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 ...
Correct?
Wrong.
and they did it all without obama’s help, wow /s
how did the pilot know?, if he did,
that there wern’t any bridges in the way
of his anticipated ‘landing’ spot.
The asinine questions that that Couric asked she should be fired.
“I dont understand how the pilot can have control of anything if theres no engines. No engines means no hydraulics. No hydralics means theres no controls period.”
The turbins were sti;; yurning so they did have hydraulics.
Even so the controls arn’t totally hydralic, they are hydraulic assist.
Correct?]
False. He kicked in the auxiliary power unit for one thing.
Waiting on the NTSB Reporter newsletter to see what the cockpit transcription will be ... I’ll go ahead and put it up here ....
Oh BS.
The vast majority of commercial pilots can handle the job, it does not take a glider pilot.
Are you at all aware that nearly every descent in a jet is done at "flight idle", meaning there is little thrust from engines..in other words, they are "gliding" for portions of every flight?
The vast majority of engine-out emergencies end up well, providing they are able to find an obstacle-free area to land in.
Ram Air Turbine generator.
Correct?
NOPE!
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?
A little something called an APU - Auxiliary Power Unit. There are different sorts on aircraft. One sort is a little prop powered generator that can be "popped out," but I don't believe that it provides any pressurized air, though I could be wrong. Another sort is basically a small generator hooked up to a small jet fuel turbine. Even though they're small, they produce a LOT of power, as well as pressurized air to run the plane's AC and starting the engines. It's common for airliners to use this while on the ground to power the systems on the plane, if there isn't ground supplied power. You may have noticed some planes with what looks like a very small jet exhaust in the tail cone, while the engines are actually wing or tail pylon mounted, as well as a small air intake. Those are for the APU.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/75874/
Here's an example from a Boeing 737.
Mark
Either the Auxilery Power Unit (APU) or the Ram Air Turbine (RAT). Either of those can power the hydraulics and provide electrical power to enable a "dead stick" landing. Although of course it's not really dead, the controls are still effective. Big commercial jets have both. The APU is a small turbine engine hooked to hydraulic pumps and a generator. The RAT pops out into the airstream and is powered by the air rushing past the aircraft.
Not quite. The APU is a small engine, usually a turbine that runs off the same fuel as the main engines. It's generally on during takeoff and landing. It can be restarted in the air if need be. They do have batteries of course for electrical power should the APU fail as well. Plus hydraulic accumulators (Sort of like a capacitor or pressure tank for hydraulic fluid, or (less) like a battery), but those won't power the controls for very long at all.
Well they are, in most large aircraft and in fighter jets. They just have a "backup" engine. Usually two, one that runs on jet fuel, the APU, and can provide electricity and hydraulic power. The other runs off of the airflow around the aircraft. Of course if you run out of fuel, the APU won't run either..unless it has it's own independent supply, which would by necessity be more limited. Probably do both. The RAT, the air turbine, loses power as the aircraft slows.
Oh, nice. Thanks.
How was he in shock?? This is a lie. Sully handled everything very smoothly. The reporters are the ones “in shock” because they don’t know what advanced technical competence is. All they learned in college was soft subjects
Thank God the pilot was chosen on ability and NOT affirmative action.
I don’t believe there are ANY affirmative action programs for airline pilots. For your brain surgeon...perhaps
I was making a general statement...and referring to Part 135 aircraft only (not military). Is there a scenerio under which engines could fail and primary flight controls could be effected or diminished...maybe (and you can give me a specific aircraft-scenerio under which that could happen). My point was that the general public already has the notion that "when the engines quit planes fall out of the sky" which is a notion I continually try to dispel. Designers aren't idiots. They know that with a catastrophic engine failure situation provisions have to be made to maintain primary flight control. In some military jets it is often that if you have no engine(s) that there is no way to "dead stick" one in anyway so backups would not be as useful. Anyway you are not being helpful if you are trying to spread the idea that when "the fires die they fall out of the sky"...
35 year FAA A & P mechanic-pilot
Go back and read what I wrote more carefully. I'm not spreading that notion. Just stating that since that there are some aircraft that would be uncontrollable with no engine power, there are backups that can take over from the engines. usually two of them. The RAT and the APU.
For those interested here are a couple of other well-known complete engine failure incidents in modern airliners ending in safe controlled landings.
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