Crash landing at Heathrow

[bookworm_020]

The aircarft looks a write off, but at least every survived! I bet the pilot woun't be buying beers for awhile!

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Biggles

"Aviation expert Kieran Daly, from Flight International magazine, said not a single Boeing 777 had been lost in a crash since the aircraft was launched in 1995."

Now that is mighty impressive.

Yea, when the incident was still "breaking news", my first question was "what airplane?"
Then it came out it was a 777 and I scratched my head for a while after drawing a blank on trying to think of previous incidents involving that. Indeed a very good record it has.

Yea, I'd say it looks like a total loss to me. But whatever happened, it sure handled that landing well. That does look like a dangerously high AoA in the video above, too. I guess it's just a lucky model number!

Cheers to the pilot. So far it looks like he'll be the hero of the day.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by bookworm_020

The aircarft looks a write off, but at least every survived! I bet the pilot woun't be buying beers for awhile!

Your not kidding!!

[Konovalov]

I'm going to take a stab at it and guess that wind shear struck the 777 in the final moments of it's approach. At lunchtime outside our office the weather was highly changeable in that the wind was at times gusting very strongly before suddenly dropping down in intensity to almost total calm. We also had from no where a sudden burst of rain which was almost like hail. In short the weather was very unsettled. I'm guessing from this that we were on the edge of a weather front around the Heathrow and Hounslow areas between 11am to around 3pm when the weather was extremely unsettled. There are also a couple of very large aircraft maintenance hangers within close proximity to the runway approach and I wonder if this in some way along with the weather conditions contributed to the crash. So I'm giving Boeing and the 777 the benefit of the doubt right now. The next 48 hours should prove interesting with regards to the accident investigation prelim report. :hmm:

[Steel_Tomb]

weather could have had an impact on the aircraft, but not the extent that it would loose all electrical power...that is a very serious problem indeed! It could just have been some faulty wireing. We will just have to wait for the BAA's report on the crash.

[Jimbuna]

I'm putting it down to HunterICX being given a turn in the pilots seat

[CCIP]

Well there's the crew. Cheers to them again

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...on/7196526.stm

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Konovalov

I'm going to take a stab at it and guess that wind shear struck the 777 in the final moments of it's approach. At lunchtime outside our office the weather was highly changeable in that the wind was at times gusting very strongly before suddenly dropping down in intensity to almost total calm. We also had from no where a sudden burst of rain which was almost like hail. In short the weather was very unsettled. I'm guessing from this that we were on the edge of a weather front around the Heathrow and Hounslow areas between 11am to around 3pm when the weather was extremely unsettled.

I thought something like wind myself. On german TV they said that the plane all of a sudden dropped massively while already being very close to the runway. While I cannot exlcude tehcnical defects of course, I think wind is the most likely candidate for being the origin of this mess.

as was said above, the 777 has a good reputation for technical reliability. And as far as this amateur that i am can say, i prefer the cockpit ergonomy of modern Boeing designs anytime over Airbus. I cannot imagine that we have to think in terms of pilot error regarding this accident.

[Linton]

Interim accident report seems to blame the fadecs or signalling to them!
Edited for clarification.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Linton

Interim accident report seems to blame the fadecs!

From the reports I've heard so far, honestly it sounds like the only thing that could've happened - it's been said so far that they lost not engine power, but response from the autothrottle, and it wouldn't budge when they tried manual input. Which entirely makes sense I guess - I presume they were just gliding down at low power until that point and everything looked right. Sounds like it simply got stuck at some point between the plane starting the final approach and the time the crew noticed the lack of response.

What are the chances of it failing though? Sounds like something really went wrong, assuming there should be enough redundancy in the system.

Has there been any incidents on other types of planes with similar FADEC systems? Or would this technically be the first one? :hmm:

[Linton]

Just think of basic electronic systems for a minute.If you send a bad signal down a wire it will affect all the end users.The signal in this case seems to be an increase thrust signal.The signal will be the same whether it was generated by the auto thrust or manually.It ends up in the same place and will be in the same language.Now imagine that signal is corrupted for some reason.The signal does not get through and thrust will be frozen at its current position.In this case that is idle power.Until that rogue signal is removed nothing is going to get through.
This is the first time this has happened to multiple engines at the same time.
Result is a very big glider.

[HunterICX]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

I'm putting it down to HunterICX being given a turn in the pilots seat

I'm affraid if it really was me, there was nothing to photograph actually

HunterICX

[Linton]

A new lighting system is to be installed at Heathrow:

[Konovalov]

Originally Posted by Linton

A new lighting system is to be installed at Heathrow:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: Very funny. Thankfully because of the timing of the loss of power to both engines and the crew we can have a bit of a laugh.

[Linton]

In certain industries there is a thread of black humour.It makes us feel that after an incident or accident such a thing will never happen to us.I borrowed that image from an air traffic controller thread on PPrune.