http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/04/hudson ... index.html
(CNN) -- The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday that both engines of the US Airways flight that ditched last month into the Hudson River contained bird remains.
Moderators: FrankM, el, Dmmoore
(CNN) -- The National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday that both engines of the US Airways flight that ditched last month into the Hudson River contained bird remains.
Hudson A320: Partial engine power aided textbook ditching
By John Croft
Sources close to the on-going investigation of US Airways Flight 1549 say that the Airbus A320's number 1 (left) engine continued to run at approximately 35% fan speed (N1) during the three-minute window between striking birds at 3,200ft and ditching in the Hudson River on 15 January. All 150 passengers and five crew safely exited the Charlotte-bound aircraft in the river, aided by nearby ferry boat crews in a spectacle that captured global interest and fueled renewed admiration for airline training and professionalism.
Though limited, the left engine's speed would have been adequate to keep the aircraft's generators and hydraulic systems on-line, providing "normal" flight control laws and communications as well as giving pilots ability to deploy flaps and slats, elements that proved critical to performing a low-speed water landing. To maintain altitude on a single engine however, experts say the powerplant would have had to been running at 70% N1 or more.
Investigators planned to retrieve the left engine, which broke from the aircraft during the ditching, from the river bottom Friday or Saturday to perform an inspection. Flight International has learned that the aircraft touched down at 125-130kt airspeed with flaps and slats both in the "2" position, or midpoint, position. An A320 normally lands at 120-125kt with fully deployed flaps and slats.
The right engine, which remained attached to the aircraft after ditching, was apparently operating at only 15% fan speed, according to sources. Investigators afterward determined that the engine had received "soft body impact damage" to its first stage fan blades. In addition three variable guide vanes were fractured and two were missing. The engine's electronic control unit was missing and "numerous" internal components were "significantly" damaged, said the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in a 21 January update on the accident.
The NTSB says the organic material that was found in the right engine and on the wings and fuselage after the aircraft was lifted onto a barge will be identified through DNA analysis, and a feather found attached to the flap track on the wing was sent to the Smithsonian Institution for identification.
Officials have also confirmed that the A320's Hamilton Sundstrand-built ram air turbine (RAT) had deployed from its compartment near the root of the left wing during the event and that the Honeywell auxiliary power unit in the tail had been operating. Though the RAT will deploy automatically when engine or electric power drops below a threshold, pilots can also manually deploy the propeller-driven emergency system. The device provides power to one of three hydraulic systems onboard which would have given pilots the ability to deploy slats but not flaps.
Sources tell Flight International that the first officer had tried to relight the left engine during the descent, which averaged 1,000fpm rate, but that the engine did not respond other than to continue spinning at 35% N1. It's possible the pilots restarted the APU in order to have bleed air available to help restart the left engine as the A320's airspeed was relatively low.
Pilots review ditching procedures in textbooks during recurrent training but do not practice the events in simulators as there are no test-verified models available. Pilots do however practice double engine-out scenarios with a re-light afterward. NTSB has completed its interviews of the pilots, flight attendants and air traffic controllers and was working to wrap up its fact finding with passengers and a crew that two days earlier experienced a compressor stall on the accident aircraft. That event does not appear to be related to the 15 January accident.
Though US Airways provides all seats in its pre-America West merger A320s with life vests, which includes the accident aircraft, the former A320 captain says there would not have been time to fly and diagnose the aircraft in addition to alert the passengers to the situation and asking them to don the vests before landing. Pilots also did not activate the A320's "ditch" button which automatically configures the various valves and openings on the aircraft for ditching, a preparation the former A320 captain says is about three pages into the ditching checklist. "Some of the flight attendants didnt even know they were going into the water," he says of the short window of opportunity during the descent. "There was not enough time for any of it."
