JetBlue’s ‘4 Hours of Hell’(Kept Flying Because It Couldn't Dump Fuel:R Airbus Designers Depraved?

New York Post ^ | June 20, 2012 | Bill Sanderson

[lbryce]

A mechanical failure sent a JetBlue plane like this one careening wildly through the skies, sparking panic among the 155 people aboard the Las Vegas to New York flight, passengers told The Post yesterday.

“It was four hours of hell,” said Travis McGhie, who described how the plane kept lurching from side to side and going into steep turns when its hydraulic system failed Sunday.

“People were getting sick. Some people were throwing up. There were a lot of people getting nauseous,” said another passenger, Tom Mizer.

The crew did everything they could to prevent panic. One flight attendant walked down the aisle saying: “Look at me — I’m smiling. If I was scared, you would know it. If I’m not scared, you don’t need to be,” Mizer said.

There was no screaming, but “there were definitely people reacting out loud,” said McGhie.

Mizer and McGhie, both Brooklyn residents, realized something was wrong as soon as the full Airbus lifted off from the Vegas airport.

“You could hear a screeching — an obvious mechanical screeching,” said Mizer. “We were bouncing around a lot.”

One of the pilots declared an emergency and radioed Las Vegas controllers that they were dealing with “quite a few things, but the initial thing is . . . we’ve lost two hydraulic systems.”

The plane was loaded with five hours’ worth of fuel. Because the A320 is incapable of dumping excess fuel, the pilots circled the area south of the Vegas Strip until they’d burned enough to allow the crippled plane to land safely.

“People on board got a little freaked. People were upset. Nobody was crazy, but everyone was upset.

“It became a long, sort of very tense waiting game,” Mizer said.

[ace2u_in_MD]

{I}If the plane can’t dump fuel and has to remain in the sky anyway, why didn’t they just continue the flight and thereby minimize the inconvenience to the passengers?

Really: you’re going to be in the air all that time, might as well get where you’re going!{/I}

Really? You are advocating departing the proximity of an airport, with rescue and firefighting equipment after you have had a single or double systems failure?

Really?

[American Quilter]

I was on a DC-10 (United, I think) taking off from O’Hare about 20 years ago when a fan blade in the left engine broke, punched its way through the engine cowling, and ricocheted off the nearest passenger window. The pilot shut down the engine, reassured us that the DC-10 could fly safely on the remaining two engines, and proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes dumping enough fuel into the Great Lakes to enable us to land back at O’Hare safely. Any concerns I might have had about the environment evaporated immediately; all I cared about was getting back on the ground safely.

It was this incident that started my fear of flying, and I quit entirely two years ago. I’m not into near-death experiences.

[ltc8k6]

No, it says one failed, and one overheated, but kept working, and the crew got the overheating system going properly again.

If they had not gotten the yellow system going again, they would have had to land immediately and overweight.

The bouncing around was from the crew having trouble with control. You can’t continue to fly with control troubles, you have to land.

[JRandomFreeper]

"The only time you have too much fuel is when you are on fire" and "It it ain't Boeing, I ain't going."

/johnny

[Hodar]

So, under circumstances where people's lives are very much at stake, I couldn't fathom why where the dumping of fuel can make the difference between life and death for countless of passengers, the hydraulics having failed, why is the Airbus A320 forced to fly hours on end to burn as much fuel as possible instead of being able to dump fuel to land as quickly safely as possible?

In short, "The aircraft's rated "Take-Off" weight is far greater than the "Landing Weight"." It would not be a good thing to have the Landing Gear collapse if the aircraft landed with full fuel tanks. This is why most jets have fuel pumps to dump excess fuel into the atmosphere.

The Landing Gear have to deal with a tremendous amount of force - they are not designed to take the weight of the aircraft at landing with full fuel tanks. However, they are well within design parameters for taxi and take-off with full tanks.

[DuncanWaring]

Jettisoning fuel with the afterburners lit in an F-111:

[ltc8k6]

I hope none of you fly on 737’s or 757’s or most early 767’s, because they can’t dump fuel either...

[ltc8k6]

“Landing overweight and fuel jettisoning are both considered safe procedures: There are no accidents on record attributed to either cause. In the preamble to Amendment 25-18 to FAR Part 25, relative to fuel jettison, the FAA stated, “There has been no adverse service experience with airplanes certificated under Part 25 involved in overweight landings.” Furthermore, service experience indicates that damage due to overweight landing is extremely rare.”

