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

Stefan wrote:
Doug Carter wrote:

As a four engine operation with one dead engine the pilot will have to
prove that proceeding (the extra 5,400 miles) was:

"...as safe as landing at the nearest suitable airport..."

... BTW: Why should the FAA care at all? ...

Something about a transcontinental flight past the nearest suitable
airport while in U.S. airspace. When "in Rome" and all that...

"Doug Carter" wrote in message
. com...
Dave Stadt wrote:
The crew and BA ops apparently were correct in their decision. Evidence
otherwise?

Ran out of gas before they got home; sounds like the wrong outcome to me.

They stopped to refuel. Don't believe that qualifes as running out of fuel
(OBTW they don't run on gas). When you run out of fuel the engines stop
'eh. Could well be they knew they would have to stop for fuel and that was
a desirable alternative.

However I will concede that the unscheduled stop in Manchester to refuel
and possibly repair the engine may have been cheaper than stopping to do
the same thing on this side of the Atlantic.

(I wonder if they took off from Manchester on three engines?)

... he or she shall (upon completing the
trip) send a written report, in duplicate...

I'd hate to write that report...

Why? Sounds simple and straight forward.


As a four engine operation with one dead engine the pilot will have to
prove that proceeding (the extra 5,400 miles) was:

I do believe the 747 was designed to fly just fine on three engines and in
fact it will do just fine on two engines.

"...as safe as landing at the nearest suitable airport..."

This may require careful wording to edge past the letter of the
regulations.

The outcome was a safe landing. Based on that, what regulation is of
concern? The regulations provide for them to do exactly what they did.

Of course, landing to refuel and repair *before* attempting to cross the
Atlantic may require even more tedious paperwork to be submitted to BA
management for all I know.


Either way, running out of gas before they got to their declared
destination does not help appearances.

I don't believe they ran out of "gas."

Doug
PP, ASEL IA, Fool

Doug Carter wrote:

Either way, running out of gas before they got to their declared
destination does not help appearances.

Nobody ran out of gas. Even if they had continued to London, they would not have
run out of fuel. The report said they would have had an insufficient reserve
when they arrived. That implies that the plane still had about an hour of fuel
left when they landed. If traffic was stacked up at London, they could well have
had much more.

George Patterson
I prefer Heaven for climate but Hell for company.

"Doug Carter" wrote in message -
Ran out of gas before they got home; sounds like the wrong outcome to me.

If they had circled to dump fuel and landed at their origin, would the
outcome have been different? Proceding as they did is no more inherently
dangerous provided they had alternates available if an additional problem
developed. There are good alternate landing airports along their route, even
along the Atlantic tracks, allowing for safe landings if an additional
engine had failed.

(I wonder if they took off from Manchester on three engines?)

Why not? I've done 2 engine ferry flights in B-727 numerous times overwater.

As a four engine operation with one dead engine the pilot will have to
prove that proceeding (the extra 5,400 miles) was:
"...as safe as landing at the nearest suitable airport..."
This may require careful wording to edge past the letter of the
regulations.
Of course, landing to refuel and repair *before* attempting to cross the
Atlantic may require even more tedious paperwork to be submitted to BA
management for all I know.
Either way, running out of gas before they got to their declared
destination does not help appearances.

The symantics of language is why we have lawyers. The lawyers draw knowledge
from their resources which includes highly experienced professional 4 engine
transport pilots. This is how precedents are set. BA, CAA, FAA, and JAA set
regulations and policies from these precedents.

The B-747 will fly on 2 engines as evidenced by a requirement for a
type-rating candidate to successfully demonstrate a precision approach with
2 engines failed on the same wing. Having 3 engines and plenty of alternate
landing sites is considered by most to be a rational way to proceed.

D.

Capt.Doug wrote:
... Proceding as they did is no more inherently
dangerous provided they had alternates available if an additional problem
developed.

(I wonder if they took off from Manchester on three engines?)

Why not? I've done 2 engine ferry flights in B-727 numerous times overwater.

So what? The question was "is it SOP to take off with passengers and a
dead engine?"

The B-747 will fly on 2 engines as evidenced by a requirement for a
type-rating candidate to successfully demonstrate a precision approach with
2 engines failed on the same wing.

No doubt. But do you argue that going missed on two engines is as safe
as with four?


Early on I suggested IMHO that BA was "as dumb as a bag of rocks" if
their SOP approved this operation; there were (and are) two reasons for
this:

First, From a technical perspective I remain unconvinced that crossing
the Atlantic with a known dead and un-inspected engine is, per Part 121
"...as safe as landing at the nearest suitable airport..."

Second, From a business perspective keep in mind that there is a lot of
competition for business class ticket revenue.

If BA routinely crosses oceans with a dead un-inspected engine and other
carriers do not then BA will start losing customers as the word gets
around the frequent flyer crowd. I'll probably make six or eight more
trips to Europe this year; BA is no longer on my list of options until
the rest of the story comes out on this.

Doug,

Ran out of gas before they got home


Nah, they decided in the beginning to go to Manchester, of course,
after consideration of b(2). Yeah, right...

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Bob Moore wrote:


From the FAA:

stuff deleted
The director of operations
shall, within 10 days after the pilot returns to his or her home base,
send a copy of this report with the director of operation's comments to
the certificate-holding district office.

