american airlines emergency landing
 

Last Sunday morning I was aboard a flight that left Orange county airport. we almost made it to palm springs when the plane started oscillating up and down.
It wasn't turbulence as it was repetitious and non-random.
the pilot came over the loud speaker and told us we were diverting to LAX.
We made a normal landing except it seemed much flatter and faster than normal and there were fire trucks and emergency vehicles lining both sides of the run way.
They followed the plane to the terminal and then left.
No one would tell us what was wrong with the plane but I later heard it was a failed stabilizer.
They kept us on the plane for 1 1/2 hours before they finally let us off, and then asked us to stand in-line another hour. They offered no assistance or help, no answers, just herded us like cattle while they tried to figure out what to do.
I called our corporate travel agent and got another flight 4 hours later to Chicago, then on to Knoxville on a puddle jumper. My luggage did not make the same trip. Very nice.
Last time I fly with AA. Not because they had a mechanical problem, but because of how poorly they handled it.

BTW there were very few atheists on that plane when it made the emergency landing.

Consumer Reports rates American as the worst, I think I read.

If it's an hor stab problem...it's probably due to the trim section of it...What kind of iron it was...?

Huh? American Air is one of the best. Try putting US Air/Am West, United or Northwest in the "worst" catagory, they will fit a lot better.

Failed stab is not good. Remember the Alaska airlines airplane that went into the water off of LA? They lost control of the plane due to the jackscrew that controls the stab. Once that happens you are along for the ride and its not an easy problem to work with.

Agree about your handling. I would write AA and ask if they really want to keep my business and see what they can do about it, otherwise try another airline.

If he was going to ORD he was most likely on a 757.

Really the captain probably didn't have time to inform you in the air about the technical nature of the problem. They probably had to dump fuel in order to make the landing weight in LAX as well as handle the issue they were having. Once on the ground someone should have at least told you what the plan was for handling your connections and what not.

I hope folks thanked the crew for a safe flight.

How do you rate the "worst" in what has become a horrible experience no matter what airline you choose??? I'm thinking of going back to rail...

I have a story about one of our flights in Russia last week. It also involved emergency vehicles and wild gyrations..... and a 30 year old Soviet-era Aerflot jet. And guess what? They didn't bother to tell us what the problem was. Big surprise there.

The Alaskan flight was an MD-80, and the accounts of what happened are terrifying...
what kind of AA plane was this?
Scary issue... Im due to fly AA in a month too...

You are three times more likely to have an accident in the car on the way to the airport. Get scared now and feel safe once you get to the airport.

No need. You're close enough to Canada to fly a decent airline to your connection in the US.

Feel safe piloting the elusive P-Car.

:)

At least I control the car...and if it's engine dies, or it gets a flat I can pull over. Joe? I know your professional life...a very dear buddy of mine, since childhood, recently retired from American, a left seat guy. He & I have gone over this many times.

Really, tho... it boiled down to service. The last time I flew, before 9-11? I absolutely knew I was just one of many milk cows being herded down the chute.

Gee...I can still remember when flying was considered cool. Today? I'll plan ahead...take rail...and if I have to cross an ocean? Again, I'll plan ahead, take a boat. Even a banana boat that accepts passengers.

Unless I get rich enough to rent a private jet? No way I'll fly again...

But then, I do have the luxury of planning where and when and if I go anywhere...

I'm with pwd72s on this one... flying is not as safe as they would have you believe.

Considering that I fly for American Eagle, which is the regional sister company of American Airlines, I used a little bit of common sense and our reservation system and found that Sam was most likely on AA flight 2206 to DFW, connecting to TYS on an Eagle Regional Jet.

His airplane was a 737-800, a pretty new airplane.

Sorry you had a problem, Sam. Personally, I'd write AMR and complain about your lack of customer service once you made it into the terminal at LAX.

why would a new plane have a failed stabilizer ?

On-ramp, I'm an airline pilot with twenty two years of experience and 13,000 hours of flight time. I know a thing or two about aviation and the risks involved. Your statement is an interesting one. Please elaborate and explain.

Paul, the only thing you are in control of on the road is your car. You have no control over any other aspect of driving - other cars, weather, road conditions, objects and animals on the highway, anything. The idea of control over one's fate while that person is driving is an illusion.

Yes, inherently, flyings is more dangerous due to a number of factors - altitude, speed, temperature, lack of Oxygen at altitude, etc. However, statistically speaking, you are many, many more times safer while flying than while traveling in a car, bus or truck.

(I'm sure you and your retired pilot friend have gone over this ad nauseam)

Why would the stabilizer fail? Who knows that it did? It very well may not have been the stab at all. Oscillations can be caused by autopilot problems, for example.

Since none of us here has access to the particulars of the flight or aircraft in question, a stab problem is purely speculation on our part. What actually happened is a mystery to all of us here.

As for the 737, I doubt the airplane was actually new, in the sense that it was delivered recently. It may be five or more years old and have over ten thousand hours and cycles on the airframe. These airplanes spend about 16 to 18 hours a day flying, every day.

