SAA A340 diverts to Heathrow in the early hours

[Mikehotel152]

En-route Heathrow to Johannesburg as pax last night when the flight was diverted back to Heathrow from somewhere over North Africa, reportedly Algeria, due to a passenger illness. Overhearing the paramedics on landing, as I did, it might have been an overreaction by the doc onboard, but credit to the SAA aircrew and cabin staff for their handling of the situation. Oh, and the hospitality here in the Business Class Lounge is rather good. :ok:

IMHO it's better to be safe than sorry in these situations, especially as no medical diagnosis can be properly made in the air. Despite the immense hassle caused to the rest of us passengers, it's comforting to think that they were willing to turn around and fly 3 hours back to the UK for the sake of that passenger. There but for the grace of God go I!

Aircraft being refuelled/re-stocked and departure No.2 due at 10am. :)

PS: Last I heard the ill pax was ok. Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery.

[TBSC]

Hope he/she will be OK. Seems a bit strange though to fly 3 hours back due a medical "emergency"...

[PositiveRate876]

I'm not sure what medical consulting company SAA uses for their medical cases in the air (if any), but I doubt a doctor would suggest a 3 hour diversion since just the fact that a doctor is attending the patient means the quicker they get to a hospital, the better. And then whatever the doctors decide, it is ultimately the captains decision as to what's best.

I can't imagine turning back to London, while Tunis, Rome, Marseille, and Paris are all going by below. All of which offer quality medical care in the airport vincinity.

[KeMac]

Why not land in Algeria, Spain or France? I can't think the NHS is that great its worth a 3 hour detour.

[Right Way Up]

Why not land in Algeria

That would be last on my list of diversions........even with an all-engine flameout! ;)

[manrow]

Can I just offer the view that maybe the only available crew were back in UK; great to divert to unknown quality of hospital abroad without considering how the other passengers then continue onwards to destination?

I agree that maybe UK hospitals are not what we used to think world beaters, but at least no complications about who is paying since pax insurance if any, may not cover in some countries!!??

[Roy Bouchier]

As has been pointed out, diverting to a strange airport with no company handling facilities or backup crew would only be an option in a dire emergency.
Sounds as though it was a professional decision by the captain.

[fractional]

Seems a bit strange though to fly 3 hours back due a medical "emergency"...Unless it is an emergency where lives are in immediate danger, you divert where you know you'll have assured assistance in all aspects, not just the medical case. Airborne crews speak to company ops control and a decision is made. SAA felt LHR was best.

[Hand Solo]

If the guy was ok for the time being but not good for a further 8 hours across deepest darkest Africa then LHR would be a good bet. Chances are by the time they divert the crew don't have enough duty hours to continue on to JNB. They can either go back to LHR, where the passengers can either go home or put in hotels until the next available flight or they can end up somewhere with no ground handling, possibly limited hotac and stuck there until the current crew are back withing duty limits. In the event of the passengers health deteriorating they could quickly lob into somewhere in Spain or France, but if there is no urgency then might as well go back to LHR.

[grimmrad]

I can only concur with earlier posters: if you deal with a medical emergency on board you want to get down to a hospital asap - not within 3 hours! So even Algeria will offer better care than possible up in the sky, not to mention Rome, Paris, Madrid etc. closer to the current position... Very strange indeed.

[Right Way Up]

So even Algeria will offer better care than possible up in the sky

A few years back when I was in one of BA subsidiarys Ops depts, the duty manager got a phone call from Speedbird ops. One of their aircraft was diverting into Algiers and as he had spent a lot of time in Algeria could he give some advice. My colleagues answer was "tell him to go to Palma". Unfortunately it was too late to divert and the aircraft had landed in Algiers. Nobody was let off and they would not let it depart until they had paid for the landing charges in cash. An hour and a half later they got airborne for Palma with the medical case still onboard. My later experiences in Algeria would back up that opinion!

[intortola]

A few years ago flying from LHR to JNB with BA we were well into the flight over Africa when a passenger was taken ill, we diverted to Malta, took a couple of hours to get there but the captain explained it was the best option for medical facilities. Only problem was getting the aircraft fuelled on our arrival, they were not expecting a 747 in the early hours, still we reached JNB without the crew going out of hours and we were well looked after while on the ground.

[Juud]

Hand Solo has the definitive answer.

it might have been an overreaction by the doc onboard

Mikehotel152, speaking from experience, aiport medics, while undoubtedly good at what they do, tend to have a 'macho' display attitude. Unless the patient is actually dead, they will, in my experience, invariably downplay the seriousness of the patient's condition, thereby (subconsciously?) trying to make themselves look superior to any doctors involved in the case.
Looking at it objectively, why would these medics you mention be more qualified to diagnose the patient's condition than the MD who had been dealing with that patient for the last 3 hours?

