Posted on 11/28/2006 12:58:03 PM PST by skeptoid
It's big, it's ugly and it nearly took out a small plane that got too close.
The Boeing Co.'s Large Cargo Freighter, a modified 747 that will be used to ferry sections of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, left a wake vortex so powerful that it apparently sent the small plane plunging toward the earth as it prepared to land at Boeing Field.
The single-engine Cessna was being flown by a student pilot, but an instructor took over and regained control, avoiding a crash. By then, however, the Cessna was below the level of the booms of the cranes that are used to load and unload container ships at Harbor Island at the mouth of the Duwamish River.
"It was a pretty impressive job of flying," said a pilot who is familiar with the Nov. 16 episode.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.nwsource.com ...
ML/NJ
let's just say that I am dern glad that it wasn't ME up in the cessena, and let us rejoice in that nobody was killed.
Are you a pilot there sport?
Yup. Instrument rated but not active. FTR, I've flown into Toronto International a couple of times, Palm Beach International, and a number of lesser commercial airports. (Nantucket, Allentown, etc.)
ML/NJ
Current. Live about 45 miles north of Palm Beach International at a place called the Treasure Coast Airpark.
Palm beach is famous for cessnas and pipers flying into 90 north and mucking up passenger carriers when they;ve been cleared for 90 right displaced about 5000 feet from the north runway.
Tomorrow I'll fly from my back yard to sebring for breakfast and maybe over to look at the Gulf waters then home.
Why are you not current if I may ask? Not meaning disrespect or anything, just know I went without flying for a few years and it bothered me.
As for the the pilot in question the big one had clearence and from what I gathered the itty bitty got into their wake. You know the turbulance a big one will create and you need to get the hell away from that one way or another.
I don't believe it said the itty bitty was flying i.f.r. and could have moved over. Once a 747 is coming down it is like an aircraft carrier to stop.
Any and every c.f.i. should know that.
I guess I'd still like to fly. But there's nothing practical about it in the NYC area if one doesn't maintain IFR currency, which is a real burden. My wife never liked flying so we didn't take many trips together. Mostly I would fly for business and back and forth to Nantucket where my family summered when the kids were young. After Nantucket went away and the business flights were mostly 1000 miles plus, I just didn't have a practical reason to continue.
I think you are wrong about the incident in question. The Boeing PASSED the Cessna while it was on final. (Yes. I know there are parallel runways.) The Boeing is an experimental craft, or it should be. It is the obligation of the overtaking aircraft not to overtake if it creates a dangerous cituation, and it is certainly the obligation of the tower not to allow such conditions to occur. But he probably didn't want to tell the big, powerful, Boeing to go around. So he almost killed someone instead.
ML/NJ
I think your explanation about the controller not wanting to isssue a go around makes lots of sense. It's not too difficult to visualize the turbulance settling down onto the Cessna.
Tomorrow is not good for me......but I sure look forward to buying breakfast!
So you'd put blame on tower, Ok,
My C.F.I. lived in west Mass. Would fly to the cape with a few buddies on weekends and a few other friends would go in another plane. His buddy had a i.f.r. ticket and would get there often first cause of fog in the morning. He'd get to the cape later after fog lifted and the best looking girls had already been smoozed by the other guys. so it was a good reason to study for his i.f.r. ticket.
He is now flying commercial. :)
Two very good scenes in the movie Pushing Tin with billy bob thorton and John cusak:
Billy bob at one time is at the end of a runway as a 747 comes in for landing and the wake picks him up and throws him about 100 feet then near the end they both do the same thing.
Just hollywierd but funny as can be.
Also about ten years ago a guy in a Maule airplane was on the edge of the marion military operations area in central florida. Two f-16 screamed by with both wakes hitting him sending him into a roll and nearly killing his. Not to funny.
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