Aviation Discussion

[YorkshireBear]

The standard procedure for decompression is point the aircraft down with spoilers deployed and only start to pull up once the aircraft is approaching the Never Exceed speed, and maintain as close as the Never Exceed speed until you're down to a sufficiently low altitude. It's one of the very few times you'll see airlines doing steep dives, and that's unlikely to be a smooth ride down. (Think of the turbulence when the spoilers are deployed during landing. Now imagine that at several times the speed, descending fast. You can be losing 7000 ft per minute. You're going down *fast*.)

Interesting thank you, don't get me wrong i did not believe the eye witness accounts but thought it might be lack of stability from the damage as opposed to an emergency descent for the decompression which did not cross my mind initially.

 

[AlterEgo]

It's not clear if the victim was killed by the impact of debris punching through her window or from her subsequent "almost sucking out", where it appears at least some of her body, perhaps her head and torso, ended up outside the aircraft for a period of time.

A bizarre and awful accident.

 

[DimTim]

Heart attack has been quoted in a tweet on bbc news website

 

[Crawley Ben]

For me this is the stuff of nightmares (I have a fear of flying & have it for many years now). My thoughts go out to the deceased lady, and of course to all the other pax's and crew on board what must have been a horrifically frightening incident.

One can only hope this sort of freak incident is a one off and doesn't repeat itself again.

Ben

 

[fowler9]

For me this is the stuff of nightmares (I have a fear of flying & have it for many years now). My thoughts go out to the deceased lady, and of course to all the other pax's and crew on board what must have been a horrifically frightening incident.

One can only hope this sort of freak incident is a one off and doesn't repeat itself again.

Ben

Well to be fair it was a freak accident. There are hundreds of 737 flights every day where no one dies. I'll let you google how many people died on the roads on that day.

 

[atillathehunn]

I will confess that some kind of thing like this has plagued my mind before in flight, usually briefly before the rational part kicks in. I think the worst was the Dash-8 I had on a UN charter flight recently in Africa on dirt airfields. I was firmly convinced that poor maintainence would result in the blade of the propeller flying through the window by my seat in a Final Destination style, or it flicks up a stone for the same.

It also reassured me that despite a catastrophic decompression, the plane flew to an airport and landed with the death of just one person, no matter how tragic that death. All the media reports say she was the lady sitting in the window seat. Cardiac arrest following traumatic injuries shouldn't be a surprise.

Thoughts to all concerned.

 

[Bald Rick]

Well to be fair it was a freak accident. There are hundreds of 737 flights every day where no one dies. I'll let you google how many people died on the roads on that day.

Indeed, very rare.

I have been unfortunate / fortunate enough to have been on a plane, in a window seat over the wing, when the engine next to me suffered a catastrophic failure. Quite a moment in life I can assure you. It was a prop, so a big ball of flame, the prop slowing to a stop like in a WW2 film and oil everywhere. It was only when we got back on the ground (after an ‘interesting’ approach) that I realised that a part of the engine could have made its way towards me. Had a few stomach settlers in the bar that evening.

 

[Bald Rick]

Meanwhile, Delta have had an issue with an A330 en route from Atlanta to Heathrow;

http://avherald.com/h?article=4b7858c3

A Delta Airlines Airbus A330-300, registration N806NW performing flight DL-30 from Atlanta,GA (USA) to London Heathrow,EN (UK) with 288 people on board, was in the initial climb out of Atlanta's runway 26L when the crew, just when they were about to be handed off to departure, declared emergency reporting they had a fire on the #2 engine (PW4168), the fire bell sounding in the background. The crew stopped the climb at 7000 feet. Another crew reported they did indeed have black smoke coming from the right hand engine. The crew requested runway 27R and a long approach while they were working the checklists. The crew shut the engine down and activated the fire suppression. The crew advised they might have hot brakes after landing and wanted emergency services to check out the right hand engine. Tower reported the right hand still appeared to be smoking. The aircraft landed on Atlanta's runway 27R about 25 minutes after departure. Tower reported there was an active engine fire on the right hand engine and cleared all fire vehicles onto the runway stating repeatedly there was an active fire. Flames were seen from the right hand engine after the aircraft came to a stop, emergency services foamed the engine and put the fire out. The passengers disembarked normally.

A replacement A330-300 registration N822NW reached London with a delay of 4 hours.


And in complete coincidence, I happened to be going last LHR this afternoon, and saw a plane do a go around. On checking, it was DL32 from Atlanta. I do hope there were no passengers on that who had transferred from DL30!

