Hahaha, can't believe anyone else hasn't picked up on this, brilliant observation there.
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Airliner crash lands at Heathrow
- Thread starter iGav
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Hahaha, can't believe anyone else hasn't picked up on this, brilliant observation there.
co-pilot was flying at the time, one news report over here reported that it lost power at 500ft, some bloody quick reactions from the co-pilot.
The Captain only said that because he knows it was pilot error... otherwise he'd have taken the glory.
I loved this quote on the BBC website...
Just think, if he's been ugly, everyone would have died!
Just think, if he's been ugly, everyone would have died!
The Captain only said that because he knows it was pilot error... otherwise he'd have taken the glory.
AAIB saying it was engines failed to respond 2 miles from landing.
Initial indications from the interviews and Flight Recorder analyses show the flight and approach to have progressed normally until the aircraft was established on late finals for Runway 27L. At approximately 600 ft and 2 miles from touch down, the Autothrottle demanded an increase in thrust from the two engines but the engines did not respond. Following further demands for increased thrust from the Autothrottle, and subsequently the flight crew moving the throttle levers, the engines similarly failed to respond. The aircraft speed reduced and the aircraft descended onto the grass short of the paved runway surface.
AAIB initial report
Everyone knows beautiful people are better at most things. And they mostly use Macs.Just think, if he's been ugly, everyone would have died!
...and is still flying in the guise of the Nimrod maritime reconnaissance aircraft.
Not entirely true. there was an Air TransAt (I think that was the airline) that was en route from the US to Portugal (I think) that developed a fuel leak due to a poorly maintained part. The part chaffed a hole in the fuel line. The plane was completely without power for the last 30-60 min or so of the flight and basically did a glide in landing on an airstrip in the Canary Islands (maybe Azores, my geography escapes me now).
It was a very similar "crash". The plane plowed up the runway, landing gear collapsed etc. IIRC, no one was killed.
Although the accident did not take place at altitude in this case, the circumstances leading to the accident did.
I wouldn't be surprised if more people die in car accidents in one day than die in plane crashes in one year. There's really nothing to fear.
I think there are more car-related deaths because you can't really compare the number of cars on the road to the number of planes in the sky. I don't believe that the chances of dying on a single airplane flight are significantly less than dying in a single car-ride (assuming the car-ride isn't just 2 minutes). I think the chances are the same, but you just happen to ride in cars a lot more often, and so then the chance of death (ie: not the chance of dying from a single ride) becomes higher when riding in a car.
Imagine if in a single day, exactly 5 million cars were on the road in the UK.
Now, if you wait many years, then by the time 5 million airplanes have taken off into the skies, I wonder how many deadly airplane accidents would happen? For now, I'm not counting the number of passengers in the cars during the crashes, or the number of passengers involved in the car crashes. I'm just counting the number of lethal crashes.
If 5 million cars having driven on the road in a single day, I wonder how many life-ending car crashes there were? Just by Googling, I see that there are an average of approximately 10 road-deaths per day, so that gives an approximation. How many car accidents is this? Probably 6-8 individual accidents, where some cars had 1 occupant (the driver), and some had 2 or 3 occupants.
And out of 5 million airplane flights (over the span of many years), I wonder how many life-ending flights there would be? I'm guess a few. How many people are on a single flight? A large number. There would probably be a lot more deaths after 5 million flights, as even one plane crash would mean more than 10 deaths.
However, if you're talking about the chances of dying during a single flight vs. dying in a single car ride, do you only concern yourself with the chances of an airplane crashing, and ignore the number of passengers, or do you also consider the number of people in each vehicle as well? I'm not sure if the number of people on a flight matters, since plane crashes are usually caused by malfunction, which would occur whether there were 15 people, or 150 people, on the flight.
So no, I don't think flights are a whole lot safer than cars. I believe the chance of dying in a single car ride isn't much better than the chance of dying in a single flight.
Typical British stiff upper lip, a bumpy landing
Also love the fact the Captain and 1st Officer went for curry on Thursday night. Nothing should ever get in the way of a good curry.
actually statistically the safest is the _elevator_ .... yes only vertically but still
i remember seeing a report about that on TV where one the huge amount of installed ones by just 1 elevator company amounts to more than 4 million people who are currently standing in an elevator .. and that is just one company ...
The Nimrod is an absolutely hideous thing, sorry to say. The Comet is still the best looking airliner built IMO.
Hopefully the last airworthy Comet (Canopus) will fly again this year -- which happens to be the 50th anniversary of transatlantic jet service. She hasn't flown since '98. It would be wonderful to see her fly again.
Air Transat Flight 236 from Toronto to Portugal with an unscheduled stop in the Azores. There was a fuel leak caused by the wrong bracket being used to hold a fuel line, this caused vibration, causing fatigue and the pipe ruptured with the resulting fuel leak. The pilots compounded this by pumping fuel from the good tank into the leaking tank. The plane glided for 20 minutes but made a safe landing with only burst tires due to excessive speed (planed stayed on the runway.) This is claimed to be the worlds longest glide (these have been other similar incidents) but I would say the worlds biggest glider must be the space shuttle! Compare it's 22 degrees glideslope to the standard Heathrow 3 degrees approach!
Anyway, this one isn't down to lack of fuel. I initially suspected the pilots too as it sounded exactly like the Airbus air show crash (computer in the wrong mode, didn't respond to throttles) but after reading that the autothrottle didn't respond... I don't know. Sounds like a comms failure between fly by wire and the engines.
I don't think the comparison with Kegworth is fair, the topography is different. At Kegworth the 737 hit the motorway embankment, here if the aircraft fell short it would have hit the flat A30, before that fields, then warehouses so it would have still had a relatively flat landing (I used to have a flat on Bedfont Lane, about 800 yards away from the crash site.)
BTW, he couldn't park it any closer to the BA Engineering sheds!
Well statistically, it is. What they do is list the number of fatalities per some unit of time. For example, they'll say the airlines have .xx number of fatalities for every 100,000 hours flown. Then they can compare this to the same statistic for other forms of transportation. This way it accounts for what you're talking about - more cars vs. airplanes, more people in the airplanes, etc...
So it *is* statistically safer than driving regardless of how you cut it, but as others have mentioned, there are other facors involved that might make people nervous regardless. Just like with driving, in most cases the safety of flying is more dependent on the pilots themselves than any other factor. In the case of driving, you as a driver have a lot of control over that safety. When you're in the back of an airliner, you're putting that trust up front. It's trust well given, but since we're all control freaks on some level, it's still an issue.
I generally don't like speculating because the media is notoriously poor at getting facts correct when dealing with crashes. However assuming the 777 was indeeed at 500 feet or around 2 miles from the runway when they lost power, they wouldn't have made the runway even if they were on the correct glide path.
no I think a car crash would be much more painful... I doubt its usually bam your dead. You probably get impaled first and then there is a short period of immense pain before death. In a plane, as soon as the cabin loses pressure I believe you die instantly. Much better way to go... IMO
Guys, it's not all or nothing here. The masks are usually only effective to 25,000 feet of cabin altitude, so maybe that's where the comments are coming from. If an airliner ever has an emergency such that the limitations of the masks are an issue, there are much bigger issues to worry about than simply passing out.
It's like saying seat belts have no point because they won't save the occupants if the car drives off a cliff.