IceTrojan

Such a wasted opportunity. My family sure voted in favor of it... but we had a majority of apathetic voters versus a smaller, wealthier, more vocal opposition.

I wonder how they'll feel if they wake up the one morning to find that their precious Hwy 73 is blocked with an overran aircraft.

VickiSoCal

Yeah, unlike some airports where an overrun lands you in a field or river, here it will not end even that well.

We also voted for el toro!

able

Just an FYI but American's A-321s are also unable to land in SNA when the runway is wet.

The airline probably figures that with the amount of days SNA gets rain it's not an out of control gamble to schedule 321s and 738s there.

JDiver

If the El Niño / Southern Oscillation prediction is correct, SNA and the rest of Southern California stand a very good chance of having much more rain than normal this upcoming rainy season. Consider that in your bookings.

sdsearch

In fact, though it's a bit early to be certain, some L A weather forecasts this morning were saying it looks like the low pressure system that produced that rain last Sunday, which has moved east, looks it's going to do a big circling-around clockwise and come back from the Southwest at SoCal next Tue/Wed. So not just during the upcoming rainy season, but perhaps before it !

747kona

growing up in OC, it seems like nobody cares more about flight paths in the world than OC residents... both the people in Newport and everybody that live in the path of the proposed El Toro airport. Quite an interesting topic that a lot of people around the world could care less about.

s0ssos

Everybody voted for El Toro. It passed. Then Newport Beach and the other rich cities sued to block it.

It isn't that the majority of OC residents don't want it, it is that the rich people don't want it.

WillTravel4Food

In conditions where the runway is contaminated, with water or snow for example, the airport performs regular traction tests on the runways. You've probably seen the trucks in various places. I've seen mostly pick-ups driving down the runways. They speed up and then quickly stop and measure the traction on some sort of device within the cab. That information is relayed to Air Traffic Control tower. The ATC provides that info to pilots using one of several comm channels.

So the pilots take the runway friction coefficients, weight at landing, and speed (possibly some other stuff too, but no need for that kind of detail here) to calculate the necessary landing distance. It's a simple decision. If the calculated distance exceeds the published available runway length then they must divert.

In the case of the OP, the calculated landing distance likely exceeded the length of the runway.

JDiver

Good observation; spot on.

Wind direction and velocity are key as well. And SNA is short, short, short when it's not ideal.

I think the largest aircraft I've seen there is a Boeing 757-200. AA used to fly them into / out of SNA. (My choice flights SMF-SNA and return were the AA 757s; they were generally not close to full. I was on the last AA SNA-SMF 757 flight flown - it was WN thereafter to visit my O.C. clients. I used the heck out of the AC at SNA, including conference room rentals. I still miss Barbara and Eliseo, who retired from tending the bar and had worked for Western Airlines, which I used to fly a lot.)

DenverBrian

UA too. I flew SNA-DEN often in the 90s and 00s on the 752. Almost always, the pilot would advise pax that the takeoff would be "a bit unusual" - as in, full power screaming takeoff as only the 757 can do, followed almost immediately by a significant cutback in power to appease the "oh noes, there's a loud aeroplane above mah home!" neighborhoods just to the south of SNA. A real rollercoaster, and many passengers would show alarm at the reduction in power just after takeoff if the pilot hadn't mentioned it ahead of time.

CaptRobPhD

Most of these insights look right, although we generally don't get friction reports for rain only. Tailwind is a killer, as is something like a single-channel of anti-skid INOP. As a rule, a wet runway requires (planned) @ 15% more than a dry runway.

buckeyefanflyer

I have made several trips to Key West the past few years, when not driving take AA regional jets. Runway 9/27 is only 4801 feet. Similar situation one time, full airplane and it was raining and as we approached EYW pilot announced do to the rain and short runway we would have to back to MIA. After about 45 minute's when the rain stopped we flew back to EYW.

Col Ronson

Considering how short SNA's runway is and the the very short braking distance you would have in rain, i fully understand the pilot's decision. Then again you can blame the moronic rich folks in the OC for forcing pilots to have hilarious landing/takeoff noise ablation maneuvers that really test the limits of commercial aircraft.

Herb687

AA has run a 757 off the runway at SNA. By some miraculous coincidences (NOT acts of skilled airmanship) it came to rest undamaged on some lightly used GA ramp/taxiways at the SW side of the airport and thus never hit any objects (or the mainstream media, as far as I recall).

JDiver

Yeow!

There's a reason many of the poles and supports around and past the thresholds are frangible...