351 passengers and an engine on fire...

[Saitek]

but we're continuing our flight across the Atlantic.  An 11 hour flight!:o

I wouldn't believe that.

The plane landed at Manchester because of possible fuel shortages instead of Heathrow.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5377304.stm

I don't remember this on the news before.

[Saitek]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 42,00.html

Here The Times reports a bit more.

[quote]A BRITISH AIRWAYS jumbo jet carrying 351 passengers was forced to make an emergency landing after an 11-hour transatlantic flight with a failed engine.

The fault occurred on take-off from Los Angeles but the pilot declined all opportunities to land in the US and instead continued on three engines for 5,000 miles to Britain.

The incident happened three days after a European regulation came into force requiring airlines to compensate passengers for long delays or cancellations. Under the new rules, if the pilot had returned to Los Angeles, BA would have been facing a compensation bill of more than

[Hagar]

Old news Ben. This happened early last year. I remember a lengthy discussion on it at the time.

[Saitek]

Yeah I know it was - I just didn't remember it and since it was back up on the headlines again I thouhgt it'd post it.

[Hagar]

Ah OK. I see what you're getting at. The AAIB report has obviously just been published.

I thought at the time that it proved air safety is now being compromised for profit. The decision is made at company HQ & not by the captain of the aircraft as it always has been. My opinion on that hasn't changed.

[Jakemaster]

Well if the pilot thinks ist okay then its okay!  I would trust the pilot, ESPECIALLY an international pilot for BA, as Im sure he had been flying for ages (probably longer than Ive been alive) and has more experience than a porn star (lol, funny analogy).  

If it was, say, a regional jet pilot, then Id be more worried as they dont have as much experience flying as an international pilot flying a 747.

[Hagar]

[quote]Well if the pilot thinks ist okay then its okay!

[Chris_F]

That's the whole point. It was not the captain's decision & possibly against his better judgement. He was under pressure from people on the ground in London to continue.

If I were that pilot I'd be ticked off that someone in London didn't throw themselves in front of the bus for me.  If they pressured him to fly across the pond they should admit they pressured him.

Unless that pilot didn't have a problem with flying a three engined potentially burning plane across a continent and THEN across an ocean, in which case he should have his lisence taken away.

[Saitek]

Personally, I don't believe this statement.

Me neither! What a joke - does he think people are stupid or something? So  obvious when they stood to lose 100,000.

But of course BA are so careful about the environment they couldn't possibly have dumped all that fuel anyway.

[Chris_F]

Personally, I don't believe this statement.

Maybe the passengers he's speaking about are BA executives or stock holders?

[expat]

If it was, say, a regional jet pilot, then Id be more worried as they dont have as much experience flying as an international pilot flying a 747.

The irony of this statement is that a regional pilot probably does have more experience than a heavy pilot. The regional pilot is taking off and landing 10 times a day. The international heavy pilot is doing it once a day. At the end of the day it is all about the first and last three minutes of a flight, Who you think accumulates more three minute segments? Once in the air, the heavy pilot becomes an instrument watch dog. If flying pay was paid for actual flying done, the international pilot would be a very poor man and the low paid regional pilot would be driving the Porsche.

Having read this thread again, here is my pounds worth.
Just a small point, but when an engine surges and flames come out of the engine, it is not on fire, but just a classic indication of surge, which is why the pilot only received a high EGT indication and not a fire warning. If he was burning or had been on fire, that captain would have landed without a second thought. Fact is, he was not on fire and never had been. Effectively the engine had coughed on takeoff. If he had made a landing back at his departure airport on three engines, he would have been met by the fire services, why should it be any different once he reached his destination. Also if you think that he sat at X thousand feet and said to the co-pilot you recon the gas will get us to Heathrow, think again. The crew have to make manual fuel calculations at set times on a trip to make sure burn rates are what they should be. The first thing that the crew would have done was recalculate fuel burn and made adjustments as required. Landing early was a requirement. They also landed with the required reserves for the recalculated destination airport. Also if the engine has failed in flight, they would have also continued the flight. If the crew had got a fire warning then they would have diverted. There is nothing better to sell newspapers than an aircraft in an emergency story even if there is no story to sell. I guess 20 years in the aircraft industry make you look a little differently at things.

