We have some pilots posting here and I am positive I understand why the airliner that blew the left engine banked hard to the left when it happened. Who wants to take a stab at why the airliner banked suddenly and why to the left side? If you are a pilot answering, please tell us that you are. I am aching to tell you my answer but out of respect for the rest of you, you do the explaining. The woman that lost her life was on the left side and was belted into her seat per reports. It is said had she not been belted, she would have been sucked out of the airplane. Apparently she slammed her head into the window. If you noticed, the window was far back behind the wing. Do you think the window was hit by flying debris? I am not clear why the window broke to create the suction effect. i assumed debris hit the window. But it was a fair distance past the wing so i dunno on that.
The containment ring on the engine failed, so yes, debris must have broken the window. It probably went through the window and hit her in the head, knocked her out, and thats why she got sucked out.
Somebody moved this topic and darn if I know why. I figured they hoped to suck it deep so nobody notices it. At first my thought too was flying debris hit the window, starting a suction then pulling her headfirst into the window. This seems still the best explanation of that. We had a poster say it banked due to asymmetry of thrust. That is true, the right engine was at proper power setting and suddenly the left lost all power. We might not get much action if moving this caused it, so i will explain. With no left engine power to apply, only right engine power was working. This pulls the right wing faster than the left wing and adding speed to that wing also causes the right wing to have more lift and thus it climbs. When the right wing climbs, the left wing lagging power will fall off to the left. It creates a huge force on the right side and no force on the left so the plane starts turning harder to the left. I want to address the skill of the female pilot. She trains as do all such commercial pilots what to do if she loses either of her engines. She still did a very good job and both her Navy training along with her commercial training kicks in and she actually mostly is on her internal automatic pilot. The better one is trained, the more they rely on practice and thought put into this kind of event.
Let me expand. At level cruise the aircraft is trimmed for pitch, roll and yaw. It's in balance. The immediate loss of power in the left engine created asymmetric thrust that the aircraft wasn't trimmed for. The upset, uncorrected, caused the aircraft to slew left, this caused the right wing to move through the air mass quicker creating lift, the converse is true for the left wing going slower in relation to the air. Compounding these moments is the drag created by the inoperable power plant and control inputs to correct the upset.
Yes she did. I like that part since it shows that when you fly with Southwest, you have well trained pilots.
Very good. The power to the right wing had the effect of, as you said, raising the right wing fast and that is a hard left hand bank. Banked to the left the airplane turns left.
I'd aver that the passenger was suckered or blown out when the window was compromised by impact. Explosive decompression. I'm guessing the aircraft was level at about 30,000ft. Atmospheric pressure would be about 4psi at this altitude, creating a differential of about 7.8 psi. If the window separates completely that would, assuming a 12" x 20" window, provide a gaping hole for pressure to escape. 240 square inches. 240 x 7.8 psi = 1870 lb of total force. My math right?
Very close .. 1872 lb Calculations depend on the actual cabin pressure. I estimate cabin pressure at about This range Example - Air pressure at Elevation 10000 m Altitude Above Sea Level Absolute Barometer feet meters inches Hg 6000 1829 24.0 7000 2134 23.1 8000 2438 22.2
Quick flying story We departed Las Vegas in the evening prior to dark and in closing the door to the Piper airplane, I pulled the door closed and locked it. I did not realize it was not entirely shut tight. My cousin was then the pilot and as he gained altitude, we noticed very fast the air rush from the slightly open door. We spent about 3 miserable hours listening to the air rush and the colder cabin temperature. All he had to do was land at any available airport to solve the problem but he kept flying to the Oakdale Ca Airport where it was based. I suggested we open it a bit and two of us pull it tight. He was concerned this could cause the airplane door to fly off.
