Southwest Uncontained Engine Failure

[Guitarmaster]

15 hours ago, Mooneymite said:

Since the captain was talking on the radio and obviously managing the problem, was the copilot doing the PF (pilot flying) duties?

Not necessarily.  More than likely, she was flying while talking to ATC and the FO was working the problem, communicating with the company and FA's, and getting ducks in a row for the landing.
It torques me a little that the press never gives credit to BOTH pilots... ever.  Yes, she did a great job, but she wasn't alone.  This is a crew airplane.

Side note:  I have flown with her as her FO a few years ago.  She was cool to fly with and very competent. 

[jaylw314]

2 minutes ago, Guitarmaster said:

Not necessarily.  More than likely, she was flying while talking to ATC and the FO was working the problem, communicating with the company and FA's, and getting ducks in a row for the landing.
It torques me a little that the press never gives credit to BOTH pilots... ever.  Yes, she did a great job, but she wasn't alone.  This is a crew airplane.

Side note:  I have flown with her as her FO a few years ago.  She was cool to fly with and very competent. 

Since the ATC recordings are available to the public, I think the part that is catching everyone's attention is the tone of her voice is on the radio, but you're right, the team should get credit.  It just doesn't come across on the ATC recordings very well.

When you listen to the CVR recordings of Sullenberger and Skiles, it's impressive how little they actually say, but what they do say showed how well they worked together. 

[Guitarmaster]

23 hours ago, teejayevans said:

I would think just switching to 121.5 would be the norm?

I assume whatever turn she was making when opposing the turning tendency of single engine operation is required to be shallow?

The norm is to remain on your current frequency and squak.  Switching to "guard" will create another step and possible loss of communication with the emergency aircraft.  

During single-engine ops, the bank angle is not really important unless you think there may be a structural problem.  That being said, limiting bank angle during single engine ops is a smart move.   

[bonal]

1 hour ago, Guitarmaster said:

Not necessarily.  More than likely, she was flying while talking to ATC and the FO was working the problem, communicating with the company and FA's, and getting ducks in a row for the landing.
It torques me a little that the press never gives credit to BOTH pilots... ever.  Yes, she did a great job, but she wasn't alone.  This is a crew airplane.

Side note:  I have flown with her as her FO a few years ago.  She was cool to fly with and very competent. 

This is what I love about this place, there are so many hear that are the real deal  not just in the piloting but just about all aspects of aviation.

[Mooneymite]

3 hours ago, Guitarmaster said:

Not necessarily.  More than likely, she was flying while talking to ATC and the FO was working the problem, communicating with the company and FA's, and getting ducks in a row for the landing.
It torques me a little that the press never gives credit to BOTH pilots... ever.  Yes, she did a great job, but she wasn't alone.  This is a crew airplane.

Side note:  I have flown with her as her FO a few years ago.  She was cool to fly with and very competent. 

It'll be interesting when the investigation comes out.

Certainly she flew the final to touch-down portion... I think I heard SWA SOPs require it, but I suspect it was the FOs leg.

We'll wait and see.

[Marauder]

Another thing I heard today that I thought was interesting. The failure was considered to be contained meaning the blade that failed stayed within the combustion area. What did vacate and caused the damage to the window were the components of the engine cowling, presumably due to the unbalance and subsequent vibration.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[gsxrpilot]

On 4/19/2018 at 5:47 AM, Chris from PA said:

Both pilots worked together and did a fantastic job in bringing this emergency to a successful conclusion. But don't think that they are the exception. Every time you get on an N registered carrier, certainly a major, you've got seasoned experts up front. They practice engine failures and depressurization scenarios routinely in the simulator. Many have a military background. While these two pilots should be commended for their professionalism I would submit that almost 100 percent of the crews out there would also perform at this level. You're in good hands

In full agreement but wouldn't limit it to N registered carriers. I'd submit that this is the rule rather than the exception for most carriers around the world. 

[kris_adams]

16 hours ago, Marauder said:

Another thing I heard today that I thought was interesting. The failure was considered to be contained meaning the blade that failed stayed within the combustion area. What did vacate and caused the damage to the window were the components of the engine cowling, presumably due to the unbalance and subsequent vibration.

