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A NEW REPORT has described how 17 people were injured on a flight into Dublin when it hit turbulence back in October 2013.
This happened on a United Airlines flight from Newark in the United States to Dublin.
In total 13 passengers and four crew members sustained injuries during the incident, as shown in a new report released by the Air Accident Investigation Unit.
What happened?
When the plane was around 150km southwest of Dublin it ran into something called ‘St Elmo’s Fire’: a phenomenon where electrical sparks can be seen coming from an aircraft when it passes through electrostatically charged atmosphere.
At this point, the co-pilot says that the plane was suddenly hit with “rapid and severe turbulence”.
Waiting for the turbulence to subside, the co-pilot noticed that the plane’s airspeed had dropped and feared that it was in danger of stalling.
To counter this, he applied full power and lowered the aircraft’s nose to recover the flying airspeed.
After this completed, the plane’s airspeed appeared to recover before dropping again – causing the co-pilot to repeat the manoeuvre.
In the new report it concludes that the airspeed instrument that co-pilot was looking at could have been blocked by cold weather.
Injuries
After the plane touched down in Dublin, the eight injured passengers and two flight attendants said that their injuries had come as a result of coming into contact with the plane’s interior.
One passenger reported being in the toilet at the time of the turbulence and hitting his head on the ceiling, before falling and striking a handrail mounted on its rear wall.
One passenger was taken to hospital following the incident having received a cut to the head.
Everyone who reported injuries was attended to at the scene in Dublin Airport by fire and ambulance services.
A total of 131 passengers and eight crew members were on board the flight.
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Good to see co-pilot was on his game.
What the article doesn’t say is that the co-pilot’s actions were based on bad information and that he destroyed one of the hydraulic systems as a result. He wasn’t “at fault” but human factors were a contributing factor.
It mentions cold weather freezing, air speed indicator. Hydraulic systems are cheap and replaceable. Getting everyone home alive with minor injuries and safe is priceless
It’s more likely that the hydraulic service door was dislodged during the turbulence and not the co-pilots subsequent incorrect overspeed. The door was ripped in half during the overspeed but the hold-open rod had already smashed the dump valve at that point.
Ireland has the highest compensation payouts quick land there
A brown trouser moment One of the reasons why I hate flying.
Don’t wanna sit beside you on a flight.
The fact that this can happen and the pilots are able to remain calm, follow exactly what they are trained to do and get the plane safely to it’s destination is the exact reason that you should continue to fly despite your fears. It takes an awful lot to take one of these birds down and flying with an airline that has a good reputation and trains it’s pilots correctly gives you the best opportunity of coming through any non-routine issues that may be encountered.
I’d say the person in the toilet might have had more than brown trousers!
That’s why I wear adult diapers on all flights exceeding 4 hours.
Turbulence can’t take down a plane so enjoy the other people worrying :)
Actually, according to the report the pilots did not act correctly. They did not follow the appropriate actions following a low speed or speed disagree event. It is quite likely that the injuries would not have been as severe had the pilots followed proper procedure. The extreme manoeuvres were caused by the pilot’s flying inputs, not turbulence. Perhaps some more detail in the report should have been reported here.
Picked a hell of a week to quit smoking, drinking, sniffing glue & taking amphetamines….
Can we still call you Shirley?
Surely you can’t be serious. :-)
St. Elmo’s fire, how very eighties
I hope the fella in the toilet wasn’t sitting down at the time when it happened as it could have been right messy for him
Moral of the story… Cockpit crew got this aircraft on the ground safely! Amazing, well done to all involved
Moral of the story is wear your seat belt throughout the flight as you never know when turbulance can hit.
All that being said, I do love turbulance; like being on a rollorcoaster!
Maybe they should fit seatbelts on the toilets too :-P
Imagine if you were getting jiggy with someone in the jacks when that turbulence hit. Woooo!!
It was the left phalange again :)
Why was the passenger in the doing in the toilet 150km out from landing?
They would have been well into their dissent and the fasten seat belt sign would have already been on for quite some time.
Classic failure of the high density flowback continuator.
Damn. You got in their first with the Father Ted reference.
Carbon copy of Air France 447 circumstances which resulted in all 228 dead including three Irish doctors. Ice in pitot tubes problem remains a major danger. Also anyone who read the report will frown at the cockamamie take the copilot has spun about why she conveniently failed to preserve the cockpit voice recording..
scary
What was the pilot doing?
He was quitting amphetamines. Picked the wrong day though.
The first officer (co-pilot) was the pilot flying that flight. The captain (pilot) was pilot monitoring, though at that stage of the flight it would have been the autopilot.
How do you know so much Robyn about the cockpit crew?
Because it’s in the report.
“In the new report it concludes that the airspeed instrument that co-pilot was looking at could have been blocked by cold weather.”
It could have been blocked with ice too. Although most pitot tubes on aircraft are heated to prevent that from happening.
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