BA777 stuck "IN" runway at Antigua

[BRISTOLRE]

BREAKING NEWS
News just in (from the BBC) that BA777 stuck in the runway at Antigua. Recent runway pavement works have been carried out and it appears aircraft too heavy and literally sank !!

Allegedly Crew applied full power and aircraft just got deeper and deeper into the surface :eek:

[Small Pilot]

Story being carried by Reuters......

LONDON, May 30 (Reuters) - Passengers travelling from Britain to the Caribbean found themselves stranded on Thursday on the tiny island of Antigua after their plane became stuck in the runway's tarmac.
"It basically became lodged in the tarmac while turning on the runway," a British Airways spokeswoman told Reuters, adding that resurfacing work had been carried out at the airport overnight.
The 140 passengers, who were en route to another Caribbean island, St Lucia, were being put up in a hotel while engineers inspected the damage.
It was unclear when the Boeing 777 would be freed.




Thursday, 30 May 2002 07:50:55

[The Controlller]

:) The 777 at ANU has been pulled form the soft runway and back on stand at ANU and is fully serviceable and will be departing at 1905z. VS night stopped as well but have not heard about them.

[Few Cloudy]

Nice pavement strength research by BA! "So the take off won't be a problem?" " Nah, it worked last month..."

[ETOPS]

Few Cloudy

It's fine to snipe at BA but the facts don't bear out your post. BA has been flying to VC Bird since the airport first opened. We have operated 777's and 747-200's/400's for many years ,all without problems.

The construction of the new parallel taxyway has, in Carribean terms, been completed relatively quickly and, one would have though, to the relevant standard. That one of the first aircraft to use it was a BA aircraft is nothing other than co-incidence. If VS had beaten us to it what would your post have said?

[Minesagrolsch]

Few Cloudy,

Not enjoying life in the Charrrrterrrrr world then ?

S H A M E

[Pancake]

Report from the local paper...

http://antiguasun.caribbeanads.com/fullstory.cfm?NewsID=6148

- P. :)

[160to4DME]

Didn't a similar thing happen to a bouquet and spayed 757 a couple of years ago in Turkey ?? Bodrum, if I recollect correctly....?

160

[Tandemrotor]

Few Cloudy

Nice post

Bit like a joke - but without the funny bit at the end!

[driftdown]

I agree with ETOPS, the fact that the first flight to use the new surface was BA. Purely coincidence - could have been any carrier that suffered this indignity.

Why does there seem to be a perverse pleasure in negative postings that take a "poke" at BA. The green eyed monster maybe.

[blue_side_up]

ETOPS,
Just to clarify, the 777 did not get stuck on the new taxiway, but on the actual runway, while doing a '180' in the turn bay at the button of Rwy07. The parallel taxiway was indeed (mostly) completed at a relatively quick pace - for the Caribbean. However, it seems someone forgot to check the clearance between the adjacent public road (on land beside and about 10' higher) and the new taxiway! It does not meet the minimum clearance req's for widebody a/c, and so has been abandoned until further notice. All that after a year's work and quite a few million dollars! For some reason though, they have not just completed the taxiway (needs to be joined to the runway surface only) and restricted it to turboprop (or smaller) use only, as that is the majority of the traffic at VC Bird.
The Caribbean has beautiful wx, but god can it drive you nuts!:D

[WOK]

T'aint the first time - in the good old days of the -236 the runway was closed after the surface of the turning pan was stripped off and blown away during the (VERY tight) turn at the threshold.

Not the nicest runway to operate a 747 from/to, but fine once you got to the hotel....

[Few Cloudy]

Nothing to revise then - the runway (not the taxyway) was below strength for the type and the operator hadn't known. The buck stops there.

Sure you can get away with a traverse provided you are going fast enough at temporary overload but you can't go fast on a 180.
To go for Take Off on a suspect pavement still seems cavalier to me, unless some quick measurements had been taken.

And as to the personal responses:

ETOPS, Operator makes no difference to me - the comments would have been the same.

MINESAGROLSCH - Charter world? Don't get your drift.

TANDEMROTOR - joke at the end? - the joke was at the beginning - "Breaking News".

[Notso Fantastic]

Few Cloudy- according to the reports I have seen, airport repairs were carried out and the repairer omitted to report the state of the repairs not being completely ready for use to the tower. Kinda makes your sad attempt to take a swipe at BA look a bit anaemic. Perhaps you should examine why you phrased like that and maybe have a think why you appeared unable to 'understand' some of the comments made in reference to you!

[Few Cloudy]

Ah! Not So Fantastic, the PPRuNe amateur policeman appears on the scene. NSF, maybe you should read again.

1. It wasn't a swipe at BA. See my last post.

2. "According to reports you have seen" - where exactly were these repairs? So far only the taxyway has been mentioned.

3. "Unable to understand replies" - I think I understood and replied to two of them - the one about charter ops doesn't apply or seem to make sense.

So let's go down to the station for a few words...

[WOK]

Quoted PCN at TAPA is more than adequate for unrestricted 747 and 777 ops. It is hardly ther operator's fault if any repairs to said runway are below spec.

[Notso Fantastic]

Few Cloudy, it doesn't change the fact you jumped in, without knowing the full details, to take a cheap swipe at BA. You then received several critical replies to your thought line. You can come out defending yourself all you like, and go to whatever 'station' you think appropriate, but it doesn't escape from the fact you demeaned yourself by attempting to demean BA in such a cheap way. BA may be criticised for a lot, but operationally, it is spot on and up there with the best.

