Emergency Landing Columbus Ohio

Flight: U.S. Airways 4998

Google search shows an on-time arrival at DCA in 4 minutes...

Couldn't find anything else yet, but only doing Google searches.

Stupid fat fingers.

Flight: US Airways 4998 Reagan National (DCA) to Dayton International (DAY).

Equipment: CRJ-200

I was on a return trip for business from Columbia, SC cruising along nice and smooth. Then, suddenly, the ambient noise got cut in half and the plane 'felt' different. About a minute later the captain announces that we have had an engine failure and we were unable to make Dayton and would instead land in Columbus (CMH).

At that time, he asked everyone to remain seated and we began a relatively rapid decent from 32,000. In that decent and subsequent approach to CMH, the plan did a number of banking maneuvers through turbulent air and when the wheels were being extended. Definitely an intense landing but overall the pilots did a fine job.

Any pilots out there that could opine on the banking maneuvers? Accounting for drag with a bum turbine?

I was glad to be on the ground but even more glad to get away from the sobbing lady next to me.

The welcoming party:



I have video of the entire approach and the convoy of fire/rescue vehicles but I can't upload from my phone.

emckee said:

Google search shows an on-time arrival at DCA in 4 minutes...

Couldn't find anything else yet, but only doing Google searches.

Click to expand...

Must've fixed that engine pretty quick and turned her around. Jeez!

Flight track of the diversion:

fyrfytr310 said:

Any pilots out there that could opine on the banking maneuvers? Accounting for drag with a bum turbine?

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Hmm, well, if the plane was pretty close to Columbus, but high above it, and if they wanted to land Real Soon Now, then instead of doing a long lazy descent far out one way and turning around then doing the rest of the descent another way, they'd want to almost spiral down. But break the spiral into segments to get them thru the waypoints that ATC would have set for them.

Also if the pilots felt the situation was urgent enough (possibly lose the other engine, or simply not wanting to risk flying on just one engine) they'd want to get down faster than a long lazy descent

Sort of makes me think of what military cargo planes and other aircraft do to approach an airport that has enemy activity likely at the end of the runway (missiles, guns, other anti-aircraft weapons like RPG's). THey fly HIGH over the airport, then make a steep spiralng descent to minimize the time and distance off the far end of the runway.

Not applicable here as regards a landing at Columbus Ohio airport, but a bit relevant in getting down from 32,000 feet to land SOON. Normally, a descent from 32,000 is a very very long process that, sorta SWAGGing here may take 45 minutes or more (since for the sake of fuel efficiency, preparing for landing is "all downhill" from cruising altitude so they can throttle back a long ways out, hundreds of miles out when cruising at 32,000). And most of that descent is straight in, until later reaching a holding pattern or needing to fly a certain series of courses to set up for the final landing approach. In this case, no holding pattern, clearly the pilots wanted to get down ASAP and ATC did a lot to make it happen.

A real pilot can correct the above basics.

Glad it ended safely!

I have been onboard for several of these:

https://www.google.com/search?q=wik...ss&ie=&oe=&gws_rd=ssl#q=c-17+tactical+descent

Low-level terrain following at Edwards AFB in the HOT afternoon air was much worse. Even the loadmaster lost his lunch.

I've never flown for a Carrier, though I would imagine that the reason for the "deliberate" maneuvering an relatively rapid descent was for several reasons such as: expediting getting on the ground due to the loss of engine redundancy, lots of altitude to lose in a short distance with a high ground speed, working with ATC (air traffic control) in order to maintain collision avoidance with other aircraft as a result of other aircraft having to divert/move out of the way due to a declared emergency. I'm glad all souls on board are safe.

I've been on one critical descent flight. Nothing wrong with the plane, but a ~16ish year old girl was having something like an uncontrolled asthma attack and couldn't breathe properly. She was straining each breath. Things went from a normal flight from Indianapolis to Philadelphia to an emergency approach to Pittsburg. I've never been on such a power dive descent in my life. From the time the flight attendant notified the pilot of the emergency, to parked at the gate, was just a matter of <5 minutes. We were in a small US Air regional jet. During descent they moved the girl to a front seat and the instant we were at the gate they had a stretcher and oxygen bag, and a med tech with a needle full of something. Good thing... she was just about at the end of her strength. Everyone clapped as they carted her off.

