acsidestick

Hi Dagger, In SYD, we were escorted, before C&I to a National Health Services desk, a solid 75m the wrong direction from C&I. There were two people present, a NHS nurse, and a Transport Australia official (not the type that sit by the scanners). We had to sign a couple of forms stated that we understood the restrictions placed on our movement. Masks had to be worn from airplane to hotel room, and not removed, even in the transport. We were then given a 5minute briefing that under no circumstances were we to leave the hotel, and we were expected to order room service, however, we could order skip the dishes orders, but the food must be brought to the lobby, and we were, again, not to leave the hotel. Also, we were expected to forgo exercise outside of the room. Auckland was at a whole new level of isolation. Everything as above, but we were prohibited from leave the room at all, except for a fire. At checkin, there were 3 New Zealand Transport officials at 3 desks. To get into the hotel, we had to sign in with a barricaded security guard outside first. We then entered the hotel and found out this was a quarantining hotel, with cruise ship passengers, etc, going through the mandatory 14 days under lockdown. If any got sick, they were moved from this hotel to another facility. We were given our own floor, with our own elevator, including its own unique extra keycard so that no non-airline personnel could come to our level. Food delivery was not allowed, and only room service was permitted. Upon leaving the hotel, we were required to sign out again at the front door. There was nobody, and I mean nobody, on the streets or sidewalks in Auckland. Note runway 07/25 is now a qantas storage area. Looks like the AMEs added some artistic flair to liven up a sad situation.

Hi Dagger, I just did one of the YVR-SYD-AKL-YYZ-YVR trips. It was the same crew, same plane, the entire way. We had 22hr in SYD, 10h40 in AKL (at the hotel), and 17hr30m in YYZ. Fun and interesting trip, but the layovers in AKL and SYD were hard lockdown (can’t leave room) so that part wasn’t so great. The AKL-YYZ leg was 15h in the air (7550 NM), plus some ITCZ detours of an extra couple hundred miles.

Engines all running, passenger wrong, I’m wrong— and very happy to be so.

Kip, that is exactly the scenario I was intimating. As I said, I really hope I’m wrong. Thanks Malcolm.

That’s my thought as well. The left isn’t curled, but twisted two different ways, possibly no power on at impact. That can happen when it’s turning but no making power, hits an object (tree) then immediately reverses from the impact the other way and hits another object (tree), The passengers said one quit, then the other, then the impact. There is only one reason both can quit so close together, and that’s fuel starvation. The reason for fuel starvation is limited to two reasons. It did it, or you did it. I sincerely hope it somehow did it, for whatever reason and that this is not a repeat of TransAsia 235.

In the TSB pictures, it appears the flaps are slightly extended. Thank heavens for the forward cargo location on the ATR, or this would be a very different story. It’s incredible to understand from the TSB pictures how the pilots could be relatively unscathed.

In a level or climbing turn, the high wing stalls first and drops, the aircraft spins down rapidly in the opposite direction of the initial turnand accompany huge altitude loss, but high speed turning stalls are pretty rare on an Airbus.