This time the quotations are from work

[kaberett]

The climate system is an angry beast, and we are poking at it with sticks. --Wallace S. Broecker, quoted as the last sentence of a paper I read the other day (alas I cannot remember which).

In June 1982, south of Jakarta, Indonesia, a British Airways Boeing 747 flew into a volcanic cloud from an eruption of Galunggung volcano. Airborne volcanic ash abraded the outside of the aircraft, melted as it passed through the jet turbines, and coated internal parts, causing complete loss of thrust. This prompted Captain Eric Moody to announce, while maintaining true British unflappability, "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress." After descending to within a few hundred meters of the mountaintops on Java, the crew were able to restart all engines and make a safe landing, an incredible feat given the damage to the aircraft and the lack of knowledge regarding how to react in such a situation. -- opening paragraph of Durant et al. (2010), Atmospheric and environmental impacts of volcanic particulates, Elements, 6:235-240

Comments

[kaberett]

(In which I note that in technical parlance, a "safe landing" is one from which you can walk away; a "good landing" is one in which the plane doesn't need repair afterwards.

Also, feats of heroics by aeroplane pilots give me similar RIGHT IN THE FEELS INSTA-TEARS as do the exploits of the RNLI & related organisations. I am very, very capable of spending hours at a time weeping over the lifeboats, okay. From the "Annals of Shit Alex Has Done In Public"...)

[crazyscot]

*squish* The insta-tears sometimes come for me when I read about people going in and rescuing other people.

Have you read a fuller write-up of the Galunggung incident? St Elmo's Fire, windscreen rendered almost opaque by the ash (and another memorable Moody quote)...

Pliny Norman writes...

[hairyears]

Can you link to a fuller write-up of the
Galunggung incident?

Re: Pliny Norman writes...

[crazyscot]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9 covers it fairly well; http://goption.com/2007/01/the_galunggung/ has a little more detail. There's also a book entitled All Four Engines Have Failed which gets good reviews (not that I've read it).

When the going gets tephra...

[hairyears]

Ta. I read the Wikipedia page, but the other link is new to me.

Wben the Boeing gets tephra

[hairyears]

Ta. I read the Wikipedia page, but the other link is new to me.

[bjh21.me.uk]

My favourite tear-worthy AAIB report is that on the windscreen blow-out on G-BJRT (http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/formal_reports/1_1992__g_bjrt.cfm). Particularly the Southampton approach controller in the RTF transcript (Appendix A), reassuring the clearly rather scared first officer.

[jamfish]

Yes, RIGHT IN THE FEELS. I love it. 'About that time, eh, chaps?' :') Also, the thing with volcanic ash stopping the engines—that is totally the basis of an Important Plot Thing in the one scifi story I dared to research and write. ACCURACY! SORTA! \0/