A long time ago..........
I awoke at 6am, checked PPRuNe (as you do), took the kids to school, etc......
At 5pm my standby started, and on the dot of which the phone rang - and guess who ?
Crewing: "Hi Crash, sorry old son, we've gotta call you out"
Crash: "Fair enough" said I (thinking it'd only be a quick EDI, or maybe a MUC, or MXP), "so where am I going ?"
Crewing: "Tenerife"
Crash: "Err, excuse me, where did you say ?!"
Crewing: "Tenerife, it's gonna be crap here in the morning, snow, ice, and fog and the crew that were rostered are not cat3 qualified - so that's why we're calling you. How soon can you be in ?"
Nb. At the time I, of my own volition, lived 90 miles away, and had never been late and / or missed a duty.
Crash: (silently "Sh!t !") "In about 1:30" (our contracted report time) "and I'm leaving now"
So I drove like a man possessed and made the report.
So, at about 9:30pm (our inbound aircraft was delayed) it's off to Tenerife I go.
From overhead Dinard until abeam Casablanca it was as rough as a bears arse - even the cabin crew we sick !
Running behind schedule (with the aircraft needed for an immediate rotation on our return) we conduct a lightening fast turn-around (thirty minutes) and we're on our way back to the UK - and again from Casablanca to Dinard the same truly crap ride (cabin crew and all the pax sick).
Approaching the UK we're told by the French to slow down coz our destination airport is closed "Whilst ze sweep ze snow from it !"
Aside from being late, we then spend twenty minutes in the hold, during which we went through all the usual machinations about diversions (anybody else find it hard not to keep looking at the fuel gauges ? ) and what we'd do w.r.t. pax and the aircraft / crew if we did.
Finally we land at our home base, albeit on the pin of pins of diversion fuel minima, but then wait 45 minutes for wheelchair support for some pax that required it, nicely followed by no sign of a crew bus (and HQ is some way away) and eventually (+1 hour after arriving on stand) we pile into the back of the engineers van (complete with discard oil and Skydrol cans) and he takes us over to HQ.
The time is now 08:00
We hand-in the flight paper work and ****** off to the now snow filled car park. I manage to de-ice the car and make my way to the motorway - which, as you can imagine, after a night of snow, was somewhat congested being down to 2 (and occasionally 1) lanes.
Finally arrive home at noon, having literally fought my way through the traffic / snow / ice, having been continuously awake since 6am the previous morning.
Nb. It gets worse, I was so wide-awake - read, 'stressed' - when I got home that I actually found it hard to go to sleep, e.g. and I won’t bore you with detail, the door bell went three times during my slumbers, waking me each time - I eventually drifted off properly at 14:00 - but it was a short-lived slumber, as the kids came in at 16:00 and woke me up again. Coupled to this, I was rostered for an 04:45 report the next morning - so, I rang crewing, and for the first time ever, sighted he 'F' (i.e. fatigue) word - and to whit they were not at all happy about it !
So let me see - I spent 30 hours being completely awake, drove 180 miles (just to work and back), flew something in the order of 3600 Nm, was thoroughly bounced about for 5+ hours, went through the hoop w.r.t. all the usual things about diversions and fuel planning, and ultimately landed on an icy / slippery runway.
So seeing as how I can now supposedly get locked up for just doing my normal job - too right we should be concerned !
Ps. For any lay-people who read this site, this is a NORMAL operation for many a pilot - goodnight all !
[ 13 December 2001: Message edited by: Devils Advocate ]