Talk:British European Airways Flight 548

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There's a line in here about there being 'no fire on impact'. Does this refer to the fact that the plane itself wasn't on fire at the time of the crash? Because this is probably true of a lot of plane crashes, and as such, isn't really needed here, is it? Does anyone else have an opinion on this? (Maaya 04:16, 20 August 2005 (UTC))

There was no fire at all. That is quite unusual. Graham 09:55, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about before impact, but there certainly was a considerable fire at the crash scene (Anon, 06 January 2006)

According to my source (Stanley Stewart's Air Disasters) a small fire broke out as rescuers were using cutting tools to free those trapped inside the aircraft. The fire was near the flight deck and was quickly brought under control - presumably that is what the photo on the BBC site shows. The original line on there being no fire on impact, and this being unusual, was actually correct considering the type of crash, i.e., a flat descent (belly flop) straight into the ground. Ian Dunster 22:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. We could probably put that back into the article then, with maybe a little bit of what was said here for clarification to laypersons such as myself? I guess when I think about plane crashes, I just try to think of the ideal way I'd like to go: no fire, sudden impact, no pain. Can you believe I started reading and editing these air disaster articles as a way to get over my fear of flying? -Maaya 03:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and put it back in. -Maaya 03:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move

I see this page was recently moved. I don't know if there was any consultation about this - apparently not - but I disagree with it. This particular accident is widely known to residents of the UK, and almost always referred to informally as the 'Staines air disaster'. Nobody except those with a keen knowledge of the crash already will know that it was BEA flight 548, so the article naming does not make the article easy to find, or recognise for what it is really referring to. I beleieve the origibal title is more appropriate, and is in line with other similar articles where a particularly notable accident is referred to by its location rather than the details of the flight. Few people refer to e.g. Lockerbie as anything other than Lockerbie, likewise with this one (for those with longer memories). The drawback of this naming change can be seen by viewing the category "Disasters in the United Kingdom" - Staines isn't mentioned at all, just BEA Flight 548 - well, what's that when it's at home? Oh, you mean Staines!! Graham 09:55, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Stick pusher or stick shaker?

This article includes the sentence “The condition was not rectified by the pilots despite the operation of the stick pusher, and the aircraft entered a deep stall from which there was no possibility of recovery.” It is unlikely the term stick pusher is correct; and much more likely it should be stick shaker. If a stick pusher operated the aircraft would not have stalled. Does a WP Editor have access to the accident report? Alternatively, it should be easy for an Editor familiar with the Trident 1C to determine whether the aircraft’s stall warning was a stick shaker; and whether it also had a stick pusher (unlikely). Dolphin51 (talk) 00:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll get back on this one. My father flew papa india one week earlier. Will confirm. BuzzWoof (talk) 18:41, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much BuzzWoof. I see that, when this article was created in October 2003, the expression stick shaker was used. On 23 January 2007 the word "shaker" was changed to "pusher". No explanation was provided. If a stick pusher was installed, and it operated, and the aircraft subsequently entered a deep stall, that is a major, major problem with certification of the aircraft design. I can't believe there would be such an emphasis on human factors if there was evidence that a stick pusher was installed but plainly wasn't equal to the task. Dolphin51 (talk) 02:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, many lessons were learnt from this accident! Designs were changed as a result. From what I've been told the Trident even had reverse thrust that could be operated in the air (a total no-no these days). The investigation at the time did not uncover the whole truth - there were some other factors involved which will, I am confident, one day come out. BuzzWoof (talk) 10:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Answer from former Trident pilot (who, confused why this article is being "used as a chat forum", adds "exhaustive manufacturers' information is still available on all three marks of Trident if anyone wishes to come in with a worthwhile point about the sequence of events leading up to impact and how the aircraft systems came into play"): the Trident had both a stick-shaker and a stick-pusher system. If the airspeed/angle of attack combination came any way dangerously close to the stall, the sticks on both sides would shake, a fierce and noisy buzz and vibration effected by electric motor imput. I witnessed that just once for real, (ie outside the simulator where we would practise it regularly), whan a pilot allowed the airspeed to decay in level flight during approach, below the point where he should already have lowered the first stage of flap in order [to] reduce the stalling speed and thus keep us above the shaker speed even though we had decelerated. He snappily realised his potentially serious boob and banged the flap down! If he hadn't, we would very quickly have reached the pusher speed. That system came in as an emergency last resort, just above the full stalling speed proper. Hydraulic rams pushed both sticks hard forward against the instrument panel. A very dramatic control imput, which was exactly what any on-the-ball pilot would have done, the standard stall-recovery action, which pitches the nose down and immediately decreases the angle of attack below stalling angle. If you then bung on full power on all engines and remedy any configuration mistake, eg too little flap or retracted droop leading edge, you will safely emerge from the stall - but only if you have sufficient height to absorb the inevitable lift decay/pitch down height loss. Papa India maybe had just enough height for just that, but there was speculation that the guy may have treated it as a false stall warning and systems operation. I believe that the override handle, a device we had for disarming the stall protection system in its entirety, a safeguard against malfunctions, was found to have been pulled. In any case the aircraft went into a second stall, a deep stall, and impacted in a level attitude at a vertical speed of about 100 knots. BuzzWoof (talk) 20:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi BuzzWoof. Thanks very much for your information. I have perused the official AAIB formal report which is accessible via the external links and references in the article. (This is what I should have done first – if in doubt read the report!)

In the official AAIB report, Chapter 2 Narrative, sub-chapter (v) The flight, it explains that the stick-pusher operated on three separate occasions – 116 seconds after brake-release, 124 seconds, and 127 seconds. At 128 seconds after brake-release the stick-push system was manually inhibited by the dumping of the system.

In Chapter 5 Conclusion there is information that, after the droops were prematurely retracted, the stick-shaker and stick-pusher would have operated almost simultaneously. (The report also makes the point that if the operating crew had been sufficiently experienced and sufficiently alert the simultaneous operation of these two devices would have been a clear indication that the droops had been retracted prematurely.) In Chapter 5 there is speculation about why one or more members of the crew might have dumped the stick-pusher operating system. It arrives at the conclusion that they were oblivious to the premature retraction of the droops and therefore assumed the stick-pusher operation was a false activation. Very interesting reading.

I will make some editorial refinements to the article to clarify the sentence that first attracted my attention. Dolphin51 (talk) 01:21, 3 March 2008 (UTC)