Virgin Atlantic 747 emergency landing

ICBM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30625945

Not too much to worry about actually, the 747 was originally designed to be able to land on only two of its four main landing gear legs if necessary.

What I don't quite understand is… the flight was from Gatwick to Las Vegas. Given that the fault was that the landing gear wouldn't come down, surely it would have been better to just fly to Las Vegas as planned and make the landing there, thus using the fuel they had to spend hours burning going nowhere, instead of wasting it and inconveniencing everyone who would presumably have rather landed in Vegas than back at Gatwick? And blocking Gatwick's only runway.

stickyfiddle

I haven't read the details, but I assumed the problem was that the gear wouldn't full retract, meaning it would need more fuel than it had onboard to get to the USA.

ICBM

I was being rhetorical up to a point . I know the procedure is to return to the departure airport if something is wrong.

From the photos it looks like the right hand wing gear was fully retracted. Presumably they couldn't know that for sure from the cockpit though, if they had a fault indication. It still seems ridiculous to return to Gatwick and close the whole airport when they would have had many other alternatives though.

This is an old film but worth watching if you want to see how strong a 747 is… the first major incident involving one, it took off from the wrong runway - too short, and so collided with the approach light array - and severely damaged the landing gear, leaving only two sets out of the four, but still landed safely.

Gassage

@icbm

OK- a number of reasons-

1) They would want to diagnose in the safest way. With a belly of fuel so they could stay in the air to try and diagnose and remedy.
2) VS's service centre would be closer, therefore cheaper.
3) Airline SOP- generally aviate, communicate, navigate in that hierarchy.
4) A landing gear issue could have suggested something bigger- a hydraulic issue for instance....which may have seriously compromised flight ability.

ICBM

Gassage said:

3) Airline SOP- generally aviate, communicate, navigate in that hierarchy.

Aviate, navigate, communicate! Don't want to fly into something while you're trying to talk to ATC...

Fretwired

Gassage said:

4) A landing gear issue could have suggested something bigger- a hydraulic issue for instance....which may have seriously compromised flight ability.

Apparently this was the concern - the pilot said the plane had a hydraulic issue .. Virgin did the right thing and got all the passengers and crew down safely. The CEO went to the airport to talk to the passengers, the company has paid to put them up in a decent hotel and they're all flying out on a special Virgin flight tomorrow. Text book handling of a major crisis. The twat in charge of Network Rail might want to take note from his second home in Devon.

Gassage

Also, it was at FL320 when they decided to come back- that does suggest a further issue

A few years back this could have been diverted to the old Manston Airfield, that the JAA used to keep ready for such a purpose.

Closed now, and no tower.

ICBM

Gassage said:

A few years back this could have been diverted to the old Manston Airfield, that the JAA used to keep ready for such a purpose.

Closed now, and no tower.

Even more highlighting the lack of a coherent airports policy in this country.

Gassage

ICBM said:

Gassage said:

A few years back this could have been diverted to the old Manston Airfield, that the JAA used to keep ready for such a purpose.

Closed now, and no tower.

Even more highlighting the lack of a coherent airports policy in this country.

Indeed- also proving that privatised infrastructure isn't always good.

ICBM

Gassage said:

Indeed- also proving that privatised infrastructure isn't always good.

Precisely. The nonsense of having a private BAA and then making them sell airports to 'promote competition' - when airports are very rarely in true competition - instead of having a unified national strategy really comes back to bite when things like this happen. I really can't understand why an extra runway at Heathrow is even being remotely considered when its airspace and surrounding infrastructure is already at bursting point, compared to adding one at Gatwick which only has one so any incident automatically closes the whole airport… it should be an absolute no-brainer - and that's even if you don't want to look at moving non-London traffic somewhere more sensible, like Birmingham. That's what happens when you listen to the vested interests who operate Heathrow.

Sambostar

The safety aspect isn't really an issue considering that all transatlantic airliners these days barely carry enough fuel as to make the crossing as standard, having to ditch in Boston or Canada if they run out.

Airport taxes get me, it's like Centrica selling gas to itself at an inflated price and then saying it hasn't made a retail profit because the cost was so high, so they can't be taxed. The airport taxes are the same, the airlines have shares or own the damn airports that are doing the taxing.

