Great CRM: 767 uncontained engine fire/tear drop return with CVR/FDR.

Very little discussion here about "Uncontained". Lot's of other bad things can happen. I'm thinking UA DC10 in ORD where they lost hydraulics or Sioux City. Did the 767 engine fire include severe vibration and a loss of performance? At AQP this year the emphasis item was engine fire at rotation and let it burn until the flaps are up. Many times the engine fire indication is false anyhow. But how do you know you've had an uncontained failure? I would think a lack of performance and vibration soon followed by hydraulic issues, possibly. There has to be some point where "screw the checklist, we need to land this thing....we know what we need to do" becomes a player. What's that point?
 
Very little discussion here about "Uncontained". Lot's of other bad things can happen. I'm thinking UA DC10 in ORD where they lost hydraulics or Sioux City. Did the 767 engine fire include severe vibration and a loss of performance? At AQP this year the emphasis item was engine fire at rotation and let it burn until the flaps are up. Many times the engine fire indication is false anyhow. But how do you know you've had an uncontained failure? I would think a lack of performance and vibration soon followed by hydraulic issues, possibly. There has to be some point where "screw the checklist, we need to land this thing....we know what we need to do" becomes a player. What's that point?

Agreed. I think that point comes, as you say, with anything beyond "simple" contained engine failure/fire, with no further cascading emergencies or system losses.

And I also agree that checklists don't, can't, and aren't expected to cover every contingency or emergency, and this is where airmanship comes in: understanding when flying the airplane and doing what needs to be done now, supercedes running a checklist due to time/severity, etc. And I think that can vary from airframe type to airframe type, when those times are. Knowing which situations are ones where it's imperative to turn them from an air emergency, to a ground emergency as quickly as possible and if at all possible.
 
Just to respond to the "old airplanes" thing, shutdowns for engine fire/severe damage/separation are done from memory in the 767 (at least for the couple airlines I've flown it for), even now in 2014. But, it's a two-person confirmation done when you're cleaned up and stable. The risk of shutting down the wrong engine far outweighs a fire burning out on a pylon for a couple minutes longer.

And I agree: Cascading failures caused by an engine blowing parts all over the place? You're off-book at that point, and the crew should exercise their best judgment on how to proceed. In the case in this thread, the engine was still producing takeoff thrust throughout the fire warning.
 
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I noticed something, as well: According to the video description, they departed at 186,000 kgs (410,000 lbs), which is right under MTOW for a -300ER. At flaps 5 and that weight, they were most certainly under V1 when the CA opted to continue.
 
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I have flown with a lot of Italian Captains (based in Italy for 18 months). The Italian "school" is very much a hand-flying raw data hero type culture. They are very keen on immediate visual returns, and lots of captains will brief them prior to departure.

I come from the "take problem into the air, run checklist, land" school of training. There is no need to rush these things, and that is far more likely to kill you. I would be very uncomfortable with a simple engine fire doing a crazy I an return when you could take 5 mins doing a circuit instead without leaving PM behind at V1.

The only situation I have come across where you need to be fast-fingered Freddy shutting things down and popping CBs is a thrust rev deployed at V1 in the Lear as otherwise your chances of survival are remote, and then the aircraft makes identification a no-brainer as it retards the bad thrust lever to idle.

And yes, I have had to deal with engine failures so I'm not just an armchair critic.
 
"The outcome was acceptable, so clearly it was safe!"

Well, you're a self-proclaimed philosopher, so I'd imagine that you recognize a tautology when you see one. Unless..."safe" means something other than "no one died"...but what else could it mean, in this context? Surely nothing to do with a thriving pseudo-scientific "safety" industry which perpetuates at the end of a pink slip whatever laughable end-all procedure they dreamed up in their most recent simulator circle jerk session?

If you would take half a second to actually listen to some of the professionals on here, you might learn something.

Ooooh, are you one of the professionals from whom I can learn? I already know how to condescend, but maybe you could teach me to fly an RJ, and I could be an expert, too.
 
Well, you're a self-proclaimed philosopher, so I'd imagine that you recognize a tautology when you see one. Unless..."safe" means something other than "no one died"...but what else could it mean, in this context? Surely nothing to do with a thriving pseudo-scientific "safety" industry which perpetuates at the end of a pink slip whatever laughable end-all procedure they dreamed up in their most recent simulator circle jerk session?



Ooooh, are you one of the professionals from whom I can learn? I already know how to condescend, but maybe you could teach me to fly an RJ, and I could be an expert, too.

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Not worth it.
 
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The engine was producing thrust at they were climbing at nearly 3000FPM when he reduced it and shut it down, then they actually lose a bit of altitude. @Boris Badenov, doesn't it make more sense to you to just keep it producing thrust and climbing for 30 seconds rather than shutting it down at 500 AGL? I wouldn't want to keep it cooking for 5 minutes, but an additional 25 seconds isn't going to hurt much of anything, in this case, versus all the potential hazards of a low-level shutdown.
 
@Boris Badenov, doesn't it make more sense to you to just keep it producing thrust and climbing for 30 seconds rather than shutting it down at 500 AGL?