 

[Dentonian]

Well to be fair it was a freak accident. There are hundreds of 737 flights every day where no one dies. I'll let you google how many people died on the roads on that day.

Indeed. Apparently it was the first commercial aviation fatality in/over the USA since 2009. Though I don't tempt fate by emphasising Airline safety records since an incident in late October 2000. I was on top of the multi storey car park at Manchester one Saturday morning when a nervous couple were waving off their daughter to Singapore. We got into conversation and I said how safe Airliners are; what a good Airline Singapore AL are and (correctly) pointed out the aircraft was nearly new. Indeed, that flight did go without a hitch. However, the following morning's flight was operated by another nearly new 747 and whilst it completed its MAN-SIN sector ok, its very next flight was up to Taipei. On attempting to take off from Taipei the crew somehow mistook the parallel taxiway for the operational runway and the a/c collided with ground furniture and caught fire killing around 80 on board.

 

[45022]

Hi All:
I am looking for some information - I have booked an Easyjet Flight from Gatwick to Berlin (TXL) on Sunday 8th July at 08:25, and had a E-Mail back to say this could be operated by "one of Our partners' (Condor byThomas Cook, Smartlynx, WDL)" Could anyone advise the reason for this and suggest who it is likely to be and the aircraft used?
Thanks in advance

 

[fowler9]

Indeed. Apparently it was the first commercial aviation fatality in/over the USA since 2009. Though I don't tempt fate by emphasising Airline safety records since an incident in late October 2000. I was on top of the multi storey car park at Manchester one Saturday morning when a nervous couple were waving off their daughter to Singapore. We got into conversation and I said how safe Airliners are; what a good Airline Singapore AL are and (correctly) pointed out the aircraft was nearly new. Indeed, that flight did go without a hitch. However, the following morning's flight was operated by another nearly new 747 and whilst it completed its MAN-SIN sector ok, its very next flight was up to Taipei. On attempting to take off from Taipei the crew somehow mistook the parallel taxiway for the operational runway and the a/c collided with ground furniture and caught fire killing around 80 on board.

Yeah, very sad. Saw that on Aircrash Investigation the night before I flew Heathrow to Hong Kong. Possibly an odd choice of program to watch. Ha ha.

 

[FQTV]

Hi All:
I am looking for some information - I have booked an Easyjet Flight from Gatwick to Berlin (TXL) on Sunday 8th July at 08:25, and had a E-Mail back to say this could be operated by "one of Our partners' (Condor byThomas Cook, Smartlynx, WDL)" Could anyone advise the reason for this and suggest who it is likely to be and the aircraft used?
Thanks in advance

Ther should have been a link in the email to a page on the easyJet website giving more details. If not, this is the link:

https://www.easyjet.com/en/policy/partner-airlines#wdl

Airlines (and travel agents) in the EU have to disclose the operating carrier of every flight, when offering it for sale, when it’s changed and before the doors are closed on board the aircraft.

It’s the reason for the pre-departure flight deck announcement along the lines of “welcome on board this British Airways operated flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle.”

The wording is very specific, and the timing is too, as a passenger has the legal right to cancel/offload and a refund if the operating carrier is not the one that was disclosed at time of booking or prior to boarding.

In the easyJet scenario here, Berlin Tegel is a new station for the airline, and the story is that they have slots available to use before they have enough of their own aircraft to operate the services.

For a few months until the end of the Summer, they’re therefore chartering in some aircraft and crews from Thomas Cook/Condor, SmartLynx and WDL. In fact, SmartLynx also do a lot of so-called wet-leasing to Thomas Cook, and I think some SmartLynx aircraft carry Thomas Cook branding.

If I were to guess, I’d say that for a Gatwick flight, SmartLynx would be the most likely carrier, and you should receive a further email from easyJet confirming the actual ‘Air Operator Certificate’ holder closer to the time.

 

[45022]

Ther should have been a link in the email to a page on the easyJet website giving more details. If not, this is the link:

https://www.easyjet.com/en/policy/partner-airlines#wdl

Airlines (and travel agents) in the EU have to disclose the operating carrier of every flight, when offering it for sale, when it’s changed and before the doors are closed on board the aircraft.

It’s the reason for the pre-departure flight deck announcement along the lines of “welcome on board this British Airways operated flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle.”

The wording is very specific, and the timing is too, as a passenger has the legal right to cancel/offload and a refund if the operating carrier is not the one that was disclosed at time of booking or prior to boarding.

In the easyJet scenario here, Berlin Tegel is a new station for the airline, and the story is that they have slots available to use before they have enough of their own aircraft to operate the services.

