Varifrank: Whats missing from this picture?

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Whats missing from this picture?

I'm looking at this and I'm thinking "so wheres the fire?" I would think if you jam two main landing gears of an aircraft through the wings, and the fuel tanks therein, there would have resulted one rather massive fire. Im extremely glad that it didnt happen, it just makes me wonder why it didnt happen.

Is the 777 simply designed to minimize fire? Or is it that there wasnt the fuel on board that they had thought there was, which would explain the surprising loss of power on approach?

Commercial Jets who run out of fuel in midflight by surprise? Well, its happened before.

Posted @ January 18, 2008 10:27 AM | Aviation

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I would suspect that a low fuel condition would be announced in the cockpit by various unmistakable flashing lights and sounds well before the engines started flaming out.

I could be wrong.

Posted by: mostly cajun at January 18, 2008 05:19 PM

It does make you wonder though, dont it? Long range flight - it started in bejing, loss of power, no fire on crash. It sure looks like theres a fuel problem of some sort, at least superficially it does anyway.

It reminds me of that crash on long island where the aircraft simply ran out of fuel because the flight crew couldnt communicate properly with air traffic control.

Posted by: frank martin at January 18, 2008 11:23 PM

I'd be looking at fuel contamination. Check those storage tanks in Beijing for water.

If you haven't studied it yet you might want to also look at the United DC-8 that ran out of fuel while troubleshooting a problem (gear indication I think) coming into Portland. It became the case study and impetus for the entire Crew Resource Management system that is used today.

Posted by: furlough at January 21, 2008 07:53 AM

Thought you might like this one Frank. I come from a big family of 'Wingnuts'.

http://www.outpost.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Z-Private/runway.gif

Posted by: Blogengeezer at January 25, 2008 06:54 PM

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