2" tall!

Bill

Bill

Touchdown! Greaser!
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So, I'm sitting near the back of a Mad Dog out of MSP, bound for ATL last Friday morning, first flight of the day. After buckling in, I see the right aileron deflected full up, while the left one is aligned with the wing, as you normally expect. No prob, I figure, when we push back and start up and get the hydraulics going, the aileron will line back up.

Push back, engine start, start taxiing, and the right aileron is still pointed at the sky. Taxiing, crew puts in takeoff flaps and slats, and the aileron is still pointed at the sky. CO calls out we're #1 for takeoff, and I see one more turnout before we're to the end of the runway. And the right aileron is still pointed at the sky. And the only thing going thru my mind is, "This isn't your day to die."

So I flag a passing attendant, and ask her if it is normal for the right aileron to be pointed at the sky like that. She looks at me like I'm speaking Martian, but looks at each wing and agrees they don't look alike, so she'll call the flight deck.

CO pulls into the turnout, and the FO comes sprinting back the isle, and asks me what is bothering me, and I point out the up aileron. He chuckles, and says "the MD-88 ailerons are controlled by trim tabs only, there is no direct control of the aileron. When we start our roll, airflow over the wing will re-align the aileron with the wing. The storms last night must have blown it into the up position."

The pax around me look at me like I'm from Mars, the FO sprints back. And, as he said, on the roll, the aileron slowly fell back to position, and the flight was normal. The PAX continued to look me daggers for delaying their flight.

And, I felt 2" tall.

So, what would YOU do? You get on an airliner, and some flight control or surface is totally whack compared to everything you know about how airplanes fly. CO announces #1, and the control is still whack. Do you
  1. Sit on your hands, and hope everything will be OK, or
  2. Do what I did, at the risk of being the fool, and ask someone.
Feeling 2" tall,
 
I think ya did right. Many accidents have been the result of inattentive preflight and/or maintenance wrap-up.

You might try dropping a note to the airline's operations department and address it to the captain of that flight on that day. Say your experience dictated a question on what you saw. Apologize for causing the delay but you'd rather see a delay for an unknown normal situation rather than the alternative.

I betting the crew appreciates having some eyes looking for things they cannot see from the cockpit.
 
Hey, the FO chuckled- he was amused, but (you can bet) not mad. It coulda been something significant.

Ya' done good.
 
You did a good thing. The pax may not understand why but they don't understand flying, they just understand being cattle. The people who understand flying understand why you asked.
 
I"d have done the same thing Bill but than again I'm not much taller than 2" to begin with :D
 
IMO 2" tall is better altitude than 6' under. Better safe than sorry.
 
You did EXACTLY the right thing! Asymmetric flight controls ain't nothing to ignore, and those same people that were acting miffed don't know what miffed is ... try dying because someone knew something was wrong but "didn't want to be a bother". Now THAT would MIFF me, for sure! Good job!! :D

And a corollary to Murphy's Law says that:
No matter what went wrong someone, somewhere, knew it was going to and didn't say anything.
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Dustin said:
IMO 2" tall is better altitude than 6' under. Better safe than sorry.
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Dustin, I love how you worded that! :)

Bill, there is nothing to feel bad about with what you did! I would have done the same thing! Remember the story that Adam told us a year or so ago about how he saw an airplane getting ready to take off at an airport with something wrong with it? Can't remember what was wrong at the time, but it would not have been safe for it to take off. And Adam drove to the FBO to see if they would stop the airplane before someone got hurt. It's the same thing. You guys are special for taking action in the name of safety. :yes:

Hopefully, you'll eventually put it into perspective and will be able to laugh about it. :)
 
You did well. Always better to raise the issue where safety is concerned, and you've now added both good karma and another nugget of knowledge in your aviation safety bag.

The only time when you should "sit back and trust the experts" is in emergency situations or combat, where there may not be time to educate you about something.
 
Bill, I would have done exactly what you did under the circumstances except I wouldn't have given a hoot about the stares from the other pax. And chances are, there was at least one other pilot in the cabin who understood and silently thanked you for your vigilence.
 
Better to be Safe than Sorry! Too bad there wasn't an observant pilot in the back of the Comair Crash in Lexington, KY.
 
Bill, you did exactly the correct thing! :yes:

And because of that, you are now 2" TALLER in my estimation. It takes some heuvos to bring such concern to the flight crew.

