Gimli Glider

[facthunter]

The response to thrust demands (Spooling up times) depends on the idle settings. Different airlines specified different flight idle programmes None of the later high bypass engines take as long as the older JT8 type engines which took up to 7 seconds and were still considered serviceable. Seven seconds can be an eternity. Think about it. One hundred and one.. one hundred and two..etc.. all the way to seven. Nev

 

 

[eightyknots]

Here ya go, hope your faith isn't misplaced!

It's a credit to the pilots (and everyone else who gave them advice on the way) that they landed this b-i-g bird with 80% of its vertical tail missing!

 

 

[Guest basscheffers]

Just watched the Air Crash Investigation on Turkish Airlines Flight 1951: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Airlines_Flight_1951

 

So in 1996, Birgenair 301 basically crashed because the 757's auto pilot was only taking input from the captains pitot/static system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birgenair_Flight_301 This has subsequently been corrected. (but it is a manual switch, now a smart automated system)

 

Flash forward to 2009 and a new 737-800 crashes because the auto throttle only took its input from the captain's radio altimeter, with the radio altimeters on the 737-800 being notoriously unreliable and Boeing knowing about it, but not acting on it. They stated that there was no safety issue because if the problem occurred, the pilots could simply disconnect the A/T and fly the aircraft themselves. Great theory until the other holes in the swiss cheese model line up like they did on that flight.

 

You'd have though that from the 1996 crash Boeing engineers would have though it was generally a Bad Idea to have any automated system get input from only one source without error checking.

 

 

[facthunter]

Whether it is an automated system or a human pilot it is deadly to get input from a single source without confirmation in a critical situation. The logic applies always. Nev