Near airshow disaster in the U.K

[T-Bird76]

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Related news story of what took place.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... stake.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211925/Hero-pilot-averted-air-disaster-pilot-hit-throttle-giant-bomber-mistake.html)

[USAF Pilot 07]

I'm confused... I don't understand how this ever got to the point of almost being a disaster...

1) Why did the Engineer co-pilot slam the throttles up and then keep them up? From the get-go, this looks like the beginning of a normal takeoff roll - not a slow taxi for a photo shoot. Didn't he realize soon after pushing the throttles up that they were moving pretty fast, and that when the throttles are forward and you start moving fast and you're in an airplane that you may get airborne?

2) Why did this retired experienced RAF pilot allow the co-pilot to advance the throttles and sit back and watch (or just keep telling the co-pilot to reduce the throttles) as the aircraft started to quickly accelerate down the runway? I dunno, if I was an experienced pilot (maybe one day, lol) and I knew the guy sitting next to me was someone with no flying experience whatsoever, I think I'd be a little quicker to slam the throttles back to idle. Then again, to his credit, he's been out of the cockpit for a long while.

I don't like to second guess or speculate on what may have happened, as I wouldn't want people speculating or second guessing anything I did, but this could have been avoided if there was a little more oversight.

Good on the guy for eventually putting the aircraft back down on the ground and avoiding what could have been a terrible ending.

[T-Bird76]

Clark one question I do have is why do you think he just didn't fly the plane? My highly novice eyes saw a plane that was making a normal climb before it was put down? Could they have perhaps been near a stall speed?

[cancidas]

Clark one question I do have is why do you think he just didn't fly the plane? My highly novice eyes saw a plane that was making a normal climb before it was put down? Could they have perhaps been near a stall speed?

i also don't get it. it looks to me like thier landing might have been more dangerous than continuing the climb and coming around. if they were that novice then maybe they shouldn't have been even allowed to taxi the airplane. they certainly didn't know how to land it properly. they didn't even use the rudder to correct for crosswinds...

did they damage the airplane at all? did they stop it on pavement? i don't think that airplane was intended to land on grass. isn't it also the last remaining Victor bomber in the world?

[PhilDernerJr]

I'm just as baffled as Clark. I don't understand any of this. I don't see how anyone can accidentally takeoff.


Clark one question I do have is why do you think he just didn't fly the plane? My highly novice eyes saw a plane that was making a normal climb before it was put down? Could they have perhaps been near a stall speed?

I know you didn't ask me, but something like not having the proper flap setting could have prevented them from actually flying the plane, causing an immediate crash. There's a sizeable checklist of things that are supposed to be set before departure, so if they weren't trying to depart, there's a whole list of things they probably didn't do...reasons that they might have crashed.

[moose135]

That whole thing looked screwy - like Clark said, it sure didn't look like a slow taxi for a photo op, they really did seem to get moving at a good clip from the start. From the article, they apparently are blaming the "engineer" (mechanic, I suppose?) for "freezing" and not reducing the throttles when the pilot ordered, but it still looks like they were pushing it from the get go.

Considering the pilot hadn't flown one of them in over 20 years, I think he probably did the best thing by just setting it back down. Don't know how fast he was going, how close he was to stall speed - from one of the stills, it looks like he had some flaps down, takeoff configuration, maybe? - but he could have been too slow to continue to climb safely, especially once he got out of ground effect.

It makes me wonder what the real story is...

[USAF Pilot 07]

The guy who hadn't flown for 20 years was probably scared sh!tless and his first reaction was probably to put it back down. In this case, it was the right decision as the aircraft landing "safely" with zero casualties and probably minimal damage. Arguable whether it was the best decision, but in my inexperienced opinion I'd say it probably was. I'm not so sure the outcome would have been any better if the guy had taken it airborne and come around for a landing (especially since he was the only one on board with flight experience and hadn't flown in over 20 years).

Had that treeline been closer or had something been at the end of the runway then it's a different story.

It definitely doesn't look like a controlled rotation though, because as soon as the mains are off, the left wing dips and the aircraft struggles to climb. What appears to be a normal climb is probably just the ground effect. Almost looks like once they got out of the ground effect the aircraft stopped climbing completely. They were probably close to a stall because after the aircraft sinks for the first time, it looks like the pilot tried to bring the nose back up but the aircraft did not climb.

There's got to be more to the story than this...

[PhilDernerJr]

The NYCA article now has a 2nd video which shows it even better... http://nycaviation.com/2009/09/08/near- ... takes-off/ (http://nycaviation.com/2009/09/08/near-disaster-at-uk-airshow-when-cold-war-bomber-accidentally-takes-off/)

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[mirrodie]

Clark one question I do have is why do you think he just didn't fly the plane? My highly novice eyes saw a plane that was making a normal climb before it was put down? Could they have perhaps been near a stall speed?

I read the attached article. What's great is how quickly and intuitively he still recognized that he did have 2 options and upon gut evaluation, he made a decision.

He could have flown the plane, but as already noted, if not in the proper wing configuration, that could ahve lead to a worse result. But my thought is that if he went up, the next issue is what was the surrounding air traffic?! Could you imagine the issues there?

And as Moose hinted at, it seems she accelerated very fast upon brake release.

Unfortunately, events like this need better control otherwise it screws it up for future possibilities.

[Matt Molnar]

I read the attached article. What's great is how quickly and intuitively he still recognized that he did have 2 options and upon gut evaluation, he made a decision.
But how did he not realize they were at takeoff thrust until they were in the air?

[moose135]

Fred directed me to the thread on PPRuNe about the incident - one of the posters there apparently was the pilot involved. Once the CAA (British equivilent of the FAA) decided not to take action, he did discuss how he recovered the aircraft, but didn't say anything about the events that led to it becoming airborne.

A few other things to consider, beyond whether or not they were in proper takeoff configuration - when the Victors were retired, they were all at or beyond their fatigue life limits (which is why you won't see one return to flight condition like the Vulcan) so it's not known if this air frame would have handled the stress of a trip around the pattern, there was no discussion of whether any weight & balance calculations were performed, so it may have been out of CG limits (especially if much of the old military equipment had been removed) nor is it clear whether the flight instruments (things like an air speed indicator) were operational and calibrated. In fact, if the A/S indicator wasn't working properly, that may be part of the problem here - he may not have know how fast he was going before the aircraft became airborne.

[mirrodie]

From the article:


'So I had to make a snap decision: 'Do I try to land the plane or do I fly round in a circle and land properly'?
'I put the nose down and noticed that we were well and truly airborne but because of the crosswind we were not over the runway.


That planes attitude is already pitched high up while sitting on the tarmac, so Im unsure if he could glance over the glareshield. Thats my armchair opinion.