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Author Topic: Need help from my pilot friends on here... Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-15-2012 12:27 AM                    Ok, so let me preface this by saying that I used to love the idea of flying. I even took some flying lessons myself. But over the last decade or so I have really developed a loathing of flying. It's safe to say that I don't enjoy it at all. In fact it's probably safe to say that I hate flying. I don't feel safe when I'm flying. It's nerve racking for me. So now, having said that, I had something happen to me today that has never happened before. On a 757, after we pushed away from the gate we throttled up the engines to start taxiing to the runway. After moving about a few hundred feet the plane completely lost power. Engines, lights, a/c, the safety video, everything shut down and we rolled to a stop. There we sat. I happened to be in an exit row. Sure seemed like an emergency to me. Already being unnerved by the idea of flying, I sure was contemplating popping that door open and jumping out. After sitting there for the longest two or three minutes of my life, the lights came back on, the video picked up where it left off, the engines started back up again, and before long we finished heading to the runway, and we took off. The flight went without further incident, but holy cow... that was the most unnerving 45 minute flight ever knowing that less than an hour ago that thing completely shut down. So now, my pilot friends here... please help me out. I would like to think that the captain would not have taken off if there was any danger what so ever. However I am having a REALLY hard time convincing myself that we could not have been in danger. Please help me out on this.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 05-15-2012 01:37 AM                     I was raised around the airplane and "The World of Aviation". My father had his own planes, worked for FAA in the tower and last year, had his wings clipped where he can't fly solo anymmore, but can still hold the stick if there is someone sitting beside him. He's built his own planes and also made planes for others and for museums. But, with one of his planes that he built, a full scale Fokker Triplane, he did have his scare: he couldn't stop the thing after a landing since the front brakes, being mechanical brakes, failed. He suddenly killed the motor instead of taxi in to the terminal. He steered it over into the tall grass section so the grass created more drag on the tail skid to help him slow down more. We got in the truck, ran out to the strip, hooked up the front axle to the bumper and towed the plane back to the hanger. Even though he did his pre-flight checks and inspections, somehow the linkage from inside the cockpit to the brakes gave away....and prob what happened with the 757 that you were in - it was given a clean bill of health of inspections prior to take off and something happened. Man's desire to fly like a bird has always had its challenges and risks since you're dealing with heavier than air machinery. Some have crashed, survived and still take to the air. Yet, some get too confident that their invincible and immortal and will not worry about risks, problems and precautions. Some will still survive, where others have died ... ..like what happened this year with Steve Appleton - head of Micron: His sports plane had power issues during the taxi run. Right there, he should have returned it into the hanger to find and cure the problem, completed many tests and inspections before taking the plane out for a second chance. But, his over confidence was his doom: he took the plane right back out to try again right after returing to the hanger-didn't do any checks and inspections of any kind. The plane barely got up in the air and the issues began with loss of power. Now, he could have survived if he didn't bank the plane to return to the strip, but just kept forward and straight to pancake and bellyflop the plane in the nearby field. But,he wanted to return to the strip, thus he turned as he was climbing causing the plane to stall out and the wing that was lower on that turn, suddenly lost lift where the weight of that lower wing pulled the rest of the plane down and he corkscrewed towards the ground and the plane rolled and shattered into pieces. Classic example of overconfidence and pilot error. But private pilots are still flying and have learned more from other's mistakes. It's a fun hobby, but better have pockets lined with green since it's also a costly hobby due to insurances, plane maintenance, payments and the cost of 100 low lead fuel pushing about 8 bucks/gallon .. and plane motors are thirsty devils.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 05-15-2012 03:17 AM                     quote: Mark J. Marshall After moving about a few hundred feet the plane completely lost power. Engines, lights, a/c, the safety video, everything shut down and we rolled to a stop. At least that is what it appeared to you. You could say 'it lost power'. You could as well say 'the power got switched off'. Maybe that makes a difference. Maybe you can communicate your fears to the airline, airport, or FAA and they might come up with an explanation of what really hapenned during that incident. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Graham Ritchie Film Handler Posts: 54 From: Christchurch, New Zealand Registered: Apr 2009 posted 05-15-2012 04:53 AM                     Well, if things are going to shut down at least you were on the ground kidding aside flying is safe. I was in a B747-400 at Gatwick that did a similar thing just before push back, only thing going in the semi-darkness was emergency lights. I was surprised they were not using the APU, however the pilot did say later on, sorry about that folks "power surge" from the terminal stuffed things up, we soon got going and it flew 27 hours all the way to NZ with no more problems. The only flight I have been on that made me a bit uneasy was on a Pan American 707 late at night desending through a tropical rain storm at "Pago Pago" in 1975, one year after they lost a 707 on the same approach. The old 707 was being thrown around a bit, the doors to the cockpit were opening and closing "banging away" and as passengers sitting up front we could watch the pilots doing there thing with the controls. The descent in the darkness seemed to go on forever. They broke through the cloud base just above the sea, a quick "crank it round" steep turn and before we new it were on the ground, much to the relief of everyone. So there you have it, the pilots new what they were doing, they got home safely and so did we, thank goodness. I spent most of my working life around aircraft and when you think of the number of aircraft flying at any one time it really is a safe way to get from A to B. If you want to read about engines shutting down, read "All Four Engines Have Failed" written by Betty Tootell. Its about British Aiways 747 Flight BA009 London to Auckland in 1982 which flew into volcanic ash late at night high over Java. Its a very interesting story and it does say a lot for those Rolls Royce engines, that after taking such a hard time the crew managed to re-start them. Graham.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-15-2012 05:51 AM                        They didn't make an announcement after the power failure? Even if the actual event were a nonissue, that seems like pretty bad form to not tell the passengers what happened. Especially on a 757, which is a highly computerized aircraft. The closest thing that happened to me was a particularly long line waiting for takeoff, when the pilot decided to shut down one of the engines to save fuel. In a 737, this causes the lights to go off on one side of the plane. He did explain what he was doing, what would happen, and why. I was told later by another pilot that some planes (notably the 727, which has a flight engineer to keep the engines in phase with each other (?)) have the ability to have any combination of engine(s) power any combination of electrical devices, while others like the 737 do not. Apparently, this was just a design issue that was done to make thing simpler for an aircraft with a two-man cockpit. Maybe someone can comment on whether this has changed with the newer-model 737s.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-15-2012 08:17 AM                     quote: Mark J. Marshall After moving about a few hundred feet the plane completely lost power. Engines, lights, a/c, the safety video, everything shut down and we rolled to a stop. Sounds like the pilot had to stop to reboot Windows.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-15-2012 09:18 AM                        I think you should write a letter and ask the airline to explain it. Tell them the flight number, date, airport, and itinerary of the flight. There ought to be a log of something like this happening, I'd think. If you don't hear back from them, send a copy of the same letter to the FAA. And of course be sure to tell us all what you hear. Interesting event! Also kind of interesting to contemplate what would have happened if you had popped the exit!  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 05-15-2012 10:17 AM                        Mark, please post the name of the airline, the flight number, the date and time of day (day or night) of the occurrence, and the airport where this occurrence took place. Then people can do some searching to see if there's at least any blog posts or tweets or aviation forum posts mentioning anything like this. Not to doubt your description of the event Mark, but you do admit to being a nervous flyer. It's possible your perceptions of what stopped working on that aircraft were affected by your rattled state at the moment. I have to say I've never heard of such a thing happening on a 757. Loss of all electrics visible to you in the cabin, yes; loss of all electrics period, yes; loss of both engines on the ground, yes; loss of the APU, yes; loss of all these things simultaneously... not bloody likely. No properly trained and experienced flight deck crew would accept an aircraft that they felt wasn't ready to fly, especially when they're still on the ground at the departure airport. Throw us a few clues and the committee of F-T experts on Boeing 757 operations and systems will convene...  