Marc

I've been on one of those power dives once, on a vacation flight from Columbus, Ohio to RSW International in Naples, FLA. It wasn't mechanical. An elderly couple, flying to Florida to winter one last time, had a scare where the elderly gentleman would not wake up. They thought he might have had a stroke. The pilot set it down in Charlotte, NC real fast, and an ambulance was waiting on the tarmac. But he had awoken, and refused to get off the plane. He wanted to get to Florida, and he apparently had the sense that if he didn't do it now, he wouldn't ever make it. I think they convinced his wife to talk him into leaving the plane and getting checked out...they may have re-booked on a later flight. It was only about a half hour delay in our flight.

RE: The Dayton Flight in the OP.... I wonder why if they were headed for Dayton, why the pilot didn't just set it into a glide path down to that airport, since they were already descending? Anyone?

When I looked up the flight on FlightAware just after your corrected post yesterday, it listed it with a special note saying that they had not received the notice that it had landed in Dayton. So, it showed it taking off for Dayton then taking off from Dayton without landing in between.

-- Roger

Glad to hear everyone is OK.

I had a slightly different experience the only time I've had an emergency landing. It was a guy having a heart attack on board, called for passengers with medical training right after we finished climbout from Seattle to Detroit. About an hour later, they announced we were landing in ND somewhere to drop him off. Pilot told us to strap in and hold on, then he put up the spoilers. We dropped about 20-25,000 feet in 5 minutes, but it was pretty smooth with little maneuvering. The last 10 minutes of the approach was about like normal. They had an ambulance waiting at the gate and ran him in. The pilot came on as we were approaching Detroit and said the guy was going to be OK. My only gripe is that we waited about half an hour at the gate for them to replenish the first aid kit on board after the ambulance peeled out. I was wondering why they didn't just have a complete kit waiting at the gate to hand off to the plane, and do the sorting once we were on our way.

Could the maneuvering have been performed so as to put the aircraft over empty unpopulated land so they could dump excess fuel?

boatgeek said:

My only gripe is that we waited about half an hour at the gate for them to replenish the first aid kit on board after the ambulance peeled out. I was wondering why they didn't just have a complete kit waiting at the gate to hand off to the plane, and do the sorting once we were on our way.

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That sort of reminds me of a United flight (I hate them and avoid them as much as possible), in 1997 leaving Birmingham, where once aboard the plane, nearly everyone seated, they started up the engines and there was a "buzzer" warning of some kind in the cockpit. Some mechanical issue. They told us they'd fly in the needed part from Atlanta, so get off the plane but leave the carry-ons aboard to save time in re-boarding. About 2 hours later they had us re-board. Everyone in their seats. And then..... the blanking buzzer starts going off again, It was NOT FIXED.

So why didn't they TEST the thing to see if it was fixed, before having the passengers re-board? Probably because of the cost of the fuel they'd burn for a brief test, fuel costs money, passenger's hassles and time wasted cost them nothing.... directly anyway.

BTW - the flight was cancelled. I finally made it to Chicago, but hours late, missing a tour of the city including going up in the Sears Tower (never did). On the return trip, an aborted takeoff, the only one I've experienced.

Did I mention I hate United?

- George Gassaway

An aborted takeoff would probably freak me out more than a single engine loss on a multi-engine craft.

I'm getting on an 11 hour flight tomorrow evening, followed by a two hour flight, then a one hour flight.

I just wanted to thank everyone that supplied me with something extra to consider during those 14 hours in the air...


Seriously, glad the OP and everyone else on the flight are OK.

Check this crosswind landing: [video=youtube;KPil-NAEgBw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPil-NAEgBw[/video]

I've flown in/out of this airport - it's no joke.

s6

stealth6 said:

Check this crosswind landing: [video=youtube;KPil-NAEgBw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPil-NAEgBw[/video]

I've flown in/out of this airport - it's no joke.

s6

Click to expand...

