[HN Gopher] 40 years ago yesterday Air Canada Flight 143 ran out...
___________________________________________________________________
40 years ago yesterday Air Canada Flight 143 ran out of fuel mid-
flight
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 379 points
Date : 2023-07-24 16:03 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.damninteresting.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.damninteresting.com)
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| There must be a way to calculate the weight of an aircraft from
| the flight characteristics and from that get an idea of how much
| fuel the plane has. Maybe not 40 years ago...
| nvy wrote:
| There are lots of ways, none of them practical, especially with
| passengers on board.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Fuel load is ~50% of the _total takeoff weight_ of a
| commercial jetliner, which is to say, even a rough inertial
| estimate could well be in the right ballpark.
|
| Roughly, for each passenger there's an equivalent mass of
| fuel on the plane.
|
| If you're working with thin margins that might not be enough,
| but if someone's shorted the craft half its fuel load, as was
| the case for AC143, I'd suspect this would be evident.
| n40487171 wrote:
| Roll inertia estimation from aileron performance, to gauge
| wing tank levels? Have to assume ailerons are performing
| 'nominal'.
| callalex wrote:
| You would have to have a perfectly accurate manifest of
| passengers and cargo for that to work.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I think it should be possible to ballpark it. Use some
| statistical averages as well as the different positions for
| the weight to come up with a probability distribution
| function.
| dosshell wrote:
| How much was the metric system used in Canada when the crew was
| in School?
|
| I mean, 1.7 kg / l is not just wrong, it is obvious wrong. Fuel
| and oil does not sink to the bottom of the ocean.
| Symbiote wrote:
| This is the problem when North Americans, especially US-
| Americans, argue that their country "is metric" because the
| inch is defined as 2.54cm, and science and some engineering
| uses metric units.
|
| People lack day-to-day familiarity with the units, so what
| should be obvious mistakes go unnoticed.
| pageandrew wrote:
| They forward-slipped a Boeing 767 to bleed off the remaining
| altitude! A forward slip is a cross-controlled maneuver that
| feels unnerving and wrong enough in a Cessna 172, let alone a
| Boeing 767. And they did it with minimal hydraulic assistance as
| well...
| subhro wrote:
| That's strange. Not saying slipping a 767 is a walk in the
| park, but I routinely slip Cessna landings (182s and 206s)
| because I just need to get down. It is a little weird, but no
| where near unnerving and for sure not wrong.
| pageandrew wrote:
| Its not inherently wrong, but flying cross-controlled _feels_
| wrong to me. Probably because I don 't do it very often, and
| I'm aware of the fact that it increases my stall-to-spin risk
| if I don't properly manage airspeed.
| Vespasian wrote:
| Assuming you are a "regular" PPL pilot:
|
| If you have the chance (and didn't already do so), make a
| few flights in a glider with an FI.
|
| I thinks it's a different kind of flying and allows you to
| be more confident in certain situations such as slips, slow
| flights and engine out landings.
| subhro wrote:
| So here's some suggestions. As one of the child comment
| stated, go fly a glider for a few hours. It will immensely
| help. I ended up finishing up a commercial on glider as
| well, just for the kicks.
|
| Secondly, cross control is perfectly safe till the time you
| pull back on the stick. That is how you get into cross
| control stalls, the starting configuration for a spin. When
| you are slipping, you should actively trim nose down, (that
| you should have done already, remember you are approaching
| to land), and maintain _just a little_ forward pressure as
| you fly sideways. I would recommend grab a competent CFI,
| and get cross control stalls nailed. I know it is not a
| part of PPL, something I am very pissed about. Hell, PPL in
| US does not even need spin training. Bollocks, if you ask
| me....
| pfdietz wrote:
| I believe TACA 110 did the same thing to lose energy on an
| unpowered approach. It's not normally done because the
| turbulence induced can cause one of the engines to flame out.
| This is not a problem when the engines are already not
| operating, of course.
| giantrobot wrote:
| "But our engines might...oh yeah carry on"
| vkou wrote:
| For the non-pilots here, roughly what is a forward-slip? I
| understand a little bit about flying, but not enough to grok
| the explanations/diagrams.
|
| Is it a high-altitude, low-power approach to the runway, where
| full flaps are used to bleed off more altitude and speed? How
| is that different from a regular approach?
| caconym_ wrote:
| I think it's fair to describe a forward slip as a maneuver
| that puts the airplane sideways to use the drag of the
| fuselage, which is now partially side-on to the airstream, to
| bleed off speed (energy, really). It's used in situations
| where you need to bleed altitude quickly without gaining
| airspeed, which would typically be the outcome of just
| pointing the nose down--you trade gravitational potential
| energy for kinetic energy.
| tiahura wrote:
| Think drifting in a stalled Greyhound bus down a mountain
| (and the power steering pump is out).
| rzzzt wrote:
| Flying door handle first, with Deja Vu roaring in the
| background. (I might be exaggerating a little. Also not a
| pilot.) It looks like you have to use the rudder and bank
| slightly so that the plane is still flying "forward" but the
| nose points away from that direction.
| jvm___ wrote:
| You Tokyo Drift the plane, exposing more of the side of the
| plane to the forward motion of the plane to increase the drag
| by using the side of the plane as a air-brake.
|
| Instead of the most areodynamic way of flying straight, and
| the worst aerodynamic way of flying completely sideways, you
| power-slide the plane so that it's not dead-straight and the
| extra wind-resistance slows you down.
|
| One of the pilots had sail-plane experience from riding a
| one-man ice-boat with a sail attached over an icy lake -
| which is where he learned the maneuver. You can slow your
| speed by the same trick, it's just not usually done with an
| airliner.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| I used to fly a couple times/week for work and one I time I
| could see our runway out of my passenger window as we were
| landing, and we were heading directly for it. I just
| thought it was very windy, but I'm now learning that maybe
| Vin Diesel was at the helm that day. Very good explanation,
| thank you.
| pageandrew wrote:
| > One of the pilots had sail-plane experience from riding a
| one-man ice-boat with a sail attached over an icy lake -
| which is where he learned the maneuver
|
| This is correct, but I want to note that every Private
| Pilot (in the US at least) learns this maneuver, and it is
| required to be demonstrated to an examiner on the Private
| Pilot practical checkride.
| CPLX wrote:
| While true, your comment is focusing on what I think is the
| second most important aerodynamic force in a slip, which is
| the wind resistance if the side of the plane.
|
| By far the most interesting thing going on is that you've
| destroyed lift. The ailerons are acting as spoilers
| essentially so the plane starts to want to drop out of the
| sky.
|
| I'm a pilot, and the sensation of a slip is definitely not
| that you're rapidly losing forward groundspeed, it's that
| you're suddenly not gliding, and instead kind of dropping
| out of the sky.
| quest88 wrote:
| Spot on, but nit: Helps you lose altitude quickly, not
| slows you down.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Whether you lose altitude or speed quicker depends on the
| plane's attitude. Both/either could be the case.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| For those like myself who do better with visuals. Just under
| 2min direct explanation using a model plane
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBqOyDviE-A
| johschmitz wrote:
| I like this one much better https://youtu.be/RKfG3lWCZ80 at
| 4:20 onwards. Also explains the difference between slip and
| skid.