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-15-2012 11:38 AM                    American Airlines flight 1046 from Tulsa to Dallas Fort Worth. Departed May 14th from gate 25 at Tulsa International. Supposed to depart at 3:20 PM but the plane was late getting in due to "maintenance" apparently from what I heard while sitting at the gate. We left at around 3:45-ish I think. And trust me, I may be a nervous flier, but the lights in the cabin, the air flow from the little air vent over my head, the engines, the video monitors, ALL sounds coming from the plane stopped and we rolled to a dead silent stop with the emergency lights on in the cabin, and that is all. What is so strange about this in my mind is this... let's just say that the pilot did need to shut down for some reason, make a change and start up again. I would THINK that the pilot would brake the plane to a stop first. THEN power down and back up. That's not what happened here. We went dark, and rolled silently to a stop. And yes, an announcement to the passengers letting us know if everything was ok or not would have been a wonderful thing. So all things considered, if this was routine, although a bit odd, this Airline and captain FAILED miserably when it comes to customer service. A guy behind me described it like this: "I've been on thousands of flights and I've never had a plane un-start."  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 05-15-2012 01:54 PM                        You know that scene in "Airplane!" where Johnny unplugs the runway lights and snickers "Just kidding!" at the camera before plugging them back in? That's probably what happened. Seriously, though...Amazing as it sounds, the flight crew has no more interest in dying than you do. If they couldn't explain the problem to themselves, they would not have taken off.  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-15-2012 02:13 PM                    I totally understand that, and I appreciate that they would not have taken off if it wasn't 100% safe. I'm just looking for what it could have been, because it sure felt bad sitting there.  |  IP: Logged David M. Leugers Film Handler Posts: 43 From: Fairfield, Ohio, united States of America Registered: Jan 2005 posted 05-18-2012 08:24 PM                     Typically a two-engined plane like a 737 when running on one engine will unload electrical loads to prevent an overload on the one remaining generator which could shear the shaft of the generator rendering it totally inop. The 727 has three generators and any two can completely power the aircraft's electrical load. I suspect that the 757 had a possible delay in take-off time maybe due to traffic and the fact it was late off schedule. The shutting down of the engines must have been on purpose - can you imagine a flight irregularity report saying "both engines quit for unknown reasons, got restarted and continued on"? A mechanical issue of that magnitude would have required a log book entry with maintenance sign-off before further flight. Both pilots would have lost their jobs over it. It was on purpose, but why? FUEL. The plane burns about as much fuel taxiing as it does at cruise flight. I was on a TWA flight on a B727 in 1998 and the crew did the same thing. After about 30 minutes they grumbled over the PA we were on a weather hold...  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-21-2012 12:59 PM                    quote: David M. Leugers It was on purpose, but why? FUEL. The plane burns about as much fuel taxiing as it does at cruise flight. I was on a TWA flight on a B727 in 1998 and the crew did the same thing. Did your pilots cut the engines (and lights and A/C in the cabin and switch on the emergency lights) while you were rolling on the ground just after pushing back from the gate... and then allow the plane to roll to a stop with the engines off and only the emergency lights on? And just sit there in the way of all of the other planes? Also we were already running late and were trying to catch up on time. Everything was only off for a couple of minutes.  |  IP: Logged Rick Raskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1100 From: Manassas Virginia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 05-21-2012 01:14 PM                     I've been on more that one flight where the pilot shut down the engines for a delay, BUT there was definitely an announcement letting us peons know exactly what was happening. Typically this would happen on those puddle jumper flights and more often on turbo-prop planes. I only had it happen once on a bigger jet and the flight crew there was very accommodating; to the point of passing out drinks during the hold. The crew on your flight must have been brain dead when it comes to customer service.  |  IP: Logged Kevin Roudebush Film Handler Posts: 29 From: Salem, OR, USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 05-21-2012 04:13 PM                     I'm a pilot but just a private pilot. My understanding is that the Control tower recordings are available online to listen to, at least heard that during my training. Maybe you could search a little and see if they are available. There would be some discussion on there.  |  IP: Logged

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