Getting a 787 back in the air after a diversion

Post by dbarlett » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

jvolkman wrote: post #68

WalterBright wrote: post #13

Back when I worked at Boeing they had the AOG (Airplane On Ground) crew to do this sort of thing. Their job was to be on call 24/7 and do whatever it took to get that airplane back in the air, and they pretty much had a blank check to do it. Naturally, they were the best mechanics Boeing had. An airplane makes money only when it is flying. When it is sitting on the ground, it loses money at a prodigious rate. A large…

There's an episode of "World's Toughest Fixes" that follows an AOG team during the replacement of a 767 pressure dome. https://www.google.com/search?q=Worlds+Toughest+Fixes+S01+E0...

Post by meristem » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

sajomojo wrote: post #42

jrockway wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ETOPS seems to have done pretty well. As far as I know, no ETOPS-certified twinjets have been lost due to both engines failing. There are a couple cases of the jet running out of fuel (the famous Gimli glider and Air Transat Flight 236), but that is going to be bad no matter how many engines you have. There are cases of airplanes flying into volcanic ash clouds and losing all engines; but more engines doesn't help yo…

Thanks for the thoughtful replies, all. I still don't buy the idea that this change was made with public safety as the top priority. I do get that it might be a reasonable trade off of safety/profits. I really do hope the ETOPS rule changes turn out to be a good choice over the long term.

Post by supernova87a » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 6:01 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #79

supernova87a wrote: post #76

You know, behind these on-the-surface feel-good / oh-that's-cool stories is generally a less positive tale of deferred maintenance and poor choices by AA (and other airlines) that leads to this kind of rescue flight being necessary. The article was from 2016, and the question you want to be asking is, "how often should a 2 year old 787 be having engine issues requiring unplanned diversion?" and is AA's maintenance re…

You got a source for any of this?

Post by therockspush » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #72

WalterBright wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family was stationed near London for a time. My father told me later that once an airline pilot mistook a WW2 strip for the Heathrow runway (!) and landed there, using every inch of it to get it to stop. The strip was too short to take off from, so what to do? They stripped everything off the airplane they could. Seats, interiors, galleys, everything. They put in just enough fuel to hop over the trees to Heathrow.…

I'm trying to google a similar "we landed here but now it's too short for us to takeoff again" story which IIRC happened in California, but I can only find this incident that happened with a cargo plane in Kansas: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/giganti...

Post by lb1lf » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 6:21 PM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #5

t34543 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdote: My dad did this in the 70s. I believe you’re correct. He was working overseas and was frequently dispatched to countries without modern repair facilities such as Saudi Arabia. One story that stands out is he asked a local worker to warm up the APU. The worker proceeded to build a fire under the APU, destroying it. What he meant was start it up and let it run until it reaches operating temperature.

I might get some of the backstory halfway off, but my grandfather was in Alaska during WWII for the construction of the Alaska Highway. They tried to never turn off truck and equipment engines because if you did, you had to build a fire under them to get them warm enough to start again.