We went to Riyadh last night following the end of a 36 hour sandstorm caused by a front moving through. Thunderstorms all over south and east of Riyadh, it must have been quite a day.
Approach control advised us that the normal landing on 33R was not possible due to a disabled aircraft on the runway. OK, landed on 33L which is just as good but a mile and a half farther away. As we taxied across 33R we could see lights and a silhouette of what looked like a 737 down the runway, right on the centerline.
After kicking our passengers off we got the story.
The night before the wind kicked up as several CB's passed overhead, several airplanes jumped their chocks and were damaged. The 737 in question had jumped their chocks as well but didn't hit anything, after looking at the tire marks the crew concluded it had spun 240 degrees throughout the storm. The airplane was covered in dust even though it had rained during the thunderstorm. The crew opened the engine cowlings to check for damage and get the sand out, they also swept out the intake and exhaust then even used a vacuum cleaner to get as much out as possible.
After that exercise they put a full load of fuel on, started the APU and motored the engines to blow as much sand and water out as possible. That went well so they started and taxied over to the Royal Gate which is about 10 minutes away. At about 3PM local time they had their handful of passengers on board so off they go.
Everything is normal up to the time they rotated when the #2 engine started to compressor stall, surge and over temp. The Captain asked the F/O (who was on his second flight with the company) to try to get the temp down by reducing the throttle. Nothing worked. At about 2-300 feet the #1 engine started to do the same thing. Now the book goes out the window and it's time to get as much out of both engines as possible. If you've never been in a larger airplane it is called radar power, push the throttles as far as they will go which is usually right up against the radar screen. They got just enough to take a near gross weight airplane around the pattern without climbing, but without losing speed either.
As I said they had just enough power to stay at 300 feet and circle back for a landing. The Captain said he sight of the airport several times off in the dust and sand but had a good idea of where the runway was. Rolling out on final there was the runway right where it should have been. At touchdown both engines seized up, with no thrust reverse and a way over weight landing he had to get on the brakes asap. About 6000 feet down the runway the left brakes locked up and caught fire, all 4 main tires ended up flat. As I said earlier he stopped it right on the centerline after circling at 300 feet with 3000 meters of official visibility.

Sounds like a good landing.

Tim

It's sure good that one never made the news! Awful close to headline material.

Seems funny that they took off at full gross after all that, but what do I know?

Looks like pretty impressive flying once the crisis started.

I don't know if they were at gross but they had a long trip, everything looked good, they did everything they could think of so you do the trip as planned. After all there had probably been 25 departures by airplanes that were there overnight with no problems so who would suspect anything.

You would think that a test flight would have been in order. But maybe this is a comon thing in avaition in that part of the world.

Tim

Now think about all those airlines wanting to get flight op's started again after the volcano eruption in Iceland -- what happens when halfway across the Atlantic the engines finally ingest enough ash & fail? I'm surprised that they were eager to get going so soon- but I guess when the revenue stream stops, the urgency factor goes way up.

Eric

Sand get's in everything here, constantly. That is why, even following a proper dust storm, we just clean it up, blow it out and keep going. Nobody is going to do a test flight for some dust.