United flight 1111 from San Francisco to Lihue, Kauai on Tuesday, Feb 7: a four hour loopdy loop (Image: FlightAware)
On Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., United flight 1111 took off from San Francisco International with a likely load of gleeful passengers bound for paradise.
Then something happened and the flight had to return to San Francisco…. after circling over the Pacific Ocean for four hours, arriving at about 1 pm.
I was not on this flight, but have been able to piece together what happened.
UA1111 departed on time at around 9 a.m. bound for Lihue, Kauai, but experienced a maintenance issue shortly after take off which required a return to SFO.
To make it to Kauai safely (2,540 miles away), a Boeing 757 is loaded down with a LOT of very heavy fuel. It’s so heavy in fact, that the plane cannot land with that much fuel onboard.
Don’t miss: First look inside United’s newest jet: The Boeing 777-300ER [PHOTOS]
United flight 1111 preparing for take off to Lihue- I took this flight last summer ! (Chris McGinnis)
In many cases like this, the pilots would quickly jettison the fuel at a high altitude. Once the fuel is offloaded, the plane could return and land. (Jettisoned fuel disperses into the atmosphere and does not come raining down to earth. See: Fuel Dumping)
However, a Boeing 757 is not able to dump fuel, according to my aviation geek buddies with whom I had a Twitter chat about this.
So… this meant that pilots had to fly the plane in circles for four hours off the coast to burn off fuel and lighten up before returning to SFO for a safe landing at 1 pm.
I can only imagine the groans from passengers when the pilot had to inform them that they’d be flying around for four hours, landing back in rainy SFO instead of sunny Kauai. In Kauai, there were undoubtedly people to meet, cars to rent, meetings to attend and hotel rooms reserved. These folks were ready to get their toes in the sand, no doubt!
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View of Hanalei Bay from a room at the St Regis Princeville in Kauai (Chris McGinnis)
I contacted United to find out how this all played out, and it sounds like the airline did a good job recovering from this mishap. A spokesperson told TravelSkills that when the plane landed back at SFO, United offered passengers drink and meal vouchers. Another plane was called into service to re-accommodate passengers, and took off at 4:30 pm and arrived in Lihue 6 hours later at about 9 p.m.
UPDATE: A lot of readers are wondering why United didn’t just fly the plane to Hawaii if they were going to circle for a few hours. The reason is that United did not want to fly a faulty aircraft thousands of miles out over the ocean. Instead, pilots circled within a few hundred miles of SFO so they could land if they had to. Here’s an image of how far the flight is to Hawaii… and how close the plane stayed to SFO.
Mid point to Hawaii is 1,250 miles from the nearest airport– no place to be flying a faulty plane! (Image: FlightAware)
Phew! Has this ever happened to you? What’s the worst or most painful delay or cancellation you’ve had to deal with? Please leave your comments below.
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To his credit, you could always explain it to him instead of being a condescending cunt.
It’s “they’re” not “their”, but wishing you well with the ride next time
Thanks, Michael.
Guess the main points I was making are 1) that the longer the connecting times, the less likely we will miss vital connections and 2) airline approved minimum onnecting times are often not realistic.
Although this does not matter nearly as much when a lot of alternative flights are available, it becomes critical in situations like LAX where all direct flights to the South Pacific leave in the evening. Miss those and we’re automatically at least a day late.
When deciding connection times, we also have to factor in the importance of being on time. Off to Oz for three weeks of quality beach time? No disaster. Off to a business meeting upon arrival that may bring in millions of dollars? A very big deal.
Don,
The delay in New York was over four hours, so even using the 75 minutes you recommend, I would still have missed the flight, and the remaining flights that day.
Turbulent enough that several passengers were vomiting most of the time.
Thank you for sharing. Was curious. Would love to hear more about that flight. I see from your above posts that it was turbulent most of the time??
makes me think of Dirks Bently “drunk on a plane”! Great video.
That’s a great question. United should award miles for that flight and the next one. Since you have to fly to earn miles (can’t buy a ticket and not take a flight to “top off” miles), you should earn miles both times here!
