Bad MSFS Model vs. A Real 737?

[united001 126]

I'm not sure where to put this in the forums, so I'll put it here just for fun. I've never seen a picture
of an airliner in the real world doing this, so at first glance one could conjecture that it's just a pic
of a screwy MSFS model, in this case a 737 sporting an all too common United Airlines theme. 
This actually happened yesterday up in Pullman, Washington to this USC charger for the Trojans
to play the Cougars today:

https://thespun.com/pac-12/usc/scary-photo-of-college-football-plane-is-going-viral

How could that happen? FAA investigation?

United001

 

[snglecoil 1,828]

“Be careful opening the overhead bins as contents may have shifted in flight”

[Bobsk8 12,745]

They forgot to install the tail stand, Ramp error. https://hallindustries.com/products/tail-support-stand One of Boeing's design features to sell tail stands I guess. 

\

Edited September 18, 2021 by Bobsk8

[swiesma 625]

[Steve Dra 7,588]

Pretty easy to guess how it happened.

Coach: "Ok All you linemen... in the rear....QBs, TEs, Safety's in the front."  Inevitable. 🤣

At departure...she had fuel and the CG was calc'd to be in limits....when she landed...with all that fuel gone and a bunch of 250+ pounders in the rear...again, inevitable. 🙂

All they had to do to tip her back on her kilt was to have a few linemen from the rear head up to 1st class. 🙄

 

[Bobsk8 12,745]

1 minute ago, Steve Dra said:

Pretty easy to guess how it happened.

Coach: "Ok All you linemen... in the rear....QBs, TEs, Safety's in the front."  Inevitable. 🤣

At departure...she had fuel and the CG was calc'd to be in limits....when she landed...with all that fuel gone and a bunch of 250+ pounders in the rear...again, inevitable. 🙂

All they had to do to tip her back on her kilt was to have a few linemen from the rear head up to 1st class. 🙄

 

SOP, when loading or unloading the 900, the tail stand must be in place. 

[Biggles2010 343]

I watched this happen to an RAF Canberra when I was going through the conversion course, way back in the dark ages. The other crew on the course had just landed and taxied in. They shut down and the ground crew were around the aircraft as the pilot got out, followed by the navigator. All looked normal. Then the navigator reached in to remove his 'nav bag' full of maps and charts and all the usual bits and pieces. As he did so the aircraft slowly tilted back, until the tail was resting on the ground.  There was the usual enquiry and blame applied for incorrect fuel management.  They were a bit lucky not to have a nasty moment on the touchdown.

 

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

It's fair to say that, while this is an aviation related forum, sometimes ship happens 😛

[Tierborn 188]

1 hour ago, snglecoil said:

“Be careful opening the overhead bins as contents may have shifted in flight”

“Be careful opening the overhead bins as contents may have shifted while walking”

[Mace 1,928]

If the -900's can do that, why don't they unload the rear pax first?  

I mean it might save having to buy/use a tailstand.

[Chock 17,769]

4 hours ago, united001 said:

How could that happen?

Easily, if the ground crew are idiots. The TL will probably be looking for another career, and the TCO probably will too.

It's a risk on some airliners, notably longer 737 variants and the ATR-72. The ATR 72 actually has a stowable tail stop which is there specifically for that and is the first thing that is put on when the rear passenger door opens. Sometimes there will be a warning message to the ground crews that there is a risk of tail-tipping owing to some knowledge about the inbound manifest, but to be honest, unless the ground crew are a bunch of numpties, they should be aware of it as a potential risk anyway.

If you look at the picture, you can see how it happened: The 737 has two holds, one rear and one front. You normally unload the rear hold first on most airliners, specifically to prevent the risk of tail-tipping, then you load the front hold first when it is departing, for the same reason. If you take all the bags out of the front and people have got off the front, but someone in the middle is faffing about and preventing people moving forward, and there are no steps on the rear for passengers to disembark, then you get a tail tip. Since the rear hold is closed and the front hold is open and there are a bunch of bags on some trailers, it's not hard to work out what the ground crew did.

The ramp crew should have known this when they were offloading the front, because if there is a risk of it, you see the front landing gear oleo extending and the anti-torque link starts straightening out. If you see this, that's when you get on the headset and tell the crew to stop letting people get off the front and you definitely don't start taking bags out of the front hold. If you can't get anyone on the headset, you would literally go up the bridge or stairs at the front and physically stop people as a matter of urgency. You might even get a few people to jump up in the front hold too.

