Posted on 02/08/2009 6:36:55 PM PST by BAW
After US Airways Flight 1549 crash-landed in the Hudson River in New York last month, flight attendant Doreen Welsh, stationed in the back of the A320 jetliner, tried to close an emergency exit opened by a passenger, allowing water to rush in.
According to an interview aired Sunday on CBS News's "60 Minutes," Ms. Welsh said after a passenger "came back and pushed me back and opened the door," garbage cans and coffee pots "were floating" and "things were flying. It was crazy back there."
But the veteran attendant at US Airways Group Inc. said she "started yelling...and pushing people and getting people to go over the seats" toward the front exits. Ms. Welsh, 58 years old, has been flying with the airline for 38 years. "As I was getting up, I thought I might actually live," she said. Ms. Welsh was seriously injured with a leg gash.
The plane, which collided with a flock of birds just after takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport on Jan. 15, lost power in both engines. Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, 58, a 29-year veteran of the airline, thought about returning to LaGuardia or landing at New Jersey's Teterboro Airport.
But, according to the 60 Minutes interview and air-traffic-control radio transmissions released last week, the pilot quickly determined that "the only viable alternative, the only level, smooth place sufficiently large to land an airliner was the river." So he turned the powerless plane, carrying 150 passengers and five crew members, and glided south to line up with the Hudson.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
All big commmercial and a lot of small commercial planes have a small jet engine on the very tip of the rear fuselage, called an APU, Auxiliary Power Unit. They are used on the tarmac when the main engines are off, and in this case, when they were in the air with the engines off.
The aPU power the minimal hydraulics and electrics needed to bring home the aircraft.
There is also a RAT that can be used as backup, it’s the Ram Air Turbine. This gets deployed also if the APU is our of commmision. The RAT usually only provides hydraulics for the planes control surfaces.
Am assuming you still part of the aircraft that is operational?
Like I said, my dad used to practice dead stick landings during the war.
Correct?
Make a wild assertion and then ask for approval. Doesn't deserve an answer.
I think Scully is also a glider pilot in his free time. The whole crew are heroes.
Here is one out of the plane:
This is a good RAT:
This is a bad RAT:
Just an observation.........
“According to an interview aired Sunday on CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” Ms. Welsh said after a passenger “came back and pushed me back and opened the door,” garbage cans and coffee pots “were floating” and “things were flying. It was crazy back there.”
Idiot passenger could have killed everyone on the plane.
The hydraulics are actuated electronically by battery power, engine powered current or an apu.
The engines actually had 15% thrust - not enough to get back to the airport but enough to provide hydraulic power.
“All big commmercial and a lot of small commercial planes have a small jet engine on the very tip of the rear fuselage, called an APU, Auxiliary Power Unit.”
....tonight on “60 minutes” the pilot stated that he was able to get the APU started and that gave him some control....he never did get the big engines restarted however....they just wouldn’t fire up....so basically he had a dead stick landing.
Correct?
So the pilot didnt fly anything. The plane just went down the way it chose to, no thanks to the pilot.
What am I missing?
Almost everything! While the engines do produce the primary hydraulics, electrics etc. there are alternate systems for short term use in emergency situations. There is an APU (aux power unit) for electrics and a RAT (Ram Air Turbine) for hydraulics. Also there is a highly trained and experienced HUMAN BEING at the controls.
There’s always some wet blanket who’s disappointed that someone showed them up. They just can’t stand that someone can do something great and get credit for it cause they never will.
As others indicate, there are both an APU and RAT on modern passenger aircraft.
Modern FBW a/c also have multiple redundant hydraulic systems as well as multiple control circuits.
As soon as something seriously out of the ordinary happens (like, oh, both engines fail) the FCS will light up the alarms and the autopilot kicks off.
Speak for yourself.
And fishing is right.
Right about now, you define *moron*.
In this case, its possible he could have.
The APU doesn’t provide useful thrust, only useful hydraulics, which in this case gave the pilot all his control surfaces and the ability to maneuver the plane to the softest, slowest, levelest, and best possible landing.
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