Worst situation was flying from SFO to Ohare. Plane diverted to Indianapolis because of thunder storms. Sat on tarmac and on plane for about 6 hours since gates were occupied. Got in to Ohare around 1 am
My worst was Detroit to Shanghai, about 4 hours north of Detroit going over the pole and the bathrooms started having problems. Had to turn around and fly back to Detroit. Spend the night there and do it again the next day…
I feel for you, it certainly doesn’t sound like fun. That said, a lot of the blame rests with you. United is famous for this kind of debacle; statistically they do it far more often than all the other US airlines, combined! (excluding the ultra-low-cost Spirit, Frontier, etc). If you chose to fly United anyways, you get what you deserve
You watch too much TV. It it needed to land right now, the worst that would have happened is it would have blown a few tires resulting in a bumpy landing. No big fireball
Autopilot not functioning according to the pilot. I was on the flight.
It was the passengers on Kauai ready to come to SFO who had to wait at the airport for 9 hours for their plane to get there. There are no replacement aircraft on Kauai.
I was a passenger on the flight. The new flight boarded for a 3pm departure. Then we had another problem. A new crew was called in, but one of the members was stuck in traffic. It was a major rain day and there were accidents all over the bay area. We sat on the replacement aircraft for 1.5 hours before takeoff. Oh, and when the crew member finally got there, they couldn’t find a push crew to get us out of the gate. Harrowing day.
The reason we were told that we needed to return to SFO was that the autopilot was inoperable. That presumes both pilot and co pilot will be incapacitated. What?????
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/20f9a9539b7f1a1b5b0ac72c94351af82a6e3a63bd34c2a3bfb143c538da906a.jpg
I was on Flight 1111 on Feb. 7. I wrote a log of what was happening the entire incident. United ultimately offered some award miles or $200. travel certificate. The food voucher was $10. which buys a bag of popcorn and a small drink. No one knew about the voucher until they arrived at the new gate after which they had already eaten and were about to board the new aircraft….after 4 hours in air plus boarding time and wait time to take off……Here’s there actual photo of our loop de loop. At least 3 passengers around me were vomiting most of the time. It was a turbulent flight day in more than one way. Chris, if you want more on this please give me a way to reach you.
Neither can gliders
All large passenger airplanes are built like this.
I not so fondly remember spending many hours in a hanger in Bangor due to lost engine. Thanks for the reminder. 🙂
I thought that wind isn’t that big a deal for large jets. There are also some pretty large single runway airports like San Diego. If they had to turn around and make an unscheduled landing pronto, I doubt they worry too much about landing into the wind.
Interesting. I haven’t been diverted to Bangor or Gander for fuel since the days of the 707!
Simply put, the engineering and extra weight needed to design and build a transport category airplane capable of always landing at the maximum takeoff weight would make the airplane economically unviable to operate for the airlines.
Good question. That would depend on whether ATC has room for them in that area or if they would be in the way of other traffic flying into or out of SFO. My guess is (strictly a WAG) is they did it somewhere 10 and 20,000 feet. It also would depend on whether the ride was smooth at those altitudes. No use making everyone sick just to save a few minutes of flying time.
Shaggy, mike was making a snarky comment and a lame attempt to be funny. It was not a serious question and yes, it did make him look stupid. You want some reasons to circle for 4 hours and then return to SFO? 1: The electronic engine control is showing a failure mode. The engine is still running but it’s sick. 2. Loss of one of the two air conditioning/pressurization systems. 3. Loss of an engine driven hydraulic pump…….need I go on? The point is there are MANY maintenance problems that allow the airplane to continue to fly safely, but would preclude a long ocean crossing. Mike’s comment implying this was an economics problem is typical of people always thinking that the airline is out to screw you just because they can. That’s pure BS and it did make him sound foolish. Those pilots chose to fly for 4 hours to burn, oh I don’t know, 20,000 or more pounds of fuel for safety reasons. That’s at least 3500 gallons of fuel which probably cost United $7000 or more. Does this sound like it was done for economic reasons? If people want to make comments on these threads that are serious, then I’m all for it. But if someone wants to sound off with something stupid and trying make it sound like the airline was just out to screw the poor passengers again then I can’t help but respond because frankly I get tired of that same old meme. BTW, I don’t work for United.
