RK23

Was messing around on Flightradar and saw a 767 from IAD-EWR and with an unusual flight number for the route. Looks like UA71 diverted to IAD instead of going to EWR this afternoon. It's currently en route to EWR now. Anyone know why it diverted?

Repooc17

Weather?

PsiFighter37

Possible. That said, it was steady rain here all day long...no thunder/lightning. Would think it would have less an impact on arrival, especially for a TATL arrival that would not be during peak afternoon departure hours.

Lux Flyer

Kind of. Looks like an aircraft issue that impacted landing performance/didn’t prohibit continuing flight but did prevent landing at EWR given the wet conditions and runway length. I’m sure a pilot could explain better what could lead to those situations.

prestonh

there was a decent, widespread weather system in the area with low ceilings and visibility at the time of arrival.

RobOnLI

Yes, with plenty of large (and small) aircraft landing at the time the flight from AMS would have arrived. Per Lux Flyer there was likely an issue with performance due to something with the aircraft (braking capacity? something else?)

-RM

fumje

Paging LarryJ , clubord , 757FO

FlyerBeek

​​​I can't speak to the specifics of this flight, but there are plenty of possible maintenance issues that could require a performance penalty that would prohibit the aircraft from landing in EWR due to certain runway/weather conditions (wet/contaminated runway or maybe higher than usual crosswind/tailwind).

For example, a few years ago I was flying a 753 DEN-DCA with inoperative auto-spoilers (i.e. the speed brakes had to be manually deployed upon touchdown instead of activating automatically). The aircraft was perfectly safe to fly, but there was an added landing distance penalty that needed to be applied. Given DCA's relatively short runways, this meant a wet runway upon arrival would have necessitated a divert to a longer runway (which is exactly what happened - we diverted to IAD).

Not saying that's what happened here, but just one possible example how a maintenance issue could have caused a divert while still being perfectly safe to fly.
-FlyerBeek

runner450

Paging me, also

center hydraulic issue with diversion to IAD b/c wet runways at EWR

fumje

Thank you, paging you.

Does the center hydraulic issue incur need for longer runway, or does it rule out wet entirely?

FlyerBeek

Simply being a wet runway does not preclude landing for pretty much any malfunction, it's just the resulting landing performance penalties coupled with a shorter wet/contaminated runway likely exceeded the available landing distance. If it was in fact a center hydraulic system failure, then a non-normal landing configuration (using Flaps 20, as opposed to a normal Flaps 25/30 landing) would be required which would increase both the landing speeds and landing distance required. This likely made EWR's runway unsuitable and diverting to IAD was the most logical choice (longer runways, possibly dry, and plenty of company support).

-FlyerBeek