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Discovery Channel's Inside a Jet Crash
- sek 14y agoThe Nissan advertising before the crash video was funny.
- weaksauce 14y ago> The plane was going 140 mph at impact, which is close to regular landing speed. But the 727 was descending at 1,500 feet per minute, much faster than the 10 to 20 feet per minute of a typical airliner landing. I have to imagine that they were thinking seconds instead of minutes. coming down from 35k feet would take quite a long time if that was not the case. (20'/min would take ~30 hours)
- elemeno 14y agoI don't necessarily disagree, but it's possible that they were talking about the rate of descent at the point of impact, rather than the the rate of descent over the whole course of descending from cruising altitude to landing.
- chmars 14y agoFor a standard 3-degree ILS approach, the descent rate is 318 ft per nautical mile. With a ground speed of 150 knots, that would be about 750 ft/minute. At higher altitudes and before the ILS, descent rates are usually higher, sometimes up to 3'000 or 4'000 ft with a default rate of 1'500 ft per minute.
- ynniv 14y agoI think they were talking about touchdown. An aircraft that is landing approaches the ground quickly, levels off, and touches down at a couple of feet per second. An aircraft descending at 1,500 ft/min which no longer has control impacts the ground at 25 ft/s.
- mikeash 14y agoIf you don't flare before touchdown and are not flying a Navy plane built for carrier landings, you will break your aircraft pretty badly when you slam into the runway at your normal descent speed.
- chmars 14y agoPlease link to the single page version: http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/1606749?preferredArticleViewMode=single http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/1606749?preferredArticleV...
- btilly 14y agoInteresting article. For me the two most surprising takeaways were that most people survive an accident, and the other was how cheap the plane was. They paid $400,000 for the plane. By comparison they paid $150,000 each for each of 3 test dummies in the plane. The test dummies cost more than the plane!
- mikeash 14y agoI assume they chose a 727 because it's not very useful these days and is therefore available for cheap. It's a decent airplane, but I believe it proved prohibitively expensive to make it meet noise regulations that are getting more common around big airports, and so they're relatively rarely used these days.
- kens 14y agoThe article mentions that the 727 has a rear stairway that one can use to parachute out of the plane during flight, which the pilots did in this crash test. Random trivia: the famous hijacker DB Cooper picked a 727 for the same reason - he parachuted out the back of the plane with ransom money and was never seen again. For the interesting story, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper
- ChuckMcM 14y agoIt is a little known fact that fully depreciated planes (like the 727 in the example) are cheap, its operating them that is expensive. Adding up the costs of mandatory maintenance, repairs, upgrades, consumables (gas, tires, hydraulic fluid, etc). That is what bites you. And the 'most people survive' is something of a misnomer. Start trolling through http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/reports_aviation.html http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/reports_aviation.html and you will see that accidents you would expect to be modestly survivable (low altitude takeoff and landing issues) are, and ones like the Air France jet falling out of the sky over the Atlantic are not.
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- jser 14y agoGlad to see the advertising dollars from Honey Boo Boo went towards something useful!
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- js2 14y agoThe article references the Sioux City Crash, aka United Flight 232. If you've never read it, this speech by that flight's captain (Al Haynes) is spellbinding: http://www.clear-prop.org/aviation/haynes.html http://www.clear-prop.org/aviation/haynes.html
- themckman 14y agoSioux City: United 232 heavy, winds currently 360 at 11, three sixty at eleven, you're cleared to land on any runway. UAL 232: You want to be particular and make it a runway, huh? ------ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l4pywdqvK4&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l4pywdqvK4&feature=relat... In that video, you hear the captain actually laughs before asking the traffic controller to be particular. Its absurd these guys can stay as calm as they do in these situations.
- js2 14y agoIts absurd these guys can stay as calm as they do in these situations. Hayes credits the radar controller for helping with that: "If you have a serious problem like we did, and you need the kind of help that does not add to the tension level, a voice like Bauchman's, as calm and as steady as he was, certainly was an influence on us and helped us remain composed." [1] Another fun factoid: "Subsequent simulator tests showed that other DC-10 crews were unable to repeat the effort of the crew of 232." [2] [1] http://www.airdisaster.com/eyewitness/ua232.shtml http://www.airdisaster.com/eyewitness/ua232.shtml [2] http://www.airdisaster.com/special/special-ua232.shtml http://www.airdisaster.com/special/special-ua232.shtml
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- nostromo 14y agoInteresting that they seem to be confirming previous analysis that shows that the rear of the plane is indeed the safest part of the plane. > flying in first class would have been fatal. Passengers in the middle of the cabin might have suffered concussions and broken ankles, while those in the rear could have walked away which agrees with this analysis http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/safety/4219452 http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/safety/4... which says > the trend was clear: The rear cabin (seats located behind the trailing edge of the wing) had the highest average survival rate at 69 percent. The overwing section had a 56 percent survival rate, as did the coach section ahead of the wing. First/business-class sections (or in all-coach planes, the front 15 percent) had an average survival rate of just 49 percent.
- ubernostrum 14y agoExcept that article you link does a terrible job of presenting this. They look only at a small sample (20 accidents), made up only of accidents which had both fatalities and survivors. When what you want for a real risk assessment is to consider first the accident rate among commercial flights, then the percentage of accidents which have fatalities (and also the rate at which those accidents have any survivors).
- captaintacos 14y agoWho would've thought. Ironically, flying economy might someday save your life (if Economy Class Syndrome doesn't kill your first that is).
- omgsean 14y agoGreat, now if I ever get to fly first class I won't be able to enjoy it.