AA MD80 Blown Engine At STL. (pics) - 2007

[THEICEMAN]

wow

[CD]

On September 28, 2007, at 1316 central daylight time, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 (MD-82), N454AA, operated by American Airlines as flight 1400, executed an emergeny landing at Lambert-St Louis International Airport (STL), St. Louis, Missouri, after the flight crew received a left engine fire warning during departure climb from the airport. The airplane sustained minor damage. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and an instrument flight rules flight plan was filed for the 14 CFR Part 121 scheduled domestic flight. After landing, the 2 flight crew, 3 flight attendants, and 138 passengers deplaned via airstairs and no occupant injuries were reported. The intended destination of the flight was Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD), Chicago, Illinois.

Upon receiving the left engine fire warning during climb, the flight crew discharged the aircraft engine fire bottles into the affected engine. During the visual return and single-engine approach to the airport, the nose landing gear did not extend. The flight crew then extended the nose landing gear using the emergency landing gear extension procedure. The airplane returned and then landed on runway 30L (11,019 feet by 200 feet, grooved concrete) and was met by STL Airport Rescue and Fire Fighting Vehicles.

NTSB ID: CHI07MA310

[xsbank]

Non event - every 6 months they do about 10 of those in the sim. Sucks about the gear, though, must be low on hydraulic power with one shut down, but usually it falls down anyway. Way to compound the emergency.

[invertedattitude]

Sounds like a great job by the pilots on that aircraft.

Dealing with two emergency situations at once, and bringing her down safe. Sounds like textbook from the sidelines anyway

[tdawe]

Non-event eh? I wish I had guts like you, I imagine anytime anything I am aviating in has fire in a place where fire isn't designed to be I'll consider it an event.

[xsbank]

Really, normal engine fail with fire - practise 'til you were blue in the face, every 6 months in the sim. Just another event. Really. The gear added some stress, but they used the airstairs to get out...

[fmrc3ame]

deleted

[invertedattitude]

Really, normal engine fail with fire - practise 'til you were blue in the face, every 6 months in the sim. Just another event. Really. The gear added some stress, but they used the airstairs to get out...

Practicing an emergency, and actually having one are not the same beast.

Practice a fire drill in your home three hundred times with your kids.

Then enjoy you waking up in the middle of the night with your house burning down around you, smoke so thick you can barely see the floor on your knees.

Saying that because you practice it all the time it's a "non-event" is pretty foolish IMO.


When I practice a forced approach in a Cessna for re-current training, do you think I'm as stressed about making that field as I would be if the engine really was dead?

[xsbank]

Inverted, you have obviously never had access to a Level D simulator; the emergency might as well be real as the simulator acts exactly as the real aircraft does, from a yaw when the engine quits, to fire bells, right up to having the cockpit fill up with smoke and fire trucks meeting you on the runway. Responding to these exercises regularly makes the response second nature and merely an unpleasant surprise. Of course there is some stress and adrenaline in the real thing but there is no doubt how to handle it, the same as all the thousands of missed approaches and V1 cuts, total electrical failures or fires, gear-up landings, emergency descents, (you name it) that you do in the sim to assure that it all seems second nature.

One of the things I carry over from the sim, I'm always harping on you lot to 'always' expect a rejected landing or a missed approach, and to treat every landing as a pleasant surprise.

An emergency in your Cessna is different, for sure.

[co-joe]

That pic really reminds me of the C-550 I saw with the right cowl blown off, and the leading edge of the H stab dented to fuk. Cudos to the flight deck in both cases on keeping an incident an incident.

[CANAIR]

XSBANK i could see you saying that about mabye a standard engine failure... but anything to do with a fire is not standard. and if you have had access t oa sim that could burn your feet while you were doing a v1 cut then yeah mabye but fire is taking a lot more serious now in the wake of Swiss Air so I would have to agree that fire is not just standard especially for the passengers that day.

[xsbank]

Canair, you miss my point entirely. This MD80 had an engine fire and failure and the crew handled it exactly as they were trained, the fire went out as it was supposed to and the aircraft was landed as it was intended. Like I said, non-event.

Swissair was a tragedy that nobody had ever encountered before. The crew made some incorrect decisions and there was a total loss. I'm not saying that fire should be treated lightly, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying this event was no more 'unusual' in an operational sense than a missed approach.

Yes, congratulations to the crew for saving everyone - that's what we pay them for.

Canair, have you ever had an inflight emergency?

[CANAIR]

sorry my apologies i thought you meant that it was not a big deal no i see what you are saying. And that makes more sense.

And yes i have

[invertedattitude]

My whole entire point here is this:

In a simulator you know you're not going to die


When we do simulated radar failures in ATC, the pressure is on to do it right... but let me tell you when the shit hits the fan in real life your blood pressure is a helluva lot higher than in the simulator, there's no "pause" button, and if you screw it up, there's no reset.