Of all the days to forget ...2008:36 AWE1549 ground cactus ah fifteen forty nine spot twenty eight taxi please
2008:40 GC cactus fifteen forty nine laguardie ground runway ah four turn left alpha hold short of golf and ah did you call clearance
2008:48 AWE1549 ah sorry i forgot
and as we can see from the transcripts the controller did not instruct the pilot to divert to teterboro instead of lga.From the AP:Hang on a minute! If the pilot says he NEEDS to return why would the controller send him to an airport 11 miles away - an airport he could not reach???A spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union says the pilot reported a "double bird strike" about 30 to 45 seconds after takeoff and said he needed to return to LaGuardia. The controller instructed the pilot to divert to an airport in nearby Teterboro, N.J., for an emergency landing
According to what's been posted on the NATCA bulletin board, they initially wanted to turn back toward LGA, but the pilot then asked what airport that was beneath them, which was TEB. ATC then cleared them to land at TEB, which they didn't make either.
Interpreting every word printed in the media in its literal sense is always a mistake.
Settle down there, Giles. You must be excited if you've graduated from one-word answers to actual sentence fragments!and as we can see from the transcripts the controller did not instruct the pilot to divert to teterboro instead of lga.
lesson learned- don't believe media / witness reports minutes after an accident.
i cant please everyone!Settle down there, Giles. You must be excited if you've graduated from one-word answers to actual sentence fragments!and as we can see from the transcripts the controller did not instruct the pilot to divert to teterboro instead of lga.
lesson learned- don't believe media / witness reports minutes after an accident.
That is correct. But, Digger has some credibility...lesson learned- don't believe media / witness reports minutes after an accident.
reubee,Of all the days to forget ...
correction;The crew will be on Larry King Feb 9th. 9pm EST
USAir's Sullenberger: 'I Was Sure I Could Do It'
In his first major interview with the mainstream press Sunday night, USAir's Chesley B. Sullenberger described the moment after his Airbus 320 ingested birds as "the worst, sickening pit of your stomach, falling through the floor feeling I've ever felt in my life. I knew immediately it was very bad." In a 20-minute interview with CBS's Katie Couric on 60 Minutes, Sullenberger said he and F/O Jeff Skiles went through a brief moment of denial before getting to work of ditching the stricken USAir Flight 1549 in the Hudson River on January 15. "My initial reaction was one of disbelief this is happening. This doesn't happen to me," he told Couric, adding that he expected to finish his entire flying career without ever having lost an airplane. Sullenberger described the birdstrike impacts as "like a hailstorm…like the worst thunderstorm I'd ever experienced growing up in Texas." When he noticed the smell of burned birds passing through the air packs, Sullenberger realized the engines weren't going to restart, although he and Skiles selected continuous ignition and started the APU, which apparently provided power all the way to the ditching. "No luck. I mean, I got the AP running, I turned the ignition on, but still, no usable thrust. We were descending rapidly toward the water. The water was coming up at us fast," he told Couric.
Sullenberger was aware of at least one previous ditching gone bad—the 1996 ditching of a hijacked Air Ethiopia 767 in which 125 of 175 people died, largely because the airplane didn't touch down nose-up with wings level. "I needed to touch down with the wings exactly level. I needed to touch down with the nose slightly up. I needed to touch down at a descent rate that was survivable. And I needed to touch down just above our minimum flying speed but not below it. And I needed to make all these things happen simultaneously," he told Couric.
Once the airplane had impacted the water and come to rest, Sullenberger and Skiles turned to each other "and we said, 'Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought.'" However, flight attendant Doreen Welsh had a different experience from her seat in the rear of the cabin. "The back of the plane hit first…it was violent. Horrible. Things flew out," Welsh said. Although the evacuation was orderly, Welsh said there was "some panic in the back," but despite significant flooding, all of the 155 occupants of the airplane evacuated safely.
The FA's only had about 90 seconds warning that the aircraft was making an emergency touchdown and none realized they were going into the river. Welsh injured her leg either during the impact or evacuation and she told Couric she's still too traumatized to put her USAir uniform back on. Sullenberger credits the cabin crew and especially the boat handlers and first responders with making the evacuation a success. For CBS's full story, see http://www.cbsnews.com.
