...just as an aside, I understand the bulk of the users of this board are located in the UK. I also see a lot of "hand-wringing" about "this is surely not the first time something like this has happened", and wonder as to why it happened to make the news this time.
Well, if you read through the whole thread, you'll see the initial notice of the event was by spotters with radios at Manchester. Then we had discussion from some people who had spoken with the cabin crew, and a few maintenance folks. Then the press caught wind of it.
As I thought about it, I realized that just about every emergency, non-emergency, fire drill, prang, go-around or similar event that occurs at MAN usually makes at least the Manchester papers and often before they do, you see it here on PPRuNe.
I understand that Manchester is the second-largest airport in the UK, boasting something on the order of 18 million passengers a year. Still, I decided to do a little study.
First, I grabbed a list of the
30 busiest airports in the world. Then I went over to the photo database at popular Planespotting site
airliners.net and I tallied up the number of spotter photographs taken from each of the 30 airfields on the list, plus Manchester. The theory is:
1. Total Passengers are roughly an indicator of total movements.
2. Total Photographs taken indicate the number of amateur observers and the degree to which the airport is under observation.
3. From this, we can calculate a
Spotter Quotient of (Photos/Million Movements). A high Spotter Quotient should indicate an airport where aircraft and aircrew behaviour is closely monitored by a band of net-savvy, anorak packing enthusiasts.
Here's my results:
Apt Pax Pho SQ
ATL 75.8 5210 69
ORD 66.5 2359 28
LHR 63.3 25110 397
HND 61.1 1727 28
LAX 56.2 16353 291
DFW 52.8 3203 61
FRA 48.5 23714 489
CDG 48.4 8698 180
AMS 40.7 24611 604
DEN 35.7 3619 101
PHX 35.5 6711 189
LAS 35.0 3005 85
MAD 33.9 4915 145
IAH 33.9 1965 58
HKG 33.9 9859 291
MSP 32.6 2551 78
DTW 32.5 664 20
BKK 32.2 2075 64
SFO 31.5 3447 109
MIA 30.0 11485 382
JFK 29.9 8062 269
LGW 29.6 6988 236
EWR 29.2 2725 93
SIN 29.0 4285 147
NRT 28.9 2049 70.9
PEK 27.2 4721 174
SEA 26.7 1492 56
MCO 26.7 2184 82
YYZ 25.9 7952 306
STL 25.6 839 33
and...down the list quite a bit:
MAN 18.3 17419 952
So, in terms of Spotter Quotient, Manchester is first in the world. Only one airport -- Amsterdam-- has more than half the SQ of MAN. In absolute terms, if we determine spotter community by the number of photos, then Manchester is fourth in the world -- with LHR, AMS and FRA in the 1, 2 and 3 slots.
There are more eyes on aircraft coming into and going out of Manchester than anywhere else in the world.
Since, in the case discussed in this thread, economics played a factor (as it does in every other case: why run an airline if not to make money?), and a significant part of economics is global news exposure, if, after having suffered an engine failure, the crew elected to proceed across the pond, with the full knowledge that adverse winds might put them in to MAN in an emergency, they acted very poorly indeed.
Had they landed at
any other airport on their path, the odds of this event hitting the international press would have been greatly reduced.
...just something to think about when you're planning alternates.