[HN Gopher] Dublin Airport airbrige collapsed, damaging American...
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       Dublin Airport airbrige collapsed, damaging American Airlines
       Boeing 787
        
       Author : mikequinlan
       Score  : 65 points
       Date   : 2023-07-09 13:42 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (aviationa2z.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (aviationa2z.com)
        
       | FL410 wrote:
       | That airplane is surely not going anywhere any time soon, but it
       | seems we have far different ideas of "severely damaged."
        
       | 13of40 wrote:
       | When you're getting on the plane, if you look down and to the
       | right there's a little wheel resting against the side of the
       | plane and connected to the skybridge. It says do not touch.
       | That's because it's the sensor that allows the skybridge to
       | automatically level itself when the plane moves up and down on
       | its suspension due to fueling, loading, unloading, etc. I wonder
       | if this is what happens if it gets touched?
        
         | supernova87a wrote:
         | I would hope / imagine that the amount of force necessary to
         | move that wheel is well greater than what an average person
         | could exert without being noticed and stopped by one of the
         | crew! (i.e. only genuinely large movements of the 2 very heavy
         | objects involved)
        
         | collinc777 wrote:
         | Sometimes it doesn't have the warning and I think it should be
         | mandatory. Any passenger can go and play with the wheel and
         | wreck havoc.
        
         | mbreese wrote:
         | I always figured it was a pinching hazard.
        
         | mechhacker wrote:
         | If you look down you also see how far away the ground is.
         | 
         | Always find myself subconsciously wondering how to react if the
         | bridge/plane somehow separate.
        
           | pmontra wrote:
           | Jump forward, either into the plane or into the bridge, or
           | rest on the back foot? I think that either we train reflexes
           | or our body will take a guess but who trains for that?
        
           | brookst wrote:
           | I hate the moment of having one foot on plane, one on bridge.
        
             | yakubin wrote:
             | Jump with both feet.
        
             | HKH2 wrote:
             | Then you probably won't enjoy watching video footage of
             | elevator failures.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Ride either of them down, preferably the plane. Don't fall
           | out!
        
         | zootboy wrote:
         | Judging from the photos, not unless "touched" means "was pulled
         | back and rolled about 7 turns downward".
        
         | hlandau wrote:
         | Another design to accomplish this same goal seems to be called
         | the "safety shoe" [1]. I believe this is a horizontal bar
         | placed under the open door which moves the airbridge down if it
         | gets too close.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ir5b0GzfiE
        
           | supernova87a wrote:
           | I've wondered what that is when seeing it during boarding!
           | The video doesn't explain anything though... Is it some
           | proximity sensor? How? It doesn't seem to require extremely
           | accurate positioning.
        
             | jffry wrote:
             | I found a product manual [1] from one manufacturer which
             | describes stepping on it as part of a maintenance test
             | (bottom of page 6), so it seems like some type of switch or
             | pressure.
             | 
             | The idea seems to be that if the door touches the top of
             | the sensor, it automatically lowers the jetbridge a few
             | inches to prevent the door from being damaged. And I guess
             | this can happen if the plane is being loaded improperly
             | causing it to shift.
             | 
             | [1] PDF, 4MB: https://www.acesincusa.com/wp-
             | content/uploads/2020/07/Safety...
        
               | supernova87a wrote:
               | Oh, I see, thanks for that! Yes it looks like a contact
               | strip sensor kind of thing.
               | 
               | I have also noticed in some jet bridges, you will see
               | some kind of air sensor probe on the end of a coiled
               | cord, which is very odd to me that this would inform the
               | operation of the bridge. I can't find a photo of it
               | readily, but it is definitely something I have noticed
               | and puzzled about.
        
           | johnwalkr wrote:
           | The wheel is the primary sensor and the safety shoe is a
           | backup.
        
         | turrican wrote:
         | I work in aviation and have moved that wheel out of curiosity.
         | As expected, the jet bridge moved up and down with the wheel!
        
         | dehrmann wrote:
         | Aren't those reachable by boarding passengers? Never put
         | anything sensitive like that near passengers. With millions of
         | passengers, including kids, walking by it each day, _someone_
         | is going to touch it for fun, especially when you put up a sign
         | saying  "touch me!"
        
           | netsharc wrote:
           | This tech is on thousands of bridges around the world, has
           | been for a lot of years now, and yes, millions of people have
           | passed it, and we haven't heard of any incidents of
           | passengers touching it and causing big issues... so I would
           | say whoever engineered it knew what they were doing and don't
           | need the Internet commenter expert knowledge...
        
       | gamesbrainiac wrote:
       | I went to Ireland just last month, and I have to say that the
       | Airport was significantly better than what it was 2 years ago.
       | This news puts a damper on my raised expectations.
        
         | thecosmicfrog wrote:
         | One incident lowers your opinion of a busy international
         | airport?
        
           | Mystery-Machine wrote:
           | Ummmm, yes? How often does such incident happen? Seems like
           | not that often. I don't remember ever hearing of such
           | incident.
        