I didn't hear this yet.  I too wonder what did the damage then.

I did sit in front of the wing yesterday on ny SWA flight back to Atlanta...I normally do this anyway but it made me think about it.

[Mooneymite]

27 minutes ago, Kris_Adams said:

I didn't hear this yet.  I too wonder what did the damage then.

I did sit in front of the wing yesterday on ny SWA flight back to Atlanta...I normally do this anyway but it made me think about it.

Apparently, a lot of the damage was from cowling parts flying off the engine.  Technically not rotating parts, but small consolation if you're the passenger hit.

[jetdriven]

3 minutes ago, David Herman said:

There are several Southwest Pilots who are Mooney owners and on this forum. Like any organization, as in the military, personnel are discouraged from making any public remarks or statements of conjecture. Having said so, the Director of Operations issued a letter to all employees stating some worthy facts that don’t seem to be getting circulated in our most esteemed media outlets. The media coverage or lack of coverage tends to insinuate by omission that there could be a lack of proper maintenance, or inspections that resulted in this tragedy .... Here are a few facts, in my own words, as shared by our Director of Operations.

• Southwest’s maintenance schedule and engine inspection program was already more diligent and comprehensive than what was required by the FAA.
• Southwest immediately implemented a new series of inspections and performed an evaluation of further measures needed without waiting for the FAA to make a determination. 
• Once the FAA did make their determination, Southwest did not necessarily agree with that determination, in that Southwest felt the requirements did not go far enough.. Southwest has, therefore, implemented a new program even more diligent. 
• So the inspections being performed both before and after this tragedy exceed the old and new requirements issued by the FAA.
• It is certainly accurate to say, all of us are deeply saddened and affected by this tragedy and the loss of a life. 

Many of you know I am not a fan of our media, any media. To put it bluntly:  The media reports make it sound like airlines don’t know what to do, or won’t do the right thing unless a government bureaucracy is “saving the day” by stepping on their neck.

I was greatly pleased to hear these facts and I know many of you who fly Southwest will be comforted to know this before boarding your next flight. 

See you around the pattern.

Well said, Dave. I think the fact they flew 46 years without killing anyone speaks for itself.  In the hundreds of millions of hours on CFM-56's, this is a true outlier kind of failure.  Statistically, it should happen more often, but since the quality standards are so high, it doesnt.

[Bob_Belville]

Thanks @David Herman, I was hoping that you or one of your fellow LUV folks would be able to post though I suspected that SOP was for info to come through the official company spokespersons.

Pilots know what a great safety record air carriers have and that that doesn't happen without great effort every day. But the general public is poorly served by the ignorant and irresponsible news media.   

[Andy95W]

4 hours ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

With a few exceptions, the media's job nowadays seems to be to sensationalize and generate suspicion and mistrust; thereby generating more public interest in and demand for their reporting.

Variation on a theme- the media's job nowadays is to sell advertising.  Therefore, the more sensational, the more public interest = more advertising sold.  Kind of makes you wish Walter Cronkite was still around.

[EricJ]

48 minutes ago, Andy95W said:

Variation on a theme- the media's job nowadays is to sell advertising.  Therefore, the more sensational, the more public interest = more advertising sold.  Kind of makes you wish Walter Cronkite was still around.

It has always been so, even when Cronkite was on the air.   Society and markets and regulations and management have changed, though, so here we are. 

[Mooneymite]

6 hours ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

I have unplugged from most of it and am happier for it.

Good for you, Jim.

I just celebrated 7 years since I turned on a TV.  Certainly I have been in places where the box was blathering on, but I try to ignore it as much as possible.

My blood pressure is down and my quality of life is up.

[Mooneymite]

27 minutes ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

Hi, Gus.  Amen.  It genuinely perplexes me why folks keep tuning in. And since this is my only social media outlet I am also beyond the reach of most of the marketers.  Mailings are actually their best chance of actually reaching me.  

