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09-24-2006, 09:37 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Torquay, Victoria, Australia
Posts: 826
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The real world
I?m with Joe. In my experience (Ex B747-400, A340 B777 international ops) Joe?s analysis is probably pretty spot on.
Contrary to what some seem to think, the B747-400 will fly on two. It?s not very pretty, but it will. And there is a Boeing procedure for a TWO ENGINE MISSED APPROACH.
And let?s face it. I doubt you could buy a ticket to fly across the Atlantic today, any anything with more than two engines.
Pete.
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Peter James.
Australia Down Under.
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09-24-2006, 10:11 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Fort Worth, TX
Posts: 154
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Just remember what ETOPS really stands for:
Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim
Pat
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Pat Tuckey
RV-8
Superior IO-360, Hartzell blended airfoil, GRT dual screen EFIS
Flying 1400 hours
Formation Acro SAC Card
FFI flight lead
25XS (Waxahachie, TX)
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09-24-2006, 11:58 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Olympia, WA
Posts: 272
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Decisions are based on more than just the technical
Joe and others: For the sake of argument I'll stipulate that your technical analysis of three engine flight in a 747 is correct. But the technical cannot be allowed the last word. It is beyond dispute that the flight continued on three engines with a decrement in the margin of safety. The passengers on that flight had a right to expect that their safety would not be compromised for material or economic advantage. Overflying all of the airports of the United States and Canada at which a safe landing could have been made, and then continuing across the Atlantic Ocean subjected those passengers to unnecessary additional risks of which they knew nothing and for which they did not consent. That, I contend, was wrong. The fact that the airplane was capable of (nearly) completing the flight is a given. An airplane that couldn't continue across the Atlantic Ocean with an engine out could not be certified. That others have done and are doing this type of flying has no bearing on the rightness of this course of action.
__________________
Steve Lindberg
RV-7A N783Z 0-360 Hartzell
canopy skirts, panel
RV4 second owner
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09-25-2006, 12:45 AM
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Torquay, Victoria, Australia
Posts: 826
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Acceptable Risk?
Stephen,
I do agree with you.
A landing before the Atlantic crossing would seem prudent in light of the information supplied here.
As you say; ?The passengers on that flight had a right to expect that their safety would not be compromised for material or economic advantage.?
I agree again, but I am not sure everyone will agree.
Besides the fact that no one ever questions an Atlantic crossing in a three engined DC-10, Mssrs Boeing and Airbus spend enormous sums calculating decrements and decided Twin Engine Over Water Ops - now ETOPS- would be acceptable.
This is all sanctioned by the FAA, CAA etc.
If you depart LAX for Tokyo, Hong Kong or Singapore today, it will most likely be in a twin-engined aircraft.
The route you take will be closer to the Aleutian islands than Hawaii.
Cold Bay in the Aleutians will be one of the ?Suitable Airports? to cover the case of loosing one of the two engines. It could be hours away. ?Suitable Airports? for ETOPS do NOT need to meet the requirements for normal Alternates.
Cold Bay has a Back Beam ILS in the prevailing wind, down a valley surrounded by high terrain. I have never seen a WX report for Cold Bay that wasn?t atrocious. Gales and snow prevail.
There are no facilities to shelter passengers, nor aerobridges, nor aircraft stairs. If there were and uncontrollable fire and an evacuation, the passengers would be standing in the Arctic in shirt sleeves.
Clearly, ETOPS is a calculated risk.
The only gain is lower operating costs of Twins; which might or might not be passed on to the expecting passengers.
But the bean counters have calculated what is acceptable.
Pete.
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Peter James.
Australia Down Under.
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09-25-2006, 07:25 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: St Louis, Mo
Posts: 178
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by fodrv7
Stephen,
I do agree with you.
A landing before the Atlantic crossing would seem prudent in light of the information supplied here.
As you say; ?The passengers on that flight had a right to expect that their safety would not be compromised for material or economic advantage.?
I agree again, but I am not sure everyone will agree.