So……….an aircraft loaded with fuel that cannot be dumped while in flight, has to circle for a few hours to burn up enough fuel to now be light enough to land. So tell me, what would have happened if it needed to make a RIGHT NOW emergency landing…..because it is to heavy with fuel it will end up a big fireball on the runway. Does that sound about right ?
Could have been any number of things such as an engine issue that caused them to have to throttle back or shut down one engine and, were they to then lose the other, they needed to be close to land and an airport, not half way to Hawaii.
Wow, what an amazing coincidence. Just last Monday I was driving a van full of veterans to the VA hospital (It’s a program run by DAV – if you have some spare time and live near a VA hospital you should consider volunteering at least a day a week) and, in front of me, I saw a multi-car accident that must have just happened before the spot came into view. Behind me I saw a fire truck and 2 highway patrol cars coming, stuck in the same traffic I was in as the accident was in lanes just ahead of where we all were. I motioned for other drivers to get out of the way of the responding emergency vehicles as I moved to the right shoulder, only to have them just hit the gas and fill in the gap I left, also preventing them from getting out of the way as now the shoulder was occupied by me and they couldn’t. Now maybe I deserve some compensation, but I’m more concerned about the vets who could have missed important appointments.
NO, the maintenance issue made them want to stay near land in case it got worse and an overweight landing was necessary. The circling for 4 hours was due to the gross weight of the plane, with the full fuel needed to get to Hawaii and have enough in case they had to wait or divert once there, was more than the plane is supposed to land with except in emergencies, as it could damage the structure or landing gear. This was for the most part explained in the story.
Yeah the funny thing is I heard a story JUST LIKE YOURS but it was recent, a couple years, maybe 5 if that long, no longer…
Unfortunate, but not unique.
Made it there, just DID NOT LAND THERE it seems…
With excess fuel there is also a higher chance of a huge fire.
Danno111964, Mike asked a legitimate question which you adeptly sidestepped, so why don’t you do one of the two following suggestions: 1. Answer Mike’s question: ” What kind of maintenance emergency necessitates returning to the origin airport but allows them to fly in circles for 4 hours first? ” or 2: Do as you suggested Mike do: SHUT UP! He is not a pilot and is not so informed. You are.
You are only providing part of the story. What was the reason for the delay? In all likelihood it has something to do with the weather or the air controllers. No airline just decides to tell its pilots Let’s keep the plane on the runway for at least 6 hours so that we can annoy the passengers.
Let’s not forget, Hawaii is pretty much right smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I wouldn’t want to fly that far out over water and away from an airport in a faulty aircraft. Safety is always first!!
A passenger on a Southwest flight says that he once faced a flight delay just before they boarded.
A flight attendant picked up the microphone and announced:
“We’re sorry for the delay. The machine that normally rips the handles off your luggage is broken, so we’re having to do it by hand. We should be finished and on our way shortly.”
danno – do you know if they would circle at a lower altitude as more fuel consumed that way?
Rt, you certainly are not an engineer are you? Do you want to pay double for every flight you take in order to carry around all the extra weight of heavier landing gear and structure of the airplane. I doubt it.
Why build a plane that would be damaged if landed with almost full fuel?
Mike, if you don’t know what you are talking about, then just be quiet. It makes you look foolish when you say stupid stuff like that. Being an airline pilot for almost 30 years I can tell you there are numerous reasons I would want to return to the airport and not want to fly across the ocean. As is explained in the article the 757 cannot dump fuel and the only option is to fly around in circles to burn the fuel. If this had been a serious emergency such as an engine failure or fire on board, rest assured that these pilots would have returned to SFO and landed overweight. But doing that has its own set of problems to consider as well. It sounds like they did the most prudent and safe thing by circling.
http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/airports/faqs/fueldump.pdf
They did not want to fly thousands of miles out over the Pacific ocean in a faulty plane. The circling took place within a few hundred miles of SFO.
