BA 899 ye'day: scary climb
 

Not the best of circumstances, take-off in a v bad sandstorm on yesterday's TIP-LHR, but there was a deeply unpleasant moment during the climb: just as we hit the worst part of the sandstorm, aircraft lurched over to the right by about 45-60 degrees (rapidly corrected by captain) but (non-expert knowledge) presumably due to a very temporary failure of RH engines? We were barely 2,000 above ground and, for a moment, I thought we were heading straight back there.

It would be nice if we could catalogue all those "I thought I was going to die" moments (and other similar scary episodes on planes). It's always interesting to read when something out of the ordinary happens on a plane and how people react in those situations.

Personally I've never experienced anything that bad although I used to be a nervous flyer and anything unusual to my mind used to cause me to panic a little.

Eeep, the joys of the sandstorm; glad I wasn't flying straight back. At least BA managed to get there and back despite the storm . Before I left the plane as it arrived into TIP, there seemed to be some concern from the crew whether they would get back that evening or whether they were going to sample the delights of The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for a night. Today seems much nicer and hopefully no storms tomorrow :)

Dave

:D Judging by the very banal chatter from the galley, I can understand why such a stopover would've been unpopular. Cripes what has this airline come to. I did congratulate the Cap'n on the way out though. Appropriately, I witnessed the whole thing while playing 'As Far As Florence Rupert Bear' on the iPod...

Count your party as lucky, the flight immediately ahead of us (LX) turned back.

It's very difficult to judge an aircrafts attitude from the passenger cabin and almost impossible in instrument flying conditions. On the aircraft type in question you don't really get a 'very termporary failure' of an engine. It either goes 'bang' very loudly or it just runs down and doesn't start again. Either way, even with some fairly gross mishandling it's extremely unlikely that the aircraft would ever reach 45 degrees of bank, let alone 60. Even a significant wake turbulence encounter rarely pushes an aircraft of that size more than 15 degrees from level. I.m sure it felt like a lot of bank and the aircraft may have rolled rapidly in wind but I'd be extremely surprised if it ever got beyond a very routine 30 degrees of bank.

Even to my non-expert perspective, it still felt like 45-60 degrees. Only going on schoolboy protractor measurements, rather than being there in the cockpit. The muffled scream from the galley, immediately in front of me, might help support the evidence that it is not an ordinary event. Can only add my own experience, which is that I've never been through anything like this -- and after some of the bumpy conditions experienced above Indonesia, perhaps I should be used to it (but again, these were nothing like what I experienced yesterday).

Don't pay any attention to screams in the cabin. I think it just means they want to go faster!:p

Only when Ralh Fiennes is aboard. Look hope you understand what I originally posted, this wasn't routine.

I've no doubt it didn't feel routine, but thats not the same as it not actually being routine. I'm not doubting your integrity, it's just that in all my years of flying I have learned that if you are down the back it's almost impossble to judge the exact attitude of the aircraft and it simply could not be done if you don't have good visual reference with the ground and a horizon. The illusions the manouvres can create are very powerful and very convincing, and many an aircraft has flown into the ground on the strength of them. But, the reality is I've flown the A320 in some truly atrocious weather conditions, I've flown countless engine failures in the simulator and I've talked with colleagues who've had engines fail for real, both innocuous run downs and sudden catastrophic failures, and the common thread in them is that nobody has ever been near 45 degrees of bank, let alone 60. The only possible scenarios I can think of that would give you that are flying into a huge cumulonimbus or mountain rotor, neither of which are likely out of TIP, or you hit a massive wake vortex. I know screams from the cabin crew may be (slightly) unsual but they are ony responding to the same external cues as you and as such don't hold any more significance than anybody else in the cabin. I'll have a look through the systems next time I'm at work and see if anything was reported but I have to say I'd be extremely surprised if anything truly exceptional had occurred.

Panmic Stations: Thanks for the comment. Guess I'm deferring to experienced-pilot expertise now, so will shut up with my 1A back seat driving.

The galley scream wasn't audibly matched elsewhere (but then Bose headphones are meant to muffle out background noise other than from the immediate vicinity).

I'd really like to take you up on your kind offer and find out what did actually go wrong, as feel sure it was recorded on the log.

Feel free to PM me if it would prove indiscrete to post on here.

So people were soiling themselves as well??? Air Accident and Investigation should perhaps look a bit more 'deeply'.

BF

:)

I almost soiled myself a few weeks ago when an EK flight I was on aborted the take off about 10 seconds into the roll... I didn't realise how powerful the brakes were on those A345's....

Cheers,
Rick

Thought I recognised that flight number vt ;)

I can seriously empathise with you on that one .... Sounds pretty terrifying to me .... :(

I have to admit that after years of weekly flying, I am now on a much more ground-based job, and not missing it one bit :D :eek:

Actually, I now take the train (from Dublin to Cork) rather than endure the airports at both ends, and only have occasional leisure flights to get me above 1' altitude :p

This incident reminds me of an Aer Lingus flight into Cork from LHR where we encountered a wake vortex from a much larger aircraft (possibly a 747) which may have been passing the south coast of Ireland a few minutes earlier - not a nice experience :(

Anyway VT, glad that you are OK - would imagine that the adrenaline was flowing a bit for the next few hours :)

Maybe you were travelling with a different airline?

After years of being a nervous flyer, I decided to rationalise things and keep calm by gauging the response of the cabin crew. If they start to panic, then perhaps I have reason to. After all, they would have a lot better idea than me of what's normal and what isn't. After reading these threads, perhaps I shouldn't even trust their reaction after all!

Recently on AA, an FA got so nervous about the turbulence that he spilled my wine when trying to pour it into the glass. Myself and OH could quite easily see he was agitated, but the turbulence wasn't anything out of the ordinary, despite the Captain telling them to return to their seats.

As for cabin crew screaming like a baby, they are obviously in the wrong job :td: