Former Blink 182 Drummer Travis Barker in Critical Condition

[0098386]

Has anyone done an arm count?

 

[gregdrummeraz]

Drummer Barker 'to fully recover'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7628210.stm

Thanks. It has been ALL OVER THE MEDIA here.

Good to know he gets to keep all his "drum parts"

 

[MacNut]

Reports are that the crew thought they blew a tire during take off and tried to abort the take off.

 

[dmr727]

High speed aborts are always a tricky thing. Without a data recorder, it might be hard for the NTSB to figure out exactly how and when the abort was executed. We'll have to see what they come up with.

 

[pooryou]

I fully admit to being totally ignorant on the topic, but it seems ridiculous to me that a blowout would even be possible on such a (you would imagine) sophisticated piece of equipment. Is it that hard to build tires that can't blow out yet still fulfill the requirements? If they had taken off successfully wouldn't the landing have been even more likely to cause a blowout and probably killed everyone? Doesn't seem very safe if something like this can happen.

 

[gregdrummeraz]

I fully admit to being totally ignorant on the topic, but it seems ridiculous to me that a blowout would even be possible on such a (you would imagine) sophisticated piece of equipment. Is it that hard to build tires that can't blow out yet still fulfill the requirements? If they had taken off successfully wouldn't the landing have been even more likely to cause a blowout and probably killed everyone? Doesn't seem very safe if something like this can happen.

The ratio of private planes vs. jumbo jets having issues is bad. I don't like private planes because of they're unsafe and turbulence tends to be MUCH harder. Not to mention that pretty Apple worthy price tag. haha

 

[dmr727]

I fully admit to being totally ignorant on the topic, but it seems ridiculous to me that a blowout would even be possible on such a (you would imagine) sophisticated piece of equipment. Is it that hard to build tires that can't blow out yet still fulfill the requirements?

Understandable question. But tires are tires. Just like on a car, you can have a brand new tire blow out suddenly. Debris, a defect in the rubber - whatever. It happens. I will say that a blowout should *not* normally cause an accident - even on landing.

 

[dmr727]

The ratio of private planes vs. jumbo jets having issues is bad. I don't like private planes because of they're unsafe and turbulence tends to be MUCH harder. Not to mention that pretty Apple worthy price tag. haha

Private flying is indeed more dangerous that flying on an airline. But digging through the statistics will give you a better picture of the reality. When you talk about private aircraft, you need to remember that you're talking about everything from a $60M Gulfstream flying for Motorola to a small bush plane flying up in Alaska.

In other words, there are far too many variables to make such a blanket statement. Well, except for the Apple comment. You're right there.

 

[pooryou]

Understandable question. But tires are tires. Just like on a car, you can have a brand new tire blow out suddenly. Debris, a defect in the rubber - whatever. It happens. I will say that a blowout should *not* normally cause an accident - even on landing.

Tires are tires? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Are you saying there is only one possible way to make a tire and that has
always been exactly the same and will never be improved in the future?

If not, then presumably they could be made so that they are impossible to blow out, which seems kind of important if it can cause such a disaster.

But if the tire blowing out shouldn't cause an accident, then what really happened here?

 

[MacNut]

Did they conclude that it was a tire blow out or that the pilots thought it was.

 

[dmr727]

Are you saying there is only one possible way to make a tire and that has
always been exactly the same and will never be improved in the future?

No, not at all. And please understand that I'm no tire expert - I'm just the monkey up in the pointy end of the airplane doing his thing, hoping that the tires do their thing.

But I will say that tires on an aircraft aren't a whole lot more reliable than anything you'll find on a car. They might be rated to go faster (the tires on my aircraft are good for over 200mph), but we usually have to replace the mains every year or so, and the nose tires just a little less often than that. And like a car, we decide to replace tires when the tread starts to look a little thin.

My guess is that building an aircraft tire is just like doing so for a car. Could you make a tire that'll never go flat? Well sure - make it solid rubber. But then your ride will suck. So they find some balance between making a reliable tire and one that'll give the rich people in the back a good ride while on the ground.

But if the tire blowing out shouldn't cause an accident, then what really happened here?

Tires blow out on both airliners and private aircraft more frequently than anyone realizes. American had a blowout on takeoff out of Santa Ana just a couple weeks ago, and they made a landing safely at LAX. Nobody knows about it because the media doesn't care unless people die. Point is - it happens. We're trained for it. It shouldn't cause an accident.

But it did in this case, and honestly, I don't know why. I have plenty of ideas, but I really don't want to speculate, and would prefer to just wait until the NTSB gives its conclusion. I knew Sarah. She was a commensurate professional, and I'd fly next to her any day of the week. But we're all humans, and we all make mistakes. I'll be honest - it looks like she might have made one here - but at the end of the day I owe it to her to shut the f*ck up until I get all the facts.

 

[FrankieTDouglas]

Travis, along with Chad sexton and Danny Carey, were definitely my biggest influences while growing up as a drummer. It totally sucks that this wreck happened but luckily not everyone was killed. One thing I have noticed in the aftermath though, and wonder if anyone else has thought this... if you check out people.com right now, 3 of the top 5 "celebrity headlines" are about Shanna Moakler, Travis' ex-wife. "Shanna trying to lift Travis' spirits," "Shanna rushes to Travis' side," and "Shanna not leaving Travis' side." We get the point. It almost seems like a 15 minutes ordeal.

 

[dmr727]

Did they conclude that it was a tire blow out or that the pilots thought it was.

I don't know any more that what's being stated in the media, but it sounds like it was indeed a tire failure. They found fragments on the runway. So the next question is - what prevented them from getting the aircraft stopped by the end of the runway?

 

[dmr727]

The national media doesn't tend to follow up when the NTSB releases actual findings about an aircraft accident, so I figured I'll necro this thread because some findings were released today about it:

http://www.ainonline.com/news/single-news-page/article/ntsb-highlights-inadequate-tire-maintenance/

“The probable cause of this accident,” according to the NTSB, “was the operator’s inadequate maintenance of the airplane’s tires, which resulted in multiple tire failures during takeoff roll due to severe underinflation, and the captain’s execution of a rejected takeoff after V1, which was inconsistent with her training and standard operating procedures.

“Contributing to the accident were (1) deficiencies in Learjet’s design of and the [FAA] certification of the Learjet Model 60’s thrust reverser system, which permitted the failure of critical systems in the wheel well area to result in uncommanded forward thrust that increased the severity of the accident; (2) the inadequacy of Learjet’s safety analysis and the FAA’s review of it, which failed to detect and correct the thrust reverser and wheel well design deficiencies after a 2001 uncommanded forward thrust accident; (3) inadequate industry training standards for flight crews in tire failure scenarios; and (4) the flight crew’s poor crew resource management.”

I hoped I was wrong about Sarah's decision to go after V1, but unfortunately I guess that's what happened. Lear's stupid squat switch logic confounds me too. A failed squat takes the plane out of ground mode? Seriously?

::sigh::

 

[SnailMailFTW]

Phew, when I saw the thread title I thought Travis Barker got in *another* plane crash.

Thanks for the follow-up.