Classic British Flight Sim

The stricken Boeing 777 reportedly approached the southern runway of Europe's busiest airport at an unusual angle, plunging beyond the runway.

It finally came to a halt 1000m from an aircraft carrying the Prime Minister and 25 senior business executives, including the Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson and the Olympic gold medallist, Dame Kelly Holmes, who were departing for a five-day visit to China and India.

The above bullsh1t came from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 204607.ece . So I expect we await the conspiracy theories now :brick: Erm, was it going to end up anywhere near his Brownship? You kind of expect the Times to do better than this - what are the Mirror and Sun going to come up with? Even the Telegraph mentions a driver on the "nearby M4" seeing the 777 flying low. What was he on?

Sorry, I just hate the press when they have to fill column inches and, of course these days, web sites. :@

EDIT
from the Sun : "The plane narrowly missed Prime Minister Gordon Brown whose convoy was travelling on the airport’s perimeter road."

Ian,

I saw your comments about the sun, I thought, shall i post what i think?? I decided not to.

I know in essence eery landing is a controlled crash but these guys had a very lucky escape. Kudos to all involved!

I'm NOT speculating.

But if you want to know what BA 777 flight crew are speculating then I can pass that on in two words. If you don't want to know, then don't scroll down

Ian ;-)
























(Fuel contamination)

Not surprised. About impossible to shutdown any modern aircraft that suddenly like that without a major mechanical failure or fuel contamination. For it to happen on short final with no time for the RAT to deploy and spin-up wouldn't be surprising either as most fuel contamination problems don't crop up until the tanks are getting low and the contamination that is otherwise well-mixed, floating on top of the fuel, or settled around the intake starts getting picked up due to the maneuvering near the ground and the resulting movement of fuel in the tanks.

BTW - it's nearly impossible for a reverser to deploy inadvertently nowadays. Between the mechanical interlocks and transition to pneumatic control from electric on most engines, the chances of an air deployment of a reverser is extremely unusual unless multiple mechanical failures occur. It's also something that these engines are tested for during certification because of previous engines which had the problem.

Captain's doing a press conference imminently on SkyNews, BBC News 24 etc...

not much coverage over here so hopefully they'll post the video

One bit I did see was the road which it flew over missing the ten foot fence
... now if An airliner flew right over the top of my car like it did to the cabby
I'd probably just go right ahead and shite myself :o

BTW - it's nearly impossible for a reverser to deploy inadvertently nowadays. Between the mechanical interlocks and transition to pneumatic control from electric on most engines, the chances of an air deployment of a reverser is extremely unusual unless multiple mechanical failures occur. It's also something that these engines are tested for during certification because of previous engines which had the problem.

Thanks Chris, I am about 20 odd years out of date! I suppose that the odd noise could have been the APU, noisy buggers usually.

Chris Trott wrote:the chances of an air deployment of a reverser is extremely unusual unless multiple mechanical failures occur.

.....or is a standard procedure in a 154, just before touchdown ....

Note the person posting the first photo didn't like it at all.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0865659/M/

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0757862/M/

I've seen 737 200 land locally with the buckets swinging into place just before touchdown.

I think there is a confusion here with aerial deployment and unintentional/uncommanded aerial deployment

But this is all speculation and is serving no purpose.

Garry

Fuel contamination, naah that'll just be some of the gallons of lead-based paint they can't get rid of on kiddies toys. :roll:

Of course the lead would also explain why the plane was so low - extra weight see.

Right, now I'm off to spout my expert theory on some newpaper site like the Telegraph or Timely Sun alongside all the other drivel. The Telegraph have managed to dredge up an incident some years ago at Denver involving a BA 777 and a fatal refuelling - quite how that could have any relevance beggars belief.