Lufthansa - Frankfurt-Detroit / emergency landing Iceland

ATC · Post by **ATC** » 27 Dec 2009, 01:08

A Lufthansa flight en route from Frankfurt to Detroit with about 200 passengers made an emergency landing in Iceland on Saturday after it was found to be carrying luggage whose owner had not boarded the plane.

A bomb squad searched the Airbus while the passengers remained on board, removing the luggage, said a spokesman at Keflavik International Airport near the Icelandic capital Reykjavik.

"There was nothing suspicious in his luggage," Keflavik spokesman Fridthor Eydal told Reuters. "It seems the passenger in question somehow missed the plane after having checked in."

The scare followed an incident on a plane approaching Detroit on Friday in which a man was arrested after trying to ignite an explosive device, according to U.S. authorities.

A Lufthansa spokesman in Germany said of the two-hour stopover in Iceland: "The U.S. authorities have been informed about this. It was an unfortunate coincidence."

The passenger jet took off again for Detroit once the search was concluded.

andorra-airport · Post by **andorra-airport** » 27 Dec 2009, 06:48

So the plane was half-way, and the ground-staff found out?

A bit late no?! I don't know , but here in Europe the baggage should match before a plane leaves......

Propwash · Post by **Propwash** » 27 Dec 2009, 08:18

1. It's NOT an emergency landing but an "better safe than sorry" precautionary landing!
2. Frankfurt = Germany EUROPE

SN_fan · Post by **SN_fan** » 27 Dec 2009, 11:25

They should have preboarding area's at every gate and only load luggage of passengers that have preboarded.
And e.g. the preboarding close XX minutes before take-off (the time needed to load a certain number of luggages) with maybe exceptions for passengers that have lounge access.

That is according to me a better system than it's currently done. Namely, After boarding: oeps someone is missing, OK baggages search. This can cause a delay, as all the bags tags have to be checked by to loading staff.

Sabena320 · Post by **Sabena320** » 27 Dec 2009, 11:31

I think that would be way too difficult as they then have to search for every bagage that has been confirmed because the passenger pre-boarded. That's far more complicated than just searching for only one missing bag instead of searching every bag between 230 others.

SN_fan · Post by **SN_fan** » 27 Dec 2009, 11:44

Well my point is that you don't load the luggage before everyone has been preboarded, so that if someone isn't preboarded you look for that luggage on the tarmac, before it goes into the plane

cnc · Post by **cnc** » 27 Dec 2009, 12:27

SN_fan wrote:Well my point is that you don't load the luggage before everyone has been preboarded, so that if someone isn't preboarded you look for that luggage on the tarmac, before it goes into the plane

seems to me like you don't know how the operations of bagage handling and aircraft rotations work

SN_fan · Post by **SN_fan** » 27 Dec 2009, 13:59

cnc wrote:
SN_fan wrote:Well my point is that you don't load the luggage before everyone has been preboarded, so that if someone isn't preboarded you look for that luggage on the tarmac, before it goes into the plane
seems to me like you don't know how the operations of bagage handling and aircraft rotations work

Don't come up with this shit again. "You don't know how it works". I do know how it's works, and if you don't agree with me, give a comment why you don't agree. Or is this again a 12yo who's commenting??

cnc · Post by **cnc** » 27 Dec 2009, 15:00

SN_fan wrote:
cnc wrote:
SN_fan wrote:Well my point is that you don't load the luggage before everyone has been preboarded, so that if someone isn't preboarded you look for that luggage on the tarmac, before it goes into the plane
seems to me like you don't know how the operations of bagage handling and aircraft rotations work
Don't come up with this shit again. "You don't know how it works". I do know how it's works, and if you don't agree with me, give a comment why you don't agree. Or is this again a 12yo who's commenting??

ok lets start with 2 easy points for you to solve
1: luggage is put in ULD containers. or will you also wait with putting the bags in the ULD's untill preboarding is done?
2: its not like there's that much space in the basement so where would you keep the bags since they can not stay on the tarmac like that and you can't expect a loading team to just wait with those bags do you?

SN_fan · Post by **SN_fan** » 27 Dec 2009, 16:19

Of course you don't leave the luggages in the basement. You just leave the luggages in the ULDs or in the carts(in which they transport them to the plane) on the tarmac or wherever you can put these.
Then when preboarding is finished and you set a certain time when preboarding should end based on the time it should take to load the luggages on the plane e.g if putting those ULD in the planes takes X minutes you all the passengers should be in the pre boarding area X+Y minutes before departure.
If at that time some people are not in the preboarding area you look for those luggages in the ULD or carts before loading or during the loading of the luggages.
Which should be easier than unloading (all) the ULDs or luggages to find a bag.

cnc · Post by **cnc** » 27 Dec 2009, 16:29

SN_fan wrote:Of course you don't leave the luggages in the basement. You just leave the luggages in the ULDs or in the carts(in which they transport them to the plane) on the tarmac or wherever you can put these.

its not allowed to leave them unguarded (even in ULD's)

SN_fan · Post by **SN_fan** » 27 Dec 2009, 16:39

cnc wrote:
SN_fan wrote:Of course you don't leave the luggages in the basement. You just leave the luggages in the ULDs or in the carts(in which they transport them to the plane) on the tarmac or wherever you can put these.
its not allowed to leave them unguarded (even in ULD's)

Then you put them in a guarded place, or the loadmaster should be at that plane or a security guard. You're not going to tell me that nobody is at a plane in the time before departure.

cnc · Post by **cnc** » 27 Dec 2009, 16:45

SN_fan wrote:Then you put them in a guarded place, or the loadmaster should be at that plane or a security guard. You're not going to tell me that nobody is at a plane in the time before departure.

if you need to put 1 person at each plane in order to guard the luggage its going to cost you a lot of money.
if you don't want that extra cost it will be almost impossible for the operational dispatch to foresee it.
the loadmaster has its hands full and is most of the time busy with 2 or more flights at the same time

SN_fan · Post by **SN_fan** » 27 Dec 2009, 17:05

e.g.

CHECK-IN CLOSES at STD - 40
BAGGAGE LOADING STARTS at eg. STD - 25
BOARDING STARTS at STD - 20
BOARDING ENDS at STD - 10
BAGGAGE LOADING ENDS at STD - 5 (or something else)

MY PROPOSAL if you have preboarding area's

>>>PREBOARDING STARTS at e.g. STD - 60 (passport checks etc..)
CHECK-IN CLOSES at STD - 40
>> PREBOARDING ENDS at - 25
>> if pax are missing at STD - 25 you look for the bags before you start loading
BAGGAGE LOADING STARTS at eg. STD - 25
BOARDING STARTS at STD - 20
BOARDING ENDS at STD - 10
BAGGAGE LOADING ENDS at STD - 5 (or something else)

So this has actually little effect on how baggage handling is done. Only that you look for bags of missing pax before you put them onto the plane.
I hope this will explain it better .

TCAS_climb · Post by **TCAS_climb** » 27 Dec 2009, 19:53

Can't wait to see that happen for an A380.

I suppose you also have statistical data showing that the impact of pax boarding late/falling asleep/getting lost in airport/being abducted/gone wild in duty free shops/stuck in endless lanes for security checks/etc. brings a return on investment to both the airline and the airport ?

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