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Friday Jul 18, 2008
"We have a light up here we don't like"
Twitter maintenance statements like this one remind me of a pilot announcement on a commercial flight I made a few years ago, short on detail, but an announcement none the less. Say as little as possible but say something.
At the end of the flight in question, on final approach with flaps out, gear down and in general configured and stabilized for landing, the L1011 (I told you it was a few years ago) retracted its gear and the flying pilot applied takeoff-go around power, in effect aborting the landing. After a few minutes, the pilot-in-command made the following announcement: "Folks, you may have noticed we are going back up. We have a light up here we don't like".
"A light ... we don't like"? Please. The problem was fairly obvious: there was an asymmetrical flap extension. I saw that at once, and I knew the landing would be aborted, but even folks without piloting experience could feel the weird seat-of-the-pants feeling from the asymmetrical lift/drag. Just explain what's going on, people aren't stupid, and the more information, the better. Twitter, same to you. What kind of database problem?
Oh, and they reset a circuit breaker and corrected the flap extension problem and landed safely.
Technorati Tags: software, travel, twitter
Posted at 01:50PM Jul 18, 2008 by tgardner in Internet |