Holy s... that pilot is awesome!

fyrfytr310 said:

An aborted takeoff would probably freak me out more than a single engine loss on a multi-engine craft.

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Well, at least in my case it was not scary at all. The plane started the takeoff run, accelerating, then after 10-15 seconds, before getting too fast, the engines were throttled down, and we came to a stop not even halfway down the runway, maybe not more than 1/3. My reaction was calm and a realization along the lines of : "ah, thats' not normal. So ....that was an aborted takeoff". Nobody on the plane freaked out. The pilot said they were not getting a high enough reading on the power of one of the engines (old 737), so they didn't want to risk it.

Of course, aborted takeoffs can be way scarier, when they happen a lot farther down the runway and faster, where stopping in time is a big problem. Or during bad weather. Or if the reason is more serious like a blown tire during the takeoff run or some other serious mechanical problem.

So, if I had to be on a flight that had an aborted takeoff, that was a pretty "good" one.

I've been fortunate to not have had any really bad problems with turbulence , and no unplanned landings. All my problems (mostly with United) have been missing connections due to badly (too tightly) scheduled connecting flights and/or being plain LATE arriving in time to catch the next flight. About 50% of all my United related flights were that way. I still had to use them sometimes for some trips due to group trips arranged by booking agents, but never when I book my own.

- George Gassaway

I've had a few interesting flights.
One where the plane was taking off and just starting to rotate when there was a BANG and then rapid deceleration. Engine ingested a bird and pilot aborted.

Then there was the time we were coming down for a landing and then the engines spooled back up and we climbed - turned out there was no indication that the landing gear was down. They did a visual inspection and saw it was down, but could not verify it was locked. The runway was lined with rescue vehicles when we landed....

And one more - 16 passenger "puddle jumper" with just a curtain between cockpit and passengers (pre 9/11)
I was in first row. While taking off a control knob came bouncing out from the curtain and I picked it up. After we got to altitude the copilot pushed the curtain aside to look for the knob. I handed it to him

Kirk G said:

RE: The Dayton Flight in the OP.... I wonder why if they were headed for Dayton, why the pilot didn't just set it into a glide path down to that airport, since they were already descending? Anyone?

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Loosing an engine is an emergency and is a land as soon as possible situation. The crew would have made a decision and co-ordinated with ATC to get the aircraft on the ground as quickly as they could. The turn that was experienced may have well been made to help control airspeed without reducing engine power. The other option in this situation would have been to fly a pattern around the airfield and land. Given the traffic flow in and out of larger airports, making a straight in apoach was likely the quickest and safest way to get everyone safely on the ground.

While the maneuvers may have seemed a little extreme to the passengers, they were very likely we'll within the aircraft limitations. When we get outside of what we accept as normal, things tend to get exagrated in our mind. BTW, you might be amazed what most aircraft are capable of and still be safely within their limitations.

getting a connector flight, we were 2nd or 3rd in line to take off, and we just start sitting out there stopped next to the runway. They tell us that TORNADOES have touched down and the tower has been cleared and the people are taking shelter. I don't mind turbulence and other things on airplanes, but just sitting still in the middle of the tarmac waiting for the storm cells to pass was very nerve racking.

I was on a Delta flight last summer from Houston to Atlanta with probably 400 people on board. I don't know airplanes so I don't know what kind it was (747, 727, etc.), but it was big and had one engines under each wing and one on the tail. Big. Anyway, as the plane started up the engines initially sounded fine, just like they should. We backed out from the gate and taxied to the runway. That's when all of the sudden we started racing down the runway at super acceleration and before I knew what was happening the entire plane glided slowly into the air and we climbed to cruising altitude.

Everything was going fine at that point but that's when the problem started. The flight attendant came on the PA and said there was a passenger on board with a peanut allergy and peanuts wouldn't be served to anyone on row 30 or higher. I was in row 28 so I got peanuts, but that was a CLOSE call! A few hours later we finally got into Atlanta and my luggage was on the carousel waiting on me when I walked up.

