V-Flyer

VROC lost a tire on take off from JNB, there is damage to the landing gear and the landing gear door.

No idea how long it will be out of action yet, but you can bet the schedule just went to hell.

So where did VS park those spare aircraft, nice and close like I told them to ????

Will be interesting to see how the new streamlined VS fleet cope with this.
Neil

quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
VROC lost a tire on take off from JNB, there is damage to the landing gear and the landing gear door.

No idea how long it will be out of action yet, but you can bet the schedule just went to hell.

So where did VS park those spare aircraft, nice and close like I told them to ????

Curious Scrooge - did it continue to London or did it reland at JNB?

FM

quote:Originally posted by FamilyMan
quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
VROC lost a tire on take off from JNB, there is damage to the landing gear and the landing gear door.

No idea how long it will be out of action yet, but you can bet the schedule just went to hell.

So where did VS park those spare aircraft, nice and close like I told them to ????

Curious Scrooge - did it continue to London or did it reland at JNB?

FM

It continued on to LHR and landed there losing the landing gear door in the process and leaving debris on the runway. Don't know how that affected operations in LHR first thing

Wow, could have been nasty - did they not know until landing.

What with ferrying Gordon Brown, US football league, parked planes etc. This can only be bad news.

I saw G-VROC at a T3 stand today, as we taxied past on our way to the active for my LHR-DUB on EI.

Didn't notice anything amiss with her though [:(]

Trust me on this one, she is hurting right now.

Oh Im not doubting you or saying you are wrong at all Scrooge [:#]

Just that I didnt notice anything out of the ordinary yesterday when I saw her at the gate.

We were taxing down past T3 & I was looking at A340 after A340 & was wondering if VS had any 744s left at LHR at all, when I spotted V-ROC at the gate.

Sorry, I just can not be real open about my source, but it happened right at take off and could be heard through out the plane, I am actually kind of surprised they didn't dump fuel and return to JNB.

quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
Sorry, I just can not be real open about my source, but it happened right at take off and could be heard through out the plane, I am actually kind of surprised they didn't dump fuel and return to JNB.

I have the same source and I too was surprised they didn't return to JNB especially when I learned the extent of the damage. When I was flying back on VS2 there has been a debate about cancelling the flight when a door was inoperative. This incident in JNB to me was more serious but then I'm not the captain

Exactly, it is really not our place to second guess the captain, though I am sure the CAA will be looking at it.

I am not a pilot myself but can possibly see why the captain made the decision to carry on to LHR.

Once the damage was sustained the outcome of the following landing would of been the same at either JNB or LHR, however the downside would be that maintenance from Virgin's own engineers would be further away, Passengers would of had to be repatriated on SAA/BA's flights and as previously mentioned a great deal of fuel would of gone to waste.

Once at LHR the aircraft/captain had the required lower landing weight, had several large airports as diversionary options, greater technical support from its own engineers and less complications from side of things i.e. repatriation/hotels.

Whilst most of these points are probably neither here nor there and business points rather than safety implications, pilots are required, once safety concerns have been met to deal with and factor in, and as an emergency landing would more than likely have the same outcome in LHR as JNB then with the limited facts I think the pilot did the right thing, landing at a regular airfield over one with less familiarity

The only thing is and again I really shouldn't be second guessing the Captain here, but flying a number of hours at altitude with a wounded plane isn't really that great of an idea.

quote:Originally posted by Scrooge
The only thing is and again I really shouldn't be second guessing the Captain here, but flying a number of hours at altitude with a wounded plane isn't really that great of an idea.


Did he/she know how wounded I wonder? And, if not, what might that lead to in terms of deciding to fly on ... guess we'll see how long it takes VROC to come back into service.

Think there is enough slack in the schedule to cope with ROC out for a few days. She wasn't due to fly that day anyway so diidn't cause any disruption to the schedule. Hopefully will be back in the air soon....

quote:Originally posted by ilikebluesmarties
Once the damage was sustained the outcome of the following landing would of been the same at either JNB or LHR, however the downside would be that maintenance from Virgin's own engineers would be further away, Passengers would of had to be repatriated on SAA/BA's flights and as previously mentioned a great deal of fuel would of gone to waste..

Another advantage of LHR would have been a daylight landing - returning to JNB for a night landing surely would not have been preferred. However I take the point on the wounded plane at altitude. Interesting. And thanks HL for answering my original question.[y]

FM

The tire may have blown in the last stages of take-off (if it was early they would have rejected) but the aircraft damage seemed to have occurred on landing when the weight came on the gear.

A 'heavy' landing with full fuel load could have been decidedly less safe, at night and at a less well equipped airport.

As always - wait for the report....

She was due to be painted in the new livery shortly. Wonder how this affects things?