
Getting a 787 back in the air after a diversion - ycombonator
https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/a-quick-fix-getting-a-787-back-in-the-air-after-a-diversion/
======
WalterBright
Back when I worked at Boeing they had the AOG (Airplane On Ground) crew to do
this sort of thing. Their job was to be on call 24/7 and do whatever it took
to get that airplane back in the air, and they pretty much had a blank check
to do it.

Naturally, they were the best mechanics Boeing had.

An airplane makes money only when it is flying. When it is sitting on the
ground, it loses money at a prodigious rate. A large focus of the engineering
on the 757 I worked on was to keep that airplane flying as much as possible.

I understand that Microsoft has a similar crew they can dispatch to any
customer to get their business software working again. This is how Microsoft
is able to successfully compete against free software.

~~~
__sy__
"Prodigious Rate" \-- To put this in context, the latest numbers I saw is
about $125 per min of unscheduled delay. It also doesn't take that many delays
to wipe profitability to zero.

~~~
bitexploder
Southwest had a really memorable slogan: “wheels up” and the business really
rallied around that priority ruthlessly for many years. It was pretty cool and
gets used in business analysis as an example a lot about how to achieve big
goals.

~~~
sokoloff
One such (very lightweight) analysis:
[https://www.cnbc.com/id/43768488](https://www.cnbc.com/id/43768488)

It really is a great systems thinking story. Set the overall context and goal
and then figure out how to optimize for the thing that drives results.

~~~
ethbro
The _How I Built This_ podcast on Southwest [0] with Kelleher (since deceased)
is an amazing episode. Both for trivia and giving context to what it takes to
be successful behind the scenes.

Kelleher (a lawyer by training) ran a private practice while litigating a
_3-year_ lawsuit against airline incumbents at the time... before Southwest
flew its first flight in Texas.

And when asked "Why?" As in, why didn't you stop, return to law, or do
something easier, he basically said "Because it didn't seem fair. Or right.
That they could keep us from flying."

I'm sure he had his fair share of sharp business decisions, but he came across
as a truly great human being.

[0] [https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/national-public-
radio/how-i...](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/national-public-radio/how-i-
built-this/e/48306996)

------
andr
If you enjoyed this story, you might enjoy the story of a seaplane having to
get back to LaGuardia from New Zealand the day after Pearl Harbor:
[https://medium.com/s/story/the-long-way-round-the-plane-
that...](https://medium.com/s/story/the-long-way-round-the-plane-that-
accidentally-circumnavigated-the-world-c04ca734c6bb)

~~~
Aloha
What an absolutely incredible story!

[https://www.amazon.com/The-Long-Way-Home-Revised-
ebook/dp/B0...](https://www.amazon.com/The-Long-Way-Home-Revised-
ebook/dp/B00457XJ2K)

------
supernova87a
You know, behind these on-the-surface feel-good / oh-that's-cool stories is
generally a less positive tale of deferred maintenance and poor choices by AA
(and other airlines) that leads to this kind of rescue flight being necessary.

The article was from 2016, and the question you want to be asking is, "how
often _should_ a 2 year old 787 be having engine issues requiring unplanned
diversion?" and is AA's maintenance regime causing them to encounter these
situations more than is expected?

What you will generally find is that because of labor costs in the US, and the
thin maintenance margins that our carriers are incentivized to follow (partly
also because penalties for stranding passengers is quite low), these kinds of
diversions are more frequent than other airlines operating better-maintained
long-haul routes.

Things are always breaking on airplanes. How much proactive maintenance is
conducted is up to the airline, and determines how much builds up before 1 out
of many issues on the minimum equipment list rises enough to ground the
aircraft. It's quite an active decision for an airline, actually. In this
case, AA maintenance probably made a decision (under all the other constraints
they face) to fly the 787 to Shanghai (where they don't have a full
maintenance depot) with some marginally performing or slightly-overdue-for-
recommended-replacement engine part. And then on the return the strategy
backfired.

Consider that when you wonder, "is it just me, or why does airline X seem to
have so many more delays and aircraft swaps than others?"

~~~
Aloha
You got a source for any of this?

~~~
supernova87a
Nope. People in maintenance departments don't generally write blogs about
this, and it's not like an airline is going to help publicize their issues.
And judging by how even my post is downvoted, they're not likely to either.

~~~
ryguytilidie
I like this thing people are doing where they're like, "huh, my post on Hacker
News was downvoted? must not be for content, must be because, um...its
DEFINITELY because airlines arent going to publish negative things about them,
theres definitely a logical connection there!

...?

------
Waterluvian
I'm going to bet those GE Aviation technicians that they charter anywhere to
fix planes are unbelievably talented, experienced and well paid. I bet they've
got all the best stories.

Also: on the first page, second paragraph of the special coverage, what does
"Check Airman" mean?

~~~
t34543
Anecdote: My dad did this in the 70s. I believe you’re correct. He was working
overseas and was frequently dispatched to countries without modern repair
facilities such as Saudi Arabia.

One story that stands out is he asked a local worker to warm up the APU. The
worker proceeded to build a fire under the APU, destroying it. What he meant
was start it up and let it run until it reaches operating temperature.

~~~
dehrmann
I might get some of the backstory halfway off, but my grandfather was in
Alaska during WWII for the construction of the Alaska Highway. They tried to
never turn off truck and equipment engines because if you did, you had to
build a fire under them to get them warm enough to start again.

~~~
WalterBright
My family was stationed near London for a time. My father told me later that
once an airline pilot mistook a WW2 strip for the Heathrow runway (!) and
landed there, using every inch of it to get it to stop. The strip was too
short to take off from, so what to do?

They stripped everything off the airplane they could. Seats, interiors,
galleys, everything. They put in just enough fuel to hop over the trees to
Heathrow. He said they did it, but barely.

