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DHL Int. Crew had no hydrlcs in Baghdad

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Singlecoil

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This crew was a DHL International crew, not the U.S. (Astar Air Cargo) version.

Press Release Source: Aviation Week


Aviation Week & Space Technology Reports DHL Aircraft Hit by Missile Over Baghdad Had Lost All Hydraulics
Friday December 5, 3:02 pm ET
Pilots Landed Solely With Engine Power During November 22 Incident


NEW YORK, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Aviation Week & Space Technology reports in its December 8 issue that the DHL A300 aircraft hit by a missile over Baghdad on November 22 lost all three hydraulic systems and flight controls, forcing the pilot to land using engine power only. This type of landing is similar to the dramatic United Airlines DC-10 landing in Iowa in 1989, which had also lost all flight controls.
Pierre Ghyoot, secretary general of the Belgian Cockpit Assn. (BeCA), told AW&ST that the pilots were able to guide the aircraft to a safe landing using only engine power settings. The aircraft was departing Baghdad after delivering mail to US soldiers. Ghyoot said his organization is already planning to give the crew a safety award. The Department of Defense is investigating the missile attack.

When the missile exploded, the crew first thought an engine had suffered an uncontained failure, but all readings were normal, an aviation source familiar with the incident told AW&ST. Then the hydraulic pressures started dropping and a ground call told them the wing was trailing smoke. The captain could see that the wing was on fire. All hydraulic pressure was lost about a minute after the hit, the source said.

According to one aviation source familiar with the incident in Baghdad, the incredible feat of airmanship is explained partly by a safety seminar the DHL/European Air Transport (EAT) captain attended in Brussels earlier this year. In a stroke of luck, one of the speakers was retired Capt. Al Haynes. In 1989, Haynes commanded the United Airlines DC-10 in which all the hydraulics had been lost due to a center engine rotor burst in cruise. Using engine thrust alone, the United crew was able to crash-land the crippled aircraft at the Sioux City, Iowa, airport, and the majority of the passengers survived.

In the past 25 years there have been 35 shoulder-fired missile attacks on civil aircraft, 24 resulting in crashes with 500 fatalities, according to AOC, the electronic warfare and information operations association, in Alexandria, Va. The U.S. Homeland Security Dept. is about to pick contractors to develop prototype missile-self defense systems for use on commercial aircraft.
 
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So much for the comments regarding the "plastic airplane built by the surrender monkeys

Yes, I agree, that is one hell of an airplane those surrender monkeys build... thank god they didn't take a hit to the vertical stabilizer.
 
bart said:
Yes, I agree, that is one hell of an airplane those surrender monkeys build... thank god they didn't take a hit to the vertical stabilizer.

LMAO!!!

Bart 1, Surrender Monkeys 0
 
Singlecoil said:
Aviation Week & Space Technology Reports DHL Aircraft Hit by Missile Over Baghdad Had Lost All Hydraulics
Friday December 5, 3:02 pm ET
Pilots Landed Solely With Engine Power During November 22 Incident


NEW YORK, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Aviation Week & Space Technology reports in its December 8 issue ...
I found this [EDIT:]the following article on another forum - - can't tell what the original source is. (It's OK, you can tell me. - - No, I mean, I can't tell. :) )



Where's that editor from CBSMarketwatch who said airline pilots where overpaid?



To those of you who are wondering what happened to the DHL A300B4 coming Baghdad last Saturday, take a look. Aircraft was hit at 8000 FT, lost ALL hydraulics and therefore had no flight controls, actually did a missed approach using only engine thrust and eventually (after about 16mins) landed heavily on runway 33L at Baghdad. This was fortunate because with no steering the aircraft veered of the runway to the left, had they landed on 33R veering to the left would have taken them straight into the fire station.

The aircraft then travelled about 600 metres through soft sand taking out a razor wire fence in the process, see LH engine pic, and came to rest almost at the bottom of the sloping area between the runway and a taxiway. All three crew evacuated safely down the second slide, the first one tore on the razor wire.

I flew in with a team on Tuesday in one of our Metros and some special equipment we'd had made locally in Bahrain and some provided by Airbus. Using a USAF D9 Caterpillar pulling a 100 metre cable fitted to the back end of each bogie and a nice new aircraft pushback tug with a towbar on the nose gear, we were able to remove the aircraft just on dusk on Tuesday night and towed it to an Iraqi Airways graveyard on one side of the terminal. We stayed overnight in the USAF camp on the airport and went back to the aircraft on Wednesday morning to allow the insurance survey to be completed and then secure the aircraft.

Basically, LH engine rotates in a fashion, has ingested lots of razor wire and is knackered. RH engine has seized, probably from ingesting loads of sand at maximum reverse thrust and inlet cowl has unacceptable lip damage, probably from hitting the razor wire fence posts. The No 8 axle appears to be cracked as the wheel sits at an odd angle. The bulk of the damage is the LH wing. About 3 metres of rear spar is missing in front of the outboard flap, the wing has bulged upwards and downwards where the initial explosion appears to have occurred, one O/B flap track is hanging in the breeze and one has a small piece of flap still attached, the rest of the flap is nonexistent.

The pics show the huge crack that has occurred to the rear spar inboard of where the spar has burnt away, possibly from loads on the wing during the landing process. The front spar appears to be intact. The point of entry pics show where a projectile entered Tank 1A, which was full of fuel, and, after it ignited, proceeded to burn away at the spar. The fuel tank ribs in the area directly in front of the O/B flap are burnt almost 50% through.

The crew obviously did a fantastic job in getting the aircraft back on to the ground and one can only assume that it was most fortunate that they were not aware of the state of the wing as they could not see it from the cockpit. It also says a lot for the structure of the aircraft that it withstood the impact of the (whatever is finally determined to have hit it).

I'm sure there will be lots of other photos and videos flying around the net, but at least these ones are genuine. The worst part for us was the airport was shut down on Wednesday and we had to be driven in an armour-plated Landcruiser Troop Carrier from Baghdad to Balad, 60 miles to the north, from where we flew back to Bahrain in our Metro again. I trust you will all appreciate just how lucky these guys were. Regards, Ashley."

DHL International Aviation,
Bahrain.
 
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Singlecoil said:
Sorry, my source was Reuters who basically paraphrased Aviation Week.
You might have misunderstood me, Singlecoil. I didn't intend to question your source, I was simply warning that I don't know the original source of the piece I pasted. I quoted your title because it looked like a good fit for the article I found. ;)
 
Never mind the vertical stabilizer...

What I want to know is, how can a breach of hydraulic lines in the left wing tip result in a loss of all three systems? Aren't there hydraulic fuses in the system? I thought those were added to most aircraft after UA232.

I wonder how Airbus FBW control laws would have reacted to this emergency?
 

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