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| There's an animation of the landing here
| https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-mathematical-
| miracle-t...
| cf100clunk wrote:
| My only quibble with that animation was that it didn't show
| the state of the control surfaces, such as the rudder not
| appearing to have been moved when it was clearly at or near
| max during the real incident.
| supergeek wrote:
| I'm also not a pilot but, based on a diagram below, it looks
| like you roll the plane and apply full rudder in the opposite
| direction. The opposing roll and rudder keep the plane
| tracking straight but the control surfaces fighting against
| each other add a bunch of drag to lose airspeed.
|
| https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-
| news/2018/july/fligh...
| rob74 wrote:
| ...plus the plane flying "sideways" also adds a lot of drag
| because it's much less aerodynamic than if the fuselage
| would be pointing forward.
| pageandrew wrote:
| The ideal approach to landing is what's called a "stabilized
| approach", in which the aircraft descends to the runway at a
| constant 3 degree angle and constant descent rate. If the
| pilot finds themselves with too much altitude too close to
| the runway, in other words _above_ that glide path, they need
| to more aggressively descend to meet the glidepath.
|
| One way to aggressively descend would involve just pointing
| the nose down, but this has the effect of increasing speed
| (trading altitude for airspeed). You need a way to descend
| more quickly _without_ increasing speed. Generally, this is
| done by adding more flaps (increasing drag), but in the case
| of the Gimli Glider, their hydraulic systems were down, so
| they could not add more flaps.
|
| A forward slip is a maneuver in which you roll the aircraft
| such that the top of the wing and side of the fuselage are
| exposed to the oncoming air (relative wind), and you use the
| rudder in the opposite direction to keep the aircraft flying
| straight (with respect to the ground track). When properly
| executed, the rudder and aileron cancel each other out so you
| keep flying straight across the ground, but the nose of your
| airplane is _not_ aligned with the direction of travel, and
| the _top_ and _side_ of your airplane is exposed to the
| oncoming wind, significantly increasing drag, and thus
| descent rate.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _A forward slip is a maneuver in which you roll the
| aircraft such that the top of the wing and side of the
| fuselage are exposed to the oncoming air (relative wind),
| and you use the rudder in the opposite direction to keep
| the aircraft flying straight (with respect to the ground
| track). When properly executed, the rudder and aileron
| cancel each other out so you keep flying straight across
| the ground, but the nose of your airplane is not aligned
| with the direction of travel, and the top and side of your
| airplane is exposed to the oncoming wind, significantly
| increasing drag, and thus descent rate._
|
| Sounds like drifting. If I get your drift.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Interesting comparison. It is like drifting, but in a
| straight line (and in three dimensions).
| [deleted]
| barbazoo wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip_(aerodynamics)#Forward-
| sl...
|
| https://youtu.be/lnXrXp_7tyE?t=103
| jholman wrote:
| Also not a pilot, but I did a little googling.
|
| Here are a few key selections from
| https://pilotinstitute.com/forward-slip-vs-sideslip/
|
| > Both forward and sideslips involve opposite aileron and
| rudder input. In a forward slip (typically used to increase
| drag and decrease altitude), the aircraft's nose points away
| from the direction of flight, with the lowered wing facing
| the direction of flight. In a sideslip (typically associated
| with the final stage of a crosswind landing), the aircraft's
| nose points in the direction of flight, regardless of which
| wing is lowered.
|
| and
|
| > To understand the difference between a forward and a
| sideslip, we need to understand the slip in general. A slip,
| at its core, is an uncoordinated turn. In other words, when
| the ball of the turn coordinator is not in the middle, you're
| in a slip.
|
| So in general, a slip is a situation where you're banking,
| but not turning, due to opposite inputs to ailerons and
| rudder (i.e. between stick and pedals).
|
| As I read through all that, I thought I was coming to a
| decent understanding. However, finally,
|
| > The jargon is unnecessarily confusing - you move forward
| during a forward and a sideslip, but you don't move sidewards
| during a sideslip; you technically move sidewards during a
| forward slip!?
|
| Hmn.
| upofadown wrote:
| It is where you fly the aircraft sideways through the air.
|
| It is a way of dealing with the situation where the wind is
| not coming straight down the runway while landing a light
| power aircraft. You point the aircraft straight down the
| runway and add in enough bank to overcome the drift to the
| side. You use the rudders to prevent the aircraft from
| turning due to the bank.
|
| Pearson was performing the forward-slip in the less common
| context of gliding. While flying gliders the problem is that
| they produce a glide angle that is much too shallow to ever
| be able to control exactly where you are going to land.
| Normally you use spoilers (AKA dive brakes) to control glide
| angle but the spoilers might fail or you might need a steeper
| approach angle than the spoilers can provide. So you fly
| sideways to force the side of the glider through the air and
| produce more drag. You still need to take into account any
| crosswind while simultaneously adjusting the glide angle
| while staying lined up with the runway. It's a bit tricky and
| it takes some practice to maintain the skill. That's why I
| get to demonstrate a forward-slip as part of my yearly glider
| check flights.
|
| Pearson did this in an airliner with constantly changing
| control forces and completely nailed it on his first try. He
| touched down something like 100 feet past the threshold which
| is exactly what you want to do in a case where you don't have
| a lot of braking available. This was one of those times where
| you wanted the guy that lives aviation and not the nine to
| fiver.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Essentially you fly slightly sideways towards the target
| landing spot on the ground, which loses speed and/or altitude
| quicker than you otherwise would.
