We were about 72 miles from Honolulu, approaching 23,000 feet, when the cockpit door blew open. It felt like a bomb.
Mark Thomas, our flight engineer, went down the spiral staircase to see what was going on in the cabin. From where he stood, he could see no airplane—just sky and clouds and water. He came back and said, “The whole side of the airplane’s gone, and we’ve got people outside.” He meant that they’d died. He’d tried to talk to flight attendants but couldn’t because the noise was so bad. We found out later they didn’t even know if any of us in the cockpit were alive.

In a situation like that, the first thing you try and do is just keep the airplane in the air. We had two engines out, which meant we were a good 150,000 pounds heavier than the two remaining engines could sustain. We had about 220,000 pounds of fuel, which we could dump, but a Boeing 747 only dumps 5,000 pounds a minute, which wasn’t fast enough. So there was no doubt we were going to go down. It was just a matter of where.

In a decompression, the first thing pilots are supposed to do is put on the oxygen masks. Well, guess where the oxygen bottles were stored? Right next to the door. So when we put the masks on, there was no oxygen. We threw them on the floor.
After we established communication in the cockpit, the next step was to descend to breathable air, which the FAA considers to be 10,000 feet. As the pilot, Dave Cronin, started the descent, Mark Thomas and I were trying to figure out what systems we had left. I shut the two engines off at the fuel switch, which put the fire out that was shooting out of No. 4. According to United’s procedure for severe engine damage, the next step would have been to pull what’s called the firewall shutoff. But that would have meant losing two hydraulic systems and half of our flight control. We would have ended up in the water, for sure. So I abandoned protocol.

Dave did, too. He was supposed to get us to 10,000 feet as fast as possible, but with the second engine shut down he realized what we needed most of all was altitude. Nobody was going to die breathing at 20,000 feet, and we’d never make it to the airport if we continued our descent.

We had reversed course back to Honolulu, and we were just trying to get as close to the airport as we could. The explosion occurred over water 17,000 feet deep. We hoped we could at least get to the beach or the shallow water, where if we had to put the airplane in the water, Coast Guard might be able to help. By the time we got to 8,000 feet, I called Honolulu and said, “We may not be able to make it.”
But we were dumping fuel the whole way, which was making us lighter and helping us do a little better.

Finally I said, “My God, we’re gonna make it!” Landing wasn’t going to be easy, though. We didn’t know how much damage the airplane had sustained. Did we still have brakes? Would the landing gear come down? Would the flaps come down evenly, or would the airplane roll over on its back?

At about 4,000 feet we went through a layer of clouds and the airport came into view. The tower cleared us to land on the longest runway available. We started to try to get the flaps out, but sure enough, we ended up with an asymmetric flap condition.

Dave turned to Mark Thomas, the flight engineer, and asked for our approach. But all of Mark’s flight procedures and tables for landing weights had blown out of the cockpit. “I have no idea,” Mark said. “I don’t have any books or manuals or any of the stuff I need to do that.”
“Well, what do you think we should use?”
“Two hundred knots,” Mark said. He just pulled it out of the air. “Yeah, that’s a good one. Let’s use 200 knots.”

So that’s what we did. A half-mile out, Mark yelled through the PA: “Brace! Brace! Brace!” Dave held the landing gear until the last minute because we didn’t need drag, we needed power. We landed, and immediately the fire department started putting out fires. We’d been in the air for 22 minutes since the explosion.
I was the last one out of the plane. I walked through the cabin with my flashlight to make sure everybody was out. All the suction toward the front of the plane had torn out the projectors, the overhead bins, even the toilets. The first five rows of seats were gone.

A lot of pilots say, “God, I’m glad that was you and not me.” But you know what? We train and practice all sorts of emergency procedures our entire career. To take the final test, the big test, and pass it—I wouldn’t trade that. I think a lot of guys who fly airplanes would love to take the big test and find out if they could pass it.
I was at a restaurant in Denver a while back, and one of the guys from the flight, a lawyer, was having dinner with a friend. I hear this guy yell, “Slader! Slader!” And he jumps up and he’s walking through the restaurant, yelling, “This guy saved my life!” And he turns to the waiter and says, “Whatever he wants, give it to him and send the check to me.” I was embarrassed, but, yeah, sure, it made me happy.