We used to have to be careful of that risk with the KLM 737 NG night-stopper from Amsterdam to Manchester. It was often the last flight in and so people could go home after it was unloaded, so we all wanted to do it quickly, but we were all aware that we'd get the bags off the back first and if rushing meant it would tail tip, we'd stop and sort it out even though we were all keen to get away.

4 hours ago, united001 said:

FAA investigation?

There are always investigations/enquiries/post-mortems into any incidents with aeroplanes, even really minor ones, but if it is found to be an unavoidable accident then nobody involved in it will have anything to worry about, although in the case of this tail-tip, I suspect that was entirely avoidable.

I've been part of an incident investigation today in fact: I was doing the walkaround check on an A320 and I saw that the port wing's fuel filler cap was not rotated to have the chevron on it pointing forward, as it should be. This cap also has the word 'FWD' stencilled next to its directional indicator chevron, which is a bit of a clue as to which way it should be turned. So I refused to clear it for a push until it was checked by an engineer. Because of this, its departure was delayed quite a bit, and so I had to fill out a report about it, and it will be looked into and I daresay some people will be pee'd off about it and maybe even try to have a pop at me or perhaps blame me for causing the delayed departure, but I'm not concerned; that's the kind of thing we should be doing on a walkaround inspection if we find something untoward, and I'm never going to compromise on being safety-oriented just to hit a departure time when there are 200 people on board something which is preparing to whizz through the sky, seven miles up, travelling at 80 percent of the speed of sound. ✈️

In actual fact, I often don't simply do a walkaround check to my own satisfaction, most of the time I make it very obvious that I'm doing it as well, as this is good for passengers to see and inspires confidence that we are being careful about their safety.

Edited September 18, 2021 by Chock

[G550flyer 1,014]

As others have stated, this is possible. It all has to do with the aircraft's basic weight and CG. Most aircraft are designed to be operated with a normal passenger or cargo load. Once you start operating outside of normal loads, you start to enter areas where you are up against aircraft limits. If the aircraft sits empty naturally near the forward or aft limit CG limit, operating with non normal loads can make situations worse. For example, take an Airbus 321. If we were to fly a short 45 minute flight with 20 passengers and no cargo or luggage, we can easily get into a CG issue. I would see this in some models of Gulfstreams. We would take a full load of passengers on a short trip for a meeting and back. The low fuel state and no luggage would put us through the FWD CG limit. We would have to load 200 to 400 pounds of ice into the baggage compartment to get the CG to move AFT for the flight. When I flew KC-10s, cargo and passengers are loaded at the front of the aircraft. Those jets naturally had an aft CG when empty. They had a forward tank, which was used as a ballast during low fuel states. The transfer pumps would automatically shut off at 15K pounds of fuel and the FE would have to milk the fuel out of the tank from that point to stay out of the coffin corner. The boom operators would run a load plan based on the fuel tanks. As the cargo is positioned from the rear fwd, the load plan ensured that the CG would not go past the aft limit and put the aircraft on it's tail. As the aircraft is loaded, the CG would move fore and aft with the average moving to the position the boom operator calculated. You could not move fuel around while cargo is being loaded, it was a limitation. I've seen cargo haulers chain down the nose gear to get around this limitation. 

Another issue that we experienced in the DC10 when not operation in the normal fuel and load range is the phrase "VMCG limited". In this case, the jet would be so light that VMCG would over take VCEF which was normally V1. Those big cans churn out so much thrust that you may not be able to control her during an engine loss until attaining VCMG. Wet runways made it worst because you couldn't take credit for pedal nose wheel steering(reduce VMCG by 10 KTS). In this case, you did not want to commit to the takeoff at V1(VCEF) before you had ground control speed. You would make VMCG V1 and the FE would perform a VMCG procedure to ensure that it was safe to commit at VMCG. Now, most operators would not see this issue because who would fly around an empty DC10?? The USAF did lol. The majority of your training and proficiency flights departed with a low fuel state. Sometimes you did heavy air refueling training where you took off with a large amount of fuel to simulate being heavy while taking on and off loading fuel. Being above 556K was the heavy AR range and heavy weight AR was part of your currency requirements.

 

   

[mwilk 1,106]

4 hours ago, Chock said:

Easily, if the ground crew are idiots. The TL will probably be looking for another career, and the TCO probably will too.

