idriveuride

Moderators Note:

This post was not written by idriveyouride, but of a DL pilot...


Perhaps the clearest view I have encountered of what was going on in the skies.

Subject: Flying into Japan's Earthquake

I'm currently still in one piece, writing from my room in the Narita crew hotel. It's 8am. This is my inaugural trans-pacific trip as a brand new, recently checked out, international XXX Captain and it has been interesting, to say the least, so far. I've crossed the Atlantic three times so far so the ocean crossing procedures were familiar.

By the way, stunning scenery flying over the Aleutian Islands. Everything was going fine until 100 miles out from Tokyo and in the descent for arrival. The first indication of any trouble was that Japan air traffic control started putting everyone into holding patterns. At first we thought it was usual congestion on arrival. Then we got a company data link message advising about the earthquake, followed by another stating Narita airport was temporarily closed for inspection and expected to open shortly (the company is always so positive).

From our perspective things were obviously looking a little different. The Japanese controller's anxiety level seemed quite high and he said expect "indefinite" holding time. No one would commit to a time frame on that so I got my copilot and relief pilot busy looking at divert stations and our fuel situation, which, after an ocean crossing is typically low.

It wasn't long, maybe ten minutes, before the first pilots started requesting diversions to other airports. Air Canada, American, United, etc. all reporting minimal fuel situations. I still had enough fuel for 1.5 to 2.0 hours of holding. Needless to say, the diverts started complicating the situation.

Japan air traffic control then announced Narita was closed indefinitely due to damage. Planes immediately started requesting arrivals into Haneda, near Tokyo, a half dozen JAL and western planes got clearance in that direction but then ATC announced Haneda had just closed. Uh oh! Now instead of just holding, we all had to start looking at more distant alternatives like Osaka, or Nagoya.

One bad thing about a large airliner is that you can't just be-bop into any little airport. We generally need lots of runway. With more planes piling in from both east and west, all needing a place to land and several now fuel critical ATC was getting over-whelmed. In the scramble, and without waiting for my fuel to get critical, I got my flight a clearance to head for Nagoya, fuel situation still okay. So far so good. A few minutes into heading that way, I was "ordered" by ATC to reverse course. Nagoya was saturated with traffic and unable to handle more planes (read-airport full). Ditto for Osaka.

With that statement, my situation went instantly from fuel okay, to fuel minimal considering we might have to divert a much farther distance. Multiply my situation by a dozen other aircraft all in the same boat, all making demands requests and threats to ATC for clearances somewhere. Air Canada and then someone else went to "emergency" fuel situation. Planes started to heading for air force bases. The nearest to Tokyo was Yokoda AFB. I threw my hat in the ring for that initially. The answer - Yokoda closed! no more space.

By now it was a three ring circus in the cockpit, my copilot on the radios, me flying and making decisions and the relief copilot buried in the air charts trying to figure out where to go that was within range while data link messages were flying back and forth between us and company dispatch in Atlanta. I picked Misawa AFB at the north end of Honshu island. We could get there with minimal fuel remaining. ATC was happy to get rid of us so we cleared out of the maelstrom of the Tokyo region. We heard ATC try to send planes toward Sendai, a small regional airport on the coast which was later the one I think that got flood ed by a tsunami.

Atlanta dispatch then sent us a message asking if we could continue to Chitose airport on the Island of Hokkaido, north of Honshu. Other Delta planes were heading that way. More scrambling in the cockpit - check weather, check charts, check fuel, okay. We could still make it and not be going into a fuel critical situation ... if we had no other fuel delays. As we approached Misawa we got clearance to continue to Chitose. Critical decision thought process. Let's see - trying to help company - plane overflies perfectly good divert airport for one farther away...wonder how that will look in the safety report, if anything goes wrong.

Suddenly ATC comes up and gives us a vector to a fix well short of Chitose and tells us to standby for holding instructions. Nightmare realized. Situation rapidly deteriorating. After initially holding near Tokyo, starting a divert to Nagoya, reversing course back to Tokyo then to re-di verting north toward Misawa, all that happy fuel reserve that I had was vaporizing fast. My subsequent conversation, paraphrased of course...., went something like this:

"Sapparo Control - Delta XX requesting immediate clearance direct to
Chitose,minimum fuel, unable hold."

"Negative Ghost-Rider, the Pattern is full" <<< top gun quote <<<

"Sapparo Control - make that - Delta XX declaring emergency, low fuel,
proceeding direct Chitose"

"Roger Delta XX, understood, you are cleared direct to Chitose, contact
Chitose approach....etc...."

Enough was enough, I had decided to preempt actually running critically low on fuel while in another indefinite holding pattern, especially after bypassing Misawa, and played my last ace...declaring an emergency. The problem with that is now I have a bit of company paperwork to do but what the heck.

