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16

General Discussion Area / Re: Alaskan Door escape

« on: 07 January 2024, 18:44:00 »

It's an additional emergency exit that can be fitted to what is called 'high density' layouts - basically where the whole cabin is packed with as many seats will fit in the sardine can. Alaska Airlines don't do that - they have first class and buisness class, so the max number pf PAX on their B737-9's is only 170 odd. For that number of seats (up to 200 IIRC) the rules only require 8 emergency exits - which on a 737 are two front, two rear and 4 over-wing.

In their wisdom Boeing have fitted all Max-9s with provision for 10 exits - the additional ones are in the middle of the rear cabin each side - and if fitted and useable the aircraft can legally carry (IIRC) 239 PAX. However, in low density seating, this extra exit is sealed and blanked off, with all the hinges, handles and emergency slide stuff removed to save weight. Inside the cabin the passengers can't tell that the 'porthole' window they're looking through is any different from any other window, and there is no way for them to use this extra exit in an emergency.

So the question becomes how/why does a supposedly sealed emergency exit 'blow out'. Duff Boeing Design, Duff Boeing Manufacturing or Duff Alaska Airlines servicing would appear to be the obvious candidates.   

17

General Discussion Area / Re: Capacitors

« on: 07 January 2024, 18:30:51 »

If you're not in a super hurry, PM me the RS or Farnell Part numbers and I can order them through our work account. If they're ordered tomorrow (Monday) they should arrive Tuesday and you might get them by Wednesday/Thursday.

18

General Discussion Area / Re: Haneda incident.

« on: 05 January 2024, 20:13:55 »

Also, my mind keeps returning to an incident in the Middleish East involving a widebody aircraft that had an emergency landing due to a fumes event in an AC pack and they taxied off the runway and stopped. Everyone on board was asphyxiated but had they shutdown and evacuated as soon as they stopped everyone would have survived

Damned if I can remember the specifics though...

Point being, as soon as it becomes more dangerous to stay, you need to be out the door.

Saudia 163. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudia_Flight_163

19

General Discussion Area / Re: Water, Water, Everywhere.

« on: 05 January 2024, 20:11:11 »

The Somerset levels have been flooded since the end of November. The river and fields in/around Ilchester are as high as I've seen them for 20 years. Much of the airfield at RNAS Yeovilton is underwater. The A37 north of Yeovil has contraflow traffic lights due to flooding.

But you don't hear us complain. Because we're nowhere near a city and no-one gives a fvck till Surry gets a bit damp.

20

General Discussion Area / Re: Haneda incident.

« on: 05 January 2024, 17:12:20 »

I've read elsewhere that this is the 8th time a FADEC engine has failed to shut down (or respond to commands to shut down) during an incident. Basically the engine control electronics tries to keep the engine going in the last commanded state in the event of lost coms. In the QF1 Singapore A380 event, it took the fire brigade 3 hours to eventuallly 'drown' the engine in water/foam before it stopped.

There is now some doubt about the evacuation timings. There is onboard video of PAX in the rear cabin running forwards through empty front cabins as the fire brigade foam the wing/engine/fuselage areas. Initial reports were that the first fire appliance arrived about 6 minutes after the plane stopped. If that's correct it's far too long - The last survivor from the Manchester 737 was carried out (by a fireman) at about 5:37 from the alarm being raised. My understanding is/was that airport fire services are supposed to reach the scene of an on-airport incident in 3 minutes.

Also AIUI the CVR and ADR have not yet been found. Another problem with letting the aircraft burn to the ground. They are very very rugged devices, but may not survive 5-6 hours in an intense fire. Worrying.

21

General Discussion Area / Re: Haneda incident.

« on: 05 January 2024, 11:34:35 »

https://youtu.be/LNmeTHY1m5g?si=_n4e8DgD7-6U7HlO

Found the footage I was looking for. Attendant clearly holding the handset either waiting for an answer or actually using it. The pinkish light in the exit sign above her is illuminated suggesting a connection between that handset and another.

And that video also shows the L4 exit slide at time 2:50. Yes sliding down that is better than simply jumping out the door and hitting the ground 7m later, but I maintain you can't evacuate 25% of the pax down that slide in 90 seconds without causing significant injuries and possibly deaths. And as you rightly say the back of the plane is usually more packed with scum class pax so in a similar future evac L4/R4 will be the closest "usable" door for the majority of the PAX.