I was in the pattern at Lakefront Airport in 1962, flying out necessary solo hours in Hobley-Maynard’s 65HP Luscombe 8A, when the tower directed me to anchor on the downwind leg in 360 turns until called back into traffic. There was opposing traffic inbound. Although it seems to take forever, getting to the downwind leg in a Hobley-Wobbly Luscombe 8 doesn’t take you very far away from the runway.

I saw a Bearcat at my level, heading right down the runway centerline at what was to me an incredible speed. It was the senior Fornoff, and when he reached the approach end, the bird racked up onto a wingtip at 60 degrees of bank, cutting around in a circle as fast as you could slice a wheel of cheese. Before you could say BOB’S YOUR UNCLE, the Bearcat was on final and I was called back into the pattern.

I was greatly excited by what I had just witnessed. This was the first ‘overhead traffic pattern pitch out’, I’d ever seen – I didn’t even know what to call it. I was sure the tower was going to climb all over the pilot for shining his ass in traffic. It took me quite a few minutes of puzzlement before I concluded that somehow this nimble display of maneuverability must be allowed, and was in some way tied to planes possessing more power and speed than my 90mph Luscombe.

I relate all this just to say that the excitement of watching airplanes as related in this short vignette, is something I understand and remember.

Give thanks that all who read this likely have had a life somehow tied to aviation, and give thanks that we have made our livings around airplanes instead of following the behind-ends of two mules, down one row and up the next.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Denny

This message is for America ‘s most famous athletes:

Someday you may be invited to fly in the back-seat of one of your country’s
most powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have. John Elway,
John Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few. If you get this opportunity,
let me urge you, with the greatest sincerity…. Move to Guam .

Change your name.  Fake your own death!
Whatever you do.

Do Not Go!!!

I know.

The U.S. Navy invited me to try it. I was thrilled. I was pumped….
I was toast! I should’ve known when they told me my pilot would
be Chip (Biff) King of Fighter Squadron 213 at Naval Air Station
Oceana in Virginia Beach ..

Whatever you’re thinking a Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks
like, triple it. He’s about six-foot, tan, ice-blue eyes, wavy surfer hair,
finger-crippling handshake — the kind of man who wrestles
dyspeptic alligators in his leisure time. If you see this man, run the
other way. Fast.

Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years the
voice of NASA missions. (‘T-minus 15 seconds and counting’. Remember?)
Chip would charge neighborhood kids a quarter each to hear his dad.
Jack would wake up from naps surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting
for him to say, ‘We have liftoff’.

Biff was to fly me in an F- 14D Tomcat, a ridiculously powerful $60 million
weapon with nearly as much thrust as weight, not unlike Colin Montgomerie.
I was worried about getting airsick, so the night before the flight I asked
Biff if there was something I should eat the next morning.

‘Bananas’, he said.

‘For the potassium?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Biff said, “because they taste about the same coming up
as they do going down”.

The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with my name
sewn over the left breast. (No call sign — like Crash or Sticky or Leadfoot.
But, still, very cool.) I carried my helmet in the crook of my arm, as Biff had
instructed. If ever in my life I had a chance to nail Nicole Kidman, this was it.

A fighter pilot named Psycho gave me a safety briefing and then fastened
me into my ejection seat, which, when employed, would ‘egress’ me out
of the plane at such a velocity that I would be immediately knocked
unconscious.

Just as I was thinking about aborting the flight, the canopy closed over me,
and Biff gave the ground crew a thumbs-up. In minutes we were firing nose
up at 600 mph. We leveled out and then canopy-rolled…. over another F-14.

Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life. Unfortunately, the ride lasted 80.
It was like being on the roller coaster at Six Flags Over Hell. Only without rails.
We did barrel rolls, snap rolls, loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose and
dived again, sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute.
We chased another F-14,…… and it chased us.

We broke the speed of sound. Sea was sky and sky was sea. Flying at
200 feet, we did 90-degree turns at 550 mph, creating a G force of 6.5,
which is to say I felt as if 6.5 times my body weight was smashing
against me, thereby approximating life as Mrs. Colin Montgomerie.

And I egressed the bananas.

And I egressed the pizza from the night before.

And the lunch before that.

I egressed a box of Milk Duds from the sixth grade.

I made Linda Blair look polite.  Because of the G’s, I was egressing
stuff that I never thought would be egressed..