...<snip>...
But the bean counters have calculated what is acceptable.
Pete.
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What is acceptable is a minuet danced between regulators, lawyers and accountants but the music is provided by consumers [to the extent they are informed]. Pax decide if they are going to climb aboard or choose another way to get there. In every organization there is always tension between mission and resources - that is healthy. I'm a bean counter [and like most of us, I'm a pretty good mission guy as well].
Consumers want safety at a cost/beneficial cost. We could make anything 'better/safer' but the cost would make it financially unfeasible. Balance is needed. When a single discipline is over-weighted in any organization [marketing in GM for instance, or bean counters at Ford] then the mission fails. This is true of those orgs. whose operations guys over-bear too [unless they have a monopolistic product/service [but then any over-weighted discipline org. will survive, until competitors come and remove the inefficiencies in the market]].
Bean-counters [or any discipline] aren't the problem. Lack of balance is.
I've flown alot on commercial airlines. I have to trust the professionals operating the a/c. I know there are some bozos in every discipline - that is life.
I don't agree with this particular decision but remember, their bums were on the plane too. I'd say they had sufficient 'skin' in the game to make the decision. That is what professionals do. Measured judgement based upon training and experience and then accept the responsibility of the decision made.
ymmv
John
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09-25-2006, 07:47 AM
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Chesterfield, Missouri
Posts: 4,514
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by fodrv7
Cold Bay in the Aleutians will be one of the ?Suitable Airports? to cover the case of loosing one of the two engines. It could be hours away. ?Suitable Airports? for ETOPS do NOT need to meet the requirements for normal Alternates.
Cold Bay has a Back Beam ILS in the prevailing wind, down a valley surrounded by high terrain. I have never seen a WX report for Cold Bay that wasn?t atrocious. Gales and snow prevail.
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Pete, sounds like you "been there and done that".
I was a 76 F/O when ETOPS was being proven back in the 80's and the feds had many hoops to jump through. One critical factor was the rate of inflight shut downs. The company I worked for used the equipment on domestic operations also and we had a problem with inflight shut downs over the rockies due to auto throttle management when transversing an area of mountain waves. The auto throttles would get out of sync with airspeed changes and in the process, an engine would flame out. I know of one flight (not our company) where both engines flamed out but were re lit on descent toward Denver.
Sitting in the right seat, one had to be descreet. It was difficult to say, maybe we should set power manually and let it roll, when company policy was to use auto throttles - it supposedly saved fuel. Guess what? When the ETOPS certificate was threatened, the policy changed, and the rate of inflight shut downs was checked.
Beyond that, like Stein and others have mentioned, its all about money. If the UK rules permitted the operation from LA to London on 3 engines, it was all about money from the beginning. All of Part 121 is influenced by money and of course, safety.
So far as the perception of passenger safety is concerned, if it had been possible to appraise everyone of what was going on and what the risks were, the vote probably would have been, lets press on - I need to get to London. There's always a risk boarding any airplane and most people know it, accept it and hope for the best. Those who don't, don't fly.
dd
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09-25-2006, 09:20 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 1,110
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I don't have a problem with 3 engine ops. The problem I have is they didn't make their destination because they ran out of fuel. That's a pretty major screwup and shows either lack of proficiency or very poor judgement. This "monday morning quarterback" expects my airline to figure stuff like this out on the ground, not somewhere over the Atlantic.
Gimme a break.
My simplistic, just a homebuilder with a private ticket $.02.
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John Coloccia
www.ballofshame.com
Former builder, but still lurking 'cause you're a pretty cool bunch...
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09-25-2006, 10:22 AM
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Join Date: May 2006
Location: Houston
Posts: 2,012
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Interesting discussion! Too bad I can't join in as I'm not typed in a 747. Will miss commenting on the space program, as I'm not checked out in the space shuttle either.
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Bryan
Houston
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09-25-2006, 10:47 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Yorkshire, England
Posts: 2,052
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Interesting thread with some varied replies thus far !
