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The obvious mystery is why you would keep flying for so long after an incident like this...

by decasia 8y ago

sleavey 8y ago
Maybe burning fuel to reduce the chance of explosion during the emergency landing? That's quite common.
- mattzito 8y ago
  Boeing planes can dump fuel, iirc.
  - btgeekboy 8y ago
    The 737 (subject of this article) cannot.
    - amelius 8y ago
      That's quite a design-flaw then.
      - mulmen 8y ago
        Care to provide your credentials to make such a claim? Especially around one of the most widely used and longest produced airliners in human history.
        davidw 8y ago
        https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a20630 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a20630
      - drharby 8y ago
        Sorry boeing engineers didnt have you at the table when they were choosing features to optimize for, you know, toggling through priorities and costs of features in terms of thrust, drag, weight, power, etc.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        The Airbus A320 can't either. It's not required as long as the landing system is designed to handle the fully-loaded weight.
        mrpippy 8y ago
        Correct. Even on the much bigger A330 wide body, fuel dump is only an option: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1351703 https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1351703
    - hinkley 8y ago
      Huh. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/9393/why-doesnt-the-737-have-a-fuel-dump-nozzle https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/9393/why-doesnt... The rules are based on the fact that landing is harder on the airframe than taking off, so as long as max takeoff weight is only a fraction higher than max landing weight you get a pass. And at any rate you get the greater of 10 minutes or 1% of max takeoff weight per minute to dump enough fuel to land safely. I wonder how long it takes a 737 to circle the runway before it's safe?
      - selectodude 8y ago
        20 percent of fuel is used from take off to cruise altitude. On a plane like a 777, that still leaves a very substantial amount of fuel onboard. However on a smaller plane like a 737, you don't have to circle for too long before you're below MLW.
- rconti 8y ago
  No, from the description, they clearly ignored reports that they "may have hit something", they said "nah, we good." It'll be interesting to see, when the passenger reports start coming in, whether it's plausible the pilots just didn't feel it.
- gumby 8y ago
  Usually they can dump it
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
fanzhang 8y ago
Maybe it didn't feel that bad in the cockpit, and the pilots were hoping they would wing it. They may have thought it would have endangered their jobs (which it certainly will...) Usually in times of partial emergencies, there is a threshold point where you full own the emergency and declare it.
burfog 8y ago
A good reason would be fuel weight on possibly damaged landing gear. Also, the airport wasn't good anymore. They had just destroyed the Instrument Landing System at the end of the runway. Nobody should land there.
- captain_perl 8y ago
  The ILS is not necessary for landing in VFR conditions, although non-USA pilots tend to rely on it as a crutch.
  - cjbprime 8y ago
    This is being downvoted, though is true to my understanding -- not uncommon for even the largest airports to have both ILS and non-ILS runways. (e.g. Runway 1L at SFO is non-ILS.) In this particular case, the departure airport only had one runway, and immediately after the botched takeoff it was at least in dire need of a debris check, so I wouldn't be surprised if the airport was closed while that happened. Wouldn't have taken four hours, though, and I suspect that they would do whatever they could to accomodate an emergency aircraft had the pilot declared.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  A lot of pilots don't use ILS and use a visual approach. That was one of the issues with the SF airport, as the left runway was closed, the lights were off and the pilot lined up with the taxi way.
  - deathanatos 8y ago
    > the lights were off While it is true that the normal lighting was off (because it wasn't a valid runway at the time), there was a lighted, flashing X to indicate that fact. Along with the fact that the taxiway was not illuminated as a runway, and the pilots were notified about the runway closure… https://ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA17IA148.aspx https://ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA17IA148.aspx
  - madamelic 8y ago

The obvious mystery is why you would keep flying for so long after an incident like this...

sleavey 8y ago

Maybe burning fuel to reduce the chance of explosion during the emergency landing? That's quite common.

mattzito 8y ago
Boeing planes can dump fuel, iirc.
- btgeekboy 8y ago
  The 737 (subject of this article) cannot.
  - amelius 8y ago
    That's quite a design-flaw then.
    - mulmen 8y ago
      Care to provide your credentials to make such a claim? Especially around one of the most widely used and longest produced airliners in human history.
      - davidw 8y ago
        https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a20630 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a20630
    - drharby 8y ago
      Sorry boeing engineers didnt have you at the table when they were choosing features to optimize for, you know, toggling through priorities and costs of features in terms of thrust, drag, weight, power, etc.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      The Airbus A320 can't either. It's not required as long as the landing system is designed to handle the fully-loaded weight.
      - mrpippy 8y ago
        Correct. Even on the much bigger A330 wide body, fuel dump is only an option: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1351703 https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1351703
  - hinkley 8y ago
    Huh. https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/9393/why-doesnt-the-737-have-a-fuel-dump-nozzle https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/9393/why-doesnt... The rules are based on the fact that landing is harder on the airframe than taking off, so as long as max takeoff weight is only a fraction higher than max landing weight you get a pass. And at any rate you get the greater of 10 minutes or 1% of max takeoff weight per minute to dump enough fuel to land safely. I wonder how long it takes a 737 to circle the runway before it's safe?
    - selectodude 8y ago
      20 percent of fuel is used from take off to cruise altitude. On a plane like a 777, that still leaves a very substantial amount of fuel onboard. However on a smaller plane like a 737, you don't have to circle for too long before you're below MLW.
rconti 8y ago
No, from the description, they clearly ignored reports that they "may have hit something", they said "nah, we good." It'll be interesting to see, when the passenger reports start coming in, whether it's plausible the pilots just didn't feel it.
gumby 8y ago
Usually they can dump it

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

fanzhang 8y ago

Maybe it didn't feel that bad in the cockpit, and the pilots were hoping they would wing it. They may have thought it would have endangered their jobs (which it certainly will...) Usually in times of partial emergencies, there is a threshold point where you full own the emergency and declare it.

burfog 8y ago

A good reason would be fuel weight on possibly damaged landing gear. Also, the airport wasn't good anymore. They had just destroyed the Instrument Landing System at the end of the runway. Nobody should land there.

captain_perl 8y ago
The ILS is not necessary for landing in VFR conditions, although non-USA pilots tend to rely on it as a crutch.
- cjbprime 8y ago
  This is being downvoted, though is true to my understanding -- not uncommon for even the largest airports to have both ILS and non-ILS runways. (e.g. Runway 1L at SFO is non-ILS.) In this particular case, the departure airport only had one runway, and immediately after the botched takeoff it was at least in dire need of a debris check, so I wouldn't be surprised if the airport was closed while that happened. Wouldn't have taken four hours, though, and I suspect that they would do whatever they could to accomodate an emergency aircraft had the pilot declared.
djsumdog 8y ago
A lot of pilots don't use ILS and use a visual approach. That was one of the issues with the SF airport, as the left runway was closed, the lights were off and the pilot lined up with the taxi way.
- deathanatos 8y ago
  > the lights were off While it is true that the normal lighting was off (because it wasn't a valid runway at the time), there was a lighted, flashing X to indicate that fact. Along with the fact that the taxiway was not illuminated as a runway, and the pilots were notified about the runway closure… https://ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA17IA148.aspx https://ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA17IA148.aspx
- madamelic 8y ago