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The same DAL plane that had flight control problems yesterday at KGPT, now has same issue departing KATL

Übermittelt vor 7 Jahren

A Delta Airlines Boeing 717-200, registration N965AT performing flight DL-1752 from Atlanta,GA to Savannah,GA (USA) with 116 people on board, was climbing out of Atlanta's runway 09L when the crew stopped the climb at 5000 feet advising they were probably going to return to Atlanta and entered a hold for about 25 minutes, then declared emergency reporting a flight controls issue (avherald.com) Mehr...

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Rick Hunt vor 7 Jahren 3

To Tony Perez: I've lost a suction pump in solid IFR and the controller knew exactly what that meant when I stated that. Even small aircraft have an electric turn coordinator and a magnetic compass so navigating the aircraft is not an issue. Controlling it with a "partial panel" involves a higher workload but any comptent and current IFR pilot should be able to handle it with no problem.

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Bernie20910 vor 7 Jahren 3

I wish the article(s) said just what kind of "flight control problem" was being encountered.

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dee9bee vor 7 Jahren 1

I agree with Bernie. In the rare occasions I had 'flap problems', I told ATC I had a 'flap problem', not a 'flight control problem'. Needing a greater than normal approach speed COULD be due to a flap problem or a number of other things.

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sparkie624 vor 7 Jahren 0

Note my comment above.. .I would guess Flaps or Slat. By the sounds of probably an asymmetry. If they did get a Flap or Slat Asymmetry then the flaps would have been inhibited and they would have had to do a Flap Slat up landing and that is a lot faster! I hope both of their TR's were working! :)

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toolguy105 vor 7 Jahren 1

Given the high speed landing I would say the flight control problem had to do with the flaps. I do have one question, pilot declares an emergency why was the emergency equipment not standing by at the runway. That to me was an Alert Two situation. Landing at 205 knots even on the longest runway, possibly overweight meant at the very least hot breaks which could lead to a break fire. Even if the pilot does not request the equipment the tower can.

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toolguy105 vor 7 Jahren 1

When I was in the Air Force my specialty was Flight Controls and heavy maintenance. One of the biggest problems in fixing a flaps or slats problem is isolating just what system is causing the problem, is it electrical or hydraulic? On most occasions that I was involved in it was electrical and intermittent. Which of course ground checked okay. I'm not surprised it suffered the same problem two days in a row. My guess it is electrical and I pity those who now have to check miles of wiring for an open in the cable or where the plastic insulation has worn through.

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gerardo godoy vor 7 Jahren 1

People who write "Aviation ralated articles" should have knowledge of aviation, the guy who wrote this probably knows about steam engines but not aviation...totally ridiculous.

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toolguy105 vor 7 Jahren 1

Agreed

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Mike Petro vor 7 Jahren 1

Those who operate complex equipment in most cases aren't the ones who have to keep it operating properly or repair it when it fails. A clear and accurate description of symptoms is great; however many failures have multiple potential root causes and when it's an intermittent failure, one's troubleshooting ability will have to be relied upon to find the one (or in some cases the more than one) source of the problem. This is never fun; particularly when many lives are on the line!

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matt jensen vor 7 Jahren 1

Then I guess they only patched it in GPT

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Torsten Hoff vor 7 Jahren -1

Does anyone want to guess how big a fine they will incur?

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bentwing60 vor 7 Jahren 0

Zero for the declared emergencies, maybe for maintanance deficiencies, if the FAA has anybody that can figure it out anymore.

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sparkie624 vor 7 Jahren 6

Probably no fine at all. The company obviously held the plane down to work out the issues. They made an honest effort to fix it, but apparently missed something, or there were 2 problems. It could have also been an in flight issue only! It will draw attention from the FAA, but certainly no fines and unless the FAA finds obvious deficiencies such Rig or Lock Pins/devices, Tools, or other devices where they should not been they probably won't incur any FAA Penalties. Things happen and just because you fix a problem, we people in maintenance aren't perfect and with some of the write ups that we get you almost have to be a genius to interpret what some of these write up are really saying.