I wouldn't care less what other passengers thought... but I certainly care about my own skin! Like you said- it wasn't your day....
 
There was a episode on Natl Geographic's "Seconds From Disaster" where the crew of an airliner shut down the wrong engine during an emergency. I don't remember all of the details but some of the passengers could see the damage to the engine and it was assumed that the correct engine had been shut down. It wasn't until moments before the scheduled landing that the crew realized that the good engine was not running but by then it was too late and the plane crashed. I think you did the right thing by speaking up.
 
Twilight.jpg


Seems noteworthy.
-harry
 
Someone did the exact same thing on one of my flights a week or two ago...

It was the second flight of the morning...a 7:55 departure from KBOS to KISP. We took on a lot of gas at the gate so we could go at least a few legs without tanking again. The fuelers took us up to 3400lbs, requiring them to top the outboard wing tanks and put about 34 gal a side in the reserve tanks. Gas in the reserves has to be pumped out into the main tanks via the Stdby pumps before it can be used, so protocol says that we use that gas first in case the standby pumps should fail, we're not leaving a bunch of unusable gas in the reserves. The problem being, the standby pumps move more gas than the engines use at ground idle and don't have any way of attenuating when the tanks are full, so we burn a bit from the mains before turning the pumps on, and once the pumps catch up, the overflow just falls back into the reserves...so basically we're just pumping gas in a big circle while keeping them mains (what the engines ALWAYS feed from) topped off.

Well, this morning when they topped us off, they had just bulked the truck, so the fuel was quite cold when they put it on the airplane. The sun was just getting high enough as we taxied to start warming the wings pretty significantly, and we were pumping fuel out of the auxes, as usual.

We're halfway from our gate to runway 22R when I get a tap on the shoulder (the draw back of the 1900...no FA and no door, so the questions come straight to us). Both the CA and I jump when we turn and see a guy standing behind us as we're rolling down the taxiway. The CA stops the plane as I'm trying to tell the ground controller that we're going to need a minute and figure out why this guy is standing up and walking around. Turns out, every time we turn left, we're dumping something out onto the ground...a clear liquid of some sort. We don't carry water on board, so the six people in the back of the plane are worried that we're dumping all our fuel overboard. We both crane our necks around to try to see the fuel caps, but the Aux tank caps just aren't visible from the cockpit. Without saying too much over the radios, we get ground to put us on an inactive taxiway so we can set the parking brake and I can get up. As I walk back into the cabin there's a 737 driver dead heading who looks a little confused about what's going on. I lean over a seat and look out at the wing...both caps are seated and locked as they're supposed to be. I start asking people what they saw.

"Every time you turn left, lots of gas pouring out the wing, I think you have a hole in your gas tank" (little did they know, they're half right...).

I ask if it's coming from the round, red painted circle.

"No, it's coming from the bottom of the wing, every time you turn like there's a big hole down there."

The bottom?

"Ya."

Just out side of that moving rectangle (the aileron)?


"Ya."

Looks like it'd be about halfway between the front and the back of the wing?

"Ya, is it bad?"

No...that's just the fuel vent. I explain how the gas was really cold when they put it on this morning and that they filled it as full as they can and now it's expanding and when we turn it gets pushed to the outside and out the vent drain (the two big holes in the bottom of each wing). Perfectly normal, we have 3400 lbs of gas, we only need about 834 to get to Islip, we'll keep an eye on it, but not to worry.

Everyone appeased, I'm back on the radio to tell BOS ground we're ready to taxi ("For real, this time?" they ask). I watch it as we round the corner on Kilo...sure enough a small waterfall trails out behind us as we turn, then stops as soon as we straighten out. Definitely from the fuel vent, but definitely NOT something we would notice ourselves - we're not usually looking at our own wings as we take turns on the taxiway. I could easily see how it looks REALLY bad to have that amount of gas pouring over board, and we're both glad they mentioned it so we'd know to shut the fuel pumps off and wait until a little more had burned out of the mains before using them again. It was rather embarrassing for us, and more than a little confusing for the other people on the plane that couldn't see the waterfall, but we were both glad that guy had the gumption to stand up, walk the entire length of the plane while it was moving, tap the obviously-distracted pilots on the should and ask why we're pouring gas on the ground, if for no other reason than...it could have been something serious and we wouldn't have had a clue.

