I'm not exaggerating when I say I'm not going to sleep well until I find out why this flight returned to YYZ with a fuel leak.
This seems ill-advised on the polite end, and criminal on the other.
I know, I'm no pilot and wasn't there, but I'm trying to imagine what justifies a plane to stay in the air for 150 minutes after a fuel leak was discovered when there were perfectly acceptable airfields a lot closer.
The captain was quoted as saying, "Wow, the leak was a lot bigger than we thought," after touching down at YYZ.
Originally Posted by
airbus320
Incident: Air Canada A319 over Atlantic on Jul 15th 2009, fuel leak
An Air Canada Airbus A319-100, registration C-GITP performing flight AC-966 from Toronto,ON (Canada) to Bridgetown (Barbados), was enroute at FL370 overhead the Atlantic Ocean at approximately 33N 67W (close to Bermuda) approximately 850nm into the 2100nm long flight, when the crew reported their aircraft was leaking fuel. The crew elected to return to Toronto, where the airplane landed safely on runway 23 with 2900kg (6400lbs) of fuel remaining with emergency services on standby about 150 minutes later.
The runway was closed temporarily for an inspection of both the aircraft and the runway.
A replacement Airbus A319-100 registration C-FYJI departed Toronto again and is estimated to reach Bridgetown with a delay of 6:45 hours.
Source: The Aviation Herald