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

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41–50 of 255 posts

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

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After V1, the accelerate-stop distance, the pilot is committed to continue flying. The cargo area of most airliners is not pressurized, so the gash is not an immediate problem. In a case like this, the pilots would want to climb to several thousand feet and evaluate the situation before landing. Looks like the pilot did a great job once it was realized the airplane was damaged of remaining calm and flying the airplan…

the cargo hold of a 737 is indeed pressurized https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/8252/are-cargo-...

[deleted]

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

#42
post #29
post #4

The obvious mystery is why you would keep flying for so long after an incident like this...

A good reason would be fuel weight on possibly damaged landing gear. Also, the airport wasn't good anymore. They had just destroyed the Instrument Landing System at the end of the runway. Nobody should land there.

A lot of pilots don't use ILS and use a visual approach. That was one of the issues with the SF airport, as the left runway was closed, the lights were off and the pilot lined up with the taxi way.

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

#43
post #29
post #4

The obvious mystery is why you would keep flying for so long after an incident like this...

A good reason would be fuel weight on possibly damaged landing gear. Also, the airport wasn't good anymore. They had just destroyed the Instrument Landing System at the end of the runway. Nobody should land there.

[deleted]

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

#44
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boeing planes can dump fuel, iirc.

The 737 (subject of this article) cannot.

Huh.

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/9393/why-doesnt...

The rules are based on the fact that landing is harder on the airframe than taking off, so as long as max takeoff weight is only a fraction higher than max landing weight you get a pass.

And at any rate you get the greater of 10 minutes or 1% of max takeoff weight per minute to dump enough fuel to land safely. I wonder how long it takes a 737 to circle the runway before it's safe?

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

#45
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in the linked Twitter thread. It was a brick wall. https://twitter.com/shukla_tarun/status/1050581391828836352

Well a single layer, unreinforced brick wall isn't really that strong, especially near the top edge. It's perhaps plausible they didn't feel anything or at least nothing very alarming. I mean, the gear presumably still retracted properly and deployed later for landing, so it wasn't damaged too badly.

Yea I'm interested in seeing what the passengers say. If they just heard a bump or didn't suspect a thing, the plane may have just graised it and the pilots didn't notice. If the passengers heard a noticeable sound or reported concerns and were dismissed, that's grounds for negligence.

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

#46
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After V1, the accelerate-stop distance, the pilot is committed to continue flying. The cargo area of most airliners is not pressurized, so the gash is not an immediate problem. In a case like this, the pilots would want to climb to several thousand feet and evaluate the situation before landing. Looks like the pilot did a great job once it was realized the airplane was damaged of remaining calm and flying the airplan…

Not a pilot, and not trying to be an armchair pilot, but why would he have ascended all the way to 36000 feet? Isn't there a real risk of depressurization with hull damage?

No. If there was a leak then it wouldnt pressurize properly on the way up. If it was holding pressure, it would probably keep doing so.

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

#47
post #25

I have been trying to go over how this could happen. The damage to the wall seems so severe that I would image even over the sound of the engine the pilot would hear and notice that they had hit a wall. Flying the plane at this point would be risking their life. The first thing that came to my mind was the only reason a pilot would risk his life is if his life was already at risk and if he had been drinking when he h…

After V1, the accelerate-stop distance, the pilot is committed to continue flying. The cargo area of most airliners is not pressurized, so the gash is not an immediate problem. In a case like this, the pilots would want to climb to several thousand feet and evaluate the situation before landing. Looks like the pilot did a great job once it was realized the airplane was damaged of remaining calm and flying the airplan…

Cargo is definitely pressurized. Not heated/aced, but pressurezed the same as the rest of the cabin. Everying from the skin inwards is under 5000ish feet of pressure.

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

#48
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a pilot, and not trying to be an armchair pilot, but why would he have ascended all the way to 36000 feet? Isn't there a real risk of depressurization with hull damage?

No. If there was a leak then it wouldnt pressurize properly on the way up. If it was holding pressure, it would probably keep doing so.

It totally depends. A weakened structure can hold pressurization for a while, and then suddenly (and possibly catastrophically) fail.

A famous example of this is American Airlines flight 96 (1972): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_96

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

#49
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a pilot, and not trying to be an armchair pilot, but why would he have ascended all the way to 36000 feet? Isn't there a real risk of depressurization with hull damage?

No. If there was a leak then it wouldnt pressurize properly on the way up. If it was holding pressure, it would probably keep doing so.

I'd rather not trust my life to "probably". If there was some damage to the hull or a cargo door that could lead to failure, it's under more stress and is more of a hazard as the altitude increases.

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

#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

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