You don't want to die sitting back there any more than we want to accidentally kill all of you sitting behind us (and our selves)...if there's ever something seriously in doubt, we'll shut both engines down on the taxiway and go take a look before we'll take a plane we're unsure about into the air. Always better safe...
 
And I get in trouble if I dump an ounce of fuel on the ramp after sumping my tanks.:dunno:
 
I make it a point to sit ahead of the wings... that way I can die ignorant and happy... :D

Ya did good Bill... even if people think you are a martian...
 
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Return flight (LAS to BOS), out in the very full cattle section, we get pushed back from the gate (departure ONTIME) and sit out on the ramp for 30 minutes while listening to various motor sounds. It wasn't instilling confidence especially since the alerons didn't seem to be doing anything, nor the flaps, nor anything we could see. Another 30 minutes before we're #1.
Odd that we arrived 5 minutes early to the gate though.
Still don't know what all that noise was.
 
silver-eagle said:
Return flight (LAS to BOS), out in the very full cattle section, we get pushed back from the gate (departure ONTIME) and sit out on the ramp for 30 minutes while listening to various motor sounds. It wasn't instilling confidence especially since the alerons didn't seem to be doing anything, nor the flaps, nor anything we could see. Another 30 minutes before we're #1.
Odd that we arrived 5 minutes early to the gate though.
Still don't know what all that noise was.
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What kinda plane?
 
Teller1900 said:
Someone did the exact same thing on one of my flights a week or two ago...
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Someone did on mine about a month or two ago. Shortly after we started the engines, the passenger, who is someone we fly regularly in the Hawker, came up to the front and asked if everything was OK. He said that one of the engines made funny noises when it started and he was still hearing an unusual noise. I got up and went to the back to listen, and sure enough, the further I went aft the more I could hear some kind of pulsating, vibrating noise that was not noticeable in the the cockpit. None of the gauges showed anything unusual. We called the mechanic in and he couldn't figure out what it was either but we opted to take another airplane. Turned out later that it was a faulty fuel pump. As we were switching airplanes I said to the passenger, "Hey, good job!" He laughed and said, "That's what comes from having spent hundreds of hours back here, you know when something sounds wrong."

On another occasion a long time ago I watched a Gulfstream taxi in front of me when a bunch of liquid came out the bottom. I called ground and had them tell the pilots. It turns out they were just dumping their sink. :dunno:
 
Hey, after Dr. Bruce fired up the Seneca at Morris this summer I noticed fuel squirting out from the engine. Not just a little dribble, but coming out with some force. We flagged him down, he shut down, and we discussed it. Turned out to be perfectly normal, but I sure felt better having done it, and he was just fine with it.

So much better than the story I've heard of someone watching another pilot taxiing, saying out loud "he's going to run into that {building/plane/whatever} and doing nothing to stop it, only to see it actually happen.


So good on ya!
 
OK, I ran this by a 121 pilot friend who is well-established in a major carrier, and in active safety promotion at the same carrier. Here is his response:

This is the passenger that I want on my flight! If something does not look right......then question it. Allow the flight crew to explain versus hoping this big bird gets airborne. Safety first, Passenger Comfort second THEN Schedule! I can't tell you the number of times I've been behind a "mad dog" waiting for take-off and looking at their elevators. Split elevators....left one neutral while the right one full up. Weird!

I remember a story not to long ago about a passenger that came to the cockpit on a through flight and told the pilots that there was a flashlight in the reverser area of the #2 engine. Captain thanked the passenger and prepared to takeoff on the next flight. After the next flight landed, this same passenger again came to the cockpit to voice his concerns. The Captain thought maybe he should investigate. Guess what.......a small mag flashlight was laying between the reverser door and the clam shell translating sleeve......with the mechanic's employee number on it.....ops! This was on a old 737-200 aircraft. So you see, the traveling public is very keen these days......not just about terrorism, but safety as well.
 
This also reminded me of a story my father told me about one of his flights during his career as a commercial pilot. He was on a trip and one of his legs was Miami to Memphis. It was about 3 months after the ValuJet crash into the everglades. My dad and the FO departed Miami flying a DC-9 on the same runway. On departure they verbally went thru what they may have done given the same circumstances of the ValuJet. Just moments later a flight attendant got their attention that fuel was coming out of the right engine. The attendant was notified by a passenger on the flight. My dad went back in the cabin to get a visual and confirmed the right engine had a fuel leak; it was spraying out like a fire hose. I don't know all the details but what I do remember is they brought the right engine back to idle and made an uneventful emergency landing. They would have caught the fuel leak eventually but because of an alert passenger they were notified right away.
 