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_3_07/article_03_2.html

[bill1952]

Why? To remain in sight and glide distance of an airport that supports emergency services.

[ltc8k6]

Overweight landings are safe because of the conservatism required in the design of transport category airplanes by FAR Part 25.

FAR criteria require that landing gear design be based on:

A sink rate of 10 feet per second at the maximum design landing weight; and
A sink rate of 6 feet per second at the maximum design takeoff weight.

[null and void]

If my thinking is correct, you've got to wonder as to the sort of depraved designers, engineers who work at Airbus.

Normally I would leap in and defend the engineers here and blame government bureaucrats for the bad "engineering" decision.

But I have owned two french cars, and based on some of the squirrelly designs inflicted on the end user and any mechanic so unfortunate as to run across one, I'm blaming the french engineers.

[Moose4]

Boeing 737s can’t dump fuel either. The smallest jetliner that I can remember reading about with fuel-dump capability was the Boeing 727. Mostly only larger widebody jets are built with fuel-dump capability. I believe the larger Airbii, the A330, A340, and A380, can dump fuel (as well as the older A300 and A310, which were widebodies).

Blaming this on some sort of evil enviro-Nazi conspiracy is almost certainly FUD. Since these aircraft don’t make long-distance flights, and have max landing weights close to their max takeoff weights, they can stay close to an airport with emergency services and burn off enough fuel to get under max landing weight.

}:-)4

[BubbaJunebug]

Fact is most of the Boeing aircraft flying cannot dump fuel

from the Boeung web site

707 - yes
717 - no
720 - yes
727 - yes
737 - no
BBJ - no
747 - yes
757 - no
767-200/300 - ** later models only
767-400 - yes
777 - yes
787 - yes
DC-8 - yes
DC-10 - yes
MD-11 - yes
MD-80 - no
MD-90 - no

** Early models did not have fuel jettison capability, although airlines could install capability. Later models had jettison capability.

[MIchaelTArchangel]

If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going.

[Hulka]

Indeed, but usually the requirement to dump fuel is for jets that are “heavy” and therefore unable to safely stop on a runway without getting “hot brakes.” Lower weight means lower approach and landing speed.

Also, weight affects the landing gear—is it stressed to take a fully-fueled landing? Boeing jets that can't dump fuel are stressed to take a fully fueled landing.

Departing from Orlando a few years back, steady climb-out, BANG, number 1 engine just ate itself. We did a sweeping turn and landed. . .easily, no dumping of fuel.

Don't know the technical aspects of Airbus, don't know if they have the ability to dump or not, but in any case, sounds like a tremendous lack of judgment on the part of the aircrew—the status of being fully fueled or not should not drive the decision to land/not land.

What concerns me is the decision to continue flying with failing hydraulics. . .hydraulics that affect flight controls.

I am stunned they would choose to continue to fly under those conditions.

Say the remaining hydraulic systems fail and now you have no choice but to “land,” but now you don't get to pick WHERE you will land.

Failing hydraulics mean land as soon a practical.

[Hulka]

I’ve dumped fuel a few times. . .once over downtown St Louis. Dumped fuel when over 5,000’.

When fuel hits the airstream, POOF, it becomes a mist and quickly dissipates.

No fuel reaches the ground. . .not in a form that those on the ground can smell or experience.

[commish]

Jettisoning fuel with the afterburners lit in an F-111:

I had the pleasure of seeing a nighttime "Zippo" from the boom pod of a KC-135 :-)

[jiggyboy]

Garth: Oh, Wayne, I’m so excited, I.. I think I’m gonna hurl!

Wayne: Hey! Garth, get it together, man. ‘Cause if you hurl, and I catch a whiff of it, man.. I’m gonna spew. And if I blow chunks, chances are someone else is gonna honk, alright? And that’s gonna set off a parastolic reaction, alright?

[Izzy Dunne]

you've got to wonder as to the sort of depraved designers, engineers who work at Airbus.

I don't see why you would blame the engineers, unless you somehow believe that engineers are immune from government interference.

In this particular case, I don't really know one way or the other, but if I was to bet, I'd bet that the engineers said "don't do it this way" and the bureaucrats said "do it this way", and the engineers lost the arm-wrestling.