Ok. Here we have a British operator and aircraft with JAA certfied pilots (or
have I got that wrong?). Is this section of the regulation applicable?

Second question -- what's the "certificate-holding district office"? To what
certificate are they referring?

George Patterson
I prefer Heaven for climate but Hell for company.

Mike Rapoport wrote:
...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.

As a fool I will accept your assertion that the FAA & JAA approve, a
priori, the SOP and the resulting decisions the pilot made based on it
(BA *has* asserted that three out of four engines is fine with them).

Look at it another way. The plane took off and lost an engine. It can't
land immediately because it is too heavy.

Without dumping fuel ($$)

So it has to fly for a while regardless.
....

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.

Again, this fool accepts your assertion that the FAA, JAA and Boeing
approve trans-Atlantic operations with a failed engine; that presuming
the pilot *knew* there was no other damage to the aircraft and that the
aircraft had sufficient range to complete its mission given the normal
wind variability... Oops, it didn't! They had to divert, fortunately
over land.

I fully expect that the crew carefully calculated their ability to land
safely despite losing the other engine on that side, but it still seems
like an unnecessary risk of several hundred lives. As a *former* BA
passenger I would have been much happier had the pilot landed at DFW or
JFK, at least inspected the airplane then continued.

Perhaps BA was concerned that the engine could not have been quickly
repaired... Would they have taken off from JFK on three engines?


In general I have a great deal of respect for the FAA and Boeing (and
even BA, up to now), but I continue to be surprised by the fact that all
these learned agencies support launching over the Atlantic with a known
failed engine and no visual inspection.


By the way, I fly aerobatics and single engine IFR (not always at the
same time). This fool is not totally risk adverse, but perhaps not an
idiot.

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

As a fool I will accept your assertion that the FAA & JAA approve, a
priori, the SOP and the resulting decisions the pilot made based on it (BA
*has* asserted that three out of four engines is fine with them).

Look at it another way. The plane took off and lost an engine. It can't
land immediately because it is too heavy.

Without dumping fuel ($$)

You seem to assume that the reason for contiued flight was cost even though
there is no evidence of this. It seems unlikely that anyone would risk a
$140 million airplane and assume over a billion dollars of liability to save
$60,000 worth of kerosene. This was a reasoned decision made with the
luxury of time.


So it has to fly for a while regardless.
...

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.

Again, this fool accepts your assertion that the FAA, JAA and Boeing
approve trans-Atlantic operations with a failed engine; that presuming
the pilot *knew* there was no other damage to the aircraft and that the
aircraft had sufficient range to complete its mission given the normal
wind variability... Oops, it didn't! They had to divert, fortunately over
land.

As I pointed out earlier, the airplane was never more than an hour from
land.


I fully expect that the crew carefully calculated their ability to land
safely despite losing the other engine on that side, but it still seems
like an unnecessary risk of several hundred lives. As a *former* BA
passenger I would have been much happier had the pilot landed at DFW or
JFK, at least inspected the airplane then continued.

A great circle route from LA to London crosses the US-Canada border in
Montana so going to DFW or JFK is a little out of the way.

Perhaps BA was concerned that the engine could not have been quickly
repaired... Would they have taken off from JFK on three engines?

Again you are ascribing motives to BA that there is no evidence of. I
assume that the engine could have been changed anywhere.

In general I have a great deal of respect for the FAA and Boeing (and even
BA, up to now), but I continue to be surprised by the fact that all these
learned agencies support launching over the Atlantic with a known failed
engine and no visual inspection.

You seem to view the Atlantic as this huge featurless body of water devoid
of islands with airports. This is partly true if you were flying from the
US east coast to Europe but from the US west coast you cross that Atlantic
much farther north where Canada extends much farther east and Greenland and
Iceland exist. Lots of single engine airplanes make the crossing each year
using only their standard tanks. Also, by the time they exited Canada they
had been flying for roughly five hours. If the wing was going to fall off,
it should have done it by then.

Mike
MU-2
..

Mike Rapoport wrote:

You seem to assume that the reason for contiued flight was cost even though
there is no evidence of this.


I do wonder how the Captain phrased the cabin announcement?

Perhaps:

'Good evening everyone, this is your Captain speaking. You may have
noticed that right after rotation "there was an engine surge, like a
backfire" and I should inform you that the control tower reported
"sparks flying from the crippled engine and heard popping noises."

Not to worry! We have shut down the affected engine and finished a
lengthy conference call with management that absolutely did not include
any discussion of the recently effective EU passenger compensation law
nor other costs of landing to inspect the damage.

You will be happy to know that based *only* on consideration for your
safety and convenience that rather than landing somewhere in the US to
inspect the damage and repair the aircraft that we have decided to press
on to London! Stiff Upper Lip and all that!

Of course we will be a little lower and slower but we estimate we have
probably have enough fuel to reach London, or at least Manchester.


Now I know that you paid close attention to the safety briefing and if
we should developer a bit of fire from the engine damage in the next
eight or ten hours, well, heck, we will be at most an hour from land and
I know that each of you knows where your personal flotation device is
located!

Remember, your safety is always our first concern! Thank you for
choosing British Airways'


(Foolish caveat: quoted remarks abstracted from the LA Times)

--
Doug
PP ASEL IA Fool