|
| This is done by applying rudder and ailerons in opposite
| directions (e.g. full right rudder and enough left aileron to
| still be heading towards the intended spot).
|
| Typically this would be a bad thing as it feels weird and is
| inefficient, but in this case the whole point is to be
| inefficient in order to lose altitude without gaining too
| much speed.
| russdill wrote:
| Just imagine what snowboarder does to slow down. Turning the
| snowboard a bit sideways but leaning in such a way to keep
| going "straight".
| mhandley wrote:
| Generally to turn left you bank left using ailerons. This
| angles the lift vector to the left and the airplane will turn
| that way without using the rudder, but it's not fully
| coordinated - the plane won't be pointing properly into the
| turn - it will "skid" a little, creating more drag than
| necesssary. To coordinate the turn, a small amount of left
| rudder is used to yaw the plane left just enough.
|
| In a forward slip the goal is to descend more quickly than
| you otherwise could. If you just point the nose down, the
| airplane will gain airspeed. If you're trying to descend
| quickly you'll overshoot where you're aiming. What you want
| is a lot more drag, which allows you to point the nose down
| (reducing lift) without gaining airspeed. Normally flaps,
| spoilers or airbrakes allow you to do this (depending on the
| aircraft). If you don't have these, as the Gimli glider
| didn't, what can you do to increase drag? Well, you can use
| the whole fuselage as an airbrake.
|
| To do this, you can use the rudder to yaw the plane, so it's
| flying a little bit sideways. Say we yaw it to the left. If
| the wings have dihedral (they point slightly upwards) then
| the right wing now has a greater angle of attack than the
| left wing - the right wing produces more lift and so the
| plane will bank left by itself without touching the ailerons.
| If the wings are swept back, as on large jets, yawing left
| will mean the right wing is longer with respect to the
| airflow than the left wing, and it will bank left even more.
| To fly pointing left, but not turn left, you cross the
| controls: you use the rudder to yaw left, and the ailerons to
| bank right. The airplane is now flying partly sideways,
| pointing to the left of the flight path, with the right wing
| lower than the left wing, but if you balance rudder against
| ailerons correctly, you fly in a straight line. The fuselage
| is partly sideways to the wind, creating a lot of drag. The
| airplane is skidding downwards to its right, and you need to
| pitch the nose down to maintain airspeed and avoid stalling.
|
| And then you've got to be fairly well coordinated as you come
| out of the slip so you keep flying in the direction of the
| runway.
|
| Source: I used to fly gliders. Presumably swept wings
| increase the amount of aileron needed, but the principle is
| mostly the same.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| An extremely simplistic way to think of a forward slip is for
| the pilot to have the rudder pedals hard in one direction,
| stick/wheel hard in the opposite direction.
| josefrichter wrote:
| It's fair to say majority of airline pilots started on gliders.
| Of course gliding a 767 is no joke.
| neurotech1 wrote:
| A lot of USAF pilots flew gliders at the USAF Academy, or as
| cadets in Civil Air Patrol. At some point in their career, they
| become airline pilots. It would be similar for the RCAF.
| pkilgore wrote:
| I'm wildly curious if you know more about this particular point
| in time, but knowing Vg of your plane and being able to perform
| (and know when to perform) a forward slip to land is something
| most pilots today learn before they ever fly solo, much less
| get a license that permits them to fly passenger jets.
|
| Struggling to see what glider knowledge applies here (other
| than, perhaps, glider pilots slip to land more frequently since
| it isn't like they have power to remove).
| eYrKEC2 wrote:
| I'd guess the majority are ex-navy/airforce and they have
| trainer planes, but no gliders, afaik.
| dalke wrote:
| Is that really true? My commercial airline pilot uncle didn't
| fly a glider until after he retired, but that's just anecdata.
|
| I used to follow Patrick Smith, aka "Ask The Pilot". He didn't
| start with a glider.
|
| Now I follow Scott Manley. He just got his private pilot
| license, and did not start with a glider. Nor did my missionary
| pilot uncle. Nor did a co-worker of mine who was learning to
| fly.
|
| Hereabouts I see gliders sometimes, but I far more often see
| powered aircraft. I get the impression there are far more
| powered flight schools than glider schools;
| https://www.flightschoollist.com/california-glider-schools/
| lists 13 glider schools in California while
| https://www.flightschoollist.com/california-airplane-flight-...
| list 91 for powered flight.
| Vespasian wrote:
| It probably depends on your location
|
| E.g. gliding is really big in Germany where it gained
| popularity especially after WWII.
|
| It's fairly cheap and usually organised as hobby clubs
| instead of commercial schools.
|
| For example a club in my area offers young people, ages
| 15-25, flying lessons until their first solo for a flat fee
| of 400EUR.
|
| Many people who are interested in aviation use this to get
| their first piloting experiences while still in school. Some
| then take the next step of becoming commercial pilots.
|
| Motorised flight on the other hand is much more expensive and
| (on a private level) done by people who, usually, already
| have a (well paying) job.
| a_c wrote:
| Can't believe the website owner is still writing after 18 years
| running the website https://www.damninteresting.com/journey-to-
| the-invisible-pla...
|
| The website isn't getting much donation
| https://www.damninteresting.com/damnload/
|
| Dedication.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Seriously. I had my personal sites on Dreamhost shared hosting
| back in the 00s and found DI when it was featured in the
| Dreamhost newsletter as their site of the month or whatever-- I
| wonder if it's still hosted there?
|
| EDIT: Lol yeah, it was in September 2005-- the Dreamhost side
| is long gone I guess, but DI itself remembers:
| https://www.damninteresting.com/dreamhost-site-of-the-month/
|
| And yes, looks like based on the donations page
| (https://www.damninteresting.com/damnload/) it is indeed still
| hosted there.
| DamnInteresting wrote:
| Yes indeed, we are still on Dreamhost. With almost 20 years
| of hosting sites there, we get some nice discounts from their
| referral program--otherwise we'd probably change hosts.
| bmmayer1 wrote:
| "A crew of engineers from Winnipeg airport clambered into a van
| and headed for Gimli to assess the damage. During transit,
| however, their vehicle unexpectedly ran out of fuel, nearly
| ripping a hole in the delicate space-irony continuum."
|
| _Facepalm_
|
| "However, unbeknownst to the pilots and the fuel crew, this
| multiplier provided the weight in imperial pounds; the new, all-
| metric 767 was based on kilograms, and required a multiplier of
| 0.8. As a consequence of this documentation disconnect, Flight
| 143 had left Montreal with roughly half the necessary fuel."
