Originally Posted by
alb92
Hi, just a general question about alternates in EASA land.
Flying a light turboprop, one of the routes I fly goes from A to B to C.
Leg A-B is just over an hour, while leg B to C is under 10 minutes.
Neither airport B or C have TAFs, so I need to have two alternates. If we have a full flight on the first leg, I cannot use A as an alternate (too far away), so we use airports D and E, which we do not have any handling at.
If I fly leg B to C, and decide to divert, am I obligated to choose between D and E, or can I divert to B, even though it is not in my atc flight plan? B is much more practical, and even though weather is generally the same at B and C, B has an ILS, so there is a good chance I would be able to land at B. Would I need to plan extra fuel for that? If I go with min fuel according to flight plan, choosing B would rule out at least one of the other alternates.
By the way, this is really only theoretical. Both airport B and C issue METARS, and we wouldn't really depart B unless we knew we could get into C.
As a secondary question. As airport C is so close to B. Would I actually require two alternates assuming METAR weather is good? I know there isn't technically a forecast, but as flight time is so close, could the METAR be considered the weather we will get on arrival?
Regarding the first question, once You takeoff all EASA wants from You is to put the wheels back on any suitable airport with 30 min of fuel remaining. Anywhere. Whether or not your operator is happy with that is another topic though.
Regarding the second question the answer is maybe (if you have a TREND), as You need to demonstrate that You have the applicable planning minima at ETA +/- 1 hour.
Anyway You can consider the no alternate option :
(1) the duration of the planned flight from take-off to landing or, in the event of in-flight replanning in accordance with CAT.OP.MPA.181(d), the remaining flying time to destination
does not exceed 6 hours; and
(2)
two separate runways are usable at the destination aerodrome, and the appropriate weather reports and/or forecasts for the destination aerodrome indicate that for the period from 1 hour before until 1 hour after the expected time of arrival at the destination aerodrome, the ceiling will be at least
2 000 ft (600 m) or the circling height +500 ft (150 m), whichever is greater, and the ground visibility will be at least
5 km.