Matt

[Nexus]

The irony of this statement is that a regional pilot probably does have more experience than a heavy pilot. The regional pilot is taking off and landing 10 times a day. The international heavy pilot is doing it once a day. At the end of the day it is all about the first and last three minutes of a flight, Who you think accumulates more three minute segments? Once in the air, the heavy pilot becomes an instrument watch dog. If flying pay was paid for actual flying done, the international pilot would be a very poor man and the low paid regional pilot would be driving the Porsche.


Matt

Dont agree with that all...I'm sorry.
The 747 skippers have worked there way up the ladder. Many of them flew smaller aircrafts such as the EMB120's, F-27's etc in their early days. Then worked as Dc9/737 pilots. After some thousand hours of jet time in single-aisle, they went on to wide bodies.

As the market looks today,  the crew on any given RJ flight would only have a fraction of hours combined, compared to a 747 crew.

I'm not saying there are no experienced RJ pilot's, but they usually want to get out of flying RJ's as soon as they get the chance.

[Chris_F]

Also if the engine has failed in flight, they would have also continued the flight.

From my reading the engine did fail.  The pilot flew the remainder of the flight with three functional and one non-functional engine.  THAT is the problem, not that they had a temporary caugh and everything went back to normal.

The logic BA is using is that the 747 had yet one more redundant engine and could fly on two if one had a problem.  I would object that the FAA (don't know the Euro body) had certified that aircraft to fly in a configuration of four functional engines, not three.  Part of this certification is that the plane be able to fly with less (determined I'm sure by the expected MTBF for the engines used).  If the plane were actually "safe" to fly from LAX to the UK on three engines why not just pull an engine out of every 747 in the fleet to save weight, fly on two engines (for balanced thrust) and simply cary the third "just in case"?  Because, among other things, it would be illegal.

So if BA can't operate planes this way intentionally then why should they be allowed to do so accidently?

If an engine fails before takeoff you stay on the ground.  If an engine fails mid flight you land the plane.  It don't matter if the plane has 205 engines and only needs one to work, the pilot is not an aeronautical engineer and shouldn't make decisions like this.

The reason why it happened at all is because BA didn't want to run afoul of a UK law which would have cost them money had they done the right thing and landed back at LAX for repair.

[expat]

Dont agree with that all...I'm sorry.
The 747 skippers have worked there way up the ladder. Many of them flew smaller aircrafts such as the EMB120's, F-27's etc in their early days. Then worked as Dc9/737 pilots. After some thousand hours of jet time in single-aisle, they went on to wide bodies.

As the market looks today,  the crew on any given RJ flight would only have a fraction of hours combined, compared to a 747 crew.

I'm not saying there are no experienced RJ pilot's, but they usually want to get out of flying RJ's as soon as they get the chance.

What you say is true, however my point is not the hours, but the number of times a task is carried out. That is where we get our experience from. Both types of pilot are experts in their respective corners, but the regional pilot carries out the bread and butter tasks, i.e. landing and taking off far more than a heavy pilot. My point was that a regional pilot flies, a heavy pilot drinks coffee for 8 hours of a 9 hour flight. For example, I flew from the UK to Germany last Sunday in the jump seat of a 737-800. At 5000 feet the auto pilot was switched on and I chatted with the crew for the next 50 minutes. The co-pilot made a few radio calls. At 3 miles from touch down the pilot took manual control. The question is, had the crew gained any practical experience in the last 50 minutes or just an extra 50 minutes for their log books.

Matt

[Nexus]

Ex-pat. I understand your reasoning, completely. But you have to consider that every crew knows their aircraft inside out, regardless if it is a CRJ, 737 or a 747.
And the last time I checked, the ERJ's, CRJ's, AVro's out there have rather advanced autopilots aswell. it's not like they are handflying the route?  :)

But RJ crews are "flying" alot more than their widebody colleagues, I' wont argue about that  :)

To Chris F: Losing an engine on a quad is not critical. It's not part of an emergency checklist, after all you still got 75% of thrust left. But flying in this config, where 1 engine is just windmilling is VERY fuel ineffecient.
Not only is the aircraft unable to fly at optimal altitude, but you have your rudder sticking out creating additional drag

They had enough fuel to make the trip, according to the FMC, and they had the performance available to do so. Had they lost another engine they would've made an emergency landing, just like a twin. I really don't see the danger about this.