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American Airlines plane diverted because it was too big for the airport

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If some event at the intended destination closed the one suitable runway they might handle it that way.
 
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kontiki99 said:
If some event at the intended destination closed the one suitable runway they might handle it that way.
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Sillier than that, I think; something to do with the plane being too long, based on the airport's RFFS rating, so that's something they should have known before they routed a longer than normal plane to that airport

https://skybrary.aero/articles/rescue-and-fire-fighting-services
 
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Probably due to the gate being allocated was not sized for that length of plane. Not sure why they couldn't just park it out in the boon docks and bus them to the terminal.

Others sites actually say it was because the runwaywasnt long enough for the plane to take off when fully loaded.
It's 2628m long.

Boeing seem to say it needs closer to 3000m which goes up if the temperature increases.
Even the 787-8 is limited by weight for that airport.

So looks like an error from the company, but the plane plane could have landed, but would have been severely restricted in take off weight or temperature.

Naples looks to be relatively short. That A380 must have been very light on takeoff.
 
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The out of performance for departure is more likely.

It was a BA A380 and four engines have less issues than two for hot limited runways.

They could I suspect have got round it with a tech stop in say Munich.
 
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Having a dig into the engine failure procedure and the performance for the A220.

Both runways require a special procedure relatively soon after takeoff at 1 Nm a greater than 15 Deg turn in the event of a engine failure.

One runway is a bit more involved than the other. It could be that when it departed it was one runway which had a less restrictive mass limit. Then it became obvious that the other was going to be used and it was going to require off loads. Which with the European fines would be more expensive than moving people by bus to an airport without a problem.

It's not something the pilots would be involved in.
 
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This sounds like a paper work / bureaucratic failure rather than an engineering failure.

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that the 787-9 could have landed and unloaded its passengers just fine. However it likely breached 'pre-certified' criteria or similar regulatory requirement. Most of us engineers bump into similar rules or codes. We know something will work, but it isn't in the rules so it isn't allowed. When it comes to commercial aviation it makes even more sense to have strict rules.

Last month the plane I was on left the terminal and was almost onto the taxi-way when it had to return to the terminal for "paperwork reasons". It seemed ridiculous, but the systems are in place for a reason. In this case it was probably caused by a family that almost missed their flight so PAX and weight of the submitted paperwork might not have been accurate.
 
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I've personally gone to the local airport for a practice night flight only to find the runway closed because a little earlier someone landed their one month old million dollar TBM-900 with the gear up. In this case there was only one runway. A lot of airports have a mix of short and long runways.

All it would take is one inbound flight declaring an emergency landing for a gear problem or something and that runway is closed. Runway closures literally happen all the time. Everybody else gets to divert. That's why the reserve fuel requirements exist.
 
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As an aside it's a very picturesque area.

You fly round a big volcano on departure depending on the runway. In use.
 
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My bet is that someone suddenly worked out that they would have to bump half the passengers and half the fuel load hence a refuel somewhere else and the cost of that wasn't worth it so divert and bus the passengers.
 
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The 650$ EU compensation for a delay more than 3 hours will be in play here I susepct.

It mounts up rapidly if its the airlines fault.
 
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LittleInch said:
My bet is that someone suddenly worked out that they would have to bump half the passengers and half the fuel load hence a refuel somewhere else and the cost of that wasn't worth it so divert and bus the passengers.
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They typically fly a shorter plane to that destination, so not something new.
 
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