         | esharte wrote:
         | You likely just went through the newer terminal 2 that time but
         | it's been open 13 years already.
        
           | Macha wrote:
           | Also depends how exact 2 years ago is. From the beginning of
           | covid until a few months ago it was quite understaffed as
           | they didn't bother keeping staff training/certifications up
           | to date as they didn't expect demand to pick up so quickly as
           | it has.
           | 
           | I have to say that pre-covid, Dublin airport has been one of
           | the better airports in my experience. Security was among the
           | fastest of airports I've been in, decent variety of shops
           | behind it, flights departing smoothly
        
       | supernova87a wrote:
       | The photo has the look of some hydraulics in the support legs
       | failing and allowing the end of the bridge to fall.
        
       | raverbashing wrote:
       | This sucks but it is not that big of a deal
       | 
       | Jet bridges can fail that way and doors get ripped off exactly to
       | not make a bigger mess in that case
       | 
       | Insurance, maintenance, etc are all there for a reason. Plane
       | should be back into service soon
        
         | CoastalCoder wrote:
         | > This sucks but it is not that big of a deal
         | 
         | Not this time, thankfully.
         | 
         | But it could have severely injured or even killed someone in /
         | under the bridge at the time of failure. Especially if they
         | were transitioning between the plane and the bridge.
        
           | wongarsu wrote:
           | If you stand below without a hardhat (as the people in the
           | picture) you might be hit by the falling door or the
           | airbridge itself. That might be bad.
           | 
           | For passengers this doesn't look particularly dangerous
           | though. From the picture s it look like a 2 meter/6 feet fall
           | onto concrete. Unprepared, but feet first. Sure you _can_ die
           | from that if you are uncoordinated and somewhat frail (e.g.
           | suffering from osteoporosis), but most people would get away
           | from that with a couple scratches on their hands and knees.
        
             | CoastalCoder wrote:
             | I could be mistaken, but I think the following are also
             | possible:
             | 
             | (a) While crossing the threshold, head trauma from the
             | bar(s) that support the flexible ceiling of the bridge.
             | 
             | (b) While crossing the threshold, pinned and crushed by
             | that bar. I.e., half of their body is inside the plane, the
             | other half is holding up the bridge via that bar.
             | 
             | (c) While crossing the threshold, a parent carrying a baby.
             | Baby is ripped out of parent's arms, and falls 6-8 feet to
             | the ground. Possibly head first.
             | 
             | All are horrifying possibilities, which I don't believe
             | would be fully remediated by post-incident insurance or
             | maintenance.
        
               | dghlsakjg wrote:
               | This is all under the assumption that this was a sudden
               | collapse while the jet-bridge was fully loaded with
               | people.
               | 
               | If the system just lost hydraulic pressure slowly during
               | a non-loading time, its entirely possible that it took
               | quite a while to collapse, and no one was near enough to
               | do anything. The forces would be high, but there would be
               | ample time for a human to move.
        
               | ciabattabread wrote:
               | [flagged]
        
               | dghlsakjg wrote:
               | All I said was that rapid catastrophic failure is
               | necessary for any of the injury mechanisms mentioned.
               | 
               | Why the snarky comment?
        
               | wongarsu wrote:
               | I think there's a big difference between asserting that a
               | very deadly event should have been less deadly, and
               | arguing that an event where nobody was hurt in fact was
               | fairly harmless and was unlikely to seriously hurt or
               | kill anyone.
        
           | xaminmo wrote:
           | They are hydraulic elevators. Failure falls are slow. There
           | are exclusion zones under the bridge, and soneone inside
           | would have to trip, fall, and hit their head to be at serious
           | risk.
           | 
           | Basically, failure modes for aviation related technology
           | tries to take into account public risk.
        
           | blantonl wrote:
           | A DFW Airport maintenance employee was killed after falling
           | from a Jet Bridge back in 2015.
        
             | NooneAtAll3 wrote:
             | reminded me of Top Gear scene
        
             | xaminmo wrote:
             | That would not happen here since it stayed pressed against
             | the fuselage. Falling out of an open jetbridge unexpectedly
             | has head injury written all over it. A failing / falling
             | jetbridge has hydraulic slow descent vibes.
        
       | tacker2000 wrote:
       | This website is as ad-infested as it gets...
        
         | Dalewyn wrote:
         | Wouldn't surprise me if the article itself was "AI" generated
         | with minimal editing by a non-native English speaker, given the
         | very awkward wording, inconsistent terminology, and repetition
         | of key facts.
        
           | oefrha wrote:
           | "Repetition of key facts" is something AI chatbots and pre-AI
           | "journalists" have in common. Gotta write that ten paragraph
           | article even though you only have one sentence of actual
           | information.
        
             | dawnerd wrote:
             | Also what happens when info if only available from one
             | tweet but you need paragraphs and multiple embeds.
        
       | Aloha wrote:
       | I've been on some mighty rusty unstable feeling jetbridges, I've
       | always wondered how often they collapse, and what their nominal
       | lifetime is.
        
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       (page generated 2023-07-09 23:02 UTC)