Comparing a simulator to real world is not possible IMO

[Flaperons]

xsbank:

Throughout history there have been far too many "routine" abnormal/emergency situations that have gone horribly wrong for you to call any inflight a non-event. I have run hundreds and hundreds of emergencies of all kinds in full-motion sims, and I can tell you this: Any fire on my bird is never a non-event. Unless you were one of the pilots flying that MD80, how can you possibly say what the stress level was in the cockpit? I highly doubt any of the crew would have called it a non-event when nobody else was listening.

Sounds like you're trying to sound cool as ice. Does the term "hazardous attitude" come to anyone's mind?

Let me ask you this, xs:

Have you ever had an inflight fire?

[xsbank]

Flaperons, CPL_atc has what I'm trying to say nailed.

And yes, #2 engine fire in a DC-3, fortunately at top of climb. No simulator, rudimentary training and tons of avgas. Fire went out with the bottle, piston and cylinder sticking through the cowl, 20+ passengers, heavy snow/VOR into William's Lake.

"I have run hundreds and hundreds of emergencies of all kinds in full-motion sims..."

So have I, in two types of jet sims. I'll say it again - every crew that came through on their recurrent, we practice all of the nasty scenarios we can think of, such as engine fire, fail, emergency descents etc. etc. You must have read the earlier posts.

No, I am not saying there wasn't any stress on the flight deck, what I'm saying is this was a well-trained, professional crew who handled a situation that they had been trained to confront and deal with and they did a good job. As a trainer, I would be quite happy to accept some of the kudos for their successful outcome.

Actually, I think I have a good, if somewhat annoying, attitude to safety.

[neophyte]

On a somewhat unrelated topic, who is the ex NHLer that flies cojo at American? I saw a snippet of him once on sportcenter but have since forgotten his name.

Regards,

Neo

[Zatopec]

Al Secord.

[neophyte]

That's it, thanks for refreshing my memory!!!

N.

[J31]

Swissair was a tragedy that nobody had ever encountered before. The crew made some incorrect decisions and there was a total loss.

Go back and read the report before you type garbage like that. The TSB investigation is most likely the closest we will get to the events for that flight.

I challenge any pilot today to successfully get a heavy MD11 on the ground intact under the conditions the Swiss Air pilots were faced with. They had to find a strange airport, at night, conduct a back course approach in marginal VFR weather with a flight deck fire. There was no way that airplane would have stayed on the runway at the weight they were. They did the best they could for the time they had…they simply ran out of time.

The aviation community has learned and adjusted procedures in light of that crash.

The real issue about Swiss Air is the poorly installed and maintained entertainment system.

Take note of # 5 in section 3.3 of the TSB report:
From any point along the Swissair Flight 111 flight path after the initial odour in the cockpit, the time required to complete an approach and landing to the Halifax International Airport would have exceeded the time available before the fire-related conditions in the aircraft cockpit would have precluded a safe landing.

This is the synopsis from the TSB report http://www.tsb.gc.ca/en/reports/air/199 ... 8h0003.asp

On 2 September 1998, Swissair Flight 111 departed New York, United States of America, at 2018 eastern daylight savings time on a scheduled flight to Geneva, Switzerland, with 215 passengers and 14 crew members on board. About 53 minutes after departure, while cruising at flight level 330, the flight crew smelled an abnormal odour in the cockpit. Their attention was then drawn to an unspecified area behind and above them and they began to investigate the source. Whatever they saw initially was shortly thereafter no longer perceived to be visible. They agreed that the origin of the anomaly was the air conditioning system. When they assessed that what they had seen or were now seeing was definitely smoke, they decided to divert. They initially began a turn toward Boston; however, when air traffic services mentioned Halifax, Nova Scotia, as an alternative airport, they changed the destination to the Halifax International Airport. While the flight crew was preparing for the landing in Halifax, they were unaware that a fire was spreading above the ceiling in the front area of the aircraft. About 13 minutes after the abnormal odour was detected, the aircraft's flight data recorder began to record a rapid succession of aircraft systems-related failures. The flight crew declared an emergency and indicated a need to land immediately. About one minute later, radio communications and secondary radar contact with the aircraft were lost, and the flight recorders stopped functioning. About five and one-half minutes later, the aircraft crashed into the ocean about five nautical miles southwest of Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada. The aircraft was destroyed and there were no survivors.

[xsbank]

Gee J31, I'm sorry.

[goldeneagle]

And yes, #2 engine fire in a DC-3, fortunately at top of climb. No simulator, rudimentary training and tons of avgas. Fire went out with the bottle, piston and cylinder sticking through the cowl, 20+ passengers, heavy snow/VOR into William's Lake.

Was that the days of harrison air, or, the goonie doing the run in/out of lovell cove / leo creek area ? Those are the only two I remember seeing parked in YWL with engines coming off.

But, in any case, this is so typical of those that have been around the block 'forever'. All of us have some stories to tell of the 'good old days' when modern conveniences weren't around to make modern training what it is. Back in those days, training for engine failure of that nature consisted of mostly talk in the classroom, and a few cuts in the airplane. Actually handling the situation for real, was new territory when it happened.

