411A you are not short of a few opinions. It might help if you reflected a bit on what is being said, especially after others provide you with hints as to how you might view things a bit differently and, hence, maybe even learn something new. For instance, immediately after your post containing the words,
Kansasw replied attempting to point out what was probably a major misunderstanding on your part - do you really believe that the implication was that a three hour flight is itself fatiguing? – and asking you a question as to why you take the line you do. But you just keep on going, whether it be fuel or fatigue, or whatever, asserting (rather than explaining) a rather narrow point of view and occasionally implying that those who do not agree are just mind-bogglingly silly. In an earlier post you even referred to the commander of the flight in question as being a “clown”, which is infinitely more telling of you than of him. For what it is worth, I found that gratuitously offensive.

May I commend to you the post by Dogs_ears_up on September 17th. He is not a pilot. Yet he wrote a balanced, sensible and entirely comprehensible piece in a very tactful manner. Yet more to the point, he seems to have no problem in taking the salient features from the accident report, understanding the contextual factors and having an appreciation of the human dimension (often lacking in these discussions). I think his take on – and grasp of - what took place is excellent. He also makes clear his absence of piloting qualification (in contrast to those contributors who seem to feel that to have a licence or to have flown into the same airport gives their opinions greater weight).

You are now doing with fatigue what you did earlier with fuel. Which is to miss what is actually being said. How come the non-pilot got it, but you don’t?

15 mins of extra gas is an illusion. With TS all over the place, 30 - 60 mins extra should be the choice for a captain with over 16000 hours. Then the pressure would be off.

411A Fatigue is cumulative and comes about over a long period of night flights ,early starts etc etc and all I said was I took this into account when loading fuel to any destination where the forecast gave a possibilty that on arrival a hold or diversion was likely. I thus avoided the " must land at any price" which is a very unpleasant situation to find oneself in.

I always found it difficult to get good rest between night flights whether in a Hotel or at Home but 411A we all know you are super human. This does not in any way excuse this accident or make it acceptable in any sense for that reason alone.

Over the years when taking over an aircraft I have shuddered at times to see how little fuel some people arrive with.

There is no difference between losing visual reference due to fog patches or the light system suddenly going U/S as such there is no reason to blame the Spanish authorities.

And to be honest, reading this tread, I am indeed worried about the standards of he British pilot certification process.

Even if you are at 60 % of your abilities you should still be able to perform.

However this implies that certification standards must be above what is normaly required.

atse,

Seems to me that I understand what went on at Girona somewhat better than others...at least from some of the comments here.

A few say 'fatigue' was an issue.
If it was, the pilot should not have made the flight in the first place.
Either you're fit or you are not...not all that much in between.
If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

Fuel state has been covered before. Certainly not enough for the intended flight, concerning the weather anticipated.

I simply cannot understand the 'press on regardless' ideas that some pilots have. A Commander with the experience level that the ill-fated flight had should have absolutely known better.
Then, to top it off, he grabs the controls from the First Officer, and tries for the dirty dive, which is very bad news in any jet transport aircraft.
It would appear that his handling skills were poor as well. Too much 'automatics' at work perhaps? You be the judge.

As I said before, a lesson for all of how not to fly an aircraft.

Whether it is a lesson in how not to fly an aircraft or not, is it really an exercise in character assassination for the Captain and F/O concerned?
Is it really that far fetched to believe that the skipper could have been fatigued on a short sector? It is considered good practice when driving to take a break after 2 hours. If 2 hours is considered a limit for driving a vehicle then surely it is equal if not worse when flying. Also, what was cumulative fatigue effects of the roster leading up to the incident. Consecutive night flights with interrupted or low quality rest in between? I'm sure I can't be the only one here who has embarked on a journey feeling fully alert and capable of remaining alert, only to arrive at my destination with little recollection of how I arrived there!

411A I'm sure there are many people here who could benfit from your experience. Perhaps if it wasn't delivered in such an agreesive tone more would listen!

I stand by 411A on this one.

If you do not say it clearly then you are missing the point.

Has nothing to do with aggression, but with the fact that the reader is to sensitive and/or not capable of accepting a simple truth.

I have seen it on the tread on BA approach techniques were their SOP forces them to consider ever approach as a CAT III using all automatics.

I have seen it with British contractors all over the place.

UK airlines do not encourage their pilots to fly the real stick and rudder and they pay a price for that. The same has happened at KLM.

