340 Crash

[planeguy]

yet another reason why i try not to fly on airbus... imagine what happens when that 380 does the same thing at pearson... evacuate 600 people how fast??? as an aircraft technician, and seeing how these things hang on strings to stay up in the air, let alone stop on the ground, i prefer to take the TTC...

[195psi]

yet another reason why i try not to fly on airbus.

If you are indeed an AME I am surprised by your comments. It has to be one of the more unfounded ones I have read.
I have endorsements and have worked on Airbus, Boeing and MD's. They all have flaws but as anyone knows is a very safe if not the safest mass mode of transport. I fail to see what the a/c being a Bus has do to with anything. Especially since you have no idea what actually happend yet.

[Vickers vanguard]

as far as number of pax goes........I agree with planeguy's comments....600 pax and more !!! for F%$#ck sake! how would you be dealing with all those people !

[Nightshiftzombie]

Flying is nuts. Locking yourself in an aluminum coffin 30 000 ft in the air with a guy who can recite "Top Gun" dialoge from memory behind the wheel. It's too bad there is no good alternative for long distance travel.

[fmrc3ame]

[quote="planeguy"]yet another reason why i try not to fly on airbus.

I agree here with 195psi. You have no basis to point blame at what type of aircraft was involved. For example according to Boeing news.com there have been 531 complete hull losses of Boeing aircraft involved in accidents compared to 19 Airbus. The above includes Douglas/MD aircraft since 1959. But to be fair here, here is the hull loss of next gen aircraft, Airbus 19 & Boeing 48. Also the breakdown of accidents between 1995-2004 is as follows, Flight Crew 56%, Aircraft 17%, Weather 13%, Misc/other 6%, Maintenance 4%, ATC 4%. I too am endorsed on Boeings, Airbus and other aircraft and each is unique. One system on each aircraft maybe easier to work on than the other and flying them is the same. As to dealing with 600 or more people, treat them like Human beings, with compassion. It is still the safest way to travel. Give your head a shake before you post comments like that. The facts are not in yet but you are very quick to jump to the conclusion that it was the aircraft at fault.

[gli77]

The A380 is not so bad with 600 passengers. The Japanese use 747-400's to fly between Osaka and Tokyo every hour on the hour. They are configured for 565 passengers. The flight will begin to board 20 minutes before departure and it will leave on time. The actual passenger boarding is 15 minutes. To deplane it takes 7-10 minutes. Of course they are a lot smarter and actually only take one carry on that actually fits in the over head bin.

Air Canada usually boards around 30 - 45 minutes before departure and always leaves late.

It is not the amount of passengers that I see as a problem it is the training of the crew. I regularly fly on Asian carriers and then use Air Canada to fly home. The difference is night and day. Professionalism, courtesy, and politeness are second to none with Asian main line carriers.

And yes it is very very premature to comment on a crash or any incident before the facts are known. Boeing is not wind shear or lightning proof.

[CID]

This is pretty funny. In one thread on the General forum, we have people slamming the unsavy media for spreading misinformation about the crash. Here we have aviation maintenance professionals spreading pure manure!

The A340, the A380 and all the other Airbusses and Boeings in production have to meet the same 90 second evacuation rule. The evacuation demonstrated by the A340 incident shows that the certification standard was pretty close to real life.

Next time you guys find yourself close to an airplane, count the doors and emergency exits. Passengers don't all have to evacuate through one door! Bigger airplanes have more exits.

If you're an "aircraft technician" who thinks airplanes "hang on strings" or are "aluminum coffins", maybe you should find a new line of work.

[Vickers vanguard]

This is pretty funny. The A340, the A380 and all the other Airbusses and Boeings in production have to meet the same 90 second evacuation rule. The evacuation demonstrated by the A340 incident shows that the certification standard was pretty close to real life.

Next time you guys find yourself close to an airplane, count the doors and emergency exits. Passengers don't all have to evacuate through one door! Bigger airplanes have more exits.

If you're an "aircraft technician" who thinks airplanes "hang on strings" or are "aluminum coffins", maybe you should find a new line of work.

wow! I am impressed by your knowledge !! 90 s !!! certification criteria !! holly cow !! next time I will be standing in front of my little C152, I'll make sure to count the number of exits ! oh by the way...........it has been almost 2 hours since we crashed, did we find passenger number 674 ?
all the pax got away simply because the landing overun (that's what it was anyway) was survivable and the fuselage was more or less in one piece when the craft finally came to a rest.....no severe deccelaration forces here........the fire started as a small one(judging from the video soon after the crash) and there wasn't a lot of fuel left after a transatlantic........