Jim

The only way the MSM will improve is when they discover that the viewing public actually has standards higher than theirs.

I realize that this is problematical.  

[Mooneymite]

12 minutes ago, David Herman said:

... I haven’t been back!

Facebook locked me out about a year ago when I refused to link my cell phone number with my account.

I was noticing that various pro-life, pro-gun posts seemed to mysteriously disappear while pro-Obama/Hillary/leftist items continually appeared on my feed. 

My kids tell me that Facebook is "so yesterday....no one uses it anymore".  Good riddance.

[ArtVandelay]

10 minutes ago, Mooneymite said:

Facebook locked me out about a year ago when I refused to link my cell phone number with my account.

I was noticing that various pro-life, pro-gun posts seemed to mysteriously disappear while pro-Obama/Hillary/leftist items continually appeared on my feed. 

My kids tell me that Facebook is "so yesterday....no one uses it anymore".  Good riddance.

But they’ll still claim having  millions of subscribers.  Google, Yahoo, they all want to link to your cellphone...they accept 555 numbers if they get pushy.

[Mooneymite]

1 minute ago, teejayevans said:

But they’ll still claim having  millions of subscribers. 

Millions of subscribers?  How many narcissists are there in the world?

Facebook has pretty well destroyed young people's ability to converse in person.  All they know to do is talk about themselves incessantly.

Too bad they're not more like us:  talking about our Mooneys incessantly!  

[gsxrpilot]

I suppose if you've lived all your life in a small town and never go anywhere, then social media wouldn't have all that much use. But for those of us who are global citizens, it's actually a very useful and wonderful technology. When my grand parents moved to East Africa in the 1940's, they knew there would be very limited communication with family and friends for the next many years. They missed out on the lives of their other family members by making the choice to go and work in such a remote location.  I make my living by traveling around the world and yet am able to remain in constant communication and participate in the lives of my kids, my wife, other family and friends. It also makes real-time communication with friends around the world much easier. For me, this has lead to a much richer life with very good and close friends in many, many cities all around the world.

My wife and I just spent the weekend in NYC and spent time with several different groups of friends and family as well. I'll be in Boston, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Sydney, London, and Munich in the next two months and will catch up with good friends in each city. All of this made possible by FB, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. 

[Oscar Avalle]

Talking about incredible professionals, I met the other day a Gentleman called Carlos Dardano from El Salvador. He flies now for Avianca, but in the past he was a pilot for TACA. During the civil war in El Salvador he lost an eye in combat, but despite all that, he was able to get his ATP and was hired to fly TACA's Boeings 737. This is this story according to Wikipedia:

 

The aircraft, a Boeing 737-3T0 (tail number N75356, serial number 23838), had first flown on January 26, 1988, and had been in service with TACA for about two weeks.^[2] On this day, the flight proceeded normally, taking off from Belize City's Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport and flying over the Gulf of Mexico toward the Louisiana coast.

The airliner was the 1,505th Boeing 737 manufactured, and was originally acquired by TACA from Polaris Aircraft Leasing in May 1988.

The captain of the flight was Carlos Dardano. At just 29 years of age, Dardano had already amassed 13,410 flight hours. Almost 11,000 of these hours were as pilot in command. The first officer, Dionisio Lopez, was also very experienced, with more than 12,000 flight hours logged. Captain Arturo Soley, an instructor pilot, was also in the cockpit, monitoring the performance of the new 737.

Incident[edit]

Investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) revealed that during descent from FL 350 (about 35,000 feet or 11,000 metres) in preparation for their impending arrival at New Orleans' Moisant Field, Captain Dardano and First Officer Lopez noticed areas of light to moderate precipitation in their path, depicted as green and yellow areas on their weather radar, as well as "some isolated red cells" indicative of heavy precipitation to both sides of their intended flight path.^[3]

