Originally Posted by
zman
You were actually on an active run-way for 2 hours at ORD?
That must have caused massive backups to the whole airport, loosing a runway for that amount of time.
Yes. I left out part of the story as I was writing on my connecting flight ORD-BOS and was running out of time.
After we landed and waited the initial 10-15 min timeframe the pilot came back on and said the tug (or security escort) had somewhere more important to be and that it should be another 15-20 minutes. Ultimately the tug arrived about 1 hour after landing, but unfortunately forgot a part of some sort that was needed to connect it to the plane. Then it took another hour before they came back. It seemed a bit strange to me.
Originally Posted by
flatlined
At least the landing went off without a hitch. Mechanical issues on the ground << mechanical issues in flight.
+1 Totally agree!
Originally Posted by
b74l
Without knowing, of course, the exact details, speculation would lead to the possible loss of the center hydraulic system (the 777 has 3 hydro systems), and quite possibly loss of nose gear steering. Normally, the loss of one of the 3 hydro system wont adversely affect the utterly essential aircraft flight controls (flaperons, ailerons, rudder, elevators, etc), because hydraulics are available to these from 2 of the 3 systems (redundancy). However, other, less safety-critical elements, such as the main and body gear steering, are only powered by one hydro system. Hence today's possible issue. The aircraft could safely land, but could not steer off the runway. A tug would be required to get off the rwy and get to the gate.
Wow! That was a lot of information. Thanks for the (possible) explanation.
However, as mentioned, ORD is an one of AA 777 hubs, and a mx hub at that, and a darn busy airport--surprised you remained "on the rwy" for 2+ hours? Now that sounds a bit odd---more going on here than what the passengers knew. But glad is was a small mx issue, and of course, all safe.
I was really surprised by this as well. Admittedly I don't know a lot about airports/runways, but I imagine that 777s can't land on just any runway. So I was really surprised that they let us sit there and tie things up.
However, I could speculate that the Control Tower was unhappy but that message didn't get to (or carry enough weight with) the ground/maintenance crews.