Icy weather shuts Gatwick runway

[clicker]

As per the BBC

BBC NEWS | England | Sussex | Icy weather shuts Gatwick runway (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/7777142.stm)

I'm no longer in the airline trade but I find it some what surprising that it took so long to de-ice the airport.

What on earth are the BAA going to do when it snows, and why were they not prepared?

[glad rag]

How odd. On Tuesday my flight to Gatwick carried out a MA followed by landing, on the taxi in, de icing spreaders were spraying the taxiways at @1600 ish....

[Lurking123]

Oh FFS. What next, Gatwck/Heathrow/Luton enforcing LVPs?

[mikehammer]

They are no quicker to clear the ice from their other airports either. I don't really have enough experience flying yet in order to be able to judge but I do sometimes wonder if we make more of the weather over here than other more snow prone countries. Bumped into a couple of Icelandic pilots who were laughing anyway.

[fireflybob]

Sounds like the Health & Safety culture at work again to me.

[fred peck]

Wasn't snow.

Was ice.

"Sudden drop in temperature overnight..."

Whatever next.

[Litebulbs]

Was snow, then ice.

[Glamgirl]

We were told (whilst at divertion airport waiting for fuel) that it had more to do with the wrong de-icing fluid used, which then made it a lot worse. True? I don't know, it's just what our Captain told me when I was in the flight deck earlier.

Gg

[CaptJ]

So -
Wrong kind of snow
followed by wrong kind of ice,
followed by wrong kind of of airport operator.

[sbh684b]

Rather try that the wrong type of de-icing chemicals' was sprayed onto the runway surface that froze instantly, witch resulted in poor to no braking action, and finally resulted in the airport being closed for 4 hours while they were trying to melt the chemicals again.
:oh::oh:

[junglie-driver]

Need more swine urine.....

[captplaystation]

Given that the BAA are constantly taking the piss, perhaps they could give some of it back and the problem would be solved :ok:

[Max Tow]

Nice picture of LHR in summer in that BBC story re LGW in winter....

[reynoldsno1]

Reports from other aerodromes:
Yakutsk, Russia: -45C, heavy snow, no delays
Novosibirsk, Siberia: -25C, heavy snow, no delays
Chicago, U.S.: -2C, no delays
Minneapolis, U.S.: -11C, scattered snow, minor delays
Detroit, U.S.: -2C, no delays
Winnipeg, Canada: -24 C, light snow, minor delays
Oslo, Norway: -5C, heavy snow, no delays
Helsinki, Finland: 1C, light snow, no delays
Salzburg, Austria: 0 C, light snow, no delays
Stockholm, Sweden: 2C, no snow, no delays
Copenhagen, Denmark: 2C, no snow, no delays

A Gatwick Airport spokesman said: 'Shortly before 6am we had snow flurries that had not been forecast.
'We are normally in close contact with the Met Office.
'The temperature plunged quite quickly and that had not been forecast so the de-icing programme had to respond to it rather than prepare for it.'
The spokesman insisted the airport was not seeking to blame the Met Office and added: 'These were extraordinary weather conditions.'
But that cut no ice with the Met Office.
A spokesman for the Met Office said Gatwick did not subscribe to its Open Runway service, which would have flagged up the adverse conditions.
'I don't know where they get their weather reports from but they don't subscribe to our service.:p

(actually, I don't think the terribly nice spokesman at the Met Office stuck his tongue out like that....)

[WATABENCH]

Bristol, UK -2C No delays
Cardiff, UK -1C No delays
Birmingham, UK -2C No delays
Exeter, UK -2C No delays
Bournemouth, UK -1C No delays

Any excuse BAA, Other airports in the south of the uk were fine! :}:ouch:

[harrogate]

Love the talk about the 'wrong type of de-icing chemicals'.

Surely a substance that doesn't de-ice things can't really be called a de-icing chemical, can it?

I think they just used warm water.

[mickey71]

they ran out of their airfield ops building and mt department with a heated up kettle and waited until 8am for the nearest halfords to open and got a couple of window scrapers and then started clearing the ice!

on a serious note,i think you find what glamgirl has said is close to the mark,i was told that they did use the incorrect mix and also did not have enough vehicles to carry out the job in quick enough time!

just hope we dont get any snow,me may just about open in time then for the summer season!

cops and keystone come to mind!

[Thaimike]

I won't say which south coast airport just up the road from s/hampton last winter had it's only de-icer frozen up so it was usless, they had to pull the parked a/craft on the apron into the rising sun and turn them around B-B-Q fashion. I kid you not!! Nice one s/air.

