BA London - Jo'burg unscheduled landing in Cairo?
 

A colleague due to arrive in Joburg on the BA flight from London has texted to say the aircraft has made an unscheduled landing in Cairo. Anyone got any info?

The ground crew in Cairo had volunteered for Willies cabin crew training programme. Their luck came up and they got an intensive course from Cairo to Jo'Berg :ok:

Why not text your colleague back and ask him? I'm sure that the crew would have explained!

Most likely to offload a sick passenger. No doubt you will find out soon.

Couldn't get through at the time; have now. Medical emergency was indeed the cause. A/C now can't leave Cairo till 20.00 local.

I could not find any info on this

The important thing is that they missed the orphanage and the old folks home and/or hospital! :}

Cairo is a long, long way from the great circle route between London and Joburg. I understand that there aren't a whole lot of welcoming places if, say, you're over the southern Sahara, but still, I'd estimate that CAI is going to be at least a 1000-mile diversion from most routes.

Take it form me as one who unfortunately has been there and done it, the one place not to go is Algiers

Prob company advice or even Medilink ? also BA engineers etc in Cairo.

Wideman - Have you ever had to do an airborne diversion over Africa? No, thought not.

Would the Canaries not have been an option for diversion ?

I think it's safe to say that the captain knew where best to divert given the circumstances.

I'm fairly sure (although not 100%) that he didn't feel the need to log onto this thread from the flight deck of his 747-400 to see where informed posters were suggesting he divert the aircraft. :ugh: Just leave it.

Was on a BA 747 a couple of years ago on this same routing when a passenger was taken ill, Captain advised we were diverting to Malta which was approx 21/2 hours flying time away, the captain fully explained the reasons we were going to Malta despite the length of time it would take to get there. Malta was not expecting a BA 747 in the middle of the night and refuelling took an age but the crew looked after us well whilst on the ground with plenty of refreshments. Crews are professional people and i fully believe they have our interests at heart and choose where to divert to based on the information and advise from on the ground even if it means taking a few hours to get there. Its all too easy from the comfort of our armchairs to criticise.

Sitting in my armchair, 10.5 hours to divert?
 

Sitting in my armchair, I note that previous poster said diversion to Malta would be 21/2 hours to divert. Let's see, 21 divided by 2 is 10.5 hours to divert. :}

2.5hours or 150minutes approx to land from when captain gave the announcement, is that clearer?

Guys and Gals up top paid to make decision as best place to divert to based on passengers medical condition and also a rough idea of what kind of medical service pax would get plus whether airport can handle them.

Long as its not a diversion to drop off a couple of SAS types into a war zone leaving the plane behind then I go with their call.

That's also my initial reaction...

Anyone would care to describe the standard route between London and Joburg ?

Also what was their approx location when they elected to divert... ?

Something doesn't add up in this story :confused:

I am just a humble SLF who has flown LHR-JNB and back many times. I have been to many of the sub-saharan countries on business. Once the flight gets down to Chad / Central African Republic where else is there to go? I looked again at the map and could find nowhere I would like to be landed. CAI must be the best alternative.

atakacs
 

It's a while since I flew this one but there were several "standard" routes, and one of them used to be via Faya Largeau-Kisangani so a diversion to Cairo may not be that unreasonable. Bear in mind this problem may have started in the early hours of the morning and there may :ooh: have been a distinct lack of both medical faciities and open and/or useable airports on this route until you get a long way South. I understand ;) they were airborne for around 5 1/2 hours prior to landing at Cairo, so just a very rough guess but that puts them at around maybe 20N or 15 N before turning back...

In BA's case a medical diversion is usually only made after a lot of discussion via satphone with both the medical professionals and the Company Control Centre.