It's a risk on some airliners, notably longer 737 variants and the ATR-72. The ATR 72 actually has a stowable tail stop which is there specifically for that and is the first thing that is put on when the rear passenger door opens. Sometimes there will be a warning message to the ground crews that there is a risk of tail-tipping owing to some knowledge about the inbound manifest, but to be honest, unless the ground crew are a bunch of numpties, they should be aware of it as a potential risk anyway.

If you look at the picture, you can see how it happened: The 737 has two holds, one rear and one front. You normally unload the rear hold first on most airliners, specifically to prevent the risk of tail-tipping, then you load the front hold first when it is departing, for the same reason. If you take all the bags out of the front and people have got off the front, but someone in the middle is faffing about and preventing people moving forward, and there are no steps on the rear for passengers to disembark, then you get a tail tip. Since the rear hold is closed and the front hold is open and there are a bunch of bags on some trailers, it's not hard to work out what the ground crew did.

The ramp crew should have known this when they were offloading the front, because if there is a risk of it, you see the front landing gear oleo extending and the anti-torque link starts straightening out. If you see this, that's when you get on the headset and tell the crew to stop letting people get off the front and you definitely don't start taking bags out of the front hold. If you can't get anyone on the headset, you would literally go up the bridge or stairs at the front and physically stop people as a matter of urgency. You might even get a few people to jump up in the front hold too.

We used to have to be careful of that risk with the KLM 737 NG night-stopper from Amsterdam to Manchester. It was often the last flight in and so people could go home after it was unloaded, so we all wanted to do it quickly, but we were all aware that we'd get the bags off the back first and if rushing meant it would tail tip, we'd stop and sort it out even though we were all keen to get away.

There are always investigations/enquiries/post-mortems into any incidents with aeroplanes, even really minor ones, but if it is found to be an unavoidable accident then nobody involved in it will have anything to worry about, although in the case of this tail-tip, I suspect that was entirely avoidable.

I've been part of an incident investigation today in fact: I was doing the walkaround check on an A320 and I saw that the port wing's fuel filler cap was not rotated to have the chevron on it pointing forward, as it should be. This cap also has the word 'FWD' stencilled next to its directional indicator chevron, which is a bit of a clue as to which way it should be turned. So I refused to clear it for a push until it was checked by an engineer. Because of this, its departure was delayed quite a bit, and so I had to fill out a report about it, and it will be looked into and I daresay some people will be pee'd off about it and maybe even try to have a pop at me or perhaps blame me for causing the delayed departure, but I'm not concerned; that's the kind of thing we should be doing on a walkaround inspection if we find something untoward, and I'm never going to compromise on being safety-oriented just to hit a departure time when there are 200 people on board something which is preparing to whizz through the sky, seven miles up, travelling at 80 percent of the speed of sound. ✈️

In actual fact, I often don't simply do a walkaround check to my own satisfaction, most of the time I make it very obvious that I'm doing it as well, as this is good for passengers to see and inspires confidence that we are being careful about their safety.

Chock,

              I worked for a major US carrier for 36 years. I worked a lot of different variants of the 737 but I never saw a tail stand in use here in the US. I've used them on Saab 340's and we used to extend the rear airstairs on 727's and sometimes DC-9's. As you said, someone screwed up and is now in search of an Uber driving job.

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, mwilk said:

Chock,

              I worked for a major US carrier for 36 years. I worked a lot of different variants of the 737 but I never saw a tail stand in use here in the US. I've used them on Saab 340's and we used to extend the rear airstairs on 727's and sometimes DC-9's. As you said, someone screwed up and is now in search of an Uber driving job.

 

Never seen a tail stand for a 737 either; as far as I'm aware there aren't any and even if there were I'd love to know who'd be tall enough to fit one lol. We use them on the ATR 72, it gets stowed in the rear hold and it is part of the checklist prior to engine start to check it has been removed and stowed. The ATR 42, being shorter, doesn't need one.

I'm sure there are probably other airliners out there which use them, but not any I work on. On the subject of other fun stuff which i don't work on too often, there was an Antonov AN-26B in at Manchester today, I got a pretty good look at it because I was driving out to the remote stands to check out the new electric GSE charging points and went right past it. It was pretty noisy. It appears someone evidently filmed it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2021 by Chock

[Bobsk8 12,745]

https://www.quora.com/Boeing-is-coming-out-with-the-737-Max-10-an-even-longer-version-of-the-739s-How-did-Boeing-solve-the-tail-tip-problems-that-plague-the-900