Boeing 767 fuel starvation on flight 174 - movie

[Chairboy]

Because the fuel gauges were bypassed because of a botched 'fix' attempt by an Air Canada technician, so they told the flight computer how much fuel they thought they had and it used math and known consumption rates to track their supply.  Of course, it was off by about 10,000lbs.

They used a technique called 'dripping' to measure their fuel manually before the flight, but they used the wrong conversion units.  They used 1.7 lbs specific gravity vs. .8kilo specific gravity, or something like that.

Metric vs. olde english strikes again.

[FUNKED1]

Originally posted by Torque
Gliding in the dark for 30 minute while dropping from 30,000 feet and he nailed the landing like this.



Not bad for a Frenchmen eh Funkster.

Nice flying, bad systems management.  Credit really goes to Airbus and Hamilton Sundstrand for making an airplane which can fly so well when air and ground crew make mistakes, and to blind luck putting them within gliding range of a field when the fire went out.

[Chairboy]

Ditto for Boeing's 767 referenced in the title of the thread.

[rpm]

Originally posted by beet1e
Hmmmph... I appreciate what you say, and that a fuel loading mistake might occur, but how could the pilots miss it until well into the flight?

IIRC...The Air Transat plane had an engine replacement done. During the replacement they used an old type bracket that was a few mm different. During flight those few mm allowed the line to rub against other parts until it seperated. This allowed a massive fuel leak that was noticed by the flight computer as a fuel load imbalance.
The copilot noticed the imbalance and after confiring with the Captain began cross feeding fuel to the other wing in an attempt to balance the weight. A flight attendant was sent to look for a visable fuel leak. Looking out the window with a flashlight, she was not able to see the fuel pumping out of the starboard engine.
The Captain was convinced it was a computer error and continued flight until fuel starvation occured.
Because of that incident, flight computers have been upgraded to show any abnormal fuel usage during flight.

The Air Canada incident occurred when the ground crew gave bad numbers to the crew. Stupid metric conversions, D'OH!

[Dinger]

Yeah, basically, RR made some minute spec changes to their engines, then shipped an engine without the new bracket.

The handbook solution for fuel load imbalance is to crossfeed the fuel, unless a leak is suspected.
At the time, the only reason they had to suspect a fuel leak was the fuel imbalance.

To complicate matters, the fuel leak caused high oil pressure and low oil temp readings as well.  This contributed to the suspicion of the instruments not telling the truth.

Oh and they blew something like 8 of 10 tires on that "perfect" landing.
The Gimli Glider I think had a nosegear collapse after landing on an airstrip that had been converted into a racetrack. Last I heard the GG is still flying.

[Chairboy]

The Gimli Glider story is truly awe inspiring.  Great pilots, great luck, and great equipment, all flying in perfect formation.

http://www.elchineroconcepts.com/Technology%20Folder/gimli_glider.htm

[crowMAW]

The Gimli Glider story is great.  The linked stories leave out a funny part though.  The team of A&Ps sent to repair the plane so that it could be flown out were stranded for a short time when their van ran out of gas.

[LePaul]

 ...watch the CBS video clip Staga provides...listen to the Canadian reporter say "Again".  LOL...that is not the Queen's English!

[beet1e]

Seems incredible that they could take off without fuel gauges, if I'm reading that correctly.

I turned the movie on just as they got to that cross feeding part, which solved their problem for a moment. Then the problem came back, so they varied the attitude of the aircraft by pitching up slightly, which again made the problem go away for a minute or two. That's when they realised...

A few years ago, I had to take our TB10 on a flight from Cranfield to Stapleford for some avionincs work to be carried out. I was very fortunate to meet a guy there who was headed up to Cranfield by car, as that's where my car was. So I got a lift with him. It turned out he was a CAA employee, and an interesting conversation followed about pilot training etc., and the differences between commercial airline practices of fuel management versus those of GA pilots who "tend to fly on full tanks wherever they go". He began to talk about those methods of calculating fuel requirements. And I recall thinking that the GA guys are working with a different set of parameters, such as will there be fuel at the destination, or will the base be deserted because it's lunchtime - big consideration in places like France - and carrying an extra reserve because of a greater likelihood of weather diversions for VFR flights.

A couple of months later, there was an incident report concerning a Cessna reg. G-BIRO that had crossed the channel from France back to England but had ditched on the mud flats of the Kent coast near Lydd, which was to have been their destination. There were two occupants, both of whom were commercial pilots.

Hmmm...