What makes this interesting from the HEF standpoint is that they would've liked to land on the longest runway, but airport ops couldn't get the equipment off in time. Link to the story The audio is well worth a listen. Story specifically about the equipment failing to clear the runway. Anybody have a guess as to what the top speed of a milling machine is when trying to get out of the way of a pending airplane crash?
Interesting article digger, I'm not sure how fast you can get a milling machine to go, but if it were me, I wouldn't be messin with getting to a taxiway, I'd be making a bee line off, through the grass and everything.
A guess at the top speed is 10mph. Assume it is in the middle of the run way so it has to travel 1 mile to get to the end because it is too heavy for the grass. When it is clear of the runway it need to be confirmed the runway is clear. Now the plane needs to set up and commit to the runway it is going to land on and it was only 8 minutes away. Just not enough time with the pressure of saving 100+ lives.
The story says they were milling on the runway shoulders. The airport diagram shows the runway as 150 feet wide, and if you look at Google Earth, it measures a couple of thousand feet between taxiways. I'm thinking they didn't feel it was a good idea to put it in the grass, and were in fact going to try to reach a taxiway. Which brings up another question--obviously, they're meant to run on pavement. What's the probablity of it getting stuck halfway onto the grass? Google Earth was kind enough to provide a picture of an aircraft on the runway. There's not a whole lot of room to spare if they get either side of the centerline:
I dunno, taking the chance to get stuck in the grass vs. the 160+ people barreling in at 300mph in a fully fueled plane... I'd take the grass no question.
I just had the chance to catch up with Mrs. Digger, who is an air traffic controller, and to be defined as "clear of the runway", the equipment would have to be 100'-150' into the grass. That's a lot of room to get stuck without actually accomplishing the goal of making the runway useable, so I guess the taxiway was the better call. All that having been said, once a pilot declares an emergency, they can do anything they want to do to deal with it. If the situation onboard had deteriorated to the point where they could only manuver to that one runway, (think of the Sioux City crash), that's where they have gone for. I imagine anybody working on a runway has probably been made aware of that fact though. It'd be interesting to hear from anybody that has worked in that environment as to how much training they got in dealing with that sort of potential situation.
I would do what I was told, but going into the grass sounds like a good plan. The ground is so soft in New Orleans he might of been stuck before he got all the way off the pavement unlikely he would of made 150'.
Literally impossible to believe this reading it... they have so many saftey devices for airport jobs pertaining to asphalt milling and paving. First off....getting stuck or not, head for the grass and haul ass, mills usually have a high and low for travel speeds. Second, they can elevate, that wouldn't change anything and being in the cut is usually what keeps the machine as low as it can get. They may have being trying to lift up and get out of the way and not considered how fast a place really moves. Theres no shortage of stupidity in milling over the last 10 years or so. They take anybody they can find throw them on it and hope they can pick it up. When actual reality sinks in, its much to late and the mill is usually destroyed and the contractor has resorted to subs.
nice job of getting the plane on the ground safely in such a short time and clear a runway for landing 150+ feet sounds right for clearance, as we were not allowed to pile snow near runways, or make a windrow over 2 feet tall or near the marker lights when clearing ramps and taxiways, we didn't get to do runways. That was the airports job as they had blowers. the loaders were picking up the windrows and load into a waiting dump truck
This why I wouldn't climb out of the electric chair to fly in an airplane ....Not saying all aircraft mechanics dont pay attention , but I've seen'em change motors and i wouldn't let half of them put air in my wheelbarrow tire ...
I'm amazed at how calm everyone remains on the radio when these things happen. I've been involved with our fire dept for over 30 years and our radio traffic is county wide. You can often tell the intensity of an incident by the pitch of the voices on the rigs' radios. Based on what I read in the article and heard on the audio, the conditions were muddy, pretty much guaranteeing the mill would become stuck. The plane also veered off the runway upon landing, the possibility that it could have hit a stuck mill was a real threat. Fortunately things worked out.
X2 thats my thinking too a plane hitting a mill would of been very ugly.
I agree with the above statements. IN NOLA that thing wouldn't have made it all the way off the pavement before it was DONE and stuck. Those were MEN in that cockpit, Flying blind, on fire, with oxygen masks and goggles on in a FLY BY WIRE plane and they are cool as can be. You would think they were just doing a touch and go in a perfectly functioning Cessna. Anyone else becoming very suspect of airbus aircraft and their engineering and quality controls? seems like alot of problems with those birds
Boy, I can guarantee I would have jumped out of the operator's seat on that mill and been behind it, pushing.
In 2009 Industrial Builders W2100 milling machine was milling a county airport strip in White Sulpher Springs, Montana. The air field was supposedly shut down. We had completed a full removal of over 3200 ft, full width of runway at the far end, milled/profiled another section leading to the removed area and cut shoulders about 3 inches with 2% of slope. Around 1 pm the third day on the job we are milling up the parking area and Taxi ways to hanger areas, being completely off the runway we aren't concerned or looking for any planes when all of a sudden a small plane is on the ground headed toward the hanger....we are shocked because we never heard or saw it coming due to the noise of the mill and the fact nobody warned us. Apparently it was an emergency landing because the plane was low on fuel. The plane easily used the milled sections of the runway and did not need to get into the section that had been removed at all. If we had been instructed to move out of the way of a plane, it would have depended on how much notice they had given us as to whether or not we would have been in the way. If we had been on the main area of the runway milling and needed to move quickly, it would depend on how fast we could have lifted up and traveled either to the left or right. And in that case, the mill leaves a substantial pile of millings where it lifts up, that would most likely cause a problem for a plane landing. The situation in New Orleans is something we can all hope never happens again.