Typhoon.
 

Apparently over 25 diversions last night, quite a few missed approaches. The boys (and girls) sure enough earned their pay last night! A safe job done by all. Good work folks.

agreed !!! kudos to all boys & gals who have done an EXCELLENT job flying safely. winds was reported gusting up to 44 kts and alot of W/S ... anyone mind to share the experiences ?

As one of the diversions yesterday, due hard windshear warning and then several bouts of severe mechanical turbulence in the departure, I would just like to say a big THANKS to ATC on a job very well done.

I eventually made it back at 0100 this morning!!

(Off to work again now...can u guess who I work for!!)

Gliderboy:ok:

Wasn't handled as smoothly in the terminal as it might have been out on the GS.

LOTS of upset pax, groundstaff overwhelmed, no info forthcoming etc etc etc. I really struggle to understand why it is so hard for groundstaff to just come out with the truth when you ask them what is going on. Or does nobody tell them either?


Pax were only told as much as 8 hours (in other world at sunrise this morning) after their flight was due to depart that it is now cancelled for a further 12 hours ....:ugh:

I would also like to endorse what gliderboy said and thank HK ATC for doing such a highly professional job last night. You guys where absolutely brilliant !!!

As has been proven again and again, HK ATC are an absolute God send under such difficult conditions and believe me, it is a great reassurance knowing that.

Again, from the bottom of my boggies, THANK YOU.

A Huge thank you and a job extremely well done to HKG ATC, both on the ground and in the air.

Arrival and departure was a wild ride.

Again, my sincere thanks to ATC.
:D:ok:

Yes well done ATC, had good radar vectors onto the ILS with 220/57 knots at 4500ft. Takes some radar skill does that.

We all kept asking for the straight ahead to 5000 ft option for the go around as in a missed approach under those winds the thought of making a turn to downwind at 185 kts, towards the highest hills in HKG and then to try and find LKC is a bit daunting. I know it gives you a bit of hassle with other traffic but we sure appreciated it last night.

And the quick left downwind back to River worked well, only took another 2500kgs so we had fuel for that second go, and landed.

Its a bit of a worry when all the airports within fuel range tell your that they are full, and will only accept you emergency only. That's not quite what we want from an alternate. I have no doubt our people will be talking to Manila and Taipei to see if something better can be arranged. It would be silly in this day and age of fuel prices to all gas up to carry NOP, BKK or Naha.

I agree HK ATC did a fantastic job. We tried to get in but ended up diverting, ATC also gave us clearance for straight ahead in the event of a GA which helped greatly when I pressed those TOGA switches :)

A big thanks to HK ATC for a job well done :)

I'm not a pilot but such conditions got me wondering about some things.

Suppose there are very strong crosswinds and a go-around initiated and ATC gives you vectors for a circuit to return for another try. I would imagine that the wind would cause IAS to increase or decrease significantly depending on whether you're turning into or away from it for the upwind or for base leg. How do you pilots handle such situations? Reduce the bank angle or even add/reduce thrust before turning?

Was also one of the departures on Friday night & would also like to acknowledge the highly professional job HKG ATC did in managing the whole situation from keeping us advised of the delays to getting us away quickly once we had pushed back. I was expecting to use a lot more fuel on the ground than we did. Well done guys & girls. :D

Diversions in Typhoon conditions
 

I remember a Speedbird callsign doing a missed approach from Kai Tak just after a Typhoon had ripped through Hong Kong some time in the early 90's. After all the traumas of carrying out a couple of missed approaches (questionable as to whether you put everyone through more than one - if that) they announced their intention to divert to Guangzhou (ZGGG). 'Guangzhou is closed to further traffic' said ATC. ZGGG was the nominated alternate and the boys had programmed the route into their kit and used the alternate fuel relative to ZGGG as the basis for their entire operation that night. Nobody had ever mentioned the fact that it was now 'closed to further traffic'.
When asked for his intentions regarding his baulked diversion, the Speedbird Captain simply said 'Mayday,Mayday - diverting to ZGGG'. When asked for the reason for declaration of Mayday, he said -'Short of fuel'.
Good on him. Dog wags tail - not other way around - especially in highly stressful situations. Park on the taxiway etc etc. Discuss the 'reasons for a Mayday' later.
Not sure how it would go down now but worth discussing.

