smooshfacekitty
Active member
- Joined
- May 16, 2002
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follow up from yesterday's article
here's the follow up to yesterday's article in the boston globe - I didn't think the article would receive any responses - it did and I loved it - the media is a bunch of shmucks - can't wait for the responses to the follow up...here it is:
Aborted flight was 2d in five months for Alaska Airlines jet
By Jack Healy, Globe Correspondent, 8/9/2002
The Alaska Airlines jet that returned to Logan Airport on Wednesday after fireballs and smoke erupted from its left engine had to abort another flight five months ago, Federal Aviation Administration records show.
Pilots of a March 17 flight from Alaska to Seattle were taking off when they heard a loud bang and felt the Boeing 737 jerk to the left, records show.
But inspectors found no problems with the plane's engine and believe there is no link between the two incidents, FAA spokesman Jim Peters said yesterday, adding that the flames and terrifying booms that grounded the year-old Alaska Airlines plane this week occurred because its engine backfired.
FAA inspectors still don't know what caused the compressor to apparently stall, a rare airplane engine problem that is considered minor. The engine, manufactured by General Electric and Snecma Moteurs, a French firm, appears to be well-maintained by the airline, they said.
Jay Pardee, director of the FAA's engine and propeller directorate, said the engine blades might have misperformed, or a bird or other debris could have been sucked into the engine, upsetting the mix of air and fuel and causing the stall.
Yesterday, weary Flight 15 passengers traveled to Seattle via Alaska Airlines or other carriers while the FAA inspected the jet.
The plane will return without passengers to Seattle once its engine is deemed safe or a new engine is installed, said Alaska Airlines spokesman Jack Evans.
At the Alaska Airlines ticket counter yesterday, a few passengers from Wednesday's flight waiting for information and substitute flights expressed confidence in the airline. Jim Duncan of Juneau, Alaska, said he has flown through snowstorms more frightening than Wednesday's smoke and explosions.
''Being from Alaska, you can't be reluctant. You have to fly,'' Duncan said. ''Yesterday was a piece of cake.''
Flight 15 had climbed fewer than 3,000 feet Wednesday when nine fireballs burst from the left engine's tailpipe, jostling the jet and its 160 passengers and crew members. As hundreds of rush-hour commuters and residents watched from below, the plane turned around and landed safely back at Logan 15 minutes after takeoff.
No one was injured and neither engine was shut down, Evans said.
Compressor stalls occur when something interrupts the delicate balance of air and fuel burning to spin a jet engine's turbines, a rhythm that retired commercial pilot Stephen Luckey calls ''suck, squeeze, bang, blow.''
The process begins when high-speed fans suck air into the jet engine, said Pardee. The air is channeled through smaller and smaller fans until it is super-compressed, Pardee said.
The high-pressure air is then pumped into the engine's combustion chamber, where it mixes with a spray of jet fuel and a spark, then burns up, generating intense heat that spins turbines and pushes the plane forward, Pardee said.
In a compressor stall, the explosive bursts that result from the imbalance between the flow of air and fuel are relatively minor problems, but pilots must respond quickly to lower the engine temperature, Luckey said. The heat created by the explosion can cripple or destroy an engine unless pilots ''take their foot off the gas,'' Luckey said.
''It can end up getting away from you if you don't take care of it,'' Luckey said.
Alaska Airlines, the ninth-largest US carrier, began daily service from Logan Airport to Seattle in April. On May 31, pilots halted an outbound flight twice because of problems with a plane's wing slats.
Robert Vandel, executive vice president of the Flight Safety Foundation, a Virginia-based airline safety watchdog, lauded Alaska, which began operating 70 years ago, as a safe, reliable carrier.
''That's a very good airline,'' Vandel said. ''They have a great safety record.''
The airline's record includes a crash on Jan. 31, 2000, when an MD-80 plunged into the ocean off the California coast, killing all 88 on board. Court documents later revealed that repairs on the plane were behind schedule, and documents were being falsified - information Alaska Airlines officials knew about a year before the crash.
There have been no fatal crashes involving Alaska Airlines since, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
In October 2001, an Alaska Airlines California flight bound for Seattle landed after pilots detected a jammed horizontal stabilizer, a problem similar to the one that caused the January 2000 crash. In May, a flight from Los Angeles to Mexico made an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport after pilots detected unspecified mechanical problems.
