From CNN:
"The red lights started going on. A little pandemonium was going on," Jeffrey recalled.
He said the incident occurred over Newark, New Jersey, soon after the plane — also flying as Flight 1549 — had taken off from LaGuardia Airport in New York.
"It seemed so loud, like luggage was hitting the side but times a thousand. It startled everyone on the plane," Jeffrey said. "We started looking at each other. The stewardesses started running around. They made an announcement that 'everyone heard the noise, we're going to turn around and head back to LaGuardia and check out what happened.'
"I fly about 50 to 60 times per year, and I've never heard a noise so loud," he said. "It wasn't turbulence, it wasn't luggage bouncing around. It was just completely like the engine was thrown against the side of the plane. It just — it didn't shake the plane but it shook you out of the seat when you're drifting off, it really woke you up. And when it happened again, everyone just started looking at each other and there was a quiet murmuring around the plane, and you could feel the tension rising just in looking.
"I remember turning to my [business] partner and saying, 'I hope you got everything in order back home, life insurance and everything, because that didn't sound good.' "
Another passenger on that earlier flight told CNN:
"About 20 minutes after take-off, the plane had a series of compressor stalls on the right engine. There were several very loud bangs and fire coming out of the engine. The pilot at first told us that we were going to make an emergency landing, but after about five minutes, continued the flight to Charlotte."
Passengers report scare on earlier US Airways Flight 1549 [CNN]
(Photo:El_Enigma)
1. The fact that the flight number was the same doesn't mean that the actual aircraft flying the route was the same. It probably wasn't. Even if it was, a problem like that would be logged by the pilot and checked out on the ground. The engine would be repaired if necessary and the aircraft returned to service. Big jets are almost constantly in the air, keeping them there is fairly routine. Major failures are rare, and are almost always from some unexpected combination of effects - which a compressor stall most definitely is not. This story is bogus.
2. I was told once by a flight instructor that pilots shouldn't worry about birds, they've been flying for a lot longer than we have. That said, they don't always manage to get out of our way. This time they didn't, and both of the aircraft's engines were damaged. Given that the birds were geese, this would have happened regardless of the condition of the engines. Again, this story is bogus.
There are no mysteries about this incident. The only surprise is that the crew managed to get the aircraft down, ditching into an icy river, with only minor injuries to the passengers. They deserve medals, bonuses, and a nice long (paid) vacation.
]]>@Con Seannery hates Facebook and Trebek: Until the airlines tell us that it's going to be unreasonably expensive, etc, etc.
/cynicism
]]>@Superawesomerad: Printing the facts would require the airlines to be upfront about what's actually causing mechanical failures, delays, etc. In this case, the airline has done a pretty good job of communicating - but there's a general mistrust of the industry after years (decades?) of excuses from ground crews regarding delays and cancellations, and recently a lot of frustration when pilots and flight crew were not communicative about long post-boarding delays.
All your average flier knows right now is that they are not going to get a legitimate answer from anyone in the airline about what's happening, so all we've got is speculation.
]]>But we got airborne, and the pilot came on and said it wasn't a big deal.
]]>Well said.
]]>Speaking of statistics, hope you're not driving anywhere soon...
]]>So what? If your car has ever broken down and you took it to a mechanic to have it fixed, then drove it again, then you're as "guilty" as USAir is of anything.
The plane broke. They returned to the field and it was fixed. The mechanics signed it off and it went back on the line. It undoubtedly flew several flights before it hit those geese two days later. That's not usual - airliners are machines. Parts sometime fail unexpectedly. I saw this all the time in my 20+ years of airline work. It happens. Airplanes are designed to be fault-tolerant. Get over it.
What did you expect USAir to do? Throw the engine in a landfill somewhere because it had a compressor stall? This whole issue is a media "non-issue" to keep the USAir accident in the news.
]]>How about they fix the plane?
]]>I wouldn't be able to comment without Facebook commenting (I can't get their comment system to send my password to my registered e-mail address). Granted, you might not think I'm a very good commenter either.
]]>CLASSIC Ron White!
]]>Ways you know I was not on that plane. Quiet murmuring indeed.
]]>@chemmy: They will write or say anything to move newspaper/magazine units or get eyeballs to watch/click. It is all about the money now...
]]>Yikes. I'd freak!
That ash is horrible. I remember seeing pics after Mt St Helen's erupted and people were dumping wheelbarrows full of it off their roofs. It gets in everywhere and ruins stuff.
My computer locked up as I was posting! :P
I'm a girl, btw. :)
]]>Why is it scary? FOD inspections on a jet engine take only a few hours. You look in the intake, the exhaust, and there are usually inspection holes somewhere inside the compressor section. If you don't see anything you run the engine on the ground. If it makes full power and responds normally during all phases of operation there is no further action required.
