BA Crash Landing

snipe · Post by **snipe** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 9:22 am

I don't know if any of you have seen this but take a look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNJPR-z4SgM. It is allegedly of BA038 just before the incident. As you can see just before the clip ends the aircraft does appear to be at (or just entering) a very steep AOA for this stage of flight. It makes you cringe to see these last few moments because you know what's about to happen as I know most if not all of us have experienced this at one time or other in our early virtual flying careers when trying to land a heavy. You're going straight down in short order and there's not much you can do at that moment. It almost appears as though near the end of this video is when the aircraft loses thrust and the pilot (or AP) commands a pitch up to maintain altitude and stalls very shortly afterward. The triple 7 does not glide very far I'm sure

.

I'm sure you all have been following the hundreds of posts relating to this on Airliners.net. The posts of theories of causes are very interesting to read as some are from actual line pilots.

Mark

Post by **1691** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 11:54 am

yoni63 wrote:On one report, I did hear the whispers of a bird strike, but it was small mentioned. They stated they lost everything to include electrical. Wonder if they deployed the RAT? They surely must have if they continued to have control surface response.

The RAT can be manually deployed, but in normal cases, its automatic once a certain criteria is met. For the 777 is weight-off-wheels and speed over 100 kts. Something happened there thats a lot stranger. For the crew to lose ALL power, thats nearly impossible under normal types of electrical failures, so something really funky happened.

yoni63 · Post by **yoni63** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 12:40 pm

They said "Switch to tower" he thought they said "Switch off Power!"

On a more serious note, I did see an accident reconstruction once that involved catostrophic power loss, but it was tied in to fuel starvation. You have to wonder with the "quick" press conference and the recent talk with BA and their attempts at cutting flight costs??? It does make one stand back and say "Hmmmm."

It may be nothing, but did anyone else notice the body language of the Captain during the press conference? In my job we are often required to use body language and mannerisms to interpret the integrity of what is being said. I think he looked a bit nervous and possibly even gave off the impression that he really didn't want to stand up there and say what he did.

Regardless, the investigation will be sure to turn up something. If there was more to the story and "IF" the flight crew knew about it, someone will turn eventually especially when the investigators start their questions.

Redhmt · Post by **Redhmt** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:25 pm

yoni63 wrote:On one report, I did hear the whispers of a bird strike, but it was small mentioned. They stated they lost everything to include electrical. Wonder if they deployed the RAT? They surely must have if they continued to have control surface response.

The RAT was deployed, on ITV news it had a picture of aircraft with a zoomed view of the RAT which was clearly deployed.

As for the rest of the speculation (as that is what it is) I think we should wait for the AAIB to find out what happened rather than guess what may (or may not) of happened.

Thats my tuppence.

Phil

phil747fan · Post by **phil747fan** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 5:01 pm

http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/latest_news/ ... report.cfm

nothing else is official than this ...

then i must add when air france's A340 burnt in Toronto they never released the CVR datas and this will be certainly the case for this one too ...

Post by **1691** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 5:07 pm

The CVR wont have the info that will tell anyone what happened, the flight data recorder will. Its likely that no one will get to see that info outside of the investigation teams.

phil747fan · Post by **phil747fan** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 5:24 pm

Alan,

the datas for sure are not coming from CVR but this is always interesting to learn about the way the CRM worked or not ....

yoni63 · Post by **yoni63** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 5:40 pm

[/quote]As for the rest of the speculation (as that is what it is) I think we should wait for the AAIB to find out what happened rather than guess what may (or may not) of happened.

Thats my tuppence.

Phil[/quote]

Ahhh, I don't know Phil... I really feel inclined to solve this thing from my desk before the feds do...

Redhmt · Post by **Redhmt** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 6:37 pm

Brogs · Post by **Brogs** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 7:54 am

The main thing is no-one was killed and it was a damn good piece of flying, a couple of hundred yards shorter or on the runway and it would have been a totally different outcome !

Post by **esurfman** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:10 pm

Brogs wrote:The main thing is no-one was killed and it was a damn good piece of flying, a couple of hundred yards shorter or on the runway and it would have been a totally different outcome !

So what? Most of my flights are like this and nobody congratulated me....

phil747fan · Post by **phil747fan** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:47 pm

esurfman wrote:
Brogs wrote:The main thing is no-one was killed and it was a damn good piece of flying, a couple of hundred yards shorter or on the runway and it would have been a totally different outcome !
So what? Most of my flights are like this and nobody congratulated me....

Louis,

next time it happens to you i promise to be a real investigator ... and make all infos i ll get public, no secrets ....

Mike Bridge · Post by **Mike Bridge** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:37 pm

Even tho it was a great piece of flying was no one was hurt, if it was a shortage of fuel causing both engines to flame out,
Some how the heroe will become a vilan

Brogs · Post by **Brogs** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:35 am

Mike Bridge wrote:Even tho it was a great piece of flying was no one was hurt, if it was a shortage of fuel causing both engines to flame out,
Some how the heroe will become a vilan

And if that is the case he deserves everything thats coming his way, but all the initial accident reports are talking about Electrical Failure, with absolutely no mention of Fuel Shortage, and I believe all the other 777,s are being checked as and when .

hawkeyeted · Post by **hawkeyeted** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:06 pm

CNN reported that there was a significant amount of fuel on the ground, indicating fuel onboard. I also can confirm the post that mentioned lack of power when commanded by the Captain.

There is enough redundancy built into that airplane that if there really was a "loss of power" (i.e. electrical), then something REALLY went wrong.