Traveloguy

Sadly that board has gone from being interesting to read, to being a huge rumour monger internet board with very little substance. Whilst FT has it's problems, overall it seems a much more reliable source of information than pprune nowadays.

dunk

AFAIK there are no mods on pprune. Something to be said for a bit of part-time, benign dictatorship

Traveloguy

You won't get any disagreement from me!

DYKWIA

There are mods, but when something like this happens, you'll get 20 pages per day for the first couple of days. The moderator then has to sift through the posts.

Cheers,
Rick

dunk

Thanks Rick. That would explain why I've never felt their presence during my infrequent vists there.

Traveloguy

He will be on News24 again shortly!

sunrisegirl

Thanks BA1A for posting this - some amazing stories there, and I'm sure more will come out int he next day or two.

Well done indeed to all the crew. ^^^ Never again will I call them US (Sc)Airways

YVR Cockroach

Because most a/c that fly around the continental U.S. don't have them ("your seat cushion bottom is your flotation device"). Only a/c designated as EOW (Extended Over Water) or ETOPS have flotation vests and rafts. Interestingly, the A319s that US used for the Shuttle operation (back before the merger into HP) were EOWs as they were used for Caribbean flights on weekends and holidays while the rest of the 319/320/321 fleet just plied the standard inland continental routes.


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Just an additional note, non-EOW/ETOPS a/c are limited to how far they can fly from land. A non-EOW/ETOPS a/c can only fly within flying 50 miles of land. You'll notice non-EOW a/c flying between such destinations as BOS/JFK <==> MIA/FLL/PBI and SEA <==>ANC veering inland to meet this limitation.

bernardd

Yup, I'll always remember being a Southwest virign, about to fly SAT-ELP and the humourous announcement "... and in the unlikely event we land on water ..." - ditching in the Rio Grande would probably require gear down rather than up!

kryten22uk

Sorry if this is dumb, but why didnt the plane sink rather soon after landing? Especially seeing as water had entered the cabin.

dunk

Because the baggage/cargo compartment underneath is moderately well sealed ? Sufficient air trapped for long enough provides bouyancy to stop the aircraft sinking completely.

Or maybe http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...as-people.html

bernardd

Parts of the plane are airtight and therefore watertight. If, for example, the hold and spare fuel tanks were full of air (ie low cargo and fuel loads), and hadn't been ruptured by the impact, they would provide a lot of bouyance. It's also a case of how fast the water was getting into the cabin. I assume the rear doors were closed and the overwing exits were basically above water, so it must have been getting in through tears in the fuselage or perhaps things like damaged toilet drains.

Genius1

The aircraft was only partially fueled, due to its short flight - there was a lot of air in the wing fuel tanks, which acted as buoyancy devices. The aircraft was also not packed to the rafters with passengers.

The plane landed with the tail slightly lower than the nose, as is correct in a ditching. This meant that much of the cabin remained above water. Because of this, the rear exit doors were not used in the evacuation (as is procedure), allowing people time to exit via the over-wing emergency exits and front doors before water seeped in through any vents or damaged rear/baggage door seals.

The Specialist

AFAIK there were 150 pax and 5 crew. I thought the A320 was c.150 seats. So therefore packed if my maths is correct.

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,

According to usairways.com;

http://www.usairways.com/awa/content...eet/fleet.aspx

the A320 can have upto 150 seats so it looks like it was 100% full.

Regards

TBS