US Hub Opening Event |
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The third event of 2006 almost coincided with EuroHarmony's opening of our first continental USA hub; Atlanta Hartsfield [KATL]. The theme of the event was an EHM ATC team providing control at Hartsfield for a few hours to allow our pilots to arrive and depart with a guarantee of control at some point in the chain. Given the three-man ATC team, pilot participation was once again good, but the weather could have been much better - heavy winds (16-24kts) at ground level that swung round from 290 to 355 during the evening. Due to circumstances outside my own control, I have no pictures whatsoever from the event, despite running KATL_TWR "live" using IvAi/IvAc/FS (and I would have had a good few corking shots of Robert on his fateful approach - see below). If any of you that took part have any text-based contributions to make (flight reports, etc.), please forward them to the [ Online Flying Department ]. Further pictures/videos can added to the gallery/screenshot forum and will be linked back from here if you send a reminder to the email address above. Brief precise; we opened KZTL and KATL a little after 1900Z. Pilots trickled through while we were open, both departures and arrivals (in some cases both) and we definitely had too many emergencies! We eventually closed all facilities just after 2130Z - TWR (myself) being the last away. |
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Participants: The ATC Team
And Pilots
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| PIREP from Robert Szikszo (EHM1001) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| At 18:30Z I entered the network. I selected a 1100nm route to arrive in the middle time of the given ATC appearance. I selected Denver - KDEN as a good point to start. I like this airport very much. I jumped into my 747 and started preparations. As this is Class4 route, I did not expect to make a PIREP from the flight. Everything went fine: flightplan was made with FSNAV, 255 passengers and 30% fuel boarded by FSP. We were ready for start. There were only 2 737 planes from Al Andalus VA departing from Denver. They were very kind and give me advantage on takeoff. It was heavy raining and quite foggy weather. 9% of pax were afraid, as usual in this weather. When I reached rwy 25 the wind changed 90 degrees so we took off in strong left sidewind, although it did not affect the plane too much. I forgot to apply elevator trim so we jumped at 200kts with screaming tyres. The rest of the route was calm and easy. There was no traffic and no ATC. Then suddenly Memphis center went online. We had a nice conversation why I did not follow the zigzag-y jetways on some points of the flight. He tought me some practical things too regarding the flight. Somewhere over Memphis FSP disconnected and I lost my 255 pax and crew... Then I entered into friendly range of Atlanta center. Sven gave me radar vectors for final approach. I heard as a nasty passenger was causing several emergency landing on Bruno's airplane. There was heavy traffic in the region. A lot of KLM planes were leaving for New York. At last I got clearance to descend to 4000. There was complete fog, I flew into milk. Winds were heavy and varying too much. Autothrottle could not maintain the speed at 200, so I turned it off. Then I got clearance for final turn for the ILS 27R and Sven passed me to KATL TWR. This was the time when I established already on the glide slope but lost voice communication. I tried to keep the plane on track while contacted with TWR via text. I decided to switch to APP hold, but forgot to apply enough thrust. This, and varying winds caused me to leave the trajectory many times, and I could not control the descending speed by thrust settings. On the last 2 miles I thought everything is OK. I came in at 130kts but did not recognized I was too low. Then houses and finally the runway appeared from the fog, and the warning voice started to countdown "300 - 200 - 100" I realized I am too far from the runway and too low. Quickly disconnected A/P, the plane bowed left and left the trajectory, while I hit the ground ... @ & # % + ... | ||||||||||||||||||||
| NTSB investigation of crash at Atlanta Hartford Int'l airport 2006-03-24 20:55Z | ||||||||||||||||||||
| EHM Flight 4826 crashed on landing at Atlanta Hartford Int'l. Investigation found several problems with the airplane. It is known that pilot lost communication with the crew over Memphis, only 30 minutes before landing. ATC crew in the tower lost communication with the plane that tried to land on its final approach. It is not impeachable there was a sabotage on the plane while it tried to land at Atlanta. According the telemetry recorder, the airplane was bouncing in the strong winds continously from 4000' to landing. The pilot disconnected autothrottle and did not apply enough thrust manually while extended gears and flaps before touchdown. This led the plane 2 times to almost stall, but the pilot managed to keep it in the air by disconnecting the autopilot and give max thrust. In these situations the airplane left the trajectory by15 degrees to the right, presumably because of the sidewinds. When the speed stabilzed the pilot re-engaged autpoliot and the plane returned to the correct vector. On the last 2 miles due to low thrust again, the airplane got too low and could not keep up the 3 degrees gliding path. Before touchdown, the pilot tried a last desperate move to avoid crashing into the ground but it was too late. The airplane fall off 200 yards before the runway. The strong sidewind pushed the plane off the track before the accident, which resulted the plane to hit utility buildings and some hangers right to the runway. The airplane structure could not live on the strong hit it got. Gears collapsed and all the 4 engines blow up resulting a giant fireball on the ground and that wings broke off from the unstoppable fuselage that hit the buildings. Investigation reports that both technical and human failures caused the accident that resulted 170 dies and a huge damage on the south area of the airport. Fortunately there were 100 survivor with several injuries... | ||||||||||||||||||||