A similar incident that happened with a bigger plane that completed a 13h flight: http://avherald.com/h?article=48c78b3a
Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours
171–180 of 255 posts
Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours
#172Who 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 dif…
Not inconceivable that they decided to keep flying to overwrite the CVR (assuming it was the old 120 minute type).
Given the apparent structural damage, that was a risky decision.
Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours
#173It looks like the plane couldn't properly take off(likely overloaded), and it's not just an overrun. See the speed graph in the post, and the fact that the gears were retracted that low.
I don’t think we have enough information to make that statement yet. Could be they forgot to set flaps, could be they miscalculated TO speeds, could be they misconfigured auto throttle...
As usual, need to wait for investigation and report.
Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
--I can say that extreme incompetence exists in the airline world, especially in Africa, India, SE Asia including Hong Kong?
Cathay has a pretty good reputation, I believe. The HK civil aviation authorities, so-so, but all right. Struggling to get the expensive new ATC center to work.
(Note that HK is considered part of East Asia.)
Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
What caused them to retun in half way? Report says Trichy airport informed pilot about posssible damage to plane. Pilot ignored it saying everything is green. What happened in 4hrs to divert back to Mumbai is still mystery. Will be interesting to see full report
Is it possible that Dubai refused to let them land with a flyable but potentially pretty broken plane?
No
Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to work as a flight instructor and flew corporate. I’ve flown small airplanes with a bunch of airline pilots, whatever that is worth. This does not seem like normal behavior from an airline pilot at all. I can see about 10% of private pilots doing something like this. It would probably be someone who has been flying a long time and gotten way too comfortable. Things always work out, so why not this time? The d…
Here's the statement from the Airline. Not sure if 3600 hours is good experience in the industry? May be it is.. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DpSNZO4V4AAPjKa.jpg:large
Note: 3600 hours on type, not total flight hours.
Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours
#177Question 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?!
There is nothing about the ‚why’. Maybe they had an engine problem past V1 and decided to go. The long go around can be explained with them having to focus on stabilizing the situation, maybe involving problems with the landing gear. Even with the severe damage, the inner cabin and pressurization must have been intact. Assuming human failure should come last, when we have no details about the cause.
> The long go around can be explained
... by their desire to overwrite the CVR??
Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours
#178The AVherald article: http://avherald.com/h?article=4bedd321&opt=0 As some of the others have mentioned, the reason the plane survived is likely because that was not a pressurised area. If it had breached the pressure vessel they would've noticed it very quickly (lack of pressurisation).
Luckily for this flight, that they didn't damage the pressure vessel and then blow it out at high altitude. Better to stay low, not pressurize, and land "at the nearest suitable airport."
Yeah, the decision of the pilots to ascend to higher altitude, ie lower pressures (ie pressurising the plane) is very questionable.
Edit: clarify, typo
Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours
#179Earlier 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.
They had to expend the fuel as dumping is not always an option, when you have a tail strike you don't take risks at landing, consuming the fuel to reduce weight and minimize the risk of fire is a basic option.
Going to 36000 feet was taking a massive risk.
I don’t think we have enough information yet to establish whether excessive weight was a factor.
Re: Air India Express 737 Hits ILS, Damages Wall on Departure, Flies for 4 Hours
#180I hate articles introducing three-letter-mysteries and leaving the readers in confusion. To add insult to injury, none of the comments seem to acknowledge that the topic is impentrable. What is the mysterious ILS that was hit? Even after reading the Wikipedia article, I only have a vague idea - seems to be a radar system, both on ground and in the air. Did the plane hit a radar tower?
Others have noted that ILS stands for Instrument Landing System. It’s a system used for landing airplanes when you can’t see the runway, typically getting you down to 200 feet, but with special training and equipment you can get down to 100 or even zero (autoland). ILS is the world standard for getting airplanes onto runways in bad weather.
The ground portion of an ILS consists of two antenna arrays, one at the end of the runway called the localizer, and one just off to the side called the glideslope. These arrays produce two fan-shaped signals that vary left-to-right and up-and-down in such a way that an aircraft can determine its location relative to the runway with remarkable precision. The localizer signal provides lateral guidance to the runway centerline, while the glideslope provides vertical guidance down to the touchdown zone, usually on a 3° glidepath. One or both of these arrays is what this airplane ran into.
The system is passive, in that the signals are simply broadcast from the ground continuously, aren’t unique to a particular aircraft, and there is no return or response from aircraft. The ground antennas simply “shout into the void” as it were, and aircraft receivers determine their location based purely on the shape of the signals at the aircraft’s location in space.
For illustration here is a localizer antenna (though note that the airplane in this picture is “backwards,” i.e. the localizer for a given runway is at the far end of the runway, though it is possible to “fly the backcourse” and land with one at the near end): https://image.slidesharecdn.com/instrumentlandingsystemils-1...
And here is a glideslope antenna: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8f/56/b3/8f56b3b52fb9b81c84f7...
