A few words can make all the difference

[unixronin]

By now, you've probably heard about the Air France A340 that skidded off a runway in Toronto about two hours ago while attempting to land in a severe thunderstorm, slid into a ravine, and was reported engulfed in flames with 300 passengers on board.  The photos have been pretty alarming, with sheets of flame and great black clouds of oil smike.  Sometimes, though, a few words can make all the difference ... like these few, fresh in from CNN:

"All passengers and crew survived but some have been taken to hospital with injuries, officials said."

Yup ... all 297 passengers and 12 crew got out.  14 people suffered minor injuries.  On those days when everything goes wrong, it's awful nice when everything goes right.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

When I was young, my daddy taught me two things:

(1) Never fly in icing conditions,

and (2) stay the hell out of thunderstorms if at all possible.

I have to believe that this was due to violating rule (2), rather than it being an Airbus. (I've had and seen my share of troubles with Airbuses... including five hours in Charlotte waiting on a busted computer...)

OTOH, this means that they're doing *something* right in there... that's a combination of good pilotage after the kerfuffle, flight attendant training, and good materials in the cockpit (structural and fire-resistant).

And once again proof that the back of the aircraft is safest. It's the one least likely to hit something.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I concur. But .... you've just flown 5,000 miles, you're way beyond bingo, you reach your destination, and there's ten-tenths cover, 30kt crosswind, heavy precip, windshear, and 300' visibility. What are you gonna do ... turn around? There may not have been an alternate airport that was any better weather-wise within their safe diversion radius.

Sometimes, you've just gotta bite the bullet and put it down in spite of the crud, 'cause you have no place else to go. (Still, you'd have thought they'd have gotten a weather warning while there was still time to divert to, say, Buffalo or Ottawa... but maybe when there was still time to divert, it wasn't that bad yet.)

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

What you're going to do is go to the alternate you were legally (at least under the FAR's; dunno about Canada but common sense would dictate the same) required to file before you ever left... and under US rules you're required to have enough fuel to fly to the destination, shoot at least one approach, fly to the alternate, land, and have 45 minutes left over. I won't go with less than an hour. (And that's Part 91, civillian, rules; I don't know what the airlines go by, but it's got to be more if anything.)

Individual thunderstorms aren't that hard to avoid, particularly with modern doppler radar and Stormscope tech. Somebody got a bad case of get-home-itis and it damn near got them killed. Yeah, I damn well would've used the fuel I was required to have and gone to Ottawa, and the first dispatcher who gainsays me will get a knuckle sandwich the first chance I get.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that should have been plenty to divert to Ottawa.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

jenkitty says that there are indications that the plane may have been hit by lightning. That would, IMHO, be ample justification for "get the plane on the ground right the hell now"... fire in the cockpit is a pilot's worst fear.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

I thought those big planes got hit by lightning all the time, though.

-Ogre

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

No, not really. There are little aluminum wicks on the trailing edges of the wings and tail sections to prevent specifically this. Pretty much if one gets hit it's that the plane just happened to intersect the stroke in mid-flight, which given that it's travelling at cee-fractional speeds, is a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence (i.e. it does happen, but it's quite rare). Probably somewhat more rare than someone on the ground getting hit.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20031128.html

According to this site of indeterminate accuracy, planes get hit an average of once a year.

-Ogre

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Just from my gut feeling, having lived the first 18 years of my life steeped in small-craft aviation, I'd say that's about right, one plane a year. Google sez that about 1000 people a year in the US get hit by lightning.

See, now, isn't flying safe? :)

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Read closer. That site says every plane gets hit once a year.

Now, as I say, the site is of indeterminate accuracy, so, if you can cite some sources contradicting that, that'll be great. I'm not married to the "planes get struck by lightning frequently" idea, but it does mesh with what I've heard elsewhere.

-Ogre

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I can say from personal experience, that at least for small planes, they most definitely do not. My father has been flying for forty-one years and has never been hit, logging... oh, he's probably got 40,000 hours now. And I was also a road warrior for over two years, riding two birds a week most weeks... nope. One bird a year, period, I would believe. But I've got enough time myself both as a long-term student pilot and as a passenger that if the once-a-year-per-bird bit were true, I would've been hit, or at least know someone who has, by now. I do not, have not.

As I explained earlier, the physics are just too dicey for it to happen that often.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

When I heard about this on the radio, I flashed back on flying out of Toronto into the teeth of a nasty thunderstorm, back in '75. My heart was in my throat when I saw lightning sheet off the wing as we made our ascent. Fortunately, we made it (obviously, since I'm writing this). It's good that everyone got out of this one.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

first i've heard of it!