Interesting discussion, and the pilots seems to be not too impressed with the Doc's opinion.
To quote from the article:
Originally Posted by stuff.co.nz
Eagle Air, the company that operated the plane, said Blenheim was chosen as it was less busy than Wellington.
All other things being equal, fair enough. That said, had the other Wellington traffic divereted to, er, Blenheim (and other places) things wouldn't have been so busy in WLG.
Originally Posted by stuff.co.nz
Eagle Air general manager Doug Roberts defended the decision yesterday, saying the pilot had made his choice because there were Eagle engineers on the ground at Blenheim who could advise him on fixing the problem.
Wellington's airspace was "congested" and quieter Blenheim gave an uninterrupted opportunity to work on the problem.
Again - fair enough, all other things being equal.
And then we get:
Originally Posted by stuff.co.nz
The risk with a wheels-up landing was at the lower end of the scale and "medical facilities were lower down in the priorities", he said.
As it says, an admission that medical facilities in the event of it all going pear-shaped was less of a priority than having appropriate MX facilities in the vicinity.
As SLF I would hope that you guys up front, when selecting a site for an emergancy landing, would generally place the vicinity of doctors to fix me up somewhat higher on the list than engineers to fix the plane up.
Clearly there are other issues to consider (I can accept the weather at WLG, the issue of Wellington Harbour, houses nearby, etc) but these are not the issue the airlne is pushing (and there is always the 'how accurate is the journalism' angle to think about). I'm NOT categorically stating that the decision to land in Blenheim was the wrong one, but it's concerning as to what is being identified as the priorities.