engine/afterburner output from early FOD ingestion (asymetric power), and before full aerodynamic rudder authority became available, or perhaps because Marty was late in applying sufficient opposite rudder.

The fact is that the jet got airborne, got to 200 feet and stayed airborne for more than one minute with sufficient control authority to give the crew a choice of a controlled crash or a stall/uncontrolled crash. Everything else is ancillary. The declared takeoff weight, the metal strip, the tire disintegration, the fuel tank puncture, the engine failure, the spacer, the tire pressures, the missing deflector, the fire....all stuff over which the cockpit crew has no direct control over.

From a pilot standpoint I'm given to fly an airplane that is supposedly airworthy, proberly maintained and properly loaded by competent ground staff. I don't know whether the tires are at 200 psi or 175 psi, and I don't know whether we have 10 tons of belly freight or 12 tons or whether or not the freight was weighed properly or correctly converted from kgs to lbs.... But I do know that people make mistakes and that not all data that is presented to me on paper is therefore necessarily correct.
Upon takeoff I may have to deal with a C.G. that's different from what was advertised on the Weight & Balance and different from the takeoff stabilizer setting. I may have an engine failure, I may have smoke from an air conditioning pack. But once airborne I have to adapt and deal with it. I have no choice but to work with what I've got.

And just as the Concorde crew faced an unimaginable inflight terror, there should never be a moment for any pilot to give up the struggle to maintain control of his machine. Level wings with sufficient airspeed is the ultimate ingredient for maintaining control.
:cool:

Senior Llamas:
I admire mechanical and structural engineers. To be sure, I am thankful for the built in margins without which we'd all be deader than dead. :cool:

Glueball - it is the culture which perhaps leads to departures outside Perf A limits which is being questioned, not Capt Marty per se.

Limits are limits. Whilst there may well be a margin of fat in RTOW/ATOW, you simply do NOT know how much. If I ever had a pilot examinee of mine paying lip service to RTOW, he would be grounded immediately. No quarter given! Commercial pressures notwithstanding, any compromise of mandatory safety margins is illegal and must never be permitted.

Yes, the Concorde got airborne, and rose to some 200 feet. But I find it hard to dismiss the overweight problem and the missing spacer.

The higher the weight, the longer the takeoff run. Similarly, the missing spacer may well have slowed the acceleration of the aircraft, if not before the puncture, definitely after it.

Keep everything else the same and give Marty some extra speed when he pulled the Concorde off the ground (to avoid hitting the 747), and he would have had more options. Maybe he might even have made that tantalizingly close Bourget runway.

That ignoring the change in wind direction had no effect on the crash is illogical on the face of it. Had the Concorde switched runway, how likely is it that it would still have hit the metal FOD and burst a tyre?

I can accept that, as the BEA concluded, the tyre failure and subsequent fuel leak and fire were likely the primary causes of the crash. Not listing many of the other items pointed out in this thread and previous ones as at least contributory causes seems wrong, to me. And dangerous, in that it means little is likely to be done to address these problems.

Hasn't Bof made a valid point?
On the one hand, we rightly criticise the 'rentaquote' types whom the media wheel out to give their 'expert' views (ie speculation) after an accident and, on the other, respond to a journalist's questions on this open forum.
To his credit, Jackonicko makes no secret of the fact that he wants the information for professional use. We know that journalists thrive on sensationalism yet, despite Jacko's own comments which suggest he wishes to 'expose' an alleged cover-up, many people seem to all too ready to assist.
Let's not forget that the media/Press is fickle. When BA decided to continue Concorde flights following the accident, it was 'Well done, BA.' for a few days. But, as soon as Concorde was grounded, the tone changed completely and the Press revelled in scare-mongering stories about Concorde being a death-trap which should be grounded!
Personally, I can't wait to see Concorde fly again - and would happily have flown on it without any of the mods which have now been made.
Good news doesn't sell newspapers or make good TV documentaries. Idle speculation is so often reported in the media as 'a source in the industry'.
I'm only an outsider, but why anyone would want to help the Press with 'leads' when experience shows that the end-product is bound to be unfavourable to the industry is beyond my comprehension. :rolleyes:

I've been watching PPRuNe for a couple of years and contributing occasionally for a little less, and in that time, I've seen most of the threads that pertain to aircraft accidents of various kinds. One attitude that continues to resurface is the: "stop making uniformed guesses and leave it to the experts".

Now, I appreciate that we may not all be expert accident investigators, and we may not have all the facts at our disposal but consider this. If I was leading an accident investigation board, and I wanted to make damn sure that my team left no stone unturned and no possibility unexplored, I could do a lot worse than assemble and eclectic group such as this for a brainstorming session.

The people who contribute to this BBS come from backgrounds which include pilots, cabin crew, flight engineers, ground crew, ATC, aircraft technicians, design engineers, accident investigators and yes, even the bean counters! :)

What I'm saying is that although we aren't the acknowledged experts in charge of the official investigation, it does no harm for it to be discussed, and I certainly don't think it's necessary to have a gag placed on us so we have to wait like sheep for the official investigation results.

For example, a lot of people have serious reservations about the official version of the Egyptair crash, and we know that politics can often distort or conceal the truth. I think it is sensible, and quite acceptable for a BBS such as this to be discussing aspects of the investigation and asking questions of the official investigation conclusions.

On a different note, I echo one of the earlier contributor's concerns with regard to besmirching the name of a deceased pilot. It is true that no one wants to speak ill of the dead, and I sincerely hope that no relatives or close friends of the flight crew are exposed to all this supposition and theorising, but it is certainly not acceptable to whitewash over the failings (if there were any) of anyone who may or may not have contributed to such a tragedy simply, because they themselves are dead. After all, who speaks up for the other hundred or so people who lost their lives and who placed themselves in the hands of the flight crew?

A fine man he may have been. A great pilot he may have been. But even the best of us make mistakes, especially in difficult and stressful situations such as this must have been. If (and I stress the word "if") he made any mistakes which could be considered to be contributory, then everyone has a right to know it, not least to help prevent future similar tragedies.

Death makes you neither infallible nor heroic, although it may be tempting and entirely natural to believe so.

I bow to your arguments Covenant. Thanks for an excellent post. A well balanced well written opinion.

Very, very well said Covenant !
This afternoon, Passing through CDG, there was one of the AFR Concorde parked, dozens of guys working around it in the rain...I am told that lots of maintenance staff comes on their off days to make sure it will fly again.
I Hope they succeed..