Latam Airlines flight Syd-Auckland 50 injured

[planedriver]

It never ceases to amaze me when I hear of these instances, that all the injured passengers were not wearing a seat belt.

WTF is wrong with people? It can happen at any time unexpectedly. Are we really supposed to feel sorry for their ignorance, Not me i'm afraid!

Hope some learn something from their experience.

[red750]

https://au.yahoo.com/news/dozens-injured-technical-event-sydney-071029076.html

[Area-51]

The article mentions boeing 🤷🏻‍♂️

[onetrack]

At least the doors didn't fall off when it dropped suddenly.

 

Re the lack of seatbelts - there's always going to be a number of people moving around the cabin at any one time - going to and from toilets, cabin crew serving food, and even people just standing up to get an item (or place an item) in an overhead locker. So you can't have everyone secured all the time in cruise. Yes, there are those who whip their seatbelts off as soon as the seatbelt sign goes off, though - and they never put them back on until landing.

I have always been a seatbelt wearer all the time I'm seated, when flying commercially - because I know that one day, all the smooth rides I've enjoyed up to now, will be joined by one ride from hell.

[kgwilson]

A "Technical Event" isn't clear air turbulence or jet stream related turbulence so I wonder if the cause will be published. Based on comments from Boeing employees recently when 7 out of 10 said they wouldn't fly in a 787, I hope it is not glossed over or covered up, but based on recent events and Boeings nose diving reputation, they are likely to put as much sugar coating in the report that they can get away with.

[red750]

According to this mornings news, the unit generating power for the instrument panel failed and all instruments went blank. Backup power from the engines was activated within a couple of minutes. They interviewed an ex-airline pilot  who said it does happen occasionally. He couldn't believe so many people didn't have their seatbelts fastened. Just reporting what was said on the TV.

[Carbon Canary]

Remember the QF A330 incident near Exmouth back in 2008 ? Over 100 injured due to a computer glitch……and that was an airbus !

[kgwilson]

Momentary power loss to the instrument panel should not cause a sudden inexplicable change to control surfaces to make the aircraft instantly lose altitude with enough force to cause injury given multiple system redundancy. If it did so then there are some software changes required to prevent this in future. Boeing had to do this with the MCAS system in the 737 Max but in that case pilots didn't even know what the MCAS system was.

[onetrack]

In the case of the Airbus sudden dive near Exmouth, I believe there was always a level of suspicion that an EMF event from VLF transmissions at the Naval Base tower at Exmouth were responsible for the ADIRU fault.

All parties involved claimed it was impossible, but then another Qantas Airbus developed a similar fault when passing Exmouth, so that certainly weakens all the arguments that interference wasn't possible.

The problem is, the U.S. Navy is extremely secretive about their VLF transmissions from Exmouth, which are designed specifically to communicate with U.S. subs at great depths and great distances.

The power generation level at the Exmouth base is huge, and I'd have to opine the AIrbus designers didn't include massive EMF burst shielding for the ADIRU units in their design, they rely on backups.

You would never know if the Americans were experimenting with different VLF frequencies, power levels, or what they were trying out - military experiments are often at the edge of technology.

 

Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

[facthunter]

A lot of the flight management technology is supplied by the same US manufacturers. The logic of it's systems can be altered to  suit the  buyer.

[facthunter]

Apparently the Flight attendant accidently hit a switch that moves the  seat fore and aft and it pushed the CM1's seat so far forward it pushed the stick forward and stick forward means Houses get bigger.. Nev

[kgwilson]

Hmm and pulling the stick back apparently makes the houses get smaller but pulling it right back makes them get smaller quicker, then really big really fast.

[facthunter]

In this case the stick went forward and a few passengers went up to the roof. Maybe the switch is there to aid removing someone who is incapacitated.   Nev

[facthunter]

At cruise level the plane is flying close to it's service ceiling .The air is very thin and  the aircraft would attain a fair rate of descent quickly with  any real pitch down occurring.  Nev

[derekliston]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

Apparently the Flight attendant accidently hit a switch that moves the  seat fore and aft and it pushed the CM1's seat so far forward it pushed the stick forward and stick forward means Houses get bigger.. Nev

Do you actually believe that Nev? I find it a bit hard to credit! I would have thought that in cruise it would have been on autopilot, incredibly unusual to be hand flying, yes the seat moving forward could cause the pilot to push on the yoke, but hard enough to disconnect the autopilot??? 

