I hate the title because it sounds like a failure when in fact it is an excellent thing Delta did.
Delta Goes Big, Then Goes Home
81–90 of 204 posts
Re: Delta Goes Big, Then Goes Home
#82The only disappointment for me is that they flew a relatively modest 737 down there. If you're going to make a heroic flight like this do it in an A380 or a 747 and load up as many people as you can to get them out of dodge. I guess shuffling a big plane like that at the last minute is probably not feasible since they have their own routes to service. An evac flight could even go full on quick load. No checked bags,…
An A380 or 747 is significantly less nimble than a 737, and would take a lot longer to unload and load back up. The flight in question did a turnaround in 51 minutes, including taxing time, which is extremely quick.
Haha, Ryanair will beat that turnaround time in normal operations any day
Re: Delta Goes Big, Then Goes Home
#83I'm curious about who was coming in on this flight, and why? Was it mostly people who wanted to ride out the hurricane with families? First responders?
Re: Delta Goes Big, Then Goes Home
#84This is the second such instance in the past month. - For a longer discussion on the topic see this thread on airliners.net http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1373093 - On August 24 Typhoon Hato hit HongKong hard. All airlines canceled their service in and out of HKIA, except a lone KLM flight from Amsterdam. Similar to the delta flight into San Juan, this flight created a large media storm into the r…
Consider that they were carrying 170 people away from a hurricane that killed, among the millions of people that were on its path, a total (until now) of 11. If that single plane crashed, it would have multiplied by 15 the total death toll of the storm. I'm sure that the risk must have been quite low for the operation to make any sense.
Re: Delta Goes Big, Then Goes Home
#85Re: Delta Goes Big, Then Goes Home
#86During the cold war my grandfather flew bombers into the eyes of hurricanes to drop sonar beacons. I'm sure he'd get a kick out of this. The older bombers they flew were all manual controls (as opposed to fly by wire), which meant physical exhaustion from wrestling the plane into the storm was a major factor - so they'd bring extra fuel to be able to circle the eye of the storm for some amount of time to build up the…
The main wing spar on those bombers also had to be reinforced to support the weight of the crew's giant balls. Respect.
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Re: Delta Goes Big, Then Goes Home
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
An A380 or 747 is significantly less nimble than a 737, and would take a lot longer to unload and load back up. The flight in question did a turnaround in 51 minutes, including taxing time, which is extremely quick.
Haha, Ryanair will beat that turnaround time in normal operations any day
Ryanair's been criticized for safety issues over their 25-30 minute turnaround times, which don't count taxiing time.
Re: Delta Goes Big, Then Goes Home
#88That's pretty awesome. Does anyone know more about this type of pre-hurricane flight? Is that a common thing airlines do, to try to squeeze one last flight in? Are there rushes before other types of bad weather? And do they increase (or lower?) prices in these cases?
Other airlines tried the same thing (https://twitter.com/AirlineFlyer/status/905433106475311104) but had to turn back.
Re: Delta Goes Big, Then Goes Home
#89Commercial pilot here, currently flying transatlantic routes. I avoided Irma last week while flying to Buenos Aires (it was not this big yet). I have partners in San Juan at this moment, bunkered in the hotel.
We see this as a crazy move, very well executed, but too risky for the plane itself (not so much for the crew).
Let me explain, the metar and tafors (the airport meteorological reports we use) during the flight in San Juan show that the flight was doable. No crazy winds during landing, and worsening during take of but well within the limits you may find in a local thunderstorm. The predictions allowed them to see the window to fly in and out. If arriving the weather was too bad or you see the hurricane getting too close to the airport,they could have got away without landing. For take off either you have the right conditions (under the legal limits) or you don't.
What they risked IMHO is having some kind of technical problem or delay once in San Juan and having to stay there to weather the hurricane. That could mean heavy damage to the airplane while on the airport, even a total loss.
That said for me the most amazing of it all, is not the short stay at the ground. While very fast is not uncommon to see them with an experieced team, the slower part is the disembarking and embarking of the passengers, and they surely were all motivated to hurry.
The most impressive is how they followed the quite thin alley between the hurricane arms till they were clear of the bad weather. In a situation like that you only see red and magenta in your radar and a narrow black or green zone where you can fly safely. That's surely was the most scary part for them beyond the adrenalin of a fast and potentially dangerous operation.
Looks like the typical movie scene of a spaceship passing between closing doors!! Certainly brass balls.
Edit: some typos and a "don't" that I left behind and was changing the meaning of a sentence. Sorry written from the cellphone.
Re: Delta Goes Big, Then Goes Home
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
An A380 or 747 is significantly less nimble than a 737, and would take a lot longer to unload and load back up. The flight in question did a turnaround in 51 minutes, including taxing time, which is extremely quick.
Haha, Ryanair will beat that turnaround time in normal operations any day
The above comment is not a snide joke at Ryanair, here's an article citing their turnaround times from the early 2000s: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2962698.stm
This is still the case.