For the last week or so the National Geographic Channel has been showing some shows on Airline disasters. Very interesting and a little scary to watch. Probably not the best thing to watch before you go flying off somewhere on vacation! It is unbelievable the amount of work that the NTSB does to find out the causes of these crashes. I cannot belive how hard it must be to reconstruct a airliner from millions of tiny pieces!I was very suprised at the DC-9/ MD80 etc.. T tail design. Basically it was said, it is one of the only Commuter aircraft that goes against the basic rules of designing an aircraft. The T tail design is not fail safe or does not have a back up feature designed into it in case of the failure. Which was the cause of a Alaska Airlines crash a few years ago. Are there any other aircraft out there like this? Just wondering, I would be interested in finding out.Any way, thought it would be of interest to people here on AVSIM that might like to watch and were not aware. Check your local listings.Thanks,EricAVSIM [email protected]

1) crashes are never "great"2) the DC-9/MD-80 series is not a commuter3) the T-tail was a deliberate choice to allow tail mounted engines which are further from the ground making safe operation on unpaved and dirty runways possible (no vacuum cleaner air intakes close to the ground.4) other T-tails: Tu-134, I;-62, VC-10, etc. etc.5) our cable company removed NGC for a 24 hours shopping channel a few years ago, don't remind me please :-mad :-fume :-grr :-8 :-violin

>>other T-tails: Tu-134, I;-62, VC-10, etc. etc.<

If I remember right the MD80 and DC-9 had a major flaw with the Jack Screw that controled the elevator movement. Alaskan Airlines had one go down off the coast of Southern California. If I remember right the Screw Jack is suppost to be inspected and grease so many flight hours. It wasn't so on that flight the screw jack stripped. The flight was doomed from that point on having no elevator controls. If I remember the black box showed some high G forces that the aircraft took.Justin

Quote"If I remember right the Screw Jack is suppost to be inspected and grease so many flight hours"Absolutely, so contrary to what Jwenting says there is nothing wrong with the design of the Dc-9, it was a maintenance issue.CheersLungs

you got me wrong. I never said there was anything wrong with the DC-9...That was the OP, not me.

Regardless of your thoughts on the MD-80 design, you can't argue with the statistics. It is one of the safest planes in the skies.http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm

I know it is, it's someone else who thinks it's inherently unsafe.Again, you're trying to put words in my mouth either deliberately or by replying to the wrong post.

I never said it was a "unsafe" airplane. I said, that it was stated on the show, that it is a design that did not include any failsafe or backup features if the T-tail failed. This was the cause of the Alaska Airlines crash. It was because of a maint. issue, not greasing the Jack screw (I think thats what it was called), but if it had any redundant features built in, it could have saved a few hundred lives. I was also interested in seeing if there were any other aircraft out there that had the same type of design flaws in them. I thought some readers here at AVSIM would be interested in seeing the shows. They are very interesting.The last one I saw was about a Swiss Air flight where an Airbus (I think) ran out of gas over the Atlantic ocean. The crew had to land while the plane was gliding down. It was unbelievable how the crew handled the emergancy landing. The cause was due to a major gas leak and pilot error. It must have been pretty scary to, all of a sudden, have the plane go absolutely quiet when the engines went out!!!!Well check them out if your interested. Makes for good discussion here.Thanks,EricAVSIM [email protected]

That was an Air Transat A330, not Swissair.Was not pilot error, the leak was not detected by the fuel flow gauges so all he noticed was the tank draining faster than the other which made him think there was a problem with the pumps in the other tank. He opened the crossfeed valves which caused the other tanks to drain as well.By the time the crew found out what was happening they were almost dry.

>See the one on the Aero Peru 757 that crashed in the 90's. >When they washed the plane someone put tape over the Static>Vents. The plane took off late at night with low vis and all>the Guages went crazy. They thought they where at 25,000ft>but flew into the sea!Pete: Yes I saw that one too. I could not believe when they found out it was caused by tape over the static vent. The pilots were way overloaded with all the warnings and false instrument readings! I did think that they, National Geographic or whoever made the show, did a great job recreating what happened. They used the real flight recordings to recreate the way things happened up there!EricAVSIM [email protected]

>That was an Air Transat A330, not Swissair.>>Was not pilot error, the leak was not detected by the fuel>flow gauges so all he noticed was the tank draining faster>than the other which made him think there was a problem with>the pumps in the other tank. He opened the crossfeed valves>which caused the other tanks to drain as well.>By the time the crew found out what was happening they were>almost dry.I thought after they investigated the crew that they found the crew did not follow the correct procedures. Weren't they supposed to shut off the crossfeed after it did not correct the problem? Thus isolating the fault and save some of the fuel?Not sure but you might be right. I watched it pretty late at night.Sorry about the wrong airline. Like I said it was pretty late...Thanks,Eric

Hi Jeroen!"(...) our cable company removed NGC for a 24 hours shopping channel a few years ago (...)"Another sad example of the policies of our Dutch cable companies. I remember the veritable battle it took, ten or fifteen years ago, to persuade the Amsterdam cable head honchos to deliver Discovery Channel! The consumers won in the end, but it sure took some erffort!Be well!Jaap Verduijn.