[Garfly]

Juan explains:

 

 

 

[kgwilson]

If what Juan Browne explains is correct then there are a few questions to answer here, including the design of the system, whether there is a switch the pilot is able to activate quickly to stop the seat moving forward if as appears to be the case it was inadvertently activated or just poor maintenance.

[Thruster88]

The seat moves very slowly. It would not be hard to join the dots if one had even some awareness.  

[Garfly]

25 minutes ago, kgwilson said:

If what Juan Browne explains is correct then there are a few questions to answer here, including the design of the system, whether there is a switch the pilot is able to activate quickly to stop the seat moving forward if as appears to be the case it was inadvertently activated or just poor maintenance.

 

 

Yeah, Juan was asking the same question, that is, about a kill switch for pilots in case the seat starts moving forward while they're in it (un-commanded by the pilot's own seat switches on the console).  The design of the rocker switch on the seat-back presumably assumes that the cover is there to guard against inadvertent operation whenever the seat was occupied. But there ya go

 

In the confusion of having a meal tray plonked down on your moveable table and your sudden realisation that you're being moved forward relentlessly - and possibly being out of reach of the console switches (even assuming they countermand the rear switch) I can imagine the inevitable HF/WTF! pause could easily see you - or your dinner - jamming the yoke forward to no good effect.  Certainly would not have been trained for in the simulator.

 

Edited March 16 by Garfly

[kgwilson]

16 minutes ago, Thruster88 said:

The seat moves very slowly. It would not be hard to join the dots if one had even some awareness.  

It certainly does move slowly. I guess the issue is what position it was in when the switch was activated. If it was right back there would be plenty of time to sort it out.. Then there is the Captains original explanation to sort out that there was an instrument screen momentary blackout. The final sequence of events will be very interesting and whether Boeing is implicated or not.

[Thruster88]

The CVR will tell the story if it has not been overwritten.  

[Reynard]

Fortunately there’s no houses in the middle of the Tasman so they can’t get bigger.

[facthunter]

There's a few things  the pilot allegedly said that do not add up. Runaway  seats are catered for where applicable in simulator training and abnormal ops .Pilot Seats don't move that fast but even slow speed would be problematical if not arrested fairly quickly. The pilot has no where to go. The console traps them in  till it's right back and moves the seat sideways. Look at the shape of the runners the seat moves in. That covered seat  switch would not be accessible to the seated pilot either. . Seat belts are supposedly kept fastened in the cockpit.  Nev

[Roundsounds]

On 16/3/2024 at 4:13 PM, derekliston said:

Do you actually believe that Nev? I find it a bit hard to credit! I would have thought that in cruise it would have been on autopilot, incredibly unusual to be hand flying, yes the seat moving forward could cause the pilot to push on the yoke, but hard enough to disconnect the autopilot??? 

The B787 autopilot has an over ride / disconnect function. ie if you provide a decent input the AP will disconnect.

[Roundsounds]

23 hours ago, Garfly said:

 

 

Yeah, Juan was asking the same question, that is, about a kill switch for pilots in case the seat starts moving forward while they're in it (un-commanded by the pilot's own seat switches on the console).  The design of the rocker switch on the seat-back presumably assumes that the cover is there to guard against inadvertent operation whenever the seat was occupied. But there ya go

 

In the confusion of having a meal tray plonked down on your moveable table and your sudden realisation that you're being moved forward relentlessly - and possibly being out of reach of the console switches (even assuming they countermand the rear switch) I can imagine the inevitable HF/WTF! pause could easily see you - or your dinner - jamming the yoke forward to no good effect.  Certainly would not have been trained for in the simulator.

 

The seat power on / off switches are located inboard at the base of the seat backs.