All Engines-out Landing Due to Fuel Exhaustion - Air Transat, 24 August2001

"David CL Francis" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 at 12:59:51 in message
, Mike
wrote:

Isn't it the A310 that also lost a tail and crashed in New York City a
month or 2 after 9/11. IIRC, there is a particular airplane that the
manufacturer says "don't use the rudder too hard" because if you do,
the tail could break off. Imagine if you were test driving a car and
the salesperson said "don't turn too hard or the car will break in
half".

When this subject is discussed it seems to me some very important points
are often omitted, that is does the airframe meet the design cases?
Surely there are design requirements for aircraft which are researched
and defined by the aviation authority?

So did the airframe meet design requirements for gust loading, yaw
deflections and angles, control movements, negative and positive 'g'
etc? If it did not, then why not? Are the design requirements wrong or
did the airframe fail to meet them? Another factor is to what extent are
safeguards against excessively loads built in to airliners and to their
requirements?
--
David CL Francis

IRC the rudder went stop to stop several times in ~ 10 seconds. IMHO a
question which was not adequately addressed by the investigation was why the
rudder went stop to stop not once but several times. The rudder travel is
supposed to be limited at the speed the A/C was moving at the time the
rudder went stop to stop several times.
Ralph Nesbitt
Professional FD/CFR/ARFF Type
Posting From ADA

"David CL Francis" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 at 12:59:51 in message
, Mike
wrote:

Isn't it the A310 that also lost a tail and crashed in New York City a
month or 2 after 9/11. IIRC, there is a particular airplane that the
manufacturer says "don't use the rudder too hard" because if you do,
the tail could break off. Imagine if you were test driving a car and
the salesperson said "don't turn too hard or the car will break in
half".

When this subject is discussed it seems to me some very important points
are often omitted, that is does the airframe meet the design cases?
Surely there are design requirements for aircraft which are researched
and defined by the aviation authority?

So did the airframe meet design requirements for gust loading, yaw
deflections and angles, control movements, negative and positive 'g'
etc? If it did not, then why not? Are the design requirements wrong or
did the airframe fail to meet them? Another factor is to what extent are
safeguards against excessively loads built in to airliners and to their
requirements?

The certification standards only address the stresses from one full rudder
deflection event, because the designers couldn't imagine a pilot doing more
than one full deflection. The 587 rudder went over about 5 times, IIRC, and
the entire tailfin broke off.

The Air Transat rudder loss probably didn't result from any pilot inputs and
only involved the rudder, as far as I know, so that's a different case.

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 14:56:12 -0000, "Keith W"
wrote:


"Dave Butler" wrote in message
news:1110897377.464227@sj-nntpcache-5...
Mike wrote:

Isn't it the A310 that also lost a tail and crashed in New York City a
month or 2 after 9/11. IIRC, there is a particular airplane that the
manufacturer says "don't use the rudder too hard" because if you do,
the tail could break off. Imagine if you were test driving a car and
the salesperson said "don't turn too hard or the car will break in
half".

Doesn't your airplane have any structural limitations? Just offhand, I can
think of max gear extension speed and never exceed speed as a couple of
limitations on mine. Unless you have a full authority fly-by-wire computer
limiting what you can do, you can break an airplane if you maneuver it
outside its design limitations.

It was an airbus A-300 that crashed and since that isnt a
FBW aircraft the pilot had full control authority. The NTSB
report cited pilot error in applying excessive rudder for
the aircraft speed

Oh and many cars will respond very badly to excessive
steering inputs. SUV rollovers are a major source
of fatal accidents, thats why they put warning stickers
in rental company SUV's

Keith

There is a bit of a difference between the SUV and airplane exapmles.
For the SUV, the steering inputs result in a loss of control which
results in a crash. For the airplane example, it is the control
inputs that cause the damage, and the crash is a result of the
damage.

David,

So did the airframe meet design requirements for gust loading, yaw
deflections and angles, control movements, negative and positive 'g'
etc?


Yes.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Hmm, why...
A great glide ratio - OK. But.
They have just one attempt only. If failed...
The precise calculation, correction maneuvers - I know.
But if mistaken there is no go around.
Considering terrain outside the strip...
Still impressed.

BTW, was that plane written off?
Roman
P.S. Actually, I am the glider sport pilot so I know quite well what it
is about to land without engines :-)
IMHO a jet plane with 300+ passengers aboard hardly be compared to a glider.

Robert M. Gary wrote:
I"m not sure why its such a surprise. The A330 has a great glide ratio.
The pilots had lots of good tools (speed brakes etc) to place their
landing. As I recall, they almost ended up being too high.

