That could have gone a LOT worse 😬😬😬

Didn't go quite so well for the Coastguards.

Yes, tragic for the coastguards, but it speaks volumes for how well thought out and built modern commercial aeroplanes are that everyone on board got out alive.

Maybe the majority of the passengers actually listened to the pre-flight safety announcements, rather than sticking on their headphones and doing the 'I'm too cool/experienced to pay any attention to this' thing.

Every design constraint and operating procedure in aviation was written in the blood of the colleagues who wrote them. which is why the 737Max trim scandal was such a shock, nobody thought that people would forget that for sales/profit.

youngest_oab was on that exact flight back in October....

martinhutch
Full Member
Maybe the majority of the passengers actually listened to the pre-flight safety announcements, rather than sticking on their headphones and doing the ‘I’m too cool/experienced to pay any attention to this’ thing.

and put lives ahead of having to grab their belongings on the way out

ITV had an expert on last night. Basically excellent inbuilt fire suppression materials/techniques as this plane was only a couple of years old, also a well trained crew saved many lives.

Tragic to see that there was a loss of life on the other plane though.

Can’t help but think if the nationalities were different, we may not of had the same outcome. 

I suspect it was a lot to do with the culture in Japan, where people are fairly likely to do what an authoritorive figure asks\tells them to do. Compare that to most flights that land from developing parts of the world, where half the passengers would have been out of their seats wrestling hand luggage down from the overhead bins before the other plane was hit, and there'd have been significantly different results.

whilst there was a massive explosion, my suspicion is that was mostly the little plane's fuel exploding so the JAP plane wasn't significantly on fire when it stopped.

Can’t help but think if the nationalities were different, we may not of had the same outcome.

This, and

I suspect it was a lot to do with the culture in Japan, where people are fairly likely to do what an authoritorive figure asks\tells them to do.

Speaking to my [cabin crew] daughter she was saying how she loves some pretty severe turbulence as it's the once time the CC get to shout at the passengers who ignore the seat belt sign.
The passengers on some flights are much worse than others - I would imagine that Japanese passengers are a delight to deal with*.
* she's not been to Japan yet so I shall wait to find out.

nobody thought that people would forget that for sales/profit.

Yeah but it's Boeing we're talking about here - anything goes with them, too big to fail.

Be interesting to hear from STW's resident commercial pilots (I know there are at least 2!) on their thoughts.

Looks - from the rather grainy security camera footage - that the A350 landed pretty much on top of the Coastguard aircraft and took the whole lot down the runway in a ball of flame. 🙁

Maybe the majority of the passengers actually listened to the pre-flight safety announcements, rather than sticking on their headphones and doing the ‘I’m too cool/experienced to pay any attention to this’ thing.

Got nipped for that in Norway - to be fair it was the sixth take off of the journey.

This has already been discussed on the other thread.

https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/japan-earthquake-tsunami-warning/

The A350 has fuel tanks in each wing, plus a center tank in the fuselage. Apparently the center tank would have been basically empty for landing.

The coastguard plane was supposed to be holding while the A350 landed but either the pilot misunderstood and thought he was cleared for takeoff or ATC mistakenly cleared it for takeoff. The Dash-8 would have been right in the middle of the runway and the A350 must have hit it pretty much directly. In photos, there are marks on the side of the cockpit of the A350 at about the height of the Dash-8's tail. The collision tore off the nosewheel from the A350.The Dash-8 has two engines with large airscrews that would have torn the fuel tanks on the A350 open. There was an initial fireball and the A350 continued down the runway and the port wing was burning when it came to a halt, but the starboard engine was still running. That suggests that the port wing fuel tank had been ruptured but the starboard one was still intact. My guess is that most of the fuel in the ruptured tank had drained and burned before the aircraft came to a rest. If it hadn't, I doubt that things would have turned out so well. Very, very lucky escape.

https://twitter.com/AGeeknologist/status/1742336727673434465

In this picture, the port wing is mostly intact but the starboard wing is destroyed. That suggests that the port wing fuel tank was empty but the starboard one was full. The port wing was on fire when the aircraft came to a halt so that tank must have been torn open in the collision, with most of the fuel burned in the initial fireball.