Must admit to being a little confused by the last part of moosps post, what could these other airports do, divert other aircraft away so that CX can carry less fuel and divert to them? KHH/TPE/ZGGG/ZGSZ have ALWAYS filled up quickly when this sort of weather causes diversions and you should plan accordingly.........:=

It wasn't just the close alternates which weren't taking diversions ... Cebu, Manila, and Clark too. Made for fun flying up from Oz.

These days ATC are proactive and actually tell you that if you declare an emergency then you can divert to the field of your choice after telling you that place is full. Thanks to ATC for being proactive!!

Also a word of warning to those who wish for anonymity. There have been plenty of clues here for those detectives to work out or at least narrow down who was who. Moosp.....DPS trip?

I recall as a controller an A340 from an airline just North of the US missing out twice on the RWY 13 IGS at Kai Tak, then making 2 missed approaches at Macau (which was just recently completed), heading off towards ZGGG, getting to around TAMOT, declaring a fuel emergency, and then we gave him a PAR monitored ILS onto RWY 31 with about 20 knots tail wind and vis about 300 meters. First we in the tower saw of him, was him vacating 31 at about A3. They were pretty quiet!

div fuel
 

a simple lesson here..several a/c diverted to...BKK !! all local ports full so keep that in mind when gassing up boys and girls

Kitsune, that the point. An alternate should be bullet proof, and available to anyone who files it. If too many people file MCM inbound to HKG than the airport can accept, then the ATC computers should reject the request. It will only be when most transpac carriers have to carry Naha that something will be done about this.

It is unacceptable to be told that your filed alternate is full. That airport should have stopped accepting themselves as an alternate at the planning stage. There are SITA networks available to ensure this. Don't hold your breath on this though as it could be years before it is implemented.

Oh and ken yes I know my forum name is transparent to most people that know me, that's why I use it. But do you know my phantom postings name? ;)

A long day!
 

Rumour has it ................
A CX flight from BKK to HKG ended up doing a MAP and diverting to TPE. THEN ... refuelled, had another go at HKG with another MAP and off to KHH, then another refuel and finally got into HKG on the third attempt. WOW!!! That is a long and stressful day!

Remember the old days? Two attempts then go, 'cause the third attempt kills!!!

Perthtrained........sure do. Third time's a charm.

Back to the thread....ATC did a great job.

To my knowledge, if you file an airport as an alternate then they have to take you regardless. If the bays are full then they can park you on the taxiways if need be.

A little presumptuous Fac6, but you mean like this....

http://www.aero-farm.com/people/cyhz.jpg

?

Thats Down East hospitality fer ya. Nova Scotia style.:D

I guess that photo was taken on September 11, 2001?

Correct. CYHZ.

Good one bekolblokage, we should send this to all the usual alternates and show them what can be done.

But I feel here that the development of the aviation industry has overtaken the original concept of an alternate. From those heady days of Bermuda 2 and twenty movements a day the alternate conditions are somewhat changed.

As a pilot in those days, if my destination was a bit dodgey , I was always able to go to my alternate, where I might land. I might then disembark passengers and crew, take twelve hours of rest in a good hotel and then continue the next day if the conditions permitted. If I needed only fuel, that was immediately available and within an hour we were on our way.

Fat chance in 2008. There are so many aircraft in the air with so few runways available that the closing of one major airport in most areas of high density traffic will cause major disruption. I do not have the figures here, but presumably when one airport that has 50 movements per hour closes or is only capable of landing say 10% of normal traffic, then 22-25 aircraft that are already airborne need to go somewhere else. To airports that are already slot limited??

A recent Asian diversion case involving several aircraft caused five to seven hour delays, due to visa requirements for the relief crew being flown in. Then crew rest requirements kicked in and no one was allowed to leave the aircraft.
Even if passengers had been allowed off, there were no hotel beds for 1000 passengers within 300km. Some alternate...

A classic case of which I am familiar is Tokyo NRT. If you file Haneda as your alternate, what are your chances of getting a landing slot there? The airport is already slot limited by domestic traffic, so if NRT (effectively single runway until the USA allows Japan to buy Alaskan oil, but let's not go there right now) is closed, by weather or earthquake, where are the thirty odd aircraft in the next hours arrival sequence to go? Most transpac do not have Nagoya fuel and the various military bases around Tokyo that the American carriers say they have "up their sleeve" will fill up in a heartbeat.

