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

"George Patterson" wrote in message
...

Wouldn't it be SOP to declare an emergency prior to an approach with an
engine
out? That would pretty much eliminate any possibility of having to go
around. If
so, they would have declared an emergency wherever they decided to land.

On a twin with an engine out, or even a trijet, perhaps. On a 4-engined
aircraft which has just crossed the Atlantic on 3 engines on the basis of
having sufficient redundancy to do so safely, that would smack a little of
having your cake and eating it too, doesn't it? ;-)

Julian

"Julian Scarfe" wrote in message
...
"George Patterson" wrote in message
...

Wouldn't it be SOP to declare an emergency prior to an approach with an
engine
out? That would pretty much eliminate any possibility of having to go
around. If
so, they would have declared an emergency wherever they decided to land.

On a twin with an engine out, or even a trijet, perhaps. On a 4-engined
aircraft which has just crossed the Atlantic on 3 engines on the basis of
having sufficient redundancy to do so safely, that would smack a little of
having your cake and eating it too, doesn't it? ;-)

Julian


Yes, but it also seems unlikely that 12hrs after takeoff, it suddenly occurs
to the crew that some of the fuel might be unusable.

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.

Thomas Borchert wrote:
Stefan,

I didn't know that there was an emergency.


Now *they* ran out of fuel, which is an entirely different story.


There is something very simple at work he We're judging after the
fact. In one case, it worked out, in the other, it didn't. Thus, in
on case, some here are saying "Those pilots were ok to do what they
did" whereas in the other case everyone agrees the pilots were total
idiots. But the prerequisites for something bad happening were quite
similar in both cases. I don't think safety should be judged on
whether one got away with doing something not quite smart or not.

I don't agree here. The BA pilots made a concious decision to land
short of their final destination to avoid the risk of fuel exhaustion.
They landed with required reserves for all we know. The Hapag Lloyd
Pilots could have done the same, but didn't. The decision to carry on
with one engine short might be disputable from a risk management point
of view. Fuel management wasn't flawed at any point during the trip,
quite different from the Hapag Lloyd case. Your point would only hold,
if they had arrived in London (or in Manchester, for that matter) with
dry fuel tanks.

regards,
Friedrich

--
for personal email please remove "entfernen" from my adress

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
news
Yes, but it also seems unlikely that 12hrs after takeoff, it suddenly
occurs to the crew that some of the fuel might be unusable.

Yes, it does sound like something "unexpected" must have happened *after*
the decision to continue, whether it was unexpectedly high fuel burn or some
other technical surprise. We'll find out in due course I guess.

Let me add one more thing before I drop out of this thread. I'm not an
airline pilot, but the impression that I have of BA over the years is that
it's the airline that they all want to fly for over here, precisely
*because* the bean-counters don't have the upper hand on the crew. There's
no doubt that the crew of the aircraft believed that its safety was not
going to compromised by continuing -- whether with 20:20 hindsight everyone
else agrees is something we may have to wait for the report to find out.

Julian

It always amazes me at how little people feel they need to know in order to
maximize their right to free speech. And how quickly they bypass the
"seeking information" stage to jump straight to "making accusations".

Most of the people making conjecture here are not completely informed,
though there is no reason they necessarily would be. Not that I believe
there is some kind of government cover up going on or commercial conspiracy,
but there is no reason to publish further details as the outcome was not
unsafe. Where there are apparently gaping holes in the decisions made by
the flight crew and BA Operations, rather than think they might be missing
key information, people immediately assume all the professionals involved
are idiots with less knowledge and poorer judgement than themselves. Most
of the accusatory statements made here are incorrect and based on a lack of
knowledge of the situation, a lack of knowledge of 747 design,
certification, and operations, and a lack of knowledge of airline operations
and commercial considerations, as well as a lack of knowledge of the
activities of national airworthiness bodies like the FAA and JAA.

As a PPL-ASEL, I would have asked a lot more questions before I came out on
a public usenet board and questioned the integrity and judgement of other
people with far more knowledge and experience than myself. There are a few,
like Mike R., Dave S., and a few others, who have taken a more sensible
approach and are to be commended. Others, like Larry D. and Doug C., have
proven themselves unworthy adversaries in the debate on the issue.

Shawn




"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
news

"Doug Carter" wrote in message
. com...
Mike Rapoport wrote:
So, is this good or bad?

Mike
MU-2


"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...

Here's food for thought. The pilot chose to press on on three
engines, and then had to land for refueling ~100 miles short of his
transatlantic destination.

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...?

Mike
MU-2

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

"ShawnD2112" wrote in message
.uk...
It always amazes me at how little people feel they need to know in order
to maximize their right to free speech. And how quickly they bypass the
"seeking information" stage to jump straight to "making accusations".

Most of the people making conjecture here are not completely informed,
though there is no reason they necessarily would be. Not that I believe
there is some kind of government cover up going on or commercial
conspiracy, but there is no reason to publish further details as the
outcome was not unsafe. Where there are apparently gaping holes in the
decisions made by the flight crew and BA Operations, .......

Shawn

are you not making the same mistake as those you accuse when you say,
.....Where there are apparently gaping holes in the decisions made by.......
so authoritively for a PP-ASEL?

On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 17:13:05 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote in
. net::

Who said anything about throwing a blade?

While this report doesn't specifically mention a turbine blade, what
it describes could be consistent with many things including throwing a
blade:


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...,2497317.story

Right after rotation, there was an engine surge, like a backfire,"
Hayes said.

Air traffic controllers at the airport tower saw sparks flying
from the crippled engine and heard popping noises.



It might have been something as mundane as failure of the instrumentation.

Would such an instrumentation failure be consistent with sparks
flying?

On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 19:40:11 GMT, "Julian Scarfe"
wrote in ::

There's
no doubt that the crew of the aircraft believed that its safety was not
going to compromised by continuing


I recall the crew of an Alaska flight that went down off Point Mugu in
2000 holding same belief.