There is a good reason why JAR has introduced the skill test, unfortunately they did not require to do it without the Autopilot.

411A - almost every post you've ever written seems intent on generating ire through unbalanced and ill-founded pronouncements. From what you say it is transparently obvious that you are not and have never been a professional pilot in any capacity beyond Microsoft's Flight Sim. Why not take the time to read the report or get someone to read it to you and let them explain the technical aspects. The Captain did not grab the controls from the F/O and execute a dirty dive. As for the undoubted fatigue issues - again you demonstrate a total lack of empathy (and therefore past experience) of the job. The crew were towards the end of a busy summer season operating from an undermanned base where they would have been working 800-900 hours in the year with poor rostering and switching between earlies and deep nights with little variation other than to increase circadian disorder. They were on the third of a deep-night series having had long sectors on the previous two nights with an accumulated sleep debt from a busy season. Until you've flown it, you cannot appreciate it - I have and I do.

The accident report has a bias and does not present an objective assessment of a horrible night and a remarkable number of variables and factors; of which not all are addressed. We would all fly it differently now that we have the benefit of exacting hindsight. I am sure that even in your warm understair cupboard, playing your flight simulator, you have made errors, albeit slight that begin to accumulate. No one is perfect, all of us make mistakes, however the dreadful fact is that an aircraft crashed and we can all (you excepted), as professionals keen on continuous improvement, learn from this.

Cap56, I just love the ?intentional? irony ...Now, what exactly does that sentence mean? (And, if I may say so, your entire post is not entirely clear, beyond your wish to bash entire groups of pilots).

Can anyone see a good reason why the design of modern commercial jets allows the combined use of speedbrake and higher than idle forward thrust?
The Cali? 757 and this one were both misconfigured at some stage in their flight.

At nearly 2 posts per day, 411A seems to have a lot of time on his hands.

Forgive me for being sceptical, but I doubt your professional competency to post anything that should be taken seriously.

I'd guess 411a was just a perfect pilot once upon a time when airlines were run by gentlemen who treated pilots like human beings instead of machines.

I'd sure hate to be in a flight deck with him.

They don't.

Boeings however do.

Arkroyal:

Umn... This was a boeing flying around with the speedbrake extrended until they get a master caution for extending the flaps beyond 20 with the named brakes extended..

shlittlenellie:

My ol friend and chap:

We're from the same "neck of the woods", not geographically but airline wise, I do know there is a certain pressure for crews to carry "more or less" what the flightplan says.. (prefarbly less if you listen to the directors in hannover)
I realise that the evening was far from perfect but it was made horribly clear to the crew what they were facing once they get down there..

It seems an extrodinarlily poor decision to carry only 15 mins of extra fuel when destination and all (I say ALL) diversions carry the same sort of weather..

I will refrain from getting into the discussion of applying full nose down elevator when loss of visual contact..

Can't read...?
 

shlittlenellie,

Put on your specs and read.
Mentioned before that I personally have done 3 straight years of Med flights from the UK (nearly all from MAN)...mostly late night/very early morning departures.
It's not that difficult surely...even for you, and if it is you need to find another job.

Many pilots from UK airlines drag out the 'fatigue' issue at the slightest excuse.
To them I can only say...when you applied to the airline, you asked for work, did you not?

These types, that cry 'fatigue' at the drop of a hat, don't really deserve the job, ie: move over and let someone else take your place if you are so dis-satisfied.

In short, grow up. :(
You are a big boy now. Act like one.

Oh yes, one last thought. Hand fly a bit more, to keep proficient.
Just might save your backside one night.

411A, are you in the slightest conscious of how this kind of diatribe comes across? Opinionated, offensive, aggressive and negative are the words that come to my mind. If you actually have a real message, it is lost in the distastefulness and arrogance of how you say it. But looking at your posts, it is not clear to me that you have any message, beyond demonstrating a highly questionable ability to read and understand.

411A (again),
Three years operating to the Med - phwoarr and from MAN too - my hero. Can I just say that I really would appreciate a signed poster of your good self, preferably reeking of your favourite aftershave and dripping with the testosterone that you clearly have in over-abundant supply. If there were more people like you on the flightdeck of modern airliners - well, we'd most definitely be in a far safer, completely objective decision making and less macho, he-man, you tug my beard and I'll bite your testicles sort of world.

