Stab in the dark- question about emergency landing.

[kdwaiting]

Hi,

Last year my wife and I were descending into Dalaman airport in Turkey (in an airbus a A330 I think) with a well known non budget British airline. As we were close to landing, suddenly the engines went on full power and we pushed up- obviously a go around. I wasn't particularly worried, and the captain came on the PA to say that we had to do this due to the fact that there was traffic on the runway.

However, what he said next was slightly disconcerting... he said we were going on to land at Rhodes as we didn't have enough fuel to go around and land again in Dalaman, we needed to continue to Rhodes!?

This was worrying- surely we should have enough fuel for a go around? It would be like we would have to wait in a stack if it was an emergency. Instead, we continued to Rhodes at which the runway was the same heading as we were at (ish) and we landed, and refueled for around 4 hours.

We then went back on the runway- Couldn't take off as warning light was flashing. After another 2 hours we took off- the captain telling us that the warning light was still flashing, but they were confident it was wrong!

Suffice to say, we were happy to land safely in Dalaman.

I don't suppose- I know its a long shot- anyone here heard of any such incident or heard some radio chatter?

It was around the 13th August last year, in the evening.

Any takers??

Thanks!!

[treadigraph]

I would guess the reason for the go around and divert might be the traffic on the runway had a problem - eg burst a tyre - which would take a while to clear, hence decision to divert.

[kdwaiting]

Good guess! :)

[DaveReidUK]

Emergency landing ??

[kdwaiting]

Yes- I assumed it was a fuel emergency as we had to reroute to a different airport to refuel!

[DaveReidUK]

Yes- I assumed it was a fuel emergency as we had to reroute to a different airport to refuel!If Treadigraph's hypothesis is correct - and, like you, I think it's a reasonable one - then the diversion to Rhodes avoided any potential fuel emergency that might have ensued had the aircraft been held over Dalaman for an indeterminate amount of time, waiting for the runway to clear.

It's hard to believe, even following a missed approach, that the aircraft wouldn't have had ample fuel to divert to Rhodes, less than 50 miles away, so I think it's safe to assume that it landed with plenty still in the tanks. Refuelling at Rhodes while the runway at DLM was being cleared would then have saved time on the return sector to the UK.

There are other potential scenarios, of course, but there's nothing in your description of events that suggests running dangerously low on fuel unless you have omitted to mention something. Notwithstanding what you might see on TV, fuel emergencies are extremely rare and, in the case of a UK-registered aircraft, result in an AAIB investigation which would have been published by now.

[kdwaiting]

Ah!

That not only helps, but is also really interesting!

Thanks :)