Tyke,
You’re right. This seems to work, with some exeptions…
“Landing an airplane in Norway in winter is a hazardous sport” according to The Norwegian Accident Investigation Board. They say this should be clear to everyone involved, according to Norwegian TV2 Nettavisen:
http://pub.tv2.no/nettavisen/innenri...icle596036.ece
I don’t fully agree that it is a “hazardous sport”, but they definitely have a point. They are currently investigating 10-12 serious cases of runway excursions that have happened during the last 2-3 years, mostly Airbus 320’s from UK, Denmark or Spain and of course some Dash-8’s on the short 800-meter strips with strong winds in addition. They say there is hardly any of the 50 or so airports in Norway that hasn’t had one or more of these incidents/accidents, due to the fact that a lot of the airports are close to the coast with temps around zero centigrades and precipitation comes in the form of snow, which makes slippery conditions, unlike the cold and stable winter conditions at most airports in, say, Sweden, Finland, Canada or Russia.
If the friction is reported as 32-33-31 with slush on the rwy, this could mean something like: “Friction is probably pretty bad, we don’t really know how bad, but the airport is not closed for landing or take off. Land at your own risk.”
Since the increments are given in 1/100s, this could lead pilots to think the measuring equipment is very accurate, since they can determine the difference between say 31 and 30… But 31 might just as well mean 20 or 40.
And Tyke, you’re also right that MyTravel is a proud and excellent airline with a long history going back through many name changes. Could be comforting to know that much prouder airlines with much longer histories have been far worse off and experienced much more dramatic scenes than this, on ice and snow in Norway… I’m not trying to be the castigator here, only pointing at an issue that needs attention, as part of the process of Threat & Error Management. Maybe one could call it a system error. And not only in Norway.