Sorry, I know shit about airbuses.........I have only worked on aircrafts less than 3000 lbs maximum TAXI weight.

New line of work ! yeh, I am trying to find a new one since I could not get my hands on anything bigger than an ultralight.....can you help ? please, I wanna be an aircraft mechanic !!!

[CID]

Vickers vangaurd,

I don't feel the need to amend my post based on your rant, but I'd like to point a few things out:

1) You can't spell "holy". Unless of course there is such a thing as a "holly cow" then I take it back.

2) 152s have exits too. But you'll notice I didn't lump small Cessnas in the same category as Airbusses and Boeings. They are quite different.

3) Passengers have to be able to evacuate survivable accidents. Not un-survivable ones. So what exactly is your point about this runway overun? The 90 second rule says nothing about dead passengers evacuating.

4) Saying there "wasn't a lot of fuel" is sort of subjective. The airplane apparently still had lots of fuel to fly to an alternate. If we were to pretend it was carrying avgas instead of jet fuel, considering the fuel burn of an A340 it would have had enough to keep your 152 flying for a couple of years. Certainly enough to sustain a major fire. You should have kept watching the video and you would have seen a severly burnt airplane.

5) New line of of work? I was refering to people who posted the terms "hang on strings" and "aluminum coffins". What the hell made you feel I was talking about your post?

Speaking of that post though, any idea how many people die in light aircraft each year compared to people who die in airliners? There are about 0.019 fatalities per million trips in large airliners versus 13.3 fatalities per million trips in light airplanes. Statistically (I know, its a big word) that means that the more people you can stuff into a large airliner, the less fatalities you will have overall. So you can take the risk of looking for passenger 674, or strap them into their own 152 and watch 471,800 die.

[chubbee]

One of the more curious things to me was the, apparently purposeful failure to extinguish the fire before the entire center fuselage and mid wing out past engines 2 and 3 were melted slag. The TSB will have a lot less to go on with the airframe 7 tenths melted. The fire crews just seemed to douse the flames from afar and stand by until they re-errupted if someone had been trapped inside would they have been capable of a better effort??? If they were on scene 52 seconds after the crash why the near total burn out????

[J.P.WISER]

Speaking of that post though, any idea how many people die in light aircraft each year compared to people who die in airliners? There are about 0.019 fatalities per million trips in large airliners versus 13.3 fatalities per million trips in light airplanes. Statistically (I know, its a big word) that means that the more people you can stuff into a large airliner, the less fatalities you will have overall. So you can take the risk of looking for passenger 674, or strap them into their own 152 and watch 471,800 die.

Yeah and some people will never get the chance to die in either kind of air accident because some as_hole cut their heads off with a chain saw, way to represent yourself with that avitar!!!!

[plainfixer]

you guys don't get out much, huh.

[Yoyoma]

CID, don't let those comments bother you, people like to give advice on things they know nothing about!

One of the more curious things to me was the, apparently purposeful failure to extinguish the fire before the entire center fuselage and mid wing out past engines 2 and 3 were melted slag. The TSB will have a lot less to go on with the airframe 7 tenths melted. The fire crews just seemed to douse the flames from afar and stand by until they re-errupted if someone had been trapped inside would they have been capable of a better effort??? If they were on scene 52 seconds after the crash why the near total burn out????

You see chubbee, it's like the Roulette game. Chance has everything to do with it. It's impossible to design a car, a plane or a train that will behave in a predictable manner under any circumstance. Airbus, Boeing, Emb., Bombardier etc. all take what they call "Lessons Learnt" into consideration, but it's the luck of the draw when it comes down to accidents like this one.

Vertical Puncture, Detatched panel, hilly field, dry grass, god knows what!

[CID]

Yeah and some people will never get the chance to die in either kind of air accident because some as_hole cut their heads off with a chain saw, way to represent yourself with that avitar!!!!

J.P. Wiser,

Hell, my avatar only killed a couple of people. Yours symbolizes light aircraft which are responsible for untold deaths and injuries.



