"Pilots Pull Rank, Declare Emergency At JFK (With Audio)"

[Catmando]

Here is an interesting AvWeb article about an American Airlines flight declaring an Emergency with JFK tower to land on a different runway, because of heavy crosswinds. Well worth reading.

LINK

Of course the audio is even better! AUDIO

A friend of mine was in the "Cactus" heard on the audio, and he had some very interesting observations...(but not for publication, unfortunately.)

 

[lowflier03]

Will be interesting to see what the fallout is. Better to declare and land safely than to just go with the fly and have something happen.

 

[jt71582]

Good on them. Really interesting to hear, as a Primary stud, it's cool to hear the pilots make the safer decision. I've heard a few exchanges like this (none this serious) on approach freq. here. +1 Cat for sharing this.

 

[nittany03]

Will be interesting to see what the fallout is. Better to declare and land safely than to just go with the fly and have something happen.

This. They beat this into your head in flight school, but doesn't often occur in the "real world." YOU are the PIC, and you are authorized to deviate from any clearance given or any FAR in the books if necessary to maintain safety of flight. If ATC is giving you a clearance which will cause you to violate NATOPS or put people in danger, the magic word is "UNABLE." That said, I am interested in why they picked the e-word rather than getting held somewhere until able to get sequenced in to their necessary runway, but I'm not going to be a ready-room commando based on the content of one article.

 

[jt71582]

What repercussions are there for actually declaring in this situation? Extra paperwork? I had a gear emergency recently which ended up being just an indicator failure, approach seemed like they were trying to get us to say the "e" word, but my instructor just requested course rules home for a visual inspection.

 

[yak52driver]

I'm not sure what their outcome will be, but I declared once for an engine out. All I had was paperwork and no fallout from the FAA.

 

[Ducky]

What repercussions are there for actually declaring in this situation? Extra paperwork? I had a gear emergency recently which ended up being just an indicator failure, approach seemed like they were trying to get us to say the "e" word, but my instructor just requested course rules home for a visual inspection.

There probably will not be any repercussions and if any it would probably be on the controller. The pilots were well within their rights. If you use the E-word you will have priority handling above all aircraft in the vicinity which is probably why approach was asking you. For EP sims in advanced and the RAG shit will magically keep getting worse until you declare an emergency.

In the situation of the airline pilot I wonder how much fuel they had remaining and if that played a role in their decision to declare an emergency. I have heard with cost cutting the airlines only carry the fuel needed to make the flight happen plus whatever is legally required above that amount..

 

[FrankTheTank]

Company will do all the paperwork for them. Then it will be up to the Feds and their company Standards folks to work out the details of how to address their decision and any actions against their tickets. Or at least that is how it works here.. Unless a Fed is on board and then they can take action on the spot!

 

[ryan1234]

21kt x-wind doesn't seem too bad...

but... what would have happened if something were to happen (whether from pilot error or whatever) and metal was bent? The NTSB would immediately find the cause, more than likely, poor pilot decision making. Better safe than sorry.

It's been pretty gusty around here...today I think it's a little worse than a few days ago.

 

[MAKE VAPES]

It doesn't make a shitting bit of difference how many times you say the "E word", if 31 can't be cleared and the dude is willy nilly flying visuals counterflow to all other planes and he smacks into another plane the suck factor multiplies exponentially... Declaring an emergency shouldn't make it dangerous for all other aircraft out there... The controller has more to deal with than one dude who doesn't seem to like crosswinds (who the hell does?).

There must be more to the story besides some crosswinds (otw this dude is a serious _pussy_), all the other folks were landing on 22 just fine, localizer or no localizer.... must be an AF dude.

 

[PropStop]

I don't think you should be declaring an emergency for bad cross winds - makes me think there's more to this story. If you can't do it, just say "unable" and fly whatever vectors they give you for another runway. If you're low on gas, call min fuel. I'd like to learn a bit more about this.

 

[jarhead]

Is there more to the situation? Or was the “e” word thrown out because of wind limits?

It would be kinda shady to throw the “e” word on short final in order to get the rwy you needed at the expense of causing a huge redass for everybody else. There’s gotta be more to it…

 

[insanebikerboy]

Well, reading about this on other blogs/websites, fuel may have indeed been a factor. If that was in fact the case then I can see why declaring an emergency occurred. Otherwise, I dunno. That said, I'm not gonna armchair the decision as the Captain made what he felt was a safe decision.

 

[HAL Pilot]

Max demonstrated x-wind for the 767-300 is 33 kts. While it is not technically a limitation if you f'ed it up with anything higher, you'd be doing some explaning. But does this constitute an emergency or should he have just diverted? I don't see this as being any different than anyother weather divert. Unless there is more to the story, I think he abused his authority.

 

[eas7888]

Every airline has company policies concerning landing minimums and maximum crosswinds. It's entirely possible that his company policy required the localizer for a visual approach with these crosswinds. Not knowing American Airlines' company policy, I can't say for sure.

What I can say for sure is that 14CFR part 121.639 is pretty clear about fuel to be required on board. These pilots should have had more than enough fuel on board to fly runway heading, and then be sequenced for the approach. Especially if conditions were VMC.

I don't know all of the details, or what was actually happening in the cockpit/cabin/dispatch, but from the details I have read, it would appear as if the emergency may have been used a little prematurely. It's also important to think about how much this pilot cost all of the other aircraft/airlines involved in his Emergency.

As a disclaimer, I want to again reiterate that I don't know if this was a valid Emergency or not. The pilot may have been completely justified. Given the details that I have, it does leave a lot of doubt in my mind.