I know....that was a dumb question. "Er, yes, Katie, for about 30 seconds I put my hands up in the air, closed my eyes, and prayed". Heaven forbid I am ever in an emergency situation in an airplane, I want the pilot to focus on the task at hand and try to land the airplane. I don't want him praying.Just saw the 60 minutes interview. "Did you pray?" "No I figured there was enough of that going on behind me" (paraphrase). Of all the dumb questions you could ask.
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I suppose I wouldn't be surprised if there were lawsuits (either from the F/A or pax) given our litigious society, but for the life of me I can't imagine how US Airways would be a defendant. Perhaps the engine manufacturer or the port authority (although the birds didn't seem to be on airport property from all we know so far).And, yes, that flight attendant seemed pretty upset. She's probably never going to fly again and don't be surprised if she sues US Airways for mental distress. She looked like she was ready to fight.
LOL100% incorrect Ever hear of Ferry Permit? issued for Non airworthy aircraftno such thing as "barely airworthy" it's either Airworthy or Notyou still have to find a crew willing to fly this "barely airworthy" heap
Come now, David, please do not question aardvark's charts, they are NEVER wrong; charts are his lifeRe: aardvaark's chart/map, I am not sure how accurate this is. Is it each spot supposed to repesent the aircraft's track and height above ground ? If so, it's not correct, since the 300 feet marker is well to the south of where it actually ditched, so the 300 feet arc would have been further north, I think. The ditching took place a little to the north of the Intrepid carrier, which is at 46th Street - so let's say 48-50th Street. However, the 300 feet marker, at its most generous, cannot be north of around the 23rd-24th Street area. The point of impact, in my judgment, was about one third of the distance south from the 400 feet marker to the 300 feet marker. For reference, the street at the southerly base of Central Park is 59th.
Also, why did he climb 100 feet from 1200 to 1300 feet ? Just equipment readout inaccuracy ?
That's not correct. There was film of the aircraft just after the ditching with the Intrepid in the background. Intrepid is at 46th Street, Pier 86. There was a strong southerly flowing current, which took the aircraft many blocks southward during the evacuation, but the initial splashdown was abeam 48th-50th Street.Flightaware flight log shows flight 1549-15 was at 300' - 153 Knots at N40.74 W74.02. According to Google Earth, that's about even with West 22nd St. Touch down should have been between Pier 54 and 57. There are several video's of the splash taken by camera's in the area of the pier's.
According to the daia published by Flightaware thr aircraft was above 300 but ltss than 400 feet passing the Big I.That's not correct. There was film of the aircraft just after the ditching with the Intrepid in the background. Intrepid is at 46th Street, Pier 86. There was a strong southerly flowing current, which took the aircraft many blocks southward during the evacuation, but the initial splashdown was abeam 48th-50th Street.Flightaware flight log shows flight 1549-15 was at 300' - 153 Knots at N40.74 W74.02. According to Google Earth, that's about even with West 22nd St. Touch down should have been between Pier 54 and 57. There are several video's of the splash taken by camera's in the area of the pier's.
The data is from flightaware.Re: aardvaark's chart/map, I am not sure how accurate this is. Is it each spot supposed to repesent the aircraft's track and height above ground ? If so, it's not correct, since the 300 feet marker is well to the south of where it actually ditched, so the 300 feet arc would have been further north, I think. The ditching took place a little to the north of the Intrepid carrier, which is at 46th Street - so let's say 48-50th Street. However, the 300 feet marker, at its most generous, cannot be north of around the 23rd-24th Street area. The point of impact, in my judgment, was about one third of the distance south from the 400 feet marker to the 300 feet marker. For reference, the street at the southerly base of Central Park is 59th.
Also, why did he climb 100 feet from 1200 to 1300 feet ? Just equipment readout inaccuracy ?
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