Contrasting procedures

[double_barrel]

Two Dash-8's landed in quick succession, I was pax on one and was struck by their differing procedures. The one on the left, operated by company A, appears not to have raise flaps on their after landing checklist. They also disembarked and embarked passengers with the stbd engine running and walked them round the stbd side with one cone chucked in front of the running engine. Pax were walking under the stbd wing. The other aircraft stopped both engines (and raised flaps!). I couldn't resist getting a picture of these contrasting procedures - its not obvious from the picture but that stbd engine on the a/c on the left is still running.

Any comments, other than TIA?!



https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/993x349/whatsapp_image_2021_01_14_at_18_52_01_702a81f162344acf914e29 ae8e10c34484c16923.jpeg

[scr1]

Inop APU maybe with no GPU available? only reason I can think of strait off? Did a hot turn on a Air Malta once when we did not have a air start. Shut down one engine get the pax off and on. change ruining engine and do the bags and fuel with the fire service on stand by. (would have been almost 20 years ago don't think we would be allowed now.)

[lomapaseo]

You don't suppose the egress was chosen due to the parking spots next to the grass. When parking my car I let my passengers out on curb side

[double_barrel]

scr1

Quite possibly. There is definitely no GPU available here - you can see the tower and the entirety of the rescue services in the same picture. But my instinct would have been to walk unsupervised pax down the side which did not take them a few feet from spinning death. One consideration may be that bags are also unloaded from the port side and they didn't want pax to start grabbing for bags as they went by. But I would have been paranoid about stationing shouty people in hi-viz to keep them clear of a turning prop.

(I have also flown as pilot from that airstrip. It's strange to be taxiing on the apron while crowds of passengers are wandering around.)

[+TSRA]

The one on the left, operated by company A, appears not to have raise flaps on their after landing checklist.

I've worked for three different Dash-8 operators over 10 years. Only one of those routinely left the flaps down during a quick turn and that was only because the gentleman who wrote our SOPs had come from yet another operator where that was the norm. It's unusual when compared against most operators, but it happens. It generally comes down to who wrote the books and where that person came from.

They also disembarked and embarked passengers with the stbd engine running and walked them round the stbd side with one cone chucked in front of the running engine.

Like one of the previous posters said, it's possibly an APU issue, but the Dash can start just fine off the batteries. One other reason would be that the classic Dash (looks like maybe a -300 on the left) is notorious for cabin temperature issues. It's not difficult to control once you understand the AC system, but it can take a long time to reach a comfortable temperature - in the area of 20 minutes in some extreme situations. In the arctic, we would routinely keep #2 running if the APU was unserviceable just to keep the cabin at or above 0C. Possibly the same here,

The fact the engine is running or the flaps are not fully raised is not what stands out to me.

Pax were walking under the stbd wing.

It's the walking under the wing that is weird to me. Not the parking situation, been there and done that hundreds of times, but walking under the wing is a no-no for passengers.

When I hot refuelled or hot offloaded, we always preferred to have cones or other barriers from the nose to both wingtips, even if we were not running the #2 engine. If we couldn't put something there and we had to run #2, we'd position someone at the nose and the wingtip to direct people. Where possible we'd park so the passengers didn't have to walk past the running engine, but that's not always an option. We'd also give a briefing before we let people off or on explaining what was happening and why it was a bad idea to go inside the cones.

[double_barrel]

I've worked for three different Dash-8 operators over 10 years......

Thanks for your insights. Well spotted, that is a -315 on the left. It's operated by a small company that also flies caravans and a couple of even older Dash-8's. The one on the right is a -400 operated by a subsidiary of a national carrier.

On reflection the one on the left operates almost exclusively to airstrips with little or no support, and certainly no GPU. I guess that would make it difficult and risky to operate without a working APU, so my guess is that they just wanted a quick turnaround. On that run, they are typically on the ground there for perhaps 20 minutes.

[megan]

Unsupervised people on the tarmac are a nightmare, saw a lass approach a running helicopter and she ducked under the tail boom just in front of the turning tail rotor so as to talk to the pilot, riding a turbo prop a late passenger ran up to the cockpit to get the pilots attention just as he hit the start button for #1, #2 was already running, #1 prop turned perhaps one revolution, was he cranky is an understatement, the pilot that is. The late passenger could very well have been late, period, had he arrived some seconds later.