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Malaysia Airlines Loses Contact With 777 en Route to Beijing

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  • Originally posted by LH-B744 View Post
    Where is Mr Abend? I haven't seen him for a long time...
    No, only a joke. I have never seen him.
    I have. In Boston, around 2010. A very, very small person indeed. At only exactly 6', I towered over him.

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    • Originally posted by ATLcrew View Post
      I have. In Boston, around 2010. A very, very small person indeed. At only exactly 6', I towered over him.
      So what...you have no moustache!
      Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by BoeingBobby View Post
        ... a little fun on the approach. There was nothing like Kai Tak, at least anywhere I have ever been.
        SAWO, Ushuaia, Argentina. World's southernmost city.
        A runway that is like a carrier deck: 5500 ft RWY 20 ft above sea level, literally, since both RWY ends lead to a 20ft cliff into the water immediately after the threshold.
        Approach to RWY 34 is piece of cake, because you come over the water for a long final.
        Approach to RWY 16, however, is a downwind into the mountains, with a crosswind leg following the profile of the terrain, and a turn to final skimming the city buildings and into the bay and touchdown shortly before touchdown.
        Add a dominant wind that is exactly at 90 deg from the RWY heading. And... rain, snow and ice were not unusual, rather the opposite.

        Used to be operated by F-27s, F-28s and B-732s.

        A new airport, SAWH, was built in the early '2000s. It is still a carrier deck, but now the RWY that is aligned with the dominant wind and it is 10000ft long, and also runs parallel to the mountains so you don't need to do those acrobatic approaches.

        The old airport is still in use for GA, and the Ushuaia Flying Club operates there.

        A 732 approaches to the old airport RWY 16 (you may want to skip to 3:30).



        New airport in the foreground, old airport in the background (as if we were approaching RWY 34, the easy one).
        Click to enlarge.

        Click image for larger version

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        A 737 ended in shallow water, and an F-28 hanging from the edge. Both AR. No fatalities.

        Click image for larger version

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        --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
        --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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        • Gabriel, I think this was about airports that big airplanes go into not little strips. There are plenty of places in Alaska that are 400' long. Or you can always go here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GksQ1UxdKwM

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          • Originally posted by BoeingBobby View Post
            Gabriel, I think this was about airports that big airplanes go into not little strips. There are plenty of places in Alaska that are 400' long. Or you can always go here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GksQ1UxdKwM
            BB, I know that everything is little compared to your 747-8F or your Dreamlifter, but I was talking about the airport of one of the best touristic destinations of Argentina as well as a high-tech industry center which is served by several scheduled flights a day that take passengers and cargo in and out, many of them Boeing 737s. The video I posted is of a B-732, not a wight-shift ultralight.

            Not for you, but for most mortal people out there (including myself) the 737 is not a small plane and any airport where they operate is not a small strip, or I don't know what I would call the Tomahawk and the 1800ft grass strip I used to use, let alone a Cub landing in a 400' permafrost riverbed in Alaska.

            --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
            --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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            • Originally posted by Gabriel View Post
              Add a dominant wind that is exactly at 90 deg from the RWY heading. And... rain, snow and ice were not unusual, rather the opposite.
              I don't get it. If the dominant wind is 90 deg to the runway, why not take 34 instead of that monkey bar approach to 16?

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              • Originally posted by Evan View Post
                I don't get it. If the dominant wind is 90 deg to the runway, why not take 34 instead of that monkey bar approach to 16?
                Good question. I don'know, but I offer 3 hypothesis:
                1- Dominant winds 90 deg to the runway doesn't mean that it is always 90 degrees. Some days the wind may favor RWY 16, and when landing with a 737 in a 5500ft slippery RWY you don't want to give away 1 kt of ground-speed at touchdown.
                2- There may be terrain clearance issues with a single-engine go-around facing the mountains.
                3- The approach to RWY 16 is so much more fun!!!

