FedEx 757 Gear-Up Landing at CHA

donjohnston said:
So you think that every time an aircraft wants to return to the departure airport it's an emergency?
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No, I didn't say every time. But this time it was. They were apparently troubleshooting some sort of flight control malfunction that made them want to get back on the ground and also made them unable to immediately do so.

URGENCY− A condition of being concerned about safety and of requiring timely but not immediate assistance; a potential distress condition.
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Concerned about safety? Check
Requiring timely but not immediate assistance? Check
 
They never said "malfunction". They said flight control "issues". That could be a number of things. Flaps not retracting all the way for example. Maybe they had a trim indication issue. I wouldn't call those an emergency. At not until you ran the checklists and determined it was.

Either way, THEY decided it wasn't an emergency. And there's zero evidence that it was an emergency.
 
Looks like it’s back on the ramp.
 

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donjohnston said:
They never said "malfunction". They said flight control "issues". That could be a number of things. Flaps not retracting all the way for example. Maybe they had a trim indication issue. I wouldn't call those an emergency. At not until you ran the checklists and determined it was.

Either way, THEY decided it wasn't an emergency. And there's zero evidence that it was an emergency.
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The gear up landing shows otherwise.

Any kind of flight control malfunction, and I am declaring. What do you have to lose?

Never understood the reluctance to declare, especially in the 121 world.
 
Groundpounder said:
The gear up landing shows otherwise.

Any kind of flight control malfunction, and I am declaring. What do you have to lose?

Never understood the reluctance to declare, especially in the 121 world.
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Well, they DID eventually declare.
 
If there is no immediate need for assistance, there is no immediate need to declare an emergency.

Hydraulic issues are complex and the checklists are long. It likely wasn't immediately clear the severity of the failure. Once that became clear, they declared the emergency.

No reason not to do it sooner, either, but we don't know what indications they had initially.
 
Their initial PROBLEM was possibly an indication issue. They were not even committed to return and land. They investigated, remaining close to the airport in case things went worse rapidly, found they had more issues, worked on extending the gear, did a fly by inspection, and found they DID have a major problem, and announced an emergency. They added " Roll the equipment" in plenty of time for the equipment to deploy to the best location on the field for the type of emergency that they had.

In the course of the flying around and attempting to correct the PROBLEM, they burned about half their fuel, and landed with "3 souls on board, and one hour of fuel" The on airport fire equipment was well prepared for the event, and there were no unexpected issues.

And no packages were lost or destroyed. I personally believe when the final report comes out, they will look pretty good, even though the ruined a pair of engines and may have converted an airframe into spare parts. Some in the industry claim that the engines keeping most of the belly off the pavement can mean that a reskin of the aft belly similar to a sever tail strike, may return this airframe to service.

I am inclined to say "Well Done" to these pilots
 
donjohnston said:
All these people saying they should have declared at the first sign of a problem when they have absolutely no idea what the problem was.

Oh my god, the lav door came open! MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY!

:lol:
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That could very well be an emergency. That and the coffee maker going kaput.
 
Bacho said:
That could very well be an emergency. That and the coffee maker going kaput.
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I would say that the coffee maker going kaput because the lav door came open would definitely constitute an emergency.
 
I’m not gonna lie, if we ran out of coffee up here we may just have to head to the nearest airport with Starbucks service. Practical vs Possible would depend on whether or not I’ve had my minimum 5 cups yet.
 
donjohnston said:
All these people saying they should have declared at the first sign of a problem when they have absolutely no idea what the problem was.

Oh my god, the lav door came open! MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY!

:lol:
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The fact that many pilots believe an emergency has to be an extreme situation is a problem. Along with the fact that pilots believe an emergency is something you have to declare. An emergency is a condition that exists whether you articulate it or not, but declaring it to ATC gives everyone more options to deal with it.
 
I think they did a good job of analyzing the situation before declaring. They could have vary well solved the issue and then continued on. No point in declaring in that case. Also, you declare early so if any assistance is needed. In this case, ATC didn’t need to move Heaven and earth to assist FedEx. When they depart for Memphis at that time of night, it’s like a ghost town at CHA. The controller can easily accommodate them without declaring. And, when they did declare, there was plenty of time to have the trucks rolling to provide assistance on the ground.

I think the same controller was on last night. I told my medcrew as we flew by, “there’s the big hero controller.”
 
There's a phrase for this....backseat driving? Monday morning Quarterbacking?
 
The PNF's radio communications gave me the impression the crew was doing a through job of investigating an escalating issue and running the appropriate checklists. When the situation devolved into a gear problem, the emergency was declared.

It seemed orderly, professional, and properly handled to me.
 
3393RP said:
The PNF's radio communications gave me the impression the crew was doing a through job of investigating an escalating issue and running the appropriate checklists. When the situation devolved into a gear problem, the emergency was declared.

It seemed orderly, professional, and properly handled to me.
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Plus they were in constant communication with their company. Unless someone can point to pilot error could’ve caused the gear to stick, seems pretty obvious that all the boxes were checked and the appropriate decisions were made.
 
"757 for sale, single owner. Cosmetically an 8/10, left engine runs a little rough. Please don't ask to see the logs, I work on a trust basis."

Am I overusing this bit?
 
DJTorrente said:
What happened to the good old days when the airline had a rapid response squad whose first and foremost duty was to cover the livery to avoid exactly these sorts of images?
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I think in this day and age of almost instantaneous coverage by social media, that has become moot. Those images can be “ published“ before the squad can get there.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
I think in this day and age of almost instantaneous coverage by social media, that has become moot. Those images can be “ published“ before the squad can get there.
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I believe they have stock photos of crashed whatever's just pranged somewhere.
 
Cover up company logos is popular in EMS as well. We did that with ours when we loaded it on a flat bed last year. In the case of Fedex though, pretty sure the colors alone would be a dead giveaway.
 
Can’t believe how straight that thing went down the runway. I’d think 7,000 ft of runway it would’ve leaned to one side or the other.

 
Greg Bockelman said:
I think in this day and age of almost instantaneous coverage by social media, that has become moot. Those images can be “ published“ before the squad can get there.
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Those photos and videos were on social media before the first fire truck was in park on scene. That is the world we live in today. You are more likely to find out a loved one died on social media than through official channels.
 
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