Small accident at LHR

They should rename this thread cynics corner

My firm has sent me to LHR on a course and the kind benevolent people have put me in the Renaissance!!!! So you can imagine my suprise on tuesday morning as I sweep the curtains back to find a camera crew right outside my window! (Room2183) Mind you they would have got a suprise if they had turned round I can tell you!;)
As has been said before the 747’s winglet is easily removed (Three big bolts, a bunch of fairings and a bonding lead that you always forget) and the aircraft is allowed to fly with one removed. There is a fuel penalty and a fatigue issue so they will replace it ASAP. The winglet is mainly composite structure, the attachment fittings are alloy but are in the lower 1/4-1/3rd of it.
I did’nt see the damage to the A340 but the first thing that I noticed from the pictures was that it had its leading edge devices down. That might have caused more damage as they might have been distorted.

Rgds Cking

Remove wingtip, inspection of a few key areas (metal structures tend to transfer loads to other areas) and back in service with one winglet missing very quickly. Dispatch in accordance with the MEL with a very minor performance penalty but no big deal really.

Is it me or did BA repair the damage very quickly as they announced the following day that it had been repaired and returned to service 😮

…The actual distance from the cockpit to the tip of the winglet on an A340 is 50m, add to this the optical diffraction caused by the side window when looking rearwards and especially at night. The A340 is a pig to manoeuvre around obstacles due to it being almost impossible to judge the exact position of the wing tip. It is human nature to steer clear of an obstacle but with the A340 and it’s outward sloping winglet and swept wing you end up with wing “growth” when turning away. Thus the A340 has caught many a pilot with wing creep!…

…and there was me thinking the A340-300 and 600 were much easier to taxi as it is one of the few where you actually can see the wingtips! Who do you fly the A340 for Mpacha?

The BBC reports were, if you have a sense of the ridiculous, hillarious!

One ‘presenter’ claimed that “the WING had been torn off.” From what I could see on their pictures, it was just a bit of the winglet.

Another brilliant report on the beeb had another techno presenter saying that the A380 was late because it was “full of, er, techy gizmos”.

And when will they stop calling the FDR and CVR ‘black boxes’? That, they never have been! If my old grey cells tell me correctly, the term ‘Black Box’ was a stereo hi-fi unit produced by Decca or HMV.

Yes, folks, tune in to the BBC for the latest low-tech news…

Bri :diablo:

Could someone explain just how the pilots are supposed to look at the wing tips and check for clearances. Surely you would need someone standing nearby for that sort of excercise (and don’t call me Shirley 🙂 )

Heathrow have identified this area as a potential hazard (via the ATIS). Should ATC then be routing 2 very large aircraft around each other here ?

And finally Esther, what has changed in this area to make it a hazard worthy of notification ?

Matt

You are quite correct Matt, unless one knows what instructions were passed you can not rule out ATC error and in most cases there is a chain of events. Sadly this happens a little too often with A340’s and one hopes people will learn from this event!

The actual distance from the cockpit to the tip of the winglet on an A340 is 50m, add to this the optical diffraction caused by the side window when looking rearwards and especially at night. The A340 is a pig to manoeuvre around obstacles due to it being almost impossible to judge the exact position of the wing tip. It is human nature to steer clear of an obstacle but with the
A340 and it’s outward sloping winglet and swept wing you end up with wing “growth” when turning away. Thus the A340 has caught many a pilot with wing creep!

Another factor to consider would be if the B747 was holding in the correct position.

It is more than likely a combination of events that led to this unfortunate event.

Could someone explain just how the pilots are supposed to look at the wing tips and check for clearances. Surely you would need someone standing nearby for that sort of excercise (and don’t call me Shirley 🙂 )

Heathrow have identified this area as a potential hazard (via the ATIS). Should ATC then be routing 2 very large aircraft around each other here ?

And finally Esther, what has changed in this area to make it a hazard worthy of notification ?

Matt

How dramatic can you get?!

The reporter on the local London news, after the main news at 10pm, compared the collision at LHR to the one that occured at Tenerife on March 27 1977 when the Pan Am and KLM aircraft collided killing 583 people.

Is it me or are these two incidents completley unrelated/uncomparable to each other?

If so, how on earth can they [the media] be allowed to make such a comparison, besides the fact that they have nothing else better to report on and it is yet another chance to jump on the ‘capacity at LHR is too much’ bandwagon, as it was mentioned right at the end of the reporters piece!:mad:

I’m surprised to see that the press managed to avoid making some comment about the brave pilot desperately trying to steer the aircraft away from a school.

Very dissappointed with the idiocy of the BBC’s coverage of this event. It really was a big load of nothing and it would be very unfair if any passenger assosciated BA with any lack of safety issue. Also, when are the press ever going to get to grips with the fact that 99.9% of taxying takes place on taxiways, runways are for take off and landing!

ATC instruction at Heathrow for that maneuver is covered in UK AIP plus its broadcast on the ATIS about wingtip clearance. AIP states its Pilots responsibility to ensure he has enough room to make the move.

Srilankan looks undamaged because it would be his leading edge that hit the other aircraft at the damage would be unseen from that view point. Leading edge slat damage plus front wingtip damage.

Yes your are right about the ATIS. The ATIS messages goes something along the lines of ” pilots are to excercise caution in the holding areas as wingtip clearance is not assured”

I’m not going to get involved in the discussion on this, as I wasn’t there.

However, G-BNLL, can you amplify your statement please?

Since heathrow has the new ATC programs etc, I really dont think its the ATC’S fault.

ATC instruction at Heathrow for that maneuver is covered in UK AIP plus its broadcast on the ATIS about wingtip clearance. AIP states its Pilots responsibility to ensure he has enough room to make the move.

Srilankan looks undamaged because it would be his leading edge that hit the other aircraft at the damage would be unseen from that view point. Leading edge slat damage plus front wingtip damage.

Since heathrow has the new ATC programs etc, I really dont think its the ATC’S fault.

from the pictures Ive seen the Sri lankan A340 looks unscathed.

Was thinking the same ‘Where theres a possibility of blame, someone will put in a claim’.

Paul

Waiting for the obligatory American passenger to be quoted

“I thought I was going to die, I’ll never fly again”

The Sri Lankan will technically be at fault because it seemed to be the one taxiing at the time.

Nothing to do with ATC, they have long had a get out clause from holding point manouvering in the form of the ATIS message clearedtoland talks about.

The funniest quote by far in the BBC article was “thank god this happened on the ground and not in the air”! :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

The passengers comments that they though the wing would hit the tail of the BA plane but then they turned and hit the wing, makes alot more sense now!

I wonder who will be “blamed” for this accident. I realise the captain is responsible for his aircraft but could ATC be at fault if they told him to pass the BA 747?

No Andrew this happens in the shuttling bays beside the runway where traffic is passed if it suits ATC to get one away ahead of another. Within this area unless you both are smack bang on the line are forward enough you can possible hit the aircraft beside you. It is in the UK AIP on Heathrow charts and indeed broadcast on Heathrow ATIS that “Wingtip clearance is not assured at the holding areas”;)

I imagine the taxiways are properly spaced about so I can only imagine it down to pilot error (being off centre line or taking wrong turn) or ATC directing aircraft to travel along a route which was too thin for the aircraft passing each other.

Maybe aircraft should come with a system like a car’s reversing blips to let them know if they are near or going to hit something! After all can the pilots actually see the wingtips?