One last thought before I leave this debate in your far more capable hands (in that big dream of yours, did you finally lose your licence after the twentieth crash?)... you have over-stated your Med flying experience and I look at three years and consider that it was a comparable length to the Med experience of the F/O that you so roundly criticised for having a lack of experience of such operations. So long and be careful with that simulator: at least it's single pilot operation and I suspect that's where your main skills lie.

411a says "The guy is a clown, and simply does not belong in charge of a jet transport aircraft."

Come on mods, is this really deemed allowable, especially considering other very mild threads are censored!

I think the old saying is that opinions are like @rseholes, everyone has one. Unfortunately I'm not quite sure which part of that saying reflects 411a. Answers on a postcard!
:D

411A says hand fly more and be proficient. As he claims to have done 3 summers flying from MAN in the IT market he should well know that one thing UK Charter Pilots do lots of is hand flying as most of the airfields we go are procedural without radar and without ILS .

Autopilot not much use is such places as Iraklion,Kos Rhodes.Lanzarote ,Furteventura,Mikonos, Samos.Santorini,Funchal,Gibraltar to name just a few.

Since I left the UK Charter market to fly for an international long haul airline I have never done a real circuit and every approach has been radar vectored to an ILS with just a few exceptions such as Perth R/W 03, the Essendon arrival to R/W 34 MEL and DPS R/W 09 and the old HKG ILS to Visual.

411A. I really am at a loss. As I understand it you have an company in the USA. You previously worked in the Far East; Singapore if I remember, and you also flew for an IT operation out of Manchester. It really is about time you gave us a full resume of your experience so that we can weigh up how much credence we put on your views.

So that you know I am not a Walter Mitty pilot. I have recently retired after 35 years and 21,000 hrs in the industry and worked in the Middle East and for a UK Charter company.

As a matter of record, I flew with a F/O the night after the Gerona accident. On that night he was flying to Palma and told me that the whole of the east coast of Spain was one large area of thunderstorm activity and the closest airport that was open that night was Palma. We can all have views about whether the crew should have carried more fuel and whether fatigue was a factor. However in the final analysis I cannot say that I would have got it right that night, I am surprised that you can be so sure of how you could do. Finally as a matter of record, the Captain didn’t grab control from the F/O, he took control from the F/O at TOD because of the weather at Gerona; or have I missed something?

sky9
 

37 years, of which 30 years is heavy 3/4 engine Command, and 23,000+ hours, just for the record, with ops in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia, and trans Atlantic/Pacific.
You can add to this list exec flying as well as Senior Training Captain (10 years) and fleet management positions.
Oh yes, all the jet transport flying was in two types only, the B707 and Lockheed TriStar.
Not exactly a newby...as clearly you aren't either.

Yes, you are certainly correct in your statement about whether you (or indeed anyone else) could have 'got it right' considering the circumstances on the particular evening in question
but would it not have been a better idea for the Captain to have the First Officer continue with the flying, so he could keep a closer eye on the situation?
I have personally line trained at least 50 First Officers, and have found that nearly all can fly a very accurate ILS or non-precision approach. If they lack any particular skill, it is handling the windshear/strong crosswind types of situations simply because they have not the experience and exposure that the Commander has had.

OK, so this Commander decided to launch off to a destination with very little extra fuel (considering the weather in the general area) for reasons unknown, and decided at TOD to become a one man show.
Doesn't look very reasonable or professional to me.

How about you?

And for those that think that I am being overly critical, just look at the end result of the flight in question.

If this Commander had a bit more concern, extra fuel would have been uplifted, so that more options would have been available, but as it was, he did not, so ended up off the runway.

He, his crew and passengers were very lucky it was not far worse.
This clearly, in my opinion, was an accident that could have been prevented if a more reasonable decision process had been applied.

Dewly

The previous post of 411A exactly proves my point.

And having an opinion about certain things is Not always hindsight.

411A could keep his mouth shut but he doesn’t simply because he is a concerned natural be it a bit blunt.

But I prefer by far those who have a clear opinion than those that smile and put a knife in your back.

As I am almost sure 411A would defend any pilot against the management if in his opinion the guy was professionally correct.

And that is NOT the BRITISH way of doing things but it is very American.

To quote my chief pilot.

As a captain you are responsible for bringing the acft from A to B.

To do so you have an F/O and AFDS at your service, USE THEM AS EFFICIENTLY AS POSSIBLE and do not overload yourself by not delegating what can be delegated.

Certainly if you feel you are tired, try to be frech when needed and that means once below 300 ft.