If they had just flown southwest for 4 hours instead of in circles they would have been almost to Hawaii. What kind of maintenance emergency necessitates returning to the origin airport but allows them to fly in circles for 4 hours first? Sounds like its more about economics than safety.
Flying used to always be like that. I recall a Pan Am 707 flight to London where everyone on the plane was drunk (including the cabin staff but hopefully not the pilots).
The plane looked like a nightclub after a 2am fight by the time we got out
You might have been lucky. My scariest moment flying was when the pilot of a turbo-prop made three failed visual attempted landings at Eureka, CA when it was socked in with fog. I just remember thinking – take us back to Portland.
We eventually diverted to Crescent City.
Not a terribly exciting destination but a terrible “delay”: Flying from Denver to Fargo, ND – a 90-minute direct flight. Fargo airport was socked in by fog, so they held the flight for an hour before deciding to “try it” with the hopes that the fog would clear out by arrival. Plane made it all the way to Fargo, which was still socked in so we circled for an hour [seriously] before the pilot decided to fly all the way back to Denver (instead of something closer and busing us, even though that’s what they had originally told us they would do).
Rebooked for the morning, but get there only to be told that our tickets had been marked as used because the computers registered that the plane had made it to Fargo.
When it happens to me it is worse. Why!? Because it’s me. Look at it this way: When someone gets stabbed or shot. it’s a sad thing. When it’s you, it’s much more personal. Why did I pick that analogy? Pain infliction and pain suffering. When it’s someone else suffering you’re empathetic.When it’s you, it’s personal.
As for Delta, Virgin and American, I’ve had issues with all of them, but nowhere near what United did. I’ve also had the opposite experience where all three have gone above and beyond to make my flying experience memorable, instead of emotionally painful. Especially Delta, but that’s another story.
Not exactly sure, but near 20 years ago. It’s one of the many stories that passed the three hour rule on flight delays with people stuck on planes like prisoners. It can’t ever happen again, but I still will never fly United.
If I wanted to save money, I would have taken Southwest. I like how you think you know me, but don’t. As for “taking it out” on the Stewardess. i didn’t yell, scream or rant. I explained my frustration and my displeasure with United’s service. She’s their frontline representative . It’s her job to hear it.
It’s worth noting for the folks that think the aircraft can’t land while overweight and that makes not having a fuel dump dangerous: an aircraft can make an overweight landing if remaining in the air is more dangerous. But… The potential damage to the aircraft means it’s out of service until major inspections occur. Costs from that loss of service tend to be higher than the extra hours of flight while fuel is burned off. You weren’t in danger at any point either way, but it’s nice to complain about stuff… My question is how many frequent flyer miles were earned for the SFO->SFO flight?
When I was a child, my father would take us to Hawaii every winter break. One year we took off from Sea-Tac and promptly had to turn right around and land again. We were told a hawk flew into an engine. ???! So rather than depart, we stayed on the plane ALL day while the necessary repairs were made. The flight attendants were serving free drinks. Everyone got hammered. This was before they would ‘cut you off’ after a few drinks. Smoking was also allowed. I remember how wild the plane got. It was one loud party! The lady sitting in front of me was hanging over the back of her seat ‘getting acquainted’ with us. She was so ripped. Everyone had a great time. Finally, we took off again and landed around midnight on Oahu.
I wish all fellow travelers had your attitude! You can always count on at least one or two freaking out and making it miserable for everyone. We’re all on the same boat (aircraft) and going through the same thing, we all had our plans screwed up, and we are all handling it like adults…except a few.
I guess bigdaddykevin likes to comment on stories without reading them…
You can find a similar story on every airline in existence. We all know that the next time you’re looking for a flight and United is $8 less than the others, you’ll happily book. And real classy move to take it out on the flight attendant. They are the ones who make all the decisions and delay flights just for the fun of it, after all.
