Jet Flies On With One Engine Out on Nonstop Trip to London

"Doug Carter" wrote in message
. com...
Mike Rapoport wrote:
"Doug Carter" wrote in message
. com...

Mike Rapoport wrote:

So, is this good or bad?

Whoever wrote this SOP for BA is clearly dumb as a bag of rocks.


Along with the JAA and FAA...Or are you just another PP ASEL with strong
opinions on flying 747s and how to run a global airline...?


Oops! I overlooked the implication that you were only interested in
hearing from BA, JAA &/or FAA experts; Sorry, I am just another dumb ass
PP ASEL... with 30 years of system failures analysis experience.

I think I'll stay with my opinion until I learn enough to feel good about
riding over the pond with a known major systems failure.

Perhaps these engines are instrumented well enough that the pilot knew
that the failure did not result in severed fuel, oil or electrical lines;
that there were no overloaded buses, etc; time will tell.


The list of disasters that started with a controllable problem that was
allowed to compound out of control is long.

An example of pushing the maintenance edge can be seen at:
http://www.rhythm.com/~will/asian747.html.


By the way, do I refer from your reply that you think this is a good
practice?

I didn't mean to offend you, but when a PP SEL says "Whoever wrote this SOP
for BA is clearly dumb as a bag of rocks" and that SOP is approved by the
FAA and JAA and known by thousands of BA employees (who aren't complaining
or pointing out problems with it), it occurs to me that the PPASEL probably
knows a whole lot less than ANY of the people that wrote or approved it and
is just spouting off without knowing any of the issues. Kind of like Jane
Fonda educating people about nuclear power.

Apparently, a single failed engine on a four engine jet airliner is not an
emergency nor an automatic reason to terminate a flight.

Like you said: "Perhaps these engines are instrumented well enough that the
pilot knew that the failure did not result in severed fuel, oil or
electrical
lines; that there were no overloaded buses, etc; time will tell." Indeed
time will tell. In the meantime, you look like a fool jumping up and
declaring that the guy (It was actually a bunch of people all of whom know
more about airlines and airliners than you or I) who wrote the SOP for BA is
an idiot.

Look at it another way. The plane took off and lost an engine. It can't
land immediately because it is too heavy. So it has to fly for a while
regardless. The crew decide to head in the direction that they were
originally going. This was all thought out years before by the airline, the
regulators and probably Boeing and incorportated into the crew's training.
There are numerous large commerical airports along the way that are just as
suitable as LAX (PMD, RNO, SLC ect). We haven't even gotten into what the
weather might have been like at LAX. By the time the flight starts over
water, it has been flying for many hours over thousands of miles and, even
then, is always well under an hour from a suitable airport. The flight
lands safely and then some PP ASEL declares that they did it all wrong.

I find more rational be believe that the procedure developed by BA, FAA,
JAA, Boeing and implemented by the crew was not a totally stupid stunt than
to accept your assertion that it was.

Mike
MU-2