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 two 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,
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