Nice video about Flight 1549

[Phil Perry]

I hadn't seen this one before,. . . quite heartwarming. . .

 

 

 

 

[facthunter]

They usually break up (as shown in the clip.) The location of the engines complicates it . Cold river too.  Good outcome for sure. Nev

 

 

[onetrack]

I often wonder if the high density of the very cold water that Sully landed on, and the water smoothness, was the critical difference between a successful outcome, and a disastrous one.

 

I'm comparing his landing to the less-than-successful Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 which ditched into shallow seawater off the Comoros Islands in 1996, when it ran out of fuel after being hijacked.

 

Despite the Ethiopian Captains best efforts, the 767 broke up rapidly on touchdown, and the majority of the passengers perished.

 

I would hazard a guess that if the Ethiopian Captain had managed to keep his wings level on touchdown, instead of dropping a wing, it might have helped more people survive - but that's easy to say when you weren't there, and fighting a loss of power and trying to avoid a stall and wing drop.

 

 

 

 

[facthunter]

Flight attendants in the rear were injured due to the attitude of the plane on landing. In the one above the plane was probably trying to ditch close to shore and was landing in a curved path which caused the bad outcome once the left wing separated, The ocean swell is the main consideration with sea ditchings and you take the swell as the direction determinate and not the wind direction. Successful ditchings of jets with engines under the wings are not common but nor are open  sea landing on flying boats. At speed the water is very hard and the plane usually breaks up. Nev

 

 

[Student Pilot]

I vaguely remember something about the last aircraft ditching mentioned that without power  there was no functioning powered controls. There is a pop out windmill that is supposed to takeover after power plant loss but only works at higher speed. As the aircraft slowed control authority was lost hence the wing drop and aircraft breakup.

 

 

[facthunter]

I doubt the plane would be licenced/certified if that were true. Quite a few twin jets have glided considerable distances and do controllable landings. There has to be reasonable redundancy to give pilots a fighting chance in forseeable situations.  Nev

 

 

[Phil Perry]

I vaguely remember something about the last aircraft ditching mentioned that without power  there was no functioning powered controls. There is a pop out windmill that is supposed to takeover after power plant loss but only works at higher speed. As the aircraft slowed control authority was lost hence the wing drop and aircraft breakup.

 

I'm sure that the B-767 hAS an APU,,. . .which is what powered the 1549 Airbus 320,. . but I don't know if the 767 APU did the same, as I'm not as familiar with that aircraft, although I'd be surprised if it didn't power the fligt instruments and controls too \?  if not, NAUGHTY MISTER BOEING !.

 

I seem to recall at the time, that news reports said that the captain on this 767 was physically fighting with one of the Hijackers in the cockpit shorty prior to impact with the water.

 

That might explain a thing or two, and Also ,

 

ON THE David Letterman show featuring the crew of flight 1549, the flight attendant at the rear of the cabin stated quite clearly that a panicking female passenger pushed past her and opened the door release seal at the rear of the cabin . . .

 

I have heard nothing about this since, but I have watched the video ( Letterman ) several times and she definitely said this.  Whereas the reason given for the rapd ingress of water was attributed to the fact that Geoff Skiles did not get as far as the 'DITCH' switch in the QRH checklist, as there was not enough time. . . . this would close all external vents for the purpose of ditching.

 

You can Google this yourselves and watch.  

 

Curious. . .

 

 

[facthunter]

The APU needs fuel too. The extendable Ram Air Turbine (RAT) does the job and the engines windmill as well. I don't know how effective that would be. The plane was never nose high so I doubt it stalled. Nev

 

 

[onetrack]

The Gimli Glider story tells us a lot about the limited 767 controls and instruments left, after both engines stop.

 

The RAT does not supply full hydraulic pressure for controls on the 767, I can't say whether this has changed with other models of Boeing aircraft.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider