47 trapped on 'nightmare' flight to the Twin Cities

H46Bubba said:
What it says is that the company is standing behind the pilots. So it would seem as if Continental is to blame not Expressjet. Continental is responsible for all IROP issues as is Delta with Delta Connection flights. Mainline has the ball when a flight become IROP.
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True true. One time at SFO we had a jetway break meeting a CRJ and we were told we couldn't touch it until UAL MX guys, not ours, showed up. Took them 20 minutes and the CA was getting pretty pissed that we wouldn't let the pax just walk down the steps then up the jetway, but UA has told us we can only ground board at certian gates without their approval. So pax sat on the plane for 20 minutes, already late and missing connections to begin with, just to have a UA mechanic and supervisor pull the lever on the jetway and say "Ok, ground board".

Sounds stupid, I know. But it is what it is.
 
Doug has a good point. Without knowing the facts about this particular flight, we should all be thinking about what we would or could do in a similar situation. One has to remember that as the captain, you are responsible for the well being of your passengers and crew. I can not imagine a situation where I would allow my passengers to be held on an airplane that long. The court of public opinion and the "you are my hero" accolades from your passengers would likely get you out of almost any hot water or predicament you would get in getting them off the airplane.

When the facts emerge from this particular flight, we would all be well served to study the details thoroughly in hopes of avoiding something similar. In this business, being on the front page of USA Today is not something any of us should aspire to.
 
BajtheJino said:
My guess would be they were sitting in a semi-comfortable chair, in an air conditioned room with a pack of crackers and a coke.
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.


But serouisly shouldnt the PIC of that flight tell the dispatcher the situation so the dispatcher can take action (Like call the airport etc) to get that plane to the gate?, But then again that alternate was not a good idea to begin with.

Once in a while when I dispatched at my old job we will have to call the airport so our pilots can get to the aircraft (which is early in the morning).

Although I do not recall having this type of situation before
 
gredenko said:
Which brings another great point: A NW mainline flight was diverted to RST at about the same time that night (http://flightaware.com/live/flight/NWA120/history) What happened there? While ExpressJet's pax watched out their windows, the A320's pax somehow deplaned (does the A320 have airstairs?) and GOT BUSSED to MSP. It was possible to deplane without airstairs that night, and get a bus for the folks - IT WAS DONE BY NW! And don't give me the whole "NW has a base in MSP" baloney.
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Thats because Northwest is a REAL airline and doesn't have someone else calling the shots.:sarcasm:
 
gredenko said:
Which brings another great point: A NW mainline flight was diverted to RST at about the same time that night (http://flightaware.com/live/flight/NWA120/history) What happened there? While ExpressJet's pax watched out their windows, the A320's pax somehow deplaned (does the A320 have airstairs?) and GOT BUSSED to MSP. It was possible to deplane without airstairs that night, and get a bus for the folks - IT WAS DONE BY NW! And don't give me the whole "NW has a base in MSP" baloney.
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NWA also has operations at RST. If an Airbus diverts in there, they know what gate to pull up to, they have ops people to handle the lav, bring up water if necessary, fueling etc...If a CAL plane diverts in we have nothing but ramp space to use. And if NWA ops people are busy with the Airbus, you can bet they won't be tripping over themselves to handle some other carriers flight that happened to divert in there.

I'm sure RST is an airport that has seen sitations like this before for NWA. A similar situation would be if a Mesaba RJ diverted into Beumont Tx on a stormy evening at 12:30am....Meanhwhile a CAL 737 is getting worked on by the XJT/Colgan station that operates Beumont. Of course I don't know what exactly would happen in this situation but I can tell you CAL would know alot better what to do in their own backyard at an airport that handles things like this regularly for them.

So what I'm saying is I'd expect NWA to be able to do things quickly at a station 45 minutes flying time from a major hub of theirs, at a station that they have multiple flights a day from.
 
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