When pilots still knew their aerodynamics

[KL-666]

I came across this interview with a pilot of an Olympic 747 that floated on rooftop-effect over Athens in 1978.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9YzsO_ZPGI

Near rotation speed, the plane lost an engine which set off the sprinklers in all engines. Resulting in a dramatic loss of thrust. The plane flew well under maneuvering speed very near stall and could barely be held in the air. This pilot understood that any attempt to maneuver at this speed would result in an immediate stall.

I find the knowledge of the aerodynamics of his plane interesting to see, because it is very unlike the lack of knowledge of many pilots nowadays. We all know the stories of them going wild on the stick when it is absolutely inappropriate.

Kind regards, Vincent

[IAHM-COL]

OhMy!

He certainly faced lots of serious decision moments, while scratching rooftoops with a cute 747 belly!
And, I can see how his superior understanding of the aircraft behavior saved everyone on board, plus a several hundred athenas' residents!!

I found great luck on the fact that the Pilot Engineer did succeed giving them thrust so they could increase the airspeed out of the no-way-but-down zone, and that they all made it safe and sound back to RWY.

Great history!
Thanks for Sharing KL666

[Lydiot]

Yeah, interesting to watch.

[SHM]

Nice video.

[HJ1an]

Nice story. Can't find this incident on wikipedia though (didn't check other places - yet). That the speed was dipping to 158 under the 180 limit is almost 30 difference.. I'm assuming Boeing engineers wrote with this margin of error in mind? Or less?

It would be interesting if someone could chart out the speed/path graphs and see just how close the plane was scarping the rooftops.

Also, I don't quite understand about the fire extinguisher going off in all engines. Was this done by accident, or a fault with the aircraft, or triggered as a result of the initial damage to the engine?

[KL-666]

It did not crash, did it? The internet can not know about something that was maybe once short in the world news long before it's existence. You'll have to call the Greek authorities if they still have a paper copy of this incident somewhere in a cellar.

Edit:
Coming to think of it, not only the internet did not exist in 1978, but also pc's did not exist. Offices worked with paper and typewriters. Pc's started to breakthrough in the offices during the 80-ies, and the internet in the graphical form as we know it in the late 90-ies. Just to give some perspective to young people for whom the internet has always existed.

Edit2:
And even in this century pc's and the internet for home use remained for the interested (not only for geeks anymore). The second breakthrough came with the iphone, connecting everybody to the internet and getting the last sceptics and disinteresteds interested in getting fast internet at home too.

Actually Nokia was way ahead with building wifi chips in phones. But they only did in their flagships, which were huge bricks. I still have them. For once i have been a trendsetter

Kind regards, Vincent

[HJ1an]

Yes - I'm quite aware of the internet not existing for everybody back then. On the other hand, I am lucky enough to be growing up in a fairly high tech city (now constantly downgrading, thanks more-idiotic-than-usual politicians) and were able to meet with people who worked on computers (those huge paper punch machines), and later on mainframe/workstations, and then PCs and early Apple ][s. In fact I started toying with computers in 1985 I think.

Wikipedia, on the other hand, had always been retroactively updated, especially aviation incidents such as this one.. surely we can find most of the modern incidents in detail on wikipedia. Before this, I knew of some aviation incidents & accidents from books and magazines.

Since this was quite a significant incident (well to me at least) I'm surprised someone didn't write it into wikipedia. Although safe to say maybe we/I should start on it. Though much research needed to be filled in.. I don't even understand how the extinguishers went into all engines in the first place..

[SHM]

I don't even understand how the extinguishers went into all engines in the first place..

Maybe a design flaw which was fixed in the later versions

[KL-666]

Since this was quite a significant incident (well to me at least)

To the world news it was not. I looked in the scanned dutch news papers of 1978, and could not find a trace of the incident itself. Only a back reference a month later in a general article on Olympic Airways. There the writer argued that Olympic was one big mess, except for this little dot of light: the pilot of that plane.

I bet Greek papers must have written more about it. But i can not read them. And we all know that journalists are not the most accurate in understanding aviation matters. No, there is just one thing that can be done for a correct wiki article: Lay hands on the report. The Greek aviation authorities only publish back to 2013 on their site, so you have to contact them about this report. I have no idea how many years a report must be kept, but if it is over time now, you are in bad luck. I do wish you luck.

Kind regards, Vincent

[SHM]

Would have been a nice report to read though

Back when there was no FBW huh Vincent

PS it would have went into direct law.