Sambostar

Your 767-300 has a maximum  range of 7130km Heathrow to Chicago is 6350km direct, not accounting for air traffic control.

Encounter the Jetstream or a strong head wind and it is hit or miss if you will make it with an empty tank.  These are the margins that the industry runs with these days.

780km is not much of a safety margin.  With as little as a 37mph headwind, that range is reduced to 6627km and that 227km doesn't even account for the typical circling approach. 

With a 77 mph headwind, you have had it and will have to divert.

ESchap

Thanks @sambostar. I fly transatlantic frequently. Think they'd allow me a parachute as hand luggage?

Emp_Fab

It wasn't just that the gear failed to come down, they had a #4 hydraulic system failure which, according to the airline's SOP (Std Operating Procedure) is on the 'no go' section of the 'go/no go' faults list.  Some faults can be ignored until they arrive at their destination / the next scheduled maintenance.  Hydraulic system failure isn't one of them - it would have affected more than just the landing gear.

ICBM

Emp_Fab said:

It wasn't just that the gear failed to come down, they had a #4 hydraulic system failure which, according to the airline's SOP (Std Operating Procedure) is on the 'no go' section of the 'go/no go' faults list.  Some faults can be ignored until they arrive at their destination / the next scheduled maintenance.  Hydraulic system failure isn't one of them - it would have affected more than just the landing gear.

Indeed. Which is not how it was originally reported…

It still seems ridiculous that out of all the airports in the UK within easy range and with long enough runways to land a 747 on, they chose the busiest one with only one runway, thus guaranteeing massive disruption - presumably for no other reason than that was where they'd come from. Standard operating procedure or not, it wasn't really the best choice.

Emp_Fab

Ah - that's where the company bean counters come into play.  Virgin Atlantic have maintenance hangars at Gatwick and Heathrow.  Landing anywhere else would have cost them shitloads to setup a mobile repair operation.  Heathrow was a non-starter given how busy it is, so out of the two, Gatwick was the only sensible option.

hywelg

ICBM said:

I really can't understand why an extra runway at Heathrow is even being remotely considered when its airspace and surrounding infrastructure is already at bursting point, compared to adding one at Gatwick which only has one so any incident automatically closes the whole airport… it should be an absolute no-brainer - and that's even if you don't want to look at moving non-London traffic somewhere more sensible, like Birmingham. That's what happens when you listen to the vested interests who operate Heathrow.

Has anyone even considered the question of how many people flying out of Heathrow/Gatwick would rather not? East Midlands, Brum or Manchester even are way more convenient for me, but rarely can I get a flight from there. Smacks of London types ignoring the rest of the country, again....

HAL9000

ICBM;459456" said:

I really can't understand why an extra runway at Heathrow is even being remotely considered when its airspace and surrounding infrastructure is already at bursting point...

The way to expand Heathrow would be to build any extra runways OUTSIDE of the M25 and use them for, say, cargo thus allowing more passenger aircraft to use the existing airport. The fact that you'd have to flatten Slough to do this brings the additional benefit of solving 70% of the South-east's crime problems in one hit.

VimFuego

oh come international cargo flights, come land on slough doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

CabbageCat

I saw the plane flying over Mid Sussex as I was driving to Tesco in Burgess Hill. I thought at the time that it was flying very low and behaving weirdly. It wasn't until I got back to work that I saw it was national news - I'd have paid more attention.

stickyfiddle

hywelg said:

ICBM said:

I really can't understand why an extra runway at Heathrow is even being remotely considered when its airspace and surrounding infrastructure is already at bursting point, compared to adding one at Gatwick which only has one so any incident automatically closes the whole airport… it should be an absolute no-brainer - and that's even if you don't want to look at moving non-London traffic somewhere more sensible, like Birmingham. That's what happens when you listen to the vested interests who operate Heathrow.

Has anyone even considered the question of how many people flying out of Heathrow/Gatwick would rather not? East Midlands, Brum or Manchester even are way more convenient for me, but rarely can I get a flight from there. Smacks of London types ignoring the rest of the country, again....

As someone living abroad flying in and out a couple of times a year I would *love* if there was an option other than Heathrow for my flights. I can go to most of the regionals if I switch at Amsterdam but otherwise it's LHR every time. Even Stagnated or Gatwick would be better.

Expanding Gatwick is a total no-brainer for me.