Enter modern training facilities. MD-80 with a fire in the engine. For the crew, there's nothing to see in the cockpit that's 'new'. Been there, done that, many times in the simulator, the only difference is, its actually an airplane this time around. Modern simulators make that a pretty small difference. Since it is actually an airplane, it's likely, the crew got an adrenalline rush they had not seen in the sim, but, that's where the real value of the sim shows too. Since the crew has trained for the event many times over, handling in the airplane should be basically routine, with an added dose of adrennalin. It's not like the bad old days, where handling the event is indeed the first time to actually see it, and is compounded by an adrennalin rush, so the thinking isn't quite as clear and rationale as it would normally be.

I tend to side with you on this one. Although the photos look spectacular to the public, in reality, for a properly trained flight crew, bringing that bird home should be 'just another day at the office'. That's why we invest so much in training, and the facilities to do that training. The whole idea is, make all incidents into 'routine emergency' incidents, and that's exactly what happened in this case.

[Flaperons]

Fair enough. My issue was more with your choice of language.

[Widow]

American Air Maintenance Led to Jet Fire, NTSB Says (Update1)

By John Hughes and Mary Schlangenstein

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Faulty maintenance caused an American Airlines engine fire that forced an emergency landing in St. Louis in 2007, a U.S. safety board concluded.

The pilots’ failure to complete a checklist prolonged the fire, and Americans’ shortcomings in detecting maintenance flaws contributed, the National Transportation Safety Board said today in Washington. Flight 1400’s emergency landing in St. Louis on Sept. 28, 2007, didn’t result in injuries.

The findings may add to questions about maintenance at AMR Corp.’s American, which was forced by regulators to ground planes last year for flawed inspections. Workers in the St. Louis incident used a tool to start the engine manually, a banned method often employed when a filter inside the component deteriorated and caused normal starts to fail, NTSB investigator Lorenda Ward said today at a hearing.

“Personnel did not follow company cleaning procedures for the air filter during regular maintenance checks,” Ward said. “As a result, the damage to the air filter went undetected.”

The St. Louis emergency occurred shortly after the plane took off for Chicago with 138 passengers and a crew of five. The safety board examined maintenance procedures as well as the actions of the pilots.

“We have participated with the NTSB in their investigation of the events of Flight 1400, and we will address their determinations after they present them publicly,” Tim Wagner, a spokesman for Fort Worth, Texas-based American, said yesterday.

Stranded Passengers

American, the world’s second-largest airline, was forced by the Federal Aviation Administration in March and April 2008 to ground its fleet of 300 Boeing MD-80s to inspect and correct wiring in wheel wells. More than 3,300 flights were canceled and 360,000 passengers stranded during five days, as American examined and fixed wiring bundles.

The carrier told the NTSB in January that the probable cause of the St. Louis emergency was the deterioration of a start-valve filter. That led to malfunctions that forced mechanics to manually start the engine, American said in its submission to the board.

American’s maintenance handbook prohibits crews from the type of manual start they used that day, and Boeing’s cautions against using a prying tool such as a screwdriver that can damage a valve. The NTSB found the valve in the 2007 incident “deformed” and “dented.”

Pilot Checklists

NTSB evidence also showed the pilots in the St. Louis incident failed to complete some cockpit procedures, including checklists for an engine fire, a one-engine landing and emergency landing.

The pilots union, the Allied Pilots Association, told the board in January it believes the evidence points to American’s repair processes not being followed, “clearly compromising the effectiveness of their maintenance reliability program.”

Boeing told the NTSB in January the probable cause was a start-valve failure and the engine being kept on high power for a minute after a fire warning in the cockpit.

The start valve in the engine was replaced six times in 12 days before the accident, according to the NTSB. American in its submission blamed the filter deterioration for “a series” of start-valve problems.

Those required mechanics to conduct manual starts, and the workers used tools rather than hand pressure because the valve becomes “painfully hot,” American told the board.

Manual Override

“Although it was not authorized by American, in order to make more reliable and less painful use of the manual-override pushbutton, mechanics sometimes used a lever,” American said.

In August, the NTSB proposed fines of as much as $7.1 million against American over allegations of deferred maintenance, drug and alcohol testing deficiencies, and inadequate lighting inspections. American disagreed with the FAA findings and said the proposed fines were “excessive.”

On March 30, the FAA began a comprehensive review of American’s safety and operations. The review was triggered in part by the MD-80 inspection lapses last year, said Alison Duquette, an FAA spokeswoman.

Similar evaluations have occurred at Southwest Airlines Co. and Continental Airlines Inc.

American is the second-biggest airline after Delta Air Lines Inc.

To contact the reporter for this story: John Hughes in Washington jhughes5@bloomberg.netMary Schlangenstein in Dallas at maryc.s@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: April 7, 2009 13:17 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... o&refer=us

[crazy_aviator]

The swissair accident off Peggys cove was an aviation ATTITUDE wake-up call ! Prior to that event, there were very few inflight fires that brought down airliners and the "attitude" was to go through the procedures, dump fuel, blah blah blah ,,, and make yer way to the aeroport ! NOW, Pilots have to be told by the bean counters to LAND ASAP if there is a cabin fire PERIOD !!!