13000 + , military and 3 Flag carriers

And yes, I landed last week with 5 tons fuel in the UK on a 737.

No questions were asked.

Out of interest, Appendix B of the report illustrates some radar images for the time period 2133 to 2153 on the night in question.

Correct me if I am wrong, but BCN looks wide open during that time period....

Are those radar images rainfall images?

I haven't actually seen the METARs and TAFs for the day in question as they aren't in the report. Has anyone?

If so maybe they could post them?

:ok:

Any crew can screw up.The last hundred years has surely taught us that much.More interesting than the actual error chain that night are the set of conditions that made that error chain possible,if not inevitable.
Something led that commander to load only 15 minutes of extra fuel when thunderstorms were forecast.Company pressure has already been rejected,so what was it?A genuine oversight?A belief that European weather is generally benign(which it is)?Was the co-pilot happy with the 15 minutes?Would he have dared speak up if he wasn't,considering his relatively junior status?The report's matter-of-fact statement that the crew "discussed" fuel requirements is frankly bizarre.Dispatch is not involved in the fuel decision in Europe as I understand it.It is fair to say that crews generally dislike sticking out like a sore thumb.Would dispatch involvement("Bad weather forecast in Gerona,we suggest an extra 45 mins,subject to your approval?")not give an automatic company seal of approval?
The fuel,or lack of it,dictated the mindset on that second approach,something which Bally Heck fails to recognize.The psychological benefit of carrying enough gas settles the mind,ensuring that judgement is never clouded by diminishing options.
Steep cockpit gradients do exist and can work.But there is a heavy burden on the Captain.Checks and balances from the right seat might be non-existent or inappropiate("1000 down" instead of "GO AROUND").Failure of the lights was unfortunate but must not be used as an excuse.Go-arounds can and often do involve main-gear touchdown.
Blaming dogbox design is a misnomer.If you dont crash the thing,the dogbox is just fine.
Fatigue might have played a role but there is less evidence for this.Loss of motor skills,induced by heavy reliance on automation day in day out,was not addressed either.The Captain was reported to be in a state of mental shock.Thats unfortunate because it takes but a second to check a -4.5 pitch attitude.Reliance on automatic height call-outs for flare is also an indication of automation over-reliance.This was addressed by the report but not in the correct context,I believe."I didnt flare because there were no call-outs"

An airspeed loss of 25 knots at around 250 ft RA caused a power change to 1.51 EPR. Nearly take off thrust! This caused a substantial pitch up to nearly 6 degrees. The autopilot was disengaged at about this point. Substantial forward elevator would be required to stop the nose up pitch particularly with the aircraft trimmed for the approach.

At this point it would be fair to say that the approach was unstable and a go-around should have been executed. Why it wasn't I can only guess, but possibly due to the combination of an unruly aircraft and loss of external visual cues, the captain was temporarily maxed out.

The rest is history.

If 411a doesn't suffer from fatigue on consecutive night flights, perhaps he is a vampire? Responding to his diatribe merely encourages him. I tend not to read his posts as they seldom add any value to the discussion. Their purpose seems to be deliberately vexatious and if you ignore him he goes away.

Oh, I ain't going away, Bally Heck.

This accident is so egregious in its cause and effect, that if other crew can not actually learn from the mistakes that were made by the Commander, then European aviation is in a much worse state than I thought.
These companies cry out for proper licensed dispatchers to advise crews of problems, and recommend solutions.
The US FAA long ago required this, but European operators seem not to learn from the accidents that occur.

That they don't does NOT say much for their operating procedures.
Ha! JAA compliant....phooey. :uhoh:
If Captains can't (by themselves) uplift enough fuel on their own accord, they don't BELONG in the airline business.
What the hell is wrong with the 'thinking?' process in the UK with these few (or maybe more) Commanders?

Then we have the Hapag Lloyd A310 accident at VIE, FUEL quantity...AGAIN.
Steaming along, the Commander seemly oblivious to the fuel remaining, in spite of the First Officers concerns.

Hey there, big time Captains...maybe you should start to listen to the guys on the RH side, as they seem to be more concerned than YOU are.

Good grief!

PS: Just to add---

Of the many substitute flights I performed from the UK, MONARCH stands out head and shoulders above the rest, in their preflight briefing ability.
Professional guys, who would always recommend extra fuel if the conditions required same...and many times it did.
Other companies could actually learn from these excellent folks.
An old line company doing it right.:ok:

First positive note about Monarch on this forum since I can't remember..