Had a captain just last week wrote up "Lateral Axis of the A/P is inop". There maintenance control deferred the Auto Pilot. Once I got into troubleshooting it was not the A/P at all... It was the Yaw Dampner 1 giving the issue, but with the write up that was given most mechanics would not be able to figure that out. I used computer diagnostics of the A/C electrical components to figure it out, but the 717 is a very basic aircraft and you cannot use that method of troubleshooting, so sometimes it is the guess work of the mechanic to figure out what the captain has to say, and sometimes you have to track down the captain and get him to explain it.... Especially if it is only something that happens in the air.

I remember once we had multiple crews writing up that the Elevator was running out of Trim. We troubleshoot and rerigged that elevator system 5 times in 7 days. We finally got a crew for a test flight with 20 mechanics on board running from the front of the a/c to the back and our lead in the jump seat to watch what was happening. The crews were not writing it up correction and once we saw what was going on we fixed it and the problem never came back again.... Sometimes these issues are physical communication issues with the crew.

My advice is to be as clear and exact as possible, If the mechanics have questions, answer them as best as possible. If you have to be a Shakespear in writing things up, it is better than "Auto Pilot INOP" of which I have seen many times. We once had a captain that we call Captain Shake Spear, and I have seen him take 2 full log pages for one item... But one thing was certain. By the time we finished reading the novel we knew what the problem was and was able to fix it the first time around.

Sorry for the rant... I am now ready for the flaming :)

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Tom Bruce vor 7 Jahren 2

thanks Sparky... unable to duplicate problem on the ground one of the toughest challenges... happy to hear pilot declare "emergency"... as a controller I would move heaven and earth to help...even if I didn't understand the technical issues... spent lots of time troubleshooting com/nav problems... once spent a couple of hours in the wing and engine nacelles of a C124...engines running...to track down an intermittent inter phone problem..ugh

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Tony Perez vor 7 Jahren 2

Same when pilots declare an emergency to the tower and all they say is "I have a vacuum pump failure!" The average ATC won't know that means loss of instruments so he can't navigate.

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toolguy105 vor 7 Jahren 1

No rant here. Your pilots are former AF pilots especially older ones. loved getting white ups on planes like the B52 and C141 " Left or right Wing flying heavy". Always found to be a fuel management problem. Bad fuel placement during refuel in air or on C141 ENGINEER not managing the fuel properly. Initial squawks fixed with pencil, "Ground checked okay request in flight Check." Only once did we we rig a B52 to specifications and the pilots hated that plane.

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Torsten Hoff vor 7 Jahren 1

Sparky, at what point after maintenance is a test flight expected or required before you can start carrying passengers again? For minor issues that obviously doesn't make sense, but what about flight control problems?

The flaps or slats would have been extended for takeoff, so if you can't retract them that wouldn't really a much longer runway (you'd be in takeoff instead of landing configuration, but that would be managable). If you get asymmetric retraction you extend again and are back to reasonable speeds. Flaps and slats also wouldn't have triggered a mid-flight emergency on the flight before, unless they suddenly self-deployed. I'm thinking something else was going on.

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sparkie624 vor 7 Jahren 0

That varies.... If you have to rig a flight control it does not require one, but if you replace a primary Flight Control (Aileron, Elevator, Rudder) then it is required. There is no real golden rule, usually maintenance control will call for a Maintenance Test flight if there is something that we are not 100% comfortable with, or if it has a big history. I would say that if I was working Maintenance Control on this Boeing 717, I would be calling for a Maintenance Test Flight.. IMHO.

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Roy Hunte vor 7 Jahren 1

I like the part of the 20 mechanics running from the front to the back, that must have been some sight to see!

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sparkie624 vor 7 Jahren 1

You should have been there... It was quite fun really to go out for a flight and literally be running from the front to the back of the plane! All of this at 2 AM in the morning!

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william baker vor 7 Jahren 0

Turns up the heat for some flaming lmfao.

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sparkie624 vor 7 Jahren 1

By the nature of asking for a longer runway and had to land faster than usual, it is my guess that they had either Flaps or Slat issues. Being at the companies home base they probably wanted to keep the plane there and they knew they needed a lot of runway and KATL had it.

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The same DAL plane that had flight control problems yesterday at KGPT, now has same issue departing KATL

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