Plane headed into Pittsburgh with hydraulic failure has landed safely

[qanda]

On Edit: The plane has landed safely.

A plane reported to have hydraulic failure has landed safely at Pittsburgh International Airport this afternoon. Details to follow.


www.kdka.com

[BOSSHOG]

1. Now THAT is late breaking news

[Duer 157099]

10. Hmmm, sounds more like Not Breaking News

I hope they figure out how to deal with this

[Kingshakabobo]

2. That doesn't sound good. n/t

[SmokingJacket]

3. Uh-oh.

It's reeeealy hard to land a plane without hydraulics. :scared:

[MaineDem]

6. Sure is

Wishing them success!

[havocmom]

4. DU Pilots and plane techs... tell us what that means please

have a hunch that flaps and landing gear might not work well?

[karlrschneider]

11. Depends on the type of plane. Many would have NO

control surfaces working without hydraulics. Looking for more info.
The Sioux City UAL crash was similar.

[havocmom]

17. Sorta what I figured

Hope the plane was a model that glides well

[sofa king]

19. Have to try to land with engines.

About a decade or more ago something similar happened and the pilots managed to line up and crash on the runway using the engines alone, which was an excellent piece of flying. There were some survivors.

Edit: That was Flight 232, as mentioned below by Kingshakabobo. That article says that in simulations, no pilot has since managed to duplicate the feat. Perhaps someone has today.

[Kingshakabobo]

20. Whew! Glad they are OK. 232 was especially bad because all...

......the lines were SEVERED by an engine explosion and it caused complete failure/loss of pressure. Even the back-ups were gone.

Since then, they moved the lines/back-up lines to separate locations in case of another catastrophic failure.

The big planes have a drop-down propeller that will run the pumps in case of power loss. I believe it will run the pumps in case of pump-motor loss as well. Either way, they do not have 100% assist and the plane is still a bear to handle.

[Kingshakabobo]

16. Private pilot here. I'm thinking of ........."United 232"

Without knowing what type of plane it is or the cause of the failure, it's hard to say......but it might not be pretty.

The big airliners have back-up power sources that SHOULD run run the hydraulics. The problem with 232 was the lines were severed at the tail and caused total failure/loss of pressure.

[karlrschneider]

18. KDKA now sez landed okay

...

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Ah foam and belly landings

it will be a good landing if almost everybody or all walk away.

[underpants]

7. Rothlisberger?

again?

[RebelOne]

8. Oh boy, that's going to be a rough landing.

[Alexander]

9. My friend is on his way to Pittsburgh...

He left late last night from Phoenix.

I suspect he got there already (he left at like 10 pm last night) - but who knows, with airport delays.

[Strathos]

12. MAN!!! You have no idea how badly that scared me

My partner travels for a living and is flying into Pittsburgh.

I just read the plane landed safely, not sure if it was my partner's or not.

BUT WHEW!!!

[yodermon]

13. damn, Pittsburgh!

first Roethlisberger, now this!
:scared:

[boise1]

14. Plane has landed safely according to the above link

[thereismore]

15. They should be spraying a lot of that special foam on a remote

runway about now. Hope all ends well. :grouphug:

[Divernan]

21. An "American Eagle Express"plane

capable of holding 50 to 100 passengers, according to the latest on KDKA. What airline would that be with? USAir?

On edit: Just looked it up - it's an affiliate of American Airlines.