Previous Bravo Blog...

The first pictures from the scene showed what was clearly a sudden end to a flight. The main landing gear on the British Airways 777 had absorbed so much shock at touchdown, they simply gave up, and punched holes through the wings of the heavy jet. Amazingly, everyone got out.

As details emerged from investigators, it became clear that the workload in the cockpit quickly went from routine to chaotic, with the co-pilot coaxing the big Boeing to the runway after apparently losing all or most power on short final, just 600 feet above rooftops, and two miles from the threshold.

And that got me thinking: was I prepared for something so jarring on final approach?

I'd like to think so, but after doing some quick math, it became very clear to me that I'd be landing well short of the Heathrow runway in my rented Cessna 172.

With a glide ratio of 9 feet forward for every foot of altitude lost, my calculations put me and my Skyhawk on the ground, or on a roof, a mile short of the London runway. Scary thought. Ok, so how'd the triple-7 make it?

To my surprise, it has a reported glide ratio somewhere in the range of 17 to 1, in large part due to its massive wing.

More math shows that losing power at 600 feet and 2 miles out in the 777 has you missing the runway, in this scenario, by just a few hundred feet. And that's exactly what happened. Luckily, the grassy overrun area at Heathrow was large enough make up for this difference, and luckily, power didn't fail earlier in the landing phase.

Does that mean our trusty 172s are doomed on final approach if something goes wrong?

Not at all. I had to remind myself that while large airliners tend to fly long final approach legs, we VFR pilots tend to linger near the airport just before landing. Remember when your instructor pulled the power in the pattern and you made that perfect dead-stick landing? No problem.

So while investigators try to piece together what led to the amazingly unlikely simultaneous double-engine failure, the lesson for me is to keep that airport close while in the pattern, stay as high as practical when asked to do an extended downwind, and to never, ever consider any landing… a routine landing.

Article by Chris Archer; Send him an email