Well, lessee hear. Okay here is a stab in that dark at what could have happened. Basically I am gonna list hear a bunch of things that have happened in the past just never at the same time.
First the engine falling off an whatnot. A minute grain of metal inside the structure of the fan blade could be more brittle then the rest of the metal. This happens at manufacturing time due to improper mixes in the alloys, and is hard to account for regardless. It is undetectable until the point fails or at least starts to fail. The problem is it only starts to fail after a lot of stress [like that generated by several hundred hours of spinning] and once it starts it fails quickly. You may remeber the Oklahoma city crash several years ago where the pilot managed to bring the aircraft in without any hydraulics only to have the airplane cartwheel down the runway.
Anyhow, with a minute fracture like this several of the fan blades inside the engine will be thrown off. [Good old Centripetal force] Now many modern engines have specially designed cowls that are supposed to absorb the impact of these blade 9 out of 10 times. But when they don't the blade burst thru the cowls and keep on going. That said they could fly into the airplane cutting the hydraulics, much like they did in the Oklahoma city crash, possibly even the fuel line, and perhaps even damaging the engine strut to the point that the engine could be sheared off by drag. [Mcdonald Dougless DC-10 or DC-9 ]
Ok, so far this is a POSSIBLE explination for engine failure, and maybe for the fuel dump. Next, why didn't the pilot radio for help.
This information comes from an emergancy landing of a Canadian Air Jet in an abandoned airstrip outside Winniepeg. Due to and improper fueling, [Idiots on the ground couldn't convert the airports Imperial measures to the standard metric kilos of fuel] the plane ran out of fuel. In this particular case it resulted in a complete shutdown of the hydraulic system of that specific airliner. A few seconds after the hyrdraulics shutdown the computer on the airplane seized up and the aircraft lost all power. Now, in such a case this type of craft is designed with a special propeller that drops out of the nose and uses the windshear to generate electricity, but in this case instead of the instantaneous deployment, it was nearly five minutes of uncontrolable gliding before the prop deployed. In these five minutes they were completely without any power including to the radio or the fly by wire systems. [Airbus]
Now, I don't know the location of the emergancy prop, if the engine could have effected it, however I would assume that if said propeller once again took five minutes to deploy and if the airplane was just then suffering problems, the five minutes would probably have been enough time for them to crash. Remeber they were taken off and not nearly near cruising altitude or speed for a sustained glide. In fact, assuming they were taking off and the hyrdraulics had gone bad their flaps would be stuck in "take-off" position. This position, while it does creat more lift on the wing during take off, would crash a plane that is trying to either glide or cruise.
So, here is one out of many possbilities of how this could have been just a failure caused by a bad engine. I am sure there are many more. Perhaps even look at the possibilty that TWA flight 800 had a spark in the fuel tank that blew the plane up, and apply this, with what I have highlighted, to a spark in the fuel line of the engine.
Once again, these are just possibilites. Not saying anything one way or the other. Just gives your mind something to chew on.
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Date: 2001-11-13 08:05 am (UTC)First the engine falling off an whatnot.
A minute grain of metal inside the structure of the fan blade could be more brittle then the rest of the metal. This happens at manufacturing time due to improper mixes in the alloys, and is hard to account for regardless. It is undetectable until the point fails or at least starts to fail. The problem is it only starts to fail after a lot of stress [like that generated by several hundred hours of spinning] and once it starts it fails quickly. You may remeber the Oklahoma city crash several years ago where the pilot managed to bring the aircraft in without any hydraulics only to have the airplane cartwheel down the runway.
Anyhow, with a minute fracture like this several of the fan blades inside the engine will be thrown off. [Good old Centripetal force] Now many modern engines have specially designed cowls that are supposed to absorb the impact of these blade 9 out of 10 times. But when they don't the blade burst thru the cowls and keep on going. That said they could fly into the airplane cutting the hydraulics, much like they did in the Oklahoma city crash, possibly even the fuel line, and perhaps even damaging the engine strut to the point that the engine could be sheared off by drag. [Mcdonald Dougless DC-10 or DC-9 ]
Ok, so far this is a POSSIBLE explination for engine failure, and maybe for the fuel dump. Next, why didn't the pilot radio for help.
This information comes from an emergancy landing of a Canadian Air Jet in an abandoned airstrip outside Winniepeg. Due to and improper fueling, [Idiots on the ground couldn't convert the airports Imperial measures to the standard metric kilos of fuel] the plane ran out of fuel. In this particular case it resulted in a complete shutdown of the hydraulic system of that specific airliner. A few seconds after the hyrdraulics shutdown the computer on the airplane seized up and the aircraft lost all power. Now, in such a case this type of craft is designed with a special propeller that drops out of the nose and uses the windshear to generate electricity, but in this case instead of the instantaneous deployment, it was nearly five minutes of uncontrolable gliding before the prop deployed. In these five minutes they were completely without any power including to the radio or the fly by wire systems. [Airbus]
Now, I don't know the location of the emergancy prop, if the engine could have effected it, however I would assume that if said propeller once again took five minutes to deploy and if the airplane was just then suffering problems, the five minutes would probably have been enough time for them to crash. Remeber they were taken off and not nearly near cruising altitude or speed for a sustained glide. In fact, assuming they were taking off and the hyrdraulics had gone bad their flaps would be stuck in "take-off" position. This position, while it does creat more lift on the wing during take off, would crash a plane that is trying to either glide or cruise.
So, here is one out of many possbilities of how this could have been just a failure caused by a bad engine. I am sure there are many more. Perhaps even look at the possibilty that TWA flight 800 had a spark in the fuel tank that blew the plane up, and apply this, with what I have highlighted, to a spark in the fuel line of the engine.
Once again, these are just possibilites. Not saying anything one way or the other. Just gives your mind something to chew on.
Have a nice day ^_^x;