|
| _Double Facepalm_
| JulianWasTaken wrote:
| There's a Mentour Pilot episode on the flight as well:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZkKFSqehN4
| jedberg wrote:
| Saw this on reddit yesterday:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/15765zq/40_years_...
|
| OP was on the flight with his parents and had the tickets framed.
| Also the Captain of the flight is now his stepdad and his dad was
| head of maintenance for Air Canada at the time.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| The cause of running out of fuel was an improper conversion
| between imperial units and metric by the ground crew. Always
| found that funny.
| hedgehog wrote:
| Well that combined with lack of working fuel gauges, had those
| been working the error would have been caught before they even
| pulled back.
| D-Coder wrote:
| As the Admiral Cloudberg article mentioned above notes, it was
| actually a metric (liters) to metric (kilograms) conversion
| error. (Plus fuel gauges that failed in an unsafe mode, and
| flying with clearly broken fuel gauge.)
| latchkey wrote:
| The sad part is that this isn't the last time.
|
| https://www.simscale.com/blog/nasa-mars-climate-orbiter-metr...
| gs17 wrote:
| The sad part of that is people continuing to learn the wrong
| lesson. The real issue with the orbiter was not the specific
| unit systems, it was assuming a contractor followed
| specifications perfectly, not testing properly before
| launching it into space where it can't be fixed, and then
| ignoring the people who noticed the issue until it's too late
| to try anything because they didn't fill out the correct
| paperwork. Using MKS and CGS together could cause the exact
| same issue entirely in metric.
| kazinator wrote:
| https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/32cb9851-4f5d-44ae-887f-e65f2af...
| SkipperCat wrote:
| Once again, the imperial system of measurements almost killed
| them all...
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| They got away with it by the skin of their teeth.
|
| It turns out aviation, much like football is a game of inches .
| = 2.5471 cm
| dalke wrote:
| Where did the 71 come from? The US inch was 2.54000508 cm and
| the UK inch was 2.5399977, until the Johansson's blocks
| convinced everyone to use the industrial inch of exactly 2.54
| cm - what is now called the "international inch" (1ft =
| 0.3048 meters).
|
| A nautical mile corresponds to 2.9229 cm. A survey foot is
| not much different than an international inch. I hope there's
| some oddity of history I'm missing!
| auselen wrote:
| > The four-month-old 767 was a state-of-the-art machine with
| state-of-the-art glitches
|
| "state-of-the-art glitches", I'm using that!
| elchief wrote:
| "A crew of engineers from Winnipeg airport clambered into a van
| and headed for Gimli to assess the damage. During transit,
| however, their vehicle unexpectedly ran out of fuel, nearly
| ripping a hole in the delicate space-irony continuum."
| mbostleman wrote:
| Another good one: "Many of the crew members were keenly aware
| that jumbo jets such as theirs were not designed for dead-stick
| flight -- let alone dead-stick landings. In all probability,
| their inevitable confrontation with the Earth would not be an
| improvement on their current situation."
| cf100clunk wrote:
| That's a variant of a venerable old aviation joke: ''When
| flying, it is best to avoid the ground.''
| jgwil2 wrote:
| Also, "First Officer Quintal caught sight of the fleeing
| families, but it was far too late to revise their landing
| plans, so he opted not to distract the captain with the
| unsettling discovery."
| kposehn wrote:
| And "Some grizzled old pilots swear that sometimes, when
| the wind is just right on a quiet night, you can just about
| make out the double-engine-failure BONG! as the old girl is
| flying by; and if you're very lucky, you might catch the
| faint odor of damp pilots in the air."
| dmix wrote:
| Nice to find an author with quality writing on a blog.
| Although this is long form so it doesn't get the usual
| "blog" connotations.
|
| Apparently it was written by the sites creator.
| [deleted]
| nottheengineer wrote:
| It's been a while since an article managed to make me laugh out
| loud. It's some great writing.
| GoofballJones wrote:
| Loved how it was written too, even the dialog had a Canadian
| accent.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Same. It was gripping in its description but then breaks the
| tension with genuinely hilarious turns of phrase.
| ignoramous wrote:
| You'll like this article if you haven't read it already:
| _When you browse Instagram and find Tony Abbott 's passport
| number_, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24488224
| (2020).
| glonq wrote:
| My buddy is an aircraft mechanic, and his stories could
| definitely make a person worry about flying!
|
| Kind of like how talking to somebody who works in any restaurant
| kitchen will scare you from eating out anywhere.
| vkou wrote:
| Meanwhile, a car mechanic's stories would make people worry
| about driving, once you realize how many badly-maintained
| vehicles driven by morons are hurtling down the highway at 73
| mph.
|
| Fortunately, most aircraft crashes happen due to multiple,
| uncorrelated failures lining up to cause a disaster.
| iamatworknow wrote:
| 73 MPH? Must be a leisurely Sunday church drive (at least
| here in the Atlanta metro, where cars engulfed in flame on
| the side of the interstate are not as rare as they should
| be).
| eesmith wrote:
| Makes sense it would be a Sunday. During the week there's
| too much congestion to get that fast.
|
| Right now (4:45pm) https://www.fox5atlanta.com/traffic
| reports interstate traffic as low as 20mph. There aren't
| that many places reaching even 70mph.
|
| My favorite time driving through Atlanta was 2am on a
| weekday. 7 lanes wide with no traffic.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I think the general principle is that the less control you
| personally have over the means of transportation, the more
| liability rest with others, and therefore the more
| checklists, procedures, and redundancies there are in place
| to protect you.
|
| Very safe: trains and subways, buses, passenger aircraft,
| rollercoasters, elevators
|
| Very unsafe: personal automobiles, small aircraft
| pcurve wrote:
| Mayday Air Diasater has a full episode on this incident. In
| short, the pilots heroic effort led to safe landing on an old
| airfield converted into drag strip.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wnja3h70DM
|
| Not so lucky was Avianca Flight 052 that also ran out of fuel mid
| flight and crashed into Long Island residential area.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052
| tiahura wrote:
| _The nose gear, however, dangled limply from its housing.... In
| addition, had it not been for the drag created by the collapsed
| front gear, the powerless plane would have plunged into the crowd
| of spectators, sowing destruction and death in its wake._
|
| So a product defect that saved lives. I wonder if there other
| examples
| cls59 wrote:
| Bryan Cantrill draws some excellent parallels between this
| incident and software systems in his "Debugging Under Fire" talk
| (beware of semi-automated systems):
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30jNsCVLpAE
| [deleted]
| mhkhung wrote:
| There is Air Transat 236
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236
|
| "This was also the longest passenger aircraft glide without
| engines, gliding for nearly 75 miles or 121 kilometres"
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bombcar wrote:
| Of similar interest is
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_009
|
| > Despite the lack of time, Moody made an announcement to the
| passengers that has been described as "a masterpiece of
| understatement":
|
| > > Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have
| a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our
| damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too
| much distress.
