4 ms·
Something to note, is that most commercial aircraft can glide for anything from 20 to 30 minutes from cruising altitude before they reach sea level. I recall r
by cyberferret 9y ago
Something to note, is that most commercial aircraft can glide for anything from 20 to 30 minutes from cruising altitude before they reach sea level. I recall reading many news reports of this particular 747 'plunging' to the earth when all engines failed, but that is not the case.
As noted in the article -
> Eventually, after quarter of an hour without any power, the engines were brought back to life.
In fact, every time your pilot/flight attendant announces that you are on descent to your destination airport, the pilots will have pulled the throttle back to flight idle, and your aircraft is essentially gliding down towards the airport. Engines are pretty much not spooled back up until you are on finals, and the undercarriage/flaps etc. are causing a lot of drag necessitating engine power again to maintain approach speed.
- zaius 9y agoAn idle 747 has a glide ratio of around 15:1, meaning they can cover ~150km from 35,000ft. My favourite example of this is the Gimli Glider - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
- m_mueller 9y agoGimli is also my goto example on why metric should be taught and used in daily life since an educated individual with metric background would likely have caught that calculation error (>1kg/l means a substance with higher density than water).
- Judgmentality 9y agoThank you for sharing this amazing story!
- tajen 9y agoThe series Air Crash Investigation has an awesome episode on the Gimli Glider. A screencam is available on Youtube.
- matte_black 9y agoCould they have landed while gliding or would they have almost certainly been killed if the engines did not turn back on?
- mcguire 9y agoYes. You'd want a longer runway (no thrust reversers and less fine control for where you are landing), but then see US Airways 1549 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549?wprov=sfla1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549?wprov...).
- slavak 9y agoEngine-off (so-called "dead stick") landings are absolutely possible even in a commercial aircraft, and are something you practise pretty much from day 1 of flight training: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadstick_landing#Deadstick_landings_of_passenger_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadstick_landing#Deadstick_la...