I’m not sure that critical condition and serious condition are really OK. Hopefully they both pull through.

better than the alternative

I saw in a local article the exact location is approx 150ft deep… not sure if that is accurate or not but it was quoted several times.

NTSB is sending a crew of 10. They appear to be taking it very seriously as they should as a dual engine failure on a transport category jet is unheard of.
It was obviously an old aircraft, but if this happened on a pax plane the outcome would have been much worse.
Kudos to the Coast Guard for saving the crew.

How many pax planes out there still run JT8’s?
In places that we vaguely care about?

That's a far less technical dive, run of the mill commercial/salvage ops.

Could have been dual failure due to an issue which affected both motors... that would be significant but also pretty darn rare. Birds (Sully) or something like that BA triple at LHR.

Could also be that the "good" motor was tired and they inadvertently cooked it when they added thrust to compensate for the first failure. The timeline hints at that possibility.

I just don't think they could have run out of gas that quickly. Although an RJ a few years back managed to TO with just enough gas to get to the flight levels. They caught it barely in time, diverted, landed and may have flamed out on the taxi in.

Hoping. But since they both managed to exit the aircraft and hold on to floating stuff for a while I'm guessing they'll survive since they got to the hospital pretty quickly (that matters, a lot).

I can tell you the crash site is not zoned off to vessels. I Captain a charter boat, and transited the area today looking for any sign of the location/depth. Nada.

If its 150’ an advanced diver can hit it for a few minutes with no decompression required.

For something like this, commercial divers would use mixed gas. You could get about 10 minutes no-D with mixed gas... using professional tables. So still probably going to be a surface-supplied op.

I don't think you'd catch me going to 150' on air and coming back up without a stop... even though the mil tables probably say you can, barely.

Speculation only and posted elsewhere—DEF contaminated jet fuel.

Absolutely a possibility…..could have been fueled with 100LL to.
If they were able to get them lit but failed or ran so hot.

That Falcon Tri-Motor out of OPF lost two by the time they turned final and the third was limping.
Scary stuff!!

There's been a rash of that lately, but at HNL? Big 121 airports normally have a centralized fuel co-op... all the Jet A comes from the same tanks and trucks. Any diesel (for ground vehicles) will kept very, very segregated.

I think DEF is more of a GA issue.


Also probably not happening at HNL. Also hard to mistake a 737 for a bonanza.

Large airports do have centralized Jet A when your park at the terminals or well developed cargo ramps.
They may not park at one and there for fuel via trucks.

Ever heard of filling a fuel truck with the wrong fuel?
Its happened before.

The trucks at big airports are also part of the central system, same fuel, same SOP. Airlines ensure their fuel system has better standards then the one at the GA FBO.


Unless you hired an off airport service, which would need an access agreement, and pay taxes and fees.

So why haven’t there been more dual engine flameouts that day out of that airport? Was that bird the only one to fuel up before taking off?

Having burned Jet in about 70 countries, from rickety Russian trucks with fueler smoking to hydrants in Asia and in the Congo; I’d like see evidence fuel is segregated for airline use vs. GA use. The cargo ramp at HNL is next to the FBOscand I’ve seen the same trucks used on both ramps, depending on the contract. Signature and Castle & Cook are right next door to each other and the cargo ramp.

I have done several 160’ dives on air; no deco. We have a popular dive spot at 150. Absolutely if Doug salvage recovery they will use more technical dive techniques. Fortunately Pearl Harbor is not lacking for any type of ROV’s, DSRV, or hardhat divers.

Running that area yesterday in the charter boat the delta will be from 250 fathoms to 40 fathoms - the shelf is right on the reported area.

Everybody on a big 121 field normally gets their jet A from the co-op. That normally includes the high end FBOs. You'd have to go to a lot of trouble to arrange outside jet A, and it would probably cost more due to not having storage facilities on site, plus the access fees.

That's how big airports generally work, no law says HNL has to do it they way but why would they not?

If they didn't launch from a major 121 field, sure it might be plausible... but there's a reason that kind of thing doesn't happen to pax airlines.

Was the incident aircraft, due to COVID, parked for an extended period of time? When was the last time the tanks were dumped?

No, those planes are flying every night except for maybe Saturday night. Interisland Cargo has never been busier (much like the rest of the cargo world).

The plane flew over 200 flights leading up to the final one and, according to flight aware, it’s been flying pretty consistently.

