Imstevek

Their actions were not disgusting. Please tell me what value the crew being onsite would do? Demonstrate they are as much out of the loop as the pax? I have read 1 or 2 first hand accounts where actual pax on the flight were upset - in fact more, including the FT member here, were appreciative of the crew and their performance in the crisis. United has responded shamefully here, but your focus on the crew being in the barracks is misguided. I'll take the opinion of someone who lived it

Mike Jacoubowsky

Goose Bay is an emergency contingency, not something used regularly (aside from doing a fair amount of business when planes run out of fuel due to headwinds). They have proven themselves quite capable of handling emergencies with passengers not as comfortable as they'd be wherever they're traveling to or from, but certainly nothing that has been described would qualify as some level of Dante's hell. The only thing I'd upgrade or install at Goose Bay, if in fact it's not already there, would be a Wi-Fi system with decent speed and capacity, and instructions on how to install and use Skype. That would take care of communications to home & office without have the need to roam on a cell network. I would also make sure plenty of charging ports were available.

If it were a scheduled stop, or if it got quite a few overnights, it might be a different situation, but that's not the situation right? Goose Bay is one of those places we should consider ourselves lucky to exist because it makes TATL air travel a lot safer. If I was on a plane in trouble and had to land on Gilligan's Island, I'd consider myself lucky Gilligan's Island was there, even if stranded for an extended period of time.

As for United, definitely a need for an upgrade in its response. That initial tweet was so bad, and far as I know, never a mea culpa to it? United passed up an awesome opportunity to "declare bottom" and say they recognize a number of things that went wrong and will work to never again allow such things to conspire. People would eat that up.

Of course, in the FT world, I have to add that United would make some significant improvements, feel really good about where things are heading, and some dimwit would have a banner hung across ORD that says "Mission Accomplished"...

blueman2

I agree with your post, and maybe the definition of 'regular use' is up for interpretation, but the airport does get a fair amount of use. You do know that another United flight landed there at the same time as this group was stranded there. Two fully loaded planes of people. From United flights. On the same day.

But all your points are right on.

physioprof

It should be considered by UA as an expected, regular contingency, not some kind of black swan type event.

mduell

UAL had 71 flights into CYYR in the last year in 10 different months. I'd call that regular in this context.

fly18725

How many of those required passengers to deplane and stay overnight?

restlessinRNO

Fascinating information. That's nearly 2 a week! I'd call that regular too.

Mike Jacoubowsky

For overnights? Does UA really have that many diverted flights that have to overnight at Goose Bay? I hear about fuel diversions frequently, but not overnights. As for the other UA plane that ended up on the ground at Goose Bay at the same time, wasn't that just a "day trip?"

Not saying that better planning (and possibly better maintenance) on UA's part wouldn't make for less need to use Goose Bay. Just hard to buy into the idea that the infrastructure there requires significant improvement for the task at hand.
But again, how many overnights?

I would put such diversions into three categories-

• Fuel diversion
• Mechanical issue not requiring overnight stay
• Mechanical issue requiring overnight stay
  
  

Of those, the first is not an indication of any need whatsoever for sprucing up the 'Goose. The second perhaps only marginally so, given that deplaning may be involved. Only the third, the overnights, really get much concern in my book. Strictly as far as Goose Bay is concerned.

Regarding UA, all three are cause for significant concern, obviously with overnights ranked far higher.

blueman2

Wow, really? That is far more than I would have thought. Maybe this is for ALL airlines?

Now for some math. Please chime in anyone who is a real probability wizard, but I think we can calculate the probability of 2 United flights being on Goose Bay on the same day as 1-[365!/(365-n)!]/365^n, where n = number that occur per year. That tells me there is a 99.9% chance that sometime during the next year, 2 United planes will be at Goose Bay on the same day.

BTW, this is the same formula to see what is the probability of 2 people having the same birthday in a group of n people. If you have 23 people, you have a better than 50/50 chance of 2 people with the same birthday.

blueman2

I think you are right about very few overnights. BTW, the other flight that landed there while this flight was there was for medical reasons.

FlyWorld

http://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/n...nce-issue.html

This article seems to confirm what I understood about the "refund" that United Continental offered. It was a refund for a segment, not the whole flight.

"United's compensation to passengers for their prolonged ordeal? The cost of their one-way ticket to London and additional United vouchers."

<sarcasm> I'm sure they were generous and fair in how they calculated the cost of the segment and didn't use any shenanigans to avoid fair payment like they do when calculating downgrade compensation. </sarcasm>

The article also makes two interesting points:

1. United Continental refuses to disclose any information about the root cause or nature of the issue that required the landing, and

2. "But the need to get down quickly may have been a factor in United's decision to land in Goose Bay. The more well-known Gander, Newfoundland, and its international airport, a major refueling stop in the early days of trans-Atlantic travel, are less than 400 miles from where Flight 958 landed in Goose Bay."

transportprof

More details on the nature of the rudder malfunction can be found here:

http://avherald.com/h?article=487dda05&opt=0

Rudder control failures can be fatal. Alaska Airlines Flight 261 suffered a catastrophic failure of the horizontal stabilizer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska...e_and_recovery

I can see why UA's pilot wanted to put this aircraft down soon after the rudder started acting up.

Kacee

Not sure "rudder malfunction" is consistent with that report. It references "an abnormal indication for the right hand elevator which could be felt in the rudder."

In any event, landing as quickly as possible certainly sounds like the prudent course of action.

Indelaware

You have forgotten other reasons for diversion:

Diversion for security reasons (e.g. kick the drunk or the suspected terrorist off the flight)
Diversion for medical emergency (though YYT, not that far away has more medical facilities)
WX at destination (though not likely for diversion to YYR)

Planned diversion in order to drop off needed MX crew/parts or relief flight/cabin crews (not that I've seen UA do this)
Planned diversion in order to pickup stranded passengers (e.g. EWR-LHR operated as EWR-YYR-LHR; though again, I've not seen UA do this type of diversion)

JOSECONLSCREW28

Wasn't a rudder issue was an airframe vibration with aileron and elevator issue.