Landing when the airport is closed

[BBK]

I heard a very unusual exchange between New York (oceanic) and a flight with the callsign MEM4099. I believe it was an Antonov 12.

This flight was inbound to Bermuda and the crew were advised that due to the weather the airport was closed and ATC were not in attendance. The wind was 40 gusting 55kts across the runway.

Despite being asked several times what his intentions were the flight merely replied by repeating his callsign. It was in such a way that I imagine that the controller would have doubted that the crew understood what was being said to them. Pretty much every question put to them was met with the same ambiguous response. To cut a long story short it became evident that MEM4099 was going to land even though the reported wind was as stated above and that no ATC would be available. NY cleared them to a fix and then asked them to call them once they had landed.

Happily, I can say that shortly afterwards he did call up to say he was on the ground. I cannot recall such an unusual conversation between an aircraft and ATC. At no time did they declare any Pan/Mayday or give the slightest indication as to why they needed to land so urgently. Are there many aircraft that can land with a 55kt crosswind on a wet runway?

BBK

[zlocko2002]

also nothing unusual for Antonov crews :}

[Loose rivets]

Please don't tell me that no one filmed the landing.

[TheWanderer]

55 kts wind? Just a light breeze in Siberia... :)

[Zoner]

I remember the same thing happening to an Eastern B-727 many years ago. Sometimes the weather just doesn't cooperate. When headed to an island without an alternate you do whatever it takes to get the job done.

[Tmbstory]

BBK:
It is possible that they did not have many other options

Tmb

[Agaricus bisporus]

All the smart answers aside, just what the hell do you expect the poor fella to do if he is en route to an island destination with crap terminal weatherand nowhere else to go? You can blether on all you like about what he "should" or "might" or "ought" to have done. He doesn't have that luxury.

"Open or not, I have no option to be landing there. Talk to me , or don't, as you wish. I'm still landing."

BBK, if the only place your fuel will take you is a 55tk crosswind on a wet and unattended runway with emergency services at least accessible eventually or a 120KT ditching into wind into a totally unattended Hamilton Harbour which would you prefer?

Assuming he had correctly considered the en-route weather and flight planning on that route then what was Bermuda doing closing in his face if he had nowhere else to go?

Probably more to this than meets the eye...

[FE Hoppy]

Had to land at LLW by the light of the moon back in the early 90s. Everyone had gone home and forgotten about us! We had no choice and had pretty good vis.

As I was in a mil jet at the time it could have been seen as an invasion but we were friendly and eventually so were they.
:ok:

[ei-flyer]

Agaricus,

With all due respect, I don't doubt that you're appreciating both sides of the story, but it could be just as easily countered (entirely justifiably) by posing the question... Just what the hell was the poor fella playing at by taking on what could be interpreted as a borderline uncooperative attitude to ATC? Not only that, but failing to respond coherantly to the requests of ATC, whilst inbound to an airport blowing a 55kt x-wind strikes me as a huge cause for concern. Pilots are 99.9% of the time very good at making themselves available on the airwaves when required.

Of course this is all speculative dribble based on what the OP heard. I see no problem with a crew electing to continue a landing in adverse weather (after all, they are in the best position to determine a course of action), but why all this callsign gibberish?

More to the story etc ;)

[pax britanica]

Bermuda is long way from anyway esp in an old Antonov Turbo prop. usual diversion airport is JFK 770 miles North West , if really desperate I think it Newport NAS about 700 miles WNW . .

Strong winter winds are very common in Bermuda and generally from the South west, terrain meant the runway had to be aligned 13/31 (I think) so cross winds can be a very severe problem. Lived there for 12 years and some very very bumpy rides in and a couple of very near miss disasters as two 727 within a couple of years demolished the outer 6-8 feet of a wing by striking the runway on touchdown in these sort of conditions: closures are a regular tho not frequent occurence. In my time there a good many C130s -similar type - made fuel stops in Bermuda before or after a long Atlantic crossing and I imagine a diversion against a very strong headwind component to a field 770 miles -3 hours or more away perhaps wasnt an option for shoestring freight operation-scary thought.

There is another more into wind runway that is closed but I suspect an Antonov prop with its military heritage would be ok into wind on it.

ATC in Bermuda is just tower and ground with all approach and departure radar handled by New York Centre using remte feds froma radar ona hill overlooking L F Wade international or Kindley Field as it is always called.

