Originally Posted by
Mobiusixi
Value Jet 592. When your time is up, your time is up.
The same could almost be said for Swissair 111. The captain was one of the most expirenced pilots at Swissair and the FO wasn't straight from flight school either. The whole thing might have been avoided if he did a pan pan call when he smelled smoke and diverted straight to Halifax just to play it safe, but his expirence likely told him it was the A/C system. There are times when expirence means nothing if the cards are stacked against you.
You already know that, but that's just my thought on that.
quite a few comments on Swiss 111 that are off the mark. industry practice back then and Swiss fire checklist proritized detection and elimination of sources first and only then the land at the nearest suitable airport. they were trained that way and following procedure. after this accident many airlines changed their procedures and now a land asap is of priority when dealing with an onboard fire.
Also the TSB did many simulations of the flight profile. Even without the fuel dump they conclusively proved the aircraft would have not made it regardless.
Pg 248
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-re...3/a98h0003.pdf
quoted portion:
Theoretical calculations confirm that from any point along the actual flight path after the aircraft started to descend, it would not have been possible for the pilots to continue maintaining control of the aircraft for the amount of time necessary to reach the airport and complete a landing.