-Robert, CFI (Certified Flight Instructor)

John Mazor wrote:
The Air Transat rudder loss probably didn't result from any pilot inputs and
only involved the rudder, as far as I know, so that's a different case.


Maybe the co-pilot made a really go joke and the captain laughed so hard
that he accidentally extended one leg to the max, deflecting the rufdder
to the maximum while at cruise speed, causing rudder to break off ?

Would the FDR have data to gauge any sideways acceleration (however
momentary it might have been) indicating the the rudder did move in one
direction before breaking off ?

Could a fault in the hydrolics cause the rudder to deflect to max
position on one side at high speed ? If this were to happen, and the
pilot didn'T have his feet on the rudder pedals, if it fair to state the
the pilot woudln't have any feedback that this happened ?

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 12:48:54 -0500, nobody wrote:



Could a fault in the hydrolics cause the rudder to deflect to max
position on one side at high speed ? If this were to happen, and the
pilot didn'T have his feet on the rudder pedals, if it fair to state the
the pilot woudln't have any feedback that this happened ?

There was a good (non-sensational) TV documentary about this incident.
It claimed that the a/c hit turbulence from a previous departure and
did, indeed, try to control the situation by several consecutive
opposite full rudder deflections. The controversy was that at the time
this was fine according to the operator, who tried to blame Airbus
because of what happened.

As part of the investigation someone did the sums to see what forces
would be present in such circumstances and, guess what, it turned out
that it would break not only a modern composite rudder but also a
conventional metal one.

"Bonzo" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 12:48:54 -0500, nobody wrote:



Could a fault in the hydrolics cause the rudder to deflect to max
position on one side at high speed ? If this were to happen, and the
pilot didn'T have his feet on the rudder pedals, if it fair to state the
the pilot woudln't have any feedback that this happened ?

There was a good (non-sensational) TV documentary about this incident.
It claimed that the a/c hit turbulence from a previous departure and
did, indeed, try to control the situation by several consecutive
opposite full rudder deflections. The controversy was that at the time
this was fine according to the operator, who tried to blame Airbus
because of what happened.

As part of the investigation someone did the sums to see what forces
would be present in such circumstances and, guess what, it turned out
that it would break not only a modern composite rudder but also a
conventional metal one.

Questions/Food for thought. With the autopilot engaged the autopilot would
attempt to correct changes in heading resulting from turbulence encounters.
The pilot would have nothing to do with this.

When rudder movements are recorded on the FDR is source of movement
recorded, i.e. whether movement was due input from pilot or autopilot?

Does manual use of the rudder disengage the auto pilot?

Does the rudder limiter react differently to inputs from pilot & autopilot?
If so is there any difference at differing speeds?
Ralph Nesbitt
Professional FD/CFR/ARFF Type
Posting From ADA

Roman Svihorik wrote:
Hmm, why...
A great glide ratio - OK. But.
They have just one attempt only. If failed...
The precise calculation, correction maneuvers - I know.
But if mistaken there is no go around.
Considering terrain outside the strip...
Still impressed.

BTW, was that plane written off?
Roman
P.S. Actually, I am the glider sport pilot so I know quite well what it
is about to land without engines :-)
IMHO a jet plane with 300+ passengers aboard hardly be compared to a
glider.

Robert M. Gary wrote:

I"m not sure why its such a surprise. The A330 has a great glide ratio.
The pilots had lots of good tools (speed brakes etc) to place their
landing. As I recall, they almost ended up being too high.

-Robert, CFI (Certified Flight Instructor)

M.Robert How is your loosing critical engin training ;-) hmmm on the
old twin we have to pumpout the landing or used the emergency gas extent
procedure only one shout, pump out the flaps by hands etc.

What I really mean is no engin give you little functionnality, of
course there is the little wind turbine for electricity to cockpit
instrument and command hydrolic, but if I remember, not speed brake,
no flaps (this will increase your landing speed alot ...), landing gear
out bu no retract ...
I dont think it was so easy ...

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 at 15:26:41 in message
1111004784.a9019d27a110ae4ad1846a4d754f6247@teran ews, nobody
wrote:
Obviously, the pilots would have received instruction on engine-out
operations, and the Transat pilots knew the high speed range for landing
gear, knew the low speed limiot for the RAT, knoew what systems worked
what didn't, knew that brakes would have a limited number of
applications, which is why after the second landing, he applied the
brakes big time because he freared that he would no longer had a 3rd
change (and the investigators found the pilot acted properly, even if it
meant that the tires/wheels/runway would be damaged).

What do you mean by 'after the second landing'? My information is that
only one landing took place and the nose wheel collapsed during braking.
The green light had not come on for the nose leg after using the
emergency system to drop the wheels.

Ref: 'Emergency: Crisis on the Flight Deck' by Stanley Stewart
--
David CL Francis