Flt 268 SEA-JFK diverted to ORD, off runway into grass

[tfc767]

Whether the battery chargers were charging or not if that is all you have left to power up the aircraft you do not continue to fly for one hour and forty minutes. You look for a place to land quickly. You have no redundancy left at this point. YOU LAND ASAP.
NO Excuses..

What if there are no suitable airports nearby?
What if you are working the problem with the QRH and it leads you down the wrong path due to a mis-written QRH?
What if all indications are normal and lead you to believe you are NOT down to battery power only?

These are some of the decisions pilots have to sort through without just "panic landing" ASAP.

You see, 1AA, it is very easy to jump in and condemn the crew and monday morning quarterback without having been PRESENT ON THAT FLIGHT DECK. In fact, one of the most IDIOTIC things you can do with an airline incident/accident is to jump to conclusions without all the facts.

But I'm sure you already knew that.

The crew apparently did not realize they were down to a drained battery, due to a misleading QRH, until they started losing essential buses. At that point, they did indeed "land ASAP" and did one hell of a job considering the circumstances.

You obviously would have done a much better job.

 

[1AA]

When you know you lost both AC buses and are on standby power to power up the AC through the inverters you know well enough that you have a serious problem. You are flying over the USA and there are plenty of alternates in route for a 757 to land. Flying for over one hour was not the best choice considering the crew knew they were on emergency standby power. I spoke to several 757/767 pilots and they all agreed that 30 minutes on battery power should not be exceeded. I guess we are all jumping to conclusions. I will leave it at that.

 

[Mach85ER]

Whether the battery chargers were charging or not if that is all you have left to power up the aircraft you do not continue to fly for one hour and forty minutes. You look for a place to land quickly. You have no redundancy left at this point. YOU LAND ASAP.
NO Excuses..

Let me tell you something, DELETED BY MODERATOR-- SEE PM

Life up there ain't the usual "ops check normal, off-then-on, depower-repower then OK, could not duplicate" standard you generally live by.

I'll wait for the final report. I will tell you that there is still some questions I have about depowered systems in it, so I'll hold off on my "Monday morning QB'ing".

I will tell you that after 12+ years, and 7000+ hours in the 757/767, I never heard of control issues with 2 functional engine driven, and 2 main bus hydraulic pumps. The 30 minute battery life is well known, it's the standard with any thing that flys above FL180.


Feel free to conduct a ground school if you want.

 

[1AA]

"Life up there ain't the usual "ops check normal, off-then-on, depower-repower then OK, could not duplicate" standard you generally live by."

I am not going to start this tit for tat.
We can go back and forth with this one but I will not.

By the way how many times are tires written up en route into a US Airport with Maintenance, or Nav lights burned out, taxi lights, landing lights in the daytime, brake wear pins low or flush,etc....
Critical issues have to be given full attention and not decided by a Pilot or even MYSELF an AMT as to what I feel is good or bad and how much longer an aircraft can continue to fly. We all have to live under many guidelines. Unfortunately many feel that after years of experience we can deviate and take issues into our own based on past practices. Complacency is a nasty thing.

DELETED BY MODERATOR

Have a great day Sir and fly safe.

 

[Hopeful]

Let me tell you something, "Richard",

Life up there ain't the usual "ops check normal, off-then-on, depower-repower then OK, could not duplicate" standard you generally live by.

What do expect we do? A Functional Check Flight each and every time we get an item we can't duplicate?

 

[FWAAA]

From the initial NTSB report:

While aligned with the runway to land, the flightcrew declared an emergency with the control tower as a precaution. As the airplane neared the runway on final approach, the flightcrew discovered that the elevator and standby elevator trim systems were inoperative. The captain then assisted the first officer on the flight controls and the approach to land was continued. The systems required to slow the airplane on the runway appeared to indicate normal, and with the elevator control issues the flightcrew did not want to perform a go-around to land on a longer runway.

Who would have made the initial decision to land on 22R, the shortest runway at ORD? I can understand the decision to not perform the go-around to land on a longer runway, but only the pilots' skill prevented a huge disaster on the short runway. Nothing in the report suggests that assigning a longer runway in the first instance was out of the question, but perhaps 22R made the most sense given the direction of the flight after it turned around - it was coming from Michigan.

 

[Mach85ER]

"Life up there ain't the usual "ops check normal, off-then-on, depower-repower then OK, could not duplicate" standard you generally live by."

I am not going to start this tit for tat.
We can go back and forth with this one but I will not.

I'm done too.

I'm sure we'll both learn something about this incident, and we'll both be safer at the end of the day. The info already suggests some adverse affects I don't remember hearing about in past flying. I do know that one thing on the 757/767 I never cared for was the lack of ability to check the battery +/- amps inflight. (I know where to check it on the ground, but we're not supposed to do that)

Have a great day Sir and fly safe.

You too.

 

[Mach85ER]

From the initial NTSB report:

Who would have made the initial decision to land on 22R, the shortest runway at ORD?

ATC probably gave an initial runway. We'll have to wait and see what reason there was for 22R. The initial report suggests the closest runway may have been an issue.

 

[lpbrian]

"Life up there ain't the usual "ops check normal, off-then-on, depower-repower then OK, could not duplicate" standard you generally live by."

I am not going to start this tit for tat.
We can go back and forth with this one but I will not.

