www.CostaRicaTicas.com

The morning flight from San Jose to Miami on an American Airlines 757 made an emergency diversion and landing on the Colombian island of San Andres today, Thursday, September 19. Apparently, not too long after departure, smoke appeared in the cabin and the Captain made the wise decision to land ASAP.

http://avherald.com/h?article=468b08a8&opt=0

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Thanks for the info PVT. Smoke in the cabin is now almost an automatic diversion and landing at the nearest accessible runway, unless they see the source and can resolve it quickly. If it's not obvious, pilots don't even bother looking for the source because it wastes precious time. Ever since a bad crash some years ago (see Swiss 111), pilots don't waste any time in declaring emergency to get priority and landing.

Agreed Orange...SwissAir was a tragedy that showed just how bad a fire in-flight could be. Never forget that one, as my father was an MD-11 pilot when that happened. Those guys had no chance as the insulation burned so fast in the worst location for a fire possible. Saw something recently that said even if they would have diverted when they first smelt smoke, they still wouldn't have had enough time to land safely as it only took 21 minutes from first smoke indications to the impact with the ocean. However, the industry did learn a great deal from that accident and now, there are much more strict rules on the insulation flammability. They also learned to immediately head for the nearest airport and put it on the ground NOT wasting time on checklists...

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I live actually in the small town that Swiss Air 111 crashed (well about 5 miles out). Same idea, smoke in the cockpit, lollylagged around dumping the fuel and in the end came up short of the airport due to fog, crashing into the bay after they confused the national highway as the runway.

Im just confused how an SJO-MIA flight the secondary airport is designated as Colombia? Why not San Salvador, Managua, Panama? I cant imagine you go that far south on a routing for MIA.

Its good to hear of the good stories though, and that at least a handful of pilots understand their training and make the appropriate actions to expedite through the actions to LAND NOW. Its one of those positions that I appreciate the probably old retired war-vet guys at the helm.

The Colombian island of San Andres where the flight landed is app 500 miles from the Colombian mainland and only app 150 miles from Nicaragua.

It's one of the issues Colombia and Nicaragua are fighting over, Nica saying it has always been theirs. I think the World Court at the Hague ruled against Nica on that a while back, but ruling for Nica saying a huge maritime area Colombia says was theirs belongs to Nica. Colombia is thumbing their nose at the decision. Nicaragua wants to expand their deep off-shore drilling, incidentally by a gringo company, the Colombians say no, no, no, don't you dare. Nicaragua recently purchased 4 war ships from the Russians.

And I am almost positive it said some martime areas CR believed was Tico was also Nica. If stuff happens, do you think CR is going to not let our ships dock in Limon like they routinely do for weeks at a time after various drug arrests, especially as of late.

where are PR and Els?

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Puerto Rico is app 1200 nautical miles believe it or not from SJ.

Very possible that the flight was headed north already over the Atlantic when the smoke was noticed, so closer to San Andres? And maybe they thought that San Andres is not a busy airport went into the equation?


Yep. From Aviation Herald, avherald.com

Incident: American B752 near San Andres on Sep 19th 2013, smoke in cabin

By Simon Hradecky, created Thursday, Sep 19th 2013 20:41Z, last updated Thursday, Sep 19th 2013 20:41Z

An American Airlines Boeing 757-200, registration N676AN performing flight AA-1204 from San Jose (Costa Rica) to Miami,FL (USA) with 178 passengers, was enroute near San Andres Island (Colombia) when the crew reported smoke in the cabine and diverted to San Andres for a safe landing.

The aircraft is currently being examined to identify the source of the smoke.

I was thinking the same thing when I first read it. I had to look it up on a map. San Andres is a small island north of Costa Rica and is directly in the flight path after departing SJO and turning northeast.

Makes sense, for whatever reason I had initially read it as MDE, and didn't follow up where the actual islands were located.

It just seemed bizarre to me, because most airports or airlines have a designated alternate of a major airport (I assume most smaller ones don't have adequate mechanic or emergency crew ). Hence why if you are heading north from say JFK, it is almost a given your secondary airport is BOS just because it is a major airport. I know even if you are something like 60miles from Halifax, the routing is still Boston even though Moncton is like a 2 hour drive away from Halifax and offers most the same abilities.

