Ugh!

[Plavt]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20080 ... 23e80.html

[Vortex]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20080 ... 23e80.html

Thank God all the passengers survived...
this reminds me of what happened to JAL Flt123, where the rudder of the aircraft got sheared off.apparently cabin pressure ruptured the rear bulkhead, due to improper repairs made earlier. That 747 became uncontrollable & crashed...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHOYrZPl ... re=related

For the Qantas pax, they were extremely lucky...could be worse....if the wing were to give way.....descending down 20000 ft is necessary as i reckon it must have been cruising at around 30 000ft before that...
can affect structural integrity due to pressure if they don't descend fast ( imagine highly pressurised cabin vs outside low atmospheric pressure - can possibly disintergrate)..n not to mention dangers of hypoxia at that height....

of course, besides luck on their side, the pax are lucky to have good pilots to land the plane safely......

[Plavt]

Vortex,
See my comment on the same subject in 'General Discussions', something to think about.

[Vortex]

Vortex,
Seem my comment on the same subject in 'General Discussions', something to think about.

"That is not the first time that has happened, some of the older posters may remember the same thing happened to a United Airlines plane. In that case the situation was worse since several passengers were ejected through the hole in the fuselage. In the words of James Barclay a one time air-crash investigator; "There are no new aviation disasters, only people with short memories!" - Plavt

Hi Plavt...
i do agree with ur comments...over time, it seems similar things happen under diff circumstances...let's just hope things will get tighter now ...
Ppl still need to travel and safety ought to be of paramount importance...
hopefully some 'ppl' will realise that.....& do something about it...
god bless us all....

[Plavt]

let's just hope things will get tighter now ...

One would hope so but that alas will not stop incident or accidents happening. Pilots, air-traffic controllers and cabin crew are human beings, human beings, even with the best will in the world still make mistakes. Remember the SIA plane that banged its' tail on take off leaving Australia, the co-pilot having entered the wrong data into the Flight Management Computer? The reason for the blunder is simple; the crew were hassled by late running, when people are hassled mistakes are more likely if not inevitable. We should remember people are living things and no amount of training or even love of a profession can prevent errors (pity my former employer doesn't understand that).

[Vortex]

let's just hope things will get tighter now ...

Err...actually i was referring to the maintenance checks/repairs and issues resulting from cost cutting measures...

Of course, i agree that it is inevitable to commit mistakes. but sadly, that can be disastrous....although time is money, i believe ensuring the safety of lives onboard is of ultimate importance....

again, those Qantas pilots were damn good...although its SOP but the ending could be diff if not done correctly......

[Plavt]

Err...actually i was referring to the maintenance checks/repairs and issues resulting from cost cutting measures...

What I described above also happens there;

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_95531625

This is from a fairly recent television documentary and is true (full documentary, let's hope nobody gets the hump about copyright);

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 4390367855

[Blade]

In fact the SOP:

Check valves to off
Dial 10000 in the Alt
And select FLCH

[sierra2469alpha]

In fact the SOP:

Check valves to off

Which valves do you mean? Isol valves, then correct, but there is another check on the Boeings here (multiplied if you're on a 4 engine vs. 2 engine) - and that's on the Cabin Alt and also the duct pressures

Dial 10000 in the Alt

I sincerely HOPE NOT! Your MEA may be higher than 10000 and well risk hitting something you don't want to - like a mountain.

And select FLCH

This controls only pitch and will maintain the airspeed selected in the IAS/MN window on the MCP. If you had not reset that to whatever your calculated cruise IAS/MN speed at TOC, then you're up the duff as you will seriously risk exceeding the local MN. Also, you haven't done anything to the A/T system, so first memorised action when committed to an ED is close the throttles manually.

Slightly better and standard SOP for my ex company is to keep the AFDS in roll mode until firmly established in the descent. The other issue with using a pitch-only mode in an emergency descent is the FMC's are notoriously crap at flying a VNAV profile in such situations, so the moment you crank out the speed brakes (at TOD) and (maybe) the gear, the FMC does have a tendency to play catch up and will chase IAS/MN, thereby pushing you again toward a local MN exceed on your way down.

There are obviously a few other steps after you've initiated the Emergency Descent, most of which are faily common-sense (and you will all be playing cozy CRM, won't you!).

HTH to clarify....P

[sierra2469alpha]

http://www.atsb.gov.au/newsroom/2008/re ... 08_28.aspx