Bill,

I experienced EXACTLY the same scenario leaving Toronto... thought I was about to die, saw the same aileron "issue" you did.

Only difference is I didn't say anything... and as the takeoff roll started, I wondered if I was about to die, or if there was just some quirk of the MD88 I didn't know about. Glad it was a quirk, I'd have never forgiven myself.

I understand your quandry... I think you did okay. And now you know, for next time. Nothing wrong with an abundance of caution, in my book--what if it HAD been a problem!? People would be THANKING YOU, especially the pilots and the airline.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Bill,

I experienced EXACTLY the same scenario leaving Toronto... thought I was about to die, saw the same aileron "issue" you did.

Only difference is I didn't say anything... and as the takeoff roll started, I wondered if I was about to die, or if there was just some quirk of the MD88 I didn't know about. Glad it was a quirk, I'd have never forgiven myself.

I understand your quandry... I think you did okay. And now you know, for next time. Nothing wrong with an abundance of caution, in my book--what if it HAD been a problem!? People would be THANKING YOU, especially the pilots and the airline.
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I noticed the same thing on a MD-88 and thought about saying something. A few minutes later I forgot about it. I remembered during the takeoff roll and was feeling extremely stupid.

Good job Bill.
 
There has been at least 2 accidents that I recall where the crew forgot to set the flaps for take off (Detroit and DFW). I often wonder if anyone in the cabin noticed.
 
And you call yourself a pilot! It should have occurred to you to have leaned over to that hottie in 27D and said we're about to die so we might as well do the deed. Put the fun in flying!
 
Good on ya, Bill!

I don't remember who it was, but sitting at Gastons this year, another pilot and myself watched Diana takeoff with black smoke coming out the exhaust. The other person was quick to point it out and we got the radio and warned her to come back. I'm glad we did, even though I never did hear what was officially wrong, but Diana came back and had the problem fixed on the field.
 
Richard said:
And you call yourself a pilot! It should have occurred to you to have leaned over to that hottie in 27D and said we're about to die so we might as well do the deed. Put the fun in flying!
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Sadly, no hotties within visual range. :(
 
SkyHog said:
I don't remember who it was, but sitting at Gastons this year, another pilot and myself watched Diana takeoff with black smoke coming out the exhaust. The other person was quick to point it out and we got the radio and warned her to come back.
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Yea, that was a certainly a short flight. :eek: At least it gave Ken one more interesting thing to write about.

SkyHog said:
I'm glad we did, even though I never did hear what was officially wrong, but Diana came back and had the problem fixed on the field.
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We did a temporary fix on the field and a mechanic found the problem after we got home. The carb heat cable was somehow bent back on itself inside the sheath. We had a new cable installed and haven't had a problem with that since.
 
The fact that the flight attendant called it in suggests strongly that you did the right thing. Those folks hear all sorts of silliness from passengers, and act as a filter for the flight deck crew. However, the next time a passenger calls that attendant's attention to that situation, it's unlikely the alarm will be passed forward -- IOW, you both learned something new about MD-80's.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Sadly, no hotties within visual range. :(
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Desperate times call for desperate measures. You missed a perfectly good opportunity to take one for the team. :eek:

As a pilot you should have taken command of the situation. It wouldn't be too hard to convince the herds. :dunno:
 
jkaduk said:
There has been at least 2 accidents that I recall where the crew forgot to set the flaps for take off (Detroit and DFW). I often wonder if anyone in the cabin noticed.
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If I can see the flaps/slats from my seat I always look. If they weren't down, I'd definitely be hitting the FA call button.
 
SkyHog said:
Good on ya, Bill!

I don't remember who it was, but sitting at Gastons this year, another pilot and myself watched Diana takeoff with black smoke coming out the exhaust. The other person was quick to point it out and we got the radio and warned her to come back. I'm glad we did, even though I never did hear what was officially wrong, but Diana came back and had the problem fixed on the field.
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That'd be me. IIRC, you were just getting out of that beautiful J-3. I think I said "Hey, why does Diana look like a jet?" Same type of descending smoke trail. Kinda cool-looking, actually... But not cool. :no: Chip was the closest one to a radio, and he called it up.

Bill... Always err on the side of caution. It doesn't sound like you were really delayed anyway. Better safe than splat! :eek:
 
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