[eu01]

Very funny, even Google has the answer to this problem. From time to time, it presents the banner with an ad of a de-icing fluid just at the right side of this topic. Seems the computer intelligence is able to make smarter decisions/choices than the airport staff out there. :E

[NWT]

Just shows the incompetence of those that pretend to be 'Airport' operatives....We all know what 'BAA' really stands for.

[compton3bravo]

Do not assume they were UK people, probably afgans, iraqi kurds or people from Eastern Europe - cheap labour. Typical comment coming from the colonies!

[Still Wee Jock]

Sounds like the old it snowed a bit so we put de-icing fluid on the snow (you can see the flaw there already, snow isn't sheets of ice) which melts the snow then covers the runway surface with a waterproof film that makes the water sit on it in pools, which then freeze into great big ice pancakes. Seen it a million times, slid sideways up the runway in a Landrover a million times because of it.

'The temperature plunged quite quickly and that had not been forecast so the de-icing programme had to respond to it rather than prepare for it'. So if the temperature had already started to plunge, anyone with half a brain would have worked out what was about to happen.

So glad I'm retired and sitting at home with a cup of tea instead of still having to deal with this sort of muppetry.

[vs69]

Problem is the BAA are too busy making people take their belts / shoes / pants off and trying to run a glorified shopping mall to remember that the aeroplanes need to take off and land. I hope they will be compensating the airlines for this debacle.
I would say I hope those responsible are reading this thread but in my experience being able to read makes one over qualified to be employed by the BAA.....

[Woofrey]

BAA spokesperson 'We are normally in close contact with the Met Office.

But that cut no ice with the Met Office.

A spokesman for the Met Office said Gatwick did not subscribe to its Open Runway service, which would have flagged up the adverse conditions.
'I don't know where they get their weather reports from but they don't subscribe to our service.

"Normally" would perhaps suggest they used to get weather reports from the Met Office, but have now stopped ? A tad short sighted if it's a cost cutting exercise....

[UP and Down Operator]

I really wonder why the british officials in general refuses to learn from other countries??

Seems to be the same with the road network here.... minus 1 degree and everything starts to stand still, while in other countries traffic keeps rolling with walls of snow :eek:

Maybe time to raise the salary to the double and then employ some to be in charge that is willing to learn and copy from those with succes around the world????

[Capt. Horrendous]

I was there shortly after the place re-opened and was told by staff on the ground that the situation had persisted for so long because of a 'lack of concentration'.

An amusing double entendre that made me smirk.

[mathers_wales_uk]

I believe the issue with snow clearing is that we are not guaranteed a significant amount of snowfall / frost in a year to purchase top class ice prevention, snow clearing machinery.

What is usually purchased are machines and just enough of them to get by if there are snow fall/ice occur.

At the smaller airports this wouldn't cause so much of an issue as theres less traffic and more chance to clear / solve the problem with minimal delay. But at a larger airport all relevant systems / machinery / chemicals should be purchased in order to reduce the risk of this happening and causing the risk of aircraft diverting and loosing revenue on landing fees.

The question is now that Gatwick is up for sale, are BAA neglecting the airport and services it provides? I believe this has an overall bearing on the current issue.

[racedo]

I won't say which south coast airport just up the road from s/hampton last winter had it's only de-icer frozen up so it was usless, they had to pull the parked a/craft on the apron into the rising sun and turn them around B-B-Q fashion. I kid you not!! Nice one s/air.

About 14 yrs ago on a FR flight from BHX to DUB at about 9am the crew waited and waited for the deicer. At about 10.30 am it had got sufficiently warm and they finally turned up but as pilot remarked it was probably no longer needed as the ice was mostly gone but he then stated I'd rather not take the chance so they are going to do it.

[mathers_wales_uk]

I was told 2 months back that a certain airline used to position aircraft into bases where they had hangers in order for them not to pay for de-icing.

De-Icing of aircraft can be a very different story. The airport either offers the service or the handling agents.

Airfield operations are in charge of keeping the taxiways/ runways open and safe.

[Midland 331]

Reports from other aerodromes:
Yakutsk, Russia: -45C, heavy snow, no delays
Novosibirsk, Siberia: -25C, heavy snow, no delays
Chicago, U.S.: -2C, no delays
Minneapolis, U.S.: -11C, scattered snow, minor delays
Detroit, U.S.: -2C, no delays
Winnipeg, Canada: -24 C, light snow, minor delays
Oslo, Norway: -5C, heavy snow, no delays
Helsinki, Finland: 1C, light snow, no delays
Salzburg, Austria: 0 C, light snow, no delays
Stockholm, Sweden: 2C, no snow, no delays
Copenhagen, Denmark: 2C, no snow, no delays

This text, which appears further up the tread, has been used verbatim in today's "Daily Mail". Journos seem to sniff around PPRUNE regularly these days...