The problem with overweight landings is not that it’ll go off the end or that it’ll blow out the tires. The problem is that if the landing is too firm you could damage the structures that the landing gear is attached to up inside the aircraft, requiring AT LEAST an inspection. That’ll take time, cost money, and burn up needed crew duty/rest time, especially if you don’t have an inspector there. (Or a spare crew.) Usually you’re way ahead to just drive around gear/flaps down to burn fuel.
None of the Bombardier Canadair Regional Jets can dump either.
You are correct Jon. Very few aircraft have the ability to dump fuel.
How many years ago was this Sir?
The only reason a plane can dump fuel is for situations where an engine(s) flame out right after V2 and need to reduce the weight to meet the 152′ climb rate per mile. Generally these are the larger international jets.
The 737 cannot dump fuel and as already stated, the A320 line of planes can’t dump fuel. Good luck going anywhere with your position of not flying on a plane that cannot dump fuel.
I was on a highway one time and a stupid ambulance had its sirens on. I had to pull over and wait for it to drive by. The DMV didn’t give me a damn thing for the loss of my time. So I know how you feel. Its messed up.
Uhhhh…….. do you have any idea how many Airbus aircraft don’t have fuel dumping capabilities? The entire A320 line of planes, which is most of the fleet is unable to dump fuel. The737, which is the most common plane out there does not have the ability to dump fuel. So your comment that you have never heard of a commercial plane that cannot dump fuel seems to only show a flaw in your knowledge of commercial jets rather than a flaw in the design of a 757. It sounds like you have an axe to grind with American ingenuity, but it is misplaced in this article.
United. The airline I will never fly again even it was free. Even if they paid me to fly it. No way. No how.
The normal flight time from las Vegas to SFO is 1hr 40 minutes. My flight took over 9 hours. After loading the plane and departing the gate, we sat on the tarmac in Las Vegas for SIX HOURS. They ran out of everything, including water. They would not let us off the plane. Finally we took off to SFO. When we landed we taxied to an open gate, but sat outside of it for 75 minutes. We were told repeatedly that it wasn’t our gate, but 75 minutes later we pulled in and were finally let off the plane.
As we left the plane the stewardess said “thank you for flying United”. I told her it would be the last time. I rhetorically asked her the drive time from Las Vegas to SFO. I informed her is was less than the time it took the plane . I informed her that if I had driven I would have been home an hour ago. I informed her I still had an hour drive to get home. I kept my temper, but made my agitation known.
I asked why we sat outside an open gate so long and was finally informed they had no jetway crew yo deplane us as they were busy keeping other planes on time. Because we were already late, it wouldn’t harm their on time performance rate if we waited longer.
Because of this, and until Virgin started flying to Las Vegas, I choose Delta and transferred in SLC. it was faster.
No, what I mean is, take off from Runway 10L and land on Runway 28R, for example – literally the same piece of pavement but in the opposite direction. Not only does that require departing and landing at the same airport, but having the wind reverse direction in the interim and being assigned to the same strip of pavement (since a lot of airports have shorter runways that they use mostly for landing).
Pan Am had the worst service of any US airline! They deserved to go bankrupt! It should have happened to them 20 years earlier.
The 757 cannot dump fuel..?WTF** No wonder Airbus can compete with Boeing. What a stupid friggin way to build a plane! I have never head of a commercial jet that could not dump its fuel load in case of an emergency.
No because the fuel was too heavy to land .
Plenty. A lot of recreational pilots take off and land at the same airport. There were Concorde flights that did that so the passengers could experience supersonic flight.
I’m pretty sure the preference is to land with the fuel load reduced, but if they really have to land (with the weight of the fuel) they’ll only be a few hundred miles away from an airport. They wouldn’t be able to make an emergency landing in the middle of the Pacific.
Circling for 4 hours because of a maintenance issue?!?
