Timeline for Do commercial flights continue with an engine out?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 4, 2019 at 20:19 | comment | added | wrtlprnft | I'd have thought that landing soon is not the top priority if the aircraft has no other problems than the engine failure. I'd just have assumed that you want to try very hard to leave the glide slope of a suitable runway. If that takes an hour of descending in a pattern, so be it. My back-of-the-envelope calculation would be that reaching 200 km distance out of 10 km altitude would require a glide ratio of 1:20, which seems to be at least at the upper end for airliners. | |
| Mar 4, 2019 at 17:37 | history | edited | Jan Hudec | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 80 characters in body
|
| Mar 4, 2019 at 12:06 | comment | added | user | @wrtlprnft If you're "right above" an airport, and at or near cruise altitude, you can't land at that airport, at least not immediately. It takes time - distance - to descend. If you have no other good options where to land then you certainly can do something like a circling descent (think corkscrew, or descending while flying something similar to a holding pattern), but you wouldn't be getting down much sooner because of it. So if you're at cruising altitude straight above an airport and need to land, that airport 100 NM away with a longer runway or better weather may well be a better option. | |
| Mar 4, 2019 at 10:22 | comment | added | DJH | I know someone who flies the A380. Last summer they had an oil leak on #3. I don't know the full details, but do know they left it running at idle and continued to their destination. | |
| Mar 4, 2019 at 9:07 | comment | added | reirab | @wrtlprnft 100 NM isn't well outside of your glide range in an airliner at cruise altitude. That's actually pretty close to your glide range. Airliners can glide a really long way from cruise altitude. Also, midway between two airports 100 NM apart, you are 50 NM from each of them, well within the glide range of most airliners. | |
| Mar 4, 2019 at 6:42 | comment | added | wrtlprnft | But isn't it still an extra risk for a two-engine aircraft to target a distant airport? Say you're right above a suitable airport (no extra danger landing there, maybe inconvenient for the passengers/operator), but you target another airport 100 NM away, well outside of your glide range. If your second engine fails midway, won't that leave you unable to land at either airport? | |
| Mar 4, 2019 at 6:27 | comment | added | user71659 | @JanHudec Those are the two usual terms used in emergencies and have a distinction. "Land as soon as possible" means to get the plane down as fast as possible and consider places such as too short runways, closed airfields or the Hudson river (Airbus would call it a red LAND ASAP). "Land at nearest suitable airport" means no immediate danger and consider runway length, crash services, familiarity, terrain, etc (Yellow LAND ASAP in Airbus philosophy). The term "nearest suitable airport" is written into regulation (121.565) | |
| Mar 4, 2019 at 0:30 | comment | added | user71659 | @alephzero If the nearest airport is indeed 370 single-engine minutes away, then there's no choice. But FAA rules (Part 121.565) are specific in that you must land with the least amount of flight time unless there's a safety reason, and in that case you must file a report with the FAA. The common term is "land at nearest suitable airport". | |
| Mar 3, 2019 at 23:20 | comment | added | alephzero | "Land as soon as possible" may give the wrong impression, since twin engine aircraft are routinely used for flights over oceans. In fact the longest flight certification for a twin engine aircraft after an engine failure is now 370 minutes (just over 6 hours) before landing for the Airbus A350XWB. | |
| Mar 3, 2019 at 22:15 | history | edited | Jan Hudec | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 245 characters in body
|
| Mar 3, 2019 at 17:29 | history | answered | Jan Hudec | CC BY-SA 4.0 |