LOT Polish Airlines flight LO 016 EWR-WAW Emergency Landing

[Evan]

Originally Posted by MCM

I do wonder why the alternate gear extension hasn't worked at all - that will be very interesting to see.

I don't know the 767 system interactions very well, but I do notice that the tailskid is deployed, and I believe that also runs on the center hydraulic system. I believe it also indicates that the gear is selected down. Also, if the electrical uplock/unlocks were working, gravity should have been the only thing needed to drop the doors and the gear. This makes me think that the problem might have been electrical. There is mention of a center system hydraulic failure, but not the nature of the failure. I assume that the flaps and slat deployment indicates that this part of the center system was still working, is that right? It seems like an uplock problem to me. Is there any maintenance procedure that would temporarily disconnect the alternate gear circuits, that may have been left that way?

EDIT: Oh, right, they could have used alternate flaps, but what about the tail skid?

[Leo 747]

AMAZING job by the pilots, very skilled landing and fortunately no one was hurt. These shots taken by the spotters are simply mindblowing, but it breaks my heart to see all those sparkles coming out of the 767 :/
I hope she don't get written off

[3WE]

Originally Posted by Leo 747

AMAZING job by the pilots, very skilled landing...

Where art thou Gabriel?

[Leo 747]

Originally Posted by 3WE

Where art thou Gabriel?

????

[Peter_K]

Captain Tadeusz Wrona


...and in his younger days (first from the left):

[mpe]

Originally Posted by MCM

Centre Hyd System is a very interesting one when it comes to ETOPS. There is no definitive statement as to if it constitues an ETOPS failure or not.. It is somewhat dependant on circumstances.

It's rather surprising that Boeing made the system so different from that on the 737. No doubt there were good reasons for this.

The tail skid, flaps and slats do appear to be extended. Even though these are usually operated by the centre system.

I do wonder why the alternate gear extension hasn't worked at all - that will be very interesting to see.

Even if they'd ended up in the same situation as the "Gimli Glider" with the nose gear unlocked that would have caused less damage to the aircraft and runway.

[Peter_K]

Depending on the nature of the failure too. If the early reports are to be trusted, they received a low fluid level warning.

There is very little damage to the runway surface. Only center line lights need to be replaced.

[mawheatley]

Originally Posted by mpe

Even if they'd ended up in the same situation as the "Gimli Glider" with the nose gear unlocked that would have caused less damage to the aircraft and runway.

Yes, but if one of the main legs was not locked, and gave way, it would have gone very ugly very quickly.

[crazytiger]

Out of curiosity, how much warning did the media and the spotters in Warsaw have? Seems like there was a lot of coverage for something that didn't seem like it would have a lot of warning. I heard it spent an hour wasting fuel but that whatever system failure it was happened just 30 minutes out of Newark. How much warning was there?

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by 3WE

Where art thou Gabriel?

The pilot did a nice smooth landing, as probably many other times. That the gear was up was beyond the pilot's powers (I guess and hope).

A gear-up landing doesn't require any particular flying skill that a gear-down-and locked landing doesn't.

All in all, the crew did their job in a stressful situation, and they did it very well. As expected.

Happy now?

[TeeVee]

moderator AJ is a 767 pilot. maybe he can fill in some blanks for us

[3WE]

Originally Posted by Gabriel

The pilot did a nice smooth landing, as probably many other times. That the gear was up was beyond the pilot's powers (I guess and hope).

A gear-up landing doesn't require any particular flying skill that a gear-down-and locked landing doesn't.

All in all, the crew did their job in a stressful situation, and they did it very well. As expected.

Actually, I thought their performance sucked...if they had adjusted their touchdown point by about 1000 ft, they would not have blocked the runway intersection.

Crappy airmanship!

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by 3WE

Actually, I thought their performance sucked...if they had adjusted their touchdown point by about 1000 ft, they would not have blocked the runway intersection.

Crappy airmanship!

Where did I hear something like that?

[MCM]

Sadly Boeing do not publish a "Landing Slide Distance Guidance Information - All Gear Up" graph, making landing slide distance calculation difficult .

[AJ]

Amazing job.

Mr. Boeing's checklist tells you to land on any available gear and use Flaps 30.

The tailskid extended could mean one of two things. The first possibility is that it never retracted after departure from JFK as the first symptom of the centre hydraulic system failure. Secondly it was the only part of the landing gear system that operated normally on arrival in WAW.

Problems have been encountered on Boeing aircraft before with the design behind the landing gear lever. I hope this isn't a re-occurrence as it will lead to an urgent AD. I saw an issue on the 744 when the landing gear level was placed to OFF the body gear doors fell open!

United fell victim to an issue with the selector valves in a 744 that resulted in a landing on the wing gear only: http://www.ntsb.gov/aviationquery/br...12X24039&key=1

It will be very interesting to follow the findings.

[brianw999]

Originally Posted by Deadstick

I'd have to say the Sully landing was a bit more challenging.

I did say "rank close to" !!

....although the LOT pilot could still have got it wrong and nosed it in ?

[brianw999]

Originally Posted by Leo 747

????

Ah, you don't know "Gabriel" here then ?

The number one expert...

....in ripping holes in other peoples congratulatory comments.

[brianw999]

Originally Posted by Peter_K

Captain Tadeusz Wrona


...and in his younger days (first from the left):

Interesting....another glider pilot.....just like Sully was !

[Gabriel]

Originally Posted by brianw999

Interesting....another glider pilot.....just like Sully was !

The Gimili pilot as a sailplane pilot too (flashback, a 767 with inop fuel quantity indicators is fueled with what the crew thought was "fuel to spare", except there was a confusin between Imperial and Metric units and it had about 1/4 of the fuel they thought it had, they run out of fuel at cruise and glided to and landed in a closed airport).

Form these three cases, undoubtly the Gimili case is the one where sailplane experience could have helped most.

This was just a landing. That the gear didn't come down doesn't change much what the pilot has to do to land the plane.

The Sully case was a glide on very little power (very little thrust but at least enough engine power to keep all hydro and hidraulic systems on-line and for the plane to ramin in normal law). The difference is that if the touchdown was 1km sooner or later would not have made a lot of difference.

In the Gimili case they had to glide for what I think was a hundred of Km and be able to touchdown at the beginning of a runway at a mangable speed with all systems down except emergency electric and hydro power supplied by the RAT.

[3WE]

Originally Posted by brianw999

Ah, you don't know "Gabriel" here then ?

The number one expert...

....in pointing out factual flaws in other peoples congratulatory comments, and stimulating intelligent discussion.

Fixed.