Virgin fender-bender in Hobart

[Marty_d]

'Almighty shudder' as two Virgin Australia planes make contact

 

How embarrassment.

 

My old instructor told me once "He who bendeth an undercarriage may in the fullness of time be forgiven; but he who taxieth into another chariot will be despised forever."

 

Does that apply to RPT drivers as well?

 

 

[BLA82]

That will buff out

 

 

[nomadpete]

Well you can't expect virgins to be experts.......

 

 

[BLA82]

Well you can't expect virgins to be experts.......

No its usually a sudden bang only lasts a few seconds then hours of apologising lol

 

 

[facthunter]

It's the damage you can't see that you should worry about. Every "BIG" plane pilot's nightmare. The painted lines on a taxiway are your assurance most times. If someone else is where they shouldn't be CAUTION !!! is the thing. Get a ground marshaller to signal at the actual position. Nev

 

 

[red750]

Add that to the runway excursion in Darwin yesterday (see News). Not a good week for Virgin.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Not as if Hobart is a busy airport by anyone's standards. At busiest there's all of 4 aircraft parked. Guess it saved on lawyer's bills that they ran into another one from the same company, rather than someone else's.

 

 

[Captaincoop]

They had a ground marshaller/wing walker. He signaled all was clear during the turn. When they clipped he ran away and could not be found again that day. If you can't trust the ground marshaller why have them there? It's very hard to judge distance off the wingtip way back behind you. It's not usual to crane your neck over your shoulder with your head pushed up against the side window to try to see the wingtip while taxiing around a corner onto a taxiway....you tend to trust the marshaller. Might be a bit of pontificating on this thread me thinks.

 

 

[Pearo]

Mr Lawrence was puzzled how the accident could happen when there were so few planes operating at the airport."It sort of beggars belief that at an airport such as Hobart, with a relatively low rate of traffic, that two planes could manage to drive into each other," he said.

Obviously Mr Lawrence has never taxied a 737 in the crazy tight turning areas allocated at Hobart.

 

Cant say I have ever sat in the cockpit of a 737 (have been in various other RPT jet full motion sims though) but I am guessing that the view is probably not the greatest when looking toward the rear of the aircraft.

 

 

[facthunter]

Unless you've been there you don't really know. These aircraft can turn sharply with the nosewheel nearly at right angles and you don't see much through an angled window. My sympathies to the crew involved. No one likes to damage a plane. Nev

 

 

[Pearo]

Unless you've been there you don't really know. These aircraft can turn sharply with the nosewheel nearly at right angles and you don't see much through an angled window. My sympathies to the crew involved. No one likes to damage a plane. Nev

Cant agree more. For those of us with aircraft experience that fly into Hobart know exactly why this can happen. I have not been into hobart since early this year, but they were doing upgrades to the terminal. Hopefully as a result of this incident they will also consider some air-side upgrades also.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Cant agree more. For those of us with aircraft experience that fly into Hobart know exactly why this can happen. I have not been into hobart since early this year, but they were doing upgrades to the terminal. Hopefully as a result of this incident they will also consider some air-side upgrades also.

They're going to be lengthening the runway soon, haven't heard anything about the tarmac though.

 

 

[dutchroll]

One of the problems with high capacity passenger jets is figuring out where the wingtip is going to go when turning. The arcs prescribing wing tip motion versus where the nosewheel tracks are quite different. Here's one for an Airbus A330 at 72 degrees nosewheel steering which although bigger than the B737 illustrates what you have to deal with. 27m radius for the nosewheel versus 33m radius for the nose and 44m radius for the wingtip! You have to be super careful in the vicinity of other aircraft.

 

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

In WWII fighter pilots couldn't see over the nose, so often taxied with a man sitting on the wingtip.

 

Why don't large modern aircraft have a clearance camera on each wingtip?

 

 

[dutchroll]

Why don't large modern aircraft have a clearance camera on each wingtip?

NTSB seeks traffic cameras on large airliners | HeraldNet.com

The NTSB made this recommendation in 2012.

 

The FAA rejected this recommendation citing the "lack of injuries or deaths" due to wingtip collisions and excessive costs:

 

"From a safety risk management perspective, the limited safety benefit of a taxi anti-collision system, such as wingtip cameras, does not justify the cost burden of an FAA mandate for their installation on the transport airplane fleet."