As a wise mentor of mine said, the next civil aviation planned ditching will be in Tokyo bay.

We really need to look at the alternate system that we use these days. It was designed for an air traffic flow that no longer exists, and is woefully inadequete for the traffic densities of today. This can start at line operations level but will no doubt require IATA intervention.

Money will be involved. The better financed airlines will be able to pay for and book slots for alternates at convenient airports, requiring less fuel reserves. Less well financed airlines, (not necessarily low cost airlines) will not be able to buy "diversion futures", as they cannot now afford to buy fuel futures, and will suffer the penalty.

The market wins. What do you think?

Very good points moosp.

Can't argue with that.

Darwin fuel for me:ok:

"It was designed for . . . . . . that no longer exists, and is woefully inadequete for . . . . . of today."

Sadly, this could apply to most facets of modern aviation. So much of what we do in training and flight ops is no longer valid but we do it anyway because the industry is so fearfull of change. "1000 to altitude", what a redundant call.

The diversions I have been involved in have turned nasty not because of traffic levels or landing slots but because of crap exscuses like "no parking" or "CIQ not available". Bollocks, we filed this airport as an alternate, we are landing. QED.

We would like to thank all the pilots who worked for the greater interest of “The Cathay Pacific Group” during the Typhoon. You have saved “The Cathay Pacific Group” a tremendous amount of money.

Even though we had over 20 diversions, the Hong Kong Airport Authority and Ourselves still considered it safe to continue operations. We will not be proactive with the decision to stop operations (that would cost money), as we will leave that mostly to the Captains of the day. If there is an error it will be considered pilot error and be dealt with accordingly. If Captains fail to operate we will have a chat to those Captains to know why and the review board will judge if it is justifiable.

We would like to thank those Captains on ULH flights that used discretion to the maximum because if you didn’t those passengers would have been stranded. It also means more pilots available for the recovery operations by not using pilots on reserve.

We would like to thank all the Captains that used discretion to reduce rest to help IOC and Crew Control to put the operations back on track.

We would like to thank all the pilots that landed in extreme circumstances and struggled through the turbulence and landed. You saved us a tremendous amount of money by not diverting. Less diversions means more money for my bonus.

It just shows the “Can Do” attitude of most of our Pilots, expect for a few bad apples lurking around on Pprune.

If you continue to be good little pilots, there may be some extra profit share next year (and some goodwill payment) if we don’t change the formula again. No pay rise as we don’t believe the pilots deserve it and there is no reason to justify it.

To My Pay rise and My Bonus.

The Management.

are you still here????????????????


You are a determined little animal aren't you

life is bliss not seeing your drivel.

I see people giving the :ok::ok: to HKATC.I wonder how many controllers got the call from their management,to stay at work or do extra hours for nothing.
I got a call once from the sup,15 mins after I got home,to get back in there.Fortunately I had a beer in one hand,and the answering machine switched on.Nil response there.:D

Mr Management,

I have read some of your posts and chuckled but PLEASE this thread is a genuine well done thread to the professionals you employ and most of all to HK ATC.

Please treat this as neutral ground and less of the sarcasm because ultimately it all came down to safety on the day and a professional job done by all!

Cheers

Fac6

Sarcasm
 

Sadly what you fail to understand you pric&s is that THE MANAGEMENT is, and indeed, always has been doing is taking the piss; and indeed will contnue to do so.It's called sarcasm , gettit, a well known British trait,,:cool::cool:

Yeah I have to add my thanks to ATC. Kept a cool head in very tough conditions. Good work guys. Pleasure to work with you.

I know it is a big ask when we ask about our expected release time in those conditions and we hate to make your work tougher by doing so. Much of the time we just want to know if we can make it out before our duty period expires.

BA

Management, were you by any chance the flight engineer on an L1011 approach to RW 13 in Kai Tak, very poorly excecuted by the LH PF who turned around after a hairy landing and remarked; "did you notice the bloody sheer by the Cheker Board?" The FE replied; "yes, sheer incompetence".:}

To The Management
 

Dear "The Management":

Thanks for your latest refreshing post. You're still HILARIOUS, and the main reason I read PPrune.

baseddude

FYI they also said MFM was not taking any diversions, but we arrived safely at approx 20.30 and saw only about 3 other acft there. Go figure.... Although is it true that CX will not divert to rwy16 at MFM (a size problem?!)?