Flight Headed To Florida Hits Parked Plane At Houston Airport

[matcom]

<snip>

HOUSTON -- A Continental flight set to leave Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport for West Palm Beach, Fla., was delayed when the jet backed up and crashed its wing into another jet's tail.

Flight 1830 returned to the gate Monday and passengers debarked to wait nearly two hours for another plane, an airline spokesman said. There were no injuries. The flight had been scheduled to leave at 7:10pm.

"The airplane that was moving backed up and the right wing came into contact with the stabilizer," of the stationary plane, Continental spokesman David Messing said.

The stabilizer is the horizontal surface of the plane's tail.

Messing said the cause of the crash was still under investigation.

Both 737 planes will require repairs, he said.

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/10143936/detail.html

[MrCoffee]

1. The worst part of flying is when the plane

is a 200 mile an hour bus, right after landing.

[underpants]

2. Have you heard about the Lexus that will park itself?

but seriously what the hell happened to the flying cars we were promised?

[trof]

3. At least the pilots won't be blamed for this one.

It's called 'push-back'.
Tug attached to nosewheel.
Ground crew has to eat this one.

"OK, Mr. Smarty-Ass. How do you know?"

While in some cases aircraft with tail engines (DC-9, MD-80, B-727, etc.) can back up under threir own power using reverse thrust, planes with engines under the wing (like the 737) can't due to the risk of ingesting FOD (Foriegn Object Damage) from the ramp.
:-)

[lizziegrace]

4. You sound like my father

He worked as an engineer for Pratt and GE. ;)

(I know you're a pilot though)

[trof]

9. Used both Pratt and GE. GE mo bettah.

:-)

[ContraBass Black]

5. "Foriegn Object Damage" is especially unfortunate

When that object is a person or vehicle.

[kay1864]

7. Thanks trof!

Okay, now I'm curious...warning, random neuron-firing ahead...

1. If a DC-9 or MD-80 backs up under its own power, how does the pilot make sure he/she isn't about to hit something? I don't think they've got rear-view mirrors... :P

2. Several years ago, I was going to Barcelona on an L-1011. Five minutes before boarding, a maintenance guy pulls up to the terminal in his pickup truck. Put it in park, left the engine running. He gets out, bumps the lever or something and it shifts into reverse (yeah, I thought wtf on that one but I guess it could happen). Pickup backs into the engine cowling. Made a big dent and of course the plane was unflyable. Here's my question: Would he have been fired over something like that? Or just get a written reprimand or something? No one was hurt, but I'm sure it was $$$ of damage. (this was Delta, so the maintenance workers would be non-union)

3. So I thought we'd be crammed onto the next flight (which IIRC was not until the next day), or routed through Gatwick or something. Amazingly, our original flight left only two hours late, since Delta had a SPARE L-1011. Huh? It's not like airlines have extra planes sitting around idle for such an eventuality, since that's lost revenue. How would there have been a spare wide-body available?

[trof]

8. Happy to answer questions. I'll be around all day.

;-)
1. Pilots must have ground crew to guide them, tell them when clear, when to stop. It was a cost cutting measure TWA tried. I don't know if any other airline did it. I think it's inherently unsafe.

2. There will be an investigation. Depends in part on how strong his union is. Probably at least a reprimand, letter in his file, something like that. I think airlines have insurance for stuff like that, but...too many claims and your premiums go up.

3. Sometimes you get lucky. If you're at a major hub they may have a spare just coming out of some maintenance procedure or other. It's happened to me more than once. Find a problem on the pre-flight that will take a while to fix. Get a call a few minutes later that spare will be over from hangar soon.

Funny story about 1.
We were trying to push back for an 'ontime departure' (VERY important to marketing). Pax are still standing in aisles, putting stuff in overheads, and we can't budge until all are seated. Very frustrated flight attendant comes up and says "I CAN'T GET THEM TO SIT DOWN!"

I pick up pax p.a. and say "Folks, we have to back up now and I can't see until you've all sat down and cleared the aisle."
It worked.
;-)

[kay1864]

10. Thanks, I always wondered about that spare plane

Glad we got lucky. Sadly, we were on a buddy pass and had been assigned the last two seats in Business Class. The replacement L-1011 had a different seat configuration, and...you guessed it. One less row of seats in Business. Back to Coach for us.

Another one I thought of...how do you start the plane? I'm guessing it's not an ignition key ("Damn, left my keys in my other pants") :) And why don't we passengers hear the engines start? From our perspective, we hear them accelerate for taxiing, but we don't hear them start. To us it's like they're on idle just before that.

[trof]

11. Right, no key. Just 'start switches'.

Usually use bleed air off the aircraft's APU (Auxilliary Power Unit-a small jet engine used for power and heating/cooling the cabin on the ground.) to spin the engine up to a minimum rpm before you give it ignition and fuel. Hard to hear inside most large jets.

[Parche]

6. continental

Their old slogan "They really move their tails for you" sounds like it didnt work this time!!!