Night island flying

[slemers]

I knew this had to be Diego.

3.8 hours into a 4.6 flight? I'd consider it safe to continue, but that's based on knowledge of my aircraft. The IRUs won't drift significantly in 0.8 hours, even without a position fix from the GPS or DME/DME. But again, I have no knowledge of the DC-8, and for them it may have been better to turn around. There is absolutely no need to jeopardize safety or put the crew in a legal situation just to complete the mission.

And sorry MikeD, I'm a young whippersnapper.

Random aside since ETOPS was brought up: In my two-engine jet, if you're inside of an hour, you've already exited ETOPS. Not a factor.

Being AOG in DG wouldn't be ideal I spent some time there in 1980 on a C-5 trip staging out of Clark. This was back in the days of the *Party Pack*. They escorted the entire crew to the trailer they had reserved exclusively for us and gave us a box with hot dogs, hamburgers, chips and soda. We spent the day exploring the beach and had a barbeque that evening. We restocked their BX with beer on one of our legs.
Wouldn't want to live there, but it was a beautiful place.

 

[framedforlife]

I would continue on as your almost there it would be more safe then to turn around.

 

[Rocketman99]

Sounds very suspect. There had to be something more to the nav failure... Unless there was something in their OPSPECS or some sort of MEL issue where they wouldn't be able to leave, there is just no reason for them to turn around.

 

[NewYorkophile]

On the subject of DR, I'd be hesitant to fall back on old school DR skills in a surprise situation. And I'm an Air Force navigator! We do DR very accurately, but if you don't have the paperwork ready to do it, I think it'd be a huge SA-suck in the cockpit. Which then raises the question- do you, the Captain, do the DR because you know it and let the FO do the flying, or do you take the flight controls and try to teach DR to the FO?

Might be a good teaching opportunity to use the remaining GPS for nav and teach the basics of DR to the FO in case the 2nd one does fail.

Kinda off-topic...but hell, nav's don't get to chime in too often