After Engine Blew, Deciding to Fly On 'As Far as We Can'

Wall Street Journal ^ | September 23, 2006 | scott mccartney

[eartotheground]

Pilot-Tower Tapes Flesh Out 747 Incident That Triggered A Controversy Over Safety A few seconds after a fully loaded British Airways 747 took off from Los Angeles on its way to London last year, one of its four engines erupted in a spectacular nighttime burst of flame. The fire burned out quickly, but the controversy has continued to smolder. An air-traffic controller watching the runways radioed a warning to British Airways Flight 268 and assumed the plane would quickly turn around. To controllers' surprise, the pilots checked with their company and then flew on, hoping to "get as far as we can," as the captain told the control tower. The jumbo jet ultimately traveled more than 5,000 miles with a dead engine before making an emergency landing in Manchester, England, as the crew worried about running out of fuel. ...

[steveegg]

I wonder if the Airbus 380 will be able to pull that off (or will it simply pull out the white flag and retreat?)

[hershey]

Golly.

[Young Scholar]

I wonder how many passengers were aware of this, and what they thought at the time.

[Doctor Don]

That is a case where the government should be able to demand the plane to land. British Airways exposed themselves to major litigation!

[the invisib1e hand]

the 747 is amazing. but fortheluvofgawd, that sounds like incredibly bad judgment, erring too far on the side of daring with such a potentially dangerous piece of equipment.

[southernnorthcarolina]

Pilot, on intercom, to passengers: "Ladies and gentlemen, we've lost one engine. No worries. The plane is quite airworthy on three engines, but we'll have to reduce our speed slightly, so we'll be an hour late arriving in London."

Pilot, 45 minutes later: "Ladies and gentlemen, we've lost a second engine, and therefore must further reduce our speed. We'll arrive in London three hours late."

Pilot, 30 minutes later: "Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that we've lost a third engine, and will now be arriving five hours late."

Passenger to seatmate: "Good Lord -- if that fourth engine goes, we'll be up here all day."

[blastdad51]

When I was young and stupid I once thought I'd see how far I could drive on a flat tire. I got quite a long ways, I dropped my girlfriend off at her house and drive home. She would never speak to me again after that . I wonder why?

[Flightdeck]

flying over water, no less.

[theBuckwheat]

>>
That is a case where the government should be able to demand the plane to land. British Airways exposed themselves to major litigation!
<<

It just stretches credulity that it would be safer to continue to the destination rather than to orbit nearby until the fuel was burned down to the maximum landing weight and then to land.

But stretching credulity and operating within the rules are sometimes two different things. The rules allow the pilot to make this judgment call. I believe the passage just allows the pilot to continue to the nearest airport where repairs may be made. If the carrier did not have any maintenance facilities at the point of takeoff, both the pilot and the company may have said this does not qualify as "were repairs may be made".

But there are rules forbidding the unsafe operation of an aircraft and I'm sure that this and similar rules will be brought into effect in an enforcement action. While four-engine aircraft are built to operate for extended periods over open water, it is clearly unsafe to initiate a flight over open water with less than the full complement of equipment, despite what the Minimum Equipment List may allow.

But as to "demand" that the aircraft land, we aren't going to go there. That would allow a controller, who is not qualified to operate the aircraft, nor who knows as much about the emergency as the flight crew does, to substitute his authority for the "pilot in command". Aviation cannot work that way.

And how would such a "demand" be enforced? Shoot the aircraft down? Aside from killing everyone on board, it must be realized that there will be a lot of damage on the ground from 1/2 million pounds of aircraft and human body parts falling on a mall or apartment complex.

[taxed2death]

Ron White joke went something like this:

A passenger frantically asked..."How long will the remaining engines continue to run and keep us flying"?

Ron White replied "Right up to the point of impact."

[econjack]

Passenger to seatmate: "Good Lord -- if that fourth engine goes, we'll be up here all day."

Does anyone else remember when actor Jimmy Stewart told this joke to Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show?

Thanks...brought back memories of a better time...

[posterchild]

This happened to an Airbus 320A I was on back in 1998. We had been in the air for about 1.5 hours from Boston to Chicago, when the engine blew. It was a loud muffled bang, like a firecracker in a barrel, followed by a huge spark shower much like a comet had attached itself to the wing. A passenger behind me yelled to the stewardess 'maam, there are flames coming out of the engine' (werent flames but sparks). She looked and ran into the cockpit. Came out 45 seconds later and said that they were ending this evenings audio broadcast (didn't want us hearing the tower communications I gather).
A few minutes later the pilot announced that we just had a 'normal engine failure' and would detour to Grand Rapids, MI. (Probably could have made it to ORD but would have had as a procedure to shut down the runway, and that would be big bucks in ORD.) It was a long landing as they could not reverse the remaining engine and cause a spin, but instead had to use only the brakes. Had firetrucks waiting on the ground and a camera crew, but nothing happened. At least I got a few dates out of it from a fellow passenger I met while waiting for our continuing flight.

I was deeply disappointed with UA's treatment of us once we were on the ground but that is a different story.

[RGSpincich]

The story behind the story. While this event is old news it is pretty interesting.

http://www.atca.org/singlenews.asp?item_ID=2478&comm=0

[HawaiianGecko]

While four-engine aircraft are built to operate for extended periods over open water...

Are they built differently than the ones designed to fly over land for extended periods?

 

[don-o]

For some reason, this fascinating story came to mind. I read a book about it, but cannot recall the title.

Gimli Glider.

[chilepepper]

a testimonial to the increadible robustness of the 747 design and to the pig headed stupidity of the socialist decider-bureaucrats who run BA

[A Strict Constructionist]

Can you say one dead pilot, if we landed safetly. I can become a Jihadi if you mess with my safety.

[Tallguy]

LA-to-London. Does that route go over the poles? Probably not. If it did, I would hope that they'd set down.