As for the 'amateur policeman' jibe, probably like you, I am a professional pilot who travels widely. I very often log on on expensive and slow downroute connections. I come to RP to catch up with the latest news. Does it not annoy you when people post questions where they should not go, or raise matters in the wrong place. This, like R & N, is the place for hard news and gossip, not for people who want to instigate discussion or ask questions that belong elsewhere, so I make no apology- I shall keep back biting people who should know better.

[kabz]

That'll tech 'em to let gyppos work on their runways ...
:D

[Few Cloudy]

So what consequences have BA drawn as a result of this incident (apart from searching their vocabularies for words like "sad"and "cheap")?

[Captain Airclues]

Few Cloudy

I'm not sure that I understand your post. The consequences are well known, many delayed passengers and several damaged tyres.
If, however, you mean conclusions, then that becomes more difficult for us as pilots. At Antigua it is necessary to backtrack the runway, and make a 180 at the end. It is a very tight turn into a turning pan, the final part of the turn being uphill. This turning pan had been resurfaced overnight and had been declared fully usable by the airport authorities.
I am not an expert on concrete, so do not know what methods are used to test the bearing strength of newly laid concrete, but we, as pilots, certainly do not have this equipement to hand.
We are all here to learn from other peoples experiences and expertise, so perhaps you could tell us what you would have done to avoid this incident.

Airclues

[HotDog]

Few Cloudy, there is a new topic on JB; posters from hell, you are next on the list:p

[mainfrog2]

Based on what I can remember from years ago, concrete wasn't used in this case and would probably have needed a lot of water sparayed on it to make it set properly without it cracking and damaging.

Bitumen comes in lots of varieties and is graded on it's penetration. You take a sample of bitumen and a standard test needle is dropped into it,how far it penetrates the bitumen is how hard it is and consequently its load bearing ability with the correct aggregate

If you use the wrong kind it can't bear the weight so the tarmac used for your driveway is a higher penetration reading than on motorways.

When you lay it on the road you can't easily tell what kind of bitumen you are using so presumably because this work was carried out over night no one would have been aware of a problem until the first heavy aircraft was on it. The fact that the aircraft was turning would have put the surface under even greater stress. Basically this fault goes back to the manufacturer of the tarmac getting his tanks mixed up or poor quality control, not the fault of the airport or the airline concerned.

[Few Cloudy]

Hot Dog - I'm working on it!

Capt Airclues - I actually meant taking consequences such as - a note in the notam about 180s - a reassesment of the bearing strength ( there are "rigid" and "flexible" pavements whose applicable strengths depend on traverse speed, AUW and aircraft type and are usually published and kept in ops planning) or even a change of aircraft type.

Any of these actions would show a concern about the state of the RW. The criticism was not of the crew but the operation.

[vegas_jonny]

Few Cloudy....let it go dude.....you can't salvage anything from this. You engaged keyboard before brain, everyone's done it!

[Tandemrotor]

Vegas_Johny

You are so right!!!

Few Cloudy

All your posts on this thread speak volumes about you, while contributing absolutely nothing. Grow up mate!

The most interesting question was, how would you have handled this differently to prevent the incident? But of course, you can´t answer that can you!

[Few Cloudy]

Well, as the thread has become a forum for BA self defence versus one critic, I can't see much future in yet another reply but here goes anyway.

The question was "How could the incident have been avoided? " In most major airlines, there is an airport state/ notam department. This department keeps/ publishes facility and runway data in the company route documentation. It can be that a documentation supplier such as Jeppesen or Airad is used. It, or a separate department then publishes any change from the documented 'norm', in the form of a Notam which is then seen by the dispatch dept./crew and acted upon if neccessary.

If Ops had received the data about the repair, it should have been Notamed in this way. It would then have been up to the Dispatch/Crew what action to take - possibly to attempt the 180 before the RW end for instance. A crew would never knowingly taxy over soft pavement.

If, as has been reported since my original post, this information was not made available to BA in time for the flight, then no blame can attach. It depends upon what really happened to the Antigua information. Certainly a subsequent Take Off would have to be assessed in the light of any unuseable pavement.

[mainfrog2]

Few Cloudy does the fact that it has become a BA self defence versus one critic suggest anything to you.

[DCDriver]

Few Cloudy,
in that part of the world, irregularities are often not Notammed at all until crews start to report the shortcomings.
So an airline's "airport state/ notam department", which for most of us today consists of nothing but one man, who would in any case probably be abed at the time the flight was departing the caribbean, would be unaware of the problem.

A few years ago on a neighbouring island I was cleared for takeoff with the appendage "and by the way the last 1000ft of the runway are closed" (!!!) .... none of this was in the Notam for that day.

Having spent the past six years operating into that region, I'm bound to conclude that the VC Bird incident could have happened to anybody, myself included!

rgds, DCD

[Notso Fantastic]

He's making a play to be the Forum's biggest bore since the Guvnor! Let it go Man! Or are we going to flog this non-incident to death and use it as an excuse to contemplate our navels and examine exactly what we can all learn from this amazing incident (yawn)? End of thread all round?

[Hand Solo]

Well apparently a spokesman for the airport has said they did not NOTAM the resurfacing work because it was taking place overnight when the airport was closed and was expected to be completed by the time the airport opened. So that should put this one to bed.

[BOAC]

Don't you believe it! It'll be back!

[Shore Guy]

Few Cloudy wrote "It would then have been up to the Dispatch/Crew what action to take - possibly to attempt the 180 before the RW end for instance." And where, sir, would the new runway data for takeoff come from for this now indiscriminately shortenend runway come from? From all indications so far, the only blame is with the airport authority/contractor for shoddy repair.

[Few Cloudy]

Well look at it this way fans... It's kind of a slow week and you would have missed all the fun without FC.