FlyBe Pilot not qualified to land plane in fog

[MikeB]

"A pilot with 30 years experience told passengers on a flight to Paris that he was returning to the UK because he was not qualified to land [the Q400] in foggy weather.

Flybe flight BE1431 from Cardiff was approaching Charles De Gaulle airport on Tuesday when the captain made the announcement over the tannoy. "

Full story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7787496.stm

No comment as yet on the FlyBe website


Maybe some-one needs re-training in the weather forecasting department !

Mike

[Acid-drop]

Do they have always enough fuel to make such a detour ?

[TCAS]

CAT II (Crew) authorization expired.

BTW good airmanship

[galaxy]

Do they have always enough fuel to make such a detour ?

London-Paris-London is about 700 km.
Q400 max range with 70 passengers and reserves = 2400km
The Q400 can make the trip London-Paris-London 3 times before refuelling the plane.

[jan_olieslagers]

Galaxy, you might have observed the outbound flight was from Cardiff, quite a bit further than London. Besides, I understand airliners do not carry more fuel than the minimum for their flight, plus required reserves, because carrying more fuel would be an expensive waste. Remember fuel is weight and carrying weight costs fuel and fuel costs money.

Still it's a funny story. If the captain's CAT II authorisation had expired, why didn't she/he leave the landing to the F/O? Or must they both be qualified? And why didn't the airline's operations department check these authorisations? Or was there an unexepected change in met. conditions? Finally, where in the UK did they divert? Closest suitable A/D in VMC - or back to A/D of origin? Why not some sunny place in the south? Marseille? Bordeaux? Perpignan?

[epsilon]

The capt + FO must both be qualified for a CAT II low-vis landing, and they diverted back to Cardiff.

[TCAS]

Closest suitable A/D in VMC

As part of their license (Captain: Airline Transport Pilot License, F/O min. Commercial Pilot License (Frozen ATPL) with Instrument Rating) each Crew member have Category I qualification.

Category I - Decision height not lower than 200 feet (61 m) above touchdown zone elevation and with either a visibility not less than 800 meters (2,625 ft) or a runway visual range not less than 550 meters (1,804 ft).

For lower landing minima (Category II and III operations), the Crew must be authorized (add-on qualification).

Category II - Decision height lower than 200 feet (61 m) above touchdown zone elevation but not lower than 100 feet (30 m), and a runway visual range not less than 350 meters (1,148 ft).

Category III A - Decision height lower than 100 feet (30 m) above touchdown zone elevation, or no decision height and a runway visual range not less than 200 meters (656 ft).

Category III B - Decision height lower than 50 feet (15 m) above touchdown zone elevation, or no decision height and a runway visual range less than 200 meters (656 ft) but not less than 50 meters (164 ft).

Category III C - No decision height and no runway visual range limitations.

BTW, the answer can be found in the BBC article.

"He has relatively recently transferred his 'type-rating' from a Bombardier Q300 to a Bombardier Q400 and has not yet completed the requisite low-visibility training to complete a landing in conditions such as the dense fog experienced in Paris Charles de Gaulle.

[Acid-drop]

Do they have always enough fuel to make such a detour ?

London-Paris-London is about 700 km.
Q400 max range with 70 passengers and reserves = 2400km
The Q400 can make the trip London-Paris-London 3 times before refuelling the plane.

I understand, but do they really carry all that fuel ? It cost money to be heavier.
I thought they would take only the bare minimum + X % for security reason.

[LeFreak]

sometimes you take extra fuel when fuel cost at destination is so high it justifies the extra fuel burn .. this is called tankering. Decision is made on a basis of fuel cost at destination versus extra fuel burn.

An initial typerating indeed includes CAT I training. An additional LO-VIS session needs to be organised to qualify the crew up to CAT III ..

If either one of the crewmembers hasn't got the CAT III qualification, it's legaly impossible to start a CAT III approach

[euroflyer]

From then pilot this was of course the right decision, nothing negative to say here.

BUT from a pax point of view this is just a desaster for the airline. Flying a plane at this time of the year around in Europe (especially from and to Britain ) and just hoping it will not be foggy is simp,y unbelievable. What do they think why people sit in their aircrafts? Just to look at the clouds outside or to have a chat with the nice Stewardess? Arriving at the destination might not be so important, hm?

I had my bit of experience with fly.be earlier this year already and decided anyway never to use them again and this just confirms my experience. That must be real amateurs in their headquarters