The latest on Iron Maidens 747 Ed Force Once.

ScouseMouse

Some very interesting information about the repairs to "Ed Force One" which was badly damaged in a accident in Chile recently.

For those that don't know, the lead singer Bruce Dickinson is a fully qualified commercial pilot and when he is not performing with Iron Maiden, he flys jets commercially. He had to upskill to become captain of a 747, which the band now uses to fly around the globe performing.

Heres the details of repairs after a mishap with a tug and a towing pin that fell out.

http://ironmaiden.com/news/article/ed-force-one-repaired

Shannon757

So who payed the 8 million for the new engines?
The band?
The lessor?
The crowd who damaged it?

ScouseMouse

Shannon757 wrote: »

So who payed the 8 million for the new engines?
The band?
The lessor?
The crowd who damaged it?

No idea, but it was under tow, on the ground, empty. Think it was going for fueling. I do not know about airport operations, but somebody has some exPLANEing to do.....:D

Shannon757

ScouseMouse wrote: »

No idea, but it was under tow, on the ground, empty. Think it was going for fueling. I do not know about airport operations, but somebody has some exPLANEing to do.....:D

sparrowcar

Shannon757 wrote: »

So who payed the 8 million for the new engines?
The band?
The lessor?
The crowd who damaged it?

Insurance company of the ground handler.

Shannon757

sparrowcar wrote: »

Insurance company of the ground handler.

That's gonna be an expensive renewal:pac:

Shannon757

Taxiing for take off now.

ScouseMouse

Shannon757 wrote: »

Taxiing for take off now.

Hope it's not being towed to the runway.:p

Irish Steve

Looking at all the information that's been released, there's more to this incident than has been revealed, when towing something like a 747, there should have been personnel on the flight deck of the aircraft, in theory a flight engineer, with the ability to apply aircraft brakes in the event of any sort of failure, and either a headset man in communication with the flight deck, or a radio link between the 2, so that everyone knew what was going on, and could respond accordingly to any emergency.

Maybe they were using a different tow bar in that part of the world, but when I was towing Air Atlanta 747's around Dublin (among other things), the 747 bar was a very short stubby little thing, a lot shorter than most of the other bars that were used for things like 777's or the bigger Airbus types. That short bar meant that it was a LOT more difficult to do a reverse push, which was helpful if doing a move between stands, as it avoided a delay to turn the tug round in the middle of the taxiway.

That short bar should have meant that even if a shear pin failed, the distance between the tug and the nose wheel should have remained quite short, so it's looking like BOTH pins on the head of the bar failed, and I've not heard of that scenario before, it's fairly common for a shear pin to break, they are designed to do so to prevent damage, but for the other pin to fail or fall out, something strange was happening there, which would be very much down to the ground handling company, unless they were using a tow bar provided by the aircraft operator, which would be unusual for a 747, the only aircraft that carried their own bars were the very large Antonov freighters, and we had one Tu154 that carried a bar in the hold as there were places that didn't have a bar for them.

The engineers would not have been able to do much to influence where the aircraft was going, when towing, there is a pin in the nose wheel that locks out the hydraulic power to the steering, to avoid damage, and allow the tow to proceed correctly, so based on the damage caused, it would seem that the flight deck personnel were unaware of the failure of the tow bar, so did not apply brakes to stop the aircraft, and that implies that there was no communication from the tug to the flight deck to advise them of the failure, which would indeed mean that the handling company's insurers are indeed in line for a very large bill as a result of this incident.

scudzilla

Copy of my post from the accident thread


From Iron Maiden's FB Page, tour only been going around a week, poor Bruce got his 747 Rating especially

ED FORCE ONE BADLY DAMAGED ON THE GROUND IN COMODORO ARTURO MERINO BENITEZ (SANTIAGO, CHILE) AIRPORT
CONCERTS IN ARGENTINA TOMORROW AND TUESDAY EXPECTED TO GO AHEAD AS PLANNED
Ed Force One was this morning tethered to a tow truck to be taken for refuelling prior to flying over the Andes to Cordoba for the next show. On moving the steering pin that is part of the mechanism that connects the ground tug to the aircraft seemingly fell out. On making a turn the aircraft had no steering and collided with the ground tug badly damaging the undercarriage, two of the aircrafts engines and injuring two ground tug operators, both of whom have been taken to hospital. We hope of course that they make a full and speedy recovery and we will be closely monitoring their progress. The flight engineers are on site and evaluating the damage, but their initial report is that the engines have suffered large damage and will require an extended period of maintenance and possibly two new engines.
We are currently making contingency arrangements to get to the show in Cordoba tomorrow with band, crew and equipment intact. Fortunately the 20 tons of equipment had not been loaded onto EF1 at the time of the accident. Although this is tragic for our beautiful plane we do not expect this to affect our concert schedule including the next 2 shows in Cordoba and Buenos Aires. And we hope to find a new Ed Force One to continue this adventure with us in the near future. We will keep everyone updated when we know more, so keep checking only on this site for official news.
To finish on a high note however, our visit to Chile was a huge success with 58,000 fans coming to the show as totally brilliant as ever in the Stadium Nacional last night. We love you guys!

BeardySi

That bottom pic has been bugging me since I first saw it the other week - The green bit down the length of the engine looks like a dodgy photoshop job.

knucklehead6

Treadhead wrote: »

That bottom pic has been bugging me since I first saw it the other week - The green bit down the length of the engine looks like a dodgy photoshop job.

i don't think it's down the length of the engine, it just appears that way in the pictures.
I think its actually at right angles to the engine.