The airport is seperated by water from the main island and in strong winds the causeway and bridge carrying the only road to it are often closed so many airport personnel and sometimes pax stranded within sight of airpoirt but with no way of getting there. So its quite possisble there were no ATC in the tower so who will ever know what the Ant crew did. ( Locals dont tend to plane spot in %%kts and the horizontal rain that accompanies it)

PB

[Sunshine Express]

When closed at night any aircraft wishing/needing to land there can turn on the runway and approach lights themselves.

This is also the case at many small regional airports in the USA.

I wont tell you how as I don't want to be the cause of masses of spotters rushing out to their nearest closed airport tonight!

[Huck]

In the U.S., there is no specific FAA requirement for an airport to be "open" to land there.

There are, however, municipal statutes you can violate.

And there's always "careless and reckless"....

[grumpyoldgeek]

The interesting question here is whether the airport was closed or the tower was closed. If the tower closed, the airport becomes a class E uncontrolled and setting aside all the other issues, is usable as such. If the airport was closed but the tower staffed, I suspect it's a different issue.

As others said, they probably did what they had to do and communicated the way they were accustomed to communicate.

[Robert Campbell]

With a high wing and differential power available, I see no reason that a successful landing couldn't be made in the reported conditions by a good crew.

The wind we know was the last reported. That doesn't mean it was the same when the landing was made.

We don't know whether the landing was accomplished on the first or subsequent attempts.

It was successful, that's what counts.

[clunckdriver]

BBK , in this neck of the woods about two thirds of my landings are at "closed" airports, no tower, no runway reports, no FSS, no friction index Tafs or Metars, turn the lights on with the Aircall system, check the runway for wildlife before T/O {we had a Falcon hit a deer last year $500,000 worth of dents, }the good news is one can keep the "road kill". the other good news is no aproach ban, no T/O mins and no one around to quote the latest red tape from the feds , flying as it was meant to be!

[galaxy flyer]

clunckdriver

Outside of NA and OZ or outside of airlines, where crews that NEVER flew anything but under ATC, the very thought of operating into an uncontrolled airport is unthinkable. Yes, hard to believe airplanes flew BEFORE there was ATC.

Yes, that is how aviation is supposed to be--a pilot, a "mission" and a plane.

GF

[ozthai]

QUOTE FROM BBK........."Despite being asked several times what his intentions were the flight merely replied by repeating his callsign"

This is totally unacceptable and is an example of extremely bad airmanship.

[lambert]

or a lack of English?

[seat 0A]

If there is no option, other than landing, then declare the Mayday and land.

Why would you use "Mayday"? Where`s the grave and imminent danger to human lives? Just because you`re landing at a closed airport doesn`t mean that lives are likely to be lost:ugh:

[clunckdriver]

Contacted, next week Im due to land at least four "closed" airports, {after/before normall operating hours, not that there is any ATC or stuff at any time} no one on the ground, so if I call Mayday four times it will be OK? Somehow methinks that the other aircraft landing at these places might get a tad POd with us, not to mention our SAR folks.It seems to me that many who fly the big silver tubes these days have little or no clue about how much of the world operates,we recently had one divert to such an airport and insisted on calling "ground and tower ", didnt want to move unless someone spoke to him, seems he felt that 10,000ft of blacktop must have all this stuff, one of our destinations has around 100 IFR aircraft a day landing when "closed", so far none of us have bumped into each other, unlike a few controlled/open airports around here.Mind you it does require that the crews know where they are and can keep a plot in their head as to the location of the other folks, a skill that seems to be absent in many countries.Its worth noting that the worst ground collision in history took place at an "open/controlled" airport.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Sounds like Bermuda was up to its usual weather trick, always was a bl**dy confidence trick in my opinion.

Landed once in similar conditions with horizontal rain, local manager got on the PA and 'apologised' for the 'unusual' weather conditions. Local engineer muttered 'bl**dy liar, been like this for a week and no improvement forcast', remained like that for all of our 'slip' - meant we had to spend our time in The Horse and Buggy Tavern ! ( not within 12 hours of flying, of course ! )

Not an uncommon experience. Attitude of local hotels to crew left much to be desired, too. We provided their bread and butter in the Winter, but they conveniently forgot that on the rare Sunny days.

Don't miss the place.

[ecureilx]

55kts ???

Well, For an An 12, that is like a garden variety landing ..