https://twitter.com/lexy1968/status/1742507028658978823

<br />On Jan 3rd 2024 Japan's Ministry of Transport said, that the DH8C had received instructions to proceed as far as he could (editorial note: presumably to taxi to runway 05 for takeoff from that runway), the coast guard captain by his own testimony however understood this instruction as takeoff clearance, lined up runway 34R instead leading to the collision. The JTSB is investigating the occurrence.<br />

So this is a photo of the runway, with (I think) the collision point at the top and the remains of the A350 at the bottom. The scorch marks are in the center on the runway. The Dash-8 crew probably thought they had clearance and entered from the taxiway on the extreme top right and basically just parked themselves in front of the A350.

https://twitter.com/aviationbrk/status/1742502186993549551

Nearly brand new B737, door blew off in flight. Whoever was sitting next to it must have shat themselves.

https://twitter.com/petemuntean/status/1743487804133253264

It's a Boeing. I hate that company.

It’s a Boeing. I hate that company.

I read a really good article a few years back about the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger. Everyone thinks that Boeing took over MD, but the reality was that the finance guys running MD took over Boeing. Before that, Boeing was engineering dominated but MD was run by finance guys. They wanted to save money and built the 737 MAX on the cheap instead of funding a new aircraft. I lost all respect for Boeing after I read that article.

I've seen worse as a case study, Aloha 243, although that was down to fatigue and inadequate maintenance. Looking at the Alaska flight it was a factory plugged?? door. Sounds like someone is going to get their baws rattled for that one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243

If I remember correctly Boeing have kept adapting the 737 to try and keep up with Airbus rather than create a whole new aircraft.

Looking at the Alaska flight it was a factory plugged?? door.

Apparently it can be a door but Alaska don't use that configuration, so yes I'd imagine it's factory.

Just read about that Aloha 243 flight - poor lady swept out of the plane at 24,000 feet and her body was never found 😪

Compare that to most flights that land from developing parts of the world, where half the passengers would have been out of their seats wrestling hand luggage down from the overhead bins

And you think most of the Western world would be different?  I suspect the threat of being pictured on the front page on the Daily Mail as a scumbag who came down the chute with their laptop bag would be more of a deterrent that obeying flight attendants unfortunately.

Perhaps overhead luggage bins should lock during take off and landing to prevent people prioritising their bag over the person behind them.

Apparently it can be a door but Alaska don’t use that configuration, so yes I’d imagine it’s factory.

Ah I see. That seems rather odd if I'm honest, but may go some way to explaining what happened.

I’d imagine it’s factory.

Early shift Monday morning job?

This is the article I mentioned earlier.

https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merger-led-to-the-737-max-crisis

I've just heard on a spanish radio station, that the UK has banned all 737's from entering british air space*

But it was a very quick sound bite, it might be just that partucular configuration of 737 is banned, the one with the plastered up doors.

*I cant see them grounding all 737's.

It does make you worry though..there are soo many 737's in operation, as they are the ford fiestas of jet planes...

I’ve just heard on a spanish radio station, that the UK has banned all 737’s from entering british air space*

That can't be true - all the news stuff I've seen has only mentioned the Max 9 version in that specific configuration and it's almost entirely US airlines operating that set up.

Yeah according to Guardian no MAX9’s operate in / out of CAA or EU airspace. But if they did they’d be subject to same restrictions - https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/06/alaska-airlines-grounds-boeing-737-max-9-planes-after-mid-air-window-blowout

It does make you worry though<br /><br />

You don’t need to.  It only applies to a particular config of the 737 max.  Over here only Ryanair has some Max’s, although I’m not sure if they have the blocked up doors that are the concern. <br /><br />

The standard 737 is used worldwide/in the UK many thousand of times daily over periods of 20-30 years so literally millions of flights and hasn’t had this issue.  <br /><br />

And I say a

l this as a nervous flyer myself, with 2 737 flights booked for this year.