231–240 of 586 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a lot of pressure on pilots to land local. But 3 go-arounds happens, not often, but it does.
Perhaps that decision needs to be removed from the airline and there needs to be an independent decision maker there.
Looks like they tried two attempts to land in Prestwick over two hours, then flew to Edinburgh and made one aborted landing, then finally went to Manchester. What a nerve wracking experience for those pilots. I wonder if on the final attempt they knew they had to force it down no matter what.
Per the FlightRadar24 logs, it looks like only about 45min was wasted over Prestwick, not 2hrs. First approach was around 18:06, and they're breaking off to head for Edinburgh by about 18:51. If there's considered to be a mistake here though, I'm guessing it's going to be spending too long before committing to the initial diversion. Without knowing the weather they were seeing at the time, seems hard to say if they s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They got within a hair of crashing, there is nothing impressive about this. 30 minutes, ok, you still get written up but this is cutting it way too fine.
> this is cutting it way too fine. Either this is true, or this is why there’s a 45 minute reserve requirement. There were three failed landing attempts in two airports prior to the successful landing, and they spent almost as much time attempting to land as the scheduled flight took. Seems like this was exactly the scenario it was designed for?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
About 5 years ago before ATC recordings became mainstay on YouTube, there was an American pilot that declared an emergency at JFK and very firmly said "we are turning back and landing NOW. Get the aircraft OFF all runways". He was low in fuel and also frustrated with Kennedy ATC because he declared "minimum fuel" earlier and was still getting vectored around. (I know "minimum fuel" is not an emergency and has a very…
> But it was a valuable lesson learned in speaking up before you get to that point. I'm not sure it was a lesson learned per-se because the captain was merely doing his job as fundamentally defined. A captain has ultimate responsibility for the aircraft . However there is a side question in relation to your post... When you say "declared an emergency" in your post, the more interesting question would be whether it wa…
In fact, it doesn’t even need to be the pilots who declare an emergency https://hsi.arc.nasa.gov/flightcognition/Publications/non_EA...
> the Boeing 737-800 had just 220kg of fuel left in its tanks... enough for just five or six minutes of flying Maybe I'm just unaware, but it's crazy to me that these planes burn 40 kilograms of jet fuel per minute.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct, article says they landed with 220kg which is around 6 minutes of average fuel burn over an entire flight - bit less at cruise, a hell of a lot more at takeoff/climb. So I don't think 220kg is enough to do a go-around in a 737 (well, a go-around would've been initiated with a bit more than 220kg in the tank - they burned some taxing to the gate - but you get my point.) I've read around 2,300kg for takeoff and…
[flagged]
Straight from the horse’s mouth: https://web.archive.org/web/20230630013840/http://www.boeing...
In the first table they list 2307-2374 kg of fuel for takeoff and climb.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
(1) this was a jet, not a turboprop Edit: changed turbofan into turbprop, which is what I meant. (2) fuel burned stays burned, you don't 'get it back' (3) the altitude gained may have been adjusted to account for the low fuel situation (4) the winds are a major factor here, far larger than the fact that 'what goes up must come down', something that is already taken into account when computing the fuel reserve in the…
(1) The turbofan category of jet engine seems to inspire a lot of very pretty animated technical diagrams—here’s one set from a German manufacturer [0]. Now if only we could convince Bartozs Ciechanowski to take on such a subject… [1] (2) I know glider pilots who fly without any fuel at all, once aloft… sounds not unlike the 150-200km glide range that @MaxikCZ mentions at idle from cruising altitude. [0] https://aero…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
(1) this was a jet, not a turboprop Edit: changed turbofan into turbprop, which is what I meant. (2) fuel burned stays burned, you don't 'get it back' (3) the altitude gained may have been adjusted to account for the low fuel situation (4) the winds are a major factor here, far larger than the fact that 'what goes up must come down', something that is already taken into account when computing the fuel reserve in the…
1 - a turbofan is a subset of jet engine, and there are no 738s running anything other than a turbofan. Actually, nothing in civil aviation that has a "jet engine" has used anything but a turbofan (or turboprop) since the early 70s with the exception of Concorde and some older business jets. (Turboprops are jet engines, too, to be precise, with the jet of exhaust gases powering the propeller.)
They are certainly turbine engines, but I thought "jet" was reserved for those engines that propel the vehicle solely by their exhaust stream and bypass air. I am willing to be told I'm wrong, though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kinda surprised there's no data link for that sort of telemetry so that you don't necessarily have to take the pilot's word for it.
Second guessing a pilot saying they have a problem is a really bad idea. ATC second guessing an emergency is a really bad idea. Making a pilot explain why they're actually low on fuel, despite whatever some computer is saying, instead of focusing on flying the plane is a really, really bad idea. Also, that sort of telemetry does exist for most major airlines, however it goes via satellite to the airline not the ATC.
Korean Air Flight 801 could have used someone 2nd guessing a pilot. They didn't until they were almost dead and then it was too late. Not 2nd guessing the pilot was a really really bad idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Air + fuel explodes just fine. You really don't want to crash an airliner. At landing speed the number of people dead will still be > 0 and the remainder has a good chance of being injured seriously. For instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Airlines_Flight_1951 This happened at landing speed (the airport is only a few hundred meters from the crash site) and the plane was at the end of its flight from Turke…
Only 7% died, pretty good for a plane of that size with a rough landing.