What sort of technical hitch would this be ?

[phnuff]

Our childminder has just returned from a holiday in Gibralter and has been recounting what sounds like a very strange story. Apparently, they left Luton, got to within 10 minutes of Gibralter when the captain announced that there was a technical hitch and that they were returning to Luton. On arrival at Luton, they landed in what seems like a full scale emergency situation surrounded by fire engines etc. I guess my curiosity has been aroused as to what kind of 'technical' problem would make a 3 hour diversion the right decision (or is it possible that the technical' problem described by the captain is more a commercial imperative to avoid having a U/S aircraft layed up away from base ?)

[Knold]

Perhaps he heard that his time share yacht had become available at short notice ;)

Sounds really strange. Company discoverd they owed money to the handling at destination?

[chiglet]

phnuff,
Happened "Loads" of times with "Various" airlines. A/c has a rather more than a "minor" prob. Can said a/c depart "safely"? if ANY doubt, a/c rtb pdq and a "reserve" [not necessarily] same co a/c does flight. Better 2-300 digruntled pax rather than xx hurt or worse.
we aim to please, it keeps the cleaners happy

[Knold]

Still they had a lot more fuel than required with them (if they were indeed going to Gibralter?)

[phnuff]

Sorry - yes indeed, Gib was the intended destination. Racking my poor little PPL brain, the only real thing I can think of was the plane with its return fuel load would be too heavy to land with what ever technical problem there was (undercarriage?). In that case it would make sense to return home (to base), and land with the lower load rather than jetisson fuel or hang around somewhere near spain for the load to reduce sufficently to take a more local alternate and still have passengers who could not get to their holiday.

Is this possible?.

[wing_nut1]

Hmmm, stragne one that, maybe if it was a specific type of aircraft they wanted to return to their engineers so they didnt have a plane stranded out so far, the only reason i think is becasue a Q400 dash was starting at egns with an engine problem but the pilot was determinded to get over to bhx so he could get to his engineers.

Could be that?

[VectorLine]

was this 2-3 weeks ago?

I remember working an aircraft through BARLU that came back after nearly getting to Gibralter.

If it was the same one, the reason I got was that there was a problem with the aircraft that could not be fixed at LXGB and would be a 'no dispatch' once they had landed - so they brought the plane back. Got no more details from pilot

[phnuff]

It was innthe last 10 days (no child minder = many problems so know exactly when she was away but not when she flew).

No despatch means ???

[wobblyprop]

No despatch means:

The aircraft is not allowed to depart until the engineers have had a look at it.

[wing_nut1]

so my guess was roughly right then :cool:

[Pilot Pete]

Must have been a tankering sector which would account for the return fuel being onboard. Tankering is when it works out cheaper to load the fuel at your departure airfield for the roundtrip (or as much as you can get on bearing in mind MTOW, MLW etc etc) rather than just load return fuel at destination. Happens surprisingly often and is due to large fuel price differences between home and destination.

PP

As already mentioned a tech problem that would have stranded the aircraft would be the most likely reason to return to base. It's the lowest cost option.

[phnuff]

Just mentioned comments to childminder. Her response (as one of the 2-300 p****d off passengers) was along the lines of

'if they can carry enough fuel to enable them to return to Luton to save the airline money, why the hell don't they carry enough tea and coffee to keep the passengers at least half way on their side'.


I must admit, I see her point - delayed holiday, grumpy captain (apparently), and the only refreshments available have to be paid for, despite the fact that the airline is inconveniencing the passengers for its own commercial ends.

Still, they are all safe and I guess the tour company is going to have to face a deluge of complaints!