The slope of a runway can be a factor, as well as the temperature. I was taking off from the old Austin, TX airport about 20 years ago, and we had to take off in the opposite direction to all the other traffic. The slope, temperature and weight of the plane more than compensated for the usual rule that you take off or land into the wind.
Needless to say, it took a long time to wait for a long enough gap in traffic to do this.
Nice – so the winds had reversed direction before you landed?
It happened to me many years ago on a Sunday afternoon Delta flight out of ATL. Once our Lockheed L-1011 got airborne the pilot realized that he had a mechanical problem and the safest thing to do was return to ATL. It took about 40 minutes for the aircraft to circle around, get into the landing queue, land and taxi back to the same gate that we had departed from. After the 230 or so passengers exited the plane and the bags were offloaded, the plane was towed away. It took about 2 hours for Delta to find another L-1011. We had to re-board and wait for the luggage to again be loaded. The 2nd aircraft then took off and flew to Tampa without incident. What should have been a 1.5 hour trip took about 5 hours. We were never told what the problem was that caused the pilot to need to return to Atlanta.
That sounds logical.
Well, OK, better to attempt an over-weight landing on a runway that is too short than drop into the sea, sure. But that really wasn’t what I was saying here.
The risks of landing on a runway that is too short are considerable – not just burst tires, but brakes failing due to over-heating, under-carriage failure due to excess weight or running out of runway.
Maybe fly to Edwards AFB if the problem is that serious – its runway is 7.5 miles long
Be very cautious about airline “minimum connection times.” I always use the 75 minutes that American allows for a domestic connection to Qantas at LAX as an example of what of avoid.
If missed, there is little chance that you will get a direct flight to Australia until the next evening. Moreover, given how booked these flights seem to be the wait may be longer.
I’m sure I sound mean, but I thought it was fair enough: I was on my first flight to Hawaii. We were more than half way there. Medical emergency. They chose to go back to SF. I had come from LA and had been on the plane a long time. I got nothing. NOTHING. I asked the carrier for credit on the miles flown. Refused. Lost 8 hours of very very very precious vacation time.
Even better!
I believe the Airbus A-319, 320 and 321 cannot dump fuel either.
What was the maintenance issue that made it impossible to go to Kauai, yet possible to circle over the ocean for 4 hours?
UNBELIEVABLE, not only someone photograph the missing engine and part of the wing of the Pan Am 707 out of SFO to Honolulu in 1965, they had their 8mm going as they took off and moments later the engine ripped off. Type “Pan Am 707 engine loss SFO to Honolulu 1965” in google search and you will see the news story with you tube link. Back then, it appears that people would take home movies on planes. In that Pan Am story, he and his wife apparently had to put the camera down shortly after the engine loss, and prepare for emergency landing with heads in lap, and then later he filmed again after landing at Travis AFB. I wonder if anyone had their camera rolling when the Pan Am 747 hit a light instrument when taking off for Tokyo in 1970 out of SFO. I love Pan Am, but they sure had their troubles. Flew back from LAX on a Pan Am 747 after a Disneyland trip in the 80s when the tickets were 29 bucks.
The engine actually fell near an airplane engine repair shop.
“The engine fell near a auto repair shop” – you just can’t make this stuff up!!
…But that’s not what your comment said that I was responding too.
“why does it even matter where the plane is? It is 4 hours from anywhere and everywhere, even if it is 10 miles off the CA coast”
Well it very much matters, in the case of potential mechanical failure while dumping it’s fuel (the reason why it’s not preceding on the flight plan in the first place), circling just off the coast it can quickly land on a runway somewhere, in the middle of the pacific it obviously cannot. Seems rather elementary to me.
Planes can often take off from a runway that they cannot land on – a fully loaded plane can take off where it could not land.
Running out of runway on a landing sounds pretty dangerous to me.
If it had been an emergency, the plane could have landed immediately. It simply might have blown out the tires. Since there was no emergency here, UA correctly chose to just burn off the fuel
Cant be worse than my experience in a plane crash the time i took Ryan Air……
“The solid line displayed on a FlightAware map is a connected series of points between every position report received for that aircraft. Generally, we receive a position every 15-60 seconds.