For starters...

Fuel tank explosion prevention still lagging
10 years after TWA disaster, board says FAA must do more

By JAMES WALLACE
P-I AEROSPACE REPORTER

Only 12 minutes after taking off for Paris from John F. Kennedy International Airport, as it headed out over the Atlantic off the coast of Long Island, TWA Flight 800 exploded in the evening sky, showering the ocean at dusk with burning fuel, pieces of the 747 jumbo jet and the bodies of all 230 people aboard.

The National Transportation Safety Board uses a reconstruction of TWA Flight 800 for training and wants more action to prevent fuel tank explosions.

It would take investigators four years to painstakingly piece together the clues before they could say why it blew up.

Neither a bomb nor missile brought down the big Boeing jet. Rather, a tiny electrical spark of unknown origin ignited explosive fuel vapors in the center wing tank, the National Transportation Safety Board finally ruled.

"Airliner fuel tanks are as flammable today as they were 10 years ago," the safety board said Thursday, just ahead of the 10th anniversary of the TWA crash, on July 17, 1996.

Although "significant safety improvements have been implemented" in the decade since the crash, more needs to be done to avoid another accident like TWA Flight 800, the board said.

Mark Rosenker, acting safety board chairman, said the Federal Aviation Administration and the industry are moving too slowly to get a fuel-inerting system on commercial passengers jets and cargo planes to eliminate the possibility of a fuel tank explosion.

And the board wants the system to protect fuel tanks in the wings, not just the center tank, as currently proposed by the FAA, he said.

"The longer we wait, the possibility of a catastrophic explosion remains," Rosenker said in an interview. "The objective is to eliminate these fuel tank explosions as quickly as we can."

Rosenker praised The Boeing Co. for its work at developing a fuel-inerting system that is being evaluated.

"I applaud Boeing and commend them for their leadership in this area," he said. "We are very pleased to see the progress they are making."

Four Boeing jets now in service with airlines were retrofitted with a system that pumps inert nitrogen gas into the center fuel tank as the fuel is used. This prevents the buildup of potentially explosive fuel vapors.

Liz Verdier, Boeing's jetliner safety spokeswoman, would not identify the airlines that are using the jets -- two 747s and two next generation 737s. But Boeing hopes to have the system ready to install in its factory-built planes starting in 2007, she said. The system would initially go into 747s and then 737s, followed by 767s and 777s, she said.

Depending on the size of the plane, the system would cost from $100,000 to $300,000 per jet, she said.

That's the cost of retrofitting planes. Boeing would not charge customers anything extra for planes that come from the factory with the system already installed, she said.

It works by removing nitrogen from air that is bled off the engines. On modern jets, air is bled off the engines to power certain systems.

The Boeing 787 that is now in development will come from the factory with an inerting system, but it will use an onboard tank filled with nitrogen. That's because the more-electric 787 will be the first commercial jetliner that does not use bleed air from the engines.

The 787 inerting system will pump nitrogen into the fuel tanks in the wings as well as the center tank.

The Boeing system now being evaluated on the four planes, and the one that will be used on factory-built jets, only pumps nitrogen into the center wing tank. That's because the center tanks are above air-conditioning packs, which can act as a heat source. On TWA 800, the plane's air-conditioning system was running for a long time while the plane was on the ground in New York, and this heated fuel vapors in the center tank to an explosive level, according to the NTSB's final report on the accident.

But Rosenker said it makes sense to use the inerting system for the entire wing and not just the center tank.

"We believe if you can do one tank you can do them all, and if you do them all, you eliminate the problem altogether," he said.

The FAA said Thursday that the board's suggestion will be considered, but it noted there is far less chance of fuel in the wing ever exploding than fuel in the center tank, which is only flammable during 12 percent to 26 percent of a flight.

The FAA issued a proposed rule last year that would require operators and manufacturers of transport-category aircraft to take steps to reduce the likelihood of fuel tank vapors exploding by requiring a fuel-inerting system. But the industry has resisted this move because of the cost.

The FAA has said it is moving forward with the proposed rule, but has not said when it might be made final.

The Air Transport Association, which represents U.S. airlines, is strongly opposed to the rule. Airbus has also come out against it.

In a news release Thursday, the FAA said flying is "far safer" today than it was 10 years ago.

Since 1996, the FAA said, it has issued more than 100 directives that have addressed various fuel tank safety issues.

But the NTSB noted in its release that since the TWA accident, there have been two fuel tank explosions on jetliners. One occurred in 2001, in the center wing tank of a Boeing 737 parked at the terminal in Bangkok, Thailand.

The board is currently investigating the explosion last month in the left wing fuel tank on a Transmile Airlines 727 cargo plane in Bangalore, India.

The plane was waiting to be towed and only the auxiliary power unit was running. Although the source of the explosion has not yet been determined, the board said Thursday that had the plane been flying, the explosion would have torn off the wing and the crash would not have been survivable.

second, not all check-in baggage is checked with x-ray equipment.

I seriously doubt that a nitrogen separation system is being installed in engines.