Once I saw a AN 12 coasting in, when everybody else diverted, with zero visibility and wind that was pulling palm trees to near ground level ..

[Dave Gittins]

I was at the closing day of Farnborough (early 70s I think) when an An-22 landed late in the afternoon with a bit of a side breeze and touched down with 1 set of mains on the tarmac and amid a huge dust cloud the other set on the grass. I wasn't sure whether to have respect or express horror.

[chuks]

"There are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are no old, bold pilots!"

Just check the accident stats for Africa to see how often this kind of stuff ends in tears!

You have one situation where ATC declares that the airport is closed and a very different one where the ATC facility is closed, when you simply have no ATC. I think it might get a bit troublesome to land at a closed airport but I have to guess at that, never having done it.

As pointed out, with no tower in operation you close with your enroute control facility and then make your own way in on arrival or depart and contact ATC for a clearance into controlled airspace. Both of these are fairly routine events in the Third World and not unheard-of in the States, for instance, when you either cancel your IFR flight plan airborne or else report after landing on arrival at an uncontrolled destination.

One obvious problem is that many countries have a ban on night VFR, so that there's no way to make a night flight to a VFR destination even if you have runway lighting. You have to be careful to make local sunset time to stay out of trouble in some cases, because that is when VFR ends. Same on departure, when you can see perfectly well but if the sun is not officially risen then "You got some 'splainin' to do!" Most GPS units nowadays can give you these times and a sharp pencil with a tame FO on its other end can be your friend.

You can depart with an IFR void time or else call ATC when airborne. In fact, I had to do this on my IFR checkride out of Cranfield, UK, not so long ago. They had a rather elaborate route mapped out that kept us out of controlled airspace until we could get an IFR clearance into the London TMA.

[JW411]

I had it in my mind that ATC cannot actually close an airfield.

They can advise you that they are not accepting any traffic and that landing at their airfield might be extremely ill-advised, but, if you decide that you are going to land anyway, then there is not a damned thing they can do about it. They can switch off the lights (if they feel really confident that they are not going to be screwed in a big way for so doing at the subsequent Board of Inquiry) and then go home in a fit of picque, but they cannot stop you from physically landing.

For what it is worth, I have "arrived" in Bermuda on many occasions whilst driving one of Mrs Windsor's Short Belfasts (similar - but a little bit larger than an AN-12) and I never liked the place either.

Give me Gander or Goose every day!

[chuks]

How about an "approach ban" when ATC tell you that the viz is below minimums? You can still shoot the approach and land but I think you will have some 'splainin' to do afterwards.

[JW411]

When you and all around you are in deep sh*t, who gives a monkey's toss aout having "to do some explaining afterwards".

This sort of rubbish reminds me of the gentleman who got me into flying in the first place over half a century ago.

He said to me one day "I don't really mind dying but I would hate to lose my licence"!

PS There was no such thing in the UK as an approach ban until Ariana Afghan entered the ground at speed at Gatwick with a 727 on finals (if you will forgive the pun) to the westerly runway.

[BBK]

Just to recap, as I started this thread, the crew landed at an international airport that the area controller had said was closed. At no time did the crew give ANY indication that they had a problem. In fact it was difficult to tell if the fact that their destination was closed was even registering. Given the exasperation in the controller's voice I would think that they were thinking something similar.

Had the aeroplane slid off the runway, sideways, and caught fire then maybe they would have been on their own (airport closed therefore no ATC and no fire/rescue services). It's just speculation of course but the NY controller did stress that any landing was entirely at the crews' risk.

Some of you have said that landings at closed airports are common in your neck of the woods but in my (public transport) experience that is not an option. However, there are situations where you can throw the rule book out of the window but they would be accompanied by a PAN, or more likely, a Mayday call to justify doing so.

[galaxy flyer]

BBK

As some of us said, landing at "closed" airports isn't that uncommon outside of the very controlled and sterile airline environment.

Here is the relevant Jepp airport report:

Open from 0700L-2300L,
* During off hours, ground, ATC, and fire and rescue are not available, aircraft ops at your own risk.

Lighting is also pilot controlled

Lights: RDO-CTL
WHEN ATCT CLSD, ACTVT MIRL RY 12/30, PAPI RYS 12 & 30, REIL RY 12, SALS RY 12 & ALSF-1 RY 30 - 122.8

Clearly, ops are anticipated during non-operating hours; customs and immigration are also available during off-hours.

