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#11
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Why the river?
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#12
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Why the river?
On Jan 17, 9:33*pm, Cyrus Afzali wrote:
On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:51:14 -0800 (PST), wrote: It makes me wonder. With so many airports just seconds away, the pilot chooses water. Can't wait to hear why. Seconds? You've got to be kidding me? The only airport that was a legitimate option at that location is a general aviation airport in Teterboro, N.J. It handles business jet traffic, but not commercial. LaGuardia, Newark and JFK are all both more than seconds away for a plane that has no power. Really, this isn't that hard. I did a little measuring and calculating: Glide ratio for the A320: 17:1 Altitude: 3000' Maximum distance without engines: 3000 X 17 / 5280 = 9.7 miles (does not take into account the loss of altitude when making turns) distance to Teterboro: 9 miles (130 seconds away @ 250mph) distance to LaGuardia: 3.5 miles (50 seconds away @ 250mph) distance to JFK: 13 miles (190 seconds away @ 250mph) distance to where it landed: 7 miles 3000' doesn't get you as far as I would have expected. If they had attempted Teterboro, they would have ended up in some industrial building before the runway. JFK would be worse, but what about LaGuardia? It's only half as far as where they chose. |
#13
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Why the river?
wrote in message ... On Jan 17, 9:33 pm, Cyrus Afzali wrote: On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:51:14 -0800 (PST), wrote: It makes me wonder. With so many airports just seconds away, the pilot chooses water. Can't wait to hear why. Seconds? You've got to be kidding me? The only airport that was a legitimate option at that location is a general aviation airport in Teterboro, N.J. It handles business jet traffic, but not commercial. LaGuardia, Newark and JFK are all both more than seconds away for a plane that has no power. Really, this isn't that hard. I did a little measuring and calculating: Glide ratio for the A320: 17:1 Altitude: 3000' Maximum distance without engines: 3000 X 17 / 5280 = 9.7 miles (does not take into account the loss of altitude when making turns) distance to Teterboro: 9 miles (130 seconds away @ 250mph) distance to LaGuardia: 3.5 miles (50 seconds away @ 250mph) distance to JFK: 13 miles (190 seconds away @ 250mph) distance to where it landed: 7 miles 3000' doesn't get you as far as I would have expected. If they had attempted Teterboro, they would have ended up in some industrial building before the runway. JFK would be worse, but what about LaGuardia? It's only half as far as where they chose. ****ING armchair quarterbacks. FOAD, eh? |
#14
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Why the river?
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#15
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Why the river?
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#16
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Why the river?
In article ,
John Doe wrote: The big question is whether it would have been operationally possible to get the plane to do a 360 and head back to the runway it had taken off from, and have airport clear the path in time for the plane to land there without a collision with another aircraft. Remember that there were likely other planes that had already taken off behind that US Air one, so those would have had to veer off in the right direction to let the US Air do its 360 turn. Might have been substantially more than a 360. According to the animation I think he had already made a couple turns by the time he ate the birds. |
#17
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Why the river?
Josh wrote:
The consequence of not making the runway on the first try would have almost certainly been catastrophic to both the occupants of the plane as well as those on the ground, and I believe they had to know that the chance of success at that was low. Looking at a map, there is plenty of water around LGA. The east river does have some arms that provide landing oppportunities in various directions. If he had managed to line up to land on 13 (he took off from 31 which is the same runway), there would have been a fair stretch of water before reaching the runway treshhold (although the riker's island bridge might be an obstacle). Similarly, if he had made a right turn and circled back to align to runway 22, there was plenty of ocean water ahead of the runway treshhold. Hudson river probably provided a smoother surface to land on than ocean water. But I think the biggest driving factor may have been the fact that it is easier to decide to aim at something that is ahead of you which you can see and judge, rather than decide to turn around and aim for something which is behind you and which you can't see. They couldn't get a "feel" for how far LGA was since they couldn't see it. Logic may have shown that they could have reached LGA, but the pilots didn't have such information. |
#18
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Why the river?
"Cyrus Afzali" wrote in message ... I'm not sure you understood what I wrote. No, looks like I was responding to the wrong person. My apologies. Bob M. |
#19
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Why the river?
I love all these people without knowledge of the NYC metro area that
say he was SECONDS away from three airports. That's just patently not true and THAT was what I was responding to. Add to that, Teterboro is a corporate/general aviation airport; it was not built to accommodate even short to medium-sized jetliners using Teterboro has a 7,000 foot runway, the same length as the runways at LGA. If the plane had been somewhat higher, it would have been a reasonable place to land. The limit to GA is due to noise and local opposition, not technical issues. R's, John |
#20
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Why the river?
"John Levine" wrote in message ... I love all these people without knowledge of the NYC metro area that say he was SECONDS away from three airports. That's just patently not true and THAT was what I was responding to. Add to that, Teterboro is a corporate/general aviation airport; it was not built to accommodate even short to medium-sized jetliners using Teterboro has a 7,000 foot runway, the same length as the runways at LGA. If the plane had been somewhat higher, it would have been a reasonable place to land. The limit to GA is due to noise and local opposition, not technical issues. R's, John Let's just face it. The pilot had to make a quick decision. In this case, he made the right choice. If someone had to do the same thing next week, it may not turn out so good. |
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