I monitored DRW App the other day after deperture for some 150nm. An aircraft had become disabled (turned out to be a C310 with a RH main gear collapse/failure).
Inbound to DRW were QF842, JQ??, Aussiexxx, plus sundry others, the first three all diverted to Tindal.
The runway was advised as closed for an indeterminate period of time, which in the end was circa 1 hour.
No one offered to bulldoze the errant aircraft off the runway. No one offered Taxiway Alpha, some 3000m long for landing. As I understand it, from the subsequent NT News article (a dubious source) the aircraft was cleared from the RWY in about 10 mins (I think), and the rest of the delay was ensuring no FOD etc.
IMHO, the Air Transport Captain of an RPT jet who declared an emergency and landed over the disabled area, or before it, or on a taxiway,
simply on the basis of not carrying enough fuel for an alternate, because some bean counter says, "it costs money to tanker fuel", would find it difficult to satisfactorily explain their decision to an inquest. The more damage or deaths that resulted in such an event, the more difficult explaining the decision not to have alternate fuel. I also suspect that the AOC holder would have some difficult explanations to make.
I also expect that had a diverting aircraft executed a missed approach because they were number two, to the C310, and then diverted to Tindal and landed with less than fixed reserve, then they & the AOC holder would be offering ammunition to the regulator, all quite unnecessarily.
So, the above example is of a Capital City aerodrome, with two runways, which was effectively U/S for an hour or so, with no advance warning.
