I understand that YPWR is regularly used as an alternate by the airlines (but primarily to recalculate fuel reserves). However, it has no proper passenger handling facilities (ie steps) and a very small terminal with no catering (ie 1 chilled water fountain only). It would be a difficult choice. It may not have underwing fuelling either. I'm not sure. Nor does it have aviation firefighting. When the airforce use it they bring in their own. The local civilian emergency services are available, but I don't believe they fully comply with aviation requirements. The aircraft that I have seen come in have been at the Captain's discretion.

Mildura was a good choice - except that the weather forecasts and the controllers who were tardy about passing them on let them down.

And a first world country like Australia ought to have radar coverage and an ILS at Mildura.

If I recall my reading correctly, the weather station was serviceable, but the comms link was U/S.

Its an absolute disgrace. We spend $6.4m repainting the terminal at YMIA, but can't get a weather link.

One of the really bad practices of the ATSB is that they NEVER make the timeline clear. In some reports they even mix dist to run & time, almost like its designed to confuse. You need to actually write your own timeline combining the different threads to make sense of it all.

But... I think that at the time both a/c passed YMIA the first time, the wx for YPAD was still above minima - or at least good enough to be worth a try.

Once again, I need to go back and piece together the timeline. But I suspect that at the time the TAF was issued saying PROB 30 FOG that there was actually FOG at the airport - ie PROB 100 FOG.

I have been trained by overcautious forecasts to treat PROB 30 as the BOM's lowest PROB and that it rarely actually occurs. An area that the ATSB should cover (but I bet they won't) is whether the BOM's PROB 30 is just crying wolf.

I tend to agree with Old Akro, though I still consider whatever options are available. With the number of times I've seen Prob30 I doubt those f/casts have been correct 30% of the time, not sure if that is statistically relevant though!

Similar to Learmonth, where the RAAF spends millions running flying ops camps but won't fix the AFRU which has been U/S for the last 6 MONTHS.

And a whole country with no CAT III capability....

Then we have the Gold Coast and Perth..........

It's only a matter of time before the woeful lack of facilities in this country kills someone.

Air Asia came close in OOL, these guys came frightfully close, QF had multiple PANs to bust the minima in SYD. This is the real issue in this country. But as usual everyone cries poor and it will take 500 fatalities and a Royal Commission before anyone actually does anything.

But oh we're such a wealthy country......................

How? And which ones? Does this still apply when the restricted areas are active?
Saying you can land there in an emergency and nominating it as a alternate are two different things.

Can someone please explain to me, given the LAW, how the lack of Cat 111 ILS anywhere will kill people? What on earth did pilots do before the advent of the ILS?
Would like to hope that the aircraft is flown safely in the first and only instance....VFR if need be. I can't possibly see any case where death is preferable to diversion to a suitable alternate/return to ADEP/stay at home.

Mel RWY 16 cat IIIB.

Hempy,
What you have to remember is the safety systems that were in place in the past have been watered down in the name of affordable safety.The SOC's are gone the FSO's are gone the met observers are gone.All contributing to the overall decision making of the pilot in his day to day operation.If the FSO and the met observer had been in place in YMID the pilots would have had forewarning of the deteriorating WX conditions.

A mate who is an International 747 captain told me his airline uses woomera as a waypoint / alternate. It allows them to reset the fuel reserves enroute to Melb.

Woomera became dramatically more difficult to access when Airforce took it over from the Dept of Defence about 3 years ago, but it used to be relatively straight forward. It would certainly be very do-able with 30 min notice. In that era the restricted areas where not active very often. Even now they are frequently inactive. If there was a compelling need to land there I have no doubt it could be arranged at short notice. The ARO's there are very sharp. There is one on duty 24 hrs per day 365 days a year.

Read p5. The BOM had good information on the actual conditions. The problem is that it wasn't passed on to the flight crews.

There was also a MET observer at Mildura providing information - see p17

Firstly, ILS was first used by airlines in 1938 after being invented in 1929. Before ILS airlines were flying DC-2's. Do you really want to go back to that?

Secondly, the cost of not having ILS is poor flight reliability, on time performance, diversions and increased risk of accidents. Our society will no longer tolerate that.

The issue as I see it is that the airlines & pilot skill has been covering for Australia's 3rd world aviation infrastructure. This episode highlights this. Australia has fewer ILS equipped runways than Malaysia. Mildura has spent $6.4m redecorating the terminal (ie no new roof area, no increase in facilities), yet we won't spend $1.5m on an ILS. We've lost the plot.

That's not nominating it as a alternate, that's just a flightplanning trick to squeeze more fuel out of your flightplan. If they did not have enough gas at Woomera they would be diverting to Adelaide.

Nominating an alternate means that you will be going there if you can't land at your destination. It's not an emergency just a diversion.

I have read the ATSB factual report and all I can say is, Congratulations to all crew involved for landing safely in very difficult circumstances.

Your training and years of experience avoided what in many other instances has all too often proved to be a fatal chain of events. Few of us will ever have to deal with such emergencies and I can only hope that those of us that might will be as professional as you have proven to be, well done.

Mildura has spent $6.4m redecorating the terminal (ie no new roof area, no increase in facilities), yet we won't spend $1.5m on an ILS. We've lost the plot.

I doubt we ever had the plot to begin with. Australia is mired in red tape & beauracracy, it's about the only thing we ARE the best in the world at. That and institutionalised corruption. The backslapping & self congratulation that goes on in this country over achieving nothing is impressive.

GLS
 

Where are we at with the GLS system being trialled at SYD? Doesn't it allow you to do satellite-based "precision-like" approaches to all runway ends from a pretty simple 4 or 5 antenna patch plus a demountable and a UPS? :cool:

Updates please, anyone????

Nothing happens quickly!
 

Looking at a full report in March 2015

Investigation: AO-2013-100 - Weather related operational event involving B737s VH-YIR and VH-VYK at Mildura Airport, Victoria on 18 June 2013

Final report 'may' now be released in August 2015.

737's in YMIA
 

Now told #atsb report will be at earliest February 2016.

Almost 3 years:-

Hiding something ?? or

Letting things cool down??

I doubt they are hiding something. My guess is that if the report has been done well there will have been a lot of digging into departments/services that normally don't get much scrutiny in an incident investigation. That may have taken some time to do. Just a guess.

#PelAir
 

In #pelair, there were matters not properly investigated, which went to the life-jackets, the CVR, the FDR etc.

That this was the first survivable open sea ditching af a jet at night surely would lead to a much more thorough investigation. To read the report in the Senate, which shows poor investigation and writing techniques, with little or no notice taken of the DIP's [Directly Interested Parties] except #casa who had a lot to hide as witnessed by the surfacing of the Chambers report and the improper MOU between #casa and #atsb.

AND #atsb is not going to cover up in the #Mildura "incident".

I would hope that the ATSB will have learnt from the Pelair experience. One of the issues with Mildura is that two RPT (an important distinction with Pelair) jets ended up at an airport where the forecast was seriously deficient. Adelaide is not Norfolk Island and Mildura is not in the middle of the ocean. I also doubt that a damning audit report on either Qantas or Virgin is lurking in the background.

I would like to contact the Captain of VH-YIR on that day.
Please pm me if you know him. Thanks.

Looking at the weather map for the next 4 days it reminds me of a similar pattern when this incident occurred. My suggestion to anyone flying to Adelaide or Mildura during the next few days is to carry fuel that will get you to somewhere else.

A quiet weekend at the Lookleft household! :E

Even more so stuck in lockdown but 7 days is better than 4 months.