ChasenSFO
hen teaser
SFO-FCO (777-200) yesterday diverts to SMF with an engine shut down after a reported overheating event, a rescue plane comes to SMF...but only to take the pax back to SFO. Only booked to 150ish, most people get rebooked today. Must have been pretty serious to be airborne for an hour but end up at SMF instead of SFO. As long as I've been around this stuff at least, I've never seen a rescue plane dispatched from SFO to take people BACK to SFO instead of the destination. Yikers.
The Aviation Herald
SFO-FCO today diverts to YEG for a pax medical...but then returns to SFO after probably due to crew legalities.
United flight from San Francisco to Rome diverted for second day in a row
Reminds me of UA888 (747-400 at the time) SFO-PEK flying all the way to the tip of Alaska, alt sector knob goes ape chit, 10 hour flight to nowhere returns to SFO. The rescue flight the next day takes off, some kind of failure, circles for hours to burn fuel then returns to SFO. A new 747-400 tows on, fails preflight checks, so they tow on ANOTHER, board, long delay related to no available mechanic to solve an issue (or so they told us), crew time out, deboard, outright canceled. The drama around all that also ended up making several international inbounds hold 60-120 mins for gates on Concourse G and lots of misconnections and also stopped planes from towing on for departure until after their departure time. It was the only time I've ever seen a reporter somehow get the number of the Ramp Tower (and they even knew we were doing the gate planning and had the details). My coworker told them the number would be traced and they'd be visited by federal agents just to make them hang up which I thought was hilarious. IIRC, these were some of the very last PEK flights not operated by 777s just before 747 retirement haha.
Murphy's law in airline ops never fails to amaze me. That said, SFO being the huge 777-200 base for UA that it is, seems...odd. Especially since I know that media attention can make UA move mountains.
The Aviation Herald
SFO-FCO today diverts to YEG for a pax medical...but then returns to SFO after probably due to crew legalities.
United flight from San Francisco to Rome diverted for second day in a row
Reminds me of UA888 (747-400 at the time) SFO-PEK flying all the way to the tip of Alaska, alt sector knob goes ape chit, 10 hour flight to nowhere returns to SFO. The rescue flight the next day takes off, some kind of failure, circles for hours to burn fuel then returns to SFO. A new 747-400 tows on, fails preflight checks, so they tow on ANOTHER, board, long delay related to no available mechanic to solve an issue (or so they told us), crew time out, deboard, outright canceled. The drama around all that also ended up making several international inbounds hold 60-120 mins for gates on Concourse G and lots of misconnections and also stopped planes from towing on for departure until after their departure time. It was the only time I've ever seen a reporter somehow get the number of the Ramp Tower (and they even knew we were doing the gate planning and had the details). My coworker told them the number would be traced and they'd be visited by federal agents just to make them hang up which I thought was hilarious. IIRC, these were some of the very last PEK flights not operated by 777s just before 747 retirement haha.
Murphy's law in airline ops never fails to amaze me. That said, SFO being the huge 777-200 base for UA that it is, seems...odd. Especially since I know that media attention can make UA move mountains.
