Mr. Shadowcat...
In another thread you mentioned that you are an airline dispatcher. And I've had a nagging question for a long time that I just can't figure out regarding airlines, and I was wondering if you could shed some light on it...
A while back I was taking a vacation flight from a big city to small island. The destination airport had a 6,000 ft runway, and also has VOR/DME. We took off from the big city, and about halfway into our 45 minute flight the captain tells us we're turning around and heading back. I don't recall the specific reason, but I think he mumbled something about visibility. At the time I could see a thunder storm down below us, and the plane was bouncing quite a bit.
Now, my questions:
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Why the hell would a dispatcher tell the guy to take off in the first place and waste all that fuel if they KNEW there was a storm over our destination, which was ONLY 45 minutes away? They couldn't have predicted that?
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And why would there be any visibility problems if the destination airport has VOR/DME equipment? Can't the guy land on instruments? Or maybe the shortness of the runway requires clear weather or something?
Thanks for any input you can give. BTW, the reason it bugs me so much is the next flight to our destination was in 3 days, so we spent much of our vacation in the big city. Pissed me off.
1)I would need more information. Was weather radar available for that island? Was the aircraft fuel range enough to hold for a thunderstorm to pass. Were there suitable alternate airports available. Landing during a thunderstorm in unadvisable and probably illegal. 2)a VOR/DME is classed as a non precision approach. The visibility requirements when using it are much higher than they would be for an ILS approach which is what all major airports are using. The runway length would not be a factor in determining visibility requirements but stopping distance especially on a wet runway be would be degraded.
Trying to guess what was on the minds of the Capt. and the dispatcher after the fact is a tough thing to do but sounds like they did the safest thing and that is what is important.