The dashed line is the planned route of flight per air traffic control. Often times, a flight will deviate from the planned route due to weather, shortcuts, traffic, or other operational factors.”
I am surprised that they flew such a weird pattern. Normally when a plane needs to kill time for several hours, they will just repeat the same circle or oval pattern over and over again
A good traveler is a patient, flexible, understanding traveler! Why make yourself (and everyone else) miserable when bad things happen? Of course, having access to a decent lounge is definitely a bonus. I spent six hours in the UA Denver lounge recently and hardly noticed the delay.
Right. If you had been in a hurry, you should have booked passage on an ocean ship. It would have taken you 3 weeks.
Had it been a real emergency, this flight could have landed immediately. It simply might have blown out the tires. Since there was no emergency here, UA correctly chose to just burn off the fuel
I’m don’t fly UA (for obvious reasons); I guess I have to recalibrate my expectations. To me, providing a replacement plane after a situation like this is not something to be commended, it’s the bare minimum expectation
The lack of a fuel dump is not a safety concern. Had it been a real emergency, this flight could have landed immediately. It simply would have blown out the tires. Since there was no emergency, UA correctly chose to just burn off the fuel
How many people get to take off and land on the same runway, but from the opposite direction?
“Heavy” really refers to the wake turbulence that an airplane gives off. It’s a reminder for controllers to give extra separation between a heavy and a lighter aircraft type.
The 757 was put into the heavy class based on some anecdotal evidence when it was first put into service. There were a few instances of trailing pilots reporting turbulence, so out of an abundance of caution the 757 was classified as a heavy.
This wasn’t a problem at the time, but as airspace has gotten more crowded it’s gotten to be a big deal. Through the ’90s and 2000s, NASA did a lot of research on the topic for the FAA and determined that the 757 wasn’t nearly as turbulent as the other aircraft in the heavy class. Hence, they recategorized it (and some other aircraft) in a NextGen initiative called Wake Recategorized. I think it was Memphis that ended up seeing huge capacity gains as a result, as the 757 is a staple of the FedEx fleet.
Long story short, don’t trust the “heavy” designation to be synonymous with long haul. After all, it uses exactly the same engines as a 767.
The map appears to show the flight path as a solid green line, what does the dashed blue line represent?
My worst experience was traveling from New York to Sydney. The domestic flight out of New York to the West Coast was delayed several hours because of a maintenance issue with one of the three radios on the plane. The delay was so extensive that I not only missed my flight out of the west coast to Sydney, but 2 subsequent ones, and there were no more until the following day, with no certainty of a seat being available.
The carrier arranged to send me to Sydney using flights stopping in London and Singapore, but I still only arrived two days after my original scheduled arrival date. To cap it all off, my luggage for the three week trip was sent to the west coast and took another 2 days to reach me, though I was compensated with a $200 personal effects voucher.
There’s clearly a big difference between not landing because it’s not recommended with a heavy fuel load and not landing because there’s no runway. Come on RichLL!
Fair point except that is the plane is too heavy to land, then why does it even matter where the plane is?
I would say it’s because you don’t want to be flying a faulty aircraft way out over the pacific… midpoint to Hawaii is 1250 miles from land. The plane circled a few hundred miles offshore.
Yes, it’s disturbing to see 757’s used in this way. I’m assuming the same applies to the odd A319/A320 and 737 that is now appearing on Trans-Atlantic routes. Icelandair’s entire trans-Atlantic fleet is 757’s.
Widebodies can all, to my knowledge, dump fuel. Funny thing is, the 757 is designated as a “heavy” for ATC purposes, but shares none of the benefits of that.
About this time last year my wife and I were waiting at the gate to board a flight from SFO to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific. Long after boarding should have started, the agent informed us that the flight was being delayed to the next day because one of the three required pilots was ill. Cathay doesn’t have a crew base at SFO and the crew that just arrived was timed out due to crew rest requirements so…Cathay put us up in a nearby hotel and we left the next day after another pilot was flown over from Hong Kong.