Mushtang said:

I was on a Delta flight last summer from Houston to Atlanta with probably 400 people on board. I don't know airplanes so I don't know what kind it was (747, 727, etc.), but it was big and had one engines under each wing and one on the tail. Big. Anyway, as the plane started up the engines initially sounded fine, just like they should. We backed out from the gate and taxied to the runway. That's when all of the sudden we started racing down the runway at super acceleration and before I knew what was happening the entire plane glided slowly into the air and we climbed to cruising altitude.

Everything was going fine at that point but that's when the problem started. The flight attendant came on the PA and said there was a passenger on board with a peanut allergy and peanuts wouldn't be served to anyone on row 30 or higher. I was in row 28 so I got peanuts, but that was a CLOSE call! A few hours later we finally got into Atlanta and my luggage was on the carousel waiting on me when I walked up.

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How did you ever survive the stress of it all!?!?

Mushtang said:

I was on a Delta flight last summer from Houston to Atlanta with probably 400 people on board. I don't know airplanes so I don't know what kind it was (747, 727, etc.), but it was big and had one engines under each wing and one on the tail. Big. Anyway, as the plane started up the engines initially sounded fine, just like they should. We backed out from the gate and taxied to the runway. That's when all of the sudden we started racing down the runway at super acceleration and before I knew what was happening the entire plane glided slowly into the air and we climbed to cruising altitude.

Everything was going fine at that point but that's when the problem started. The flight attendant came on the PA and said there was a passenger on board with a peanut allergy and peanuts wouldn't be served to anyone on row 30 or higher. I was in row 28 so I got peanuts, but that was a CLOSE call! A few hours later we finally got into Atlanta and my luggage was on the carousel waiting on me when I walked up.

Click to expand...

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

Mushtang said:

I was on a Delta flight last summer from Houston to Atlanta with probably 400 people on board. I don't know airplanes so I don't know what kind it was (747, 727, etc.), but it was big and had one engines under each wing and one on the tail. Big. Anyway, as the plane started up the engines initially sounded fine, just like they should. We backed out from the gate and taxied to the runway. That's when all of the sudden we started racing down the runway at super acceleration and before I knew what was happening the entire plane glided slowly into the air and we climbed to cruising altitude.

Everything was going fine at that point but that's when the problem started. The flight attendant came on the PA and said there was a passenger on board with a peanut allergy and peanuts wouldn't be served to anyone on row 30 or higher. I was in row 28 so I got peanuts, but that was a CLOSE call! A few hours later we finally got into Atlanta and my luggage was on the carousel waiting on me when I walked up.

Click to expand...

I call shenanigans! The airplane you're describing would have to be a DC-10 or one its variants/descendants. Delta doesn't fly those - they're only in cargo service anymore in the US. Otherwise, I would've totally believed it all...

Check this crosswind landing:

I've flown in/out of this airport - it's no joke.

s6

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That's a hell of a pilot.

I once had a similar landing, but in a beensy turboprop instead of a jet. It's a spooky feeling to look out your window 30 degrees off "forward" and be looking directly down the runway centerline. I think we turned before touching down, though. For exciting landings, it's hard to beat Dutch Harbor, though. The runway is blasted out of the side of a mountain, so one side is a cliff and the other is the water. Both ends are in the water as well, plus mountains in the glide path within a couple miles of runway end.

EXPjawa said:

I call shenanigans! The airplane you're describing would have to be a DC-10 or one its variants/descendants. Delta doesn't fly those - they're only in cargo service anymore in the US. Otherwise, I would've totally believed it all...

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Yep... DC-10 or L-1011 but it's been out of service even longer than the DC-10s.

PropellantHead said:

Yep... DC-10 or L-1011 but it's been out of service even longer than the DC-10s.

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MD-11?

I can get my work computer and call up a complete fleet list of all Boeing/MD jets. But that would be "work" and I'm off today.