U.S. passenger jet diverted to Halifax after losing engine

[flight doc]

Canadian Press


HALIFAX — An American Airlines jet is sitting on the tarmac at Halifax International Airport Friday after making an emergency landing.

The jet with 209 passengers on board was forced to divert to Halifax on Thursday night after losing an engine while enroute from Chicago to Manchester, England.

The pilot brought the twin-engined Boeing 767 in without problem.

American Airlines sent a replacement aircraft, which left shortly after 10 a.m. on Friday.

[ppvvmm]

My wife and I were SLF on this flight. Two hours or so after departure, sudden moderate yaw/roll once or twice (I was half asleep).

Pilot announces 'right engine had quit on us' and landing at Halifax in 15 mins. No drama at all, but some worried faces.

Normal landing but a nice outing up the runway for the fire engines chasing after us.

Twelve hour uncomfortable overnight delay was rather excessive I thought and completely knackering, and AA did practically nothing for the SLF.

Thats life I suppose. Best part was after landing... from cockpit... 'well folks, they say travelling can be an adventure and this journey sure is turning into one.....'

ppvvmm

[ettore]

Losing an engine or losing power on one engine? :confused:

[WHBM]

Twelve hour uncomfortable overnight delay was rather excessive I thought and completely knackering, and AA did practically nothing for the SLF.
AA provide next-to-nothing cabin service for Y pax in flight nowadays, why should things be any different on the ground ......... ?

[surely not]

What sort of Hotel, refreshment facilities are available at Halifax? Could they cope with a sudden influx of 200+ people?

Sometimes on a diversion the airline just cannot get the resource it wants because there isn't anything available

[sec 3]

Halifax is a big modern city:confused: , I'm sure they could find 200 hotel rooms if they wanted to.No, they don't live in igloos and don't depend on dogsleds for transport.

[garthicus]

Halifax is a big modern city:confused: , I'm sure they could find 200 hotel rooms if they wanted to.No, they don't live in igloos and don't depend on dogsleds for transport.

I'm afraid not on this occasion, I happened to be in Halifax on business, there was practically NO rooms to be had, I literally got the last one on hotels.com for around five times the price, the Rolling Stones were playing Sat night as well as a few other concerts and there was a heap of big hockey games on, it was all over the Halifax papers that there was not a room to be found in the place, took me all day to find that one room too and there were literally dozens of people in the reception of my hotel looking for rooms to no avail,,..

I wouldn't have believed it myself only for I was there seeing it first hand, rumour has it that they couldn't get rooms for the crew either for a long time!

[KC135777]

rumour has it that they couldn't get rooms for the crew either for a long time!

Yes, that is correct. I have t/w the FO. He said they traveled "about 50 miles" to get hotel rooms. He mentioned the Rolling Stones, big laCrosse and hockey tournaments in town also.

No pay protection for the trip. After they DHed to JFK on Eagle, ground transported to LGA, then DHed to ORD, the crew lost about 4 hours.

How's that for a "thanks, job well done"?

[Stoic]

It is quite illuminating that the discussion on this professional pilots' forum is about hotel rooms in Halifax rather than the fact that if the failure had occurred a few hundred miles further on, AA would have been flying a couple of hundred pax over the cold North Atlantic on one engine.

Regards

Stoic

[FlyingConsultant]

It is quite illuminating that the discussion on this professional pilots' forum is about hotel rooms in Halifax rather than the fact that if the failure had occurred a few hundred miles further on, AA would have been flying a couple of hundred pax over the cold North Atlantic on one engine.

Regards

Stoic

OK, I am SLF, ex-engineer, who likes 4 engine planes. But this was uncalled for. :=

AA is within guidelines in what they are doing, and as far as I know, the planes have no issue flying on one engine from "a few hundred miles further on" to Ireland. yeah, I know "what if the second engine fails". Not something I would like to experience, but nothing I lose sleep over when on AA over the Atlantic.

[lomapaseo]

It is quite illuminating that the discussion on this professional pilots' forum is about hotel rooms in Halifax rather than the fact that if the failure had occurred a few hundred miles further on, AA would have been flying a couple of hundred pax over the cold North Atlantic on one engine.

Regards

Stoic

Just goes to show you that one is out of the ordinary/not routine and therfore not readily accomodated while the other is.

[GEnxsux]

Any idea what engine the 767 had?

[Ignition Override]

FlyingConsultant: That perspective might be reasonable, but for the Captain and FO, who were probably not wanting to receive a letter from an FAA (Monday Morning Quarterback) Inspector which states "...reckless disregard of established regulations and procedures..." they had little choice.
It is easy to feel relaxed when somebody else must answer for decisions, and face a suspension and/or monetary fine (one or two lost paychecks is quite expensive).

This can happen deep inside the US, where a choice between Springfield IL (SPI) and STL might be only 15 minutes of single-engine flight with 122 people in our plane. The back-up APU (back-up generator) might have been inop. during dispatch.

[captjns]

FlyingConsultant: That perspective might be reasonable, but for the Captain and FO, who were probably not wanting to receive a letter from an FAA (Monday Morning Quarterback) Inspector which states "...reckless disregard of established regulations and procedures..." they had little choice.

What point are you trying to make by your statement?

[KC135777]

Any idea what engine the 767 had?

General Electric, either: CF6-80A, or CF6-80C2B6

[Stoic]

My point is that losing an engine on an ETOPS flight is supposed to be an extremely rare occurrence indeed. It is certainly not supposed to be routine. It is, and should be, big news.

Small towns being overwhelmed by too many visitors due to avaition disruption coupled with conventions etc. is so common as to be unremarkable.

I certainly did not intend to insult AA who, I am sure, comply with all the relevant regulations. It could have been any of many airlines which now fly the Atlantic on twins. It is the aviation authorities who deliberately reduced safety margins because engines had become more reliable who are responsible for passengers being exposed to the unnecessary risk of flying over inhospitable regions on one engine for prolonged periods.

Give me a B747 or A340 on 3 anytime!

Regards

Stoic

[surely not]

[QUOTE][/QUOTSmall towns being overwhelmed by too many visitors due to avaition disruption coupled with conventions etc. is so common as to be unremarkable.E]

Oh really! Where on earth do you get that statement from! Just something you made up to support your argument I think.

The reason that I mentioned the hotels etc was in response to the original post containing some critiscm of the care offered to pax by AA. I was asking whether that was a fair point as Halifax wont experience this sort of thing too often. Others were able to fill in the story as to why Halifax was short of Hotels.

There you go, a nice precis of the story so far............... then you got all huffy about hotels, or lack of, for pax and crew being mentioned on an aviation forum :}

Not long now and the 4 versus 2 argument will be a thing of the past as retirements remove the die hard opponents from active duty.

[2engop]

I'm sure if they looked under one of the wings they would have found the engine again!

[Voeni]

hilarious comment of the capt. on ground after landing... that's the kind of humour someone's got to have!

[Voeni]

oh, that was post nr. 100 for me... hooray!
sorry...

[tsgas]

Small town. ?
Maybe for China ,but with close to 1 million residents, that is a large city in Canada.
As far as a B-747, that is yesterday's airplane, today its all about cheap seats. So sweat and be treated like cattle,that's what the pax has paid for, too bad tight wad.