| bamfly wrote:
| I once read something by... someone... EM Forster, maybe? About
| how a key difference between the British and the French is
| that, in an emergency, the French may handle it capably enough
| but will be freaking out the whole time--then carry on like it
| never happened; while the British will be cool as a cucumber
| and act like a life-and-death emergency is a minor
| inconvenience as they handle it, but then never shut up about
| it for the rest of their lives.
|
| [EDIT] I wanna say the example was a mishap on a ride
| somewhere, and he wrote something to the effect of "by the time
| they get where they're going, the French will have forgotten
| all about it, while the English will only have just begun what
| will become an excited, endless retelling of the tale". Except
| I'm sure he worded it better. Fairly sure it was Forster.
| Somewhere in his (extensive) essays and articles, I think.
| heywhatupboys wrote:
| [flagged]
| bamfly wrote:
| Forster was British and was poking fun at his own national
| character (if it wasn't him it was... Maugham, I suppose?
| Definitely British). You'll note how it's not really clear
| they come of better-seeming, overall, and the "punch line"
| amounts to a complaint about the British. [EDIT: and, go
| figure, another common characterization of the British is
| that their humor is often this sort of thing]
|
| And there's usually _something_ to those stereotypes, even
| if assuming they 're true of everyone is plainly not a
| great idea.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Is it racism to point out cultural differences? Especially
| here, where neither side is even painted as a bad thing?
| nocoiner wrote:
| It's racist to observe that different cultures have
| differences? Aren't differences _what culture is_?
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| Cultural factors are given significant weight in air
| accident investigation and safety. For instance, the Korean
| Air disaster was put down to a cultural subservience to
| authority.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_culture_on_aviati
| o...
|
| Air safety is important enough to be given a woke pass!
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| It's also been an issue during wartime:
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/apr/14/johnezard
| stcredzero wrote:
| _the Korean Air disaster was put down to a cultural
| subservience to authority_
|
| Here's my anecdote. My mother was born in Korea. At one
| point, she literally told me that it doesn't matter if I
| you are right, your duty to your elders comes first.
| (EDIT: I think it bears saying: A huge number of family
| arguments in Korean-American families have something to
| do with parents ruining their credibility with
| intelligent children by saying such things.)
|
| _Air safety is important enough to be given a woke
| pass!_
|
| Fidelity to objective truth is far too important and
| fundamental to ever be compromised on. In fact, I would
| go so far to say, that "compromises" on fidelity to
| objective truth are a red flag, that some form of power
| corruption is going on.
|
| Another form of corruption, is a claim to be the ultimate
| or sole arbiter of truth. No being who is subject to the
| Laws of Thermodynamics and Landauer's Limit should be
| able to claim they should be treated as effectively
| omniscient.
|
| No one is inherently right. The best we can do, is to
| always strive to be less wrong.
| quacked wrote:
| That's right, every single culture ever has been exactly
| the same, with exactly the same traits and emotions
| distributed in equal proportions across the entire
| population.
| belfalas wrote:
| Classic "English understatement."
| eesmith wrote:
| In the US, it's "the Chuck Yeager voice" trope. The TVTropes
| entry is "Danger Deadpan" at
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DangerDeadpan
| described as:
|
| > When a stereotypical airplane (or spaceship) pilot speaks
| over the radio, either to flight controllers on the ground or
| to his own passengers, he does so in a very soft, smooth
| register, just barely loud enough to pick up on the radio,
| probably with a faint American Southern accent (unless he's
| British, in which case it is an upper-class one). He uses
| radio jargon, even when he doesn't really need to. A true
| Danger Deadpan never loses his cool or changes his tone of
| voice under any circumstances whatsoever, a habit which is
| often Played for Laughs. ...
|
| > In Real Life, this makes a lot of sense. Even if your
| plane's lost two engines and half a wing, the last thing you
| need is a bunch of scared people in the back of the plane
| panicking and raising hell; you can't be screaming "OH GOD
| WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" over the radio. Not to mention the fact
| that if you stay calm and actually tell Mission Control what
| the problem is, you won't throw away what may be your last
| chance to actually work out how to fix it or at least get to
| the ground in one piece.
|
| The "Real Life" section includes Yeager (with a long quote
| from The Right Stuff with an example of the voice) and Moody
| of BA Flight 9, plus many others, and comments:
|
| > Yeager is the most known example and the book "The Right
| Stuff" made a nice legend, he probably isn't the first who
| started to talk that way. For example, Mark Gallai (a Soviet
| test pilot who started his career in the 1930s) recounts just
| this way of reporting over radio about as soon as radio was
| introduced on airplanes. Let's just repeat: when you need to
| report your condition to ground crew, you are going to speak
| calmly and clearly, no matter what's happening with your
| plane.
| psychphysic wrote:
| I was on a flight and after a rough turbulent half hour after
| take off, the English captain announced a technical issue
| that meant we must return to the airport.
|
| The plane had been acting bizarrely it bounced very hard on
| take off and then did not gain much altitude for the
| duration.
|
| There was another rough half an hour back to land in a
| terrible cross wind.
|
| Then a few moments on the tarmac before it was announced that
| it was because additional checks were required and the plane
| was running entirely fine. A bird strike meant they had to
| return as a precaution.
|
| I'd take the clear and transparent understatement over what I
| can only assume is a corporate line which covers things from
| entirely not worth mentioning and we're about to crash and
| burn.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I'd wondered when "English understatement" and the similar
| "British understatement" came into being. Seems strongly
| correlated with the outbreak of WWII, :
|
| <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=English+unders
| ...>
|
| Though the _behaviour_ predates that specific terminology:
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_understatement>
|
| Adding in "stiff upper lip", a similar notion, brings the
| date back to the 1830s:
|
| <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=English+unders
| ...>
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Magnificent read.
