Anyone see air crash investigation on the telly last night?

Running out of fuel mid Atlantic is not good

Gliding an A330 Airbus from 32,000 feet for 20 minutes without any fuel and minimal electric power is not good either

Trying to land said fuel- less A330 on a small island with a tiny runway which has a cliff face at the end is enough to ruin your day

Those people must surely be the luckiest people around

didnt see it but i was told about it ....dam thats some scary lucky is an understatement

What airline ?

I've booked to fly to New York by american airlines on 11/9 this year

[quote name='ProLex-UK' date='Jul 8 2004, 10:34 AM']What airline ?

I've booked to fly to New York by american airlines on 11/9 this year [/quote]
I presume the tickets were free Dave

I hadn't heard about this one, but that's the second airbus run by a Canadian airline that's had that problem....
With the first one they said that only 1 in 20 pilots were capable of landing it!
Mind you it's now part of most pilot's training.

[quote name='tdiplc' date='Jul 8 2004, 11:57 AM'][quote name='ProLex-UK' date='Jul 8 2004, 10:34 AM'] What airline ?

  I've booked to fly to New York by american airlines on 11/9 this year  [/quote]
I presume the tickets were free Dave [/quote]
I wish...........

orig travel date was 10/9 but full so said 11/9 was ok (didnt realise significance at the time)

finalised booking before was told it was AA then the next day it twigged

plane will be empty methinx............

I didn't see the programme, but heard about it this morning.

This would have been known about before the aircraft landed by the airline (air Transat) and probably Airbus and the Canadian authority.

All three will have immediately taken steps to ensure that this cannot happen again. Especially if it was the second Canadian airline with this fault.

I work in Technical Support for 'Britain's Best Holiday Airline' and if it had happened to us, the $hit would have hit the fan and we would have put so many procedures into place you wouldn't believe it!

It can happen, but as soon as it does something will be done about it to stop it happening again!

Enjoy your flight Dave!

[quote name='stevebish' date='Jul 8 2004, 12:52 PM']Enjoy your flight Dave! [/quote]
Cheers !

[quote name='stevebish' date='Jul 8 2004, 12:52 PM']It can happen, but as soon as it does something will be done about it to stop it happening again!

Enjoy your flight Dave! [/quote]
very reassuring hey Dave

Saw the prog and yes it was damned scary - very well put together prog too I must say - esp. the analysis at the end - pilot went from hero to almost zero after they revealled they pumped the remaining fuel across to the leaky tank ...

stuff like this can and does happen but luckily if is few and far between, they were lucky as they still had control over the AC, and that they were within range of a suitable landing area, if it would have been a water landing, then forget it ur dead!

Like Steve, i am Technical Manager/Licensed Engineer for an airline at Stansted and believe me that pilot was a hero. This was an extreme condition which he understood to be a possible computer error, so many times pilots do not always believe what they see initially but their training tells them to analyise the situation before corrective action.

There are a hell of a lot more incidents which the public are not aware of, not as bad as this one, which are notified immediately to all the industry so they can put their own action plan together to prevent another occurence. With such a large database to use, over many years, this has helped the safety records for aviation to be one of the best forms of transport we know.

Example: within 24 hours ALL Airbus operators were aware of this incident.

With my knowledge i still fly regulary, so do not panic and treat the experience of flying as part of your holiday and enjoy it !

Have a good trip Dave !

The programme last night was scary too

The cargo door falling off at 30,000 feet and taking a lot of the fusilage and a few passengers with it is enough to ruin your day.

Scary that Boeing knew about the problem but took the commercial view that it is cheaper to pay out compensation to victims relatives than to take immediate corrective action. Also scary that the NTB (if that's what they are called) resisted attempts to prove that it was a component fault.

Hats off to the crew that landed the plane

I should say that the alternative view from Boeing or the NTB was not aired, so the programme may not be entirely fair.