I went through not one airsick bag, but two.

Biff said I passed out….. Twice. I was coated in sweat. At one point,
as we were coming in upside down in a banked curve on a mock
bombing target and the G’s were flattening me like a tortilla and I
was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was the first person
in history to throw down.

I used to know ‘cool’. Cool was Elway throwing a touchdown pass,
or Norman making a five-iron bite.. But now I really know ‘cool’.
Cool is guys like Biff, men with cast-iron stomachs and freon nerves.
I wouldn’t go up there again for Derek Jeter’s black book, but I’m
glad Biff does every day, and for less $$ a year than a rookie reliever
makes in a home stand.

A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He said
he and the fighters had the perfect call sign for me. Said he’d
send it on a patch for my flight suit.

What is it? I asked.

‘Two Bags.’

http://powerpoint.officeapps.live.com/p/PowerPointFrame.aspx?PowerPointView=ReadingView&Fi=gyPMitCwj5GmYokZgiuKkApqQ8O1n8UzjX3psfvoJnRELWBPsbLdbWN2tKQ2%2bXMG2u9Y%2bjMRBM1%2bnBzdYUlVqdS2%2fAd3FXLRnzEq8lL%2fxF9rg13XvQrWkZmeiUXGmc0LARi%2fwmUqfsjy8AnfDF0b131z%2feke2Whhxrukwx1A2IWFMNpr9XQBT4PxUfJsgETleTt7VQsducRVcDwpd5C4mKVIWjBrVRaqkcFQd77QXMuaqQzmAsGJP77OYKoou2dn4CEeGwFhJzP3bCg90eW4dFPFMLrsDokk5gWlBKux53L1pbu5FuEhEg4tAgXG%2b%2bGa%2fb2Qy%2b2uQLQaGC%2fCbSDh2Zql9es0Cl89XbNHCugSnCcrYNd59T6BIxtBlIEBd%2fBrfd%2fd%2fQbkw%2fs92y2RvKVJ8Q%3d%3d&C=4__hm-bl152w-wshi&ui=en-us&rs=en-us&su=01_8ba6fe511b0bceb79e22b09b0dff40f83f73ddf26f19d489d7f886fc5143d172

http://tinyurl.com/3f2d39y

AVmail: June 6, 2011

I would like to offer my comments and perspective with regard to the Air France Flight 447 accident:

I have been a A-330 captain since 2003 and have over 4500 hours in the aircraft. While many A-320 pilots undoubtedly have more series time, I believe this probably makes me one of the most experienced A330 pilots in the world.

When asked how I like the aircraft, I tell people that there is likely no easier airplane to take over an ocean, and that the systems design and presentation is superb.

That said, the automation is more complex and less intuitive than necessary, and the pilot-aircraft interface is unlike that of a conventional aircraft. Most important with regard to this accident is the fly-by-wire sidestick control.

The sidestick itself has a very limited range of motion, making inadvertent over-control very easy. Of even greater significance, the stick itself provides no “feel” feedback to the pilot. That is, unlike a conventional aircraft, the pilot does not get a sense through pressure of how much input is being sent to the control surfaces.

The most important advice I give to pilots new to the Airbus is to treat the aircraft not as an airplane, but as a video game. If you wait for the sidestick to tell you what you are doing, you will never get an answer.

Taking into consideration that Air France 447 was at FL 350 (where the safe speed envelope is relatively narrow), that they were in the weather at night with no visible horizon, and that they were likely experiencing at least moderate turbulence, it does not surprise me in the least that the pilots lost control of the aircraft shortly after the autopilot and autothrust disconnected.

Let’s keep in mind that these are not ideal conditions for maintaining controlled flight manually, especially when faced with a sudden onslaught of warning messages, loss of autofllght, confusing airspeed indications, and reversion to “alternate law” flight control, in which certain flight envelope protections are lost.

A very bad Airbus design feature is thrust levers that do not move while in autothrust. They are instead set in a detent which would equal climb trust in manual mode. If the pilots did not reset the thrust levers to equal the last cruise power setting, they likely eventually ended up in climb power, making it difficult to reset the proper cruise power setting and adding to what was likely already a great deal of confusion.

