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Chilling details of a Seattle flight revealed Cripes. Can you imagine this nightmare??
The 185 passengers on an American Airlines 757 en route from Seattle to New York had no way of knowing the serious trouble their jet was in last month when the pilots switched to backup battery power because of a problem that occurred soon after takeoff.
Those batteries supply power to the plane for only about 30 minutes. But nearly two hours later, with the jet in cruise flight over Michigan, the electrical systems in the cockpit and, then, the cabin began to fail because the batteries were drained.
Without power, the plane’s intercom went out and a flight attendant had to pass a note under the cockpit door to communicate with the crew.
As Flight 268 made an emergency landing at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, vital systems to control the jet were not working, including some wing flaps. When the jet touched down, the engine thrust reversers did not work to slow the Boeing 757-200 and it barreled down the runway, leaving a long trail of skid marks as the pilot pushed hard on the brakes to try to stop.
The jet did stop, finally, with all three main landing gear intentionally off the side of the pavement in the grass and the nose of the plane only 100 feet from the end of the blast pad pavement, which extends some 397 feet past the departure end of the runway.
The engines on a 757 are “fly-by-wire” Each engine has a PMA (permanent magnet alternator) to supply electricity to the EEC (electronic engine control) in case of loss of electrical power. I can’t believe those idiots continued flying! As far as engine shut down, the spar valves and the firewall shut off valves are all “powered closed”. You don’t want a loss of electrical power to shut off the fuel to the engines or feather the hydraulic pumps.
I just finished an AA flight yesterday where we took 10 hours to get to JFK from San Fransico. We left at 8:30 or so (scheduled 8:10), circled in the sky for two-plus hours due to weather at JFK, then landed at Wash. D.C. Dulles to refuel and sit on the ground for another couple of hours before flying into JFK just before 10.
I love reading the non-pilots view of aviation material. #16 Why worry about the pilots? I don’t understand.
I have a few buds over at AA and have discussed this incident with them. It is generating discussion over there. Apparently this was not a straight forward abnormal procedure covered in the books, but one that combined multiple systems and procedures.
The Captain is a long time 757 guy who knows more about its systems than anyone outside of Boeing, the FO is about as sharp as they come. With the limited and time critical nature of the info. they received, I am sure they made sound judgment calls. That is why they are paid the big bucks.
So sit back in the seat you paid 99$ fly cross country, complain you have to spend 2$ on a coke, ask why you can’t just fly through the thunderstorm to get there quicker, all the while not really worried about your safety.
My latest passenger favorite- flying over the Vegas airport, our destination, a passenger in the back started screaming that I was “missing the runway” and flying right past the airport, what was wrong!!! Scaring everyone.
Just getting in position to land, the airfield is landing to the west. Ooops.
I thought large jets flight crews are trained
to use the APU , not battery power in this
situation.
http://www.757.org.uk/systems/sys6.html
The mechanics voted themselves more and more wages & benefits, the airlines were forced to fire the mechanics in large numbers. Inspections got beefed up and when they found more things wrong with the aircraft there weren’t enough mechanics to fix them. Now it’s just a flying circus and the retired airline people have busted out pensions to show for decades of work. It’s going to get worse. Years back I suggested turning the airport into a morgue to process people faster. They owe hundreds of millions of dollars on the thing to support flying junk with junk airport bonds. Houses are getting foreclosed and the government wouldn’t think of closing the airport. It’s economically useless and full of government employees. Knowing how things work, they’ll propose expanding it to create more government jobs once Obama is chief of the tribe. The trains are running, so I expect we’ll see more hoboes riding the rails. It’s like Barack to the Future, is this 2008 or 1932? The idiots out my way are ripping the stone out of the hills with heavy equipment to give work to the union. This means more work for the other union guys building retaining walls to hold up the hills. It looks like lots of make work projects ahead and the fact that the government and banks are busted could make funding a challenge. If they had money they would pay off the airport. The new idea is to keep printing unlimited cash and if they give enough away things will improve. More bank failures are certain. The airlines have already failed, so it’s just going through the motions. The baby boom is a bust and you guys are just plain screwed. Now you will pin your hopes on Obama, so it’s just like pin the tail on the donkey. It’s a sham election, followed by a sham presidency and the world according to Warren Buffett. You know when Buffett and the unions are lined up together, you are in for trouble. They have some big plan, like the last big plan worked so well. The McCain deal is to send a message to the troops in the field. The message is screw you guys.
That must have been a hairy time for the pilots. This is when good training and a lot of experience comes in handy.
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#25, toc,
Must suck to be you. Happy November fourth.