But...here's my thinking about my avatar. This is the image of a guy who
successfully entered a foreign country even though he had numerous weapons includind a chainsaw covered in what seemed like blood. Never mind all that, he looks like a whack-job. But the border patrol looked beyond all that and considered the facts at hand and the law they were obligated to uphold, and let him in.

So my experiment was to see , if people could read my posts, consider the facts and opinions expressed without being obsessed or biased by the way I "look".

The results are somewhat expected. Those who have intelligent and useful comments to add to the discussion see past the avatar. Those who don't? Not so much.

[planeguy]

well, here's how it goes... before i start believing that you guys actually think that i wasn't joking, i'm going to feed you my opinion...

here's what you'll find out:

airplane's on approach. just over carlingview, he's hit with a crosswind and yaws over the threshold. he can't bring it down and it takes some time to straighten out. over runway 24L, the shortest runway on pearson, there isn't much time to straighten out with a 340 over it... he straightens it, drops it, but he doesn't have enough time to fully apply brakes and thrust reversers to stop it... obviously he slowed it down appreciably because if he didn't, the crash would've been a lot worse than it was...
nothing amazing happened...

anyone who was at pearson anytime between 1pm and 5pm would have enjoyed the continuous heavy thunderstorm/sunshine/heavy thunderstorm/sunshine...

if lightning hit the aircraft, and caused an outtage (which doesn't happen) there's still reserved pressure for both the TRs and the brakes, which are anti-skid anyways so a 12 wheel main gear 340 doesn't hydroplane that easily... if you can see the nose and cockpit of the aircraft after it falls in that ditch, then he couldn't have been going that fast... especially if the pilots lived...

soon, the most interesting part of this investigation will be why the airplane burned and burned and burned... fire retardent material, if installed properly shouldn't do that especially if fire fighters are on the scene... for those of you who forget, most airplanes keep fuel in the wings, yet the wings are in good shape, so a cabin fire shouldn't be as difficult to extinguish as a fire at the wings...

i equally hate the french and the americans, so i don't discriminate between boeing and airbus... i think they are beeaaaauuuuutiful

be nice

[CID]

soon, the most interesting part of this investigation will be why the airplane burned and burned and burned... fire retardent material, if installed properly shouldn't do that especially if fire fighters are on the scene... for those of you who forget, most airplanes keep fuel in the wings, yet the wings are in good shape, so a cabin fire shouldn't be as difficult to extinguish as a fire at the wings...

Its all just idle chatter and speculation until the investigation is done but I wanted to address this part of your post.

The materials used on aircraft interiors have to meet flammability requirements and fuel is kept in the wings. The wings don't seem to be all that badly damaged either. You are right about that.

But the flammability specifications don't say that materials CAN'T burn. Everything burns if you expose it to the required temperature. What the standards say, generally speaking, is that the materials can't SUPPORT combustion. In other words, not burn by themselves. So there must have been another source of combustion.

I'm no Einstein, but even I can image a scenario where fuel carrying wings are damaged during the romp through the bushes and jet fuel gushes everywhere even though the wings are intact. If you look at the pictures, you can see that the wings aren't exactly where they are supposed to be. There is definitely damage. Throw in the bushes around the airplane and you have the combustible materials that would support a fire.

The nasty thing is the aluminum. It melts and burns at very high temperatures. Molten aluminum dripping on interior components also provides a source of combustion.

Fire fighters “on the scene”? Let’s remember. The airplane didn’t come to rest on a street or a runway. It was stuck in a ravine. Not exactly optimum conditions to move fire fighting equipment into place.

[CD]

soon, the most interesting part of this investigation will be why the airplane burned and burned and burned... fire retardent material, if installed properly shouldn't do that especially if fire fighters are on the scene... for those of you who forget, most airplanes keep fuel in the wings, yet the wings are in good shape, so a cabin fire shouldn't be as difficult to extinguish as a fire at the wings...

Well, yes, that seems logical. Except that a cabin fire is on the inside of the fuselage while the CFR vehicles with the AFFF is on the outside of the fuselage.

As was pointed out elsewhere (can't recall now if it was on this site or not), there have been numerous accidents where the aircraft burnt out even though CFR was on scene while the aircraft was 90% intact. The difference between those that burn out and those that are visibly intact tends to be whether the fire burns through and into the fuselage structure. Once inside it can feed on the internal combustibles (insulations, plastics, seats, baggage etc.) and there is little way that the firefighters can effectively get equipment to fight the fire inside the aircraft.

