Pilot a hero???? I dont think so!
The Westwind with full fuel should be able to make it to Norfolk from Apia with enough fuel to get to Noumea in normal enroute wind conditions, with 1 approach.
the fact that the TAF was showing such bad weather there and that the METARS for the entire day were crap, would have had me planning via Noumea to melbourne instead of norfolk.
Noumea has an ILS, and good alternates around were norfolk doesnt have either!
I wonder whether pelair has given the pilots any planning software yet or whether you still have to provide your own (most of us had plans made on excel for standard routes and amended them if you were going somewhere different which really eats up your 2 hrs callout time) something like web based jetplan that the crew had access to (if they still dont) would have given the crew more time to look over weather and also allow them to run plans via NWWW to check alternate routings, for info its only 80nm further to go to melbourne via noumea which is the way I would be going!
I hope they do have planning software by now but if they dont I hope that they realise the potential saving of a few hundred bucks a year.
Good work for carrying out a successful ditching, but your a bloody idiot getting yourself in that position, especially if you were getting metars on the way and elected to continue there instead of diverting to NWWW, and if you weren't getting metars then you should hand in your wings.
Hero Pilot? I dont think so, lucky Pilot is a better call, you put the plane in the situation where you had no options! you are lucky to have got out with your lives.
Last edited by Captain Kellogs; 19th Nov 2009 at 08:15.
Reason: Typo sorry