I take your point and I’m sure the Jet A is distributed exactly that way at PHNL. But, if truck refueled instead of hydrant, the truck at an FBO or other service provider very likely has a Prist tank for small jets/turboprops requiring it. It only takes a small error in the dark perhaps, of putting DEF into the Prist tank or selecting Prist by a late night, tired refueled who defaults out of repetition to selecting Prist on uplift. I’ve seen it down even when specifying “no Prist”.

Is it long shot? Of course, but dual engine failures usually are fuel related even in old 732s. I have a hard believing both engines just quit right after take-off in a well-used jet. Wasn’t ice in the fuel, for sure. The PF might have firewalled the good one, but JT-8s are pretty tough and won’t die in a minute or two of abuse.

I took jet A from the same vendor there, the night before, and the next night. Possibly contaminated fuel....but it didn't show up in our equipment.

As for avgas in jet fuel, it's not nearly the problem for turbine equipment that jet fuel in avgas is, for piston engines. Turbine engines will burn the avgas. Piston engines will detonate with the kerosine.

if you vaguely care about Latin America
 

LASER operates Mad Dogs
Avior operates the -200 as well

Not Px in Alaska, but JT8Ds still run every day on the MD80/DC-9 cargo fleet. Like anything else, do proper maintenance and take care of them and they'll take care of you. Great engine.

Local news article reports that both pilots have been released from the hospital. Transair has “temporarily stopped” it’s 737 operation. FAA and NTSB are surveying the wreckage to determine how to proceed with the investigation.

That is some good news. It seems to me, you have to be lucky AND good to pull of an ocean landing at night.

Hope the HNL local news is better than the sfo hacks are.

Out of curiosity regarding the avgas argument. Do they overwing fuel transair’s birds? If not, there’s not many operations I know that use single point refueling with avgas.

Misfueling typically isn't a matter of putting the wrong fuel directly into the airplane (ie, hooking up the avgas truck to the jet aircraft), but of mixing in the tank.

Avgas doesn't do the damage to a turbine engine that jet fuel does to a piston engine. In fact, turbine engines, with a fuel controller adjustment, can run any number of fuels. I've run turbojets that were designed to run on avgas, and did. J34's on the P2V neptune and the C-119, for example.

If fuel contamination occurred from pressure refueling, it would have to be a tank mix. Given that Jet B and other cut fuels use gasoline/kerosine combinations and are common around the world, the introduction of avgas into jet fuel isn't going to cause engine failures. Mixing kerosine with avgas will cause detonation damage in piston engines, however.

It's not uncommon during fuel deliveries to have small quantities of mix result from using the same hoses from a truck that's carrying multiple fuels or split loads, even after hoses are flushed. More rare, over the years there have been a few incidents of the wrong fuel pumped aboard an airport fuel truck or fuel storage, from the delivery vehicle. In a large operation where the delivery vehicle is working off a fuel farm, it would take a lot of contamination to make a noticeable difference, and then in a turbine aircraft, would likely not be noticed.

Fuel will be tested as part of the investigation, confirming or ruling out this issue.

The Army once did a demo of different fuels with an M1 Abrams tank (it's turbine powered, like Navy surface combatants). This included running the tank on peanut butter (presumably the creamy kind).

Turbines can run on almost anything that burns, with minor tweaks.

file:///var/mobile/Library/SMS/Attachments/52/02/1AC0DC76-0C93-4FB8-8C72-9A080FE2AA8A/IMG_2883.jpg

Local newscast in HNL talking about the company's "troubled compliance history" with the FAA:

https://youtu.be/ijgcdexD3SE

There have been dual engine failures due to incorrect mx procedures being performed at the same time on both engines... I recall one years ago where IIRC an oring was left out on an oil change or something like that and they lost oil on both motors. So that kind of thing can explain why both could fail at the same time.

All three engines on an EA L-1011; made it back to MIA with seconds to spare.

They recover the major parts of plane yet?

They found it, at about 400'. The article says it's too deep for divers to recover the boxes, which is not true. It is deep enough to require sat diving and the NTSB probably doesn't want to pay for that. ADS would probably be too cumbersome to access and remove the boxes.

They're looking at raising the plane, might be able to do that with ROVs.

They also sampled the fuel from another plane that was fueled that night, it was OK.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aer...ii-2021-07-10/

Some video of the submerged aircraft....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ki_VDILYRE

GO!/Mesa almost had this same scenario about 10 years ago. Problem…a mechanic incorrectly installed a part of the fuel system. It blew when they were in cruise. Barely made it to HNL. I believe the picture I saw said 124# of fuel by the time they landed and got out.

Also had a United flight cancel many years ago because a random fuel test found sand in a Maui fuel truck.

Many possibilities and I’m definitely curious what the report finds.