could not have said it any better myself

This was actually my first thought. Does the 787 normally take enough fuel on these Bali flights to fly to Broome and then divert back to Melbourne?

1. The flight would have easily arrived before runway closure
2. The runway closure on wed morning is not tightly adhered to. On the day in question several jet flights operated within the closure period, despite muppets in here heroically highlighting jepp plates
3. The departure would have been delayed by about 4 hours. That's basically early for the 787.
4. Flight plan a/c type submission is not the same paperwork as Indonesian FIR overflight approval.

This conspiracy drivel being bandied about, that the pilots didn't know about or allow for the runway closure is one of the dumber failings of the pprune brains trust, and that's saying something.

This “muppet” simply provided the chart as factual info and made no judgement.

This “muppet”, like you, calculates that despite the delay the aircraft would have arrived WADD around 17:30z had it not turned around, i.e. before the notional closure.

I have been wondering about the flexibility of that closure though; mainly for a subsequent departure of the jet. Was some sort of concession not received, not communicated, and that affected the decision to proceed? I’d be surprised; I’d rather sit the jet there for a few unexpected hours than turn it around over BRM.

The whole shebang may well be an approved seats-per-week thing and the bigger aircraft meant that would be exceeded. Dunno what the go is these days.

I’m just rather curious and perplexed, because as a retired 20,000+ hours retired “muppet” of the Group I get asked all the time WTF is going on in Alan’s outfit, and frankly this turn back is pretty bewildering.

Das says
4. Flight plan a/c type submission is not the same paperwork as Indonesian FIR overflight approval.


Since you're a play the man not the ball guy Das - are you sure YOU know what you are talking about. One does not need an overflight approval to land at a foreign port, one needs a landing approval. One needs an overfly permit to overfly or a landing permit if that country is the end of the trip.. Don't mean to be a pedant but you want to call people muppets so it compels me to call you out. Secondly, some countries, such as Singapore and Malaysia, as long as the flight plan is filed within the statuatory period as defined in that country's Jeppesen requirements (usually two hours), then no overfly approval is required. Indonesia does need an overfly permit regardless - I can already hear you saying you knew that and we're talking about Indonesia.

I see no problem with Ushuaia posting that chart. Like you though Das - I don't believe that is the reason. But I'll debate his argument rather than calling him a muppet. Firstly, I don't know how many RPT guys would read the Jepp Charts for requirements rather than accepting the company's plan and reading NOTAMS. Corporate guys tend to look at those plates in their pre trip prep, particularly if the crew themselves do all the trip planning such as overfly permits, landing permits, ground handling etc. Jetstar and other RPTs, should and no doubt would, have this sort of standing information stored in their planning files.

Ush - firstly, if the times posted above are correct then they had a 40 minute buffer. And we all know the FMS system, with the STAR and approach put in, would give a very accurate landing time. Holding or vectors are a different ball game, but you would not likely be turned away for that. So the crew and JQ and anyone on flight radar could see whether they would make it or not.
Secondly, as a corporate driver of many years, I have spent many times on the sat phone back to the CP, or directly with the port itself, negotiating a revision to gain approval. The revision may be to a slot, a runway closure, a curfew, a landing permit, anything............. Only once did negotiation fail for me - fortunately we were on the ground in the middle east at the time - big delay replanning a reroute around the denying country. And I do recall once a German freighter not being allowed through China from Myanmar. Interestingly they were stuck for ideas and got on guard asking other crews for advice. To a man, every local aircraft listening that responded told em to give up, China say "Mayo", China mean "Mayo" (No). Everyone said your only option to get to HK was via Bangkok which could be easily negotiated via radio or phone (at a hefty fee no doubt).

Not knowing the inside story but I would imagine that the stuff up is completely internal. What was that airframe doing after it would have returned from DPS? Jetstar often ferry empty planes around the sky so the decision to return it to base would have been made on just having it back in ML and bugger the pax. Jetstar flights are often delayed out of Melbourne because the only bloke certified to tow planes to the gate is busy loading bags onto a 787. Before you jump in the engineers are not allowed to do it due to contractual obligations. If you think things are bad at Jetstar then you can officially call yourself an optimist, they are much worse.

