Hard day at the office.
 

What has been written here would only seem to confirm that Jet2 have some very good operators working for them.
A tricky sitaution no doubt but very professionally handled by the crew.
I think it is probably tea and biscuits with Philip. lucky chaps both!
Well done.

Well if the chat includes biscuits - result:ok:

On entering the room if you see no biscuits :=

Funny how 2 tonnes of fuel looks to different peeps. Ask a 'bus driver!

Maybe a few more kgs next time? Min trip-fuel policy?

But everyone you walk away from was a good 'un.

Sir George Cayley

Firstly, this type of event DOES happen (I got caught out in unforecast conditions some years ago - similar scenario).

The only reason I can imagine for tea and biscuits is why he didn't continue and land regardless at MME.

I know there'll be lots of shock horror at this statement, but if a Mayday was imminent (approx 1250Kgs remaining total on a 733), would you really leave a mainstream airfield (CAT I only granted) with a serviceable runway at the end of an ILS ?

I wouldn't ! You might just find yourself in an even worse position 15 minutes later with absolutely NO OPTIONS whatsoever.

My brief to the guy on my right would have been "we are landing regardless - do you understand ?"

There is something not ringing true here. It may just be the loss of data in the re-telling from various sources but we have one individual insisting that the a/c in question landed at NCL with 2 tonnes (well in excess of final reserve fuel) and he holds this up as proof that this incident was a non event, which indeed it would be if this is correct. BUT we have another person who states that the crew declared a PAN and ALSO requested a 3 or 4 mile final. Please don't suggest that this is normal ops if fuel is not an issue.

And at risk of being seen to be critical: "holding at LBA for 45 minutes with the alternate vis (or RVR?) at 800 to 1000 metres" ? Yes its well above Cat 1 (for now) but is it wise/acceptable for an alternate after that amount of holding time? I can already hear some answers coming in, so to keep it short, it's not acceptable for my lily-livered spineless peace of mind.

Starbear,
I agree with you about the security of an alternate. Unfortunately JAA ops now allows for alternates to be below Cat 1 when airborne. Take the example of a foggy day in London in your shiny new minibus. You can hold at LGW with 100m RVR, whilst your alternate, say STN, is 200m RVR. You then get a single failure "ils receiver fault". Now CAT 1 you are now officially stuffed!

DIRECTTANGODELTA:
As Starbear says:
Or perhaps as others have said, they were just "twitchy"' or "nervous"

Wonder if the pax realised?

Slip and turn

Sorry, my earlier comment may have been misleading. There is no such thing as a fuel PAN, all I meant was a PAN PAN PAN which was declared due to fuel levels. Same rules apply! No intermittent fog.

Definition of MAYDAY is A condition of being threatened by serious and/or imminent danger and of requiring immediate assistance

Of PAN is A condition concerning the safety of an aircraft or other vehicle or of some person onboard or within sight but which does not require immediate assistance

As before, if you need the assistance i.e. priority approach when you get to the airport and not before then that's a PAN. If you need the assistance now, then that's a MAYDAY.

:ok:

How good is the fuel monitoring in the aircraft in question? Some gauges just work better and are more trustworthy than others. If the crew in question had ever been caught short by a dodgy gauge in the past then I can quite see why they'd be keen to get on the ground once below an apparently fuel level.

His biggest challenge was finding Teeside in the Jeps/Aerad under D for Durham.

:{

He should be and he was... There was NO problem with the diversion in my book, good airmanship what we are paid for.

It would have been worth a thread here if he continued an approach while the RVR was below his minimums just to get home...:rolleyes:

Lets look at the numbers, roughly as I no longer fly the 73.

Holding for 45 minutes at FL 100 - 1,5tons
Divert to Teeside is about 60 miles so lest call it 350 kg including the approach.
Ga and divert to NCL about 50 more miles another 500 kg with a 3 mile final approach.

So if they landed with just above final reserve (lets call that 1200 kg) :
They arrived at LBA with just over 3.5 tons (about 1hr 20minutes endurance), held until they had just over 2 tons (about 50 minues endurance), carried an approach at Teeside and a on the ga they had 1.7tons (about 45minutes endurance). Landed in NCL with 1.3 tons (just over 30 minutes endurance).

