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Is BA owned by the government? Just asking, because if it is and the AAIB is government, I can't understand how that works, politics being what they are. In the USA, the FAA is hiding in the bushes to catch airlines doing something wrong. I don't want to say adversarial, because I don't believe that. There are a lot of good FAA people. (Hear that FAA I love you :D ) However politics do play a roll even in the US. Airlines have political pull even if privately or publicly owned. The FAA often is severely criticised for not making safety changes mandatory fast enough because of economic burden on the airlines. On the other hand many of the safety advancements have been "forced" on the carriers, TCAS, AGPWS, Doppler Radar, Zero Tolerance De-Icing/training and procedures to name a few. I love every one of them. To be fair to me Andy I have enough criticism to go around for all government agencies, US or EU and my self. Some times, and this has been my point the whole time, political and economical pressures influence safety. What is needed is VERY critical reviews of these "incidents" after the fact to gaurd the flying public AND the crews. When given no guidance sometimes it is rope to hang yourself. De-icing is one thing that is a triumph. It cost the airlines millions to de-ice more, but it is worth it and takes the "I think it is OK" out of the loop. Just because it worked out this time does not mean 11 hour, 3-engine flights, loosing it right after take-off, is a good idea. May be BA needs to out a time limit, like 6 hours on 3-engine ops? May be 8 hours? I don't know I'm not that smart, BUT 11 HOURS on an over water ER flight. You are just asking for a problem. Just throwing it out there. Again I am not that smart Andy, and do respect the opinion of crew, BA, AAIB and UK CAA, who are no doubt smarter than I, but sometimes smart people don't have all the answers. I have a general respectful distrust for authority. However as excellent as the AAIB report was, it was too carefully worded for my taste. Political and economics, unfortunately, makes airline flying a tight rope that crews must work with. We crews, all must stick together. Hey, I don't fly under UK rules or a 4-engine plane, but someday I might. I have flown into the Ireland and Scotland many times. Pretty country side to fly over. Who knows may be I will set an aviation record for longest revenue flight with 1-engine on a 4-engine plane. :rolleyes: (Yankee humor) (Andy I am kidding, I thought you Brits had a sense of humor since we kicked you rears in the American revolution. I love the Brits, but can't get behind the blood pudding or "meat (surprise) pie". It takes a real man to eat that stuff and I am a wimp. I also like my beer cold thank you.) Quote:
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Get the big picture.
I fly the 747-400 for BA and it always amuses me how people comment on our decisions and choices based purely what they see on TV or the read in the paper. Our philosophy of 'make it safe' and 'keep it safe' would never allow an aircraft to enter a flight area where an additional engine failure meant disaster. You can be sure the boys were very much aware of 2 engine MSA's and emergency airfield options on 2 engines. FYI we can take off out of London at 396 tons, lose 2 engines on one side and with some careful flying clean up and head out over the channel for some fuel dumping before coming back in for a precise 2 engine ILS with an approach speed of normal Vref +25 knots to an uneventfull landing. Be aware that the 3 boys flying had many multiples of 10's of thousands of hours, all the resources of the CAA, FAA and BA ops on the end of the satcom and ACARS. They were not acting alone or uninformed. The decision was the right one and the FAA have now conceeded this to BA. Both countries rigidly enforce their own Air Regs and as a professional airline are operating procedures cover any regs of the countries into which we fly.
Get the entire story before casting judgement. Flying a 747 with 350 people on board really focuses the attention and never more so than when things go wrong. |
Simon: I detect in your posting a note of condescension which does not serve your purpose, which should be to reassure the flying public, rightly ill at ease with the idea of flying a 747 on three engines across the Atlantic, that this is a prudent and safe thing to do. Most of us on this list are fairly well informed about aviation, and we have heard from a few professionals such as yourself, some of whom have an opinion different from you and your employer. As of now a truce seems to have been reached between the FAA and the CAA/British Airways camps. I would not be surprised to learn that this was negotiated at the secretary and minister level, but of course none of us knows. I would also not be surprised to learn that the arguments were put forth in terms of economic necessity accompanied by adequate margins of safety, as opposed to "safety first" at any price. Again, I don't know. But it seems clear to me that if a three engine 747 comes to grief for any reason whatsoever while trying to complete a 5,000 mile flight, that event will mark the end of extended flights with an engine out. The public will demand it, politicians will grandstand for the cameras, bureaucrat's heads will roll, and your policy and procedure manual will change overnight. Conventional wisdom will suddenly be, "Dump fuel and bring 'er around!"