BeardySi

Possibly, it's just a very odd photo and looks a bit funny...

billy few mates

The problem with riding the brakes on a 747 when you're towing it is that you can't actually see the tug from the flight deck as the nose leg is behind so a tug with a short tow bar will be underneath you out of your field of vision.
The pin you're talking about is the steering bypass pin which allows the hydraulics to bypass the steering jacks allowing the nose wheel to caster while you're being towed, if that pin isn't fitted the steering jacks are pressurised and the NLG is hydraulically centred. If you try to tow it without the pin the shear pin in the tow bar will shear when you try to turn.
What I think happened (because I've seen this before) is that the tow bar became detached as they were towing it (possibly at speed) meaning that the tug was hurtling along with a hundred and forty ton Jumbo right on its arse. When this happens the procedure for the tug crew is to alert the brakeman by swerving the tug hard left so that the brakeman can gently apply the brakes to stop the runaway A/C. The important thing to remember when you carry out this manoeuvre is to keep going once you swing left to avoid the LH engines impacting into you. In the incident I witnessed on a taxiway in LGW the tow bar broke on a Dan Air A300-B4, the tug swung left but stopped, the LH engine smashed into the stationary tug before the guy could bring the A/C to a stop....

Foggy43

Another issue with the B747 nose steering pin, is it's location behind the nose wheels. You push the pin up in to it's location and it is 'supposed' to stay in position. Luckily it has only ever happened to me once but the nose steering pin can fall out and not be noticed until the tug turns. An almighty bang of the tow bar shear pin snapping. Luckily for me there is a gradient on the stands so the tug stopped and the B747 just rolled back and away for a few seconds until I alerted the crew to apply the parking brake.
Put the steering pin back in, replaced the tow bar, push back completed.

smurfjed

It also helps that if there is someone in the cockpit, that they actually know which hydraulic system supplies the brakes.

Irish Steve

Interesting, there's a piece of information in the last few posts that was never part of the formal training, which is the "get out of dodge" issue of how to avoid damage in the event of a total disconnect, that wasn't part of the training back in the day (now nearly 15 years ago). At the time, for all sorts of political reasons that I won't bore you with now, if I was on duty, I ended up doing 90% of the tows, as I didn't need OPS1 escort, which was often a significant delay to the process. I was "lucky" or careful, which ever way you look at it, and never had a shear pin or worse let go, but some of the other lead agents were less fortunate, and it could cause problems, especially if the flight deck were also starting engines during a "normal" push, rather than a tow, which was also the norm in those times. If the shear pin failed, you had to be VERY quick on the headset (or radio) to avoid all sorts of problems, and lots of embarrassing paperwork or worse. And yes, being seen from the 747 flight deck was indeed an issue, as headset man, you had to be very careful which direction you went in to show the flight deck that you were clear and had the pin in your hand, those engines had some serious power on them when they were running! Airport ramps were not a good place for the absent minded.

smurfjed

Airport ramps were not a good place for the absent minded.

Very true, we had a guy a few months ago who tried to kick the chock out from under the front of a B747 wheel, he succeeded but the aircraft then rolled over his foot, it has taken a lot of reconstructive surgery to fix his foot.

bronn

A 747 rolled over his foot? And he was still able to have reconstructive surgery? :eek: The poor dude! I would've thought that if a 747 rolled over any bit of you, you'd be squished flatter than a pancake.

I did smile once when I saw a pilot doing a pre-flight check. He kicked the tyres on a 747 like a man would if he was looking at a new car. Like, the wheel was up to his shoulder and his little foot kick was v amusing.

Pat Dunne

smurfjed wrote: »

Very true, we had a guy a few months ago who tried to kick the chock out from under the front of a B747 wheel, he succeeded but the aircraft then rolled over his foot, it has taken a lot of reconstructive surgery to fix his foot.

Poor effer, that is seriously painful! A few years back a 10 ton truck drove over my foot and by jayus was it sore, was out of work for 8 months.

smurfjed

The initial medical prognosis was amputation at the knee, but the guy was medevaced out to Munich where they saved his foot.

billy few mates

Irish Steve wrote: »

Interesting, there's a piece of information in the last few posts that was never part of the formal training, which is the "get out of dodge" issue of how to avoid damage in the event of a total disconnect, that wasn't part of the training back in the day (now nearly 15 years ago). At the time, for all sorts of political reasons that I won't bore you with now, if I was on duty, I ended up doing 90% of the tows, as I didn't need OPS1 escort, which was often a significant delay to the process. I was "lucky" or careful, which ever way you look at it, and never had a shear pin or worse let go, but some of the other lead agents were less fortunate, and it could cause problems, especially if the flight deck were also starting engines during a "normal" push, rather than a tow, which was also the norm in those times. If the shear pin failed, you had to be VERY quick on the headset (or radio) to avoid all sorts of problems, and lots of embarrassing paperwork or worse. And yes, being seen from the 747 flight deck was indeed an issue, as headset man, you had to be very careful which direction you went in to show the flight deck that you were clear and had the pin in your hand, those engines had some serious power on them when they were running! Airport ramps were not a good place for the absent minded.

It was standard procedure in every place I've ever worked, in the event of a towbar disconnect the tug was to immediately accelerate and break left and swing beyond the wingtip of the A/C under tow to alert the brakeman that the towbar had separated.....

scudzilla

This repair made to Ed Force One, in normal circumstances how long would it take?

billy few mates

scudzilla wrote: »

This repair made to Ed Force One, in normal circumstances how long would it take?

Most engines are easily replaced on a single shift input at base, they're usually a bit slower when you do them on the road but if it's just an engine change you're looking at approx 12-15 hours per engine plus the runs on top assuming they were QEC engines supplied, the tricky bit might be sourcing two suitable replacements and the logistics of getting them and a crew in to replace them. Probably do one the first day, rest that night, second the next day then the runs. There was probably some additional NDT on the pylons as well...

scudzilla

New vid just uploaded by the band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a8aeHb-Qco