| jsbg wrote:
| I was on a United flight in 2019 that had to be diverted due to
| tornado warnings at the destination (DC). We circled Columbus
| long enough that eventually the pilot announced that he was still
| waiting for authorization to land and that it should be soon
| because we only had about "20 minutes" worth of fuel left. He
| announced 45 minutes later that we were going to land in
| Pittsburgh instead, without providing an update on the fuel
| situation. We glided until we landed, with all lights turned off
| and violent winds throwing the plane around. The plan was to
| refuel and keep going toward DC, where tornado warnings hadn't
| been dismissed. There was an airline employee (not sure if he had
| been on the plane) at the gate aggressively telling people, some
| of them crying on the phone with loved ones, that they had to get
| back on this flight, with the same crew. He lied to me about my
| luggage continuing on to DC if I didn't get back on the plane
| (this is illegal and in fact I found my luggage at the Pittsburgh
| airport the next day when I went to get my flight out of there).
|
| The only thing I found about it online is a couple of tweets from
| other passengers of the same flight.
| anderiv wrote:
| That flight certainly did not do any unpowered gliding. With
| their "20 minutes left" line, the pilot likely meant "20
| minutes until we hit our reserve fuel", at which point they
| would be forced to declare a fuel emergency and land at
| whatever airport is available.
| hackmiester wrote:
| If so, the pilot would have done better to keep his mouth
| shut. Why the hell would someone say that to a bunch of
| passengers who are presumably totally untrained in aviation?
| MaKey wrote:
| I find it hard to believe this story really happened the way
| you are presenting it. "We glided until we landed" makes it
| sound like the plane ran out of fuel - did it really? It would
| be hard to hide such an incident. Your strong language ("lied",
| "illegal", "absolutely inappropriate" further down) makes me
| think there is more nuance to this.
|
| Edit: "with all lights off" - turning off the lights for a
| landing is regular procedure, nothing unusual.
| jsbg wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36854536
|
| > turning off the lights for a landing is regular procedure,
| nothing unusual.
|
| The lights were off for about an hour as we glided toward
| Pittsburgh.
|
| > Your strong language
|
| My assessment is that I was told my luggage would continue on
| to DC without me if I didn't board in an attempt to get the
| plane leaving as soon as possible after refueling. I didn't
| care enough to get back on, and learned the following day
| that they had actually removed my luggage before departure.
| cschmatzler wrote:
| Your place is not gonna glide unpowered for an hour.
| anderiv wrote:
| Your intuition is correct. The story as told by the parent is
| likely just due to a misunderstanding (or just lack of
| knowledge) of 1) the pilot's words over the PA and 2)
| standard procedures used in commercial air travel.
| cguess wrote:
| Especially in emergencies. Lights are turned off so
| passenger eyes can get used to the dim light and see the
| exit lights (which are not bright) better.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Any idea why he didn't land in Columbus?
| jsbg wrote:
| My guess is there were too many other more urgent flights
| landing there at the time.
| anderiv wrote:
| In situations where there many diversions, sometimes
| secondary airports either get too busy to accept additional
| A/C or run out of space or crews to deal with them.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| Sure, that makes sense. Does that likely mean there were
| other flights with even less fuel that had to land ahead of
| this plane, or how do they triage that situation? It seems
| like a failure to triage properly if one plane has to
| glide, but maybe I'm naive about how close all of the other
| planes are to gliding.
| EMM_386 wrote:
| That notification you got about the "20 minutes worth of fuel
| left" meant before they were forced to divert to the alternate.
|
| There are numerous FAA requirements about this depending on if
| you are IFR/VFR, the airport, the expected weather, etc. but
| the bottom line is sufficient fuel to:
|
| 1) Fly to your intended destination.
|
| 2) Fly from the destination to the alternate (if required).
|
| 3) Fly for an additional 45 minutes at normal cruise speed
| (minimum).
|
| What the pilot was saying was that they had 20 more minutes
| until they had to go to Pittsburgh. If it took 45 minutes
| instead of 20, it was because the computer calculated that was
| exactly how much more time they could hold.
|
| The last US fatal accident was _14 years ago_ ... which just
| goes to show how incredibly safe this all is.
|
| There was no gliding on your flight. It may have felt that way
| during a descent at flight idle.
|
| The flight may have been scary to the passengers, and people
| may not have wanted to get back on, but I'm sure it was quite
| routine to the people up front.
|
| Source: US certified commercial pilot, Aero. Sci. degree.
| Certified ATC.
| [deleted]
| mindcrime wrote:
| _The last US fatal accident was 14 years ago ... which just
| goes to show how incredibly safe this all is._
|
| Not that I disagree with your basic point (flying is very
| safe), but unless you're qualifying what you said to mean
| something more specific, there has been a more recent
| fatality.[1][2] Granted, it wasn't a crash, but nonetheless,
| a passenger was killed (I believe it was the first passenger
| fatality in Southwest Airlines history as well).
|
| [1]: https://abcnews.go.com/US/plane-makes-emergency-landing-
| phil...
|
| [2]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1380
| jsbg wrote:
| > That notification you got about the "20 minutes worth of
| fuel left" meant before they were forced to divert to the
| alternate.
|
| I believe you but this is yet another reason why it was
| inappropriate for the pilot to mention this to passengers.
| Nearly everyone around me was visibly distressed as we
| "idled" to Pittsburgh.
|
| > The flight may have been scary to the passengers, and
| people may not have wanted to get back on, but I'm sure it
| was quite routine to the people up front.
|
| Maybe for the pilot/copilot but the flight attendants' facial
| expressions when I got off the plane did not suggest this was
| routine to me.
| ls612 wrote:
| > The last US fatal accident was 14 years ago ... which just
| goes to show how incredibly safe this all is.
|
| This isn't quite true, there was that poor woman sucked out
| of the Southwest flight in 2018. But your broader point is
| 100% correct.
