Diverting due to a technical problem

[BAbe26]

If a Pilot contacted me as Purser, and told me we were diverting as we had a technical problem would this always be a serious emergency or not? Thanks for your help.

[Hand Solo]

Not at all. It might not be an emergency at all, just that there are no spares or people to fix the aircraft at your planned destination and so the aircraft is diverting to somewhere it can be fixed.

[BAbe26]

what if you are on your return leg would that make any difference? What would I have to consider about the diversion?? Thanks

[Hand Solo]

Not really, it still depends where your main base is and engineering support is. It may not be where you started the trip. If there's likely to be anything affecting the safe operation of the aircraft then you should be given a NITS briefing, otherwise the things you need to consider are how to placate lots of irate passengers and whether you have enough duty hours to continue your day.

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

From a design perspective there are two main reasons why we would recommend or require "landing at nearest suitable airport" or similar wording.

One is that the aircraft has so degraded performance in one or more systems that we cannot assure continued safe flight and landing for other than a limited time. And example of this would be something like multiple electrical generator failures resulting in having to rely on battery power.

The other is that the failures themselves do not cause any immediate or significant reduction in systems performance, but DO result in degraded system redundancy. An example of this would be loss of hydraulic power in one system; most aircraft have sufficient capability to cope with a single hyd failure (if designed with multiple systems) but loss of a second system would be far more serious. So we want to get you on the ground ASAP to minimise the time of exposure to a second, far more serious, failure.

Unless you have been very unlucky, most failures are of the 'reducing redundancy' type, so most diversions mandated by the AFM/procedures would be precautionary. If nothing else went wrong you probably could have continued on to your planned destination; however, you're already having a bad day; why press your luck?

[BOAC]

Babe - why not ask?:confused:

[BAbe26]

Thanks guys for your help. I am trying to fill in an application form and I was unsure of whether they were trying to catch me out with the question about diversion, the answer seemed so simple and I thought there must have been a catch!! :eek:

[Ignition Override]

In an extremely rare case where a certain electrical bus fails, you might lose most of your fuel gauges and you would probably have both (or more) fuel burned counters to use instead of most fuel quantity gauges. It can depend on the enroute and destination weather. A certain circuit breaker popping could mean the loss of all fuel gauges.

If a different elec. bus fails on our plane (and COM book procedure does no good), we would lose all fire detection and protection for both engines and APU. In good weather, this would also cause the loss of the standby artificial horizon and would be no problem, but the fact that fire protection is lost would be a good reason to land soon.

I know a guy who was headed from St. Louis to the west coast. It was his first flight as MD-80 Captain. He and the Check Airman noticed enroute that when adding fuel remaining to the fuel burned figures, it did not nearly add up to the original dispatch fuel load. They diverted to Phoenix. After landing, the aft flight attendant said that she could smell fuel. They knew it was best to stop and told the passengers to exit down the main stairway onto a taxiway. The firemen showed up and standing by an engine which had the leak, the fuel puddle was so deep that a fireman's boots were almost submerged in jet fuel-quite a leak gushing from the right engine nacelle.:(

[BOAC]

We are all getting far too technical here! Look at what Babe's question was. The answer is that IF the senior is unsure of what is happening then either the Captain, Senior, or deputy Captain (F/O) need serious re-training. The sad fact is that given the 'wrong stuff' up front it COULD be a serious situation and they just are not saying. However, the senior would probably already be aware of that sort of personality.

A hackneyed 'TLA' I know, but it is called 'CRM' - and it works both ways through the door. I CANNOT conceive of a situation where my senior would be left in any doubt. To amplify Hand Solo's post - if there is no NITS brief, there should ideally be a face-to-face 'chat' up front or an interphone explanation. If for any reason I had left him/her in doubt, I would expect then to ask.