BIRDSTRIKE(S) LATE FINALS

[barkingmad]

http://www.aviation-accidents.net/ryana ... ht-fr4102/

Questions follow:

1) How often have you considered this hazard when approaching certain airfields?

2) If so, what did you decide in advance and why?

3) Did you brief the F/O as to your decision and what opposition or reaction did it elicit?

4) Is the FCM suggestion of a go-around the wisest option if 1 of 2 engines is threatening to quit or has already done so? (Engine fire warnings excepted).

Just thought it might be an interesting one to bounce around in this crewroom.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Had similar in an F3, my only birdstrike in fact.
If you lose thrust on either engine, one is likely headed for the undershoot in an FJ (since we routinely aim for the numbers, and FJs glide like bricks don't), unless power is immediately increased. It follows that a go-around initiation is your best bet. In my case, both engines developed full thrust, and I then completed an uneventful normal circuit, having carefully assessed engine indications and performance downwind. We discovered later that three birds had gone down the left engine, but with only superficial fan damage ("It'll buff out!")
I would challenge the idea that one has the slightest clue on short finals whether the engines are "threatening to quit", nor should one be taking a glance in at anything except the RPM & TGTs (both engines normal at that second for me). It is also not, to my mind, the place to be juggling throttles with no clue which engine may be damaged. In an F3, the pilot has a good idea if birds may have gone down the engines since the intakes are just behind his backside, but I would have thought it very difficult for an airline crew to have any clear clue where the birds went.
Having initiated the go around, one should be flying airspeed primarily. If that means one is not climbing, then there is a need to decide rapidly to land the aircraft in what remains of the runway.
The report says the aircraft rapidly lost speed and altitude. This covers a multitude of possibilities. My first question would be, did the crew spend too long establishing the go around climb attitude before checking the airspeed? The second would be, when was the last time the crew did a go around in a real aeroplane, and were thus aware of what the change from approach to full thrust should have felt like?

[Boac]

1) Not really - had occasionally 'wondered'.

2) 3) N/A

4) On very short finals I would always continue. Changing thrust on a damaged jet engine is most likely to cause more damage. Now the question of 'where is very short finals'? 7 seconds - yes. 1 mile - suck it and see what the motors are doing. In between - who knows? It is like the BA777 at Heathrow - they retracted the flap one stage. Had they been a bit further out and done that they would probably have crashed on the road - or would they.........? They 'stretched the glide' - always taught not to do that! It worked but they hit hard. Right or wrong?

Like they say, 'yer pays yer money and.........'

Ask me one on sport.

[barkingmad]

Boac. Agree 100% on item 4. Better to get the wreckage onto or close to the runway than taking it away to deposit it on a nearby housing or industrial estate or centre of population.

If in or closer to final landing config the retraction of flap +/- more thrust may very well save the day. It is my understanding the Ryr craft was in that position and attempted a go-around with mass bird damage and damaged donks.

Which is why as a regular driver of the type I was so keen to read the account asap after 2008 and any recommendations following. Instead I and others have had to wait 10 years by which time I've hung up the headset and this particular report has slipped out like a wet fart into obscurity.

And many thanks to JohnG for locating and sharing!

So how many of todays active crew will access this account and maybe think what they feel comfortable with doing before the shock of it happening corrupts the very rapid thinking needed?

[Slasher]

I've had 10 bird strikes in my career - 6 as captain, but none that required an engine shut down or GA from short final. I mentioned on another thread about an episode I had in Clark in a 737 at 250ft AGL.

Will reply wrt the first post when I'm alive. I really must get some sleep!

[Sisemen]

A good few years ago I had a longish wait at Kai Tak ready for the next leg of my journey so I spent the time watching the approaches and landings. A Chinese 4 jet came in (I can’t remember the type now) and on short, short finals a flock of pigeons flew up and many of them went through the two port engines with the accompanying cloud of feathers etc. It landed off that one and taxied round to its slot (no airbridge). I found a phone in the meantime and reported the birdstrike but whoever was on the other end of the blower didn’t seem overly interested. No vehicles or people went anywhere near those engines and two hours later it taxied out and fecked off again! I’ve often wondered what the backstory to that was!

[ExSp33db1rd]

Hit a bird during the flare and touchdown landing at Madras ( or whatever it is P.C. called these days )

The co-pilot immediately reported to ATC, suggested that they come and clean it off the runway. What sort of bird was it, said ATC.? No idea, he replied, large and brown. There are no large brown birds in Madras, said ATC. Well there are now, and we've just hit one, he replied.

