Weather forces Qantas A380 down

[Gold Member]

Qantas passengers flying from Los Angeles to Sydney were stuck on the ground on board one of its superjumbos for five hours today after bad weather forecasts forced an unscheduled touchdown in Noumea.

The Airbus A380 with 374 passengers and 26 crew on board had to divert to the Pacific island to refuel after pilots received weather warnings of thick fog on Australia's eastern seaboard.

Article at http://www.theage.com.au/travel/tra...ntas-a380-down-in-pacific-20100811-11z9k.html

 

[turtlemichael]

The article headline is even more atrocious:

Weather warning forces Qantas A380 down in Pacific

 

[Flashback]

The article headline is even more atrocious:

Weather warning forces Qantas A380 down in Pacific

LOL! Journalism at it's best. It's amazing how one written sentence can be interpreted so many ways.

 

[mannej]

The article headline is even more atrocious:

Weather warning forces Qantas A380 down in Pacific

It's to be expected isn't it...

 

[anat0l]

I was going to say, I thought when I read the thread title on my Twitter feed, I thought I was going to read an article about how QF had finally killed close to 400 pax and lost one aircraft!

Can an aviation expert chime in as to why mere fog was such a potent threat that a diversion was necessary? I was thinking that adverse weather implies a storm or something like that. (I'm showing my ignorance here...)

I guess there's not much they could do - if NOU can't handle the pax traffic at once, there's not much that can be done. The officials have QF gripped by the you-know-what. I guess QF could have chosen an alternative port, but I wouldn't hell know where they could go. (Could they have held out longer and diverted to AKL?)

 

[turtlemichael]

It's to be expected isn't it...

Expected by you and me perhaps. Not so good if you have family flying across the Pacific on an A380 today.

 

[Aussie_flyer]

Can an aviation expert chime in as to why mere fog was such a potent threat that a diversion was necessary? I was thinking that adverse weather implies a storm or something like that. (I'm showing my ignorance here...)

Because in Australia they need to be visual with the runway by 200ft above the ground or so, other experts can give the exact figures. But we don't have the CAT III Instrument landing systems in Australia that basically allow zero visibility landings.

the crew must have assessed that they were possibly going to have below minimum visibility at the destination, and the alternate airport was probably forecast for the same sort of thing.

Its been a long time since I flew anything but that's the basic idea. In other more 'advanced' airports around the world, there is the possibility of landing in zero visibility but our authorities here dont consider it worth the investment for what they consider to be relatively rare fog events.

Im sure markis10 will chime in here with some more info.

 

[mannej]

Expected by you and me perhaps. Not so good if you have family flying across the Pacific on an A380 today.

Sensationalism at its best. My dose of Carvezide would have been upped after reading the title alone.

 

[notzac]

Stunning choice of words for the headline. Did the journo get a raise for that one? :shock:

 

[Danger]

The article headline is even more atrocious:

Weather warning forces Qantas A380 down in Pacific

Pure trash. Absolutely disgraceful.

Now I've I got that out of the way . . . a couple of questions. Why would a 747 be sent with replacement crew? I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that it's come from Sydney. Noumea is just over 1200 miles so not far at all. Second, given the heavy traffic QF has over the Pacific, wouldn't it seem plausible that they should consider putting in place standing contingency plans for these situations? For example, for diversions to NAN or NOU or HNL (although that's quite big) so that when the once or twice a year event happens they could be more prepared. And I'm certainly not having a go at QF here, just putting it out there.

 

[Homer]

Stunning choice of words for the headline. Did the journo get a raise for that one? :shock:

I should just point out, in his defence, that the (travel) journalist isn’t responsible for the headline in either the newspaper or on the website. The page sub-editors (page subs) do that. This particular headline was created for The Age website. Interestingly the same story appears on the SMH website under the less sensationalist headline: "Weather forces A380 to land on island”.

 

[markis10]

What about the poor folks on CX into CNS yesterday that had to go to TSV, they were stuck on the plane at the "island" airport for 6 hours as well!

 

[straitman]

Because in Australia they need to be visual with the runway by 200ft above the ground or so, other experts can give the exact figures. But we don't have the CAT III Instrument landing systems in Australia that basically allow zero visibility landings.

the crew must have assessed that they were possibly going to have below minimum visibility at the destination, and the alternate airport was probably forecast for the same sort of thing.

Its been a long time since I flew anything but that's the basic idea. In other more 'advanced' airports around the world, there is the possibility of landing in zero visibility but our authorities here dont consider it worth the investment for what they consider to be relatively rare fog events.

Im sure markis10 will chime in here with some more info.

Not really much else to say. Even with an ILS the requirement is .5NM visibility and a minimum of approx 250 ft to be visual.
I say approximately as it varies a little bit between airfields and even between runways.

 

[dajop]

Sensationalism at its best.

+1

Any wonder elections are such a circus, with this sort of BS appearing in the media.

 

[mannej]

Pure trash. Absolutely disgraceful.

Now I've I got that out of the way . . . a couple of questions. Why would a 747 be sent with replacement crew? I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that it's come from Sydney. Noumea is just over 1200 miles so not far at all. Second, given the heavy traffic QF has over the Pacific, wouldn't it seem plausible that they should consider putting in place standing contingency plans for these situations? For example, for diversions to NAN or NOU or HNL (although that's quite big) so that when the once or twice a year event happens they could be more prepared. And I'm certainly not having a go at QF here, just putting it out there.

From some snooping around, the 744 that headed to NOU (VH-OJA) was due to head to AVV for maintenance. I am guessing that it was a spare a/c that QF could get to quickly without having to play around with it's comms run.

 

[harvyk]

No, news.com.au takes the cake

Qantas A380 forced down in the Pacific

Qantas A380 forced down in the Pacific | News.com.au




I had seriously thought that the first A380 had crashed and burned and that QF had lost it's first jet. It wasn't until I actually read the article I realised that the plane had landed safely and that QF where simply doing things to ensure that today didn't become "that day"

 

[straitman]

A (young) friend of ours was on the flight and at this stage is saying 'Qantas, never again' :!:

When I get to talk to her I'll try and get the whole story.

 

[markis10]

Delta went to BNE as well as the previously mentioned CX TSV trip, and the day before the A380 diverted to BNE, its just a bad time of the year and has been happening ever since LAX-SYD became possible.

 

[milehighclub]

A (young) friend of ours was on the flight and at this stage is saying 'Qantas, never again' :!:

When I get to talk to her I'll try and get the whole story.

Will be interesting to hear her version. A user over on FT has given their version of events and on the whole they seem that given the circumstances, while not ideal, it wasn't the end of the world. They were traveling in J however so could be a different experience if not traveling in a premium cabin.

They mentioned they flew not only cabin crew and pilots but a whole ground team to assist.

 

[Homer]

Just my two cents, but I can’t see how it is possible to blame QF, or any airline, for an incident like this. They don’t control the weather, or the visual approach rules, or the pilots, who have the final say when flying the plane, and the end result was that QF brought everyone home. Yes it’s probably a PITA if you’re in whY (or even if you’re in F and you have to spend some hours in an airport without an F lounge ) but after the dust has settled, so to speak, and you realise that you arrived safely, which is surely everyone’s first priority, then wouldn’t you actually appreciate flying with an airline that is risk-averse?