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| Just to be clear, when you say you "glided" are you saying that
| you ran out of fuel? Because if it did actually run out of fuel
| there should be a report about it somewhere and I'm really
| interested in finding it or why it somehow doesn't exist. If
| they ran *low* on fuel, that is something else entirely.
|
| EDIT: Looks like everyone else jumped on this at the same time.
| lol.
| jsbg wrote:
| I have no way of knowing whether or not the plane ran out of
| fuel. I'm assuming they kept some fuel, e.g. in case they
| didn't stick the landing on the first attempt.
| cguess wrote:
| There is, as others pointed out if a plane runs out of fuel
| there are reports, hearings, investigations. _Nothing_ goes
| that wrong in modern commercial aviation, pretty much
| anywhere in the world, without being seriously looked in.
| crazytony wrote:
| Every incident has to go into the carrier's safety reporting
| system which is then followed up by the FAA and/or NTSB. Even
| stuff as simple as a flight attendant feeling fatigued after
| not getting enough rest goes into the SRS.
|
| I don't think the public has access to the SRS but the FAA
| and NTSB do.
| anderiv wrote:
| There's no possible way the story is true as relayed by the
| parent. If the flight was indeed forced into a situation
| where there was an unpowered glide into landing, that
| airframe _and_ crew would both be grounded for some time, not
| turned around and put back out for the continuance of the
| flight.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| vids?
| 101008 wrote:
| What happens if you don't go into the 2nd flight? I wouldn't,
| personally, as someone who are not fan of flying. Is Pittsburgh
| far enough from Washington to not take a bus?
| jsbg wrote:
| > What happens if you don't go into the 2nd flight?
|
| They took my luggage off the plane and United agreed to put
| me on the next flight to my final destination for free even
| though tickets were $750 that day.
| yurishimo wrote:
| If you can find the specific flight in a log online somewhere,
| you might be able to find the pilot and bring some sort of
| legal action... if you're lucky, a lawyer might send a letter
| for the lolz if they offer you a settlement.
| AceyMan wrote:
| there is no proof that anything the crew said over the PA was
| literally true. They should be honest about their plans ("we
| should me at the destination shortly" or "we're diverting to
| XYZ now") but the particulars of fuel management and the
| regulations are not digestible to the layperson.
|
| Hell, I had to unpack them & explain them to the pilots every
| once in a while. (They'd often form some interpretation that
| worked out "best" ... for them personally).
| jsbg wrote:
| It was absolutely inappropriate for the pilot to talk about
| fuel levels over PA.
| crazytony wrote:
| In situations like this, it helps to remember that there is no
| disjoint between you and the pilots. They are in the same exact
| situation as you: if the fuel runs out, they crash the same as
| you. They're not willfully going to put their (and your) lives
| in danger. They want to get home safely to their families the
| same as you do.
|
| Dispatch and route planning (and the fuel that goes into the
| planning) is really intense and takes into account hundreds of
| factors including stuff like how much fuel do I need if I can't
| land at my nominated backup airport and have to go to a
| secondary backup airport.
|
| Domestically, checked baggage can fly even if you don't. It
| depends on the situation.
| jsbg wrote:
| > Domestically, checked baggage can fly even if you don't. It
| depends on the situation.
|
| I could be wrong about it being illegal, I was just repeating
| what an (other) airline employee told me. But they did take
| my luggage off the plane after telling me that they weren't
| going to.
| crazytony wrote:
| It's weird to me that they unloaded anything in the hold
| for what should have been a refuel-and-go. Unless they're
| expecting you to be held on the ground for 3+ hours, they
| typically don't even bother getting the pax out much less
| the bags.
|
| But there's always
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _They want to get home safely to their families the same as
| you do._
|
| Except when they don't:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34506004
|
| When anything well-operated deviates from the norm, people
| are going to question / panic, and rightly so.
| ericzawo wrote:
| The full episode of Mayday on Air Canada Flight 143 is worth your
| time. They let us watch it in grade school one day!
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y8JBAr8dZ4
| libraryofbabel wrote:
| Here is a better article about Flight 143 from the brilliant
| admiralcloudberg crash analysis blog:
| https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-mathematical-miracle-t...
|
| The linked article is not bad but reads a bit too much like a Dan
| Brown novelization for me taste... " The mustachioed Captain
| Pearson pulled out the trusty Boeing handbook, his fingers
| dashing through the pages..."
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| That was a gripping read!
| fwlr wrote:
| The Admiral Cloudberg article is _much_ better, particularly in
| its explanation of how the plane came to be flown with blank
| fuel gauges. The first technician noticed an issue with the
| fuel gauges being blank a few flights earlier and applied a fix
| he happened to know: disabling one of the two channels, which
| restored the gauges. This was an acceptable fix - the plane was
| certified to fly with only one of the two channels active, as
| long as the lost redundancy was regained with manual checks. It
| was flown twice in this state (working gauges, single channel,
| manual backup fuel check).
|
| When this captain handed the plane over to the captain of the
| incident flight, there was a misunderstanding in the
| conversation that led to the incoming captain believing the
| prior captain had been flying with blank fuel gauges and only
| manual fuel checks. In an unfortunate coincidence, the second
| technician who was checking the plane at this time disabled
| both channels to try and troubleshoot the issue again, but
| failed to return the system to the "one channel" functioning
| state (apparently because he was interrupted by a request to
| help with the _manual fuel check_ , ironically).
|
| The second technician's mistake would have been noticed by the
| pilots, except that due to the misunderstanding, they were
| expecting to see blank gauges. Those were the initial
| conditions that allowed the "pounds, not kilograms" mistake to
| threaten the flight.
| libraryofbabel wrote:
| Definitely. What makes Admiral Cloudberg so good is the
| intense focus on details: both details of technical systems,
| and details of how humans (mis-)communicate with each other.
| Those details are where the reasons for failure reside, and
| so they are the place to focus if you're interested in these
| stories from an incident analysis perspective.
|
| With flight 143, the sheer brilliance of the flying _after_
| the fuel ran out - plus the too-neat story of "it was all
| caused by metric / imperial conversion" can easily distract
| from the real lynchpin of the whole incident, which was as
| you say why the plane was flown with non-functional fuel
| gauges when that was contrary to the Minimum Equipment List
| for the aircraft. Taking off with blank fuel gauges was the
| core safety rule that was violated: the mistake with the unit
| conversions was necessary to make that violation dangerous
| but it wasn't really the core of the accident.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Nearly all airliner crashes are due to an unexpected
| confluence of multiple errors. If any one of the errors had
| gone right, nothing bad would have happened.
