As far as ABQ goes, I think if they needed to make a medical emergency there, it would have been fine. The runway is huge, since it is an air force base also, American and plenty of others have ops there, and if they’ve all gone home and can’t be immediately available, there are several large fbo’s that can handle them.

No one knows the exact details of the incident including the weather at ooetuinak airports, the time at which the events took place and where the events took place.

Until we do, no captain worth his weight in Gold is going to risk the lives of all the other passengers just to save one passenger. 

It stinks that you have to take a utilitarian point of view when these things happen but it is what it is. 

I had a scenario like this on a CRM portion of an interview. It's a tough scenario to be in when you are in charge of the entire operation.

That being said, some of you are so unbelievably self-righteous that all you are doing is showing your insane ignorance.....just stick to flight sim. You'll keep the world much more safe.

Airline: Settle it out of court asap. Do not make a second mistake now and drag it on.

Cheers,

  

For what it's worth...I am familiar with Albuquerque Sunport and Albuquerque itself.  There are two hospitals and an emergency room facility with in a 5 minute drive of the airport.  KABQ is a major full service airport and an ambulance and medical personnel could have been on site before the plane landed.

Noel

7 hours ago, pete_auau said:

think in a emergency a pilot would land at any airport that was available for  his  type  of  aircraft and  than worry  about  ground  staff,  besides  ground  staff can quite simply  be  ferried  to where ever  he  decided  to land

And how long do you think that's going to take. I'll just leave this quote from another thread regarding the same subject, and this more or less would be the result of the scenario you just described.

Quote

I dispatched a flight at the beginning of my career that was deep into WATRS airspace when a 22yo male began to show signs of medical distress. The crew decided to divert to MCO (The airline I worked for at the time did not use Medlink). They landed at 0200 and the FA's were doing CPR on the floor of the front lav while the captain was at the L1 door looking 10 feet away at the EMS and fire crew who were stranded on the jetbridge. It was 45 minutes before the aircraft was bridged. The young man died. This was a station that we operated to daily. If it had been offline I judge there would be zero chance that I would have found someone to operate the bridge at all.

So clearly not as straightforward as you might think.

Bottom line is, in an in flight emergency, how much time does it take to get down and get first responders right at the scene?  I wonder if airlines practice this, it would be interesting.  A fantastic book, for those who have never read it, is Runway Zero-Eight, about a trans Canada flight where both pilots are taken out sick and a fighter pilot ten years out of the air is asked to take over in the emergency.   I still have it, it is an interesting fictional read about determination in those days when things were not so automated as they are now, you feel as if you are in a movie by reading the book, it is that riveting for anyone interested in civilian aviation.

John

That's every flightsimmer's Walter Mitty dream John.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the TV Myth Busters series but several years ago they did something quite similar.

Both hosts were taken to a full functioning airline simulator (I think it was at the United facility at Denver International Airport).

One at a time each one was positioned about 30 miles out of Denver and had to land the B737.  Neither of them had any flight experience at all.  Needless to say they both crashed.

Then each of them were given an hour of instruction in the simulator.  This time each of them was able to bring the aircraft to a safe landing.  Sloppy, but safe landings.

Noel

 

Not wanting to cause this to drift off topic but along the lines of the above post you might find this entertaining.

In the 1980s and 90s there was a TV competition  show in the U.K. where in one of the rounds the contestants had to try and land a full motion simulator. I remember drooling over this as a kid, sorry if it’s been brought up before, I’m sure it would have been...

 

That was a very interesting show. What kind of idiot fails a driving test eight times though? Sheesh!

Lots of people in the UK fail their driving test multiple times. You can fail it on the theory part (classroom exam style), and you can fail it on the practical. Other countries have harder and easier tests. Your Mileage quite literally May Vary :).

Bit of conspiracy theory here - I'm convinced that the test centres have a quota and/or depending upon which zip code (post code) area you're in/from.. 👽

Back when I passed my test (first time, sorry!) in 84, there was no separate theory test. One had to answer some questions posed by the examiner on the Highway Code.