 

So there you have it. Someone needs to die first.

 

 

[JEM]

What about proximity alarms on wing tips (like car reversing aids}?

 

 

[Cosmick]

Sonar and camera technology is very advanced and in use in Automotive i.e.Tesla. Obviously could be utilised in commercial Aircraft.

 

 

[Downunder]

So there you have it. Someone needs to die first.

I thought we were past "re-active safety" and onto "pro-active safety"........ oh well, we'll just have to wait for a poor repair to bring a plane down.

 

Was it the one in Japan where the rear pressure bulkhead blew out in flight from an incorrect repair from a tail strike years before?

 

 

[Marty_d]

I don't think it needs to be mandated, or even retro-fitted to existing fleet, but I would have thought manufacturers would look at the technology available and realise they could fit wingtip cameras that are cheap and very light. Let's face it, it could be part of the wingtip position light unit.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

...The FAA rejected this recommendation citing the "lack of injuries or deaths" due to wingtip collisions and excessive costs...does not justify the cost burden of an FAA mandate for their installation on the transport airplane fleet."So there you have it. Someone needs to die first.

The same mentality applies to road design (and probably everything else). Those in power tend to be reactive instead of proactive.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

I thought we were past "re-active safety" and onto "pro-active safety"........ oh well, we'll just have to wait for a poor repair to bring a plane down.Was it the one in Japan where the rear pressure bulkhead blew out in flight from an incorrect repair from a tail strike years before?

Sorry Downunder, I didn't see yours until after I'd posted my reference to proactive policy.

The JAL crash was featured on Air Crash Investigators. Two things impressed me.

 

A Boeing engineer, on discovering the repair has been done with only a single row of rivets, was almost spot on with his prediction of when it would fail. (An awful lot of experimenting behind that pronouncement.)

 

The other was the heroic efforts of the captain to maintain control of his crippled aircraft. Contrasted this to the fatalistic attitude often reported in aircrew of different origins, and I'd be happy to fly JAL.

 

Japan Airlines Flight 123 - Wikipedia

 

 

[dutchroll]

The airline management mentality drives what the aircraft manufacturers do, and is much the same as the FAA response.

 

"If it hasn't killed anybody, we don't want to pay for it to change".

 

 

[facthunter]

If you examine Dutchroll's diagram #13 You will see it's not simply a matter of having a camera somewhere. When you are describing an arc as with the various "paths" of the limiting parts of the plane when you are doing anything approaching a limit turn you would have difficulty interpreting your likelihood of collision with just a simple camera.. Unless you are taxiing in a straight line it doesn't work. and that's only for the wingtips. You would need a complex microprocessor plotting all possible points of contact with another moving? irregular object The plane has to move forward to move off the park position and then smoothly apply turn to avoid excess sideload and scrubbing of the nosewheel. Straight ahead is a limit situation and full lock turn is also definable, so If you are facing a pole/wall and are stationary you might move 2-3 metres before you establish the smallest radius turn and then still have to have the difference between 44 m and 33m = 11 metres distance from the nose to clear the wingtip AS AN ABSOLUTE MINIMUM. For the horiz. stab it's 38 - 33 = 5 metres so in this case if the wingtip clears, the stab will also IF the small turning radius is maintained. Clearance yellow lines in the taxiing area that are mapped for all possible types that may use the aerodrome are generally sufficient and you park exactly on the marks shown to make it valid for other users These are the areas no other vehicle should infringe so provided there's no objects inside those defined areas and you use the taxy guidelines centered between your mainwheels you won't hit anything. IF someone's parked outside the defined position or moves without a clearance, it's a hazard to other users, and would be pretty much responsible for a problem created. Naturally IF you have doubts stop and get assurance from someone able and qualified to give assurance sufficient clearance exists. You do this when being manoeuvered near other aircraft when parking in abnormal spots where one person may wave you off to the next as required under the circumstances at the time. Nev

 

 

[facthunter]

The riveting done on that pressure bulkhead was against all established practices and predictably weakened the component so that a catastrophic failure was inevitable. There are laid down and specific methods of repair which weren't followed in this case. Cycles rather than hours are the biggest factor with fatigue of pressure hull components although as in the case of the Comet windows they can be interrelated. Nev

 

 

[Downunder]

Hurry VIRGIN... 5% off.....Even has right wing/left wing and distance read out!!

 

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