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

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.

Maybe it's different where you come from, but in my area of the business,
only the result, and/or the ramifications of that result mattered. Imprudent
and you're history if you survive the imprudence. On the other hand you
could be as "prudent" as you wanted to be, but if that "prudence" didn't sit
well with the front office, you could very well be history!
Let me make something clear here. I'm not making a case for or against this
pilot. I'm simply relating some "possibilities" based on his scenario, and
my personal experience in the business. I've said several times already that
I don't want to second guess what he did. He did it, and the chips will fall
in his world either upside down or right side up depending on how the regs
play out and his front office and chief pilot view the totality of his
actions.
That's it....no more....no less!
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot; CFI; Retired
dhenriquestrashatearthlinktrashdotnet
(take out the trash :-)
"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 04:26:21 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote in
. net::

The real culprit in this kind of thing is that in many cases for the
professional pilot, you're dammed if you do....and you're damned if you
don't. It "ain't" an easy business.

Isn't it difficult for the PIC to be reprimanded for choosing
prudence?

It seems kind of wierd to me too but then most of the pilots that will
weigh in on this topic continue on one piston engine one every flight and
this guy had three jet engines!!!

Ah, yes. The dreaded three-engine approach...

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"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
..

There's no evidence of this as of yet,

Uh, 91.13 certainly comes to mind.

Uh... there's no evidence that what they did was careless =or= reckless.

Jose
--
Math is a game. The object of the game is to figure out the rules.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose wrote
Uh... there's no evidence that what they did was careless =or= reckless.

My dear, departed mother always maintained that simply flying
in an aircraft was "careless and reckless". :-)

Bob Moore

Hehe, I *knew* that would cause a bit of ruckus. I will do more research but
I got that information from a 747-400 captain while I was jumpseating
enroute of the Pacific. Before you ask, this was before 9-11 so I frequented
the flight deck often since my wife (then fiancee) was a flight attendant
for that airline. That captain added that the practice was not done because
of their SOP. I believe he also said that it was the "new" engines--Rolls
Royce most likely because that's what Cathay Pacific's744's use (744 is
their shorthand for 747-400).

I'll post if I find anything.

Marco Leon

"Bob Moore" wrote in message
. 121...
"Marco Leon" wrote
747-400's are actually more efficient in cruise on two engines.

I know that to be not true. The maximum cruise altitude on two
engines is too low.

While I do not have a B-747 Flight Manual in front of me, I do
have the numbers for its predecessor, the B-707, which are
representative for four engine jet transport altitude vs fuel
flow comparisons.

At a mid-weight for an ocean crossing, 260,000#, the numbers are
for maximum altitude and nautical miles per 1000# of fuel burn.

Four Engines.....FL370 37.9 nm/1000#
Three Engines....FL300 33.5 nm/1000#
Two Engines......FL140 25.0 nm/1000#

It's the two engine maximum altitude that kills you.

Lets see your numbers

Bob Moore
ATP B-707 B-727
PanAm (retired)

Jose,

there's no evidence that what they did was careless =or= reckless.


Giving up redundancy built into a system for a good reasons and having
to land short of your intended destination with some 400 people in the
back because of a low-fuel emergency certainly counts in my book. Let's
see if it does in the book of the authorities, too, but I'd be very
surprised if not. After all, we're not talking about an engine failure
somewhere over Greenland - we're talking about RIGHT after take-off!

It reminds me very much of the Hapag-Lloyd accident with the Airbus
running out of fuel after flying through half of Europe with the gear
locked in the down position.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 14:32:18 GMT, Doug Carter wrote:

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

How do you know they took off with passengers and a "dead" engine?

-Jack Davis
B737

Mike,

I think that four engine airliners have to be able to fly with two engines
inoperative on one side but I am not certain.


New certification requirements want them to be able to take-off with two out
on the same side at max gross. The A380 for example will have to be able to
do that. The 747 needs three for take-off.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)