ONE TO REMEMBER

[ace 1]

I thought this was something of more than general interest. Supurb airmanship.

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This was condensed from an article in Flight International.

On August 24, 2001 an Air Transat Airbus A 320-200 was on a charter flight over the North Atlantic with 291 passengers and 13 crewmembers. The planehad departed Toronto and was bound for Lisbon Portugal. At 0525AM, at FL 390, the pilot reported a fuel problem and requested a diversion to Lages inthe Azores. He declared an emergency 23 minutes later and at 0613AM thestarboard engine flamed out. Only 13 minutes later at FL 320 the port engine flamed out; he was still 100NM from Lages. The crew prepared the aircraft for ditching. The two pilot crew prepared for the first dead stick landing in a digital fly-by-wire aircraft. The ram air turbine was deployed to provide emergency electric and hydraulic power. Pilots sidesticks were used to operate the control surfaces. At 0633AM, with the 10,870 foot runway at Lages in sight, the pilot extended the landing gear but elected not to use slats or flaps. He put it on the centerline, hard, blowing all tires but bringing it to a stop with 2,000 feet of runway left.

Preliminary investigation indicates the flameouts were a result of fuel
starvation caused by a fuel leak on a low pressure fuel line on the starboard engine.. If the pilot had shut down the starboard engine he would have shut fuel off to the leaking pipe and saved the fuel to keep the port engine running, but probably he did not know where the leak was.

Cheers,

Ace 1

For more check:
[url=http://boatcoach.tripod.com[/url]


[This message has been edited by ace 1 (edited 10-04-2001).]

[This message has been edited by ace 1 (edited 10-04-2001).]

[leardvr]

The question of watching those fuel gauges with diligence comes up. As a pilot who has flown transatlantic on many occasions I can tell you that it's easy to become complacent. What they say is true that most accidents are the result of an error chain that is often very long and if just one link is broken so to is the chain.

The only other dead stick landing, due to fuel starvation, which comes to mind is an Air Canada 767, maybe 10 tears ago.

My hat is off to those pilots and the many lives that were saved. But I bet that never happens to them again.

[wxwatcher]

Well, they did do an excellent job, but, if memory serves me correctly, they more than likely had some sim training in that situation based on a B767 incident in Canada about ten years ago. That was also a "fly-by-wire" aircraft and the fuel was miscalculated because the failed to convert "kilos" to "pounds" or vice-versa.

BTW.. That incident was the basis for a made for TV movie about seven years ago and the opening scenes showed a flight crew trying to control the B767 with a dual flame-out. 90% of the crews busted the sim the first time through!!