I'm surprised nobody mentioned this. Maybe you're all too young to remember it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_009British Airways Flight 009, sometimes referred to as the Jakarta incident, was a flight from London Heathrow to Auckland, with stops in Bombay, Madras, Kuala Lumpur, Perth and Melbourne. On the 24th of June 1982, it was being flown by G-BDXH City of Edinburgh, a 747-200, when it flew into a cloud of dust and ash thrown up by the eruption of Mount Galunggung, and all four engines failed. The aircraft was able to glide far enough to exit the ash cloud, and three of the engines were restarted, allowing the flight to divert to Jakarta and make a safe landing.
On the flight deck the crew attempted to contact Jakarta for radar assistance, but could not be seen, despite their transponder being set to 7700, the international emergency code. Due to the high Indonesian mountains, an altitude of at least 11,500ft was required to cross the coast safely. Captain Moody decided, that, if the aircraft was unable to maintain altitude by the time they reached 12,000ft, he would turn the aircraft back out to sea and attempt to ditch. The crew began the engine restart drills, despite being well over the recommended maximum altitude of 28,000ft.
Despite the lack of time, Captain Moody made an announcement that has gone down in aviation history as a masterpiece of understatement: "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress."
At 13,500ft, the flight crew attempted one last engine restart procedure before turning for the ocean the risky prospect of a water ditching - although there were guidelines, no-one had ever tried it in a 747 - nor have they since. Without warning, number four engine sparked into life, and at 13:56 GMT, Captain Moody used its power to reduce the rate of descent. Shortly therafter, engine three restarted, followed shortly by engines one and two. The crew were amazed at their change of fortune, and requested an increase in altitude to FL150.
As it approached its target altitude, the tracer effect on the windscreen returned without warning. Captain Moody throttled back, but it was too late, and number two engine surged again, and had to be shut down. The crew immediately descended back to FL120.
At last flight 009 approached Jakarta. Despite reports of good visibility, the crew found it hard to see anything, and had to make the approach almost entirely on instruments, despite the glideslope of the ILS being inoperative. Although the runway lights could be made out through a small strip of the windscreen, the landing lights seemed to be inoperable. After landing, the flight crew then found it impossible to taxi, as glare from apron floodlights made the windscreen opaque, and City of Edinburgh had to wait for a tug to tow her in.
PS.
G-BDXH also entered the Guinness Book of Records as the longest glide in a non-purpose built aircraft until it was replaced by the Air Transat Flight 236 incident.
Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 7:45 pm
