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A Matter of Millimeters: The story of Qantas flight 32

admiralcloudberg.medium.com

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Re: A Matter of Millimeters: The story of Qantas flight 32

#91

Post by ghaff »

MBCook wrote: post #79
metadat wrote: post #10

An amazing recovery, there's even an Air Crash Investigations episode about it: https://imdb.com/title/tt3234896/

Love that show. Makes me wish we dealt with software even a tiny bit like that. Checklists alone for troubleshooting common customer problems would save so much hassle. But so many companies (including mine) still work on more of the “heroic” model where it’s up to individuals to just learn the hard way through helping lots of customers and noticing patterns.

The thing is that you end up having to be very process heavy. From an efficiency, rather than safety perspective, I had an offer from (and interviewed with--in that order) Boeing many moons ago. The thing I remember from a long-ago dinner after that interview was a guy who had spent a couple of years on some design tweak that saved some fraction of a percent on fuel consumption. That's the sort of thing that most engineers do in aviation (where it's perfectly appropriate).

Re: A Matter of Millimeters: The story of Qantas flight 32

#92

Post by resolutebat »

dataflow wrote: post #87
MBCook wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not supposed to take anything on the slides. No luggage. No shoes. Just you. But it is ignored. Which is sad, people could really get hurt. Your right though the fact as many people comply as they do is kind of incredible given how people act in other situations.

Why in the world do you have to take your shoes off before going down the slides? I could understand jackets or jewelry, but shoes?

High heels are not OK, for obvious reasons. Regular shoes are fine.

Re: A Matter of Millimeters: The story of Qantas flight 32

#93

Post by defrost »

dataflow wrote: post #87
MBCook wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not supposed to take anything on the slides. No luggage. No shoes. Just you. But it is ignored. Which is sad, people could really get hurt. Your right though the fact as many people comply as they do is kind of incredible given how people act in other situations.

Why in the world do you have to take your shoes off before going down the slides? I could understand jackets or jewelry, but shoes?

As silly as it might seem, you do something enough times and oddball rare things happen .. this is an instruction intended to reduce:

* shoes | boots with sharp objects embedded in soles (glass, bent nails)

* extra spikey high heels,

* work boots with hard edged metal hooks for laces,

(etc) causing damage to both inflatable slipways and to other passengers.

How often has a passenger going down an emergancy slide caused a rip that deflated that slide?

Not very often .. and aircrew are taught to issue instructions that make that as an unlikely occurence as possible.

Re: A Matter of Millimeters: The story of Qantas flight 32

#94

Post by dataflow »

resolutebat wrote: post #92
dataflow wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why in the world do you have to take your shoes off before going down the slides? I could understand jackets or jewelry, but shoes?

High heels are not OK, for obvious reasons. Regular shoes are fine.

Ahh that makes way more sense. Thanks.

Re: A Matter of Millimeters: The story of Qantas flight 32

#95

Post by ghaff »

gumby wrote: post #36
ulfw wrote: post #13

I was on the flight and took the picture referenced as "A passenger took this photo in flight, showing turbine fragment exit holes in the upper surface of the wing. (ATSB)" Forced myself on another A380 flight shortly after so I won't lose faith in it's engineering safety.

Wow. I was (long ago!) in an engine fire emergency landing situation and though I did take a connecting flight to get home I didn’t fly for a while afterwards. Psychologically, your choice was probably the smarter one.

I've been in a couple situations.

- The main one was that I had a flight from Vancouver to Victoria and the weather was too bad for the helicopter to fly. So we took a prop. On takeoff, some cross-wind hit the plane and we tipped over. My colleague and I who were sitting across from each other thought that was it.

- The other one was my plane was reported crashed when I was visiting my parents for some holiday or other. I got panicked call on drive back from airport.

Re: A Matter of Millimeters: The story of Qantas flight 32

#96

Post by Sebguer »

ren_engineer wrote: post #8

there are some crazy talented pilots out there who are able to perform under massive amounts of pressure, United Flight 232 is a more extreme version of this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232 >Despite the fatalities, the accident is considered a good example of successful crew resource management. A majority of those aboard survived; experienced test pilots in simulators were unable to…

Article by the same author as the submitted one on this: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/fields-of-fortune-the-cr...

Re: A Matter of Millimeters: The story of Qantas flight 32

#97

Post by thelibrarian »

dataflow wrote: post #87
MBCook wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re not supposed to take anything on the slides. No luggage. No shoes. Just you. But it is ignored. Which is sad, people could really get hurt. Your right though the fact as many people comply as they do is kind of incredible given how people act in other situations.

Why in the world do you have to take your shoes off before going down the slides? I could understand jackets or jewelry, but shoes?

Many shoes have hard, sharp parts that could damage the slide, even to the point of complete deflation. There is no time to assess whose shoes would be safe and whose not, so the blanket rule is "no shoes".

Re: A Matter of Millimeters: The story of Qantas flight 32

#99

Post by thelibrarian »

resolutebat wrote: post #92
dataflow wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why in the world do you have to take your shoes off before going down the slides? I could understand jackets or jewelry, but shoes?

High heels are not OK, for obvious reasons. Regular shoes are fine.

Not just high heels, but also many boots have sharp protrusions (e.g. lace hooks on some hiking boots and work boots, metal decorations on goth and cowboy boots)
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