British Airways Flight BA38 Crash Lands At Heathrow Airport

PPL=Private Pilots Licence. There are two levels now, only one when I did mine.

I live on the other side of London to that, not a million miles from the Lambourne hold, or more accurately on the penultimate turn before finals from it. There are rows of lights in the sky on busy nights.

Puts me in mind of the dirt strip on Utila island. The shells of airplanes that didn't quite make it!! I spent a few months there diving in 1994 and it was a interesting flight in a 4 seater or a bumpy boat ride to the mainland. I'm no fan of boats.

I suffered an electrical failure on a solo night flight over Los Angeles a few months after receiving my private license. No lights, no radios, no nuthin (thank goodness for magnetos, eh?). I used a flashlight to make my approach and landing at Hawthorne. I circled the tower several times, got a green light on my second pass, and landed without further incident.

Still, it was a bit spooky.

I went diving off the coast Honduras also - Roatan and Cayos Cochinos. Never been to Utila but you are right the 2 hour plus boat ride sucks out there but the charter plane held together with duct tape wasn't much better from San Pedro Sula to Roatan as I recall.

I feel so poorly traveled now.

More likely La Ceiba than San Pedro Sula which is a few miles inland. I only passed through SPS on the way to San Salvador. That was a flight to remember, into San Salvador right through an early evening storm. Talk about rough. I never went to Roatan or Guanaja though I heard the diving on Roatan was good.

The thing I liked best about La Ceiba was the little park with a small pond full of alligators! I used to fly back every couple of weeks for the luxury of 24hr power, a/c a decent bed and a change of diet! One night was enough. I did the boat trip once or twice, for a short crossing it could be rough. They introduced a newer bigger boat but it was worse than the small one so mostly I flew. I think it was about $20 but it was a while back.

Since there was no fire, I tend to think the plane was simply out of fuel. The thing came all the way from China, for heaven's sake.

This actually happened in the late 1970s quite close to where I live now.

(this link can be a bit slow to load)

DC-8 Runs Out of Fuel & Crashes Near Portland

If you actually read the report you should see that this has pretty much been ruled out, no warnings, fuel leakage on landing etc.

They do put in enough fuel to reach the destination you know, it's not just a case of fill it up and hope for the best.

Not to mention the most famous case of running out of fuel:

The Gimli Glider

With the new information, this looks to me like something very simple and trivial, aggravated by the most inconvenient time at which it could happen: A software glitch (computer crash, memory overload, runtime error) or an electric foul-up. There's usually the odd circuit breaker or connector acting up. Probably if this had happened in an earlier stage of the approach or at cruising altitude, there would have been the time for a manual reset, but not 2 mi short of the runway, at 600 ft and low speed.

Under these conditions, the pilots actions would be explicable also. To avoid stalling by clutching at the sinking rate towards the runway, he tries to maintain a maneuverable speed and ditches short of the runway, instead of stalling at low altitude and crashing uncontrollably.

(By the way, SG, regarding your solo sans-electrics, I hope you had red filter to put on your flashlight!)

That's an amazing story Claire! See?! Every pilot should learn how to glide!

I hope they find the root cause of this and are able to discover how to fix it should it happen again. I take it the 777 is completely fly-by-wire? The throttle doesn't actually mechanically change the flow of fuel?

The 777 is essentially "fly-by-wire" but the physical media is mostly fiber optics. Electronic control of the throttles has used for decades and FADEC [full authority digital engine control] since ~80s. "Full authority" means no manual override.

If it's like most "by wire only" control systems (including those on modern automobiles) the operator input tells the computer control system that you want more power, the computer actually changes the fuel rate via electrical actuators. Throttle by wire autos work the same way.

What I figured. There is no mechanical linkage from the throttles themselves to the fuel flow controller.

I ran into that problem with my Saab 9000. Damn throttle computer fried and cost $1000 to be replaced and right after that the second computer that manages accelerator pedal input died too. That was another $800.

Yep, my Toyota pickups are the same way. What gear, how much throttle,
what actual fuel mixture, what ignition timing, what valve timing, are all controlled by the computer. When the operator pushes the accelerator, the computer decides how the engine and transmission respond based on many sensor inputs. You are only telling the computer "I want more power".

It's very weird until you get used to it a bit. Very different from older all mechanical vehicles.

They do!

Yes, as stated by others it's decoupled. Many modern commerial aircraft use this methodology.