So - let's start, I am a UK based, Airbus 330 Captain with 11,500 hours, 3,000 in command of a 330 doing ETOPS. I guess I have crossed the pond a couple of hundred times as well as many many Far East sectors as far as Australia, Indonesia and Thailand. I am also a private check pilot and RV7 builder.
As others with longhaul experience have said, the decision to continue or not involves many factors and always involves communication either through Sat Com or by HF or VHF patch back to Maintrol or Managaement.
We have thankfully left behind the days when a Captain would make an autocratic decision to go or not, the accident stats show that this was not the way forward and huge strides have been made in Crew Resource Management ( Communication ) over the past few years.
So, was he right or wrong to continue ?
He was right, because the rules he was operating under allowed it, the crew will have discussed the failure, they will have had access to trend monitoring on the other 3 engines and the route of flight will have allowed probably 4 hours to decide whether to cross the pond as an east route is a lot further south than a west route and would have allowed multiple options for diversion prior to the Atlantic crossing.
I fly 2 engines, we operate 180 minute ETOPS which means I have to calculate fuel and diversion strategies for an Atlantic crossing where my nearest piece of tarmac may be 1290nm away - 3 hours at 430kts. Enroute Barbados from Manchester, England, we regularly see 1,000nm plus and it is rather lonely out there !
To throw another item in, we sometime despatch to destination with a fuel load which may, on paper be insufficient to reach destination. A lot of operators do this and it is called a re clearance plan - the US operators do it, they also operate no alternate ops to save fuel. These techniques are route proved to be acceptable, they offer a great saving in fuel as we don't have to carry as much from origin but can make up the required minima by in flight recalculation of contingency and reserves. The process is a little complex, but with fuel at over $600 a tonne and us burning 6 tonnes an hour ( a 747 uses 10 !), fuel saving and keeping operating costs down is important.
OK, where does this leave us ?
Was safety compromised ? - no, because the manufacturer and operator had approved procedures in force to cope with such an event.
Was the operation efficient ? - yes, because 250 plus passengers didn't end up somewhere they didn't want to be in hotels overnight, or for 2 nights. Incidently, we carry 407 passengers on our Airbus 330 when on high density operations, so he was well below gross weight for this flight - another factor in the decision process.
Would anyone have ever known about it if he had reached London ? - no
Similar and different things happen every day - US operators are no different to UK operators, they use the technology and knowledge gleaned over thousands of flight hours to despatch their aeroplanes in a safe and efficient manner.
Now if this had been a third world operator............................ 
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09-25-2006, 11:11 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Olympia, WA
Posts: 272
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It's Chinatown
One more post and I'll let this rest. This has been a thought provoking thread somewhat off of the RV track but illustrating how society weighs the risk and benefits of technology. The FAA regulates the airlines and is itself regulated by politicians, who in turn answer to voters but also to the regulated industries, who come as lobbyists bearing gifts of campaign contributions and high paying jobs for former regulators. If the FAA opposes something the airline industry very badly wants, the FAA can expect pressure from politicians to approve it. The lobbyists probably have the upper hand until disaster strikes, then the public will clamor for reform and the lobbyists will melt into the shadows until the heat dies down. If, for example, the 747 in question had gone into the ocean, you can be sure that would mark the end of engine out ocean crossings. But in the meantime it is business as usual, and we members of the public must put our trust in the professionalism of the crew (high trust), airline management (very low trust), and the FAA (medium trust). It is well to recall that what is SOP today may be anathema tomorrow. I have seen it in my own profession (medicine). Now, a question for all the current and former aircrewman: If the 747 had lost another engine over the Atlantic, and given that fuel was evidently critical at the end of the flight, is it a concern that he would have had to drift down, burn more fuel, and put the plane out of reach of land? Regards, Steve (a member of the ticket buying public and a known writer of letters to politicians.)
__________________
Steve Lindberg
RV-7A N783Z 0-360 Hartzell
canopy skirts, panel
RV4 second owner
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