Yes given no other choice I'd use it, but that's not to say we shouldn't learn from this and at least think about how things might be made (even) safer.

22

General Discussion Area / Re: Haneda incident.

« on: 05 January 2024, 00:22:37 »

To your Man maths...

All gear down. D1 5.09m, D4 5.2m, inclination 0°.
Nose gear collapsed. D1 2.54m, D4 6.99m, inclination -4.74°
Main gear collapsed. D1 4.98m, D4 2.9m, inclination +2.37°.
All gear collapsed. D1 5.4m, D4 2.24m, inclination +3.55°

Figures for the -1000 of a particular configuration, and assumes a flat level surface... (a base line can't account for every what if).

Ok, so worst case D1 is 31.5 degrees. Worst case D4 is 48.4 Degrees. If they put a 10.25m slide (same as D1) on D4 then the angle comes down to 42 degrees - still too high IMHO but a lot better.

There must be some ICAO figures somewhere for slide lengths vs height - probably calculated from injury statistics for various angles/heights. If not, then what not have 80 degree slides to save weight on a rarely used item?

And in the video of the evacuation from outside, L4 appears to be perfectly useable as demonstrated by people using it and walking away

One of the videos I saw showed someone late in the evacuation - perhaps the captain? - basically dropping down the rear chute and landing on the tail end of it like an airbed. Try that with 100+ people in 90 seconds and you'll end up with people soup. Other reports (which may or may not be correct) were that the rear cabin crew were sending people to the front door slides because of the steepness of the drop. Will be interesting to see how many people used the rear slide versus the front two, and why. That info may be in the final report.

23

General Discussion Area / Re: Haneda incident.

« on: 04 January 2024, 22:58:02 »

Ok. Airbus figures.... https://www.airbus.com/sites/g/files/jlcbta136/files/2021-11/Airbus-Commercial-Aircraft-AC-A350-900-1000.pdf

So worst case - the dash1000 - front slide length 10.25m, rear slide length 9.35m  (2-8-0 Page 2) . Front sill height 5.05m, Rear sill height 5.29m. (2-3-0 Page 10) So angle of dangle when standing normally on all U/C is 30 degrees front and 34 degrees rear.

Nose wheel is 32.5m ahead of the MLG, 4.63m behind the nose and about 2.9m tall.(2-7-0 Page 13)
D4 is 59.53m behind the nose, and therefore 22.4m behind the MLG. (2-7-0 Page 5)

If the nose wheel 'fails' and the thing ends up nose down arse up, I think the trigonometry says the rear sill ends up roughly 2m higher - or about 7.29m up - assuming it's still on it's MLG. For a rear slide of 9.35m that's an angle of dangle of 51 degrees.

More difficult to calculate for a nose up arse down, but I'd be surprised if it's much better.

24

General Discussion Area / Re: Haneda incident.

« on: 04 January 2024, 22:29:20 »

Oh and if you want a meal choice, pre order it at least a week ahead.

Funny you should say that. LHR->VCE next weekend on BA. Can't see the caviar and salmon starter with Wagu beef main option in my scum class booking though.

I don't think even First get Wagu beef

You should now get a choice of sweet or savoury complimentary snack and a napkin. There's a choice of sandwiches/hot handheld snacks available to be pre-ordered. Pre ordering is better than waiting to see what's on board.

Which tastes better - the sweet/savoury snack or the napkin?

25

General Discussion Area / Re: Haneda incident.

« on: 04 January 2024, 21:07:52 »

Oh and if you want a meal choice, pre order it at least a week ahead.

Funny you should say that. LHR->VCE next weekend on BA. Can't see the caviar and salmon starter with Wagu beef main option in my scum class booking though.

26

General Discussion Area / Re: Haneda incident.

« on: 04 January 2024, 21:03:18 »

#2 - Yes if a plane ends up resting on it's engine nacelles rather than main undercarrage it's likely to tip backwards (particularly B737!). Similarly older planes (B707) had a habit of doing it on the ground, and KC-135's still have a ground prop inserted under the tail when parked.

But that's really not the point. With these very long fuselages if the plane ends up nose high or tail high then 1L/R or 4L/R ends up a very long way above ground. Yes it's still better to jump onto a slide inclined at 60 ish degrees (rather than a more normal 45 deg), but quite severe injuries are going to result. The PanAM case says 6 serious back injuries, and there are also a few injuries in this A350 case (although accepted it's unclear if they were from using the rear slide).

