Fly By Wire

Earlier today, a British Airways aircraft crash landed at Heathrow airport. With the power and electronic systems out, the pilot had little choice but to dare the stunt of his life. He did well. He may have broken the landing wheels as he touched down on the turf but out of a total of 152 passengers, 136 scrambled out of the emergency channels safely while only 16 travelers came out with minor injuries. Witnesses applauded the pilot for such a feat. I wonder what the analysis about the failure will bring out.

Going further back in time, a famous story was splashed all across the Asian Wall Street Journal back in the 1980's. An Air Canada flight once took off from Montreal (I think) and the pilot, well aware of a faulty fuel gauge, filled up his aircraft tank using a dipstick measure. Upon reading a favourable output, he continued with protocol and the flight took off. At a later point in time, the craft ran out of fuel. That's right. Just like your niggling two wheeler. With the cabin power coupled to the generator of the engines, everything switched off - lights, AC et all. Within minutes, the APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) at the rear end of the aircraft was propped open and it generated the cabin power back on.

With all his might, the pilot pulled at the stick. No hydraulics anymore baby. In what was an unbelievable accomplishment, the pilot maneuvered the aircraft skillfully closer towards ground level using a 'slicing' effect. And it so turned out that the pilot, a well trained professional glider was at the helm of a larger bird that made the flight veer into a nearby field. Now the landing gear was also powered by the mains which were inactive so the co-pilot crept down and let down the wheels. The nose wheel got stuck halfway but there was no time to lose. Now to add icing to this perfect job fit for the pilot, the field that was approached happened to be a well frequented landing space during the pilot's gliding days. He made a dive (a nosey one too) for it and held up the plane's nose as far as he could go. As he lost momentum, the weight of the craft pulled down the nose and slammed it into the green. It screeched to a halt. The underside of the nose section was terribly damaged. Every passenger scrambled out safely. An impossible feat accomplished. However, our pilot was yet to face the music.

An investigation into the matter revealed that the pilot had mistaken the dipstick reading for a different measurable standard. Some confusion about metric and gallons. So they wiped out his next two promotion slots. But his claim to fame was already stamped on his badge. That's a promotion big enough.

(a true story)