United #1564 - BOS - ORD -- inflight hydraulic issue (all safe)
 

I was on this flight today and was a bit stressful. Plane lost one of its hydraulic systems. While we were never in any real danger, to my knowledge, the pilot did have to explain it, we did get priority landing, were met by fire trucks and had to be towed to the gate.
Anyone else on this flight today

Anyone know if this was actually not that bad of an issue or if they just covered it up well to keep passengers calm

There are multiple hydraulic systems on each plane and for the most part they run independently from each other. However a degradation of any flight control system (hydraulically operated) requires an emergency to be declared and priority handling.

I lost part of the hydraulic system in a 764 a few years ago descending to land in Europe. It's a long checklist and you land at a little higher airspeed but it wasn't that big of a deal. From what I remember - longer landing, reduced flap setting, and lots of fire trucks.

I was on the same flight UA1564 on August 4th and we had something similar happen.

We were running two hours late since the inbound aircraft had an issue after pushing back that caused them to return to the gate and switch frames. We had one of the classic rolling delays for about two hours until the plane finally left Chicago. Our plane finally arrives, and we leave slightly more than two hours late. Halfway though the flight the pilot tells everyone in the exit row (21DEF) to get up and he looks out the window for a minute. This was concerning a bit, and maybe 30 min before landing the pilot tells us we have a spoiler problem and we are declaring emergency as a precaution so we can get priority. We come in a little high on approach but we land normally and we taxi to gate c19, with the fire trucks escorting us. That was a crazy flight and the plane was stuck in ORD for four days before it left again.

We went into C19 today as well. If this is actually the same plane, which I have no idea, then they may need to consider some serious evaluations on it

I trust the crew being professional but I think seeing the pilot mid flight come to look at the wing through a window would worry me more than it probably should, even if I am told to be calm after!

(I once had flight attendants feeling the wall in front of me at 2A because of some heat alarm - that was a bit disconcerting as well. apparently the directv system was overheating)

Glad there wasn't that big a deal for your flights!

UA doesn't schedule its fleet that way. While the same plane may sometimes operate the same flight number, or between the same city pair, it's relatively unusual.

According to FlightAware, today's flight UA1564 was operated by N74856. That same plan also operated UA1564 on 8/15, but that was its first trip to Boston this month. On 8/4, it flew LAX-KOA and back.

Yikes. I would have been thinking of Swiss Air flight 111 and probably would have been a bit stressed...

He was probably looking for this...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-h...1055467061.jpg

:D

All kidding aside. I'm glad everything ended up okay for you and OP.

Had a very similar experience ex-EWR. Was in 1B on a 737, and immediately after takeoff, we had a very strong burning smell. The FAs were running up and down feeling the walls and bins to find the source. Hung a hard right over Woodbridge and came right back down at EWR.

Got off that flight, decided I was done for the night, drove home, drank a double scotch and called it a night. They had asked us to stay near the gate while they found another plane. Not me ... my flight wasn't that important; as I recall, it was just for a holiday dinner with some customers. They understood.

I'm not a nervous flyer at all, but when I saw the FAs in a mild state of panic - they really were scrambling up and down the plane; and you could tell by tone of voice that this was a serious problem - THAT concerned me. Wasn't your run of the mill inflight "incident". Glad it -- and your similar incident -- was much ado about nothing!

Our plane was N77865, but it wasn't the same plane as yours since this plane did SEA-SFO-IAH-SFO today

This page has a nice little graphic which shows how the 757's three hydraulic systems share the load. You can see how important items can be powered by at least two of the three separate systems.

http://craigmiddleton.co.uk/757/Bigg...s/general.html

It's all designed to retain all of the important functions when there are failures.

Thank you for sharing. Great information

As others have said, loss of a hydraulic system isn't an immediate threat; you lose redundancy (protection against future losses), which is why you turn back.

I wanted to address the fire trucks specifically; they'll roll out any time there's a hydraulic issue. When a system has lost pressure, that usually means at least some fluid has escaped the system. While the fluid used in airplanes is fire resistant, when it gets on a heat source it can certainly burn. So anytime there's the possibility of, say, hydraulic fluid on the brakes, you'll see the fire vehicles turn out. Just in case.

Not to get off topic, but why does it seem like the 757-300's United has always have a lot of maintenance delays?

that's exactly what I was thinking when I heard that, too funny!