SW Airlines engine failure

Yes, ask Sullenberger.

BTW this post was originally about the capability of the pilot, not the cause of the engine failure.

armor 2.0

Yeah because airplane mechanic take there job so seriously just this year had two military aircraft fall out of the sky for no reason .kill innocent military personal wonder what serious mechanic done preventive maintenance on them.

 

Well.... until the investigation is complete, nobody knows. It can be equipment failure, pilot error, or mother Nauture showing us humans we are not all powerful. Military flying is usually more dangerous than civil aviation. There is a reason the two aircraft that you mention crashed. And it will be found. Sometimes the case is obvious, sometimes it is not. 

The engine failure on the SW flight was due to metal fatigue - one of those situations where the problem doesn't really show until things start going south. Consequently, the process dictates that the FAA starts its investigation by interviewing the quality assurance inspector who signed off on the engine, rather than jumping straight on the backs of the AP mechanics. 

I spend far too much of every single week dealing with quality assurance inspectors who just don't get it. They are the last in line to protect the end users and consumers in a very long process of constant inspections, but a handful just can't seem to grasp that concept.

Just a handful of them are utterly worthless. They claim expertise, but almost never do a thing to prove it. While my technicians (a lot of former AP mechanics) are on the production floor doing their damnedest to be perfect at every turn, these "quality" individuals are usually found in the break room, stuffing their faces and talking trash because the mechanics have corrected them or they have to ask questions about even the simplest procedures because they've never so much as tried to do it themselves. They spend their inspection time complaining to others - "I hate it here and I want to move", "I can't get anything done, so what's wrong with me?" and so on. Poor attitudes result in poor performance.

And you want to talk about who should be flipping burgers for a clown? These jerks give me written reports that are so full of grammatical errors and misspelling that I am left wondering just how they managed to pass their qualification exams or just how many cereal boxes they had to collect to send off for credentials in the first place. Truly embarrassing garbage that you would never even consider passing along to a customer like Boeing or General Dynamics because they would laugh you straight out of a contract.

Be nice to those AP mechanics. Both the FAA and the military know where to start their investigation - by looking for the signature of the guy who signed his name in the inspection block of the sign-off giving the OK to take the bird up in the first place.

Yeah because airplane mechanic take there job so seriously just this year had two military aircraft fall out of the sky for no reason .kill innocent military personal wonder what serious mechanic done preventive maintenance on them. I' certified to do annual inspection on single engine planes I have seen mechanics that are totally dedicated to what they do lve also seen people just didn' care and I've also seen the work of the less dedictted people not pretty.

Certified A&P IA here just looking for a paycheck...

Aircraft mechanics know that lives are at stake... if a car breaks down due to a mechanical failure, it’s not common that an injury occurs, unless the driver is doing something unsafe to begin with. If an aircraft breaks down in flight... at minimum it is a thrill ride for folks who asked for no such thing... at worst, as the Black Hats at Benning said, “the sky, like the sea, is unforgiving”...

And even folks who work at McDonalds know that they have standards to meet as well, or people get sick. Unwashed hands, undercooked food... but yeah, they’re only food service workers, they’re not doing anything of importance.

Still not done.

Put an Artho scope up the engine of the critic.

Bickering BS on that.

Stickpushers dad and my dad did whole careers in the airline industry.

At least 90 years between the two of them.

I am married to a woman who’s father was a tech in the Arrmy Airforce.

You can’t touch a high bypass turbofan without a cert.

Bickering? No way.

EDIT: I’m not done.

Airline employees hold everyone’s lives in their hands.

And their daily interchange is with a broad slice of humanity. 

But they operate complex systems with nothing but complaints in return.

Ill bet Captain Tammy Jo would step in front of anyone who dared to show up to take a punch in person at the mechanics at SWA.

learmech

armor 2.0 I take serious offense to this comment. I am a certified A&P mechanic and have been in the industry for over 25 years. I can assure you that we take our jobs very seriously.

 

I agree.

Now enough with the bickering.

Murphy's Law

 

 

armor 2.0

Would almost bet money the engine blowed from poor maintenance or lack thereof. People don' care any more  just want a paycheck and they will do the least they can get away with to get it certification don' mean jack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are less failures today because of poor maintenance than 10-50 years ago. Some of that is better design but it’s also because of better training. For you catagorize mechanics as “just wanting a paycheck” is pretty naive. It’s not like these are Mcdonald’s employees, the ones working on these planes take their job seriously. Nothing personal Armor 2.0, I just take offense to what you said especially since I work in a field that has people as it’s cargo and I know how serious that is taken in my workplace. It’s not just a paycheck.. lives depend on what we put out.

 

 

armor 2.0

Would almost bet money the engine blowed from poor maintenance or lack thereof. People don' care any more  just want a paycheck and they will do the least they can get away with to get it certification don' mean jack.

 

 

 

 

I see. The ones I really hated were the stretch DC-8 and the 757. Single aisle aircraft with minimal facilities.

My father, who was in that business for 48 years, called the 757 the "ultimate CEO" transport. A money maker.

GMorrison

How does this "avoiding aircraft types" thing work? Genuinely curious. I certains try to avoid certain airlines, but that's more service than equipment.

 

Trying to avoid certain types of aircraft really doesn't work very well. When I fly to Dallas to see my sister, I fly on American, and they operate A-320 and A-321 aircraft on that route so I'm stuck flying in what amounts to an empty coffee can. Very noisy. On a trip to Atlanta this past weekend we flew on Jetblue A-321 aircraft. Again very noisy. That said, when we research airline tickets for a trip we do look at the aircraft type for the trip. The nice thing about Jetblue is that the first three rows of seats are very roomy. So if you fly Jetblue, be sure to reserve one of those seats. If the trip is on a Boeing, we are just more comfortable on the flight.

Sure they do.

That's nonsense. Certified mechanics take their work extremely seriously.

Would almost bet money the engine blowed from poor maintenance or lack thereof. People don' care any more  just want a paycheck and they will do the least they can get away with to get it certification don' mean jack.

How does this "avoiding aircraft types" thing work? Genuinely curious. I certains try to avoid certain airlines, but that's more service than equipment.

I avoid MD-80/DC-9 aircraft whenever I can, and anything Airbus. Give me a Boeing anytime. My first flight ever was after basic training in February 1967. Flew in a 707 from San Antonio to St. Louis. Flew on 727s back when you walked up the stairs in the tail.

There’s a good demonstration here of why the design of engines hanging in separate pods has endured, as opposed to a lot of earlier designs like Concorde where the engines were paired up.

Im not paying too much attention to the mechanical explanations until we’ve heard from the experts. One doozy so far was that jet engines are designed to fail inwards when they blow up.

Its only a matter of time before a jet swallows a drone.

Heroic pilot.

This accident made me think of the delta md88 in 1996 when a mother and child were killed.  As sad as it is, it happed early enough during takeoff allowing the pilot to abort.

Stuck in my head and I avoid sitting in the back of md88s and L1011s, as irrational as that sounds

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-07-07/news/mn-22049_1_jet-engine

Maybe they could creat the equivilant of a transmission blanket for jet engines, though that would contain all the energy and probably blow the wing apart...pick your poison.

jeffpez

Don't waste your time reading the article I just linked. Despire a trailer stating it was about the engine failure it wasn't and is nothing but a useless recap of what we already know.

 

Ha! Funny timing becuase I was just posting a reply to say that though I'm not qualified to fly jets, as a pilot I've read enough mainstream articles about aviation over the decades to say most of them are pure rubbish, poorly written by non-aviators and poorly researched if researched at all.

I was going to mention that I thought this one was actually pretty good and say thanks for posting it.

Don't waste your time reading the article I just linked. Despire a trailer stating it was about the engine failure it wasn't and is nothing but a useless recap of what we already know.

I just found this link to an article about what's supposed to happen when there's an engine failure:

https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/airlines/a19853566/plane-loses-engine/?src=nl&mag=rdt&list=nl_rdt_news&date=041918

Sully Sullenberger now shares the top of the pyramid with another amazing pilot: Tammie Jo Shults!

hypertex

 

 

Nathan T

Yeah that was some crazy stuff right there. been awhile since people have gotten killed on a passenger plane. 

 

 

 

 

 

ddp59

last time that a person or people killed on a passenger jet is supposedly 2009

 

 

 

Umm, really?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Algerian_Air_Force_Il-76_crash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saratov_Airlines_Flight_703

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Aseman_Airlines_Flight_3704

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-Bangla_Airlines_Flight_211

Shall I go on?

 

for US airliner death.

Also, I was surprised to hear that much damage was from loss of one compressor blade.  I thought specs were that engine had to be armored to withstand a blade failure.  The catastropic engine damages I have seen were generally from disintegration of the whole disk.

Nathan T

Yeah that was some crazy stuff right there. been awhile since people have gotten killed on a passenger plane. 

ddp59

last time that a person or people killed on a passenger jet is supposedly 2009

Umm, really?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Algerian_Air_Force_Il-76_crash

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saratov_Airlines_Flight_703

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Aseman_Airlines_Flight_3704

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-Bangla_Airlines_Flight_211

Shall I go on?

Greg

Well said, Greg.

How many pax that don't have much air travel experience, would have the living hell scared out of them by that remark. Not just insensitive or a clumsy joke gone wrong, rather a throughly crude and entirely stupid act.

After the anti drug and alcohol programs went into effect, much care had to be observed about words said, either by crew or pax. NO joking around. Getting ready to depart SEA, a Honolulu pax said loudly enough for others to hear, including a flight attendant, "have the pilots had enough to drink so we can leave now?"

Bingo, no reserve crew available for a while, the F.O. and I had to go to the designated place for tests to be administered, resulting in a nearly two hour delay. Not good for the pax, as some would miss connecting flights, not good for our company either.

Difficult to imagine, the offending pax was still wanting to continue the flight, but the station agents had separated him from the rest of the pax in the terminal waiting area. Very wise decision. With so much anger focused on the offending pax I refused to board him, Security removed him from the gate area, fare refunded, as the flight attendants say, Buh Bye.

And yes, the SWA crew did a fine job of handling a legitimate in flight emergency. Plenty of opportunity for things to go wrong in a major way. It's very sad that the young lady lost her life.

     

Well-done, indeed. Kudos too to the folk near the casualty who reported tried very hard to help.

I was on a flight this morning. As the cockpit crew was lighting #1, I heard a lady in the row behind me say "I wonder where the engine piece will come through this plane". I couldn't believe it.

I'd best not say out loud what I felt like doing.

 

Well-done, indeed. Kudos too to the folk near the casualty who reported tried very hard to help.

I was on a flight this morning. As the cockpit crew was lighting #1, I heard a lady in the row behind me say "I wonder where the engine piece will come through this plane". I couldn't believe it.

I'd best not say out loud what I felt like doing.