This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 8/9/2002.
here's the follow up to yesterday's article in the boston globe - I didn't think the article would receive any responses - it did and I loved it - the media is a bunch of shmucks - can't wait for the responses to the follow up...here it is:
Aborted flight was 2d in five months for Alaska Airlines jet
By Jack Healy, Globe Correspondent, 8/9/2002
The Alaska Airlines jet that returned to Logan Airport on Wednesday after fireballs and smoke erupted from its left engine had to abort another flight five months ago, Federal Aviation Administration records show.
Pilots of a March 17 flight from Alaska to Seattle were taking off when they heard a loud bang and felt the Boeing 737 jerk to the left, records show.
But inspectors found no problems with the plane's engine and believe there is no link between the two incidents, FAA spokesman Jim Peters said yesterday, adding that the flames and terrifying booms that grounded the year-old Alaska Airlines plane this week occurred because its engine backfired.
FAA inspectors still don't know what caused the compressor to apparently stall, a rare airplane engine problem that is considered minor. The engine, manufactured by General Electric and Snecma Moteurs, a French firm, appears to be well-maintained by the airline, they said.
Jay Pardee, director of the FAA's engine and propeller directorate, said the engine blades might have misperformed, or a bird or other debris could have been sucked into the engine, upsetting the mix of air and fuel and causing the stall.
Yesterday, weary Flight 15 passengers traveled to Seattle via Alaska Airlines or other carriers while the FAA inspected the jet.
The plane will return without passengers to Seattle once its engine is deemed safe or a new engine is installed, said Alaska Airlines spokesman Jack Evans.
At the Alaska Airlines ticket counter yesterday, a few passengers from Wednesday's flight waiting for information and substitute flights expressed confidence in the airline. Jim Duncan of Juneau, Alaska, said he has flown through snowstorms more frightening than Wednesday's smoke and explosions.
''Being from Alaska, you can't be reluctant. You have to fly,'' Duncan said. ''Yesterday was a piece of cake.''
Flight 15 had climbed fewer than 3,000 feet Wednesday when nine fireballs burst from the left engine's tailpipe, jostling the jet and its 160 passengers and crew members. As hundreds of rush-hour commuters and residents watched from below, the plane turned around and landed safely back at Logan 15 minutes after takeoff.
No one was injured and neither engine was shut down, Evans said.
Compressor stalls occur when something interrupts the delicate balance of air and fuel burning to spin a jet engine's turbines, a rhythm that retired commercial pilot Stephen Luckey calls ''suck, squeeze, bang, blow.''
The process begins when high-speed fans suck air into the jet engine, said Pardee. The air is channeled through smaller and smaller fans until it is super-compressed, Pardee said.
The high-pressure air is then pumped into the engine's combustion chamber, where it mixes with a spray of jet fuel and a spark, then burns up, generating intense heat that spins turbines and pushes the plane forward, Pardee said.
In a compressor stall, the explosive bursts that result from the imbalance between the flow of air and fuel are relatively minor problems, but pilots must respond quickly to lower the engine temperature, Luckey said. The heat created by the explosion can cripple or destroy an engine unless pilots ''take their foot off the gas,'' Luckey said.
''It can end up getting away from you if you don't take care of it,'' Luckey said.
Alaska Airlines, the ninth-largest US carrier, began daily service from Logan Airport to Seattle in April. On May 31, pilots halted an outbound flight twice because of problems with a plane's wing slats.
Robert Vandel, executive vice president of the Flight Safety Foundation, a Virginia-based airline safety watchdog, lauded Alaska, which began operating 70 years ago, as a safe, reliable carrier.
''That's a very good airline,'' Vandel said. ''They have a great safety record.''
The airline's record includes a crash on Jan. 31, 2000, when an MD-80 plunged into the ocean off the California coast, killing all 88 on board. Court documents later revealed that repairs on the plane were behind schedule, and documents were being falsified - information Alaska Airlines officials knew about a year before the crash.
There have been no fatal crashes involving Alaska Airlines since, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
In October 2001, an Alaska Airlines California flight bound for Seattle landed after pilots detected a jammed horizontal stabilizer, a problem similar to the one that caused the January 2000 crash. In May, a flight from Los Angeles to Mexico made an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport after pilots detected unspecified mechanical problems.
This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 8/9/2002.