The odd thing about the 111 crash is they flew over Yarmouth airport, which is an old Navy base. I remember there was some commentary on runway length, but then noted they decided against it because of the lack of crew. Go figure.

If only all these emergency landings had a do-again feature Im sure most could have found a suitable solution. Mind you, being in a piece of metal at 35k above ground cruising 500 clicks an hour with 300 people packed as sardines, and a radar that shows 1201021021021020 other planes in your vector it probably doesnt help matters much.

You are talking about an alternate in case there is bad weather or closure at the destination airport, but when something happens en route, the pilots want to know the location of the nearest runway that can handle their plane, they don't even think about maintenance or available equipment. Unless they are in the middle of an ocean, they are always in radio contact with somebody, either a tower, tracon, or a route control center. The call the controller and request the nearest field and they would be guided in.

Since this has nothing to do with Costa Rica (outside Avianca flies to San Jose), figured I'd post this here where I figure aviation enthusiasts can see it.

On September 14th, an Avianca flight from Buenos Aires to Bogota in an Airbus A330 developed a HUGE fuel leak in-flight. Pilots made the decision to land at Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Landed fine but lost 17 tons out of 42 tons of fuel they left with. There is an amazing video of the landing on YouTube where you can see just how bad the fuel leak was. Amazing it never ignited....

YouTube video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MSgYB_zTcM
AVHerald description of the incident: http://avherald.com/h?article=468796d9&opt=0

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how on earth did that not ignite?
and the one little fire truck on the tarmac is certainly keeping its distance.
no foam no nothing wow those people are fortunate.

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im way deep into nothing special
riding the crest of a wave breaking just west of hollywood

Speaking of fuel leaks... I was coming back from a business trip a few months ago on Emirates A380. We boarded the flight for NY in Dubai and as we are pushing, the pilot hits the breaks hard. WTF? We don't move for about 15 minutes and no word. Then the pilot comes on and says that as we started to push, one of the ground workers noticed a fuel leak from one of the wings. Apparently, the fuel pump on that tank broke and fuel was leaking. Thank God somebody actually noticed it and he didn't start the engine. Who knows what could've happened...

They told us that they could replace the fuel pump right there at the gate in about an hour. 90 minutes later they says they weren't able to fix the problem and we must deplane. And the kicker... the next available A380 is en route from Australia. It will be landing in about 4 hours.

To echo and clarify several other posts above, the secondary or "alternate" airport is a NON-EMERGENCY arrival airport designated for a diversion if the primary arrival airport is unavailable. It has nothing to do with a diversion airport in an in-flight emergency.

Also:

The alternate is specifically related to the arrival airport, and would probably be something like Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale, or Tampa, in the case mentioned in the initial post. If you are in the middle of a ten-hour flight, your alternate is nowhere near where you are. The pilot does not even necessarily have to divert to the alternate airport -- he may divert to any airport he wishes, emergency or not, as long as he is legal in doing so (note: an actual emergency pretty much makes everything legal.). The reason for the alternate is to determine how much fuel the pilot must legally have on board, based on his calculations PRIOR to departure. Once airborne, there is no specific requirement to have a certain minimum amount of fuel remaining upon landing. But the flight plan filed prior to departure does require a certain minimum amount of fuel to be on board when the aircraft departs. Obviously, there are buffers built into the legal calculations that require more fuel on board than the pilot calculates to be the exact amount of fuel used for the entire flight, and the pilot will often add even more fuel at his discretion if he expects that he may need to maneuver around bad weather, lengthening the duration of the flight.

Alternates will often be odd, but they will include consideration for the airline's needs in servicing and repositioning the aircraft, as well as passenger handling. An emergency divert will be the closest suitable airport at the time the decision is made to divert, although some things that seem like they should be are not always emergencies, and a situation that requires a divert for mechanical failure or other reasons might not be to the nearest suitable airport, depending on the pilot's judgment and often (in the case of a non-imminent crash-type emergency) after consultation with a company dispatcher or maintenance specialist over the radio.

I guess all those gringo gulch mongers on the flight are gonna see those mansion gals frolicking on the San Andreas beaches courtesy of their gringo sponsors and end up joing the CR Sux Club!

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