Posted on 10/30/2004 1:37:20 PM PDT by Boundless
On 22nd November 2003, a DHL A300 B4 had been airborne
from Baghdad Airport for just over 3 minutes when the
calm in the cockpit was shattered by the sound of a
loud bang. At about 8,000ft an explosion was heard,
followed by a cacophony of aural warnings and visual
displays showing a master warning on all flight controls.
Unbeknown to the crew at that time, the aircraft had
been struck by a missile.
(Excerpt) Read more at aero-news.net ...
This is hugh!
Amazing story.
> Amazing story.
The line that got my attention was:
"There was no emergency checklist or procedure to help
them recover from this scenario. The situation appeared
hopeless and they were very much on their own."
After UAL 232 (Sioux City) 15 years ago, I would have
thought that every airliner would have published
procedures for 0-hydraulic scenarios.
French engineering strikes again, I suppose.
WOW! I'm a small airplane jockey but I can only imagine what this quick thinking brave crew went through. A job well done indeed!
Wow, what a fine job from that crew!
A definite must read. Amazing that these guys had to learn how to fly what ended up being 'an experimental aircraft' after loss of all controls.
Bump to read later.
> Amazing that these guys had to learn how to fly what
> ended up being 'an experimental aircraft' after loss
> of all controls.
Amazing because it appears that in the 15 years between
the UAL 232/Sioux City event and the DHL recovery, that
Airbus and the simulator builders did NOTHING to document
how to fly their machines with all 3 hydraulic systems
gone.
Prior to UAL 232, these parties might have been excused
for assuming that 0_hyd = hull loss, but after UAL Cpt.
Al Haynes demonstrated that there was a decent chance
of saving some lives, I would have expected the airframe
and sim makers to document what they knew.
It might even be possible for fly-by-wire a/c to have
a 0-hyd mode, where the primary flight controls get
de-coupled from the useless control surfaces, and
instead control asymmetric thrust, trim, gear deployment,
and whatever else might affect pitch, yaw, and roll.
Apparently, nothing at all has been done for 15 years.
The only info out there is the Haynes seminars.
This scenario is going to happen again. There are
probably a lot of Edwards-type lawyers hoping that the
next underinformed crew can't handle it, and that lots
of settlement money is dug out of the crash site.
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