Safe Landing despite Loss of Controls
 

A Lufthansa City-Line Avroliner RJ85, flight number LH 5386 from Frankfurt/Main to Graz, made an emergency landing yesterday into Graz Thalerhof, Austria, after a total failure of primary controls. The crew steered the airplane purely on engines for the successful emergency landing. All 56 people on board could leave the airplane unhurt.

The crew noticed technical problems with elevator and ailerons while still in cruise and tried 42 minutes to solve the issue before attempting the landing, touching down at 16:57 UTC (planned arrival at 16:15 UTC). Basically all fire engines and ambulances of the city of Graz were awaiting the jet preparing for a crash landing, with all hospitals in the city at high alert as well.

A Lufthansa spokeswoman said, that the crew did a miracle to get the jet safely onto the ground. Passengers of the airplane said in an interview today, that they prepared to meet their maker after the announcement of the crew.

Other jets, loosing their primary controls entirely, certainly were not as lucky: United Flight 232 (DC-10), which crash landed in Sioux City (185 of 285 people surviving) or Japan Airlines 123 (B747), which crashed near Tokyo (only 1 of 509 people on board survived).

Servus aus Salzburg
Simon Hradecky

and the DHL A300 in Baghdad :ok:

They obviously earned their whole life's salary in an hour.

Thank Heaven they're safe and for their amazing airmanship..

A huge "Bravo, Well Done!" to the flight crew, you have done your profession proud.

The only negative side of a wonderful story is the implication of a "miracle" by the Lufthansa spokesperson. A miracle implies divine intervention. The truth is that PILOT INTERVENTION, after the designers, engineers, and "Let's have pilotless passenger aircraft" pundits screwed up AGAIN, leaving pilots to save the day.

Is it possible to know the crew's names, I'd like to add them to my list of heros, Al Haynes et al......

Smokey,

>>Is it possible to know the crew's names, I'd like to add them to
>>my list of heros, Al Haynes et al......

At this time the names of the crew have not been released - I also do not yet know the tail number of the airplane.

Your mention of Al Haynes certainly is right - that was the first name and event that came to my mind as well, when I first heard of the encounter with more than 12 hours delay today in the morning.

Simon

Great job! :ok:

Here is a link (in German) for those interested.

Grüß gott! (Talking about divine intervention) ;)

Very well done by the crew if the facts are right so far. Does anybody have further details?

The source says that elevator and ailerons where blocked, so the rudder still could have worked. It also says that after trying out they commanded the aircraft with the engines (but this does not exclude the possibility of partial inputs from the rudder).
According to my knowledge, Avro RJ have mechanical flight controls, coppled to the yokes via cables. All control surfaces are independant, no hydraulic input.
This is a really amazing story, and those pilots really showed their professionalism. Not only big plane pilots can be heroes!!

Dani

I'll add my well done to the crew :ok: Like Old Smokey said, I'll need to add them to my 'hero' list :) They've done a great job on saving all the lives!

Basil,

>>and the DHL A300 in Baghdad

While that A300 certainly was severly struck and had many systems damaged, amongst them one engine, they did not suffer loss of controls.

With one engine out they would have crashed right away out of 8000 feet, had they not have had at least some control via the primary controls.

Simon

A very well done for the LH Crew. It's always reassuring to know that when the s%&&t hits the fan, it's still a pilot that saves the day (and not a computer).
:ok:

Simon,
The DHL A300 did loose all flt controls almost immediately, the LH engine had recieved some damage, but it was still operating normally.
Brgds
Doc

Not the first time I've heard of incidents with 146's. Cracking on wing skin panels, hydraulic system failure, and speed brake locked open to name but a few.

I just talked to an Avro/146 pilot: Basically it is possible to fly and land with only thrust and rudder. With some operators, it is trained sometimes in the simulator. Nonetheless noone tried this out in real life!

Controls were restored
 

After having an interview with the Captain the spokeswoman has now changed the report about the incident: the controls were jammed indeed (co-pilot flying), but after breaking the connection between the two control columns the captains yoke did work properly and the landing was carried out with full control. She also said, that her reports of earlier today, that the pilots landed while steering on engines, were premature and based on collegue's report from Graz.

Simon

A superlative performance by this crew and a credit to the profession.

Miracle? Divine intervention? Well, I don't mind those terms being used about my fellow aviators efforts. It certainly fits this LH crew!!

Used to fly the aircraft, started reading this thread and thought it's impossible to lose all flight controls, read on, and then it struck me.

Yet again ppruners why don't we just stick to facts. Ok report the aircraft landed with control problems but then why all this stupid speculation about total loss of flight controls, from ill imformed people with no knowlage of the aircraft or its systems.

I rarely visit this forum now for this very reason.
Well done to the crew involved.

From what I have heard on the grapevine the crew suffered a control jam and effected a breakout as per the aircraft memory items.

Control was regained by the captain and the aircraft landed in accordance with the the procedure in the Emergency Checklist.

I am told by those that know that this is a commonly rehearsed manoeuvre in the simulator but very well done to the crew indeed.

Zlin246 - many different aircraft types have had many different kinds of problems. Not just the mighty Avro:cool:

UAVs anyone ?

How do you program a computer for this kind of failure ?
Good thing there are humans around sometimes !

Top notch guys !:ok: