I know better then the pilots.. now I'm suing!

Phantom017

Phantom017

Up up and awaaaaayyy!
SEATTLE - A Bellevue, Washington, woman is suing American Airlines, saying she was traumatized when an American plane ran off the runway at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in 2008.
Passenger Jewel Thomas says she has suffered severe mental and emotional problems because of the incident.
The Boeing 757 was flying from Seattle to New York when it made an emergency landing at O'Hare. No physical injuries were reported among the passengers or crew.
In her federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, Thomas contends that because the plane had electrical problems and was on a backup battery, the flight crew should have diverted sooner to another airport before the battery ran out and key systems were crippled.
A spokesperson for American was not immediately available for comment.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. American is operated by parent AMR Corp


I am sure that this lady has never had any car problems that caused her to exit the roadway and wait for assistance i.e. flat tire... but if she did I'm sure it caused her years of therapy to be able to get in a car again :insane:
 
A roughly 30 minute span between the failure and landing in ORD, that was the most suitable airport.

I'll bet she'd be pissed when someone happens over the ocean and we land in Keflavik instead of Paris, eh? :)
 
That's a pretty bad day when you lose all AC power on that thing. :) Wonder how that even happens...
 
Maybe a 757/767 driver (I hear we have a few of those around these parts) can shed some light on this. From reading the NTSB report it seems to me that if I was faced with a similar situation (down to battery power only and the battery charger not working) on the airplane I fly I would be heading for the nearest piece of suitable pavement ASAP. Not so in a 757? Or is this a case of not fully understanding the severity of the issue due to what ever reasons?
 
I did an extensive report for one of my classes regarding this incident.

I don't recall all of the details but at the time it seemed like a lack of systems knowledge by the crew contributed to the accident, I just remember that one of their actions triggered something else, which led to the almost complete electrical failure.

This part I do remember writing about, pretty scary.
After coming to a stop, the flight crew was not able to shut the engines down with either the fuel cutoff valves or by extending the fire handles
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BobDDuck said:
Maybe a 757/767 driver (I hear we have a few of those around these parts) can shed some light on this. From reading the NTSB report it seems to me that if I was faced with a similar situation (down to battery power only and the battery charger not working) on the airplane I fly I would be heading for the nearest piece of suitable pavement ASAP. Not so in a 757? Or is this a case of not fully understanding the severity of the issue due to what ever reasons?
Click to expand...

We cover electrical in systems today. Maybe I'll have a better idea after that if nobody else comes up with something before then. :) Honestly, with the way the aircraft is set up with how the AC buses get their power in flight, it makes you wonder!
 
Doug Taylor said:
A roughly 30 minute span between the failure and landing in ORD, that was the most suitable airport.
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It sorta sounds like it was almost 2.5hrs between the initial failure and the decision to divert.

BobDDuck said:
Maybe a 757/767 driver (I hear we have a few of those around these parts) can shed some light on this. From reading the NTSB report it seems to me that if I was faced with a similar situation (down to battery power only and the battery charger not working) on the airplane I fly I would be heading for the nearest piece of suitable pavement ASAP. Not so in a 757? Or is this a case of not fully understanding the severity of the issue due to what ever reasons?
Click to expand...

From the report it sounds like the QRH and direction from maintenance were both a little ambiguous--hence the recommended procedural changes for AA and Boeing.

I was in a 757 jumpseat once when the captain got up for the lav and hit the standby power selector (I think) with his head. All sorts of lights and noises started happening, autopilot kicked off--and there was a fed in the other jumpseat. It was relatively amusing.
 
Is there something wrong with me...my mind read it as, "Woman looses job and is searching for compensation from a lawsuit from a couple years ago to make up lost wages." God bless America
 
Indeed, it took 2.5 hours to go from "battery power" to having no juice left in the batteries, when it should only take 30 minutes to deplete the batteries. That tells me that this was a cascading series of failures, one on top of another, over a period of time. There are also hints in the factual NTSB report that point to something being wrong the whole time, but you don't cancel a flight because you "don't feel right" about the electrical system in the airplane, especially after MX came and checked things out.

Further, it looks like they were on top of the situation the whole time, talking with MX control twice and following the QRH when things started going south. All in all it sounds like they were handed a constantly crumbling crap sandwich and make a series of decisions that, at the time, seemed like good choices, without realizing it was all about to drop out from under them in short order.

As somebody stated above, WTF was going on with being unable to turn the engines off via the fuel selectors or the t-handles!? It sounds like this airplane has got some serious problems.
 
BobDDuck said:
Maybe a 757/767 driver (I hear we have a few of those around these parts) can shed some light on this. From reading the NTSB report it seems to me that if I was faced with a similar situation (down to battery power only and the battery charger not working) on the airplane I fly I would be heading for the nearest piece of suitable pavement ASAP. Not so in a 757? Or is this a case of not fully understanding the severity of the issue due to what ever reasons?
Click to expand...

I'll have to look at the case, which I have not done!
 
What did they do that required an entry in the logbook? You've never had a mechanic come out to take a look at something that may be "a little fishy" and had them say, "Oh yeah, they do that sometimes, but we can't recall the fault so don't worry about it; just gremlins."

I've had that happen, and had it just be gremlins that never popped back up again.

EDIT: Or...you deleted your post?
 
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