Aircraft Emergencies & the Saga of Speedbird 009
Ever wonder how pilots think during an emergency and why they never seem to panic? Listen as I describe what happened aboard a British Airways 747 flight emergency through the lens of the near catastrophe of Speedbird (British Airways) flight 009.
Ever wonder how pilots think during an emergency and why they never seem to panic?
Listen as I describe what happened aboard a British Airways 747 flight emergency through the lens of the near catastrophe of Speedbird (British Airways) flight 009.
Have you ever wondered if pilots get scared during an emergency? In a show of hands at a recent Civil Air Patrol meeting, every single cadet believed, pilots do, indeed become frightened when dealing with an emergency. The only question is when?
Over more than 60 years of flying, I’ve been lucky enough, to have had just one total engine failure. That was in a pressurized Cessna 210.
I was flying as an instructor in the right seat, next to my friend Jerry in the left, who’d recently purchased the aircraft. My job was to keep an eye on things and offer guidance during a flight from DuPage Airport to a small town in south GA. Jerry was acting as sole manipulator of the controls.
With a mild tailwind, the 210 was scooting along at probably 180 knots or so, when out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw the needle in the oil pressure gauge flick … just for a second. But when I looked at it again, it was sitting right where it should be, in the middle of the green.
A few seconds later, I saw the needle definitely move way to the left – toward the low oil pressure indication. This time it stayed there.
It only took me a second or two, before I said, “Jerry give me the controls.” He immediately released them. I pulled the throttle back to idle because I knew we must be losing oil somewhere and the engine wouldn’t run long without any.
I started a gentle 180 to the left. Once we were established in a descent, I told Jerry we were losing oil pressure and needed to land ASAP. I honestly don’t remember his response.
Descending through about 8,000 feet I spied Bowling Green ahead. Because the airport had no control tower, I asked Jerry to call their Unicom, and tell them we were an emergency, approaching from the southeast and planned to land on the northwest runway.
I continued descending until I knew for sure I had the airport made. That’s when I asked Jerry to lower the landing gear. I remember Jerry yelling something just after he did. When I looked at the right main gear out my window, every surface, including the tire, was dripping with oil.
After we landed, I stopped the airplane on the runway, and shut down the engine. Luckily, it never seized up, which would have added enormous drag our problem.
We were both safe. The emergency had gone pretty much the way I’d been taught to handle an engine failure.
It wasn’t until after I climbed out of the airplane and spotted oil pooling up under the cowling that my body tensed up thinking about how differently this might have gone if we’d been IFR, or closer to the ground.
But while airborne, my mind was busy solving the problem.
Later, the local shop told us an oil line to the turbocharger had come loose in flight.
But what if a pilot faces an emergency they’d trained for … or had never even imagined was possible?
On the night of June 24, 1982, Speedbird flight 009, a Boeing 747-200 departed London Heathrow destined for Aukland, New Zealand, with stops in Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, Perth and Melbourne.
Speedbird BTW, is the radio call sign for all British Airways flights.
About six weeks earlier, Mount Galunggung, 110 miles southeast of Jakarta, Indonesia, erupted for the first time spewing molten rock into the air, also creating a huge ash cloud. Volcanic ash consists of tiny suffocating pieces of glass, mineral crystals and rock fragments.
The crew of Speedbird 009 was unaware of the eruption or its potential effects on their flight, because no one in the industry considered this kind of event as a threat to aviation.
Speedbird 009’s crew consisted of captain Eric Moody, first officer Roger Greves and flight engineer Barry Townland-Freeman along with 247 passengers and 12 other crew members. Flight engineers at the time were also pilots, but their primary role was to act as a system’s engineer aboard the aircraft.
After a stop in Kuala Lumpur that night, Speedbird 009 took off southeast-bound for the five hour leg to Perth. The forecast called for good weather and the crew anticipated an uneventful flight.
However, the Boeing’s route of flight brought it close to Mount Galunggung. The first sign of trouble came as the aircraft passed abeam the mountain and crossed over the south-eastern Indian Ocean at 37,000 feet.
Because it was dark, the crew could not see the approaching ash cloud. Shortly after entering that cloud, the passenger cabin began to fill with a thin haze of smoke. At first, people assumed it was just cigarette smoke. But it soon became thicker with the pungent, irritating odor of Sulphur.
