Need real life flight ops horror stories.

[Arlo]

I'm writing some literature for a provider of flight ops aircraft and crew management software which covers tactical planning, execution and disruption recovery.

I want to bring the subject to life with some real life stories where financial loss was caused to an airline as a result of either an outside problem that flight ops wasn't able to overcome (one affecting aircraft, such as weather, or one affecting crew, such as illness), or a cockup.

They need to be the sorts of stories I could use to go on and explain how the software can overcome problems more efficiently (i.e. at lower financial cost to the airline) and/or prevent cockups.

Stories don't need to be attributed.

Very grateful for any help with this.

[JB007]

Arlo
Due to the general confidential nature of what you are asking on a public forum, I would be suprised if Ops personnel would divulge such information - doesn't go down too well with the "Top Floor" members of staff!


As these are anonymous forums the origins of the contributions may be opposite to what may be apparent. In fact the press may use it, or the unscrupulous, to elicit certain reactions.

[Arlo]

I suppose it depends on the type of story - but that's why I said that stories need not be attributed :) - can be anonymously posted and need not name the airline.

[clicker]

Heres a one for you from went I worked for Transamerica, now since "deceased".

TV often operated one off charters remote parts of the world. On one such trip a DC-8 had departed from Morrocco and was enrte to Kenya when for reasons best known to themselves the Algerians withdrew their overfly permit. This resulted in a reroute which was not helped by the large area Algeria covers and as the aircraft was already airbourne we knew we could not make the sector non-stop. Therefore needed a new routing plus a fuel stop. Added to this problem was the fact it was in the middle of the night with no real phone connections for us to try and make the arrangements in advance.

Fun shift that was.

Ended up in Kano on that fuel stop.

[Arlo]

Thanks clicker - much appreciated. Couple of questions: I'm not sure how long ago this event happened, but is that sort of thing still a not infrequent problem? (i.e. being refused overflight permission; poor communications infrastructure).

Also, you got me thinking.

Perhaps I could rephrase my original question (for everyone) to:

Without naming yourself or your airline (unless you feel able to), please describe your most challenging shift in one or two sentences.

If the challenge related to aircraft, rather than crew, it would help to know the aircraft type. It would also help to know what year the event happened.

Thanks again clicker, and in advance to anyone else that can help me out with this.

[clicker]

Hi Arlo,

This was back in the early 80's. I'm not no longer in the ops business but in thoses days the only real contact for overfly permissions for us was via AFTN.

Now that we have the internet and other better comms I would hpe things improved.

An example of how good AFTN was, to a point was demonstrated a few years later to me after I received a phonepatch from another companies aircraft to tell me that they had overflown an airfield in Angola and seen one of our aircraft on the ground and it was burning.

After ringing various alarm bells in the company I started sending SS prority messages to Angolian ATC units asking for any information that they may have on the aircraft. Given the high priority the AFTN system sends a message back when your telex has passed thru each comms centre. These were received as far as Algeria but never any message from AFTN centres south of there.

We later found out that Unita guerillas had attacked the airfield and had captured the crew who were subjected to a forced march across country before being released some time later.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19841229-0

I won't say this was the most demanding shift as it quickly passed over to management.

Certainly the my previous post was a very busy shift for two of us on the night shift although later when the night shifts were down to one person you could have some real challenges when the weather didnt behave as forecast and you were rerouting more than one flight and also trying to arrange handling etc for the diversions.

I recall one were an L382 was inbound for EGKK when the weather dropped below minima and we then found that contrary to the forecast so did the alternate (EGSS). I had that aircraft head to two other possibles but being in a queue of other diversions they didnt get there before these airfields also dropped below minima. We ended up, I believe, in EGHH. That was a challenge simply because I had to keep an eye on the weather but also keep in touch regarding his fuel state which began to get me concerned.

[Dream Land]

UAL the offender last month, flight delayed (SFO-HKG), a decision was made to load so much cargo that fuel to destination was not possible, flight was then rerouted through AKC (left about three hours late). About one hour out of Anchorage it was determined by ops that the crew wouldn't have the duty to continue to HKG (oops), the told crew was given instructions to divert to SFO.:} :confused:

[L-H]

Clicker,

Why were you using a Wx alt less than 50nm from your dest? Common sense tells you that there will be a high probability that they will both be in the same wx system , notwithstanding what the TAF might be saying. Suggest that it would have been prudent to have used BHX maybe!

[clicker]

Hi,

It was over 25 years ago so I can only guess.

According to my OS maps Stansted is just over 50 miles away in a direct line from Gatwick and IIRC they worked distances based on SID/STARS and for that I believe it was in the order of 75-100nms. Not sure how you measured it. :)

Head Office (Oakland) used to make the final decision on alternates based on the information we supplied from the area offices. In those days if the forecast was good they would often work very much on minimum fuel loads.

As stated in my original message when the a/c first arrived in the area the altn wx was fine, we diverted the a/c to Stansted due to Gatwicks WX and they were holding for Stansted due to congestion when the Stansted WX unexpectly dropped below that suitable for an altn and although I can't recall for certain maybe even as a destination airfield. All this combined to eat into the fuel reserves at the beginning.

While WX often caused problems in my 8 yrs in ops, this time it caught all three of us, from ops manager downwards, totally by surprise. Going on the messages on the ops freq which we shared with others we were not the only ones, on the ground or in the air.

In my next, and still current, job as a police controller, I was coming to the end of my first week of night shifts when a certain hurricane wrecked the south coast. To say we were busy was an understatement but I remember thinking I would rather remain were I was rather than in the job I had been three months before. :)