AA Diverts to Barcelona
 

Must have been something fairly major to keep the aircraft grounded if the story is accurate or maybe something as simple as the crew running out of time.

By: Staff The Associated Press Published on Sun Jan 22 2017
MADRID — Spanish and Portuguese airport authorities say that an American Airlines flight heading to Barcelona from New York was forced to make an emergency landing in northwest Portugal because of technical problems.


Airport authorities told The Associated Press on Sunday that the incident occurred when the pilot of Flight AAL66 requested clearance for an emergency landing. The plane then landed safely in Porto without further incident.

All 151 passengers, along with eight crew members and three officers aboard the Boeing 767-300 aircraft, were accommodated in hotels. The plane was inspected and wasn't cleared to continue on to Barcelona.

American Airlines later chartered a Sunday night flight through Portuguese airline TAP in order to transfer the passengers to Barcelona.

The technical problems that prompted the emergency landing weren't immediately clear.

Heard them declaring a panpan due to engine troubles. Our track was way up north, so they were hard to understand, but they reported decreasing oil pressures.
Good to hear all went well.

Surely the title of this thread should read "..Diverts to Porto". As far as I am aware Porto is the only place in NW Portugal remotely capable of handling a 767.

Major as in physically broken or as in paperwork for release? If the aircraft has diverted you may find the local engineeers were unable to sign fit for flight. An example: I'm grounded if I don't have the correct number of ashtrays. Is that major or minor?

Glad to see some airlines allows non critical issues which can be released by MEL reference without Engineering actions by Commander in cooperation with Maintenance Control...