Illustration. Had a passenger who developed heart problems over Africa last week. By a fluke of coincidence, the man's own cardiologist, who had treated him for years, was also on the flight.
The cardiologist deemed it best that we continue to our home base another 5 hours away. (for similar reasons asmentioned in this thread; Africa is NOT a good place to go down for specialist care) He also deemed it best if the patient would be directly transported to his own hospital. Where they had all his medical history, knew what was what and because it would calm the patient's nerves to get to a familiar hospital. All this plus the patient extensive previous heart problems, we passed on via satphone to the airport's medical department. The medics, when they finally arrived 45 minutes after parking, waved off the cardiologist's directions, and had we not put a stop to them, would have put the patient in a wheelchair and wheeled him off to the airport's medical department. Rather than following the Doc's orders and stretcher him immediately to the hospital.
Not saying all medics are cowboys, but in my experience they often try to make light of things.

[TheOddOne]

The medics, when they finally arrived 45 minutes after parking, waved off the cardiologist's directions, and had we not put a stop to them, would have put the patient in a wheelchair and wheeled him off to the airport's medical department. Rather than following the Doc's orders and stretcher him immediately to the hospital.
Not saying all medics are cowboys, but in my experience they often try to make light of things.

Interesting experience, would be nice if you quoted which airport.

At LGW, unless it's changed dramatically in the past 6 months, medical attendance is from the local ambulance service and they provide a paramedic based at the airport for rapid response, usually wiothin 2 minutes, same as RFFS. You get very high quality paramedic and ambulance response. There is no 'airport medical department' at Gatwick, unless treatment can be completed at the scene (panic attacks etc, that can cope by themselves once the crisis is over) the case goes to the local NHS trust hospital. However, there are private ambulance services that turn up to transport patients by prior arrangement to private clinics, but they wouldn't be invloved with emergency/diversion cases.

In my experience, there's no 'playing down' a case, simply the very best paramedic front-line service we should be proud of.

TheOddOne

[TBSC]

Airborne crews speak to company ops control and a decision is made. SAA felt LHR was best.

I saw two cases when 'deferred' diversion caused the death of the passenger (both seemed to have modest medical problem initially). I would never decide (as I happen to work in an ops control) to fly 3 hrs over half of Europe with an ill passenger for crewing reason.

[Re-Heat]

I feel that some of the responses are somewhat as unknowledgable as non-aviation professionals' inputs to the threads following aviation accidents.

As it is, nobody here knows what the passenger/patient's history and condition were, and what treatment might have been required. For all we know, it was a patient being transported from London to SA, with a known condition and history at a hospital in London, hence a London diversion being better that Paris or Milan.

Can we just stop this second-guessing tosh - how many of the above responses are either from aviation professionals who have dealt with such diversions or doctors themselves?

Very few I suspect...:suspect:

[rog747]

i would guess (yes guess, as everyone else here is) the flight crew would have gone out of hours if they had come down somewhere in europe say palma or malta,

if the sick pax was in a dangerous situation then they would have have gone into somewhere like palma but he was stable enough to go back to london ?

no pilot wants to divert to africa if they can help it, unless its real bad.

then u have a plane with 300 pax, no crew no food and a big mess to sort out.

so from an ops point of view then the only place with a fresh crew avaliable was LHR obviously.

had the sick pax been bad bad then of course they would have dropped in sooner.

i do follow post by tbsc above so i am puzzled too by this 'medical 3 hour diversion' though

[Mikehotel152]

Juud - I was sitting a row from the patient when the NHS Ambulance Paramedics came aboard and I overhead the conversations they had with the doctor passenger. The ill pax denied knowing she was pregnant but admitted having abdominal pains. She was bleeding. I don't need to say more, except that she walked off the aircraft and said she's rather have carried on to SA.

I still think the pilot did the correct and professional thing, but having read the wise words of other posters, I suspect one of the reasons was the possibility of the pax's condition deteriorating whilst over central Africa where facilities would have been poor, and the other was the fact that the crew were nearly our of hours. As it happens, the only relief crew was at Heathrow and duly took over.

By the way, we landed at Heathrow at 5am and took off at 12:30. The extra long delay? The caterers and the difficulty in getting taxy clearance from the refueling area to the terminal during a period of heavy ground traffic.

[Fropilot]

It is all very well to question other pilot's decisions, if you have never diverted before. You develop a whole new perspective on "land as soon as possible" when you have to feed the passengers with your own money, and the place where you land as soon as possible does not accept credit cards including your fuel carnet and the relief crew will take 28hours to get there.