Russian crash landing....impressive

[HardDrive]

Well, it's not quite 'Miracle on the Hudson', but its damn impressive. A321 loaded with fuel, no serious injuries, no fire. Hats off to the pilots.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49369172

[Jeff Higgins]

Well done, sir - hat's off to the pilot.

I would love to take part in that recovery operation. That's the fun stuff. We drug a few out of the dingle berries and back to the runway, but none quite that far. There's usually nothing left to drag if the wind up that far away...

[sc_rufctr]

Great result but honestly... I'd put it down to luck more than anything else. (A corn field in the right place)
The pilots had virtually no time to react. When they lost power all they could do is try and keep the nose up.

Sully had to make multiple decisions quickly.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

Great result but honestly... I'd put it down to luck more than anything else. (A corn field in the right place)
The pilots had virtually no time to react. When they lost power all they could do is try and keep the nose up.

Sully had to make multiple decisions quickly.

Precisely. No time to do anything but lean on your training, or so I would think. All's well that ends well. Now where's that car rental?

[john70t]

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

I thought these engines were supposed to eat birds as regular chow?

Upgrade available.

[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

French jets have a stricter diet then Boeing.
I thought these engines were supposed to eat birds as regular chow?
Aside from their diet rejection, those passengers are really lucky not to have burned to death on the ground

The rate/density of birds might have something to do with it.

Sort of like a toilet is made to do what it does; yet some loads can cause failure.

[beepbeep]

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

French jets have a stricter diet then Boeing.

Huh? Are those engines "French"? I bet it is garden variety CFM56 and those are hung on everything from A320, 737 and even DC8's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_International_CFM56

[tcar]

Originally Posted by beepbeep

Huh? Are those engines "French"? I bet it is garden variety CFM56 and those are hung on everything from A320, 737 and even DC8's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_International_CFM56

Yep, CFM is 50/50 joint French and GE company?

[Laneco]

Originally Posted by Tervuren

The rate/density of birds might have something to do with it.

Sort of like a toilet is made to do what it does; yet some loads can cause failure.

SNORK! Ok, thank you Tervuren - my monitor now has nose-water all over it! Absolutely fabulous analogy - LOL!

angela

[David]

I noticed the landing gear was up. Is this the preferred method when landing a passenger jet in a field or on water?

[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by David

I noticed the landing gear was up. Is this the preferred method when landing a passenger jet in a field or on water?

In the original article it mentions debris thrown up by landing gear offroad can rupture fuel tanks.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by afterburn 549

I have no clue what brand the pwr plants are-But it would seem these were very fussy about their bird ingestion?
They are supposed to be able to consume a certain amount.(within reason) Ask jeff or some expert.
No matter-happy there was a field for them to skid across.
A Ball of fire it ould have been!

Mr Obvious statement: Birds come in a very wide variety of sizes. A jet engine ingesting a sparrow is not nearly the same a Canadian Goose, or a crane. And several geese will stop just about any jet engine.

I too am far from claiming any expertise in jet engines. But a small songbird may well not cause a catastrophic failure, but I bet the next engine inspection will find some routine damage to the blades. A large goose, yea, that is gonna be bad. Even worse is coming in through the cockpit and nailing the pilot.

[flipper35]

Gear can also fail on a soft field, usually asymmetrically. The fuselage is pretty robust, I am sure Mr Higgins can elaborate more on that.

[Deschodt]

I must have high expectations, but it strikes me as normal... The only remarkable thing to me was the lack of explosion upon landing - kudos to the manufacturer of the airframe/fuel tanks/soft landing skills ?

By that I mean I fully expect every pilot that flies me to have the decision capacity and skill set to land straight ahead wheels up in a field and not kill (most of) the passengers. That's his job, to not try something stupid like a desperate 180 that stalls/crashes the plane. Points to guys like Sully for doing it on water. But still their job! Well done to that russian pilot for not even trying to save the plane, I expect the same (and more, like one engine/no engines/ piece of airframe fallen off) from all the airline pilots ;-)

[Jeff Higgins]

Fan blades are pretty easily replaced on these engines - there is a reason for that. The flying public would be, um, "surprised" at just how often that happens. They would also be surprised to learn that airports employ full time crews to drive their properties and perimeters with a very specific, kind of grim task - shooting any and all wildlife, from birds to coyotes to deer to whatever lives near the airport in question. You would be surprised to learn how many get shot every day. And trapped.

Airplane fuselages, wings, and empennages are fantastic at absorbing stress loads imparted in flight. They are not so good at absorbing and/or dissipating impact or shock loads. The landing gear and landing gear mounting points are designed to absorb landing loads, obviously, but will also absorb pretty significant bending loads induced under braking. They are not so good at absorbing side loads, and are really pretty terrible at absorbing impact loads even in their normal direction of travel, like if the aircraft runs over something. Or if they are drug across a surface into which they will sink, like the soft earth of a typical crop field.

We do see, of course, heavy aircraft that are designed to be used on rough, "unimproved" airfields. Not "cornfield rough", but not paved runways either. Take a look at the C17, C130, and other such military aircraft, and notice how low the fuselage is to the ground, how short the landing gear is, and how many wheels they have compared to a commercial jet. All of that is meant to alleviate these problems, to a degree.

Funny, with the flight loads these things can endure, some clown driving a food truck can cause significant damage to the fuselage simply by backing into it, at very low speed, taking it out of service. They really are quite delicate in that respect. Fuselage panels are less than 1/8" thick in many places on large commercial aircraft.

I bet this particular aircraft is pretty significantly bent and twisted. I would love to take a look. I'm sure it's a write-off, even if they can transport it with the fuselage in one piece. The wings and empennage will have to come off, of course, and that's going to be a real trick in the middle of a cornfield.

I do have some experience with transporting an aircraft fuselage, and the prep required for doing so. Our AOG unit was responsible for the tooling to disassemble and transport the 747 used to retrieve the Space Shuttle when it was placed in a museum several years ago. Here is a short video. I designed the cradle under the nose that holds it on the trailer, visible at about 1:30 (and all of the cradling and lifting equipment for the wings as well). I also designed the equipment to both remove and reattach the wings, and to remove and reattach the empennage. Fun job:

[stealthn]

Why does it seem to only be Airbus that looses both engines?

[john70t]

Originally Posted by flipper35

The fuselage is pretty robust,

I took a short flight in Europe and looked over to see the fuselage aft which was gently dented in maybe 12-18 in. over a vertical crease.
Somebody was probably in trouble over that one.

A bit surprising. But if it passed, it passed.

Just for reference there are a couple Russian space shuttles sitting in the desert:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/05/soviet-space-shuttle-kazakhstan-film-science/

[Deschodt]

Originally Posted by stealthn

Why does it seem to only be Airbus that looses both engines?

Because MCAS is making the boeing oscillate so much the birds miss the engine intakes ?

Actually not a silly Q, probably statistical anomaly? There are options generally, airlines pick sometimes, manufacturer too...