Accident with BA 777 in 01/2008 caused by ice in fuel?

[euroflyer]

The accident report revealed today suggests the accident involving BA's 777 in January in LHR was caused by ice in the fuel

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl ... 598267.stm

[RC20]

This continues to be a peculiar accident.

Fuel is protected well below the freeze point it experienced.

There has to be either a separation affect that concentrated water in a portion of the system such that when they went for throttle, it slugged through as a mass despite the rest of the fuel being fine.

Possibly a venturi affect in the fuel system and or combination of those.

Reportedly the fuel tested fine, but that’s another question being was it all fine, or a portion of it contaminated that they did not get a sample of with all the tank ruptures and exposure to air involved (I am surprised there is not more of that sort of thing occurring considering the places they have to get fuel and the situations in countries that are corrupt)

[TCAS_climb]

If I remember correctly they were cruising very high. I guess a high and long cruise followed by a loooong descent with engines at idle doesn't help.

[jan_olieslagers]

If I remember correctly they were cruising very high. I guess a high and long cruise followed by a loooong descent with engines at idle doesn't help.

Aren't high cruising and long descents at idle both common practice for airliners?

[TCAS_climb]

Exactly ! That's what makes this accident so "unexpected" and makes you wonder if a temperature gauge in the tanks is enough to stay away from trouble.

[regi]

The tricky thing about this report is that nobody can prove it or deny it.
The ice has gone.
So, Boeing's fault because the defreezing of the fuel doesn't happen on civilian B777?
RR fault because there is no detection of obstructions?
BA's fault because flying too high?
Everybody can blame eachother. But they won't, as long as the other parties shut up.

[smokejumper]

If I remember correctly they were cruising very high. I guess a high and long cruise followed by a loooong descent with engines at idle doesn't help.

I believe the report also said that the plane flew through excessively cold temperatures which contributed to any freezing of water in the fuel. Was the fuel filtered (for water) in Bejing as it was being pumped into the tanks; this is common for some applications [pleasure boating and (sometimes) for autos].

[Desert Rat]

[ Was the fuel filtered (for water) in Bejing as it was being pumped into the tanks; this is common for some applications [pleasure boating and (sometimes) for autos].

Water drainage of the fuel tanks is usually C/O at main base during the daily check ,not in outstation...

[giocook]

Every daily a waterdrain should be done, but can only be done after 2h of the flight. Whene the A/C is never more than 3h on the ground, draining of the A/C is not easy.
Also important: During each refueling the operator/Engineer/piloot has to ask the refueler to do a watercheck- the present of water in fuel- it is a very easy test.
After +_ 1000 liter fuel the refueler has to do this.

[TCAS_climb]

Lawyers don't care, they just sue and wait to see what falls into their pocket. All it takes is a single pax from that flight.

There will always be a difference between the regulations (which define the minimum level of safety, not the highest level) and what is "prudent" in order to be safe and avoid accidents/incidents. That gap is how aviation lawyers pay their mortgage and golf club membership cards.

Years ago the "General Aviation Revitalization Act" in the U.S. included a series of legal fixes to promote general aviation. One of them was that aircraft manufacturers would no longer be responsible for design flaws if a plane crashes more than 19 years after its initial "type certification". The idea was that by doing so it would decrease the number of lawsuits against manufacturers and incidentally the price of aircraft would drop. Guess what ! The number of lawsuits didn't change, they just switched from the manufacturer to the maintenance facilities.

The best part being that you can't use an accident report in a courtroom. That's the law. So if the accident report of the BA 777 says something like (pure speculation): "the type of bacteria found in the tanks of the crashed airplane indicates that a significant amount of water was probably pumped into the plane in an African country", there's nothing to prevent lawyers to sue the handling agent or the refueling company in China. Spooky, isn't it ?

[jan_olieslagers]

I believe the report also said that the plane flew through excessively cold temperatures which contributed to any freezing of water in the fuel.

I find that hard to believe. At typical cruise levels, outside temperature is several 10's of degrees °C below zero, so really freezing and freezing hard. Whether it was -50 or minus 70 cannot make much difference that I can see. So if the trouble started with water, it cannot have been the temperature. Only other explanation I can imagine is the amount of water in the fuel system, probably at some critical point of it.

[giocook]

When there is realy a lot of water in the fuel tank, it will start with fuel indication problems. Like flutuations, incorrect values.
But I know on a B737 the indication systems gives you error codes whene there is a problem with your indication system and the first thing you have to do is waterdraining and for the most of the time the problems are gone.
May be whene you ignore this problem, the water can cumulate and thene you have a real problem, it can be ending in a Ice cube in your fuel thank.