It seems to me that there are a few things that I would have done differently (including maybe waiting a tiny bit longer to shut the engine down), yeah, but I wasn't there. And what I might have done differently might have gotten everyone very dead, no way to know. What we know for certain is that they had an emergency which we all train for constantly, but almost no one ever experiences in the real world, and they landed the airplane safely. As per above, I'm not an ahem "safety expert" (self-described or otherwise), but it seems like the most basic sort of common sense to me to try to see what the guys did RIGHT when nothing went kersplat and burned after a seriously dangerous situation. And, yes, I suppose that if believing that landing safely from an emergency is "safe" makes me a luddite or something, a luddite (or something) I must be.

I have this niggling feeling that the only reason Sully wasn't similarly excoriated is that there wasn't an "approved procedure" for what happened to those guys. I'd imagine that's being remedied as we speak, and we can all have a nice long discussion of all the things the crew did wrong the next time they pull it together and earn their paychecks.

I mean, FFS, the Safety Mafia is telling us that planting a 777 in to a sea wall just in front of an 11,000 strip in CAVU conditions is a complicated accident chain which reflects on, you know, improper Sim training and requires further study, but landing an airplane that is ON FIRE without hurting anyone is a perfect example of how not to fly an airplane. Does that not seem, uh, slightly unbalanced to anyone else?
 
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It seems to me that there are a few things that I would have done differently (including maybe waiting a tiny bit longer to shut the engine down), yeah, but I wasn't there. And what I might have done differently might have gotten everyone very dead, no way to know. What we know for certain is that they had an emergency which we all train for constantly, but almost no one ever experiences in the real world, and they landed the airplane safely. As per above, I'm not an ahem "safety expert" (self-described or otherwise), but it seems like the most basic sort of common sense to me to try to see what the guys did RIGHT when nothing went kersplat and burned after a seriously dangerous situation. And, yes, I suppose that if believing that landing safely from an emergency is "safe" makes me a luddite or something, a luddite (or something) I must be.

I have this niggling feeling that the only reason Sully wasn't similarly excoriated is that there wasn't an "approved procedure" for what happened to those guys. I'd imagine that's being remedied as we speak, and we can all have a nice long discussion of all the things the crew did wrong the next time they pull it together and earn their paychecks.

I mean, FFS, the Safety Mafia is telling us that planting a 777 in to a sea wall just in front of an 11,000 strip in CAVU conditions is a complicated accident chain which reflects on, you know, improper Sim training and requires further study, but landing an airplane that is ON FIRE without hurting anyone is a perfect example of how not to fly an airplane. Does that not seem, uh, slightly unbalanced to anyone else?

No, not at all. I don't see any difference between Asiana and this except that this airframe was reusable after a similar number of bone headed moves. In the end, the only thing that resulted in this airplane not being a cartwheeling ball of death was luck, just like Asiana.
 
Ok, maybe we should be teaching "luck", then.

I mean, if that's the only difference, then isn't that where we ought to focus our efforts?
 
Ok, maybe we should be teaching "luck", then.

I mean, if that's the only difference, then isn't that where we ought to focus our efforts?

On not being a no talent ass clown like both of these crews. Procedures save lives, not skill. We're not here to be heroes, we're here to follow the damned checklist and go home.

There are situations when the checklist doesn't apply, but an engine fire and a visual aren't on the list. The last gig said something like 5% of emergencies won't have a checklist, so the chances of someone being in that situation is slim.
 
How do you maintain this bizarre fantasy that there are discreet boxes in to which to put every emergency? Thousands of moving parts, not to mention billions of neurons in each and every human brain involved, the infinite variability of climatic systems, terrain etc etc etc, and you happily accept the notion that it's just another Office Space decision-tree, what, because "the last gig" said so?

You're rationalizing your way right out of a job. Which is fine, but you're rationalizing me out of one, too, and you're liable to leave a trail of carnage and burning death behind you, besides. If flying airplanes were more science than art, a computer could do it. Or maybe that's been your plan ALL ALONG!?

It's settled. Jtrain is a Cylon.
 
How do you maintain this bizarre fantasy that there are discreet boxes in to which to put every emergency? Thousands of moving parts, not to mention billions of neurons in each and every human brain involved, the infinite variability of climatic systems, terrain etc etc etc, and you happily accept the notion that it's just another Office Space decision-tree, what, because "the last gig" said so?

Don't be so dramatic. Most emergencies are pressing buttons in a slow motion video game. We're not defenders of the galaxy, superman or Jesus Christ.

You're rationalizing your way right out of a job. Which is fine, but you're rationalizing me out of one, too, and you're liable to leave a trail of carnage and burning death behind you, besides. If flying airplanes were more science than art, a computer could do it. Or maybe that's been your plan ALL ALONG!?

It's settled. Jtrain is a Cylon.

No you want the job of writing procedures, which is obviously above your pay grade. Your job is to follow the checklist, not yell yee haw and make it up ok your own.

Do the job the way they tell you to do it, go home and cash the check. I can't fathom your boss would really want you pulling a stunt like this.
 
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