Double bombthreat forces aircraft to land in Greenland

[Justforkix]

Two bombthreats against the same transatlantic flight made the captain decide to land at the nearest airport Sondre Stromfjord in Greenland.

Both bombthreats originated in the US.

[411A]

Interesting place...have made several tech stops there, the last some years ago in February. Runway center 90 feet sanded and very slippery on the east end. After departing, mentioned same to an inbound USAF C141 and his reply was..."thats OK, we land here al lot, slippery not a problem...".
After making the last position report to the tower, the controller responded.....change to HF, and by the way the C141 slid off the east end".

[160to4DME]

FYI, flight involved was SAS937, CPH-SEA, 763.

160 on a beach

[TightSlot]

Coupla questions from Cabin Crew - if a 763 gets in there, is the piste long enough to get out again and go anywhere useful - secondly, presumably after the diversion, you'd want the a/c searched etc. which takes time and must put the crew tight on hours and result in requirement to take rest. Where in Sondestrom do you put a couple of hundred people for 11+ hours? - assume no hilton?

[Rockhound]

Tight Slot,
Plenty of asphalt runway at Sonde Strom: 9235 x 200 feet.
SFJ is a major hub for flights within Greenland and there's a modern hotel, quite large, on the civilian side of the airfield. USAF facilities on the other side have been cut back severely, I believe.
It's a scenic spot, where you can see reindeer, arctic hare, and off in the distance, the Inland Ice, plus interesting geology - I can think of worse diversions.
Rockhound

[TightSlot]

So can I ! All sounds rather pleasant, must go someday. Thanks hound.

[CaptCaveman]

So, why do they call it Greenland when I hear that it's all Ice? But then again I suppose that Iceland was already taken; can anyone explain this to a poor dumb country boy from Oz.

[Covenant]

Why do they call it Australia when I hear it's full of convicts? I guess Wormwood Scrubbs was already taken

[Hew Jampton]

I think it's called Greenland because the ice looks green from a distance, or vague memories of history lessons makes me think it was because the bloke who named it was trying to con backers for further exploration by saying it was full of trees and grass.

When I techstopped there ages ago, the PX sold a very high strength Danish beer and they would only let you have one bottle each.

Relieved the bombthreat diversion ended safely. They deserved at least one of those beers!

[Woodman]

I was told by an Icelander that Greenland was called that as PR spin by the early explorers who wanted to encourage settlers. Iceland was named by someone who wasn't so PR-savvy but more into telling it like it was.
I was also told that the first Icelanders who settled rather than visited were a bad lot thrown out of Norway for causing trouble. It wasn't until they raided Ireland and carried off more women that they began to be civilised and invent Parliament and the like.

A bit off track but possibly true......

[Rockhound]

Greenland was named by Erik the Red, an extra-cantankerous Viking, who was kicked out from Norway and Iceland in turn and made landfall in 981 in south Greenland, parts of which are very green and lush (after all, sheep are raised there). It's certainly greener than the north of Iceland which Erik had left but he did have an ulterior motive for choosing the name: he wanted to entice people there. After three years in Greenland, he returned in 986 with 25 ships and 700 people. Fourteen of the ships, with their cargo of humans and animals, arrived and stayed, founding the colonization of Greenland by Europeans.
Iceland was called Iceland probably because of the many small ice masses that break off the big valley glaciers in the southeast of the country and float around in the meltwater lakes at their snouts.
And no, the Greenland ice cap (the Inland Ice) does not look green from a distance. It's pure white and a magnificent sight, whether it's overcast or CAVU.
Rockhound

[Semaphore Sam]

Sondy is a fairly difficult airport, as I remember from my trips there in the 70's. The approach is down a fiord, you land to the east, and takeoff to the west, regardless of winds (I think I remember this right). A missed approach is a scary proposition, due to the sides of the fiord narrowing east of the airport. A C141A crashed there in the late 70's, when the Aircraft Commander thought he'd run out of runway, tried to go-around, got intimidated with the sight of the rocks & stalled. He had plenty of runway, but it's crowned east-west, & the illusion got him (As an aside, another C141A crashed within 3 hours of the Sondy crash, at Mildenhall...both were from McGuire AFB).

C124's (Globemasters) used to go there; from pieces in the MAC Flyer at the time, it was, with such underpowered aircraft, truly scary, especially in marginal wx.

BTW, is this airport used for ETOPS calculations?

[Wycombe]

Sonde Stromfjord

If you watch "Sky Truckers" on Discovery Wings (it's bound to come around again soon!), there is some excellent footage of BeePee taking his Cargo Lion DC8 into this field.

They fly down the fjord and on short finals two-thirds of the runway disappears due to the "crown" (more like a hill!) described by Semaphore Sam.

[Konkordski]

This is a great thread. It starts off discussing a serious threat to civil aviation and then immediately turns into a tour brochure for Greenland. Fantastic.

[Freak On A Leash]

Another thing that is quite strange - at least here in Norway - is that whenever there is some kind of diversion regarding SAS it is never covered in the media (or at best just a small notice), but if for instance a small (read GA) plane overruns a runway in another part of the world, well then it suddenly makes the 9 o`clock news!
Does anybody have any input on this, or am I way off the mark? Just an observation from my part.

[Romeo Tango]

Last time I was there (in a Robin) Concorde was visiting, so the runway can't be too bad.

Romeo Tango

[TightSlot]

Are all the Greenland ETOPS diversion fields as green and pleasant as Sondestrom - I seem to recall a 767 pilot telling me of some of the diversion sites being rather short, narrow, poorly lit, minimal navaids and nowhere to put pax & crew if you managed to get in on a winters day

maybe this was beer talking (or listening for that matter)

[yotter]

Took a 747 freighter there last year, luckily in good weather. We self briefed using an AVT, and it had a procedure for a breakoff plus visual circuit to land to the west - I think Captain Fantastic might have made it, but I wouldn't fancy trying!

[Niaga Dessip]

Sondre Stromfjord was used by SAS in the fifties on the then new "polar" route to Los Angeles using DC7C's. With a light load and following wind they would make L.A. - Copenhagen non-stop, but Winnipeg and Sondre (summer only) would be regular refueling points as required. I was a small boy in 1957, but vividly remember the stunning bleakness of Sondre (no hotel in those days) as we stopped there. As usual at that time, we were able to stretch our legs during refueling. The only thing to buy other than simple refreshments in the "terminal building" was a collector's packet of Greenland stamps which I still have (Don't ask why!). And yes, there was a fox to be seen running along the runway as we took off. That was in June.
The return flight in September was scheduled to be non-stop but an engine problem over the borth Atlantic necessitated an emergency landing at Kevflavik as Sondre was closed for the winter.
Ernest Gann has written well about flying into Greenland during the War (Fate is the Hunter, I think).
Cheers. ND

[ironbutt57]

"tight slot" any transatlantic, or international capt/crew is aware or all adequate/suitable airports along their routes...a bomb threat will most certaainly prompt a crew to land at the nearest one......cheers