Plane slips off runway in Madrid

[zeitghost]

Up to 153 dead now...

The bodies were too hot to touch. We burned our hands when we touched them

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Landing/take-off are the most dangerous times in an aircraft. My understanding is that they should be able to survive an engine (single) failure on take-off. Check out the youtube footage of "thompson mayday" for a cool professional approach to breaking your aircraft on take-off.

This is awful though...

Classic case of why spelling is important! I suspect you meant "braking"

[Peoplesoft bloke]

I never go on those planes with engines at the back .. always only with engines on the wings, ..
.

So you check with the airline each time? What would you do, if as happened to me once, the scheduled 737-300 was replaced by an F100 - refuse to get on?

How many rear engined planes have you flown on? When I started flying there wasn't much choice - my first few flights were

BAC 1-11, DC-9 (original versionof the MD80 series), F28, 727-200, all rear engined. SInce then I have flown on F100s am MD 80 series - I don't believe they are any more risky.

I remember back in 2000 near Los Angeles airport an Alaska airways MD-83 (the Spanish plane was an MD-80) with a rear engine plunged to the ground all because the stabelizing rudder at the back had not been greased properly and the ratchets wore down, they could not stop the gradual descent, then the plane flipped upside down and minutes later it crashed into the sea and everyone died.
.

Indeed - and if we're being picky, the Spanish plane is reported as being an MD 82. There isn't a stabelizing[sic] rudder, there's a rudder and a horizontal stabiliser (two different things) - and in any case what does this have to do with your "engines at the back = bad" theory? A 737 crashed killing 132 in 1994 when the rudder jammed. 55 people were killed in 1995 when the engine on a 737 exploded on takeoff.

I
What is strange about this one is that the plane was just taking off, a large explosion was heard, the rear engine was said to be on fire, the recovery landing was 'apparently' ok ... but then from some of the other testimonies the plane broke in two. Also the CNN report shows TWO large plumes of smoke one white and one black hundreds of meters apart.

I'm wondering whether this is an act of terrorism because this airport has a great safety record.

You can't do a "recovery landing" on most commercial jetliners if you are on the point of take off - by that stage you are committed to take off and fly a return to the airport to deal with any problems no matter how serious. There is no way the pilots put that plane back down voluntarily - it fell down.

I'd bet the entire national debt of Peru that it wasn't terrorism. My money is on an uncontained engine fan blade failure - there has been at least one other case of this on an MD80 series, although that happened prior to takeoff.

[Advocate]

Classic case of why spelling is important! I suspect you meant "braking"

Nope, I meant breaking; it was a bird strike during take-off.

So you check with the airline each time? What would you do, if as happened to me once, the scheduled 737-300 was replaced by an F100 - refuse to get on?

How many rear engined planes have you flown on? When I started flying there wasn't much choice - my first few flights were

BAC 1-11, DC-9 (original versionof the MD80 series), F28, 727-200, all rear engined. SInce then I have flown on F100s am MD 80 series - I don't believe they are any more risky.

Indeed - and if we're being picky, the Spanish plane is reported as being an MD 82. There isn't a stabelizing[sic] rudder, there's a rudder and a horizontal stabiliser (two different things) - and in any case what does this have to do with your "engines at the back = bad" theory? A 737 crashed killing 132 in 1994 when the rudder jammed. 55 people were killed in 1995 when the engine on a 737 exploded on takeoff.



You can't do a "recovery landing" on most commercial jetliners if you are on the point of take off - by that stage you are committed to take off and fly a return to the airport to deal with any problems no matter how serious. There is no way the pilots put that plane back down voluntarily - it fell down.

I'd bet the entire national debt of Peru that it wasn't terrorism. My money is on an uncontained engine fan blade failure - there has been at least one other case of this on an MD80 series, although that happened prior to takeoff.

My understanding is that complete loss of thrust on one side of a rear engined jet especially whilst the other side is at full thrust can make it incredibly difficult to control (even though it should have enough thrust for take-off).

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Nope, I meant breaking; it was a bird strike during take-off.

So what got broken and who was doing the breaking?

[Advocate]

So what got broken and who was doing the breaking?

The left engine, and the bird.

The bird.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KhZwsYtNDE

[NotAllThere]

...but what gets me is it was reported in writing that 'one survivor reported a safe landing'.

I seems like about a million miles away from a 'safe landing'.

Someone on a mobile phone said "Our plane just had to make an emergency landing. But I'm OK. <click>".

[ASB]

Someone on a mobile phone said "Our plane just had to make an emergency landing. But I'm OK. <click>".

It certainly seems confused. Clearly it wasn't an emergency landing - there was no go around. Post V1 it should be able to gain enough height for a safe landing on one engine, at least that's the theory.

One could theorise for ever if he was pre V1, post V1 and whether he had reached VR/V2. They've got the FDR so it'll come out pretty soon I guess.

[Xenophon]

One could theorise for ever if he was pre V1, post V1 and whether he had reached VR/V2. They've got the FDR so it'll come out pretty soon I guess.

I was just about to post the exact same thing.

[ASB]

I was just about to post the exact same thing.

Current reports *seem* to indicate it had left the ground. As such he was certainly post V1. So the go around should have been possible. However with an expiring engine - an explosion had been reported - is is quite possible that control systems had been severely damaged by the bits of shrapnel. I'm sure the late captain did the right things and his best, but sadly in a stricken airliner most bets are off.