If they landed with 2 tons add 700 kgs to all of the above and 20 inutes endurance.

All very rough figures but either way it seems to me they did OK. If they declared a PAN and landed with 2 tons is perhaps a little overcooked if they landed with just over final reserve I would not have bothered with Teeside. Personally I would be after a rock solid alternate at that stage. In any case all legal and acording to the rules.

I think it was the selection of Teeside as the choice of diversion that seems a little 'odd', when there were clearly better choices available.

Can't find a forecast, but the actuals show for 3 hours from 1020-1320, the visibility never rose above 500m in freezing fog.

How strange this was 'apparently' unforecast???

Of course the met office have been known to make mistakes. Which is where 'airmanship' comes in. Can't help wondering what the forecast was on the 15th though.

It certainly seems to have been adequately handled. How many of us have ever had to divert from an alternate?

Last time I went around on the NG (due to windshear) we had used the best part of a ton extra before we were safely down, and that was without a diversion.

Better to err on the side of caution than the other way around!

However with the benefit of hindsight the choice of Teeside looks a little strange.

Teesside is "probably" the best place to divert to get the pax back to LBA. And it is where Jet 2 used to do most of their circuit bashing until recently.

I would also add the opinion that it was a non event.

It would seem that they held at Leeds until they were down to the fuel they needed to divert to the commercial alternate, but knowing that the weather there was a bit iffy they had put enough fuel on the a/c to fly an approach and if needed then proceed to Newcastle which they knew was wide open.

Isn't this what we do every day (the fuel planning, not the diversion)? I certainly try to in such circumstances, and only if limited for take-off mass only have fuel for the second alternate (in this case NCL) missing out the first choice. It all seems sensible, they complied with JAR OPS requirements, they did their best for the company (and almost certainly kept ops informed through handling agents or direct) and had a back up plan as well that worked.

Seems to me the whole thing was a non event. The ac landed safely after making a best attempt to get the pax to the airport they had book to fly to.

The real shame is that the ac or crew were not Cat3. All the other Jet2 733s were getting in at LBA. Given LBAs weather record Jet2 seem to make good use of the Cat3 which was fitted for that very reason, it's just a shame their 752s cant use it. Other operators dont seem to make best use of the facility either TUI and KLM spring to mind.

I just hope Bridgepoint get the message and flatten the touchdown point to stop those 757s floating and get them on the Cat3 list too (Luton managed it!). Too much money that though perhaps it would be better spent on building some more retail outlets in the terminal for all those 757 pax to use when their coaches get back from Manchester! :ugh:

Its a shame if the vis was 500M that the controller missed that extra 5 in the middle of the readout that vanished seconds later. :rolleyes:

The aircraft crew were CatIII , the runway in use wasnt!

Guess the wind was favouring 14 then! Oh well thats another story isn't it 3.5 glideslope means CAT3 not possible so I'm told though I've heard rumors that Cat2 is possible. Given that on LVP at LBA 14 has the better RVRs more often than not thats another thing Bridgepoint should be looking at instead of improving revinue from shops. A few less diversions is a few more pax moving through the terminal after all!:ok:

If the aircraft and crew were autoland capable as Lagerlout has suggested then it begs the question why they were diverting in iffy conditions to a marginal cat 1 approach, thus further limiting their options.

Then again Hooded suggests something completely different a couple of posts earlier. Other posters have further blurred the waters. Who knows?

We received very clear directions recently from the german civil aviation authority (LBA) when fuel was an issue, to give preference to airfields with two separate runways and approach systems. The directive was a bit more complicated than that, being Germany, but that was the gist of it.

Manchester would seem to fit the bill quite nicely and is I understand a Jet 2 base and has reasonable road connections to Leeds. But it is easy to be wise after the event.

On a related topic I often find alternates filed by the company to make no sense. Ronchi (Trieste) and Pula which we regularly file as alternates for Venice in reality make no sense. If it is foggy in Venice it is normally just as foggy up the coast and unlikely to improve quickly, and subsequantly ending up with a planeload of passengers in Pula is a logistical nightmare!