The flight entered clouds at FL 300 (about 30,000 feet or 9,100 metres), the crew selecting "continuous ignition" and turning on engine anti-ice to protect their turbofan engines from the effects of precipitation and icing, either of which is capable of causing a flameout, where the engines lose all power. Despite flying a route between the two areas of heavy precipitation shown on radar, they encountered heavy rain, hail, and turbulence. Passing through 16,500 feet (5,000 m), both engines flamed out, leaving the jet gliding with neither engine producing thrust or electrical power. The auxiliary power unit (APU) was started as the plane descended through 10,500 feet (3,200 m), restoring electrical power. While attempts to "windmill start" the engines using the airflow generated by the plane's descent were unsuccessful, the pilots were later able to start them using the engine starters, which were powered by the APU. However, neither engine would accelerate to normal idle speed, much less to a point where it was producing meaningful thrust. Attempts to advance the throttles only resulted in overheating of the engines, so they were once more shut down to avoid catastrophic failure. The pilots landed the airliner in an unpowered glide on top of a narrow grass levee adjacent to NASA's Michoud Assembly Facilityin the Michoud area of eastern New Orleans near the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and brought the airplane to a safe stop.^[3]

Investigation and recommendations[edit]

NTSB investigators determined that the aircraft had inadvertently flown into a level 4 thunderstorm and that water ingestion had caused both engines to flame out despite their being certified as meeting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) standards for water ingestion. The aircraft suffered mild hail damage, and its right-side (number 2) engine was damaged from overheating.^[3]

Initially, it was planned to remove the wings and transport the airplane to a repair facility by barge, but Boeing engineers and test pilots decided to perform an engine change on site. The aircraft was fueled to the minimum amount needed and departed from the roadway built atop the original runway at the facility.^[3] Following takeoff, the 737 flew to Moisant Field, where further maintenance work was performed. The plane was then returned to service. The plane flew in active service for Southwest Airlines as N697SW from 1995 and was retired in December 2016.^[4]

To avoid similar problems in the future, the engine manufacturer, CFM International, modified the CFM56 engine by adding a sensor to force the combustor to continuously ignite under heavy rain and/or hail conditions. Other modifications were made to the engine nose cone and the spacing of the fan blades to better deflect hail away from the engine core. Also, additional bleed doors were added to drain more water from the engine.

[gsxrpilot]

40 minutes ago, David Herman said:

I would agree ... it was great catching up and reconnecting with peers with whom I had lost contact. If we can keep the political rhetoric and intrusions out of it ... it would be great!

I'll agree completely... and for your #2... it's the opposite for me  

The one thing to remember is that if you're paying for something, you're a customer. But if you're getting something for free, you're the product. So for Facebook and all these other social media sites, we're not customers, we're the product. Maybe there could be a paid version of FB where instead of them using your personal data for their own profit, we'd just pay a monthly subscription fee? Just a thought.

[flyboy0681]

3 hours ago, Oscar Avalle said:

Talking about incredible professionals, I met the other day a Gentleman called Carlos Dardano from El Salvador. He flies now for Avianca, but in the past he was a pilot for TACA. During the civil war in El Salvador he lost an eye in combat, but despite all that, he was able to get his ATP and was hired to fly TACA's Boeings 737. This is this story according to

Not a 737, but we all remember the Gimli Glider, don't we?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

[Hank]

7 minutes ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

So a 767 has a 12:1 glide ratio?  That’s great. Better than our Mooneys. I had no idea. 

Speak cor yourself! Check the figure below for Prop Stopped, it's 12.7:1

[carusoam]

Mr. Dardano and the glider at Gimli or the Avianca B707 that landed in LI, NY... didn’t have the courtesy afforded by glide rings on an IPad... or ADSB color graphics weather... or CIES Fuel level gauges... 

Famous Boeing gliders of the 80s and 90s...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_52

The Avianca Flight taught us how, why and when, to declare an Emergency.  

Best regards,

-a-

 

[carusoam]

1 hour ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

 

Its interesting that our POHs don’t seem to contemplate the affect of pulling the prop back on glide.

 

That would require printing another sentence, Jim...  

The opposite is surely true...  when you need to slow down, pushing the prop forwards has enough initial braking effect, the pilot moves forward in the seat...

I’m not so quick to push the prop control in that fast anymore...

Best regards,

-a-