Ethiopian B737 at Dire Dawa on Jan 9th 2020, swarm of grasshoppers

Doc Holliday

Doc Holliday

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Doc Holliday
http://avherald.com/h?article=4d1de8cc&opt=0

On Jan 15th 2020 The Aviation Herald received information based on a screenshot reportedly showing the report of the captain of the flight, that the aircraft was on approach to Dire Dawa's runway 15 when the aircraft entered a swarm of locust, it was like rain. The windscreen wipers were not able to clear the windshield anymore. The crew went around, climbed to 8500 feet, depressurized the aircraft, opened the cockpit side window and cleaned the windscreen by hand. The same happened on second approach to Dire Dawa. The crew again climbed to 8500 feet, cleaned the windscreen by hand again and diverted to Addis Ababa.
 
Wow. The number of things that can go wrong on a flight seems to be limitless.
 
Had something like that happen flying low looking for moose on day. Covered about 70% of windshield.. Took hours to clean the plane. Of course it was not grasshoppers, they were small flies, or gnats.

Bet it took more then a few hours to clean that 737
 
I got hit by a swarm of some kind of bugs going into Colorado springs. Was at about 10,000 feet on the downwind descent if I recall. Was still able to see, but what a mess. Gave the line guy $20 to gently remove the bugs from the windscreen before they got baked on. That was weird.
 
Is there some approved method/tool for clearing the windscreen on a 737 from a side window?
 
Im trying to imagine sticking my arm out the window at 150 knots. I guess if your life depended on it...
 
Wonder how close it came to clogging the pitot tubes?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
AVHerald has some good finds in there sometimes!
 
Busflyer said:
You don’t have to have CAT III for an auto land. A CAT I ILS will do.
Click to expand...
Even so, the 737 autoland is fail-passive, not fail-active. The autopilot can not track centerline during the rollout. You disconnect the autopilot at touchdown and manage the landing roll manually. Difficult to do if you can't see out the window. (That's why the 737 autoland CATIII has a DH of 50' instead of the 100' Alert Height of fail-active autoland aircraft)

Still, why did they descend down into the swarm a second time?
 
I’d wonder what sticky mess would do to the fan blades and compressor.
 
Larry in TN said:
Even so, the 737 autoland is fail-passive, not fail-active. The autopilot can not track centerline during the rollout. You disconnect the autopilot at touchdown and manage the landing roll manually. Difficult to do if you can't see out the window. (That's why the 737 autoland CATIII has a DH of 50' instead of the 100' Alert Height of fail-active autoland aircraft)

Still, why did they descend down into the swarm a second time?
Click to expand...
Didn’t know that, I’m a 767 guy. 767 tracks the centerline.
 
Can someone post a picture or video of how they open the cockpit window and reach out to clean?
 
Matthew Rogers said:
Can someone post a picture or video of how they open the cockpit window and reach out to clean?
Click to expand...

original.jpg
 
So deicing in the winter, debugging in the summer?

Nauga,
gutted
 
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