By the way how many times are tires written up en route into a US Airport with Maintenance, or Nav lights burned out, taxi lights, landing lights in the daytime, brake wear pins low or flush,etc....
Critical issues have to be given full attention and not decided by a Pilot or even MYSELF an AMT as to what I feel is good or bad and how much longer an aircraft can continue to fly. We all have to live under many guidelines. Unfortunately many feel that after years of experience we can deviate and take issues into our own based on past practices. Complacency is a nasty thing.

DELETED BY MODERATOR

Have a great day Sir and fly safe.

Boy the moderator was sure busy on this thread. How could a technical discussion turn personal?

 

[Mach85ER]

Boy the moderator was sure busy on this thread. How could a technical discussion turn personal?

Cockpit crews get a little tired of others pointing fingers starting the second an incident happens. You should hear what we say about other pilots who do the same thing :blink:

 

[1AA]

I'm done too.

I'm sure we'll both learn something about this incident, and we'll both be safer at the end of the day. The info already suggests some adverse affects I don't remember hearing about in past flying. I do know that one thing on the 757/767 I never cared for was the lack of ability to check the battery +/- amps inflight. (I know where to check it on the ground, but we're not supposed to do that)



You too.

American Airlines for some reason decided that the flight crew should not have access to the maintenance system pages once the aircraft is in motion (Parking Brake released). I have worked on other airlines 757 and 767 and their aircraft are configured so that the maintenance system pages are available to the crew at any time during operations, ground and air. It is simply a change or reconfiguration of the wiring. Put pressure on AA engineering to allow you guys to have these functions available. They are valuable to the flight crews and maintenance when troubleshooting a problem once you have left the gate or are in the air. It can prevent a ground interrupt or air interrupt which is a cost saving. Unfortunately some bone head engineer or idiot that was in charge of options when the orders went in was not thinking about safety. You guys have to push this along or it will never get done. Nobody listens to us. We never see the whole picture.

 

[upsilon]

Cockpit crews get a little tired of others pointing fingers starting the second an incident happens. You should hear what we say about other pilots who do the same thing :blink:

I do. I read PPrune!

 

[eolesen]

These guys essentially flew SEA-TVC.... on batteries.... before deciding to divert? Incredible.

Sure, I can see not wanting to go into a 5000' runway in Montana or Idaho, but looking at a basic direct GC routing, they overflew more than just a couple airports with more than enough runway, including:

GEG (9000)
GTF (10502')
GFK (7350')
BIS (8794)
FAR (9000)
MSP (11000)
DLH (10162)
GRB (8700)

Good thing they turned when they did.

Can you imagine what would have happened if the batteries had lasted into final approach at JFK, and then finding all those systems suddenly inop?....

Would RAT deployment have been able to feed power with the relay failure?

 

[tfc767]

These guys essentially flew SEA-TVC.... on batteries.... before deciding to divert? Incredible.

Sure, I can see not wanting to go into a 5000' runway in Montana or Idaho, but looking at a basic direct GC routing, they overflew more than just a couple airports with more than enough runway, including:

GEG (9000)
GTF (10502')
GFK (7350')
BIS (8794)
FAR (9000)
MSP (11000)
DLH (10162)
GRB (8700)

Good thing they turned when they did.

Can you imagine what would have happened if the batteries had lasted into final approach at JFK, and then finding all those systems suddenly inop?....

Would RAT deployment have been able to feed power with the relay failure?

Eolesen... before you make an even bigger fool of yourself than you already have.... just remember this one thing. The absolute worst, most criminal sin one can make in the airline industry is to try and second-guess a crew's actions during an incident/accident when all the facts have not been released yet. It tends to make you look really bad when new info comes to light.

Not one airline pilot in existence today would EVER continue a flight on battery power alone. Because of that, it stands to reason that our crew did not realize their batteries were discharging, probably through a misleading QRH that is now being revised. When they reached the point at which stuff began to fail, they realized their predicament and executed a successful diversion in which nobody got hurt. In my eyes they did a good job.

Until you walk in our shoes, eolesen, please don't come on here presuming you knew what actions the crew should have taken. There are good reasons as to why they did what they did, probably several of which have not come to light yet.

 

[eolesen]

TFC, you claim that not one pilot in existance would continue on battery power alone. Yet, once again, facts appear to contradict your opinion...

The NTSB report linked from the previous page clearly states "the airplane systems stabilized with several items inoperative and the captain contacted maintenance technical support and subsequently elected to continue the flight on battery power.

That means not only did one pilot in existance continue on battery power, both did.

That's all fact.

Why they did it remains an open question, and I look forward to the full NTSB report, where they will probably have to answer why they chose to overfly as many perfectly capable airports as they did.

And yes, I agree these guys did a good job putting the plane down in a crisis. Fortunately everyone walked away without injuries, and the airframe lived to fly another day.

Had they made it to JFK and put the airplane off the runway and into Jamaica Bay, or worse, into other aircraft at JFK, would you still be so quick to support following the QRH vs. common sense??


I don't know anyone who second guesses a Captain for acting like one and putting his aircraft and passengers first.


The pilots I work with as well as a fair majority of people posting here seem to be of the opinion that with an undiagnosed electrical problem and "multiple items inoperative," common sense dictates putting the airplane down as quickly and safely as possible, and worrying about troubleshooting with the manual once it was on the ground.

It's a fact they didn't do that. They got lucky.