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 767 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 Haneada, near Tokyo, a half dozen JAL and western planes
got clearance in that direction but then ATC announced Haenada 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-pop
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 flooded
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-diverting 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, with at least 30 minutes of fuel
remaining before reaching a "true" fuel emergency situation. 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 767 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 air lines 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,
J.D.
In other words, putting the recorder in the fin is unlikely to improve the chances of recovering it. While the necessary technical maturity exists, said the working group, the proposal also scored poorly in terms of additional costs and weight because the lightweight recorder would complement, rather than replace, those already carried.
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