Warms my heart mate...

But what about the last few moments? I pose the question again. So much energy has gone into hacking at each other, so much into the tight fuel...we know he found himself up that dark corridor, but why could he not contain those last few seconds? A reference pitch, a survivable rate, the aircraft is a fabulous bit of kit, is it acceptable to wait for a cue for the ground to arrive?

It's very simple, they didn't know where the hell they were.

A/my simplistic analysis perhaps...

If you remove one causal event in the sequence of events that led to this accident, a different outcome would almost certainly have been guaranteed.

Fuel is a red-herring for me. I agree it would probably have been prudent to take a little more. There is nothing to suggest that even if G-BYAG had had block+10T onboard the same sequence of events would not have transpired.

The aircraft had fuel for LEBL. It would therefore appear reasonable to assume LFMP and LERS, albeit he'd be on vapour by the time he got there. In all cases, except perhaps LEBL, he'd have been <E @ ETA.

However, he could have committed himself to LEGE.

The outcome in the event of exercising any of these options is pure speculation.

The difference in attitude towards fuel policy between various posters reflects the difference in experience. Just a thought.

If you regularly operate full 735's on 1000NM sectors to/from hot performance restrictive fields, you will know that you are regularly up against RTOW limits. This precludes the carriage of alot extra.

You are then constantly weighing up how many bags to offload versus how much fuel to carry. The most I have been involved in offloading is 900KG out of LSGG purely to allow an equivalent extra uplift of fuel.

The point being that it must be the case that operational constraints allow some pilots less room for manoeuvre than others, whereupon the pressure they are under is greater than others.

IMHO though, the fuel state may have been contributory but not causal.

Neither is the fatigue issue causal. At best contributory. CAP371/FTL limitations ensure corporate culpability on this matter would probably be hard to prove. Even QinetiQ/NASA research brought to bear on the recent debate about FTL limitations has struggled to achieve credibility with the Commission. For all the wrong reasons perhaps...

It would appear that if fatigue is ever an issue, it is up to the individual concerned, bearing in mind the responsible nature of his job, to offload himself. If he doesn't, struggles through the duty, and has a CFIT inicident, then arguably he has only himself to blame with all the associated drastic consequences.

If the skipper himself says he wasn't fatigued, (Pg 7 of the report explicitly states this to be the case of both individuals concerned), lets consider that to be the case.

However, what seems to me to be causal in the event is the failure to GA when visual contact was lost. There was still 6 secs before touchdown to initiate a GA.

And this is an incident that reaffirms the sense in executing a GA in conditions where the visual reference is lost and reminds me not to be afraid to use TOGA. In fact, funnily enough, having reflected on this very matter last week, I almost did exactly that recently into EGFF in torrential rain.

But I'll have to keep remembering not to confuse TOGA with the A/T disconnect.

;)

I don't know what's available in Europe, but here in North America, anybody with an internet connection, including dispatchers, can see radar for the entire United States plus the Southern part of Canada.

A dispatcher here who sees a flight with thin reserves headed into an area where CBs are blooming at destination and alternates within range will likely be diverting that flight to an airport in good weather where additional fuel can be taken on.

There is work under way to upload radar to the cockpit so that the crew can take advantage of national radar data: NASA Report

Well done guys.

We are on a roll of thoughtfull comment instead off thoughtless blaming.

I wonder about the search and rescue thing quite a bit. It's hard to beleive that the airfield rescue services couldn't find the wreck! But I've been there and seen the wreckage after the event. Saw the aircraft sitting in a field, pretty well out of sight. Can't really blame the guys for not finding it more quickly. It seems they tried quite hard. Is this a result of airfield geography?

If there had been a fire, it would have been obvious. Thankfully there wasn't.

How many more airfields could host this type of incident without being able to respond?

How can we make this better?

Bally Heck,

Don't know if you've seen the aerial photo of where the aircraft finally stopped (it was posted here on one of the earlier pages). After losing contact with the aircraft ATC could only suppose it had crashed, but where, if they couldn't see anything from the tower themselves (sorry, she)? It could have been miles away, and who was to suppose it had threaded that needle between the wall of trees into the adjacent field? Imagine if that one passenger hadn't sprinted through the mud, over culvert, etc and alerted the fire brigade - how long might it all have taken?

I'm sure you could think of more than a few dozen airports around the world where, under similar circumstances, the accident site wouldn't be found for quite some time. Memory's a bit blurry but it tells me evenn the Staines Trident accident site took some time to locate.

