Oh, I dunno Zarg, YPKG (OCTA) was a good altn for many a jet RPT, in dem good ole days......as were many other locations OCTA...
Meeka was an INTL Altn.... Imagine the looks on the faces at the many windows looking at '****-all' @ that!
:p

Met is a lot like horse racing. Sometimes the nag at 100:1 comes through. Just because PROB05 isn't on the forecast doesn't mean it isn't there.

**** happens occasionally and the low odds come up trumps. You could make the BOM put PROB01 on the TAF and it would still go wrong 1% of the time.

Which is exactly why this third world country should align itself with the majority of other third world countries and have the infrastructure and necessary equipment to function under these conditions! :ugh:

Zarg,

I think the point that's being made is that in times past, there would have been a much closer operational watch and much more support well before the aircraft departed "controlled airspace".

Affordable safety?????

For probs less than 30, I only discovered recently that there are Aerodrome Briefings available from BoM/ ASA for ml, sy, ph, bn and ad that include a plain text decode of the taf as well as listing chances of ts, fog, etc, that are considered less than 30%. It's quite a handy bit of extra information and worth checking out.

Having said that, I have no idea what it happened to say on the day of this fog.

Sorry, I missed that bit.
One other thing not mentioned for ops control, was that ATC could look at the actual wx and put their own requirement on it that was contrary to the forecast. I don't remember TTFs being in operation prior to ops control closing down.

"Adelaide requires alternate due unforecast fog, ATC operational requirement, Perth, Alice Springs suitable, advise alternate, endurance remaining etc"

I can see one ATSB recommendation that companies beef up their flight following/operational control capability significantly to make sure the PIC is adequately resourced in flight.

ACARS should be mandatory for all high capacity operations.

Common sense (remember that)? should be mandatory for all high capacity operations, but it isn't! :ugh:

Flew out the window the moment "affordable safety" became the paradigm.

Thanks Dick for the memories.:mad:

If memory serves and without going back to the prelim report one of the airlines sat on the changed weather report for 45 minutes prior to sending an ACARS because of sterile cockpit procedures.

Brian, that in itself is interesting. From a crew POV, there are two types of ACARS, a message with a ding dong, and another "silent" type that is pushed directly to the ACARS printer. Sometimes new weather updates are pushed in he second method by the dispatchers. So the sterile argument loses credibility - why not send a silent update as soon as it is know and the message later?

Sterile procedures does not mean silence. It means only communication pertinent to the aircraft operation is to be utilised. I should think critical information about airport availability due fog is falls into the allowable operating procedure for the sterile cockpit environment.

I would not think that an update on weather is in the same category as discussing nappy changing at 2 am.

Or put it another way:-

Sterile means nothing other than essential duties. I would have thought that weather updates would fall into "essential duties"

And I am sure a 737 does not take 45 minutes from push-back to above 10,000 ft.

The ACARS thing is a red herring. The QF crew got the message at 2148, just after they got to top of climb out of Sydney, plenty of time to cogitate on it before getting near ADL.

I agree with the sterile cockpit policy re ACARS. Dings or buzzing printers during the takeoff are not good. If the company has a critical message to pass, they can do it thru ATC.

The system has got to allow all A/C inbound to a fog shrouded drome especially when it wasn't forecast initially to be informed asap. It seems insane with all the technology, the huge costs to run our sad aviation industry with poor infrastructure that we can have in this modern day & age an Airliner that could have ended up a smoking hulk at some uncontrolled basic drome or worse some farmers paddock!!!
Flying is only as safe as it's weakest link. The Plane manufacturers go to extraordinary lengths to make their planes safe for us yet we might as well be flying wooden bi-planes as in some ways we haven't learnt a damned thing since the first recorded plane crash!

'601'....45 mins from push back to 10K is fast sometimes from some of our madhouse dromes!:)


Wmk2

Virgin Aircraft 'Emergency' Landing
 

it is in Brisbane..

What was the content of the weather report QF got at 2148?

On page 9 of the report. :cool:

Last time I looked "affordable safety" didn't change the all-important CAR. Neither has common-sense changed.

"Affordable safety" might not have changed the CAR, but the support mechanisms in the context of what ATC provides now compared to past times certainly have.

Common sense is a different issue - no doubt there will be judgements made by the ATSB/CASA hindsight committee sitting in cosy offices as to whether common sense prevailed in this instance.