For a few months until the end of the Summer, they’re therefore chartering in some aircraft and crews from Thomas Cook/Condor, SmartLynx and WDL. In fact, SmartLynx also do a lot of so-called wet-leasing to Thomas Cook, and I think some SmartLynx aircraft carry Thomas Cook branding.

If I were to guess, I’d say that for a Gatwick flight, SmartLynx would be the most likely carrier, and you should receive a further email from easyJet confirming the actual ‘Air Operator Certificate’ holder closer to the time.

Thanks for this very detailed response

 

[pemma]

It might have already been mentioned but have the former Monarch Airlines planes, both the ones they operated and the ones they had on order, found new homes?

 

[Bald Rick]

It might have already been mentioned but have the former Monarch Airlines planes, both the ones they operated and the ones they had on order, found new homes?

Most of Monarch’s fleet was returned to the various leasing companies that’s owned them. Many have now been re-leased, some to Thomas Cook and at least one to Titan. As for their order of 737Max, the order book for this model currently stands at over 4,000 (enough for 6-7 years of production). Boeing will simply step forward some deliveries for airlines that want them a couple of weeks early.

There is quite a market for used narrowbodies; United have just agreed to buy a load of ‘midlife’ A319s; the suggestion is that these are those currently coming out of the EasyJet fleet.

 

[OwlMan]

From http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.3185816
"Starting 1 October VLM Airlines will fly to Manchester from Ostend-Bruges and Antwerp Airports. The flights to Manchester are the first VLM introduces at Ostend Airport.
The service opens up new opportunities for British tourists eager to explore the Belgian coast, Bruges and the Great War battlefields. A half a million Britons visit Belgium annually. Sixty percent spend time at hotels in West Flanders. Bruges mayor Renaat Landuyt is upbeat: "Traditionally England is an important market with many British tourists staying at hotels in Bruges. The new service means that people from a region of seven million can travel to our city quickly and in comfort. Let's hope this will inspire more direct flights from the English Midlands and Scotland."

The daily flight to Manchester will cater for business travellers, but also for soccer fans eager to see Belgian stars like Romelu Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne and Vincent Kompany, who play at Manchester United or Manchester City. Manchester is the fourth city of the UK.

Daily flights to Manchester are also planned from Antwerp where there will be two daily flights during the working week.

VLM Airlines operates a fleet of six Fokker-50 aircraft that can seat 50."

 

[Dentonian]

From http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.3185816
"Starting 1 October VLM Airlines will fly to Manchester from Ostend-Bruges and Antwerp Airports. The flights to Manchester are the first VLM introduces at Ostend Airport.
The service opens up new opportunities for British tourists eager to explore the Belgian coast, Bruges and the Great War battlefields. A half a million Britons visit Belgium annually. Sixty percent spend time at hotels in West Flanders. Bruges mayor Renaat Landuyt is upbeat: "Traditionally England is an important market with many British tourists staying at hotels in Bruges. The new service means that people from a region of seven million can travel to our city quickly and in comfort. Let's hope this will inspire more direct flights from the English Midlands and Scotland."

The daily flight to Manchester will cater for business travellers, but also for soccer fans eager to see Belgian stars like Romelu Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne and Vincent Kompany, who play at Manchester United or Manchester City. Manchester is the fourth city of the UK.

Daily flights to Manchester are also planned from Antwerp where there will be two daily flights during the working week.

VLM Airlines operates a fleet of six Fokker-50 aircraft that can seat 50."

Fourth? 4th. How dare they? Better send Vinnie over and tell them in no uncertain terms (Churchillian was how his EPL Victory speech was described) that Manchester is the UK's FIRST city (tongue loosely in cheek)

 

[pemma]

Fourth? 4th. How dare they? Better send Vinnie over and tell them in no uncertain terms (Churchillian was how his EPL Victory speech was described) that Manchester is the UK's FIRST city (tongue loosely in cheek)

Population of council districts with city status
Birmingham 1.1m
Leeds 781k
Sheffield 575k
Manchester 541k

So '4th city' is true in that sense. Old Trafford and Salford being outside the City of Manchester boundary doesn't help Manchester but the consolation is it's above London for similar reasons. If you were using 1st city to mean the first place to become a city in the UK then Manchester wouldn't even be in the top 20.

 

[nicholaswood]

Population of council districts with city status
Birmingham 1.1m
Leeds 781k
Sheffield 575k
Manchester 541k

So '4th city' is true in that sense. Old Trafford and Salford being outside the City of Manchester boundary doesn't help Manchester but the consolation is it's above London for similar reasons. If you were using 1st city to mean the first place to become a city in the UK then Manchester wouldn't even be in the top 20.

