whattimedoweland

BA010 B747-436 from Bangkok to London Heathrow has diverted into a remote alternate airfield in Kazakhstan after a fire warning light for the forward cargo hold.

Airfield normally only takes aircraft upto 757 size therefore all passengers are being flown back to London Heathrow on three A320/321's whilst all baggage and cargo are being flown back on a chartered frieghter.The aircraft will then fly out empty with minimum fuel and have to tech stop at a larger airfield to take on more fuel.

The warning was just that and all passengers disembarked normally.

WTDWL.

dakar

If the airfield only takes aircraft upto B757, do they have equipment to unload the 747. And if the fire bottles have been discharged what state would the forward hold be in?

whattimedoweland

Apparently the largest steps available were some 3-4 feet short of the door and passengers had to do a little jump!!

WTDWL.

AN2 Driver

It miraculously disappeared into the Spotters Corner. Heaven only knows why? There's not a single pic of UARR in airliners.net

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=221780

Anyhow, wondering on how they are gonna go on from there.

According to http://www.fallingrain.com/icao/UARR.html that place has got one runway 22/04 7874/138 ft concrete, apt elevation 125 ft.

UARR 151500Z 34002MPS 9999 SCT050CB OVC/// 18/10 Q1010 NOSIG RMK 22090070

So what RTOW would you calculate for these conditions? 2400 x 42 m is a tad narrow and short for a 744 but with the SLF gone, it should be able to get out of there without ripping too much of the furniture? Anyone got some IRT's handy?

As there is no fuel, it will be quite interesting to see how far he can get with what remains after the landing.

From a dispatch point of view, depending on how much fuel he's still got on board, Moscow is about 1:30 hours away, say, about 30 tons block with 200 t ZFW, less if they manage to empty it. So between 210 to 240 tons TOW, will that do for 2400 meters and, conservatively said, 20° C? Obviously, obstacle, 2nd segment e.t.c. to be considered.

old,not bold

Wiggy, re your post on the other thread, you'll get no second guessing from this direction.....

The BA10 crew had an indication of a severe problem, got it down safely asap and to hell with what happens next.

BA management is paid well enough to sort out the recovery of pax, crew, and aircraft. Its all perfectly do-able.

Hurray! Bloody good show, well done, bonuses all round.

Bumblebee

Should quite easily have the performance to get out of there and all the way back to LHR without any pax load. Have personally had to get airborne out of Lagos with 1800m TORA, and a decent load of pax, without the need to tech-stop.

Don't see any reason why it should be a problem.

AN2 Driver

Thought so, but without the data... wouldn't like to guess. So the main problem will be the fuel remaining on board, if it is enough to go where they want. As there is no fuel there, or it's not suitable, I rekon they will need to fly somewhere with decent fuel and take it from there.

Best regards
AN2 Driver

mutt

The runway may be long enough, but is it strong enough??


Mutt

TonySimkinson

The question may not be do they have too little fuel, but that they have too much on board.

Having had a cargo fire warning near Uralsk, I would suspect that they are still over the max landing weight.

So not only may they have to offload the pallets, but they may have to defuel the aircraft to some extent.

gas path

The a/c had circa 40tonnes remaining on arrival at URA. As the fuel there is of questionable quality a tech stop was to be made at Moscow.

TonySimkinson

They must have dumped fuel during the diversion then.

OmanAir

Kudos to the crew involved. At least they made a decision rather than enter a hold and call the company for advice, like some other airline (not to mention name) did.

Bravo!

blackwidow

Please remember its the boys & girls in BA Ops Control who sort out the bulk of the mess, not the "BA Management" that you refer to!!

Round of applause all round, especially to BA rep in Moscow, who without his help - we wouldn’t be talking about an airbus recovery of passenger also spare a thought for the crew have been looking after the pax all day on the a/c...

Joetom

Sounds like a typical BA operation.

Problem occours, crew make good decisions and all safe.

BA get the pax and problem aircraft home with min fuss.

All very easy to say.

Well done to all at BA........

EmiratesSandpit

Congrats to you BlackWidow and all of your colleagues at BA OPS. Obviously showing professionalism today.

I'm just very interested in what you actually did.

Here's my take from reading here and elsewhere, and do correct me where wrong.

BA876 to DME was cancelled. G-EUUJ (A319) was reconfigured to an all Y seating for 150 pax and flown to Uralsk. It left LHR at 1143 and arrived at 2003 (does it take that long to get there? Did it stop in Bucharest or somewhere else?) It left URA 2152 and arrived 2255. [I've assumed something wrong there]

BA874 arrived in DME at 2036 flown by G-BZHA (767). I am assuming it flew to URA. It arrived in URA. It left URA. It arrived in DME as BA9203 at 2309 local (2.5 hours from arrival in DME to arrival in DME - I feel a wrong assumption there). It then did what it was supposed to do, BA875 and left at 0112. [Just seems to get worse doesn' it]

BA886 left for OTP and arrived at 1501. It probably did BA9258 left for URA at 1630. BA887 magically operates 3 hours late at 1849. [Did something happen there?]

BA010 arrived in URA with 354 passengers (98.3%) at 0656 local. It left and is expected in 23 hours later at around 0540 (ba.com).

A good guess from someone who isn't in logisitics yeah?

tangocharlie

Nice reply Black Widow - said as was. Dont envy you with certain attitudes from some of your ''bolder'' coleagues!

Golf Charlie Charlie

Local times, I'd say. Uralsk probably about GMT + 5 or 6.

Edit : seems it's GMT + 4.

Hand Solo

As far as I can gather the 876 to DME was cancelled and routed LHR-URA-LHR on aircraft #1 which would account for some of the pax.

The LHR-OTP is a nightstopping service so operated as normal to OTP. The crew due to return to LHR then operated OTP-URA-DME-URA on aircraft #2. This would shift some pax up to DME to take the evening flight back to LHR on aircraft #3.

A third crew then positioned LHR-DME-URA to operate aircraft #2 back to LHR bringing with them the crew who'd done the OTP-URA-DME-URA leg and they'll be back about 5 am tomorrow!

All in all a good job done by all getting a lot of people out of an offline station at short notice.

View From The Ground

I must say that whatever their failings in other areas BA do seem to do a consistently good job of handling 'one off' disruptions....they seem to have understandably more difficulty with the disruptions caused by some of their more bolshey members of staff...witness the last three summers....
I have been on two BA disruptions, the first an engine failure and small fire on take off from MCO. In this case they flew another a/c down from a NE Coast station took us from MCO to SNN and then had another crew there to operate to LHR, they were delayed by fog but that of course is not BA's fault. All the crew and BA staff were exemplary...I really felt sorry for the Captain on the engine failure aircraft when one of the pax started to berate him....I have no idea what for he was perfect....communicated well and of course kept us safe!
Second was a speedy aircraft replacement on an EU flight ex LHR, replacement aircraft found pax and baggage transferred in about 90 minutes. Obviously had the benefits of home base but still great work and again the communication from the flightdeck was great...just what was needed to keep the pax informed.
I am not therefore suprised that they have sorted this one so well and quickly...a great job by all concerned given the remoteness of the airfield!

peeteechase

Here's a picture of a similar airfield in winter. Braking action given as good Mu 0.50 Ice patches on runway. Blowing snow is evident on the runway. Turning pans at both ends allow back-tracking the short, very rough runway. These are ice-covered in the picture which makes a tight turn very interesting!
Good job guys