Our mantra when flying has become, “when time’s no care, go by air”.
Well, I was thinking that at least they brought in another plane… and did not make them take other flights or wait til the next day. And I’m sure that UAL doesn’t have extra 757s just waiting around at SFO… it had to come from somewhere…..
If the reason for turning back is that the plane is unsafe, this makes no sense. If you have to fly over the ocean for 4 hours anyway, why not do it on the way to Hawaii? Even if it means landing at a larger airport that has maintenance facilities?
I have to agree, United taking three and a half hours to get the replacement flight is terrible. They should of been ready to off-load passengers/luggage, put them on another plane and be off in just about an hour.
But we all know how United runs, they try everything to save a buck.
Awful experience, I can only hope that United compensates the passengers for their patience.
One thing I can say is the 757 wasn’t built to fly from San Francisco to Hawaii, just like it’s not built to fly from Newark and Dulles to Ireland, London, Paris and Portugal.
Wish they wouldn’t fly those planes on these long hauls.
In 2010 my 9 AM British Ajrways flight from Paris to Denver via London was halted when the French air traffic controllers staged a wildcat strike an hour earlier, shutting down CDG for almost 12 hours. Luckily I was flying business class and had access to code share partner American Airlines first class lounge.
At CDG, once your baggage is checked you cannot retrieve it until the flight is cancelled, otherwise I would have taken the Eurostar to London to catch my 4 PM BA Denver bound departure flight. In effect I had become an unwitting prisoner, as the French authorities would not permit me to leave the secured area so long as my checked luggage remained on the plane and in the custody of BA.
While my AA lounge accommodations were very comfortable with access to great wines and a fabulous buffet, most of my fellow passengers were stuck in a very congested terminal. At 8 PM the strike was terminated and the ATCs returned to work. We left shortly thereafter and arrived in London at about 9.
BA provided meal tickets and a room at the LHR Hilton, and booked me on a nonstop the next day at 4 PM, which was Wimbledon Sunday. So I went to the Terraces Lounge at LHR early and watched some great tennis, and drank more great wine and accessed another fabulous buffet, eating both breakfast and lunch before departing. Total delay hours:. 31 hours.
Another time I was stranded on the ground in a United 777 at O’Hare in Chicago from 7 PM to 12:45 AM due to massive thunderstorm cells pounding the airport in succession. All gates were full from aircrafts landing, so we sat in a holding area for 5 hours and 45 minutes. This trip I was in first class, so the captain’s announcement of free drinks and movies were amenities already included and made little difference. However, we never ran out of adult beverages in first class unlike the coach passengers.
Moral of these delays? Hopefully you’ll be fortunate enough to fly in business or first class next time you get delayed.
Nowadays as a retired passenger I typically fly coach and even minor delays are an irritant. Thankfully none have been longer than a few hours. But my turn is probably coming…
Bill
After all that circling, the plane landed at 1pm, and the replacement flight took off at 4:30
Chris, how do you figure that was handled well? UA had 4 hours to get another plane and crew organized. Once the troubled plane landed, tt should have taken no more than an hour to move passengers and bags to the new plane and get it in the air. They could have set up side-by-side gates and had a ground crew ready to go.
I would not be groaning about the 4 hours of circling. I understand that the 757 is not capable of fuel dumps, nothing can be done about that. But the inability of UA to get organized, even with 4 hours notice, now that would be frustrating.
I had a similar situation leaving BOM one time, where the A330 we were on didn’t have a fuel dump available, so we wound up flying for almost three hours to get to a weight we could land safely with. Incredibly frustrating, but I like being safe!
Me, too! I recall being on a flight to San Juan from Atlanta on a Delta DC-10 – an engine light showed a fire, so pilot jettisoned fuel over south Georgia– it looked like aerosol coming out of the wing tips. We landed at ATL to a phalanx of fire trucks. Very exciting, but in the end, it was a faulty warning light only.
I have had to circle the ATL airport several times because of this.