How would you like to be in this position in Real Life?

[Buzzbait]

S!

You're at 39,000 ft, piloting a twin engined Jumbo jet, with over 300 passengers aboard over the Atlantic, 200 kilometres from land.  An engine goes out on you.  You start a gradual decent towards the nearest landing field, the Azores.  Things should be fine.

At 32,000 ft your second engine goes out.  You are still over 100 kilometres from land.  You are now faced with trying an engineless glide to the Airfield.  Plus a powerless landing.  And you are flying an aircraft with the glide characteristics not much better than a brick.  Which means you have to make your landing approach at high speed and at a steep angle.  In a fragile aircraft like a modern large passenger plane, a small miscalculation, and you and 300 others are hamburger in the midst of shattered junk.

You do the glide, and make your approach perfectly.

The only problem?  The landing angle is so steep, and the speed so high, all your tires blow out the instant you hit.

You still pull off the landing.

Minor injuries to a few people.

Happened on the weekend.

Bet this guy is getting a few bottles of Scotch from appreciative passengers.  

[Urchin]

I'd hate to be in that position  .  Sounds like the guy is a great pilot.

[Toad]

Friends don't let friends fly Airbus.  

<sounds like he did a nice job with not much, though>

[Karnak]

That is the second most impressive emergency landing I've heard of for a jumbo jet.

[eagl]

Lajes is kind of a squeak to land at anyhow even with power.  The nearby hills can cause pretty nasty wind shear and shifting crosswinds on final, so I agree 100% it was a very nice job getting the plane down in one piece.

That said, I just finished cross-country instruction with my students here at Sheppard and the FIRST THING I taught them to do after level off checks is to validate their fuels on their flight plan.  After that, you do a quick ops check every 15 minutes or so including a fuel check against the card, and you keep in mind a running update on how much fuel you'll have at the next nav point.  We do all this by hand in the T-37, so with a flight computer and nav page they could use, I'm astonished they didn't realize they were in deep toejam hours before they ran out of gas.

I've gone no-kidding "min fuel" only twice in my relatively short flying career, and that's twice too many.  Most jet pilots are paranoid about fuel but complacency kills just as fast in civilian, commercial, and military flying.

[Buzzbait]

S!

Not sure of all the circumstances, but as far as I know, the fuel leak occurred mid Atlantic.  Not sure if the instruments registered it.

[Fishu]

Wasn't that the one where it landed on unused airfield where were some people on it?
and that plane broke its entire nose wheel, right?

[Rifle]

Fishu - Your thinking of the 767 (Friends don't let friends fly ...)   that ran out of fuel many years ago over northern Ontario (Canada) and glided to Gimli Manitoba to an old abandoned RCAF airfield.

It was being used as a drag strip that day ...

Forever remembered as the 'Gimli Glider'

Cheers,
      Rifle

PS It ran out of fuel because domeone screwed the pooch on the imperial to metric conversion.

[ 08-29-2001: Message edited by: Rifle ]

[hblair]

[rant]I thought a "Jumbo jet" was a boeing 747 series. I watched some movie a few weeks ago, pilot gets sick or something, the stewardess screams "I can't land this jumbo jet myself!". The camera gives a view of the outside of the plane, it's a freegin DC-10![/rant]

Nice story!, woulda hated to have been on that flight though.  

[Dago]

The A330 series aircraft that was involved in this incident is considered to be a widebody aircraft.

The term "Jumbo Jet" is more of a news media term and not used much by anyone in aviation.

Hblair you are basically correct, the term Jumbo Jet was used for the 747, and the DC10 was also more or less considered to fall into this loose "category".

Think now in terms of narrowbody and widebody.  The A330 would be in most peoples mind a widebody aircraft as it has a center seating section and not just a single middle aisle.

Dago

[ 08-29-2001: Message edited by: Dago ]

[Toad]

My brother flies the A330 for a US airline.

He said "first word" they got on it was "a leak in a low pressure fuel line". That's pretty sketchy, because you should be able to isolate most leaks before you run out of gas. Possibilties abound; did valves fail to close when signaled? did the crew perform the checklist correctly? etc., etc.

Obviously, there isn't enough data as yet. Well let you know if I hear anything more from my brother. I'd expect them to get a full brief as soon as Airbus figures out what actually happened.

Some of the story here:  http://www.avweb.com/

Oh yeah... what's the difference between an Airbus and a Homelite chainsaw?

About 30,000 trees a minute.  

[funkedup]

If it ain't Boeing I ain't going.  
Nice landing though!

[Ripsnort]

Funked, my brother in law is a certified FAA inspector both A and P, and works for American...he's worked on both Boeing and Airbus, and he books his flights strictly by aircraft type alone (Boeing)...need I say more?  Think glue, and lots of it!

Of course, just to be fair..Boeing is no saint, can you say 737 rudder problems?  How about 747 center fuel tank?  

[ 08-29-2001: Message edited by: Ripsnort ]

[hblair]

Did they ever figure out what caused those 737 rudder problems? You know, the ones where all people aboard the 3 (I think it was 3) planes were killed when the planes mysteriously rolled over and augered into the ground...

[hblair]

lol, you musta added that in the edit rip, thinking the same thing.