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January 20, 2008
Hunt for fatal flaw of Flight 38 - Times Online
Inside the cockpit of BA038 Coward and Burkill had no time to issue a Mayday, no time to warn passengers to brace. In the few remaining seconds they just fought to keep the plane flying.
The failure of the engines had cut the main power. The 777 does not have cables connecting wing flaps and rudder to the pilots’ controls. It is all done by sending electronic signals. However, the plane has several back-up batteries that enable the instruments to work until the emergency power units kick in.
“If they had done nothing, the autopilot would have tried to fly the glide path,” said a former pilot. The plane would probably then have stalled and crashed. “So they have to lower the nose to maintain speed, then lift it just before hitting the ground.”
Coward, who lives in Valbonne in the south of France with his wife, said yesterday that he had thought it was “the end” for him - that the plane would land with an “almighty crash”. He added that “some thanks has to go to the man upstairs for giving us that little lift at the end”.
Hunt for fatal flaw of Flight 38 - Times Online
Posted by thdyck on January 20, 2008
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