RAT Deployment
 

I've just seen this question posed on another aviation forum. Can anyone help?

"A BAe technical type just claimed that the Air Transat A330 which landed in the Azores is the only example of a Ram Air Turbine actually being deployed on a commercial airliner. I find that hard to believe. What about the Gimli Glider Air Canada B767 and other fuel starvation incidents, or the British Airways B747 with the quadruple engine flameout over Indonesia, due to volcanic ash?
Can anybody tell me of other Ram Air Turbine deployments that you know about. . . ?"

747
 

No Rat on a 747. Already a lot of redundancy built in.

Your suspicions are correct, SRB. The Air Transat A330 was not the first commercial example of RAT deployment. When the second (No2/Right) engine quit on the Air Canada Gimli Glider (23 Jul 83) the RAT was deployed automatically as per the owners handbook - not manually as per some accounts.

The 75/767 RAT provides limited hydraulic power to the basic flight controls down to 130 KIAS. Without it the aircraft would have been unsteerable. The VC10 ELRAT incident posted by Notso predates Gimli by several years, although the function of that equipment differs from that of the Boeing RAT.

I bet someone knows of other incidents of (design) RAT deployment, but it surely wasn't an aviation first for Toulouse/BWoS.

Many thanks, Gentlemen. That answers the question, although if anyone has any more incidents just to complete the picture I'd be interested in reading them.

Cheers.

Saw a B757 drop the rat just after take off in DFW. I'm not familiar with the systems on the 75', but the crew didn't seem too worried. They informed tower the needed to return to land, but declared no emergency.