The Vulcan XH558 & General Aviation Thread

[quicksilver-wsr]

Jesus wept ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-40421811

Nigel

[mtskull]

....humans will still find a way to scupper themselves even with a checklist. There was the Kegworth accident where, had they bothered to read it properly and not thrown their aircraft at the ground, they'd likely have picked up that they'd shut down the wrong engine.

Not quite; if they had just got on the ground straight away they would have got away with it. The trouble was that, having followed a course of action that appeared at the time to have had the desired effect, they then flew on without further investigation for long enough for the duff engine to eat itself and only found out when it was too late, even though they were the only two people on board who didn't know that they had shut down the wrong engine. As to why nobody saw fit to inform them, that's an entire can of worms in itself, albeit an issue that has been very thoroughly addressed since.

[Renegadenemo]

It's a long time since I read either report but my recollection is that the Kegworth crew were in a big hurry to get down and this clouded their problem solving process. If memory serves - and I'll look this up and read it tomorrow because this is my anoraky subject - the duff engine shed part of a hollow fan blade, vibrated a bit and blew smoke into the cockpit but on the later 73 (on which they'd had very little conversion training but found themselves flying that day) their air was fed from the other engine so they assumed wrongly and shut down the good engine. The damaged one then ran happily through the descent until the flaps were extended and the auto-throttles tried to spool it up whereupon the remains of the damaged blade let go under load and that was that. They attempted to start the undamaged engine but that was outside the available envelope so they bounced off a field then slammed into the embankment on the side of the road and stopped dead.
A local aircraft breaker bought the wreck and I remember standing in his warehouse looking at dozens of seats caked with blood. He kept them to extract a small damper from each one that cost £400.

[quicksilver-wsr]

A local aircraft breaker bought the wreck and I remember standing in his warehouse looking at dozens of seats caked with blood. He kept them to extract a small damper from each one that cost £400.

Back in 2006, I was having an in-depth medical exam courtesy of a doctor who'd been involved in examining victims of the Kegworth crash. He told me that a high proportion of the victims he examined had been killed by glass duty-free booze bottles flying from the overhead lockers and striking them on the backs of their heads.

Not a nice thought - since, if true, this would and should have been preventable - but I thought I'd check the story on the web just now and, sure enough, "All but one overhead locker sprang open and luggage flew through the air, causing head injuries to almost every passenger, and killing some of them."

Lessons were, of course, learned. But aren't they always.

Nigel

[Renegadenemo]

I'd guess that's the end of that then... We could make them some new bulkheads, l suppose.
Had the pleasure of meeting that aircraft at DeHavilland Aviation when we collected our Orph'.
Such a shame.

Sea Vixen.jpg

[quicksilver-wsr]

It was difficult enough raising that kind of money for the Vulcan, but for anything else I fear it won't happen in a month of Sundays. Sad, but that's the harsh reality of operating planes of this kind.

I had a feeling when I first saw pictures of the crash that it wasn't going to be a good outcome. Call it healthy pessimism.

The positive view is that folks were treated to years of Sea Vixen-watching that they would never have had if this one hadn't been saved. The bad news is that yet another iconic British Cold War type disappears forever from our skies.

Lightning, Victor, Buccaneer, Harrier, Vulcan ... Sea Vixen

Nigel

[Renegadenemo]

It's the telephone number prices that get me. They raised £250k to rebuild a Centaurus engine! And now they're talking £3 million to repair some tinware. Do they dig a hole in the ground and throw most of the money in there before getting on with the job? Tell them to send it up here and we'll do it for a million.

[mtskull]

It's a long time since I read either report but my recollection is that the Kegworth crew were in a big hurry to get down and this clouded their problem solving process. If memory serves - and I'll look this up and read it tomorrow because this is my anoraky subject - the duff engine shed part of a hollow fan blade, vibrated a bit and blew smoke into the cockpit but on the later 73 (on which they'd had very little conversion training but found themselves flying that day) their air was fed from the other engine so they assumed wrongly and shut down the good engine. The damaged one then ran happily through the descent until the flaps were extended and the auto-throttles tried to spool it up whereupon the remains of the damaged blade let go under load and that was that. They attempted to start the undamaged engine but that was outside the available envelope so they bounced off a field then slammed into the embankment on the side of the road and stopped dead.

I have just had another look at the AAIB report and you're quite right; they did in fact land with minimum delay and the resultant high workload was likely to have compromised their ability to adequately review their actions. I stand corrected.

[mtskull]

Back in 2006, I was having an in-depth medical exam courtesy of a doctor who'd been involved in examining victims of the Kegworth crash. He told me that a high proportion of the victims he examined had been killed by glass duty-free booze bottles flying from the overhead lockers and striking them on the backs of their heads.

Not a nice thought - since, if true, this would and should have been preventable - but I thought I'd check the story on the web just now and, sure enough, "All but one overhead locker sprang open and luggage flew through the air, causing head injuries to almost every passenger, and killing some of them."

Interesting. This discussion moved me to read through the AAIB report again. It mentions that, although witnesses recalled that some overhead lockers came open immediately before the crash, in fact all but one of the lockers actually separated from the airframe at the second impact.
The same report states the number of people showing evidence of head injury from a blow from behind as 17.
True, nearly everybody suffered head injuries but these were mostly attributable to impact with the seat in front.

It never ceased to amaze me that more survived than died in that crash; as it was, a combination of good design (fuel tanks which mostly maintained their integrity) and good fortune (the fuel tank that did rupture was empty, also the fire services arrived In time to put out a fire before it could spread), prevented the wreck becoming an inferno, which doesn't bear thinking about.

[Richie]

There is a lot to be said about fate.


it always crops up when surveying collision scenes