Heathrow air crash

[Sheddy]

Is there any truth in the rumour that Boeing used Lucas electrics on their 777 aircraft?

[Disco Matt]

 :lol:

Seriously, I don't think Boeing will be very happy. There is now a question mark hanging over the fly by wire systems on the 777 (initial reports suggest that despite the autopilot and then the pilot asking for more power the aircraft failed to respond).

Anyone else notice shades of the Mull of Kintyre Chinook crash? There is a strong suspicion that the engines on that wouldn't respond either...

[skip]

Even though I'm no advovate of complex electronics in vehicles of any kind. Modern commercial aircraft control systems are, in the case of mechanical parts fail safe, or electronic systems that have multiple redundant duplicates of the same system.

For instance you only have one ECU for the engine on a car and should that fail your stuffed. however an aeroplane will have more than one for the job, If the primary one should fail another will instantly take up the workload, IIRC this can happen upto 4x on some aircraft.

The chances of a simple electronic failure being solely responsable are so small as to discounted. Every time an accident occurs there is a chain of events that lead upto it.

[Range Rover Blues]

Well I'm sure the investigation will be very thorough, whether we the public learn the truth I don't know :?

[waveydavey]

What bugs me is that as it's a Boeing they wait for the results, if it were an Airbus they would have grounded them all until they get the results.

[hobbit]

I believe they said it was a newish aircraft, perhaps not all the bugs are sorted yet

But yes should be interesting to hear the results, at least they have a complete (but slightly re-shaped aircraft to work with)

[thermidorthelobster]

The 777 is a 1995 aircraft IIRC, so you'd have hoped they would have ironed out any little bugs like both engines failing by now.

I'm surprised commentators are saying "it's a perfectly safe aircraft" - well, one's just crashed, apparently not through pilot error, from losing power to both engines, and they don't know why!  So clearly it's NOT perfectly safe.  I'd still fly in one, but you can't logically reason that the aircraft can still be said to be as safe as you could have said a week ago.

Airbus must be rather happy about the whole thing.  After Airbus's problems with the A380, first Boeing delay the Dreamliner (for a number of reasons including an issue where theoretically passengers could "hack" into the airliner's flight control systems), and now this.  Airbus's fortunes must be looking up.

[Range Rover Blues]

Time to buy shares :-.

[beast5680]

i like the way the pilot rang his wife just after the crash and told her he would be "a little late due to an incident" then she turns on the telly and see,s the crashed aircraft :shock:

[Tommo]

What a guy though landing it with no engine control etc etc. lucky pilot to get to show he can cut the mustard in a crisis and live to tell the tale.

[BigSi]

Time to buy shares :-.

Or sell them!!!!  :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Krull]

Google for the gimli glider if you want to see what a real pilot can do with a big plane and no engines. there is a wiki too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_glider

that pilot really did glide it in and the plane was reusable 2 days afterward :shock:

The pilots immediately searched their emergency checklist for the section on flying the aircraft with both engines inoperative, only to find that no such section existed

what an oversight  [-X

another link http://www.wadenelson.com/gimli.html

[Range Rover Blues]

When we left Uni my mate applied for the training course to become a BA pilot.  He failed the selection and from what we could gather it was because he was too clever, they don't like pilots who can think they like pilots who can follow procedures.  They then spend 2 weeks leaning to fly a plane and 102 weeks learing to fly a plane with bits falling off.

I've seen that Gimli Glider on telly and whilst impressive I think it pails into insignificance next to the guys who flew and almost landed a DC10 with no hydraulics and airframe damage that was pulling it to the right.  They had only throttle control of the 2 remaining engines with which to fly the aircraft but still managed to execute a 270 degree turn right (couldn't turn left) and get the aircraft onto the runway.  Only a last-minute freak gust of wind blew it into the trees causing a crash.

I think this is it  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232