The fire retardent material is intended to be self-extinguishing once open flame is removed from it (that's the test standard that must be passed). The purpose is to extend the time available for evacuation in survivable accidents, such as this one. However, in the end, even fire retardent material will burn when exposed to enough heat for enough time.

It seems likely that the fire may have been fuel fed and entered the fuselage from below, where no extinguishant could be applied. With no way to control the flames once inside the fuselage, the fire would continue until the fuselage burned through and AFFF could be applied.

It will be interesting to read the survival factors group report on this accident and see what they have to say.

525.853 Compartment Interiors
525.855 Cargo and Baggage Compartments
525 APPENDIX F
FAA Fire Safety Branch (Fire & Cabin Safety, Materials, Systems, Fire Research)

[J.P.WISER]

But...here's my thinking about my avatar. This is the image of a guy who
successfully entered a foreign country even though he had numerous weapons includind a chainsaw covered in what seemed like blood. Never mind all that, he looks like a whack-job. But the border patrol looked beyond all that and considered the facts at hand and the law they were obligated to uphold, and let him in.

So my experiment was to see , if people could read my posts, consider the facts and opinions expressed without being obsessed or biased by the way I "look".

The results are somewhat expected. Those who have intelligent and useful comments to add to the discussion see past the avatar. Those who don't? Not so much.

Fair enough answer even though I believe that by giving this guy more attention we are only sensationalizing his crims. This crim he is accussed of happened in my back yard and it could have been easily someone that anyone of use new or were even related too!!

And it's funny I crossed the same boarder that he did about three weeks ago just to visit an aunt that lives in Maine and I was pulled in and background check completed and truck searched then sent on my way!!!

[boeingboy]

airplane's on approach. just over carlingview, he's hit with a crosswind and yaws over the threshold. he can't bring it down and it takes some time to straighten out. over runway 24L, the shortest runway on pearson, there isn't much time to straighten out with a 340 over it... he straightens it, drops it, but he doesn't have enough time to fully apply brakes and thrust reversers to stop it... obviously he slowed it down appreciably because if he didn't, the crash would've been a lot worse than it was...
nothing amazing happened...

Well why do we have the TSB when you know everything? You must have been the pilot to know what was happening to the airplane and how it took you so long to correct it.

I don't know where he touched down but it's already an established fact that he touched down at around 160 and went off the end at around 153. I don't know about you but even if he touched down halfway down the runway he sould have been slower than that.

IMHO it's plain and simple - he hydroplaned.

Supported by many pics of the actual plane and accounts from the passengers the fire started at the gear and passengers said the plane started trailing "fire" partway through the rollout. Which leads me to suspect that he hydroplaned, during which the tires blew (as hydroplaning actually melts the tires) and the aircraft is now grinding the wheel assemblies causing sparks. They go off the end and shortly thereafter the gear, hydraulics, and all the other stuff down there starts burning, eventually reaching the center wings and cabin.

Why or where he touched down, what role the weather played, or if there is a design fault at YYZ, any fault of ATC, etc..., etc..., etc... Will have to be figured out by TSB.

As for the firefighters, I suspect that - due to the rough terrain, and the fact everyone got off, they probably didn't want to risk their own lives to put out a fire on an aircraft that is already a write off just to make TSB's job a little easier. While it would be nice if they had a whole airplane, I sure would not want to risk my life for that and wouldn't expect anyone else to either.

[KISS_MY_TCAS]

touched down at around 160 and went off the end at around 153. I don't know about you but even if he touched down halfway down the runway he sould have been slower than that.

Where did you get those numbers from???
The passengers claimed that the lights in the cabin went dark BEFORE the aircraft touched down, so I am thinking there was an electrical problem that caused non-essential buses to shed. Now, while I know nothing about Airbus and thier systems I am curious to know if a non-essential power failure will have an effect on the anti-skid system through either the electrical side of the system, or through the hydraulic side. They determined that the brakes had hydraulic pressure, but what about controlling pressure for the ABS (if it is hydraulically controlled).

IMHO it's plain and simple - he hydroplaned.

That is also my opinion.