GF

[criss]

2nd page and I don't see the most important question - since when does ATC decide whether wind is acceptable or not?:ugh: Ad closed due to wind is utter nonsense. While it's possible for a duty officer to close the AD if the runways can't be maintained, but due to winds? and by ATC? If that's true, than it really makes no sense. I hope it's just a misunderstanding, and NY stated that just ATC would not be available, and adding wind conditions, and afterwards it got mixed.

[BBK]

GF

Point taken but I was trying to say that the airport was closed presumably because of the storm as opposed to just being out of hours.

Criss

I imagine that the decision to close the airport was taken locally by Bermuda ATC given their local considerations not New York who control the oceanic area around it. What was not clear is whether the tower was manned or not. For example, when LGW closed recently because of the snow then full ATC was maintained but the runways were closed.

[galaxy flyer]

As criss said, ATC doesn't get to close the airport, the airport authority does.

GF

[clivewatson]

galaxy flyer....absolutely!

My recolections of a flight many years ago in the north of England (very close to a city named MANCHESTER).

The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Request joininhg Instructions"
Them: "We are closed - you can't land"
Me: "I have to land, my navlights are not working and it's dark up here"
Them: "You can't land - we're closed"
Me: "I'm landing anyway - give me a clue as to which runway to use."
Them: No, you can't land, we are closed.
Me: Watch this!
Them: "We will report you"
Me: "Please note the quality of my landing in your report"

After landing they refused to give taxi instructions!

[pax britanica]

No one seems to have questioned this crews motives for their actions , and as two posters at elast have commented Bermuda International ,Kindley Field is pretty scary in bad weather because of the runway orientation and local terrain and the likelhood of extremely heavy driving rain in windy conditions. Its very close to sea level-literally and the approach roads are even closer -like 3-4 feet above sea level so it can be inaccessable for ATC people firecrws,. fuellers etc in these conditions.
I am sure the reason it has published arrangments for out of hours landings is because in practical terms for an aircraft low on fuel or serious tech problem there is no alternative to laning there as the next runway is 700 miles away probablyagainsta serious headwind.
I would have thought the bigger issue was hw did this plane get itself into a situation where it had to land in spite of ATC warnings and very poor weather and toa humble pax like me it suggests they might not have had ebough fuel to make the trnasatlantic crossing. When I lived there many turbo prop transports-mostly c130 variants fuel stopped but I am sure the USAF. RAF and others planned the trip so that if BDA was closed they have somewhere else to go because they knew BDA in winter can be very tricky indeed and even without the airport closing US originated flights to the island quite often had to turn back to the US and the BA London BDA flights had to divert to the East Coast. So did these guys just not load enough fuel or a diversion or maybe the AN12 cannot make it all the way across wihout a stop?

[chuks]

I think it depends very much on what you can get away with, when that depends on where you are and sometimes who your "friends" are!

I am not an aviation lawyer and mostly a bush pilot so that I stand to be corrected on this one but:

There really is such a thing as an "approach ban," imposed for visibility below the required minimums for a specific approach. This can get so involved, when it can depend on where you are on the approach when you are informed of the weather so that beyond a certain point you just press on if you like but short of that point you are "banned" from legally shooting the approach. This must be where declaring an emergency comes into it?

At the other extreme there are many VFR-only airfields which people operate to every day under Special VFR, even when the birds are walking. Okay, one uses the FMS to shoot what looks for all the world like a normal ILS approach, except that the course guidance is in magenta instead of green but that has no legal standing. It is just something that "everyone does" and will continue to do until some optimistic fool pushes a bit too hard and finds an iroko tree instead of the runway threshold. Those who have a problem with this self-select out and go home to somewhere they only have to operate legally, leaving the cowboys to get on with this.

If that Antonov driver had dinged in there, landing in extreme weather on Bermuda, it would have meant a bit of a fuss until the legalities were made plain, when it would have been the Captain's fault for pressing on, probably due to low fuel state, something clearly illegal. As it was he got away with that so, "no basic problem."

How are you going to carry much revenue load to Bermuda with IFR reserves if the alternate is 700 miles off? Nah, 30 minutes extra fuel... Sorted! You get there, you land, period! You no like, back to Siberia with you! Me, strong like bull!

