Commercial Aircraft near misses

After coming across the following, I was wondering if anyone had similiar events.

On 21st August, 2001, an Airbus A330-200 carrying 300 passengers to Canada suffered a catastrphic failure that in any normal circumstance would result in a single outcome: loss of all life onboard. But this didnt happen, and what resulted is purely down to the skill of the pilots onboard.

At 33,000 feet above the atlantic during the middle of the night, and more than 200km from land, a cracked fuel pipe caused both engines on the A330 to be starved of fuel, resulting in both engines dying. This left the pilots with an unfathomable situation, a nighttime ditching at sea.

But the pilots didnt give up, they managed to turn the aircraft around, glide 100km to a safe touchdown on a military runway in the Azores. This 18 minute, 100km glide is the longest by any widebodied commercial jet, and the only damage sustained was a few tyres being burst on landing.

Some 140 nautical miles (nm) from Lajes airfield in the Azores, the right engine flamed out. Attempting to ensure that all usable fuel remaining was available for the left engine, the crew tried to pump fuel forward from the trim tank. Since the automated fuel management system had already tapped it, the pilots received a low pump pressure message indicating that the trim tank was empty. At 65 nm from Lajes, the left engine, starved of fuel, failed. The airplane was now an unpowered glider. The ram air turbine provided sufficient electrical power to operate some flight instruments.

For more info, a couple of links:
Aviation Magazine
IASA

I remember reading many years ago of a BA 747 that lost power from all four engines. If I remeber rightly it was blamed on the volcanic dust from Mt St Helens, the 747 recovered successfully and no-one was hurt. The headline for the story was simply a quote from the pilot ""My God, All Four Have Failed!"

Richard,

This is exactly why it will be ages before they take a human out of the cockpit of a commercial airliner. As evidenced by the Souix City DC-10 crash, the flexability of a human mind to deal with changes and adapt is astounding

Originally posted by waynos
I remember reading many years ago of a BA 747 that lost power from all four engines. If I remeber rightly it was blamed on the volcanic dust from Mt St Helens, the 747 recovered successfully and no-one was hurt. The headline for the story was simply a quote from the pilot ""My God, All Four Have Failed!"

There was a show on the discovery Ch a few months ago about that flight....I wish I could remb more details about it. But thats exactly what happened...they had some of the passngers on saying how weird it was to be up at 32,000 feet and hear NOTHING...because all of the engines had failed...and the 747 was nothing more than a glider.....wish I could remb the name of the show. It was really well done

Originally posted by b777pilot

Originally posted by waynos
I remember reading many years ago of a BA 747 that lost power from all four engines. If I remeber rightly it was blamed on the volcanic dust from Mt St Helens, the 747 recovered successfully and no-one was hurt. The headline for the story was simply a quote from the pilot ""My God, All Four Have Failed!"

There was a show on the discovery Ch a few months ago about that flight....I wish I could remb more details about it. But thats exactly what happened...they had some of the passngers on saying how weird it was to be up at 32,000 feet and hear NOTHING...because all of the engines had failed...and the 747 was nothing more than a glider.....wish I could remb the name of the show. It was really well done

I think saw the same show, but I don't think it was Mt. St. Helens, I remember it being a volcano in the Pacific Ocean. Lucky they were able to restart those engines!

Actually, the show was on yesterday lunchtime on the Discovery Channel (UK), and I cant for the life of me remember the name of it, I shall have to check the papers.

It was a British Airways 747, and the volcano was one on Jakarta. The 747 descended from 33,000 feet to 14,000 feet, and glided for 14 minutes before the engines reignited on exit from the dust cloud. The pilot then had to do an instrument landing because the dust had sandblasted the aircrafts windows so badly that he could only see out of a 10cm square section when he stood on his seat.

Also in the show was a 737 Canadian Airways pilot who glided the aircraft in from 37,000 feet to a touchdown (the nosewheel failed on landing) after a faulty fuel guage meant too little fuel was put in for the flight. The descent took 13 minutes.

As well as touching on the Souix City DC-10 incident, it showed the story of a 737 British Airways pilot who found himself on the outside of the aircraft at 25,000 feet. Basically the ground crew had replaced the pilot side windshield the night before but had used incorrect retaining bolts. The window blew out, sucking the pilot through the window, and the flight engineer had to grab hold of him to prevent him disappearing completely. The copilot brought the plane down safely and the pilot survived with broken arms and exposure.

Originally posted by waynos
I remember reading many years ago of a BA 747 that lost power from all four engines. If I remeber rightly it was blamed on the volcanic dust from Mt St Helens, the 747 recovered successfully and no-one was hurt. The headline for the story was simply a quote from the pilot ""My God, All Four Have Failed!"

Reminds me of a joke I head...

A F16 Pilot radio's to the tower at an AF installation and requests an emergency landing because his engine is "a bit tweaked". A few seconds later the tower radios back that a B-52 had an engine fail on takeoff and has priority.

The F-16 pilot then broadcasts "Oh no, not the dreaded 7 engine landing"

I like that very much

I heard one where an air traffic controller (I forget where but its not important) recieved a request for permission for a flightpath at an altitude 0f 75,000ft. Believing the pilot to have made the request in error he became all smug and began taking the mickey a bit before finally saying, "clearance granted, if you can get there!"

He then got the reply, "OK tower, descending"


It was an SR-71.

Actually the above Air Canada 737 was a767. in 1983 there was confusion switching from english measurements to metric that resulted in the fuel shortage on the flight. they were at 41,000 before the first warning of fuel starvation came. a book was written and a movie made. both were called "Free Fall" here's a link to the video archive from CBC news

archives.cbc.ca...


Air Canada even tried to fire the two pilots who flew that plane, trying to place the blame solely on them.

[edit on 14-1-2005 by bigx01]