[Vickers vanguard]

Vickers vangaurd,
I don't feel the need to amend my post based on your rant, but I'd like to point a few things out:

1) You can't spell "holy". Unless of course there is such a thing as a "holly cow" then I take it back.

2) 152s have exits too. But you'll notice I didn't lump small Cessnas in the same category as Airbusses and Boeings. They are quite different.

3) Passengers have to be able to evacuate survivable accidents. Not un-survivable ones. So what exactly is your point about this runway overun? The 90 second rule says nothing about dead passengers evacuating.

4) Saying there "wasn't a lot of fuel" is sort of subjective. The airplane apparently still had lots of fuel to fly to an alternate. If we were to pretend it was carrying avgas instead of jet fuel, considering the fuel burn of an A340 it would have had enough to keep your 152 flying for a couple of years. Certainly enough to sustain a major fire. You should have kept watching the video and you would have seen a severly burnt airplane.

5) New line of of work[/u]? I was refering to people who posted the terms "hang on strings" and "aluminum coffins". What the hell made you feel I was talking about your post?

Speaking of that post though, any idea how many people die in light aircraft each year compared to people who die in airliners? There are about 0.019 fatalities per million trips in large airliners versus 13.3 fatalities per million trips in light airplanes. Statistically (I know, its a big word) that means that the more people you can stuff into a large airliner, the less fatalities you will have overall. So you can take the risk of looking for passenger 674, or strap them into their own 152 and watch 471,800 die.

let me see,
since you found nothing but that spelling mistake of mine to pick-on, let's look at yours, and there are more than a couple :
- How about Vanguard instead of vangaurd !!!! .....that's how you started your post !.....ok, I'll give a break on that one....you were probably not born when that beast was flying around
as for the rest of them.........have a look on the underlined words ....did you get the message now ? it's plain silly to post such things as : look, you made a spelling mistake !
As for the 152 business ? I really had some fun reading your statistics .....I was just pulling your leg on that one, never worked on light airplanes but I did on the following : A340, A330, A320 and L1011....and for quite some time. keep-on reading those private pilot magazines !

[CID]

A340, A330, A320 and L1011

OK. Then you'll have plenty of doors to count at work.

[planeguy]

i'm not stating boeingboy that i was the pilot, i'm saying that if a crosswind did bless the 340 close to the threshold, it would take time to straighten the airplane... how long it would take??? not too sure, maybe just a couple of seconds, but over the shortest runway during a thunderstorm, that's a lot of time...

in regards to firefighters not having great access to the area, that's bullshit... i used to watch airplanes right at the very ravine where the 340 ended up at, and apparently, the 340 is blocking the very road that is used to get from one end of the south end to the west end of the airport... vehicles can't pass on that street because the airplane is on the road... if Peel Region wasn't blocking traffic, you could drive right up to the airplane and would have to stop before running into it...

i agree with the firefighters possibly not seeing a point in risking their lives when nobody's aboard...

and hydroplaning is virtually eliminated with anti-skid systems... whether or not the anti-skids were doing their jobs, is yet to be determined... but i don't think that the plane was only slowed down 10km/h from the time it touched down to the time it hit the ravine... if it hit the ravine at 150km/h the nose damage would probably be a lot worse than it was, and i don't see there being no casualities at that speed... airplanes that have run into terminal buildings or other airplanes at much lower taxi speeds have had more apparent damage than the still recognizable structure of the 340, excluding the fire damage...

[CID]

Yep...one 20 foot wide road down in a ravine with jet fuel flowing around an airplane who's length and wingspan is 200 feet. Great access.

I'm familiar with that road myself and I've seen tons of pictures. I guess we'll just have to disagree on this point.

One other point, even though the TSB has all but ruled out hydroplaning, it is a possibility when landing on wet runways whether anti-skid is working or not. Anti-skid doesn't help you when you are sliding sideways.

[boeingboy]

Planeguy......
Don't know that airport - if there is a road, well I guess there is a road. I was just going by what I saw on TV.........A big ass plane in a ravine with lots of bush around.

As for not hydroplaning with an Anti-skid system. Anti-skid reduces the chances but does not eliminate them. Want proof.........next time there is ice on the road or heavy water - drive fast and nail the brakes, your anti lock brakes will be chattering away - but you'll keep slidin'.