FAA Safety Order for Bombardier Jets

[shamrock]

I went crosseyed trying to read wilde737's post so I'm not sure it addressed this, but we had a dispatch guy in class today telling us that they were soon going to have to plan alternate fuel based on flying from the destination to the alternate at flaps 8/20.

 

[captainv]

"The rules were issued after an Air Canada Jazz flight bound for Prince George, British Columbia, in November almost ran out of fuel when it had to divert to another airport because the flaps became stuck, the Canadian agency said. No fatalities have been linked to flap defects."

I just read about this in the ALPA magazine, airmanship awards. They had to go around with flaps stuck at 45 and diverted quite a ways to get to a suitable alternate. Fuel burn at flaps 45 was astronomical and they landed with something like 600 pounds...

 

[FmrFreightDog]

The way I read it is that you can't extend flaps out of zero unless you have EITHER the required RVR to shoot the approach OR enough fuel to divert to the alternate at flaps 45. I think they could get around the requirement to carry a bunch of extra fuel by simply requiring the crew to verify the RVR before dirtying up the airplane. As long as someone verifies the RVR makes the approach legal before dirtying up the airplane, then you don't need to carry alternate fuel planned at flaps 45. Only one of the conditions has to be met, hence the "or"s

As for the flaps zero landing requirement, only one of the conditions has to be met as well. One of the conditions is that the SAT has to be higher than -60C. I've never seen a SAT lower than -60C, so planning for that one ought not to be too much of an issue.

That's the way I read it anyway. Of course, I may be wrong. The whole thing is, of course, unnecessarily wordy, but the AD sounds like primarily a maintenance issue to me.

 

[XJohXJ]

But surely, at least once in your life, you've started an approach where all reports were ABOVE mins (not even at mins) but yet gotten down only to find out that the Wx reports were wrong, and you've had to go missed. What do you do then if you don't have enough fuel and your flaps are stuck.

Just because the Wx is reported above mins does not mean that it is above mins.

 

[FmrFreightDog]

But surely, at least once in your life, you've started an approach where all reports were ABOVE mins (not even at mins) but yet gotten down only to find out that the Wx reports were wrong, and you've had to go missed. What do you do then if you don't have enough fuel and your flaps are stuck.

Just because the Wx is reported above mins does not mean that it is above mins.

Sure I have. But every time I "reasonably expected" the weather to remain at or above mins, which is the verbiage of the AD. Twice in my life I've had a flaps fail, and never on a go-around. Half a dozen times or so in my life I've had to go around at minimums with no runway in sight. Thankfully I've never had both at the same time. However, if I did (which is rather unlikely since it's happened, apparently, once), I suppose I would make a rough guess at my fuel burn and fuel remaining after a Flaps 45 divert. If I didn't like the number I came up with, I'd shoot another approach and land regardless of minimums. They call it an emergency for a reason. You'll never be able to plan for every contingency and eliminate the "sh!t happens" portion of the equation no matter how many ADs you issue.

The 727 had an alternate flap extension system that put the flaps down with no possibility of retracting them. As far as I know, there was never an AD requiring them to plan for a diversion with flaps fully extended. I distinctly remember flying into ATL several years ago and listening to a Delta 727 who went missed twice with the Flaps fully extended. He eventually declared an emergency and diverted to Dobbins on his own because he was below MVA and departure couldn't vector him. He was in deep crap, just like that Air Canada crew was in deep crap. However, one isolated incident isn't really cause to effectively destroy the usefulness of an airframe, is it? After all, two 737s rolled over on their backs due to uncommanded rudder deflection, and they're all still flying. That particular problem has never really been fixed either.

As I read it, the AD is written to have the appearance to doing something about the problem without actually addressing the problem, which is probably appropriate considering one crew almost ran out of gas because of one incident of the flaps failing to retract during a go-around.

If we're really going to issue hyper-restrictive ADs, then there are far more pressing issues that need fixing in the commercial airline fleet than "Flaps Fail" on an RJ.

 

[XJohXJ]

All of your points are good. An over-restrictive AD would be bad news for all of us. I just hope that they don't dodge the intent of the AD entirely. We've all heard the dispatchers tell us that the weather is fine, or it's clearing up, when, in fact, that is not the case.

 

[wilde737]

Here's a link to the entire AD straight from the FAA. It looks like it's only for the CRJ 100, and 440 models though.
http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_G...159A5D15AE1950208625733E0051ECEC?OpenDocument

 

[trip]

The way I read is you need mins to do the approach? whats diff? If a T/O alt is needed you need fuel to fly to with flaps at T/O setting. Not a huge issue unless I am missiing somethng?

The 70/90 have the emergency flap feature.