I would be disappointed if the regulators didn't at least look at extending the length of the 1L/R and 4L/R slides on this and similar long fuselage planes. IMV we got lucky with this crash If 90+ PAX (one quarter of them) had been forced to use the 4L slide in 90 seconds I reckon we'd be looking at a lot more injuries - some very serious.

27

General Discussion Area / Re: Haneda incident.

« on: 04 January 2024, 20:47:32 »

#1 - I understand and accept all your points. I can understand why the crew may want to keep the PAX inside the aircraft whilst external fires are dealt with by the fire crews - which may explain the initial 8 minutes before first doors open. However, 10 further minutes to clear the cabin via 3 of the 8 exits? IATA specs are 90 seconds through half the available exits. Obviously 3 is less than half, but still, 10 minutes?

AIUI there was a failure of the internal intercom so crews were communicating through megaphones. The front crew (1L/1R) were taking instructions from the cockpit. The rear crew (4L/4R) couldn't hear that, and were basically waiting for instructions.

Anyway, whether the evacuation decisions and delays were 'acceptable' will no doubt form a large part of the accident investigation report, and thankfully in this incident they don't appear to have had any adverse effects.

28

General Discussion Area / Re: Haneda incident.

« on: 04 January 2024, 18:38:25 »

To answer most of your questions are you familiar with CCOM as a concept?

Not an FLA that I'm familiar with, and google doesn't help. I assume it's summut to do with Command and Managment. Trouble is PAX that haven't read the emergency card certainly won't have any knowledge of CCOM.

29

General Discussion Area / Re: Haneda incident.

« on: 04 January 2024, 16:26:11 »

It's seemed fairly obvious to me from early on that the Dash8 entered the runway without clearance, and that ultimatley is the root cause. Not that there aren't other contributory factors of course.

However, what's done is done, and the important thing is what lessons can be learnt. Couple of things that strike me as being in your immediate area of expertise are....

1) Evacuation of the A350 didn't start till 8 minutes after the aircraft came to a halt. It then took 10 minutes to complete. Now I understand the reluctance to disgorge 360+ PAX from a 'safe' environment inside the aircraft to outside when there is fire on the ground and engines are still running - but once the fire brigade turn up and start hosing foam everywhere - I think 18 minutes to get everyone out starts to look a little suspect.

2) Nose wheel failure/collapse isn't *that* uncommon. It appears this renders the rear emergency slides basically unusable - the aircraft's ar5e is so high in the air the slides are hanging not far off vertical.

3) There needs to be a way for ground based fire and rescue to cut the fuel from a free running engine. This was a problem in QF1 at SIN, and it was a problem with the starboard engine here. Having an engine run on - even at idle power - whilst PAX are running about like headless chickens won't end well. It also reduces the number of useable emergency exits dramatically.

4) Allowing the airframe to burn out - hmm. In an emergency it is drummed into you that you leave all hand luggage behind. Yet we regularly see PAX (in the west anyway- though not in this case) ignoring this and walking away with their hand luggage. So you're held on the aircraft for 8 minutes - you've got valuables in your hand luggage - and you know they'll let the plane burn to the ground. Like it or not - PAX will modify their behaviour in light of this. I already keep passport, keys and wallet in my pockets on flights for this very reason.

30

General Discussion Area / Re: What has P*ssed you off today?

« on: 04 January 2024, 15:58:59 »

I'm well aware how ADSB works. I was making a comment on the quality of the Sky reporting that postulated the above, and I'd be very surprised if any aircraft, military, civil or other, was allowed to operate from an international commercial airport without some form of EC.

I wouldn't be surprised. Many of the Japanese airports are dual use Military/Civil (Ok - not Narita, Haneda, Nagoya). Chitose/Sapporo is one such airport (from where the A350 departed)

Fighter jets in particular rarely have Mode S, and even those that do usually have it turned off. Yes they do also have sophisticated military IFF and that usually is turned on, but that won't show up on a civil airports ground SSR.

However, in this instance the Dash 8 did have Mode S, and it was turned on and operational. Therefore it should have shown up on the airports ground SSR, although it would not show up on things like FR24. Which I accept is piss poor reporting by Sky and others.