How to make things better? Well one thing that occurs to me is that when ships go down in oceans, their EPIRBs go off and say "I'm here, Help". When aircraft go down, they just disaappear from radar screens at x altitude. I wonder why, with the the technology available right now, an aircraft can't transmit it's position continuously, linked into the radar image. It may disappear from radar but "there it is, in the field just across the runway".

Just a sad moment of reflection on the Staines. A road traffic cop told me that the real problem that they had getting to the Trident, was the mass of people that had stopped to look.

Back to the present. It sounds as though that lone soul running over rough terrain was a bit of a hero.

Often resulting in coastguard aircraft chasing yachts up the M25 or trundling round scrap yards.

Many aircraft have automatic ELTs based on a deccellaration switch, a nice heavy landing sets them off. However as airports and fire vehicles can not track on them you would need a chopper or fixed wing. And the accuracy is not that great.

However there are enhanced vision systems for fire trucks. obviously they are expensive and it comes down to cost versus lives saved.
In this case 200+ lives would nicely pay for one or two.

Its derived from tank night driving systems, consisting of FLIR and Low light cameras and a DGPS map position.

However on the night in question the amount of rain (44L/M2 in 30 mins) may have neutralised even this kit.

http://www.galaxyscientific.com/areas/navigati/air3.htm
http://www.massport.com/logan/about_publi_massp.html

Reality 101
 

Does anyone really believe that any airport authority in Spain or Portugal (and indeed we can include most any airport on the Med) has any intension whatsoever in providing emergency services beyond what the absolute minimum requirements are?
We can extend this to ATC as well.

These folks want your tourist Dollar, Euro etc.

What, upgrade emergency and ATC facilities? Whatever for?

Well, congratulations on a safe outcome, CAP 56 , but what exactly is your point?????

You can still crash with this amount of gas.

Too many posters have a fixation that the ramp fuel decision was the one & only cause of this accident. With the benefit of hindsight, we can all see that more fuel would have been advantageous, but no-one - NO-ONE - can categorically state that in this circumstance, the fateful approach would not have be made at exactly the same time, with exactly the some conditions. The only difference would be that AG crashed with more fuel on board.

Re-read the report; it is 100 or so pages long, produced by experts from Spain, the UK & the US. Experts who are professional tin kickers and do this for a living.

At the end, there are 10 recommendations:

1 refering to the operator's fuel policy,
1 refering to go around training,
1 refering to met svcs,
3 refering to airfield & facilities &
4 refering to airframe construction/certification.



Yeah right, Rananim . And if my auntie had b@ll@cks, she'd be my uncle. Take another look at sections 2.6 & 3.2, & do my eyes deceive me, or do the photos of the flight deck show the reverse thrust levers fully up?

This, from I-FORD epitomises for me the whole crux. Let's never stop learning as the best of us is only 99% perfect.

There, but for the grace of God, go I.

I-FORD

"(2) ....like letting the copilot fly the plane until OM or FAF...."

I liked your posting but I would suggest that the above be modified to

"....like letting the copilot fly the plane until minimums...".

Let's face it, they usually do it better than we do!

Daysleeper,

Agree, there are a fair number of false alarms; nothing on a ship is idiot-proof. On the other hand a few lives have been saved. The technology is fairly straghtforward though and I can't imagine it hasn't been considered; making blending it into proprietary radar technology obligatory may be something else.

Re the links you posted, the view through the firetruck's windscreen at 400' was great! Sounds a bit expensive.

411A, re your last comment: pretty much the same in Wichita as in Girona; a national or supra-national authority says it has to happen and, eventually, it does or it's blacklisted and rendered inoperative by the relevant authority - which might even be Homeland Security. Whether Girona or Aeropuertos Espanoles (if that's the national authority name) want to spend the money is immaterial; if they want your tourist dollar or euro that's the way it has to be.

Rivets, you're right. Arrived on a BEA Trident same time, picked up a rental car and got stuck in traffic, resented being labelled ghoul by H Wilson.

Gerona.
 

Now that this topic has gone quite and the dust settled, lets look (with the benefit of hindsight), at what we have learned.
From the alarm clock going that day (for both crew members), what would you have done differently?
List your points in the order of importance ... one airline has already set this as a project for their winter refresher course!

1. Loaded lots of extra fuel so I had more thinking time.

2. Let the FO fly the approach so I could monitor the big picture.