                --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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                • BBC is reporting 5 new pieces of possible debris found on beaches in Madagascar by debris hunter Blaine Gibson. Not confirmed as debris but share the same characteristics as other pieces he's found that have been.
                  Apparently two of the pieces show burn marks but isn't clear whether they came from before or after crash, or even as the article mentions, whether the pieces had been put on a beach bonfire.

                  Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-37333762

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                  • Saw a deal where someone says with supposed authority*" that the debris support a dive into the ocean".

                    Need Gabriel or someone to hypothesize (or restate from earlier in the thread). What would happen to a modern airliner in one of these lost pressurization-crew dies-plane runs out of gas scenarios.

                    Is the loss of power going to eventually lead to some sort of spiral dive (or the p-word causing a potentially steep descent), or is it going to "glide gently down".

                    *Footnote: The "supposed authority" is what's new...the suggestion is not
                    Les règles de l'aviation de base découragent de longues périodes de dur tirer vers le haut.

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                    • I'm obviously not Gabriel, but I think it's nearly impossible for a "gentle glide" to occur in that scenario.

                      Things to consider are what happens to the trim if the pilots are out? What happens to the FBW and protections if the engines are out and there is no one to turn on any of the auxiliary and emergency systems?

                      There has been one similar accident on a 737 (Helios, 2005) and maybe you can look into it, though there was a flight attendant with aspirations to become a pilot in the cockpit when it crashed, but with an oxygen tank that was running out.

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                      • Originally posted by 3WE View Post
                        Need Gabriel or someone to hypothesize (or restate from earlier in the thread). What would happen to a modern airliner in one of these lost pressurization-crew dies-plane runs out of gas scenarios.

                        Is the loss of power going to eventually lead to some sort of spiral dive (or the p-word causing a potentially steep descent), or is it going to "glide gently down".
                        It's hard to tell, but I would say that a best case scenario is that the plane stabilizes in a shallow turn and shallow descent at a speed that is about the speed the plane had when it lost power and a descent rate of a few K ft/min. Yes, the glide may look gentle, as the United at Sioux City looked until it contacted the runway. Water (instead of runway) would make things just worse.

                        --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                        --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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                        • Originally posted by 3WE View Post
                          What would happen to a modern airliner in one of these lost pressurization-crew dies-plane runs out of gas scenarios.

                          Is the loss of power going to eventually lead to some sort of spiral dive (or the p-word causing a potentially steep descent), or is it going to "glide gently down".
                          I don't see how it's going to glide down in some wings-level attitude. To begin with, the engines are not going to fail simultaneously, so there is thrust assymetry. The FCC's will apply some compensation but will not cancel out the yaw entirely. Pilot input is needed. So I expect some a side order of roll with that. Then, when the second engine dies, there is no further compensation, no autopilot, no yaw damping, no envelope protections. The ACE's are still powered and awaiting pilot input, but a lot of good that does when the pilot himself is 'offline'. There is also no longer trim reference speed (TRS)-based autotrim, all trim must be manually entered. So you have roll excursion and an out of trim airplane descending as airspeed decays. We discussed this waaaay back and I think Gabriel suggested a sort of wide spiral with phugoid cycles. At some point the roll might become a spiral dive...

                          They have one of the flaps now. If they can tell the flap position at impact, and if it was stowed, that would suggest an absence of pilot control. Although, no main hydraulics, no flap extension...

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                          • Latest report from the ATSB indicates that the flaps were most likely retracted and the rate of descent accelerated to about 25,000 fpm. If that's true, there's probably little chance of finding any large, intact wreckage, let alone the flight recorders.

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                            • Originally posted by Evan View Post
                              Latest report from the ATSB indicates that the flaps were most likely retracted and the rate of descent accelerated to about 25,000 fpm. If that's true, there's probably little chance of finding any large, intact wreckage, let alone the flight recorders.
                              Lacking any link.... I guess that they can tell the flaps setting by damage evidence in the very flaps parts that they found. But how on Earth can they tell the vertical speed?

                              --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                              --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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                              • Answering my own question...


                                --- Judge what is said by the merits of what is said, not by the credentials of who said it. ---
                                --- Defend what you say with arguments, not by imposing your credentials ---

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