[Hangar_9]

NO NO NO NO NO! You've got it all wrong. Companies dont make allowance for proper de-icing equipment these days as were all being told global warming is on the up and the planet is in fact getting warmer. snow....... narrr thats not real snow.. :ugh:

[Musket90]

A number of UK airports use "environmentally friendly" so called anti/de-icing fluid. Water authorities are very keen to know what is flowing into the drainage system so airports have to be seen to be responsible in amounts and type of fluids being used. These fluids are no where near as effective as the right stuff. They are also very costly. So perhaps with a questionable weather forecast for the local area together with a lack of awareness by the airport team of the unforecast deteriorating conditions the "ineffective" fluid may have been applied at the wrong time and possibly at the wrong spread rate for the conditions. No doubt a big learning experience for all concerned, but no doubt a similar infrequent situation will occur in the future when this one has been forgotten and the same disruption will occur. Ater all we're only human.

[ETOPS]

A number of UK airports use "environmentally friendly" so called anti/de-icing fluid. Water authorities are very keen to know what is flowing into the drainage system so airports have to be seen to be responsible in amounts and type of fluids being used. These fluids are no where near as effective as the right stuff. They are also very costly. So perhaps with a questionable weather forecast for the local area together with a lack of awareness by the airport team of the unforecast deteriorating conditions the "ineffective" fluid may have been applied at the wrong time and possibly at the wrong spread rate for the conditions.

Well done Musket90 you are spot on. The fluid they use is called "Clearway" and isn't a patch on "Konsin" which was the previously used Glycol based de-icer.

The slick conditions they ended up with explains why braking action reports were not available - you can't get a Mu-meter reading off sheet ice :eek:

[Musket90]

Thanks ETOPS - I know both very well and give me the big "K" any time.

LGW's weather can sometimes be very tricky to forecast accurately because it's located in a valley between the North Downs to the north and Sussex Weald to the south. The river Mole plays it's part too. One minute it's clear the next can be thick fog rolling in, without any met office warning. On cold winter nights the temperature can drop a lot quicker and to a much lower minimum compared to the other London airports - the valley effect.

Airport management provide a snow/ice plan for each winter, but it's never easy to apply it in practice because of all the different variables that the UK winter can create. When de-icer is applied in great quantity and the airport remains open questions are asked if less should have been used to cut costs and keep Water Authorities happy or justify why Konsin was used which wouldn't keep them happy. Yet when the airport loses it's runway braking action due insufficent/no de-icer or the wrong type for the job applied then the opposite questions are asked. You can't win either way, you just hope that whatever plan is put into practice is the one that suits conditions at the time. Clearly conditions the other night were not forecast therefore whatever plan was used was too little too late.



People will

[tubby linton]

I landed at Manchester on Thursday evening on 23R.The runway had been chemically de-iced and was declared as WET . The ATIS also advised that 23R was slippery when wet.Departing aircraft were asking about the braking action on 23R and ATC response was to tell the aircraft to call a telephone number.I heard one aircraft do this and then a couple of minutes later ask for 23L for departure!So what was the braking action being given over the phone and if it was less than good why was this not relayed to landing aircraft?
It would appear that LGW was not the only airfield suffering problems on that day.

[Musket90]

I believe CAA do not permit braking action figures to be passed to pilots, so if the readings are below what is considered to be "good" braking action then that portion of the runway should be published as "slippery when wet" with operators applying their procedures as appropriate. As Manchester have published a Notam that part of their runway is slippery when wet then presumably this is not related to freezing conditions but when the surface is wet with either de-icer or rain. So maybe the Manchester issue is the general state of the runway surface which doesn't provide a "good" braking action when wet which would be a different sutuation to Gatwick's runway the other night which lost braking action due to ice.

[FL370 Officeboy]

I believe the MAN 'slippery when wet' is due to rubber deposits in the TDZ awaiting removal.

[42psi]

I believe the MAN 'slippery when wet' is due to rubber deposits in the TDZ awaiting removal.



You are correct :ok: and with the fairly continual re-application of anti-ice the status of both runways has tended to remain wet with anti-ice fluid.


The work has actually been completed but the continuous wet weather (and anti-ice) conditions have apparently prevented a formal calibration of the "dry" braking action.

Hence the Notam/ATIS advising 23R/05L as slippery when wet has not yet been cancelled (as of last night anyway).

23L/05R has been made available to all operators as required for either arrivals or departures at all times.

Some a/c have been happily able to use 23L/05R if a recent arrival gives them an RT report of braking action "good".

[windytoo]

However neither runway is as slippery as a Labour politician.