Compressor stalls happen. They are no reason to do any special inspections or replace any parts. It's loud and it might be scary but it happens.
]]>On another note: We got some ruuude commenters on board today!
]]>@stre: thanks. I think he was responding to my post below, but it ended up here.
]]>@CaliforniaCajun: i believe you just restated what GitEmSteveDave had already put forth: stalls can be minor and may or may not cause damage. and his analogy regarding causation and correlation was spot on. a backfire and a deer hit are two unrelated items.
i understand your hesitancy to say definitively that the stall had nothing to do with the accident, but I think NTSB will likely come out an say there was no connection between the crash and the stall, considering that the stall ocurred on only the right enginer according to reports and there doesn't appear to be any doubt that both engines were knocked out of commission before the plane went into the drink a few days ago.
]]>@Miguel Contreras: Ban or disemvowel??? Pretty please with sugar on top, Consumerist?
]]>If there had been any damage or other issue, the odds of it functioning just fine through several more takeoffs and flights, then miraculously failing just as the jet flew through a flock of geese that showed on radar and knocked out the other engine are impossibly long.
]]>And here, for your convenience, you can see pictures of her:[www.planepictures.net]
]]>You can't make this comparison; when an engine stalls, it literally "unstarts" - that is, airflow in an axial turbine like the CFM-56 really does run backward through the engine.
A minor stall could be caused by something minor - too steep a climb, flying through disturbed air - but it can cause damage in and of itself or be caused by major mechanical problems that aren't self-evident, like a turbine case that's out of true. Let's wait for the NTSB to shed some light on the condition of the engines before we start comparing a passenger jet to the SR-71.
]]>Compressor stalls on the SR-71 were normally referred to as unstarts - that's typically what's going on. An unstart on the CFM-56 used by this Airbus (same engine as on 737s the world over) would be the result of a pressure surge caused by damaged turbomachinery behind the combustor - so it's likely a bird or other FOD caused the damage. In the case of the SR-71, unstarts were caused by supersonic flow entering the engine - a very different cause.
]]>You should have heard the sensationalist reporters here in NYC reporting that it was a fully loaded US Airways A380 that crashed into the Hudson River... Apparently the news media cares about ratings and well... sensationalism. Not facts.
]]>Something to remember is that "Correlation does not imply causation". If my car backfires/stalls one day, and a deer hits me two days later, causing me to crash, the stall didn't have anything to do with the crash.
]]>Does anybody remember the British soi-disant explorer bitching to the press about the oxygen system on the Ryanair flight--because the bags didn't inflate? Don't look out the window, dude--parts of that poorly made wing are bending!
]]>...and before anyone makes a FURTHER incorrect comment...there are hundreds of Airbuses in their fleet...all different TAIL #s. Duh.
]]>I just wish the news would not find the most hyperbolic people to interview.
"it sounded like the wing was just snapping off."
And what does that sound like?
it didn't shake the plane but it shook you out of the seat when you're drifting off, it really woke you up.
So it only shook your seat and not the airframe? Sorry, sometimes reporters get on my nerves.
It sounds like this aircraft was having some compressor issues, yes.... But aren't those compressor issues moot when you fly into a flock of birds? Big birds like that do heavy duty damage and while the compressor issues were possibly a factor, I doubt they alone brought the plane down.
]]>Fuuuuuuuuck this guy.
]]>Ok while I am the one person here who likes Usair.... this news story along with the request for the media to back off the pilot makes me wonder if there was something wrong with the plane and that the birds made it much worse.
Don't get me wrong, the pilot and crew did a great job.
]]>Now, if the maintenance crews didn't properly handle this once the plane was on the ground (the fact that it wasn't grounded longer is kinda.. scary) and if someone had ended up dying on the Hudson, I could see this as a problem. As it is - given the skills of the pilot - I don't see it as a problem.
The NTSB is already discussing changing their testing regimen to require engines to survive large bird strikes. That's the best result we can expect from this crash.
]]>@Miguel Contreras: [consumerist.com]
That's a good way to get yourself, banned, dude.
]]>so did the mechanics even look at the engine after this problem, or did US Airways say 'screw it... we need this plane in service'
]]>Wow, that couldn't have been another bird.
]]>@Miguel Contreras: [consumerist.com]
That's a good way to get yourself banned, dude.
]]>Holy shit, fuck this guy.
]]>Wow...that couldn't have been another bird.
]]>Now how about actually contributing something to the comments instead of inviting yourself to get banned?
]]>