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

Doug Carter wrote:

Remember, your safety is always our first concern!

This sort of statement have always amused me. My safety had better not be their
primary concern -- if it were, we'd never leave the ground. Their primary
concern had better be to deliver me to my destination. Safety runs a close
second, of course, since I'd like to get there intact.

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

George Patterson wrote
This sort of statement have always amused me. My safety had better not
be their primary concern -- if it were, we'd never leave the ground.
Their primary concern had better be to deliver me to my destination.
Safety runs a close second, of course, since I'd like to get there
intact.

None of the above.....MY safety was always my primary concern.
The aircraft came second. If I and the aircraft both survived,
chances were, the passengers made out OK.

Bob Moore

"Bob Moore" wrote in message
. 121...
George Patterson wrote
This sort of statement have always amused me. My safety had better not
be their primary concern -- if it were, we'd never leave the ground.
Their primary concern had better be to deliver me to my destination.
Safety runs a close second, of course, since I'd like to get there
intact.

None of the above.....MY safety was always my primary concern.
The aircraft came second. If I and the aircraft both survived,
chances were, the passengers made out OK.

Bob Moore

You betcha, I want two people up front that think they are the most
important people in the world.

Bob Moore wrote:

None of the above.....MY safety was always my primary concern.

Good point. As Gann says in "Fate is the Hunter", the pilots are always first to
arrive at the scene of an accident.

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

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

My understanding is that you CAN land an aircraft overweight, but it then
has to be inspected according to a specified protocol - obviously if it's a
high 'g' landing then damage is far more likely to result - if however
(perhaps due to good conditions and a touch of luck) you land with a real
greaser then it's unlikely to physically damage anything.

Anyone have more of an insight into this? - I'm also thinking of the
Swissair 111 fire where the pilot delayed landing because it would have
meant landing overweight - and could possibly have made a difference.

My 10c worth on continuing on 3 engines is that it's not 'unsafe' per sec,
but it means pushing ones luck a bit more. If it came down to only a
financial decision, I'd have circuited to land after dumping fuel.

Mike, I'd like to second your analysis with a few more observations. I
admit that I haven't worked for but two airlines in my life, neither of them
BA. However, the general rules apply pretty much universally.

Less than an hour after that pilot reported an engine failure to LAX BA-OPS,
everybody from the president of the airline through the chief pilot,
director of maintenance, and director of ops was on the phone to one another
analyzing the situation, discussing options, and coming to a consensus
recommendation to the pilot of the airplane in question. The decision from
the left front seat was not in a vacuum; he had the consensus recommendation
from the top echelon of the airline.

Was it his ultimate decision? Sure. Was his decision based on the best
information from the most informed sources in the airline? You betcha.

Based on the pilot's analysis of the situation, the recommendation of his
top brass, and the guidance of the ops manual it is my observation that the
pilot did just exactly the right thing.

Jim




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

"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...
Mike, I'd like to second your analysis with a few more observations. I
admit that I haven't worked for but two airlines in my life, neither of
them BA. However, the general rules apply pretty much universally.

Less than an hour after that pilot reported an engine failure to LAX
BA-OPS, everybody from the president of the airline through the chief
pilot, director of maintenance, and director of ops was on the phone to
one another analyzing the situation, discussing options, and coming to a
consensus recommendation to the pilot of the airplane in question. The
decision from the left front seat was not in a vacuum; he had the
consensus recommendation from the top echelon of the airline.

Was it his ultimate decision? Sure. Was his decision based on the best
information from the most informed sources in the airline? You betcha.

Based on the pilot's analysis of the situation, the recommendation of his
top brass, and the guidance of the ops manual it is my observation that
the pilot did just exactly the right thing.

Jim

What people forget in this debate that the captain would have not done
anything that would have put his and his crews life at risk either. bear in
mind too that these flights have three pilots on board two of whom are
captain status. SOPs, on board computer analysis, homebase engineering
analysis etc will have provided enough information to enable the most
appropriate decision to be made.

Before the airplane could land, it would have had to dump fuel. so why not
fly towards the eventual destination whilst a decision is being made. If a
precautionary landing was then deemed necessary then it could have happened
in many places along the route.

As it was, they figured out the problem and decided to continue the flight
and actually Manchester is a better place to divert in such a situation than
taking the plane to Heathrow. That would have required a lot of shifting of
planes out of the way in the process and the last thing required would be
causing any delays, either to this jet or other aircraft which might
themselves be a bit low on fuel and this is not uncommon.

I did hear that many of the passengers on the flight were changing to
flights from London to Manchester so maybe this was a factor too. The
airlines know what the connecting flights are too.

The answers will be in the official report. But for sure these guys had all
the airline resources backing them up and they also had plenty of time to
get a solution that worked out.

Pity the poor *******s who have minutes to come up with an answer on their
own.

Chris,

What people forget in this debate that the captain would have not done
anything that would have put his and his crews life at risk either.


With all due respect: What you seem to forget is that captains quite
regularly DO things that put their and their crew's life in danger -
that's why we have accidents. They may not have the intention of doing
so, but they still do it.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)