Glasgow has 615k so that should make Manchester 5th

Source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...orukenglandandwalesscotlandandnorthernireland

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Population of council districts with city status
Birmingham 1.1m
Leeds 781k
Sheffield 575k
Manchester 541k

So '4th city' is true in that sense. Old Trafford and Salford being outside the City of Manchester boundary doesn't help Manchester but the consolation is it's above London for similar reasons. If you were using 1st city to mean the first place to become a city in the UK then Manchester wouldn't even be in the top 20.

Oh dear not this nonsense again. We do not have a universally agreed definition in this country for what exactly constitutes a "city". Government departments tend to use Primary Urban Areas (which ranks the top 5 as LDN, BHM, MAN, LPL, LDS) whereas the EU uses Larger Urban Zones (LDS above LPL). The Office for National Statistics however prefers Urban Area Agglomerations (rank: LDN, MAN, BHM, LDS, LPL). Once you consider the whole of the UK then clearly Glasgow ranks above Manchester so the Belgians do in fact have it right given their EU viewpoint.

 

[pemma]

We do not have a universally agreed definition in this country for what exactly constitutes a "city".

That's precisely the point. Most people see Manchester as the 3rd largest city in England but depending what statistics you use you one person can justify that being correct and another person can justify a claim that it's incorrect.

 

[atillathehunn]

I think the overall point was more along the lines of 'why does this matter'? We are not using it in an academic or professional context. VLM used a correct figure in a marketing piece written by an intern. It's not the end of the world (nor, particularly anything to do with aviation).

 

[flymo]

I didn't even see an advert for it last time I was in charleroi... I live in an international city on the Belgian Dutch border and no advert here either. Plenty of KLM and Brussels Airlines adverts though

It seems there will be a delay to the start of the Air Belgium service between Charleroi and Hong Kong as they have not yet received permission to overfly Russia. Seems a little odd not to have sorted this out already but there you go.

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...elgium-abruptly-cancels-flights-after-failing

 

[Butts]

Lax Security at Lux !!!

For reasons to boring to go into - I had to go through Security for a second time at Luxembourg Airport last night.

On my second visit I had mistakenly in the rush failed to take my toiletries out of my hand luggage but nothing came of it and I sailed through.

I must have been the last passenger to go through but it makes you question the vaildity of the liquids policy. I also had about 10 lighters in my bag - a gift from the Benson and Hedges purveyors I had availed myself of in the Grand Duchy.

Cleared UK Border carrying 2800 Benson and Hedges at £4.73 per packet compared to north of £11 in the UK saving myself close to £900 - and all perfectly legal.

 

[AlterEgo]

It seems there will be a delay to the start of the Air Belgium service between Charleroi and Hong Kong as they have not yet received permission to overfly Russia. Seems a little odd not to have sorted this out already but there you go.

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...elgium-abruptly-cancels-flights-after-failing

Have suspected from the outset that Air Belgium are a fishy outfit. I'd place money on them never flying a commercial flight.

 

[Dentonian]

I think the overall point was more along the lines of 'why does this matter'? We are not using it in an academic or professional context. VLM used a correct figure in a marketing piece written by an intern. It's not the end of the world (nor, particularly anything to do with aviation).

It was certainly tongue in cheek, but it does matter to tourism and aviation as you need to "sell" the destination. As such, its to do with far more than simple population figures.

 

[atillathehunn]

Have suspected from the outset that Air Belgium are a fishy outfit. I'd place money on them never flying a commercial flight.

This does seem like a monumental error. Ordinarily I might suggest that this has retributional motives as with the landing slots at Schiphol. But I cannot think how a small fledgling Belgian airline would have consequence in such a game. I suspect like you that they will never take off in earnest.

 

[atillathehunn]

It was certainly tongue in cheek, but it does matter to tourism and aviation as you need to "sell" the destination. As such, its to do with far more than simple population figures.

Manchester doesn't seem to have much trouble selling itself with 27 million passengers and many many flights. I would suggest Oostende requires more of a sales pitch.

 

[Crawley Ben]

A new WestJet Boeing 737Max aircraft made its debut at Gatwick today on flight WS24 from Halifax, Canada. This service will run daily until October 2018 before it stops for the winter.

Flight arrived some 19 mins late this morning (not sure of the reason why)

Hopefully see the new aircraft when I'm on duty at the airport tomorrow as I missed it today due to being busy.

Cheers

Ben

 

[atillathehunn]

On both occasions that it has operated it has departed late, which is likely the reason for it arriving late. Day 1 departed 50 minutes late, and yesterday about 35 mins late.