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Justification, Pride and excuses
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Sure they had time to work things out over North America before getting their feet wet, but one thing's for sure, they did not get the altitude they wanted crossing the Atlantic and the crew was not proficient in single engine fuel transfer. Another link in the chain of why this flight was going down hill. IF they DID get their desired altitude and IF they had transferred fuel properly, we may not be talking about it. However those IF's did not happen and we have to work in the real world not close enough. You have to be honest in aviation and say, yea it was messed up. All this face saving is a waste of time. It was done to save the flight and BA money. If someone made proper checks, using the proper altitudes they would have seen landing at London would be below company min reserves; They either did NOT check or did it poorly. As a Captain flying on 3 engines, with another +3 hours over water, told I'll land below allowable mins, I'd land at JFK. They thought they had enough fuel on FMC predictions only. There is a difference from preflight reserves and actual enroute changes out of your control. Regardless they landed short with fuel concerns. Even if they would have transferred fuel properly, they would have landed with less fuel than desirable. How is that dandy? This flight degraded. They continued, degraded further and continued further, one thing leading to another. More links in the chain could have sunk their boat. How many links do you want to get to the end of your chain? The further they went the less options they had or options where even less desirable than landing back at JFK. I read the final report. The British goverment did a lot of face saving in the report. If one more thing went wrong at the worst time, than it could have gone from pucker factor to Oh heck! Your 747 flys on two engine means nothing when you run out of fuel. I don't get how you think landing short of your destination, due to concern of running out of fuel is good. Sure, you can justify it, but when accidents happen it means nothing to say, "missed it by that much". It's not a game of darts. Sometime margins are used for unforeseen events like weather or mechanical, but when you see it coming down the road for +10 hours, I don't get it. Something was not quite right. You make it sound like it was brilliant. Justify it, say the crew was too cautious or did not know how to transfer fuel, regardless, the flight did NOT WORK OUT, FOR WHAT EVER THE REASON. The FAA, CAA or BA or who ever admitted the crew was not trained for this kind of +10 hour 3-engined flight. Again they did a lot of things right, but it could have been a no brainer to land. If you don't address the elephant in the room, MONEY than you're not being honest. The reason to continue is always money! You don't make money canceling flights. BA would have to pay all kinds of cost if this flight was canceled. Economic pressures are always there. It takes cajones to cancel flights. Pilots have to say NO and stop the show sometimes, even if its inconvenient and you lose money. They used their on board FMC for fuel predictions (which turned out to be inaccurate). It's only as accurate as the winds you input. Did they have accurate forcast or actual winds at those lower altitudes they ended up flying. That's what I'd be thinking. I bet the Captain thought it as he headed out over the Atlantic, but he had gone this far so he might as well continue. Turning back and landing became harder and even less desirable as they went along. Hummmm sounds like a suck place to be, reducing options and fuel not as thought. Why would I do that? Pressure from dispatch, you can do it? Sorry dispatchers of the world but you are wrong some times. There's a difference in pre-flight planning and enroute fuel planning. Once airborne you can violate mins if there's events outside your control. You report it to the FAA. No big deal. However there was a lot of control they could have exercised but just kept going. They flew +10 hours, basically the whole flight. In theory if this flight was planned as they flew it with 3 engines, it would have not been legal. However because they where in flight the rules can get thrown out the window, to a certain extent. All that's left if judgement and the question, can the flight continue safely. I think they got closer to not safe than I like. Was it in danger of crashing? No, but still close only counts in horse shoes and handgranates. In flying when you EAT your safety margins, fuel or what ever, you have to ask what went wrong, not WE MADE IT, good enough. All I have to know is the Captain was concerned. I may have done the same thing as this crew? I don't know. However its fair to say, knowing what I know now, I would land at New York. That's my opinion; sorry if you disagree. I can assure you if the Captain did that, we would not be talking about it now. You make it sound like the FAA, CAA are saying, Yea, YOU Go BA, great job! I think they wrung their hands, shook their heads and said privately don't do that again. Since it was BA, I'm am sure the FAA said you deal with it CAA/ AAIB. I just don't get that the airline and oversight is both goverment run. How does that works? :rolleyes: If you think this flight was great, you're fooling yourself. It was also a PR disaster, not worth the money they saved. Management needs to learn you can't compromise safety for bottom line. When a plane crashes management still gets to go home. Don't be a management yes man. Just say no. May be they will do a better job on engine maintenance and pull engines earlier so they don't put crews in difficult positions. Clear rules and guidelines avoid the "lets see how far we can get" method of flying. In that cockpit that night and behind the scenes later people where mighty concerned. Politically the FAA backed down. If United or American airlines lost an engine out of London and flew to LAX, I'm guessing heck would be paid. Good luck telling other international heavy jet pilots they don't know what they are talking about. To partially quote you: It always amuses me how people comment on our decisions and choices based purely.....on saving face and making excuses to justify lost safety margins that did not need to be lost. Cheers |
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