Airbus A330 Flies For 25 Minutes Over The Pacific With Both Engines Out
Nowhere except the headline is "25 minutes" mentioned (I searched). The article says that they descended 13,000 feet, and restarted the engines. Probably about 6-7 minutes without engine power, at most.
I will preface this by saying that I know nothing about Airbus..... But just thinking about the 737-200 the ceiling for the APU was 25k feet thought can't remember the specifics beyond that. I guess I could see the scenario where you lose your engines at 39k and then make a gentle descent down to go over emergency procedures and get down where you can light up the APU and then relight the engines when you are at an altitude more suitable. What Don said about the time sounds more realistic..... Anybody know how long the Gimli glider went for? They were at 41k but I don't seen any time/distance info and am too lazy to do the math.
Another A330 glider, which based on the article puts your number spot on. Air Transat Flight 236 - Ask.com Encyclopedia "The descent rate of the plane was about 2,000 feet (600 metres) per minute."
They also have the RAT to provide power. Not familiar enough with turbines but the engines will be windmilling quite fast, so do they still need the starter to re-light?
It depends on how high you are and how fast you are going. A friend of mine had a double flameout in a Learjet 25, at around 40,000 feet. He didn't mess around with trying to prolong the glide or anything-- he descended at MMO to (I think) around FL300, and relit the engines. If you're going fast enough, a windmilling air start is the way to go. Just turn the ignition on, add fuel, and it should start. In the case of the Gimli Glider, they didn't have any gas, so it wasn't a question of trying to relight. They would have descended as slowly as they could.
a little less 'dramatic license" in this version Incident: Singapore A333 near Hong Kong on May 23rd 2015, temporary loss of power on both engines
I think the title is misleading. Over the course of 25 minutes at its cruising speed of 470 knots, the A330 would have covered 225 miles while dropping only 13,000 feet. That’s a glide slope of 95:1, something not achieved by gliders. Even if you consider the speed would have dropped once the engines cut out, let’s say it slowed to its stall speed of 120 knots, the glide slope would have been 24:1. By comparison the Gimli glider managed a glide slope of 12:1. Perhaps the 25 minutes refers to the time it was over water, not the time the engines were out?
By the way, what is the turbine relighting ceiling for these engines? Did they decend to get into a relighting condition or did it take the crew 7-8 minutes of trying to achieve relighting? Regards, Art S.
I don't know what it is on the A330, but I think 30,000 feet is pretty typical. They might have gotten it going in less than 7-8 minutes, I would think 7-8 minutes would be the max. They have to get out the checklist, too... that must have been a bit of a cluster, in that cockpit. My buddy in the Lear 25 was an instructor in the airplane (and they had been having a run of flameouts over the past year). Ironically, his fairly inexperienced copilot had just asked him about flameouts before the first one went, so they already had the checklist out! Most jets, though, if you're in a pinch, get below 30,000 feet, look for core rotation above about 15-20% and any fan rotation, turn on the ignition, give it fuel, and it should go. If it doesn't, there is something else wrong. The problem guys get into is if they did all that checklist stuff about securing the engine. Then they have to undo all that stuff before it will start. That said, you do at least want to make sure the fuel is off after it flames out...
No, I'm saying no matter how you slice it there's no way it was powerless for 25 minutes and dropped only 13k feet.
