Posted on 01/19/2008 5:44:02 AM PST by Virginia Ridgerunner
The real hero of the Heathrow crash landing was revealed yesterday as a man named Coward.
Straight after the drama Captain Peter Burkill was praised for safely bringing down his stricken Boeing 777 with 136 passengers on board.
But Captain Burkill admitted yesterday that Senior First Officer John Coward was at the controls when the plane suffered a catastrophic power failure in both engines 40 seconds from landing. The initial investigation report confirmed both engines had failed two miles from the airport.
"Flying is about teamwork - and we had an outstanding team on board yesterday," said the 43-year-old father of five.
"I am proud to say that every member of the team played their part expertly, displaying the highest standards of skill and professionalism. No-one more so than my senior first officer John Coward - who was the handling pilot in the final stages of the flight - and did the most remarkable job.
(snip)
Air accident investigators said yesterday that the plane had been on autopilot and autothrottle at 600ft, over West Hounslow, and in its landing approach after a normal and uneventful flight. At that point, the autothrottle had demanded an "increase in thrust", meaning more power, from the engines but they failed to respond.
With time running out, the flight crew then tried to move the throttle levers manually and the engines again failed to respond.
By then, the plane was seconds from the ground with Mr Coward at the controls and so sudden and dramatic was the failure that the crew did not have time to sound a warning. It would have taken less than 40 seconds for the plane to travel the last two miles.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
No evidence of bird strikes anywhere on the aircraft. Nose, wing leading edges, engine inlets ...
Is it me, or does the lady on the right look like she's still in shock?
Ping.
Your opinion is at least 100 percent wrong.600 feet above the ground is about 2 miles from the end of the runway. Jet transport A/C on approach are configured with a lot of drag (gear/flaps) and require almost 75 to 80 percent power just to stabilize on the glide path. A sudden loss of power to both engines, for example from an autothrottle computer failure or sudden stoppage due to fuel contamination would result in a rapid decrease in airspeed and altitude beyond any pilots control. (gravity you know)Large aircraft do not glide in to land as do their smaller brothers and sisters.
If it had been a strike, the evidence of the strike would have already been found. However, no turbine engine is proof against a bird strike. A big enough bird - or enough birds - will kill a motor. Look what the geese did to the AWACS up in Alaska several years back.
No, I'm quite sure it's Carol Burnett. I'd been wondering what she was doing lately.
This fellow really needs to change his last name. I don't think I'm the only one who'd have a hard time stifling laughter if he was introduced to me by name and I knew who he was.
She has a bit of that Camilla Parker Bowes look to her...
Ron Howard, alongside wazzitzname (George Clooney’s ‘Rat uncle who ran for congress), and Camilla...
OK. So left to right, it’s Ron Howard, Jay Leno, and Carol Burnett. Got it!
}:-)4
The official report is here.
Clearly form the photo’s, there was dirt in the engine. Yep, too much dirt in the engine will stop em every time. ;^)
This was clearly Bush’s fault..
Women, children and minorities hardest hit..
they were good but how about the pilots of Air Transat Flight 236..... I didn’t know they made gliders also...hahahahaha
Good grief...who wouldn’t be still in shock??
Your views may be prescient. They are shared by some members of British Airways Engineering staff at Heathrow who cannot understand why icing in the fuel tank would block both engine feeds just 40 minutes from touchdown after 13 hours flying over the Arctic.
Scuttlebut in the hangar is that the co-pilot was doing one of the rare but obligatory on an occasional basis manual landings at Heathrow which has automatic landing systems for all BA aircraft.
The captain who has since left the airline may not have been in the cockpit according to hangar scuttlebut and the co-pilot may have come in too low and then found that the fuel thrust response has a time delay.
As of now these are just private opinions to be confirmed or denied by the Accident Investigations Board.
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