Are you sure? The company retimed the return flight to 0315 local departure from Bali. The passengers were notified in advance by message. The passengers were at the gate. The crew arrived for the flight.

Perhaps the return crew did know, but assumed they had an exemption so didn't raise it. The inbound crew might have know, they did have a 40 min buffer, explains why they appeared to have considerable fuel also. They don't really care about what is happening on the return leg so why would you raise it with Ops, that is their problem.

The question remains did Ops know. Seems unlikely. I don't think the crew did anything wrong here.

That dial won't move unless the new CEO wants to make some tough calls with what is her Management Team. COO is issue number 1. Alan likely has a tight grip on all decision making so she is likely powerless, a broom is needed across the entire team.

I can assure you when I was with the “Group” every pilot read and knew the contents of the Jepp REF pages for an airport. I‘d be amazed if that has changed.

I’ve no doubt the northbound guys were aware of the published closure period and assessed they were ok. Whether their thinking extended to the return flight and its crew: well that’s lower order consideration for them and one where they may assume the “Company” has got it sorted.

The published closure is a significant factor in all of this. A significant length: 5 hours. The burning question I have is whether someone in the airline eventually decided that it wasn’t acceptable to have the jet sit on the ground for five hours. And have outbound pax sit at the airport for an extra five hours. That then begs the question (amongst the airline ops staff): “Why did we even allow the northbound to despatch?” The next question then of course being: “What do we do about it?” “And who do we attribute it to?”

I’m curious about when the DPS-MEL pax were advised there’d be no flight that night. Had they started to arrive at the airport or were they forewarned? JQ35 was < 2 hours from landing when it U-turned.

The published five hour closure is a significant factor and sure raises a bunch of questions. From everybody, even muppets.

Very valid points Ush - the return flight was gunna be an issue and I don't think, in that case, a deliberate attempt to circumvent the runway closure for departure, would be accepted by the authorities. I made the silly assumption that the five hours on the ground would be part of Jetstar's plan before departure, and accepted. Perhaps not - hence the recall, buggar the pax on both sectors.

All good points Ushuaia and Trevor the lover . Perhaps the ops centre were rattled and whilst a 5 hour delay due to late departure might be able to be tolerated and pulled back slightly, a 10 hour delay meant there was no return from here and thus diverting the flight meant they could get the following flights back on time however there appears to be an 8 hour wait in Melbourne before it took off to Phuket for it's next trip so I am a bit stumped.

This aircraft had already completed a Mel-DPS-BRS-DPS-Mel trip on the 26th/27th so this looks like a very rash decision by Ops and were there not other crews on board being shuttled? Perhaps they thought that a lot of people could go home so reducing the hotel bill a bit. All conjecture on my behalf.

Just the standard good old roll of the dice gone wrong.

The Indos have had enough as has everyone else tasked with trying to make this place work.

No fault of the crew at all, they were just pawns.

MCD

"Returning back" is a tautology. Who is teaching English these days?

VH-EBK (747-238B) painted in Air Pacific colours in the 80s drew the ire of US Customs upon arrival at LAX. Paperwork was required to 'prove' Qantas actually owned the aeroplane when it was operating QF17/QF18.

When I was there, in another department but we handled ASMs, when they were generated, they went to the relevant authorities as well. Still some chance this was an Indonesian cock up - but, of course, my experience was in the highly automated QF environment, not the 'little bit of automation plus sticky tape' environment of JQ where they say "what do we need this for??"

Probably tankering due to cost??

Seriously, just land the bloody thing in Bali and let the Bosses work out the paperwork later. What a clusterf*ck!

With lots of folding "paperwork" to get the crew out of gaol.
You have NFI.

AP,
How many on here would know what's an ASM? :}​​​​​​​

Where is BRS ? :confused:

BRS is Bristol, UK.

Perhaps they meant BNE ?