Overnight at the Hotel 747-400
 

During the bad weather at LHR last week, an acquaintance of mine was left, along with the rest of the PAX, to sleep onboard the 747-400 of a major carrier while it was still at the gate due to cancellation.

Apparently both the flight crew and cabin crew left the aircraft at around 2.0am. leaving the PAX to 'fend for themselves' until 7.00am. the next morning when they were asked to leave the aircraft while it was cleaned and re-supplied.

She is obviously not a happy bunny and would like to know what the legal implications are, of leaving nearly three hundred passengers, many drunk, unsupervised, overnight aboard a parked aircraft.

She would also like to know the reason for the delay. The PAX were told by the flight crew at midnight that once the aircraft had been de-iced it could go. I had heard that by that time there was nothing going in or out of LHR due to runway closure.

Any answers anyone?

SoS

Pax left onboard with NO cabin crew?
Doesn't sound logical to me but...if the CC down tools (so to speak) and just walked off, would think there would be repercussions from the CAA.

Certainly would be a problem with the regs in the US...

And in the UK, big time! I find it very hard to believe that this happened, since all Crew, Flight & Cabin would be well aware that that this is not permitted. CAA might well spontaneously combust if they became aware of this happening.

Are you sure that this isn't a misunderstanding?
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Per Ardua Ad Ibiza

Without the flight crew it would have been very cold and dark with no power all night. Somehow i can't see this happening. May want to double check the facts before you take it any further. Just a thought.

Sounds like a MSFS script kiddie's w#t dream come true:E

RatherBeFlying,

hehe.


Imagine you wake up and feel the engines at full thrust and the aircraft plowing through the terminal with a 13 year old kid behind of the controls. :} :{

Well would it be that cold and dark if the power supply was plugged in at the gate? doesn't that run heating and lighting systems?

Does that not mean leaving ground power on, supplying the cabin bus? Sounds a little scary to me, if the aircraft was unattended.

After posting that this scenario would be problematic under US regs, I couldn’t shake the idea of how absurd this is. Where’s the benefit to the carrier in having pax remain, unsupervised, on board (and thus, in control of) this huge corporate asset? Wx strands pax in airports all the time. There’s just no reason to leave them on the airframe. What’s more, these passengers also had full access to the ramp and everything else on the airside at LHR. Is this not seen as a security issue at LHR? Finally, even if we allow for the possibility that the crew did this, what about gate agents, etc? Was there no one who took issue with this? With all respect, I find this difficult to fathom. However, if it DID happen as advertised, it is indicative of a systemic failure…

Dave

Hey...whaddaya want for a $59 ticket? And you want to eat and drink for that price???

Speed of Sound,

I can't see how this could have happened, are you sure there is no misunderstanding here? If it's true, something is very wrong.

Sounds like b@llocks to me. Light: yes, heat : not without flight deck or an engineer on board to supervise the continous running of the APU. If no APU, the cabin temp would have dropped to well below the comfort threshold very quickly.

Does the 747-400 have a port accept external conditioned air?

YES...it does most everything. 3 packs. external air. APU with two sides to it. Fueling both wings. Lots of toilets....But they still run out of beer!

Sounds like a load of old balls to me. The DFT would never allow this to happen, given the state of the security at the moment. But personally, I couldn't think of anything worse than 'sleeping' overnight there, unless it was in 1st - I'd sooner sleep on the floor in the terminal!

k

That's quite funny as it was a major carrier concerned.

I have checked back and YES this did happen as I reported.

No complaints about temp so some form of heating was in operation.

Not sure whether to mention the carrier or not.

SoS

Probably not a good idea to post the carrier name on here, but I'd certainly include it in a letter to the DFT. As long as you're sure...

Can we have some more detail?

Where were the gate agents? Did they pull the air-bridge away?


Kishna: I agree, I think I'd rather kip on the terminal floor as well!

I find it a little strange that one of the 400 odd (p1ssed off) pax didn't call the quality newspapers when it happended - soley for reasons of exposing yet another aviation security breach of course... :mad:

Or perhaps the crew knew the Sky Marshalls would keep the pax under control!:rolleyes:

Which carrier was involved?
I'm a bit surprised...