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Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

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Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

#141

Post by [deleted] »

unionemployee wrote: post #75
nmstoker wrote: post #66

Question for professional pilots here: does this feel like normal behaviour for a pilot? From my limited experience of pilots, this seems entirely unlike the kind of behaviour you'd expect - they're usually conservative when it comes to safety or is that just the projected image to reassure the public?!

Unfortunately don’t have time for a long post at the moment, but as an airline pilot and instructor/check pilot, I can say that extreme incompetence exists in the airline world, especially in Africa, India, SE Asia. There could be some very good reasons that they chose to continue, and often I learn those reasons when the facts are released, discovering that a good decision was made. I’ll be following the investigati…

[deleted]

Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

#142

Post by jayalpha »

nitinreddy88 wrote: post #94
justboxing wrote: post #80

Just saw the pics of the damage on the twitter thread linked-to in the article. See below. https://twitter.com/shukla_tarun/status/1050595274869993474 Looks quite severe. I'm impressed the plane flew for 3 hours without getting destablized and crashing.... Air India has the worst safety reputation in India, and several accidents / incidents. I flew Spice Jet a few times over the last few weeks when I was there visiti…

The most surprising part is, trichy to mumbai takes hardly 1hr flight time. What caused them to take 4hrs? In 4hrs, they could have landed in Dubai itself easily Being Indian, I agree with statement about AirIndia. I would never fly in AirIndia even if the ticket price is too low, laughably they usually cost way above than any other competitors.

"Being Indian, I agree with statement about AirIndia. I would never fly in AirIndia even if the ticket price is too low, laughably they usually cost way above than any other competitors."

Since I have flown with Air India, would you mind being more specific? Are the statistics? My flights were okay. Okay, zero status miles credited at Star Alliance and a bit stingy with alcohol on board. But food and service was good, plane looked well maintained.

Please tell me more.

Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

#143

Post by nutcracker46 »

Who wants to wager that the pilots did an aviation version of the five stages of grief, with some help from passenger / flight attendant reports?

FO: Tower said we hit something, may have damage. Capt: Just close, we'll be okay. FA: We heard a thump, and so did the passengers. CA: Just a noise, we'll be okay. Dispatch on ACARS: You hit the localizer and wall past the far end, you morons. Descend, lower your cabin diff pressure, and GTF to Mumbai. CA: How do we explain this? FO: Ask the passengers for newspapes, we must find new jobs..

Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

#144

Post by nutcracker46 »

TylerE wrote: post #128
sandworm101 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less stress imho. At altitude the forces on wings/structure are far less than during takeoff.

Incorrect. In level flight the wings have - by definition - 1g of upward load. Regardless of speed or altitude.

Consider cabin pressure differential versus the outside ambient air.

Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

#145

Post by agurk »

Scoundreller wrote: post #106
mediawatcher234 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

other way around - reduced air pressure is reduced oxygen, which is lower metabolism. Higher metabolism causes EtOH degradation to go more quickly. Fever is higher metabolism.

Your blood oxygenation will stay at 95-99% even while in a cabin. Metabolism in aircraft is pretty low: you’re generally sitting idle, but I think the alcohol metabolism is still constant except the terminal metabolism. Fever is partly metabolism, but largely reduced cooling.

I've taken an oximeter with me on flights before, and can give a data point of n=1 to say this isn't the case.

My oxygen % decreased initially with altitude until it stabilised around 90-92% (at ~10k feet, IIRC). It sat at this point for the whole flight (8 hours), with a low of 87%.

Through forced rapid deep breaths I could get it back up into the mid-high 90s, but also got light headed and funny looks.

Moving around the cabin would also raise it.

Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

#146

Post by hugh-avherald »

basicplus2 wrote: post #50

Lets hope they scrap that aircraft.. i could not find a reference but i remember an incident where an aircraft only scraped its backend on take off and repairs were made, but years later the aircraft was lost with everyone on board after cracks propagated up and around and the aircraft lost its whole tale section

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123

Worst single-aircraft disaster in history.

Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

#147

Post by kijin »

mbell wrote: post #97

Unless I'm misinterpreting the satellite image its ~150m from the end of the runway to that wall[0] and it also looks a bit downhill from the runway to the wall[1]. I don't see how this could happen without the pilots noticing; they would have been skimming the ground well past the end of the runway. [0] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tiruchirapalli+Internation... [1] https://twitter.com/shukla_tarun/status/105058…

Perhaps they were slightly airborne, like 0.5m above the ground, but ground-based instruments recorded the plane as still being "on the ground" (i.e. same altitude as the runway) because of the downhill slope? If they really were on the ground, the pilots would have continued to feel the vibration of the wheels against the ground, a very clear indication that they aren't flying.

I'm even more surprised that the plane could land on its own wheels despite the huge gash in the fuselage. Do landing gears retract so quickly, or was the wall simply not wide enough?

Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

#148

Post by aaronmdjones »

basicplus2 wrote: post #50

Lets hope they scrap that aircraft.. i could not find a reference but i remember an incident where an aircraft only scraped its backend on take off and repairs were made, but years later the aircraft was lost with everyone on board after cracks propagated up and around and the aircraft lost its whole tale section

Those incidents (CAL611, JAL123) only happened because the repair was completed improperly to begin with and subsequently missed by every inspection.

There's no reason the aircraft can't be properly repaired, and be as strong as it was when it was delivered. The Boeing Structural Repair Manual is very precise. It was just ignored.

Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

#149

Post by distant_hat »

jayalpha wrote: post #142
nitinreddy88 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most surprising part is, trichy to mumbai takes hardly 1hr flight time. What caused them to take 4hrs? In 4hrs, they could have landed in Dubai itself easily Being Indian, I agree with statement about AirIndia. I would never fly in AirIndia even if the ticket price is too low, laughably they usually cost way above than any other competitors.

"Being Indian, I agree with statement about AirIndia. I would never fly in AirIndia even if the ticket price is too low, laughably they usually cost way above than any other competitors." Since I have flown with Air India, would you mind being more specific? Are the statistics? My flights were okay. Okay, zero status miles credited at Star Alliance and a bit stingy with alcohol on board. But food and service was good…

I used to be a government employee and was required to fly Air India so I flew it a fair bit. Personally, the flying bit was not that different from others. Their website was a nightmare to book on, usually I found them generous with alcohol on international flights, but sample size is small here. Their miles were hard to use, too many conditions. Staff was a bit low on professionalism. Saw a couple of fights between flight attendants.

Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours

#150

Post by LeonM »

sn41 wrote: post #78

Honest question: why aren't pilots forced to take alcohol tests before flights? There was some JetBlue incident about 10 years ago, IIRC.

They are, but not for every flight. I've been told by pilots flying in Europe they get randomly selected for a breathalyzer test once every 20 flights or so.
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