4 ms·
They only circled around for a few minutes?
by jbverschoor 3y ago
They only circled around for a few minutes?
- pc86 3y agoAs opposed to?
- mannykannot 3y agoThere's no point in waiting once you have run through the checklist and put the crash trucks in position.
- tallanvor 3y agoUnless you want to burn fuel, but it sounds like that wasn't needed here.
- londons_explore 3y agoIf you suspect you're gonna turn into a hunk of bent metal sliding down the runway, I'd rather there only be a couple of gallons of fuel left, rather than a couple of hundred gallons.
- throwanem 3y agoIn the scale of amounts of fuel aircraft carry, 30 minutes of fuel is "a couple of gallons". You don't want enough to overstress the airframe or fuel a massive conflagration if the tanks are compromised, but you also don't want so little that you've got no buffer in case something else goes wrong, and 30 minutes at cruise (or at the near-idle power settings used on approach, it isn't clear here) is a lot less at takeoff/go-around power.
- jbverschoor 3y agoMaybe.. I’d wanna try a few more times
- pc86 3y agoEverything is done via checklists. You don't just "try a few more times" unless there's some indication that you should. They only had 30 minutes of fuel left, and if they had an unrelated go-around and ran out of fuel while setting up for another landing, everyone dies. Once you've run all the relevant checklists and ARFF is in position, you land the plane.
- jbverschoor 3y agoWell obviously if there's no fuel :)
- goodcanadian 3y agoThey run their checklists and once all options have been exhausted to rectify the situation, what else should they do other than land? Also, they only had 30 minutes of fuel remaining.
- swores 3y ago> landed without nose gear extended at 08:54L (12:54Z) about 12 minutes after the second go around and about 30 minutes after the first go around. Via Tepix's comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36519150 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36519150 In combination with what mannykannot replied to you, that doesn't sound particularly rushed to me (not that I'm an expert, but it would be surprising if they'd needed an hour for such a relatively common type of incident).
- jbverschoor 3y agoMmm yeah I guess that should be enough
- sidlls 3y agoThese planes all come with handbooks that the manufacturer provides for anomalous situations, like when some landing gear don't work. Once the flight crew run through the checklists in the handbooks for the problem, that's pretty much it. In certain cases and time permitting, the crew might also be in contact with their airline's maintenance/engineering staff in case there's something else that might be done. But once those options are exhausted there's no point in staying in the air, and these checklists can generally be done fairly quickly by a trained crew.
- flaminHotSpeedo 3y agoI'm envious of the quality and coverage completeness of airline checklists, tech runbooks could take a page out of the airline book
- sidlls 3y agoAnd documentation could take a page out of other engineering disciplines. I do my part in both.