| mewse-hn wrote:
| The author of the linked article also crowbarred "eh?" into the
| end of every sentence, because that's how imaginary Canadians
| talk
| DamnInteresting wrote:
| Author of the linked article here. If you're implying that I
| manufactured the "eh"s, you are mistaken, they were in the
| transcript of the cockpit voice recorder. If you are implying
| that I intentionally left them in for comedic value, I cannot
| argue with that.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Indeed, thank you for your attention to that detail. I
| would expect that cockpit recordings from Yanks would have
| plenty of sentences ending in "Huh?", as in "Ya remembered
| ta turn that switch off, huh?"
| q845712 wrote:
| in my experience it is how both real and imaginary Canadians
| talk
| wintogreen74 wrote:
| Sorry eh, but that's actually how we talk ya hoser.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I'll be honest with you, like, totally, gag me with a
| spoon, know whut I mean?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Somewhat less prevalent in BC, or Quebec (francophones),
| but yes.
|
| It's often challenged my capacity to keep a straight face
| when it reaches self-parodying levels.
| louison11 wrote:
| With so many recorded errors of conversion, you'd assume we would
| just make it intergalactic law that everybody use metrics. Why is
| the imperial system still used, especially when it's by such a
| small minority?
| bookofjoe wrote:
| >Remember the Gimli Glider? This couple does -- he was the pilot
| and she was a passenger
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/gimli-glider-40th-an...
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113018/
|
| https://youtu.be/FnSHnqyXqmg
| cf100clunk wrote:
| The Algolia search box here on HN shows a ton of previous
| ''Gimli Glider'' submissions as it was a legendary feat of
| airmanship, and another Canadian pilot made an equally
| astonishing deadstick airliner landing in 2001:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34321056
| cperciva wrote:
| The joke in the airline industry is that Canada doesn't have
| great aircraft pilots, but we have the world's best glider
| pilots.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| A joke amongst NATO pilots comparing Canadian aviators,
| with their limitless air space, and their European allies,
| with their comparitively tiny national air spaces:
|
| ''Europeans: afterburners off after 3 minutes. Canadians:
| afterburners off after 3 countries.''
| renewiltord wrote:
| > _Both Pearson 's wife and Dion's husband, Rick -- who
| happened to be in the cockpit with Pearson -- had died years
| earlier._
|
| So not only was she a passenger, but also the other chap in the
| cockpit was her husband.
| asynchronous wrote:
| That is insane
| charles_f wrote:
| This is a fantastic story, and very well recounted.
|
| > presumably because a simultaneous engine failure had been too
| ridiculous for Boeing engineers to contemplate
|
| This is hard to grasp, esp. given the presence of a RAT. You're
| giving engineering time to add a device specifically made to
| handle loss of all engines, but don't spend the time to write the
| corresponding procedure?
|
| > ...had determined the fuel weight by multiplying the the number
| of dripsticked liters by 1.77, as indicated by the documentation.
| However, unbeknownst to the pilots and the fuel crew, this
| multiplier provided the weight in imperial pounds; the new, all-
| metric 767 was based on kilograms, and required a multiplier of
| 0.8
|
| Darn, how many of these incidents will we require until we
| finally get rid of the metric system once and for all!
|
| > The internal investigation into the incident laid the blame
| partially upon Captain Bob Pearson and First Officer Maurice
| Quintal, who should have observed the Minimum Equipment List
| (MEL) and grounded the aircraft since it lacked functioning fuel
| gauges
|
| This is an interesting take - and as the pilot of the plan it
| certainly should rest on you that you're responsible for all to
| be in working conditions before you leave. However combining that
| it was apparently a frequent failure, with the corporate culture
| that's outlined, it's a good cautionary tail about resisting the
| pressure when something's wrong but "everybody's doing it
| anyways".
| dorfsmay wrote:
| > Darn, how many of these incidents will we require until we
| finally get rid of the metric system once and for all!
|
| Are you serious?
|
| There are 3 countries in the world not using the metric system.
| The non-metric system is difficult to use because it's using 12
| based units with a 10 based numbering system.
|
| Sure switching over is going to be painful but that's true
| either way, and there are quite a few examples of people
| switching to the metric system but none, as far as I know, the
| other way around.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > There are 3 countries in the world not using the metric
| system.
|
| The US uses metric for many, many things. Frequently side-by-
| side with imperial equivalents. AFAIK it's also the official
| position of the USG that metric is prefered.
|
| > The non-metric system is difficult to use because it's
| using 12 based units with a 10 based numbering system.
|
| OTOH, 12 divides evenly by both 4 and 3, which are common
| divisions.
| amanj41 wrote:
| Original commenter was joking
| charles_f wrote:
| </joke>
| dorfsmay wrote:
| Ah! Wasn't clear, should have added a /s.
| carbine wrote:
| I'm Canadian and there are more "ehs" in this article than I've
| heard in the past 5 years combined
| vlovich123 wrote:
| > The internal investigation into the incident laid the blame
| partially upon Captain Bob Pearson and First Officer Maurice
| Quintal, who should have observed the Minimum Equipment List
| (MEL) and grounded the aircraft since it lacked functioning fuel
| gauges. Some of the responsibility was also assigned to the
| maintenance workers, and to "corporate deficiencies." As a
| consequence Pearson was briefly demoted, and Quintal was
| suspended for two weeks. Nonetheless both pilots continued to
| work for Air Canada, and in 1985 they received the well-deserved
| Federation Aeronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding
| Airmanship for their handling of the unusual landing.
|
| Interesting. What kind of demotion did Boeing or Air Canada
| receive?
| mc32 wrote:
| Was Boeing doing the aircraft servicing, else why would they be
| to blame?
| tspike wrote:
| They didn't provide procedures for a no power landing. They
| also failed to update the conversion documentation.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Did they "fail" to do it, or did they just "self-certify"
| the documentation? /s
| asynchronous wrote:
| And they designed and produced a plane with commonly faulty
| fuel gauges at the time.
| belorn wrote:
| (From the medium article from an other comment)
|
| Air Canada changed their pilot training, changed several
| manuals and documents, standardizing the fuel weight units
| (which was already in process), changed the circuit breaker,
| established a flight safety organization, and changed fueling
| procedures.
|
| The story does not say if any person responsible for those
| parts got any negative consequences, thought one can hope that
| the hunt for blame was short. It usually doesn't serve to
| improve security, and in this case there was a long list of
| consecutive mistakes by a large number of people that allowed
| for the accident to happen. Among those were also a culture of
| overriding the Minimum Equipment List, something which Canada
| had outlawed 5 years before this accident.
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