manhattan92

I was flying on TK 11 from IST-JFK on September 24th when a passenger had an apparent heart attack and the pilot decided to divert to Budapest. The emergency landing took a while since the pilot had to dump its nearly-full fuel tanks prior to landing.

A few questions and comments:

Does anyone happen to know if the passenger is OK?

Who pays for the lost fuel and landing charges at BUD? Does the airline's insurance usually cover these emergency expenses?

I have flown over 2 million miles in my life but had never experienced an emergency landing. I have only recently been flying on TK on a regular basis and it seems that almost every other flight requires the services of a doctor on board. I am not exaggerating to say that at least 1/3 of my TK flights have had pleas for medical assistance on board. I am wondering if TK's insistence on keeping their planes at a hammam temperature has something to do with this unfortunate phenomenon.

CAlex

Did they dump the fuel over Romania? How long did that take? Why did they not just turn back to IST?

Frontliner

I've flown TK dozens of times and never witnessed any medical emergency.
The expenses are all for TK but it's a matter of responsibility and an airline will usually take little risks with passengers' health.
If you know the passenger or his family, you can know if he's fine. Otherwise, it's TK's responsibility to respect his privacy.
There is no regulation whatsoever that says that there must be a doctor on a plane -except maybe when this plane is doing a medevac ;-)
Most of the fuel was dumped prior to landing. It takes only minutes and this is an operation that is done as much as possible over the sea. And in case of medical emergency, the closest airport will always be chosen, as long as it has medical facilities in the immediate neighborhood, which is basically the case with all major airports.

CAlex

But there is no sea close to BUD, and unless they turned back, they would have started the landing procedure when they entered Hungarian airspace.

I appreciate they have taken necessary precautions to eventually ensure that no life is lost, but I am just curios how and where they dump fuel, when there is no sea around? I would hope they just don't dump it randomly over a mountain, village or farm field...

ilisira

I am pretty sure that fuel never makes down to earth, and evaporates, so over a mountain/village, or farm field would not be too much of a difference.

And again, hundreds of flights with TK over the past 10+ years with transatlantic, and European segments and no emergency landings (just a single go-around in TLV)..

jiejie

I was on a plane 2-3 years ago from ATL-NRT, had a medical emergency on board just after we crossed over the US-Canada border. Ended up diverting to Edmonton to offload the poor fellow. We had to dump fuel somewhere over Saskatchawan, but I think it does evaporate or widely disperses as long as altitude is high enough. Being still early in such a long flight, we were too heavy to land "as is".

BTW, not all aircraft have the ability to truly dump fuel. Some can't do much more than burn it off.

Frontliner

Fuel does not evaporate. It is too greasy to do so. It sprays in very small particles.

epicurus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_dumping

some plans do not have fuel dump systems

LH4116

Not all planes need fuel dumping systems. For instance smaller aircraft like the Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 can land with the tanks fully loaded, whereas a bigger aircraft like a 777 need to dump a certain amount of fuel in order to reach the maximum allowed landing weight.

starflyergold

Ok we are not discussing ancient threads

starflyergold
TK forum mod