Up front, the flight crew were enamored with static discharges of St. Elmo's fire on the windscreen.
Despite the weather radar showing clear skies, the crew switched on engine anti-ice and the passenger seat belt signs as a precaution.
This 747 was powered by four Rolls-Royce RB211 engines, each capable of producing 51,500 pounds of thrust.
About two minutes after the flight entered the cloud, the number-four engine - (far out on the right wing) - began surging and soon flamed out. But the 747 was able to fly on three engines, just at a slower airspeed.
The flight crew immediately performed the engine shutdown drill, quickly cutting off the fuel supply and arming the fire extinguishers. Less than a minute later engine two - Near the cabin on the left wing - surged and also flamed out.
Almost simultaneously, engines one and three shut down.
The crew was now faced a problem they’d never experienced in their training … their 747 had become a glider. Luckily, one engine generator continued to turn and provide enough power to keep the aircraft’s hydraulics alive.
Because the event occurred at night, and because volcanic ash was not recognized as a risk to jets at that time, the reason for the total engine failures was not immediately apparent to the crew. Only later would the world realize the ash had essentially smothered the big Rolls-Royce powerplants.
The crew also quickly calculated that from 37,000 feet, their 747 was capable of gliding for 23 minutes while covering 91 nautical miles using a glide ratio of roughly 15:1.
Jakarta, the nearest city, however, was approximately 110 miles behind them.
After a cockpit discussion, the crew elected to turn back to Jakarta anyway hoping they could restart a couple of the engines, enough to allow the aircraft to make it back to the airport.
Maybe you’re wondering about their decision to turn around.
It wasn’t too complicated. Perth was almost 1800 flying miles straight ahead. The northwest coast of Australia was about 1200 miles away. The south coast of Java was mostly mountains, a rather inhospitable landing site, but it was the closest body of land.
But there was still another significant problem.
The mountains lining the south coast of Java were 11,500 feet high. The Boeing needed to clear them in order to reach Jakarta.
If they were unable to restart any of the engines by the time they reached 12,000 feet, the crew decided their only alternative would be to ditch the aircraft in the Indian Ocean. No one had ever tried to land a 747 in the water, especially at night, so success was far from guaranteed.
Turning around with the chance of restarting an engine or two then, was the best of a handful of bad options.
The crew continued engine restart efforts despite being well outside the recommended re-start envelope altitude of 28,000 feet (8,500 m). Each restart attempt failed, but they continued to try.
Because engine life is also necessary to provide bleed air to pressurize the cabin, the altitude inside the cabin increased to try and match that of the outside air. This caused oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling.
On the flight deck, however, the first officer’s mask was broken. Capt. Moody chose to descend the aircraft faster so his other pilot would have breathable oxygen, although it cost him valuable altitude. In the cabin, many passengers, fearing for their lives, wrote notes to relatives.
Captain Moody realized it was time to communicate with the passengers in the cabin. He made a passenger announcement that is still described as "a masterpiece of understatement."
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress.”
The crew, of course, had never stopped efforts to restart the engines. At about 13,000 feet, as the aircraft descended out of the ash cloud, engine number four almost magically came back to life. The captain used its power to reduce the aircraft’s rate of descent.
Shortly thereafter, engine three restarted, allowing the aircraft to slowly climb.
A few minutes later, engines one and two successfully restarted, as well, although engine number 2 began vibrating violently. The crew decided to shut that engine down.
The 747, now a three-engine aircraft, was able to climb above the mountain range on Java.
But the emergency wasn’t over just yet.
The ash cloud had sandblasted the windscreens making them nearly impossible to see through.
The captain chose to use the ILS system at Jakarta because it would provide them with vertical descent guidance.
But fate had one more challenge in store for this crew. The glideslope was out of service.
The crew quickly realized they could use the runway’s distance measuring equipment to plot how high the aircraft should be on the way down to the runway. It worked and the captain landed the 747 safely with no injuries to anyone aboard.
This incident became an international wakeup call to the aviation world about the hazards of flying too close to a volcanic ash cloud.
This near catastrophe also became a powerful reminder that in the face of the unexpected … a crew’s knowledge, situational awareness, and calm leadership can change the outcome of most any problem.