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Aviation History
1982
1982 - 1835.PDF
AIR TRANSPORT Capt Eric Moody, pilot-in- command of the British Air ways Boeing 747 which suf fered total engine failure, tells David Learmount what happened that night.* Note: BA has not yet com pleted its inquiry into this incident. The captain is re lying on memory in answer to many of Flight's ques tions during this interview. Capt Moody is back on flying duties already. The only difference between the cockpit view of the night before and after entering the volcanic dust cloud was that the stars could no longer be seen. It was about 2045hr local time, and the night was dark. What made things strange though, was the eerie St Elmo's fire effects. Capt Moody describes what the crew could see before the engines went out: "I've never been in tracer, but the light coming off the nose looked like tracer. In the darkness the front of each engine appeared brightly lit from behind the fan, as if by a spotlight at a display, but the light was pure white like that given off by a mag nesium flare. You could see the fans turning". He des cribes the only visual clues to the fact that his aircraft was not in clear air: "The effect was like light cirrus, or rain past the windows. There was no noise". "No 4 engine's failed," said engineer Barry Townley- Freeman. The captain or dered fire drill for No 4, and it had been shut down with in 30sec. Very quickly after that the engineer exclaimed "No 2's gone—I don't be lieve it—all four have failed". Moody told the first officer to declare an emergency. "I don't believe it- all four have failed" Jakarta Control responded with "Are you in trouble?" and had to be convinced that it was all four, not just No 4, that had failed. All four generators failed, obvi ously, but standby power kept all the lights on. The captain and crew checked the fuel system, anti-icing, igniters and circuit-breakers. Then Capt Moody ordered the four-engine failure drill, which he had practised in the simulator last October. Relight attempts started im mediately—t here was no waiting for the advisory 28,000ft, below which relight chances are estimated to be better. Thrust levers stayed where they were, fuel and igniters for all four went on together, and IAS was kept in the critical 250kt-270kt range. The autopilot stayed in, and Moody stayed on the southerly heading to begin with—safety height was still 11,500ft, and the high ground behind. After a short time, he started a gentle turn left. "You're doing 320kt," First Officer Roger Greaves told the captain. But Moody's airspeed indicator read 50kt 1 e s s—t h e required 270kt. Moody explains what he did then because the engines were not firing up, and be cause he considered IAS (in dicated airspeed) might have been the problem. He was not completely happy about the INS (inertial navigation system) readouts: "T flew the aircraft beyond the 250kt-270kt range on my ASI." At about this time the cabin altitude warning horn sounded, indicating a 10,000ft cabin alt. Moody put the crew on oxygen, and when Greaves' oxygen system seemed not to be working properly, he took the auto pilot out, selected speed brakes, and increased the rate of descent as the air craft passed 26,000ft. The captain did not want his First Officer disabled at a time like this. He kept vary ing the IAS, and relight at tempts continued all the time. At 16,000ft, normal glide was resumed. Passing 15,000ft, Moody says, there was a little time to think. He decided that ditching was the only option if relighting failed. Jakarta was too far, and on the other side of the mountains. He spoke to the passengers for the first time, telling them that all four engines had stopped, and that restart at tempts were in progress. At 13,000ft No 4 started, some 13min after the initial failure. Within the next 500ft of descent the other three had run up. When Jakarta Control learned that the en gines were all operating, they asked Moody to climb back to 15,000ft to facilitate radar pickup. He complied, and the eerie lights returned. Descent clearance was given, but as the captain pulled the throttles back, No 2 surged, autorecovered, then repeatedly surged. The crew shut it down. "All of us re alised we had four seriously damaged engines," Moody says, and, talking about the volcanic dust, he adds: "If A British Airways Rolls-Royce RB.2I I-powered Boeing 747 of the type involved in the four- engine flameout incident described here. The incident is unique in aviation history it had gone to the ground, I think we would have gone to the ground." It looks as if the engines refused to re light until they were com pletely clear of the cloud. Having lost No 2 for a second time, Moody nursed the other three, using speed- brakes against power rather than throttle movement whenever possible. The ASIs appeared to have come good at some stage in the descent, because the air speed reading discrepancy between the left- and right- hand instruments had gone, and the aircraft was hand ling nicely. "Jakarta's runway 24 is in use," the controller said, "and you are clear for an ILS but the glidepath is u/s." There was a "bloom" cover ing most of the forward windscreens, caused by the sandblasting effect of vol canic dust; so carrying out the three-engine night land ing was not going to be easy. The effect of the dust on the landing light glasses had been to diffuse the beams, so they were com pletely ineffective. "A" autopilot would not engage—probably a problem with the INS — but "B" would, so this was in use during the descent and ap proach. The crew acquired the ILS localiser and moni tored their descent using DME (distance measuring equipment). Greaves called every 25ft of height during the last 200ft on the radio- altimeter, and Freeman called the speed. Weather was good, luckily, with visi bility reported as more than 10km. But the sandblasted forward windscreens diffused the runway lights, making runway aspect unreadable. Capt Moody was keeping his head up all the time, looking out of the left hand side of the forward No 1 screen. "L u c k i 1 y the Vasis were working," he says, though he could see only the two on his side. He seems to be pleased with his landing. "It was a good one," he says. * This incident happened on June 23. when the aircraft flew into a cloud of volcanic dust at 37.000ft. about 100 n.m. south of Sumatra. It was en route Kuala Lumpur-Perth with 239 passengers on board. No one was hurt. FLIGHT International, 10 July 1982 59
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