Monday, January 19, 2009

Much More to Learn About Flight 1549

I'm wondering if the captain of US Airways flight 1549, whom so many have called a hero these last three days, didn't acidentally douse the right engine with fire extinguishers when in fact it was actually the left engine that had burst into fire in the aftermath of a bird strikes. A lot of people have commented on the unlikehood of a bird strike taking out both engines. What I'm wonderin is, could the pilot (or co-pilot) have made a mistake and midtakenly shut down the good engine. Such things are no unheard of in aviation circles. Just before I joined my first naval patrol squadron I leared that they'd lost  lost a P3 while practicing touch and goes in Bermuda. The flight engineer called a simulated  emergency on one engine and before anyone could do anything the trainee engineer fired off the fire extinguishers on the good engine , thus flooding the turbine with foarm preventing any restart.  The plane was onlyusing three of  its four engines at the time to save fuel. With two engine out it couldn't stay in the air. IN the subsequent crash, four people died.

I certainly hope neither the pilot nor co-pilot on Flight 1549 screwed up by shutting down a good engine. So many people want to see them as heros.  If it turns out that they caused the plane to ditch in the Hudson by turning off the good engine theywill  be hauled over the coals, not to mention all the lawsuits that will now be filed against the former hero who fucked up, tried to keep it a secret and ended up getting all of them killed.


No comments:

About Me

My photo
Eagle Rock (Los Angeles), California, United States
I write articles, columns, books, very occasional screenplays and make amateur videos. I also maintain a dozen or so blog sites, some better than others.