[Alex McWhirter]

Air France is facing real problems at Goose Bay (N Canada) today.

Its A380 operating non-stop Paris-Los Angeles suffered a major engine failure and had to divert to Goose Bay.

http://avherald.com/h?article=4af15205

The A380 landed safely. The problem now is knowing what to do with the A380’s passengers.

Reports say that passengers have been stranded on board the A380 for hours. At the time of writing they are unable to disembark because Goose Bay lacks the necessary facilities.

[PeterCoultas]

Sorry I just don’t accept that if my flight lands somewhere unexpected, I cannot get off the plane. Hopefully I will be in an exit row and then I will disembark myself. If there are not proper facilities that (so far as I am concerned) is the authorities problem and NOT MINE…Sensible support is one thing and something that pax will put up with…stupidity is different

[TominScotland]

PeterCoultas – absolutely agree with you. I too would get out my rope ladder and lower myself down to the ground. Out of interest, how were you proposing to disembark from an A380?

Have you been to Goose Bay? Makes Gander look big……

[MartynSinclair]

Ultimately it was the Captains decision where to land, but if it was urgent enough to use a non A380 diversion airport, why were the slides/chutes not deployed…?

Curiosity begs the question where the nearest A380 diversion airport was situated, based on the aircrafts position at time of emergency.

[GivingupBA]

Martyn, I wonder, don’t some people get minor injuries going down the chutes?

After seeing the engine damage, if I’d been the captain, or a passenger, I think would’ve been very glad just been glad to get back onto the ground, regardless of the state of the A380 deplaning facilities there!

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=829190]Sorry I just don’t accept that if my flight lands somewhere unexpected, I cannot get off the plane. Hopefully I will be in an exit row and then I will disembark myself. If there are not proper facilities that (so far as I am concerned) is the authorities problem and NOT MINE…Sensible support is one thing and something that pax will put up with…stupidity is different

[/quote]

I hope you don’t try to put that attitude into practice.

Firstly, these (unfortunate) passengers arrived on a flight that had an emergency, in a country that was not expecting them and where few would probably hold the necessary credentials (passports allowing visa free entry or ETAs) to clear immigration (even if it was staffed).

Also, Goose Bay is a military base with force protection personnel on patrol in the restricted areas – need I say more?

[pheighdough]

MartynSinclair your quote ‘Ultimately it was the Captains decision where to land, but if it was urgent enough to use a non A380 diversion airport, why were the slides/chutes not deployed…?’ is missing the point

The urgency was to get on the ground ASAP, Goose Bay rather than an A380 diversion airport, due to the (yet to be fully confirmed) uncontained engine failure, not to evacuate the passengers.

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=829200]Ultimately it was the Captains decision where to land, but if it was urgent enough to use a non A380 diversion airport, why were the slides/chutes not deployed…?

Curiosity begs the question where the nearest A380 diversion airport was situated, based on the aircrafts position at time of emergency.

[/quote]

Difficult to know why, given we don’t have access to the commander’s thinking, but having had a substantial part of the engine shear off, I imagine the first priority was to get on the ground, so they could assess the damage properly, particularly damage to the underside of the wing and the empennage.

As nothing was on fire, once safely down, I assume he decided that the risk of injuries from using the slides was higher than the risk of asking local fire crew/engineers to assess the damage to decide if they needed to evacuate, presumably the reports giving them the confidence to keep everyone together in the controlled environment of the aircraft, rather than dispersing them on a dark apron.

[SimonS1]

I do love the indignance shown by keyboard warriors who have no doubt never been in such a situation.

A major mechanical failure and no doubt the commander’s priority was to get the plane on the ground asap. You can see from media reports that the engine had totally disintegrated and it is quite likely that even if there was no immediate emergency that required de-planing the commander would not have known what secondary damage might have occurred to put the aircraft in danger.

Fortunately you normally find the likes of PeterCoultas have a lot to say but when you see them off the keyboard and in the real world they generally seem to be struck dumb and the great tales of bravado and derring-do never seem to quite come to life. Shame, as an arrest at a military base in front of 400 other passengers would be good entertainment to lighten their morale.

[SimonS1]

Some video here of the plane landing plus pictures. You can see with hanging debris etc the pilot was probably keen to get landed.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/air-france-emergency-landing-goose-bay-1.4315132
http://avherald.com/h?article=4af15205&opt=0

It seems that AF have flown in 2 aircraft (777/737) and all passengers and baggage will be at LAX with a delay of less that 24H. Not ideal, and possibly not up to PeterCoultas lofty standards, but a pretty good recovery nonetheless.

[Alex McWhirter]

In the past hour Air France has issued a statement regarding the 497 passengers who have been stranded in Goose Bay.

It has leased a B737 which will take passengers from Goose Bay to Los Angeles via Winnipeg.

And an Air France B777-300ER will take the rest of the passengers from Goose Bay to Atlanta from where they will proceed to Los Angeles with Delta.

http://corporate.airfrance.com/en/information-about-flight-af066-paris-los-angeles-30-september-2017

[CathayLoyalist2]

If you also factor in the temperature which was 7c hardly an environment to evacuate given all the facilities would not exist to care for so many people. If there was no apparent danger then on-board was probably the best option. In 2014 an SQ A 380 from LHR- SIN diverted to Baku because of a faulty door. Same situation i.e airport not A 380 ready/compliant, no SQ staff so they had to be flown in, replacement aircraft dispatched and few if any passengers had visa’s. The key here was SQ like AF responded as quickly as they could in the circumstances.

[FDOS_UK]

I think it is somewhat unfortunate that heavily disrupted pax need to stop and transfer in Atlanta.

That’s sticking two fingers up at a lot of (presumably economy) pax.

YYR (Goose Bay) to LAX is 3,097 miles

YYR-ATL-LAX is 3,747 miles and the inconvenience of a stop, with the attendant customs clearance and baggage re-checking – poor sho, IMHO.

[PeterCoultas]

Nice that SimonS1 is so compliant and always does as he is ordered – my view is sometimes to think for myself. I’ve only deplaned once after being told it was not allowed, at Heathrow, from a Pan Am flight that had had hydrolic failures. A grilling by officials was the only consequence.

[SimonS1]

[quote quote=829239]Nice that SimonS1 is so compliant and always does as he is ordered – my view is sometimes to think for myself. I’ve only deplaned once after being told it was not allowed, at Heathrow, from a Pan Am flight that had had hydrolic failures. A grilling by officials was the only consequence.

[/quote]

Yeah right. In this case there were no stairs on the plane so you would have deplaned yourself through an emergency exit down the slide onto an Air Force base.

There is a slight difference between thinking for yourself and being a complete tool.

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