As it was - landed Chitose, safe. That's always a good feeling, being safe. They taxied us off to some remote parking area where we shut down and watched a half dozen or more other airplanes come streaming in. In the end, Delta had two 747s, my XXX and another 767 and a 777 all on the ramp at Chitose. We saw to American airlines planes, a United and two Air Canada as well. Not to mention several extra Al Nippon and Japan Air Lines planes.

Post-script - 9 hours later, Japan airlines finally got around to getting a boarding ladder to the plane where we were able to get off and clear customs. - that however, is another interesting story.

By the way - while writing this - I have felt four additional tremors that shook the hotel slightly - all in 45 minutes.


Cheers,


(omitted)

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

houserulz77

This defiantly warranted its own thread, and mods, please let this thread fly here for a bit, as OPs post was based on requests to move the above account out of a flame-ridden thread.

There was a feature done by Tom Brokow during NBC coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics about all of the TATL flights diverted to Gander, Newfoundland on 9/11. It does a great job capturing how a small town dealt with the influx of dozens of wide-body jets for several days. That feature can be found here..

If you are fascinated by these stories there is a documentary called Grounded on 9/11
It's a History Channel piece on how ATC shut down US airspace, and also addresses the Gander story in detail. IMO it is the best documentary related to aviation I have ever seen. Unfortunately it is not available on the web, but if these sorts of incidents fascinate you, it might be worth the buy. It will surely be shown in September when the History Channel runs all of its 9/11 documentaries.

Exleftseat

As always I do appreciate when we are told what really went on up front, especially at this defining moment in history, regardless which airline it pertains to. Thanks, keep up the good work and stay safe.

ND76

To put this in terms of flying over North America, this would be a little like a flight originating someplace in Western Europe, bound for ATL, then being told ATL is closed, first trying to divert to JAX, getting about halfway to JAX and being told to turn around, and ending up at IAD or BWI (CTS appears to be a little over 500 miles north of NRT).

This issue of where to divert if you can't land at NRT came up on my December MR LAX-NRT, when there were surface wind gusts in excess of 50 knots at NRT, and we were in a 747-400.

We didn't fly the Arctic route, but rather crossed the Pacific on the 40th parallel (on the USA side, about 50 miles south of Eureka,CA; on the Japan side, at the north end of Honshu island), and then angled down to NRT, which is at 35 degrees 40 minutes N. It took 11 hours 26 minutes to make the crossing.

I wonder what would have happened if planes, like the DL flight in the OP that had overflown the Aleutians, had legitimate emergencies, couldn't land in Japan and had to land on the Kamchatka Peninsula or Sakhalin island (I'm guessing the Soviets built military airports with decent length runways)

Exleftseat

Forgot to send my congratulations to your recent "check out". Congrats^

inno.SAN-ICN

South Sakhalin, Kamchatka, and Kuril islands' space was closed in Soviet era (You probably remember what happened with KE002 in 1983) and still is closed by Russians for foreign flights. I seriously doubt they will open it even in emergency and even just to cross the space. The closest civil port in Russia would be VVO, but as far as I remember it's too small to get 74X and it's almost as far as ICN.

NYBanker

Thanks for the detailed post. I can see how situations like this ... Even with a decent reserve of fuel at the outset ... Can spiral unfavorably quite quickly.

It is fascinating to read the thinking of a pilot in these pre-crisis situations Sounds like you made the right calls.

Thank you for flying us safely.

number21

Especially in your line of work.

A pilot’s job is many hours of boredom broken up by moments of sheer terror. Glad to read your flight landed safely.

mtkeller

It would have been good if idriveuride had linked to the post here on FT that originally linked to that account. That post is here. Note that idriveuride is not the pilot who wrote that account, nor is the person who posted it on the site linked to above.

And I would really like to say that flaming a pilot who's giving his account of what's going through his mind after a stressful diversion that saved the lives of the passengers and crew on his plane is seriously uncalled for. The pilot wrote that account for fellow pilots, as best as I can tell, and I have no problem with a little levity. I would not read that as complaining, and in fact the pilot was pointing out that he decided that the paperwork hassle was worth getting his plane out of the sky

dedehans

I absolutely agree. The pilot has given us a terrific narrative of a terrifying situation and how it got resolved.

Grow up, flamers.

BobH

Thanks for posting this; one question was this a freighter or were their passengers on board?

Bob H

moondog

Didn't DL shut down NWA Cargo a few years ago?

TTT

Yes. And the cargo unit only operated 747s. This account is from a 767 pilot.

ND76

Thanks for your answer. I certainly remember KE002, the flight where anti-communist congressman Larry McDonald and hundreds of others perished when the flight "strayed" over Soviet airspace (if you believe the Russians). I wasn't sure what the status of Russian airspace is today, since theoretically at least the cold war ended with the collapse of the USSR, and Aeroflot is a SkyTeam partner of Delta's.

ND76

He was flying a 767 (presumably from either PDX or SFO). I remember seeing NWA cargo planes on the ground at NRT--they were 747s.