I'll confess I've not read all the previous pages of the thread, so apologies if it's been explained.
If you rock up at MAD and there's TS's all over the place, airport shut, no-one making approaches no EAT's / "delay not determined", then it's entirely understandable to make the decision, early, to go to your alternate.
What I don't understand is the 60+ minutes holding. Why would you hold, to the point where you would be
unable to return to your original destination, and then continue to hold to the point where you declare an emergency and land (legally) with final reserve? What was the thought process / rationale / plan in the hold? If you've flown a couple of hundred miles to your alternate there's going to be a decision point in the hold when you will be unble to return to your destination (if it's now miraculously CAVOK with "no delay" (at MAD...?) and in this case that would be long before the point of MayDay. I simple don't understand why they burnt so "low" in the hold when they were effectively now committed to the alternate. Something does not add up here.
Have I missed something?
Just skimmed through and I see BOAC has come to a similar conclusion. The above traces are very enlightening. No holding at all at VLC????
Poor use of English in the following - easily leads to misunderstanding.
Having held over Valencia for 50 mins, 68 mins and 69 mins after their scheduled landing time in Madrid,
-that's straight from RYR's website regarding this (with my bold emphasis). It's time from diversion initiation at MAD not holding over VLC - so case closed!
