He interrupted me, “That was weird, right?”
My mind was now floating firmly in the realm of relief and confusion. I hadn’t imagined it, so at least I wasn’t crazy. That didn’t solve the problem that now two of us felt something that we couldn’t quite explain.
At this point, having no other better ideas about what had happened on the runway in Denver, logically my next course of action was to determine if anything was malfunctioning. After pressing what is effectively a button that tests all flight related subsystems, the airplane returned a, “no dummy, everything is fine” indication. I was almost hoping there was a hydraulic or flight control issue because at least that would tell me that something had caused the sudden jerk to the left. There was nothing. Passing through 10,000 feet, the Captain reached up to call the lead flight attendant to tell them of the planned smooth flight. While he does this, I listen in.
“Hey guys, we’re through 10. Should be a pretty good ride all the way in. And real quick, did any of you feel anything weird during take off?” The captain asked, not wanting to prompt a response.
“Yeah, this is Jimmy in the back, I was going to call and tell you but we felt a pretty big jerk back here that we’ve never felt before. Is everything okay?” One of the flight attendants asked. The Captain replied that everything was fine and that we were trying to diagnose what happened.
The problem had now left the cockpit. At 180 mph during a takeoff, even after a thousand takeoffs, your mind is still hyper alert to changes in the norm. During training, we often simulate engine failures and fires at the most vulnerable parts of the flight so, from a behavioral standpoint, the time when a pilot most expects a problem is shortly before lift off. With at least one flight attendant feeling something wrong, we knew that the jerk wasn't just from hyper-vigilance.
After several more minutes of thinking about it, I asked the Captain, “do you think it was a blown tire? That would explain both the lurch and the lack of indications up here. I mean, it was hot in Denver, we are heavy and this is pretty much the fastest these tires are going to ever spin. Want me to call back and ask to do a sweep?” As silly as it may sound, unlike cars, all the aircraft I've flown do not have tire-pressure indications and thus no way to tell if one had deflated. The Captain agreed.
Pulling back up my charts, I dialed in the Denver tower frequency. “Denver tower, we just departed off runway 8 and think there is a possibility we blew a tire on takeoff. Could you send ops to do a sweep to see if there is any debris is on the runway? Most likely indications would be about the last 3000 feet.”
At approaching 100 miles from Denver, the signal was weak. They replied, “Absolutely. I’ll send them out immediately. Standby for the results. If we can’t reach you, we’ll forward the results to Kansas City Center.”
With still just under two hours to go, the Captain wasn’t going to just wait around for the results. “Okay, so let’s treat this like a malfunction. We’ve gone through the manuals, we’ve contacted Denver. Instead of just wait, why don’t we call and talk to maintenance. You take the airplane and radios, I’m going to call the company.
During a flight, all airplanes have the ability to radio a ground station and be connected to any number of agencies. For a medical emergency, we have a doctor on call at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to answer any medical related questions. We can reach them via VHF or HF frequencies at virtually any point on the globe. We don’t often use these communications channels, but in this instance, when it’s better to talk about it rather than text about it through our integrated messaging system, we call.
For the next 20-30 minutes, the Captain is on the line talking with maintenance, dispatch and our operational control. I listen in on the backup radio while I am handling the en route radio, essentially flying the airplane solo. It is on these days I am so happy there are two of us here so that we can divide and conquer the problem.
During the time the Captain is talking to the Company, I hear back from Air Traffic Control that Denver tower found no indications of anything amiss on the runway. That is both a relief and increases the frustration. SOMETHING caused it. I tell the Captain the news which he then relays to maintenance. Shortly after, I hear him thanking everyone on the line and joining me, mentally at least, back in the cockpit.
“So they have no idea either” he says. “They’ve pulled the sensor data the airplane sends them and are seeing nothing abnormal. Maintenance offered to have mechanics us on landing to inspect the gear before we taxi but in order to do that, we have to be an emergency aircraft. So, when we get into the final center airspace, we declare an emergency. They don’t think anything is wrong but out of an abundance of caution, if something IS wrong, it’s better to have the fire trucks at the runway than in the firehouse. Do you agree so far?” I nodded, of course I did. “Until we can rule out that something is NOT wrong, we operate under the assumption that something is. Since the only thing I can think of that wouldn't show up anywhere is a blown tire, we run the emergency procedure for that.
“One last thing. On the lead-up to the landing, I’m going to be busy doing a lot of the big picture things. I’m confident in your abilities so, from here on out, you’re flying and you’ll do the landing. Are you okay with that?”
All pilots are confident in their abilities. It’s part of the type-A egomania that accompanies most of us. Getting a comment like that in the lead up to landing on possibly flat tire or malfunctioning gear, is a real vote of confidence. “Of course. I’ll start reviewing the manuals.”
“Sounds good, I’m going to bring the flight attendants in the loop and let the passengers know,” he says so calmly that you’d think he's done this hundreds of time. No time to reflect on that, time to prepare.
Our iPads contain a wealth of information. One of the manuals contains a “best practices” for every possible situation anyone could think we would encounter, to include several pages on landing gear malfunctions. And that’s where I spent the remaining time at cruise.
After over an hour and a half of thinking and talking and thinking and talking and thinking, we finally are handed off to the final center controller before descending. The frequency is congested with dozens of mid-day flights transitioning the airspace or climbing or descending into it. Ops normal for a weekday afternoon. Time to set things in motion
“Center, we are checking on at flight level 350 and are declaring an emergency. We will require fire trucks to meet us at the runway upon arrival and request the longest runway available.”
After several more minutes of thinking about it, I asked the Captain, “do you think it was a blown tire? That would explain both the lurch and the lack of indications up here. I mean, it was hot in Denver, we are heavy and this is pretty much the fastest these tires are going to ever spin. Want me to call back and ask to do a sweep?” As silly as it may sound, unlike cars, all the aircraft I've flown do not have tire-pressure indications and thus no way to tell if one had deflated. The Captain agreed.
Pulling back up my charts, I dialed in the Denver tower frequency. “Denver tower, we just departed off runway 8 and think there is a possibility we blew a tire on takeoff. Could you send ops to do a sweep to see if there is any debris is on the runway? Most likely indications would be about the last 3000 feet.”
At approaching 100 miles from Denver, the signal was weak. They replied, “Absolutely. I’ll send them out immediately. Standby for the results. If we can’t reach you, we’ll forward the results to Kansas City Center.”
With still just under two hours to go, the Captain wasn’t going to just wait around for the results. “Okay, so let’s treat this like a malfunction. We’ve gone through the manuals, we’ve contacted Denver. Instead of just wait, why don’t we call and talk to maintenance. You take the airplane and radios, I’m going to call the company.
During a flight, all airplanes have the ability to radio a ground station and be connected to any number of agencies. For a medical emergency, we have a doctor on call at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to answer any medical related questions. We can reach them via VHF or HF frequencies at virtually any point on the globe. We don’t often use these communications channels, but in this instance, when it’s better to talk about it rather than text about it through our integrated messaging system, we call.
For the next 20-30 minutes, the Captain is on the line talking with maintenance, dispatch and our operational control. I listen in on the backup radio while I am handling the en route radio, essentially flying the airplane solo. It is on these days I am so happy there are two of us here so that we can divide and conquer the problem.
During the time the Captain is talking to the Company, I hear back from Air Traffic Control that Denver tower found no indications of anything amiss on the runway. That is both a relief and increases the frustration. SOMETHING caused it. I tell the Captain the news which he then relays to maintenance. Shortly after, I hear him thanking everyone on the line and joining me, mentally at least, back in the cockpit.
“So they have no idea either” he says. “They’ve pulled the sensor data the airplane sends them and are seeing nothing abnormal. Maintenance offered to have mechanics us on landing to inspect the gear before we taxi but in order to do that, we have to be an emergency aircraft. So, when we get into the final center airspace, we declare an emergency. They don’t think anything is wrong but out of an abundance of caution, if something IS wrong, it’s better to have the fire trucks at the runway than in the firehouse. Do you agree so far?” I nodded, of course I did. “Until we can rule out that something is NOT wrong, we operate under the assumption that something is. Since the only thing I can think of that wouldn't show up anywhere is a blown tire, we run the emergency procedure for that.
“One last thing. On the lead-up to the landing, I’m going to be busy doing a lot of the big picture things. I’m confident in your abilities so, from here on out, you’re flying and you’ll do the landing. Are you okay with that?”
All pilots are confident in their abilities. It’s part of the type-A egomania that accompanies most of us. Getting a comment like that in the lead up to landing on possibly flat tire or malfunctioning gear, is a real vote of confidence. “Of course. I’ll start reviewing the manuals.”
“Sounds good, I’m going to bring the flight attendants in the loop and let the passengers know,” he says so calmly that you’d think he's done this hundreds of time. No time to reflect on that, time to prepare.
Our iPads contain a wealth of information. One of the manuals contains a “best practices” for every possible situation anyone could think we would encounter, to include several pages on landing gear malfunctions. And that’s where I spent the remaining time at cruise.
After over an hour and a half of thinking and talking and thinking and talking and thinking, we finally are handed off to the final center controller before descending. The frequency is congested with dozens of mid-day flights transitioning the airspace or climbing or descending into it. Ops normal for a weekday afternoon. Time to set things in motion
“Center, we are checking on at flight level 350 and are declaring an emergency. We will require fire trucks to meet us at the runway upon arrival and request the longest runway available.”
No comments:
Post a Comment