I'm currently still in one piece, writing from my room
in the Narita crew hotel.
It's8am. 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 theAtlanticthree times so
far so the ocean
crossing procedures were familiar.
By the way, stunning scenery flying over theAleutian
Islands. Everything was
going fine until 100 miles out fromTokyoand in the
descent for arrival. The
first indication of any trouble was thatJapanair
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. AirCanada, 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.
Japanair traffic control then announced Narita was
closed indefinitely due to
damage. Planes immediately started requesting arrivals
into Haneada, nearTokyo,
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
likeOsaka, orNagoya.
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 forNagoya, fuel
situation still okay. So far so good. A few minutes
into heading that way, I was
"ordered" by ATC to reverse course.Nagoyawas saturated
with traffic and unable
to handle more planes (read- airport full). Ditto
forOsaka.
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.
AirCanadaand then
someone else went to "emergency" fuel situation.
Planes started to heading for
air force bases. The nearest toTokyowas 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 inAtlanta. I picked
Misawa AFB at the north end ofHonshuisland. We could
get there with minimal
fuel remaining. ATC was happy to get rid of us so we
cleared out of the
maelstrom of theTokyoregion. We heard ATC try to send
planes towardSendai, a
small regional airport on the coast which was later
the one I think that got
flooded by a tsunami.
Atlantadispatch then sent us a message asking if we
could continue to Chitose
airport on theIslandofHokkaido, north ofHonshu. 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
nearTokyo, starting a divert to
Nagoya, reversing course back toTokyothen 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
AirCanadaas well. Not to
mention several extra Al Nippon and Japan Air Lines
planes.
Post-script - 9 hours later,Japanair 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.