~~~
netsharc
I'm trying to google a similar "we landed here but now it's too short for us
to takeoff again" story which IIRC happened in California, but I can only find
this incident that happened with a cargo plane in Kansas:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/giganti...](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/gigantic-
plane-stuck-kansas-because-it-landed-tiny-airport/355374/)

~~~
therockspush
This has happened more than a few times in Wichita. They are usually aiming
for KICT but hit other airports. We had to file a flight plan out of Jabara
for a private jet that was actually trying to land at KICT for maintenance.
Didnt make the news but we did have to plan for the minimum amount of fuel.

------
CaliforniaKarl
As this is aviation-related, of course there is a Wendover video on this
topic, and indeed covering this specific incident!

Small Planes Over Big Oceans (ETOPS Explained) (2017) [video]

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSxSgbNQi-g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSxSgbNQi-g)

------
pauldelany
Had to build a runway for one take-off to get this private jet back in the air
in 1983:
[https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/humanintere...](https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/humaninterest/surprise-
jet-arrival-left-lasting-legacy-in-town-228622.html)

------
inferiorhuman
Meanwhile a month prior things didn't go so well for American:

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7504393/American-
ai...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7504393/American-airlines-
flight-hell-left-passengers-stranded-Peru-THREE-DAYS.html)

------
joemag
I found it interesting that a town of 100 had a runway capable of landing a
787. Was it built specifically for these kinds of scenarios, i.e. as an
earliest diversion point for trans pacific flights?

~~~
andrewem
Wikipedia says it was built for as US Army airfield in World War II.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Bay_Airport](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Bay_Airport)

------
raverbashing
I was wondering why didn't the crew elect to divert directly to Anchorage,
reading the event description
[http://avherald.com/h?article=49f44548](http://avherald.com/h?article=49f44548)
it seems they were 2h from CDB and ANC would be another hour from there. Not
sure what's the ETOPS rating of that aircraft but it might not have been
180min (though even longer times are common now)

~~~
Denvercoder9
If you're down to one engine, you opt for the nearest safe haven, independent
of how long you're rated to fly on one engine. You don't tempt fate.

~~~
ncmncm
You can rarely be sure the failure wasn't something also experienced by the
other engine.

Wasn't long ago a 747 flying over the North pole had all four engines fail
simultaneously. Fortunately, conditions at 20,000 ft were better, and they got
them restarted.

GE actually managed to figure out what went wrong and made sure it couldn't
happen again. Makes me think they sort of knew it could happen, but the
conditions seemed too unlikely.

------
molecule
(2016)

~~~
wayne
Ah, that was back when AA and Alaska were much closer partners, before the
Virgin acquisition... I was surprised when reading the article that Alaska was
so helpful.

[https://thepointsguy.com/2017/12/last-call-alaska-
american-a...](https://thepointsguy.com/2017/12/last-call-alaska-american-
airlines-partnership/)

------
sajomojo
It just seems like a very bad idea that twin-engine planes can fly so far from
an air strip. If the #1 engine had failed as well it would have been game
over. There's no possibility of gliding a 787 for 2+ hours and hundreds of
miles.

If the FAA wanted to prioritize safety, it would still require the use of
four-engined planes, as it used to for most long ocean routes. The desire to
fly twin-engine planes over the ocean is entirely driven by a desire to
maximize airline profits.

Admittedly, it does appear that modern twin-engine planes are reliable enough
that it's not entirely crazy. But it would only take a couple of fatal engine
failures to make it seem really dumb in retrospect.

People are weirdly dogmatic around this ETOPs rule change by the FAA. There is
almost no one questioning it and yet the entire motivation is purely monetary.
The FAA and airlines continue to push the limits further and further.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS)

~~~
jrockway
ETOPS seems to have done pretty well. As far as I know, no ETOPS-certified
twinjets have been lost due to both engines failing. There are a couple cases
of the jet running out of fuel (the famous Gimli glider and Air Transat Flight
236), but that is going to be bad no matter how many engines you have. There
are cases of airplanes flying into volcanic ash clouds and losing all engines;
but more engines doesn't help you if the air around the plane kills engines.
There are some poorly-engineered planes with 3 engines that have had a single-
engine failure bring down the entire plane (United Airlines Flight 232).

ETOPS is not just some rubber stamp for a particular model of airplane that
manufacturers self-certify (hello, 737 MAX debacle), but rather a process
applied to (airframe, engine, airline). You have to service particular engines
to particular standards to be allowed to fly ETOPS, and it depends on the
airline. I could go to the store, buy a 777 and hire 4 ATPs and fly a 777...
but I wouldn't be allowed to fly it ETOPS, for example.

All in all, the program seems massively successful to me. It saves fuel, which
means cheaper flights and less CO2 being generated. That's a good thing. The
main downside seems to be medical emergencies; I remember some stories about
the aircraft that flew EWR-SIN... it has some special corpse compartments to
stash away the inevitable deaths that occurred 9 hours away from an airport.
(It had 4 engines, but engines don't perform heart surgery on passengers.)

The reality is that engines are pretty reliable. 2 is the right number.

~~~
sajomojo
Thanks for the thoughtful replies, all. I still don't buy the idea that this
change was made with public safety as the top priority. I do get that it might
be a reasonable trade off of safety/profits. I really do hope the ETOPS rule
changes turn out to be a good choice over the long term.

~~~
mulmen
ETOPS is not new. The 767-200ER entered service in 1985. We live in the future
you are alluding to. Your concerns have not been validated by reality.