But the real problem probably occurred immediately after the pilot flying grabbed the sidestick and took over manually. Unfortunately, airline pilots rarely practice hand-flying at high altitude, and almost never do so without autothrust engaged. As a result, we forget that the aircraft is very sensitive to control inputs at high altitude, and overcontrol is the usual result. Because the Airbus sidestick provides no feedback “feel” to the pilot, this problem is dramatically compounded in this aircraft.

I believe the Air France pilot grabbed the sidestick, made an immediate input (because as pilots, that’s what we tend to do), and quickly became quite confused as to what the aircraft was truly doing. This confusion likely was exacerbated by fixating on airspeed indications that made no sense while trying to find a power setting with no airspeed guidance.

When transitioning from autopilot to manual control at altitude in the Airbus, the most important thing to do at first is nothing. Don’t move a thing, and then when you do, gently take hold of the sidestick and make very small inputs, concentrating on the flight director (which, in altitude hold, should still have been providing good guidance).

Of course, this is much easier said than done with bells and whistles going off all over the place, moderate turbulence and a bunch of thunderstorms in the area. As I said before, treat it like a video game.

So why did the Air France pilot find himself at the limits of sidestick travel, and then just stay there, maintaining a control input that simply could not logically be correct? When things go really bad and we are under intense pressure, it is human nature to revert to what we know from previous experience. Remember, the Airbus flies like no other aircraft in that the sidestick provides no feedback to the pilot. It is a video game, not an airplane.

I believe the Air France pilot unintentionally fell back on all of his previous flying experience, in which aircraft controls “talked” to him when he moved them. Distracted by many confusing inputs, he instinctively expected to be able to control the aircraft by “feel” while dividing his attention to address other matters.

I’ve seen it happen in the simulator, and in an Airbus this is a sure way to lose control of the aircraft and is possibly the most dangerous aspect of Airbus design philosophy.

One last note: Airbus pilots often claim that the aircraft “can not be stalled.” When the flight controls are in “normal law” this is a reasonably true statement. However, in “alternate law,” as was the case here, stall protection can be lost. If we ever practiced this in the simulator, I don’t remember it.

Lest anyone think I am blaming the Air France pilots for this accident, let me be clear. Despite all of my experience in the aircraft, I am not the least bit certain that I would have been able to maintain control under the same circumstances.

I do feel certain that were you to spring this scenario on pilots in a simulator without warning less than half of them would have a successful outcome.

Safely flying the 320, 330 and 340-series Airbus requires something of a non-pilot mindset.

Name Withheld

Editor’s Note:

We have spoken with the writer of this letter to confirm his identity and honored his request for anonymity.

For another analysis of the trials and challenges of flying an A330, be sure to listen to _Friday’s podcast with airline pilot Jason Goldberg:

(http://www.avweb.com/alm?podcast20110603&kw=AVmail) .

For all my friends that think we sit up front doing the crossword!
A good read.

           I’m currently still in one piece, writing from my
room in the Narita crew hotel.
           It’s 8am. This is my inaugural trans-pacific trip as
a brand new, recently checked out, international 767 Captain and it
 has been interesting, to say the least, so far. I’ve crossed the
Atlantic three times so far, so the ocean crossing procedures
 were familiar.

           By the way, stunning scenery flying over the
Aleutian Islands. Everything was going fine until 100 miles out
 from Tokyo and in the descent for arrival.
The first indication of any trouble was that Japan air
traffic control started putting everyone into holding patterns.
 At first we thought it was usual congestion on arrival.
Then we got a company data link message advising about the
earthquake, followed by another stating Narita airport was
temporarily closed for inspection and expected to open shortly
(the company is always so
           positive).

           From our perspective things were obviously looking
 a little different. The Japanese controller’s anxiety level
seemed quite high and he said expect “indefinite” holding time.
 No one would commit to a time frame on that so I got my copilot
 and relief pilot busy looking at divert stations and our
fuel situation, which, after an ocean crossing is typically low.

          It wasn’t long, maybe ten minutes, before the first
pilots started requesting diversions to other airports.
Air Canada, American, United, etc. all reporting minimal fuel
 situations. I still had enough fuel for 1.5 to 2.0 hours
of holding. Needless to say, the diverts started
complicating the situation.