My very first "airline" job was as an FO on a Twin Otter. We were operating to Hilton Head, South Carolina following the rules, only going below the Minimum Enroute Altitude when we were in VMC, since Hilton Head was VFR-only. We had a competitor flying a Navajo Chieftain who would just tell Center "We are now cancelling IFR," and descend VFR in IMC to make his trip when we, just a few miles off, could only see the wingtips on our Twotter so that we would take our load of unhappy punters off to IFR Savannah, Georgia until Hilton Head really did have VMC.

Everyone knew this operator was cheating but how to prove that? It's pretty flat down there so that cheating in that way wasn't exactly unsafe, just flat illegal so that I guess the local FAA office had bigger fish to fry.

I went on to bigger and better things from that, including seeing a head-of-state GV making one totally hairy VFR in IMC approach down in the Niger Delta. We did that but we knew what we were doing; these guys were just making it up as they went along, I guess, so that we saw them make their cloud-break in a somewhat unusual attitude that then called for an unstabilised approach. If they had stacked it with the Prez onboard there would have been the most unholy witch-hunt ever but they got away with it so that "business as usual" just carried on with no lessons learnt. Still going on, in fact...

[ExByMan]

This aircraft departed from its destination (where fuel was unavailable) to return to Bermuda with zero planned alternate fuel. Fuel on board was about one third of total capacity.

It overflew three major international airports en-route, but did not consider landing to uplift fuel to facilitate a possible diversion.

No attempt was made to obtain an update for Bermuda forecast. The weather info that the crew had indicated x-wind outside AFM limits.

How smart is that?

Airfield closed due forecast hurricane strength winds.

If he had crashed on the runway, he would have isolated the island as Bermuda has only one airfield with a single runway. It would have taken ages to clear the runway, and any investigation team (UK AAIB or NTSB) would have to been shipped in or on a military STOL aircraft.

Overall ~ stupidity and inconsideration ruled.

[galaxy flyer]

ExByMan

Do you have facts not in evidence on this incident? What three international airports did overfly? Bermuda is a pretty remote island, where are those fields and where did he originate? I agree, it seems like a pretty dodgy operation, but when have the Russians not been pretty dodgy?

Approach bans are for the operator to observe, not an ATC function. I believe even if the weather is below limits, ATC would give an approach clearance with a report to the authorities of the violation.

My comments were directed at the fact there is a difference between "closed" and "non-operating hours".

GF

[BabyBear]

My recolections of a flight many years ago in the north of England (very close to a city named MANCHESTER).

The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Request joininhg Instructions"
Them: "We are closed - you can't land"
Me: "I have to land, my navlights are not working and it's dark up here"
Them: "You can't land - we're closed"
Me: "I'm landing anyway - give me a clue as to which runway to use."
Them: No, you can't land, we are closed.
Me: Watch this!
Them: "We will report you"
Me: "Please note the quality of my landing in your report"

After landing they refused to give taxi instructions!

Clive, made me laugh, you should post it over on ATC funnies! Thanks for lightening the thread.

[AircraftOperations]

Presume this was a Haiti related flight?

And who said anything about Russians? This outfit is Ukrainian.

[JanetFlight]

Yeah....a lovely "Cherry"..:}

AIRFRAMES.ORG - Aircraft Database - airline MEM fleet (http://www.airframes.org/fleet/mem)

Some years ago a AN12 also from an Eastern Operator flying on behalf of Portuguese Postal Services on a flight to Lajes just returned to Lisbon across middle way, because the crew simply realized they didnt have any Charts of Lajes...Yuuppiii:p

[ExByMan]

Grand Turk, Providenciales and Puerta Plata.

Approach bans refer to RVR minima and are not an option. If the weather is below the minima in certain jurisdictions you cannot commence an approach (go below 1000ft above DH). There is a difference between an airfield being closed because there is insufficient staff to give an ATC service and being closed for safety reasons.

In any case these guys managed to line up nearly all the swiss cheeses (as described by James Reason).

[BBK]

ExBy Man

I'm glad to see that I am not the only one who thinks landing at a airfield that is closed in the middle of a storm might be just a tad unwise.

As I mentioned before the whole conversation I overheard was unlike anything I have ever heard. You have confirmed my suspicions that they put themselves into a very dangerous situation.

The forecast was so bad that we had already discounted BDA as an enroute diversion. The only reason that we found out that the aeroplane was an AN12 was because a Lufthansa pilot asked the NY controller. He was most likely listening in disbelief as we were.