Completing the departure flight plan I was issued with an Indian Bird Strike form to complete. Location, Altitude, Time, Type of aircraft, Location of strike, Type of bird, Colour of bird, Size of bird, e.g. small, medium, large and on and on and on. Eventually I satisfied bureaucracy by inventing an answer for every question, then said " and now I suppose you want me to pay for the bloody thing ? " No, Capt. was the answer, we don't charge for dead birds in India. When I got back to the aircraft I told the co-pilot never to report a birdstrike landing in India again, too much hassle !

[Ex-Ascot]

Amazingly never had a bird strike. A few very near misses here though when I have been RHS. However, short finals obviously you just dump it on the deck.

Two lightening strikes though.

[boing]

Going around from a birdstrike on short final is insanity. Put the aircraft where it can't fall any further then sort the problem out later. You have two, or better still four, engines that can launch your machine at max take off weight. One, or three, of these engines is going to have no problem at all maintaining airspeed at landing weight. There is certainly going to be less power required than for a landing configuration missed approach. There is also the potential problem of instrument damage. You don't want to blast off into a missed approach then find out the birds destroyed your pitot probes or AOA sensors.

.


.

[Ex-Ascot]

Going around from a birdstrike on short final is insanity. Put the aircraft where it can't fall any further then sort the problem out later. You have two, or better still four, engines that can launch your machine at max take off weight. One, or three, of these engines is going to have no problem at all maintaining airspeed at landing weight. There is certainly going to be less power required than for a landing configuration missed approach. There is also the potential problem of instrument damage. You don't want to blast off into a missed approach then find out the birds destroyed your pitot probes or AOA sensors.

As you imply, the Captain was an idiot.

[Stoneboat]

As you imply, the Captain was an idiot.

+10. I mean, the frickin' runway is right there in front of you.

Got you beat Ex. Three bird strikes, two takeoff and one landing, and three lightning strikes.
(One could probably be called static discharge or something. We were descending VFR to the airport between two TCU's, with a bit of yellow precep in both, when there was a humongous flash in front of the cockpit. Three seconds later the cabin attendant came panting into the cockpit with his eyes bugging out. "A frickin' big ball of fire just rolled down the aisle and went out through the back bulkhead!" On the ground we found a small burn mark on the nose of the F-27 and the right outboard static wick on the right elevator burned off.)

[Slasher]

As you imply, the Captain was an idiot.

Hmm...not necessarily sah. When I said earlier it may've been a bit of a tough call I meant wrt low-time capts with minimal cmd training. This is what I assumed with this dingle. We are talking about a lousy low-class low-cost ratty outfit here.

The problem IMHO is mainly to do with procedural training where it's drummed in repeatedly that when there's a problem and doubt exists, GA and sort it out in the air then come back and land. This as you know can be highly instinctive if one has posesses only limited experience and training to fall back on. It could've been a factor in this incident. Recall the Air Florida prang where 99% of the takeoffs are done in non-icing wx. The majority of my flying has been in non-icing airport wx - but that AF event taught me to ALWAYS check the TAT and have a look outside whether it's -10C in Munich or 50C in Riyadh before responding to the ant-ice part of the pre-takeoff checklist. But anyway...

Then again you can't train for every eventuality of course. There are some occurrences that give a clear black and white indication to continue on and land when close to the runway (and visual) - e.g. fuel leak and/or low fuel warning, engine fire, a total AC failure etc. But there are others that are certainly grey when a decision has to be made NOW - sudden single slat separation (esp if landing at MLW for the runway despite the 67/91% factoring), sudden elevator jam (hard landing risk particularly with variable wind dir) - to name just a couple. In both instances a modern jet aircraft is still controllable in the air, difficult to an extent but controllable.

Would you or me or anyone else experienced and well trained have gone around in the same birdstrike event? Course not! If you were a junior F/O? Most likely. If you were really bloody tired? Trust me - when one is shagged out one can do some really dumb things - and fcuking Ryanscare works it's crews to death. But yes the capt fuct up whatever the reasons.

Did he get the arse in the end?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Question: Given the typical airliner touchdown point, do airline pilots know the point on the approach at which, should they completely lose power, they can still just make the runway (pulling up one stage of flap if necessary) ?

I recall being taught to evaluate this on the Bulldog.
I also recall being taught the best thing with the JP was to not touch the throttle, since the Viper was originally designed as a drone engine and could withstand almost any abuse if the RPM wasn't changed.
However, with the Tornado's two engines, the thinking was that even just full dry power on one engine would get you out of the problem, so you could evaluate things downwind.