           Japan air traffic control then announced
Narita was closed indefinitely due to damage. Planes immediately
 started requesting arrivals into Haneada, near Tokyo,
a half dozen JAL and western planes got clearance in that
direction but then ATC announced Haenada had just closed.
Uh oh! Now instead of just holding, we all had to start looking
 at more distant alternatives
like Osaka, or Nagoya.

           One bad thing about a large airliner is that you
can’t just be-pop into any little airport. We generally need
lots of runway. With more planes piling in from both east and
west, all needing a place to land and several now fuel critical
 ATC was getting over-whelmed. In the scramble, and without
waiting for my fuel to get critical, I got my flight a
clearance to head for Nagoya, fuel situation still okay.
So far so good. A few minutes into heading that way,
I was “ordered” by ATC to reverse course. Nagoya was
saturated with traffic and unable to handle more planes
 (read- airport full). Ditto for Osaka.

           With that statement, my situation went instantly
from fuel okay, to fuel minimal considering we might have
to divert a much farther distance. Multiply my situation
by a dozen other aircraft all in the same boat,
all making demands requests and threats to ATC for clearances
somewhere. Air Canada and then someone else went to “emergency”
 fuel situation. Planes started to heading for air force bases.
 The nearest to Tokyo was Yokoda AFB. I threw my hat in the ring
 for that initially. The answer – Yokoda closed! no
more space.

           By now it was a three ring circus in the cockpit, my
copilot on the radios, me flying and making decisions and
the relief copilot buried in the air charts trying to figure out
 where to go that was within range, while data link messages
 were flying back and forth between us and company dispatch
in Atlanta. I picked Misawa AFB at the north end of
Honshu island. We could get there with minimal fuel remaining.
 ATC was happy to get rid of us, so we cleared out of
the maelstrom of the Tokyo region. We heard ATC try to
send planes toward ””Sendai””, a small regional airport
on the coast which was later the one I think that
got flooded by a tsunami.

           Atlanta dispatch then sent us a message
asking if we could continue to Chitose airport on the Island
 of Hokkaido, north of Honshu. Other Delta planes were heading
 that way. More scrambling in the cockpit -
check weather, check charts, check fuel, okay. We could still
 make it and not be going into a fuel critical situation …
 if we had no other fuel delays. As we approached Misawa we
got clearance to continue to Chitose. Critical decision
thought process. Let’s see – trying to help company -
plane overflies perfectly good divert airport for one
farther away…wonder how that will look in the
safety report, if anything goes wrong.

           Suddenly ATC comes up and gives us a vector to a fix
well short of Chitose and tells us to standby for holding
instructions. Nightmare realized. Situation rapidly deteriorating.
 After initially holding near Tokyo, starting a divert to Nagoya,
 reversing course back to Tokyo then to re-diverting north toward
 Misawa, all that happy fuel reserve that I had was
vaporizing fast. My subsequent conversation,
paraphrased of course…., went
something like this:

  “Sapparo Control – Delta XX requesting immediate
clearance direct to Chitose, minimum fuel, unable hold.”

           “Negative Ghost-Rider, the Pattern is full”
<<< Top Gun movie quote <<<

           “Sapparo Control – make that – Delta XX declaring
emergency, low fuel, proceeding direct Chitose”

           “Roger Delta XX, understood, you are cleared direct
to Chitose, contact Chitose approach….etc….”

           Enough was enough, I had decided to preempt actually
running critically low on fuel while in another indefinite
holding pattern, especially after bypassing Misawa, and played
 my last ace…declaring an emergency. The problem with that
is now I have a bit of company paperwork to do but what the heck.

           As it was – landed Chitose, safe, with at least 30
minutes of fuel remaining before reaching a “true”
fuel emergency situation. That’s always a good feeling, being safe.
 They taxied us off to some remote parking area where we shut down
 and watched a half dozen or more other airplanes come streaming in.
 In the end, Delta had two 747s, my 767 and another 767 and a 777
all on the ramp at Chitose. We saw to American airlines planes,
a United and two Air Canada as well. Not to mention several
extra Al Nippon and Japan Air Lines planes.

           Post-script – 9 hours later, Japan air lines finally
got around to getting a boarding ladder to the plane
where we were able to get off and clear customs. -
that however, is another interesting story.

           By the way – while writing this – I have felt four
additional tremors that shook the hotel slightly, -
all in 45 minutes.

           Cheers, J.D.