Sixth entry for the Christmas Challenge.
Well… it’s more like Entry 6.A. A for Aborted.
Click to reveal AAR
So here I am in San Diego, prepping my 737-200. This is old hardware, especially with that Carousal IV-A, but if I survived a trip in the 727 I think I can survive a trip in the old 737.
It was roughly 6:50 AM.
Passengers come aboard the United Airlines 737-200 developped by FlyJSim.
Ground power kicks in. Time to get to work.
I plug in my CIVA coordinates (which takes bloody forever) to Mexico.
I fire up the APU, then the engines as the pushback cart places me on the taxiway.
Good morning Mister Sun!
Lining up on Runway 9.
Throttling up to takeoff power
Picking up airspeed
V1, Rotate!
Pff, why would someone want to retire that plane? I still see Air Inuit 732s takeoff from CYUL all the time. Look at that gorgeous, noisy-as-hell beast!
“This plane is the BEST!” (actual quote from me, a few seconds after takeoff)
“Yep, totally worth it!” (another actual quote from me)
Now, this is the part where I go “what could possibly go wrong?”
THIS! FIRE!!!
Pulling the fire handle
Turning handle. Extinguishing agent is going through engine 2. As the agent kills the fire, I shut down engine 2 and start wondering what to do.
As I settle the aircraft in a straight-and-level attitude, Now that the fire is extinguished, I go through my options.
- Attempt to restart engine 2, which may very well be busted with all the extinguishing agent.
- If engine restart is possible, I “could” try to get to my destination. However, the engine fire probably burned through most of my right tank fuel. That sounds like a horrible, horrible idea.
- Regardless of whether or not I can restart the engine, I’ve got to save the aircraft first. With that rationale, the safest way to go is turning back and landing to KSAN with one engine.
- Keeping that in mind, I’ll have to touchdown as slowly as possible since using thrust reversers is out of the question (assymmetric thrust on landing? No thank you.) I’ll have to use manual braking and spoilers to slow me down as much as possible.
Approaching Miramar
Boy are these windows dirty. I’m starting to think this engine failure might be sabotage by one of the mechanics!
I hold 1500 ft AGL and 160 kts to enter the pattern on crosswind to land on Runway 9.
The landing isn’t pretty: I miss the treshold and land long…
I’m risking it: I fear more engine 1 dying on my go around than running out of runway length.
I got lucky: I had just enough room to not crash past the runway. Looks like I get to live another day.
Sadly going back to the Maintenance Hangar
“Dear passengers, this is your Captain speaking. I want to congratulate you on surviving your first 737-200 engine failure. I’ll go punch the Mechanic in the face shortly, and we’ll be back on our way to Mexico. We will now shut down the engines when we reach the ramp, where a company bus will bring you back to the Terminal.”
Like NEW?
This IS suspicious.
So… we’ll try it again next time once the engine has been overhauled…