[Slasher]

Question: Given the typical airliner touchdown point, do airline pilots know the point on the approach at which, should they completely lose power, they can still just make the runway (pulling up one stage of flap if necessary) ?

Fox3 in a word - nope. No one is taught that.

With plenty of experience on a type one has an idea of how far away from a runway one could make the piano keys, but it's very dependent on head or tail wind comp and esp gross weight. For the 320 in nil wind at typical 64T I estimated it to be about 300' AGL (1nm). The 321 same wind at 75T about 350ft (1.2nm). Have tried it in both sims during a free play period yonks ago and it's about right. In both cases flap Full to flap 3 was selected after a 1 sec WTF! period.

This is of course for a 3* slope. If you flew a 6* one you could almost triple those dists.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Thanks, and your response points out a couple of things which I think are relevant. Firstly, that this is the kind of thing good pilots try in a free play sim period (or even should they be old enough, real aircraft 'General Handling'). Secondly, with the current tight-fisted attitude to pilot training, do the modern generation get enough (or even any) free play sim time?

[boing]

Fox,
The airspeed target tolerance you are allowed to work to in an airliner is pretty tight. I don't remember actual figures but I would say minus zero, plus ten, at the flare. You saw higher than plus ten but that was above target and if it was too much above it could get you an FDR report and an interview.
Basically, with an airliner operating at target speed there is theoretically very little spare energy below 500 feet. OK, you can try finessing it and there are safety factors you could use but otherwise you are pretty much out of energy.
The new airliners with better wings may give you more hope but with no power on and at threshold speed with 30 flap the 727 was a ballistic brick. 40 flaps forget about it and hit the ground short as gently as possible.
Did people carry extra speed? Sure but it was usually to help in turbulence and I never in 25 years heard anybody carry extra speed to protect in case of an engine failure, in fact it would have been a direct contravention of the manual.


.

[Slasher]

Yes they do Fox.

If the allotted sim time of say 3 hours which is typical per pilot, and there aren't too many exercises and/or the bloke hasn't fuct up anything requiring repeats, it may end finishing early by 15-20 mins. It either means bugger off home earlier or some free play time. In my prev destructorships I've always been a free play offerer. Don't forget the 3 hour sesh has already been paid for. Dunno about slaggy mobs like Cry n Scare.

With capts they mainly like to look at similar scenarios like the example I posted above.

F/Os like to buzz around the countryside manually flying at 100ft AGL at 300kt, or fly an ILS upside down. I must admit in both cases it's fun! In the latter I sometimes programed no sighting at minima and 9 times out of 10 they instinctively go stick back and TOGA thrust. [Kerrash!....tinkle tankle tonkle...]

[Ex-Ascot]

Fox, everything said above. Also you said somewhere that you aim your pointy jet at the threshold. With big blunt jets we are on the ILS or following the PAPIs which on the usual 3 degree glide slope put you over the threshold at 32 feet. So we do have that very slight margin to play with in the case of a short finals catastrophe. With luck you may also have a tarmac undershoot.

With my landing skills on the A300 if I lost all power at 300 feet I would easily float onto the runway. May even put it down in the right place. I hated landing at Luton. Short runway with a hump in the middle. If you didn't put it down before the hump you ended up in the Vauxhall motor works.

[barkingmad]

Airlines keeping safety training 'to an absolute minimum' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47655115

Also posted on the ET610 thread.

I totally agree that (lack of suitable) training will replace most accidents as the designers, with the exception of MCAS, sidestick controllers and other novelties, manage to make the 'frames more idiot-proof.

Is it only me who is shocked that this report has taken TEN YEARS to appear?? And the vague excuse for the delay doesn't hold water. And blaming the ground organisation for bird-scaring practices won't make any difference to starling transit/arriving flocks. And finally my least favourite organisation, EASA, is stunningly incompetent and negligent in their reaction to this accident and the cheese holes which led up to it.

Oops, I'd better get outa here pronto as a very angry Soubry and K Clarke are storming up the driveway!!

[ian16th]

I also recall being taught the best thing with the JP was to not touch the throttle, since the Viper was originally designed as a drone engine and could withstand almost any abuse if the RPM wasn't changed.

It also meant it was designed to be used ONCE, then then dumped in the 'oggin!

Weren't there some funnies about the lubrication system?